Reformation Attitudes Toward Allegory and The Song of Songs

Reformation Attitudes toward Allegory and the Song of Songs
Author(s): George L. Scheper

Source: PMLA, Vol. 89, No. 3 (May, 1974), pp. 551-562
Published by: Modern Language Association
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GEORGE L. SCHEPER
Reformation Attitudes 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 differences in attitude toward the senses of Scripture
(particularly allegory) between the medieval theologians and the Reformers. This is confirmed by a
comparative analysis of the medieval and Reformation 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 differences between medieval and Protestant spirituality
as manifested in those commentaries. But the difference has little to do with exegetic principles;
rather, it stems from fundamentally different interpretations 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 medieval 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 wellknown 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 remarkson allegory are characteristically
caustic: "An interpretermust 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 Moreover, 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 hermeneutics.3 The latter doctrine, that the Bible
everywhereteaches 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 Origen himselfnotably in his comments on Genesis, Job, Psalms,
and above all the Song of Songs, for which he devised his own unique historical allegorization.
Calvin carried forwardthe doctrine of one plain
literal sense with even greater thoroughness than
Luther and rejectedallegorical interpretationeven
when invoked for purely ornamentaland homiletic
purposes. Yet on typology he was ambivalent.
Theoretically,he professed to eschew typology and
Christocentric interpretations even of the prophetic writings.5But confronted with the typologi-
551

552
ReformationAttitudestowardAllegoryand the Song of Songs
cal interpretations made by Paul himself, he is

forced to regard them as illustrative references or
"accommodations"6or else to admit thatmany Old
Testament types actually refer directly or immediately 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 reading their favorite doctrines as applications into
passages where a modern expositor would not find
them8 and Calvin himself maintained that it was
less harmful to allegorize Mosaic law than to accept 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 Testament 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
Obedienceof a ChristianMan 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 doctrines 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 scripture hath but one sense, which is the literal sense.
And that literal sense 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 Scripture teaches
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, similitudes, 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 interpreting 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 discrepancy 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 undivided 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 impossible to maintain. For instance, Flacius Illyricus at
first tried to fix the differenceby definingtypes 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 significanceof things). So Flacius shifts to a
second distinction: that types are restricted to
Christ and the Church, while allegories are accommodations to ourselves-but that is hardly an essential difference (being no more than the distinction 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 instance 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 allegory had
a specific historical context. The allegorical extravagances condemned by Luther, Calvin, and
Tyndale accurately characterize not the central
patristic and medieval exegetic tradition 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)rigorously systematized the
different dimensions of allegorization in monumental compilations full of elaborate and ingenious explanations, scholastic distinctions, and
rhetoricalpatterns. The margins of the fourteenthcentury commentaries of Hugh of St. Cher, for

George L. Scheper
example, are filled with references to things "triplex," reinforcing a pervasive trinitarian symbolism 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.13In the fifteenth century, Dionysius
the Carthusian became the first to present, in his
commentary on the Song, an unvaryingly systematic threefold allegorization for every verse on the
following pattern: of Christ and the Sponsa Universali (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 devotional exercises out of any verse whatsoever.14
This method became the hallmark of much Catholic exegesis in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 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 Centuries that the exegetic practice of the Catholic
preachers in these centuries, such as Fisher and
Longland, is marked by a thoroughgoing allegorization 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 experiencedby the Apostle duringthe Passion"5),and
that in general these preachers demonstrate an indifference to and even a contempt for the literal,
historical sense that fully justifies Tyndale's characterization.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 abstract, 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, biblical, 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
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 central tradition of patristic and medieval exegesis.17
In actuality, it seems to us that the overwhelmingly 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 significanceof things("the voice of
God speaking to men") yields the spiritualsenses.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 historical, 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 allegorical, such as Canticles, have a literal, albeit figurative, 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
Unlike
Philo, Hugh does not regard every phrase in the
Bible as susceptible of allegorical interpretation
nor does he regardhistory itself as unimportant or
contemptible unless allegorized. Perhaps the term
"allegorical interpretation"is a misnomer for the

554
tradition representedby 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 Quodlibet20and his commentary on Galatians iii.28 (quoted in Lubac,
Pt.II11,Vol. II, p. 295) and especially in the following
classic statement in the SummaTheologica:

