ii. The Allegorical School.—From the discussion in the Mishna already alluded to, there can be but little doubt that the allegorical interpretation was the more prevalent one in the synagogue in the time of Christ, especially in the school of Hillel. According to the ancient allegorical explanation of the synagogue, the beloved' is the Lord, the bride' is the congregation of Israel, and the Song is a consecutive allegorico-prophetical history of the Jewish nation, beginning either with the exodus from Egypt or from the call of Abraham, and detailing their doings and sufferings down to the coming of the Messiah and the building of the third temple. This view, which is given in the Talmud and in the Midrash, is elaborately pro pounded in the Chaldee paraphrase (circa A. D. 6o0), and is consistently and uniformly set forth in all the allegorical commentaries till the 12th cen tury ; ex. gr. the comment. of Saadia Gaon (892 942), Rashi (1o40-1105), Rashbarn (1085-1154), Ibit Ezra (ro88-t 176), Ibn Aknin (116o-1226), etc. At the beg-inning of the rth century, when the Arabic philosophy was largely studied among the Jewish literati, the traditional prophetico-historical allegory was exchanged for a philosophical allegory. Thus Ibn Caspi (1280-1340), maintains that Solo mon depicts in this Song the zinion between the active intellect (intellectus agens) and the receptive or nzaterial intellect (intellectus materialis). This view is also defended by Moses Ibn Tibbon (1244 1274) ; hy the eminent poet and commentator, Immanuel Romi (1265-133o) ; Ralbag 0288-1342), etc. For about four hundred years this philosophical allegory disputed the field with the prophetico historical allegory, when Don Isaac Abravanel started a new allegorical theory—viz. that the bride zs wisdom, with whom Solonzon converses. Leon Hebrus, son of Abravanel, defended the same view (De Amore dial. cap. iii.) This seems to have been the finishing-stroke to the allegorical interpretation among the Jews, for it soon began to lose favour, and has now almost entirely been relinquished.
How or by what right the early fathers of the Christian church came to discard the authorised allegorical interpretation of the synagogue which obtained in and after the time of Christ, is difficult to divine. Suffice it to say that Origen (circa 185 254), as we see from the fragments of his com mentary, exchanged the historico-allegorical in terpretation, which be must have learned from his Jewish rabbi, for an allegory of his own, maintaining that the bridegroom is Christ, the bride is the soul of man created after the image of God, the companions of the bridegroom are the angels and saints in heaven, and the maidens are the believers on earth. Traces of the prophetico historical allegory, however, are to be seen in the fragments of the Homily on the Paralytic Man of Cyril of Jerusalem (circa 215-386), where this father explains sundry passages of the Song. Ac cording to him, Solomon's palanquin (iii. 9) is the cross, its silver legs are the thhly pieces of silver which brought Christ to the cross, the purple cushion is the purple garment in which the Saviour was mocked, the nuptial crown is the crown of thorns (op. p. 314, ed. Oxon. 1703). Athanasius
of Alexandria (circa 296-373), the great opponent of Arius, an advocate of the deity of Christ, as might have been expected, saw in the Song of Songs nothing else than a jubilee song of the church at the incarnation of the Son of God. St. Jerome (circa 346-420), who, like Origen, learned to inter pret the Song allegorically from his Jewish rabbi, imported it into the Latin church. But he, too, discarded the authorised historico-allegorical inter pretation of the time of Christ, and, like Origen, made it to celebrate the union of Christ with the soul of man or the church.
As the literal view was branded as heretical, the interpretations of Origen and St. Jerome became the authorised expositions for the Greek and Latin Churches, and the schoolmen of the middle ages found in the Song an unfathomable abyss of mysti cism, into whose depths they could dive as deeply as their speculative minds and fertile imaginations prompted them. The continued and earnest study of the allegory disclosed to the students thereof, both in the Eastern and Western churches, new mysteries, and it was discovered that the bride is the Virgin Mary, and that the Song sets forth the blessedness of the Virgin above that of all other saints. This view now fairly occupied the field, and was propounded by the learned Greek physi cian, Michael Constantine Psellus 002o-1106), in his Greek and Latin metrical paraphrase of the Song of Songs (opp. vol. viii. p. 289, ed. 1746) ; by Rupert of Deutz (circa 1076-1113), in his com mentary on Canticles (De Incarnatione Domini, in seven books) ; by Richard of St Victor (+ 1173), and by all the Spanish prelates. The only other favourite interpretation with which the prophetico mariolatry allegory had to compete, and into which indeed it was merged, is the prophetico-historical, started by Nicolas de Lyra (circa 1270-1340), main taining that the bridegroom is God, and the bride the church under both dispensations, that chap. ii. vi. describes the history of the Israelites from the Exodus to the birth of Christ, and chap. vii. to the end the origin of the Christian church, her progress, and the peace which she attained in the days of Con stantine. In the Reformed Church the prophetico historical allegory was espoused in England by Brightman (1580), according to whom chap. i.-iv. 6 describes the cona'ition of the legal church from the time of David to the death of Christ, and chap. iv. 7-viii. 14 the state of the Evangelical church from A. D. 34 to the second coming- of Christ ; by Cotton (1642), etc. ; and on the Continent by John Cocceius (1603-1699), Hennischius ( r638), Puffendorff ( 776), Hug (1803), Keiser (1825), etc. Luther, however, being dissatisfied with both these theories, as well as with the merging of these into one, advanced a new allegory altogether—viz, Mat the bride is the happy and peaceful state under the dominion of Solo mon, and that the Song zIr a hymn of praise in which Solomon thanks God for the obedience rena'erea' to him as a divine gift.' This view was also espoused by John Brentius, the Suabian reformer.