CANTICLES. This is another name (cf. the Vulgate Can ticum Canticorum) for the Old Testament book called in the A.V. "The Song of Solomon," and in the R.V. "The Song of Songs." The latter title, taken from the opening words of the Hebrew, does not mean that the book is a collection of songs, but that it is the choicest of the songs which Solomon was tradi tionally supposed to have written (1 Ki. iv. 32). By modern scholars, however, this traditional authorship is rejected, on lin guistic and other grounds, whilst many of them do regard it as a collection of love lyrics, more or less connected with the marriage customs of the Hebrews.
In the Hebrew Bible the book stands in the third and latest part, known as the Writings, and in the special group known as the Megilloth, or "Rolls," which are read in the synagogue on certain days of commemoration. The Song of Songs is used on the first of these in the Jewish Year, namely Passover, and this use is dependent on the Jewish exegesis of the book, which makes it an allegory of the relation of Israel to Yahweh, with reference to the national history from the Exodus to the Messianic glory and final restoration. This interpretation is given in the Targum (the free Aramaic rendering of the Hebrew given in the syna gogue when Hebrew was no longer understood). For this book the Targum is really a paraphrastic commentary; thus on i. 8 we read, "Let the congregation, which is compared with a beauti ful girl, whom my soul loveth, walk in the ways of the righteous, and offer prayer according to the ordinance of her shepherds and the guides of her generations, and let her teach her sons, who are compared with kids of the goats, to go to the synagogue and schoolhouse." Except for some such spiritualizing interpreta tion, it would be impossible to explain the inclusion of a book of secular poetry in the sacred canon. The strong assertion of the holiness of the book by Rabbi Akiba in the 2nd century A.D. goes with other evidence to show that it was not so included without reluctance and opposition.
There is no reference to Canticles in the New Testament, but from at least the 3rd century the book claimed an important place in the thought and the language of the Christian Church. We may see this in the commentary of Origen in ten books (only part of which is extant) on the Septuagint translation of Canticles. He regards the book as historically a drama in which there are four speakers or speaking groups, viz., the bridegroom, the bride and the respective companions of both. In the higher (allegorical) meaning the bridegroom becomes Christ, with the angels, the prophets and patriarchs, the Church teachers, as His companions; the bride is either the Church or the soul of the individual believer, the latter view being more emphasized in the later work of Origen. The allegorical application to the Chris tian Church is represented in the chapter headings of our A.V., which, e.g., make the little sister without breasts of viii. 8 into the Gentiles. The individual use of the allegory has greatly influ enced the language of devotion, not always to its advantage.
The return to a more literal and historical interpretation is found already in Theodore of Mopsuestia (392-428), who was anathematized in 553 for his view that the book was Solomon's defence of the Egyptian princess whom he married, against the dislike of his people for her dark colour (Song i. 5). It is not, however, until the i8th century (Herder, 17 78) that we meet with the modern view of the book as a collection of independent love lyrics, whilst throughout the z 9th century the prevalent view of scholars was that the book is a drama. According to this view, of which the most notable exponent was Ewald (1826), whilst it was accepted by Robertson Smith when writing for this Ency clopaedia in 1876, the heroine of the book is a peasant maiden in Solomon's harem, who longs for her shepherd lover, and utters her feelings to the ladies of the court, who lead her on to describe her lover, and to tell how she came to be carried off by Solomon. Finally her constancy secures her release, and the curtain falls on the sentiment of the triumph of true affection in viii. 6, 7.
The attractiveness of this theory, when worked out in detail, cannot be denied ; but it may be asked whether the attraction does not lie in the appeal to modern taste of a story which is largely the product of modern imagination. It supposes a free dom of intercourse between lovers inconceivable for the East. The initial situation of the maiden in the harem of Solomon is left as a problem for the reader to discover, until he comes to its supposed origin in vi. r i ; the expedient might be granted in the case of one of Browning's Men and W omen, but seems very improbable in the present case. The more elaborate dramatic theories can find no parallel in Semitic literature to the "drama" of Canticles, the book of Job being no exception to this state ment ; whilst even the simpler theories ask us to believe that the essential parts of the story—the rape of the Shulamite, the change in Solomon's disposition, her release from the harem—are to be supplied by the reader from obscure and disputable references. More serious still is the fact that any progress of action from first to last is so difficult to prove. In the first chapter we listen to a woman speaker desiring to be kissed by the man who has brought her into his chambers, and speaking of "our bed," in the last we leave her "leaning upon her beloved." The difficulties of detail are equally great. To suppose that all the male love making, by hypothesis unsuccessful, belongs to Solomon, whilst the heroine addresses her passionate words to the continuously absent shepherd, is obviously unconvincing; yet, if this shepherd speaks in iv. 8–v. r, how are we to explain his appearance in the royal harem? This and other difficulties were acknowledged by Robertson Smith, notably the presence of vii. 1-9, which he pro posed to set aside as an interpolation, because of its sensuality and of the difficulty of working it into the dramatic scheme. The fact that this passage has subsequently become a central element in the new interpretation of the book is, perhaps, a warning against violent measures with difficulties.