Thereforethat firstsignificationwherebywordssignify
things belongs to the first sense, the historicalor literal. That significationwhereby things signified by
wordshavethemselvesalso a significationis calledthe
spiritualsense, whichis based on the literal,and presupposes it. Now this spiritualsense has a threefold
division.
. .
. Therefore, so far as the things of the
Old Law signifythe 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 signifywhatrelatesto eternal
glory, there is the anagogicalsense. Since the literal
sense is that which the author intends,and since the
author of Holy Scriptureis God, Who by one act
comprehendsall thingsin His intellect,it is not unfitting, as Augustinesays, if, even accordingto the literal sense, one word in Holy Scriptureshould have
severalsenses.21
It is important to notice how in the last sentence
Thomas defines that which the author-Godintends 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 conception of "literal sense" that actually embraces
all four senses as being the full sense intended by
God, and thus the three specific spiritual dimensions (allegory, tropology, and anagogy) "unfold"
from this one whole sense.22In 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 reiteratesin replying to 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 designated things:
Thus in Holy Scriptureno confusion results,for all
the senses are founded on one-the literal-from
which alone can any argumentbe drawn, and not
from those intendedallegorically,as Augustinesays.
Nevertheless, nothing of Holy Scripture perishes

because of this, since nothing necessaryto faith is
containedunderthe spiritualsense which is not elsewhere put forward clearly by the Scripturein its
literal sense.23
And, like Hugh, Thomas notes that figurative
language is part of the literal sense:
The parabolicalsense is containedin the literal, for
by wordsthingsare signifiedproperlyand figuratively.
Nor is the figureitself, but that which is figured,the
literalsense.WhenScripturespeaksof God's arm,the
literalsense is not that God has such a member,but
only what is signifiedby this member,namely,operative power. Hence it is plain that nothing false can
ever underliethe literalsense of Holy Scripture.24
(Still, for Thomas, the literal sense alone, divorced
from the spiritual sense, is carnal and Judaic- the
Holy Ghost is sent into the hearts of believers "ut
intelligerunt spiritualiter quod Judaei carnaliter
intelligunt.")25We can see in this passage the real
basis of the frequent assertion by the commentators, 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.
Similar analyses are found in the Catholic theorists
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, such as
Escalante or Serarius (see Madsen, pp. 23-25).
This puts a differentlight upon the assertions of
Luther, Calvin, and Tyndale that they were reverting 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 understood, which we call the literal; and we contend
that allegories, tropologies, and anagoges are not
various senses, but various collections from one

George L. Scheper
sense, or various applications and accommodations of that one meaning." "The literal sense,
then, is not that which the words immediately suggest, as the Jesuit [i.e., Bellarmine] defines it; but
rather that which arises from the words themselves, whether they be taken strictly or figuratively."26
Thus, the allegories woven by the New Testament writers, for instance, "are not various meanings, but only various applications and accommodations 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 express only part of the meaning; and so also when
we mention only the thing signified: but when the
mutual relation between the sign and the thing signified is broughtout, then the whole completesense,
whichisfounded 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 grammaticalhistorical sense, the broader being the full sense
(including spiritual accommodations). It would
seem that Whitaker differs from the Catholics only
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-historicalmeaning. And yet there is an unedited manuscript commentary 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).28We shall see that many Protestants(almost
all of whom accepted the allegorical interpretation
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 referenceto carnal love 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 admitting any implication of multiple senses that led a
number of later Protestant theorists of exegesis to
admit a more extreme brand of allegorization than
555
the medieval Catholics, a brand closer to the

Alexandrian tradition. Thus, Solomon Glass retains the rejection of multiple senses for the doctrine of one full sense, but the latter now clearly
includes spiritual meanings (the significance of
things), which may be allegorical, typological, or
parabolic.29All essential distinction between type
and allegory is abandoned. In Madsen's words:
"By the middle of the seventeenth century the distinction 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
Testament had 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 Protestantswent furtherthan
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, nonconformists like Samuel How and John Saltmarsh
and John Everardviewed the whole written Scripture, including the New Testament, as only a
figurative rendering of ineffable spiritual truths;
Everard says, for example, "ExternallJesus 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 narratives is 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 contrast to the innovative stance
of the treatises on exegesis, being overwhelmingly
conservative in purveying the traditional allegorical interpretation. An initial objection here might
be that the commentaries on the Song are an
anomaly, that they represent an insignificant remnant of the older tradition, the last bastion of allegory to give way. In hindsight this might be true,
but it is a teleological interpretationof intellectual