Attention has already been drawn to Herder's proposal, accepted by some later writers, including Diestel and Reuss, to regard the book as a collection of detached songs. This received new and striking confirmation from the anthropological data supplied by J. G. Wetstein (1873), Prussian consul at Damascus. His obser vations of the wedding customs of Syrian peasants led him to believe that Canticles is substantially a collection of songs origi nally sung at such festivities. Wetstein's contribution was repub lished shortly afterwards by Delitzsch, in an appendix to his Commentary; but it received little attention. The first amongst Old Testament scholars to perceive its importance seems to have been Stade, who accepted Wetstein's view in a footnote to his History of the Jewish People (ii. p. 197) published in 1888; to Budde, however, belongs the distinction of the systematic and detailed use of Wetstein's suggestions, especially in his Com mentary (1898). This interpretation of the book was accepted by Kautzsch (1896), Siegfried (1898), Cheyne (1899), and other eminent scholars, and is now generally adopted. The last-named stated the theory tersely as follows: "The book is an anthology of songs used at marriage festivals in or near Jerusalem, revised and loosely connected by an editor without regard to temporal sequence" (Ency. Bibl. 691). The character of the evidence which has contributed to the acceptance of this view may be indicated in Wetstein's own statements : "The finest time in the life of the Syrian peasant consists of the first seven days of ter his wedding, in which he and his young wife play the part of king (melik) and queen (melika), both being so treated and served by their village and the invited com munities of the neighbourhood. The majority of the greater vil lage weddings fall in the month of March, the finest of the Syrian year.... The winter rains being over, and the sun still refreshing, not oppressive as in the following months, the weddings are cele brated in the open air on the village threshing-floor, which at this time of the year is with few exceptions a flowery mead.... We pass over the wedding-day itself with its displays, the sword dance of the bride, and the great feast. On the morrow, bride groom and bride awake as king and queen. Already before sun rise they receive the leader of the bridesmen, as their vizier, and the bridesmen themselves; the latter thereupon fetch the thresh ing-board and bring it to the threshing-floor, singing a rousing song of battle or love, generally both. There it is erected as a throne, and after the royal couple have taken their seats and the necessary formalities are gone through, a great dance in honour of the young couple begins; the accompanying song is concerned only with themselves, its principal element being the inevitable wasf, i.e., a description of the physical perfections of both and their ornaments. The eulogy of the queen is more mod erate and praises her visible, rather than veiled, charms ; this is due to the fact that she is to-day a married woman, and that the wasf sung on the previous day during her sword-dance has left nothing to desire. This wasf is the weak element in Syrian wedding-songs according to our taste; its comparisons are to us frequently too clumsy and reveal the stereotyped pattern. It is the same with the little collection of charming wedding-songs and fragments of them which has been received into the canon of the Old Testament under the name of Canticles; the wasf (iv.– vii.) is considerably below the rest in poetical value. With this dance begin the sports, lasting seven days, begun in the morning on the first, shortly before midday on the other days, and con tinuing far into the night by the light of the fires that are kindled; on the last day alone all is over by sunset. During the whole week both royalties are in marriage attire, must do no work and have no cares; they have only to look down from the merteba (throne) on the sports carried on before them, in which they themselves take but a moderate part ; the queen, however, occasionally gives a short dance to attract attention to her bridal attire." (Wetstein, Zeitschri f t f. Ethn., 1873, pp. 270-302; quoted and condensed by Budde as above in Comm. p. xvii. ; for a fuller reproduction of Wetstein in English see Harper, The Song of Songs, pp. 74-76.) For the general application of these and the related customs to the interpretation of the book reference should be made to Budde's Commentary, which recognizes four wasfs, viz., iv. 1-7 (describing the bride from head to breasts), v. Io-16 (the bride groom), vi. 4-7 (similar to and partly repeating iv. 1-7) and vii. 1-9, belonging to the sword-dance of the bride, her physical charms being sung from feet to head (cf. vi. 13; "Why look ye on the Shulamite as [on] a dance of camps?" i.e., a war-dance). This dance receives its name from the fact that she dances it with a sword in her hand in the firelight on the evening of her wedding-day, and amid a circle of men and women, whilst such a wasf as this is sung by the leader of the choir. The passage relating to the litter of Solomon (iii. 6-11)—an old difficulty with the dramatizers—relates to the erection of the throne on the threshing-floor. The terms "Solomon" and "the Shulamite" are explained as figurative references to the famous king, and to Abishag the Shulamite, "fairest among women," on the lines of the use of "king" and "queen" noted above. Other songs of Canticles are referred by Budde to the seven days of festivities. It need hardly be said that difficulties still remain in the analysis of this book of wedding-songs; whilst Budde detects 23 songs, besides fragments, Siegfried divides the book into io. Such dif ferences are to be expected in the case of a collection of songs, some admittedly in dialogue form, all concerned with the common theme of the love of man and woman, and without any external indication of the transition from one song to the next.