556
history and does not reflect how the age saw itself.
To a sixteenth- or seventeenth-centurycommentator, the idea that the allegorization of the Song
was an anomaly would have been incomprehensible. 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 allegory but for the central matter of the relation of
divine to profane love, and in fact, as Ruth Wallerstein 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."30This helps explain
the prodigious exegetic history of the book; the
number of commentaries is astounding. The early
catalogs and bibliographies tend to list more commentaries on the Song than on any other biblical
book save the Psalms, all of Paul's epistles taken
together, and the Gospels.31My 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 centuries, 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).32It has seemed to previous historians
of exegesis absolutely distinctive of the High Middle Ages that it was preoccupied with the Song of
Songs and that it was then regardedin some ways
as the pinnacle of Scripture-and indeed there are
sixty or seventy extant commentaries from the
twelfth and thirteenthcenturies alone. But the data
for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries would
indicate a similar "preoccupation"among the Reformers.33Again 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 better taught.34There are, to be
sure, tremendous differencesbetween the spirituality of the monastic and Puritan commentaries on
the Song, but the materials do not reveal fundamental distinctions in attitudes toward allegory.
Moreover, in addition to the formal commentaries, there are innumerable sermons on texts
from the Song, as well as a prominent use of the
allegorized Song in a variety of works of Protestant
spirituality. For instance, the Anabaptist Melchior
Hofmann interpertsadult Christian initiation as a
betrothal between Christ and the faithful soul, the
whole process interpretedaccordingto the imagery

of the Song of Songs-much as Cyril of Jerusalem
and St. Ambrose used texts from the Song to describe each step of the baptismal rite as they knew
it.35And George Williams has shown that nonconformists like Bunyan and separatist sects like the
Quakers, Huguenots, Swedenborgians, and Pietists, who maintained a "theology of the wilderness" (the idea of a holy community living in
spiritual isolation from decadent society), frequently 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 allegorized Song as a presentation of the divine
archetypewhich human marriageshould imitate.37
Indeed, there are a number of sermons specifically
devoted to the theme of the spiritual marriageand
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 directly inspired by the Song, the centrality of that
book to Reformation spirituality cannot be
doubted. In England alone, beginning with William Baldwin's monumental Balades of Salomon
(1549-the earliest printed book of original English lyric poetry), 110 pages of traditional doctrinal paraphrase, there are at least twenty-five
extant English poetic paraphrases through the
seventeenth century, most being elaborate allegorizations in the traditional mold.39Besides these,
there is a considerable body 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.
Returning to the formal commentaries,they are,
as noted, in all essentials thoroughly traditional in
allegorizing the book. It is true that one Reformer,
Sebastian Castellio, had rejectedthis 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

L. Scheper
to Calvin that he had Castellio expelled from
Geneva because of it. In this case, Calvin's position was no differentfrom that of the fathers of the
Second Council of Constantinople of 553, who
condemned Theodore of Mopsuesta for the same
opinion.41Indeed, some Protestant allegorists went
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 dealings with Israel, the English commentator Brightman read it as a history-prophecy extending 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 interpretationthat the Song was
Solomon's praise of and thanksgiving for a happy
and peaceful realm.42But most Protestantsrejected
such unconventional allegorization in favor of the
traditional reading that saw the Song as a dialogue
between Christ and the Church or the faithful soul.
Indeed, the continuity of the tradition between the
Middle Ages and the Reformation is strikingly
evident from an examination of the authorities
utilized by the English commentators. In commentary after commentary we discover the dominant 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 Protestant commentaries almost uniformly adopt a primarily 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 commentaries devoted most strikingly to the Christsoul allegory, such as Bernard's,recognize that the
ultimate priority remains with the ecclesial interpretation. Similarly, the Protestant commentaries 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 Protestantcommentaries are distinctly Protestant in opposing what they called
papist and monkish interpretations, that is, allegorizations that reflect the ecclesiastical structures
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 imputed righteousness of Christ).
That the Song of Songs is a spiritual book is a
premise shared by medieval and Protestant commentators alike, but for the Protestants, more concerned with the idea of a single sense, there is more
of a problem in definingthe relation of the allegory
to the text. In a chorus, the commentators all declare 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
ablest commentators, said: "I grant 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 Figurative speeches, is the Literal meaning of the Song:
So that its Literal sense is mediate, representingthe
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 figurativesituation (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 moderately, 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."46In contrast, the ProtestantDurham says
that "our Carnalness makes it hazardous and unsafe, to descend in the Explication of these Similitudes" (Clavis, p. 401), and the Puritan Collinges
says that " the very uncouthness of the same expressions, is an argument, that it is no meer
Woman here intended"47(although how inap-