Further, we must ask whether the task has been complicated by any editorial rearrangement or interpolation ; the collector of these songs has certainly not reproduced them in the order of their use at Syrian weddings. Can we trace any principle, or even any dominant thought in this arrangement? In this connection we touch the reason why some scholars were slow to accept the above interpretation, viz., the alleged marks of literary unity which the book contains (e.g., Driver, Introduction). These are (I) general similarity of treatment, seen in the use of imagery (the bride as a garden, iv. 12; vi. 2, 3), the frequent references to nature and to particular places, and the recurrence of descrip tions of male and female beauty; (2) references to "Solomon" or "the king," to "the Shulamite" and to "the daughters of Jeru salem" (from which, indeed, the dramatic theory has found its chief inspiration) ; (3) indications that the same person is speak ing in different places (cf. the two dreams of a woman, and the vineyard references, i. 6; viii. 12) ; (4) repetitions of words and phrases especially of the refrains, "disturb not love" (ii. 7; iii. 5; viii. 4), and "until the day break" (ii. 17; iv. 6) . But of these (I) is no more than should be expected, since the songs all relate to the same subject, and spring from a common world of life and thought of the same group of people; (2) finds at least a partial parallel and explanation in the use of "king" and "queen" noted above; whilst (3) and (4) alone seem to require some thing more than the work of a mere collector of the songs. It is, of course, true that, in recurrent ceremonies, the same thought inevitably tends to find expression in the same words. But this hardly meets the case of the refrains, whilst the reference to the vineyard at the beginning and end does suggest some literary con nection. It is to be noted that the three refrains "disturb not love" severally follow passages relating to the consummation of the sexual relation, whilst the two refrains "until the day break" appear to form an invitation and an answer in the same connection, whilst the "Omnia vincit Amor" passage in the last chapter forms a natural climax (cf. Haupt's translation) . So far, then, as this somewhat scanty evidence goes, it may point to some one hand which has given its semblance of unity to the book by underlining the joy of consummated love—to which the vineyard and garden figures throughout allude—and by so ar ranging the collection that the descriptions of this joy find their climax in viii. 6-7.
Whatever conclusion, however, may be reached as to the pres ent arrangement of Canticles, the recognition of wedding-songs as forming its nucleus marks an important stage in the interpreta tion of the book; even Rothstein (1902), whilst attempting to resuscitate a dramatic theory, "recognizes . . . the possibility that older wedding-songs (as, for instance, the wasfs) are worked up in the Song of Songs" (Hastings' D.B. p. 594b).
Canticles thus describes, in a number of separate poems, not necessarily referring to marriage, the central passion of human life, and is wholly without didactic tendencies. Of its earliest history as a book we have no information. It is already included in the Hebrew canon (though its right to be there is disputed) when the first explicit mention of the book occurs. We have no evidence, therefore, of the theory of interpretation prevalent at the time of its incorporation with the other books of the canon. It seems, however, fair to infer that it would hardly have found acceptance but for a theory of Solomonic authorship and a "religious" theory of meaning. The problem raised by its present place in the canon occurs in relation to mistaken Jewish theories about other books also; it suggests, at least, that divine inspira tion may belong to the life of a people rather than to the letter of their literature. Of that life Canticles portrays a central ele ment—the passion of love—in striking imagery and graceful language, however far its oriental standard of taste differs from that of the modern West. In recent times, beginning with Erbt in 1906, and culminating in the elaborate study of W. Wittekindt (1926; Das Hohe Lied and seine Beziehungen zum Istarkult), an attempt has been made to interpret the book as a cycle of cult-songs connected with the Tammuz-Ishtar festival as cele brated in the temple of Jerusalem in the time of Manasseh. The Shulamite thus becomes a temple-prostitute, representing the goddess Ishtar, whilst the masculine figure is Tammuz or Adonis, with whom are mingled traits drawn from the Babylonian Mar duk. The theory is ingeniously, and at some points plausibly, worked out by Wittekindt; but it is open to the same objection as the dramatic theory, in that too much has to be supplied from imagination, helped out by excessive emendation of the text. It seems, moreover, highly improbable that the ritual of a cult which justifiably aroused the passionate indignation of Israel's prophets should ever have been admitted into the sacred canon. The erotic interpretation of the imagery seems also to be carried to excess.
From the nature of the book, it is impossible to assign a pre cise date for its origin ; the wedding-songs of which it chiefly con sists must belong to the folklore of more than one century. The only evidence we possess as to date is drawn from the character of the Hebrew in which the book is written, which shows frequent points of contact with new Hebrew. On this ground, we may suppose the present form of the work to date from the Greek period, i.e., after 332 B.C. This is the date accepted by most recent writers, e.g., Kautzsch, Cheyne, Budde, Rothstein, Jacob Haupt, Buchanan Gray, Jordan, Sellin, Meinhold. This late date finds some confirmation in the fact that Canticles belongs to the third and latest part of the Old Testament canon, and that its canon icity was still in dispute at the end of the 1st century A.D.