558
propriate praise of a woman could serve as an apt

metaphor for love of God seems rather obscure).
Commentators like Origen, Bernard, and Guillaume de Saint-Thierry, who thoroughly allegorized 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 controversy between those who asserted that 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 reference to Solomon and Pharaoh's daughter) all acknowledged that it is artificial 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 similitude" of human love and that the interpretationof
the letter is in fact nothing other than the explication 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 Protestant commentaries on the Song, that is, in their
conception of the central metaphor underlyingthe
allegorized Song, the spiritual marriage, or divine
love conveyed under the similitude of carnal human 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 figuratively 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 expressing the highest mystery
of all (as Paul calls it in Ephesians), the love between God and His people, and that therefore the
human language of the Song is dramatically appropriate.49But precisely wherein consists that peculiar aptness of the nuptial metaphor? On this
there is surprisinglylittle elaboration in the Protestant commentaries, but what there is mostly develops the aptness of the nuptial metaphor in
terms of the moral, domestic virtues of Christian
marriage: faithfulness, tenderness, affection, mutual 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 marriagecontract.50 Dove 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 nature of love and to the one-flesh union of marriage
as a symbol of union with God.51But generally,
when the sexual aspect of the union tends to surface, 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 presented us under the notion of Kisses, Lips,
Breasts, Navel, Belly, Thighs, Leggs. Our minds
must be above our selves, altogether minding
heavenly meanings."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

GeorgeL. Scheper
to John of the Cross, which identifies sexual union
itself as the foremost aspect of the spiritual marriage metaphor-in its total self-abandon, its intensity, its immoderation and irrationality, and
above all its union of two separatebeings, the oneflesh union that is the supreme type of the onespirit union between ourselves and Christ. We
have just quoted the Assembly Annotationson the
filth belched up in connection with an erotic verse
of the Song; but note in contrast Bernard'sanalysis of the "belching" of the intoxicated, impassioned 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 seemsto you to utterwords,believethemto
be the belchingsof satiety,unadornedand unpremeditated. ...
It is not the expression of thought, but the
eructationof love. And why shouldyou seek in sucha

spontaneousoutburst for the grammaticalarrangementand sequenceof words,or for the rulesand ornaments of rhetoric? Do you yourselveslay down laws
and regulationsfor your own eructations?(II, 282-83,
sermon67).
Thus, when love, especiallydivinelove, is so strong
and ardentthatit cannotany longerbe containedwithin the soul, it pays no attentionto the order, or the
sequence, or the correctnessof the words through
which it pours itself out.
. .
. Hence it is that the
Spouse, burningwith an incredibleardour of divine

love, in her anxietyto obtain some kind of outlet for
the intense heat which consumesher, does not consider what she speaks or how she speaks. Under the
constraininginfluence of charity, she belches forth
ratherthan utterswhateverrises to her lips. And is it
any wonderthat she shouldeructatewho is so full and
so inebriatedwith the wine of holy love? (I, 281-82;
see also sermons49, 52, 69, 73, 75)
In the highest reaches of divine love, all considerations 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 drunkenness and sexual passion. In short, it is in the nature
559
of sexual passion to transcend all other considerations: "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 interpretation of the image goes back at least to Chrysostom's interpretation of I Corinthians xi.3 and
Ephesians v.22-33, in which he argues that the
nuptial symbol resides not in the domestic hierarchy but in the joining of two in one flesh, and reflections of that exegesis are found in the standard
glosses.56
Nevertheless, in the Reformation the sexual interpretation 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 inspired by the Song. But herein, we believe, lies the
great change in spirituality, for it was not Protestant 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 century), but rather the supplanting of a mystical,
sacramentalspiritualityby a more rationalisticand
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 allegory 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 Regained or Pilgrim's Progress.
Essex CommunityCollege
Baltimore County, Maryland

560
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 MartinlLuther, 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'stypology in general,see James Samuel
Preus, From Slhadow to Promise (Cambridge, Mass.: Har-
vard Univ. Press, 1969),pp. 153-271; HeinrichBornkamm,

Luther un1ddas Alte Testament (Tubingen: Mohr, 1948);
Jaroslav Pelikan, Luther the Expositor (St. Louis: Concordia, 1959); Paul Althaus, Tlhe Theology of Martin Lther
(Philadelphia:FortressPress, 1966).
4 Quoted in Robert Grant, A Short History of thie Interpretationl of the Bible, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan,
1963),p. 129; also see TableTalk, p. 328.

5
Calvin, A Commenltarieupon Galathianls,trans. R. Vaux
(London, 1581),p. 104.

6 E.g., on Gal. iv.24 he writes, "Paul certainlydoes not
meanthat Moses wrote the historyfor 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

interestin 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.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1848), p. 303.
10Clavis Scripturae Sacrae (1567; rpt. Jena, 1674); see
discussionin Madsen, pp. 30-31.

11Esquisse
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. (Monstrolli: 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 systematicfourfold
allegorizationof the Song accordingto the classic fourfold
scheme(see PL, vol. 172, cols. 347-496).
15See MS. Lambeth 392, fols. 168-70 (discussed by
Blench, p. 4).
16 Yet even a preacherlike Longland preservesa reasonable, traditionaldefinitionof scripturalsenses: "A nut has
a rind, a shell and a centreor kernal.The rind is bitter,the
shell is hard,but the centreis sweetand full of nourishment.
So in Scripturethe exteriorpart, that is the literalsenseand
the surface meaning,is very bitterand hard, and seems to
contradictitself. But if you crackit open, and more deeply
regardthe intention of the spirit, togetherwith the expositions 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 becomesstill and inert; take the
inwardand spiritualsense from Scripture,and it becomes
dead and useless." Quoted in Blench, pp. 21-22, from
"QuinqueSermones
Ioannis Longlandi"(1517), inIoannis
Lonlglandi. .. Tres Conciones (London [1527?]), 61v, 48r.
17 On this matter of Gnostic-Philonicallegory in comparisonwith rabbinic-patristicallegory,see esp. J. Bonsirven, "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. Kennedy, Phlilo's Contribution to Religion (London: Hodder
and Stoughton, 1919); and my "The Spiritual Marriage:

The ExegeticHistory and LiteraryImpact 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.
19Hugh, De Scriptoris et Scriptoribus Sacris-quoted
by
John McCall, "Medieval Exegesis," Supplement 4 in

WilliamLynch, Christand Apollo(New York: New American Library,1960),p. 223; cf. Spicq, pp. 98-103.
20 Quodlibet, vll, Q. 14-16-the passage is quoted and
analyzedin Henride Lubac,Exegese medievale,2 pts. in 4
vols. (Paris: Aubier, 1959-64), Pt.I, Vol.I, 273.
21 S.T., 1,1,10, in Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas,
ed. Anton Pegis, 2 vols. (New York: Random, 1945),I,

16-17.
22 The text of the last sentence in the Summa passage
should be examinedcarefully:"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 secundumlitteralemsensumin una litteraScripturae
plures sint sensus." Here, Lubac correctly observes, the
etiam proves that in the last phrase "litteralem"is to be
understoodin the narrowersense, 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 Lubacnotes, the termallegorywas a veryimprecise

one, esp. in that it sometimes denoted all the spiritual
senses and sometimes the doctrinal sense alone, an ambiguity retained by Thomas. But Madsen unaccountably
asserts that a third meaning-figurative language in general-further confusesThomas'discussion(FromShadowy

George L. Scheper
Typesto Truth,p. 22), when in fact one of Thomas'contributions is that he specificallyexcludes figurativelanguage
in generalfrom the provinceof 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 Charles Cannon, "William
Whitaker's Disputatio de Sacra Scriptllra: A SixteenthCentury Theory of Allegory," HruntingtonLibrary Quar-
terly, 25 (1961-62), 129-38. This article is an accurate

representationof Whitaker'sviews but attributesto them
an originalitynot really appropriate.
27 Whitaker,p. 407 (italics mine). Cannon (pp. 132-35)
has noticed the correspondenceof this interpretationto
modern definitions of metaphor in scholars like Cassirer
and I. A. Richards.
28
Praelectiones GulilelmniWhitakeri inl Ccantica Canti-
corum,Bodl. MS. 59, fols. 1-50. This MS seems to have

escapedall attention.
29
30
Philologia Sacra (Frankfort, 1653).

Studies in Seventeenthl-CenturyPoetic (Madison: Univ.
of WisconsinPress, 1965),p. 183.

'31Pitrafound 160 Christiancommentariesup to the 15th
century(J. B. Pitra,Spicilegiumnl
Solesmenlse,4 vols., Paris:
Didot Fratres, 1852-58, ill, 167-68) and Rosenmullerlists
116 from 1600to 1830(cited by Paul Vulliaud,Le Cantique
des Cantiques d'apres Ila tradition ]uive, Paris, 1925, p. 18).
Salfeld counted over 100 Jewish commentariesfrom the
9th to the 16th centuries(S. Salfeld, "Die judischen Erklarer des Hohenliedes,ix-xvi. Jahr.," Hebraeische Bibliographie, 9, 1869, 110-13, 137-42). The most complete
bibliography,LeLong's, lists a total of 400 commentaries
(JacquesLeLong, BibliothecaSacra,Paris, 1723, pp. 111317).
32
The Intercourses of Divine Love betwixt Christ and the
Church,2 vols. (London, 1676, 1683).

33This 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 Cavanaugh, "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.

34In the words of the PuritanCollinges: "I think I may
furthersay, that there is no portion of Holy Writ so copiously as this, expressingthe infinitelove, 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 towardhim, and consequentlynone moreworthy
of the pains of any who desires to Preach Christ." Intercourses, i (1683), sig. A3r.
35Melchior Hofmann, "The Ordinanceof God" (1530),
in Spiritual and Aiiabaptist Writers, ed. George Williams,
Library of Christian Classics, 25 (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1957), pp. 182-203. For Cyril, see "The
CatecheticalLecturesof S. Cyril,"trans.Gifford,Libraryof
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
DogmaticWorks,trans.Roy Defarrari(Washington,D. C.:

Catholic Univ. of America Press, 1963), pp. 3-28, 311-21.
561
For analysis of the Song and early Christianliturgy, 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 Bernardineuse of the Song in SamuelRutherford's
letters: JoshlulaRedivivus: Or, Thlree Hundred anid FiftyTwo Religiouls Letters, Writte;i betweenl 1636 & 1661 (New
York, 1836).
39 The Canlticles or Balades of Salomonl, Phraselvke
Declared inlEnglysh Metres (London, 1549). The corpus of
English paraphraseson the Song includes work by Drayton, Sandys, Quarles,and Wither(a version by Spenseris
lost). Many are quite as bulky as Baldwin's;for instance,
Thomas Beverley's An Expositionrof the Divinely Prophetick
Song of Songs (London, 1687), a laborious redaction of
Thomas Brightman's historical allegorization, A Commentary 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 paraphrasesand other
poems relatingto the Song are the focus of my study of the
exegetic and literaryrelationsof 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,trans.E. Arwaker(London, 1686);FrancisQuarles,

Emblems, Divine and Moral (London,
1736 [first pub.
1635]).
41 In Calvin's words, "Our principaldispute concerned
the Song of Songs. He consideredthat it is a lasciviousand
obscenepoem, in which Solomon has describedhis shameless love affairs"(quoted in H. H. Rowley, The Servantof
the Lord, London: LutterworthPress, 1954, p. 207). For
an account of the dispute, with quotations from Calvin,
Castellio, and Beza, see PierreBayle, The DictionaryHistorical 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 Mopsuestasee 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).

43Clapham provides the fullest list of citations, headed
by Augustine,Isidoreof 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 commentaryis actually a catena, providing for

Englishreadersa runningparaphraseof the commentaries
of Gregory,Justus Urgellensis,the Targum,and Bernard:

562
John Mayer, A Commentary upon the Whole Old Testament
(London, 1653). The definitive3rd ed. of the Westminster

Assembly Annotations frequently cites authorities like
Augustine, Ambrose, Rupert, and esp. Bernard: Westminster Assembly, Annotations upon All the Books of the
Old and New Testament, 3rd ed. (London, 1657). The com-
mentary of Dove, one of the earliest English expositions

of the Song, cites only a coupleof Protestantauthoritiesin
passing, but makes frequent use of Cyprian, Jerome,
Chrysostom,Thomas,and above all dependson Augustine
for doctrine and Bernardfor interpretation:John Dove,
The Conversion of Salomon (London, 1613).
44 Clavis Cantici or an Exposition of the Song of Solo-
blemishingor pollutingit, that they beautifieand enobleit;

for if they had been away, how had it remainedan Epithalaminon? how had those dearextasiesand sympathiesbeen
expressed?how had the language been sutable and congenerousto the matter?which none can read with danger
of infection,but such as bringthe plaguealong with them"
(sig. 7Gr).
50
6'
Sibbes, Works,
II,
201; cf. Durham, Clauis, p. 40.
See, e.g., Durham, Clauis, pp. 354, 365, 368, 401;
William Guild, Loves Entercovrs

hetween the Lamb & His
Bride, Christ and His Church (London, 1658), p. 1; John
Trapp, SolomonisIIANA'PETOO: or, A Commentarie upon
the Books of Prouerbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs
mon (London, 1669), p. 6; cf. the definitionof allegoryin
(London, 1650), pp. 219-20; Bartimeus Andreas[An-
Robert Ferguson, The Interest of Reason in Religion: with

thle Import & Use of Scripture-Metaphors (London, 1675),
drewes], Certaine Very Worthy, Godly anld Profitable

Sermons upon the Fifth Chapter of the Songs of Solomon
pp. 308-09.
46 According to Beza, Psalm 45 serves as an "abridgement" of the Song and, like the Song, is to be taken "and
altogetherto be vnderstoodin a spirituallsense," without
any referenceto Solomon'smarriage,for "farreit is from
all reason to take that alliaunce& marriageof his to haue
bin a figureof so holy & sacreda one as that which is proposed vnto us in this Psal."-Master Bezaes Sermonsvpon
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:PrincetonUniv. Press, 1962), p. 135.

47 Intercourses,11 (1683), 29.
48 The
Song of Songs, trans. R. P. Lawson (Westminster,
Md.: Newman Press, 1957), pp. 200-02.
49See, e.g., Richard Sibbes: any "sinful abuse of this
heavenlybook is far from the intentionof the Holy Ghost
in it, which is by stooping low to us, to take advantageto
raise us higher unto him, that by taking advantageof the
sweetestpassageof our life, marriage,and the most delightful affection, love, in the sweetest manner of expression,
by a song,he mightcarryup the soul to thingsof 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 highestlove and joy, it can be no blameto it, that

it is now and then abrupt and passionate.... it could be
expressednoway more happily,than in such similitudesas
were proper to such persons, and such subjects.... That
criminationand exceptions against the kisses and oyntmentsand other affectionatespeechesof it, are so far from
(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, "Conceptions of the Love of God," in Complete Works of Saint
Teresa of Jesus, trans. E. A. Peers, 3 vols. (New York:

Sheed and 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). Hereaftercited in text.
65See 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, seeE. Allison Peers, Studies of
the Spanish Mystics, 3 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1927,
1930, 1960). Note the analogous interpretationsof sexual

imageryin Gnostic texts, in the Kaballah,and in Eastern
Tantricand Vishnaitecults 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: ChristianLiterature,1889), 150-51. Cf. the Glossa

ordinariaon 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,II, 336-38 (sermon71).


Reformation Attitudes Toward Allegory and The Song of Songs

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Reformation Attitudes toward Allegory and the Song of Songs

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