iv. But if even allegorisers are constrained to admit the incongruity of making Solomon the author of so sublime a song, surely it is equally incongruous to suppose that some other inspired writer composed this book to symbolise by Solo mon the union of Christ and his church. To select a man who revelled. more in an eastdm harem, and had a greater number of wives than any other indi vidual mentioned in the O. T. (1 Kings xi. 1-8), in order to symbolise by his voluptuous love the most sacred love subsisting between God or the Messiah and his people, is as incongntous as it would be to select the most notorious and abandoned polytheist as a symbol of monotheism.
v. It is almost blasphemous to suppose Christ addressing his cburch in tbe language of chap. vii. 2-9, where the most indelicate desire for carnal intercourse is expressed. This is the blandishment of seduction, and not the language of him who was holy, harmless, undf-filed, and separate from sinners,' and who spake as never man spake.
vi. The church universal has shown her conscious ress of the indecency of this language at the sacrifice of consistency. Though, through the importation of it by Origen into the Eastern section, and by Cyprian, Augustine, and especially St. Jerome, into the Western section, she has espoused the ancient Jewish notion that this Song is allegorical, yet she has systematically abstained from order ing it to be read publicly. The oldest lectionaries exhibit no lessons from the Song of Songs : in the Anglican Church, which is pre-eminently based upon Scripture and the usage of antiquity, it is authoritatively excluded from the Calendar of Lessons, whifst the majority of the most able and pious allegorisers caution against the use of it. How is this fact to be reconciled with the view that this Song is the most evangelical and the most sublime in spiritual sentiments of all the O. T. books ? How extraordinary that a book should be proscribed from the pencopes, a single passage of which, according to one of the most intellio-ent allegorisers, tells us of the resurrection of ClIrist from the dead at the early morning hour," that no part had been spared, that the cup of misery had been drunk to the full,' and that for the sudden triumph of Christ's resurrection from the dead the body of the faithful had not been prepared !' (Thrupp's Comment. p. 198, etc.) Does not this show that the allegory is not a matter of choice, but deemed a necessity, and that the distinguished spiritual rank assig,ned to it above the rest of the O. T. books arises from the principle that where in its literal sense sin is believed to abound there in its spiritual acceptation grace must much more abound ? What is, however, most subversive of the allegorical theory is the fact that three principal persons appear in this Song—viz. a shepherd, a
shepherdess, and a king—and that it is the shepherd and not the king who is the object of the maiden's affection. This has been recognised by some of the most learned Jewish commentators of the middle ages (viz. Ibn Ezra, Immanuel, etc.), and must be evident to every unbiassed reader of the Song of Songs.
6. Author and Date of the Book.—The inscription certainly assigns the autl.orship of this book to Solomon. The 5 prefixed to is the so-called Lamed auctoris, which is used in the titles of psalms and other Hebrew poems to describe the author (Ps. iii. ; iv. t, al.); whilst the additional "Inst, not found in other inscriptions, is owing to the article in co-ovri vv, which generally, though not always, is followed by this pronoun (Gen. xxix. 9 ; xl. 5 ; xlvii. 4 ; 1_ Kings iv. 2 ; Gesenius, Gramm. sec. 115, ; Ewald, Lehrbuch, sec. 292 a) Hence the rendering of nthvb ltn.1 by respecting Solomon, and the assertion that it denotes the theme or the person of the poem, are contrary to usage, and are rightly rejected by modem grammarians and lexicographers. The appeal to the Septuagint, which, according to the Vatican text, renders this phrase by If eo-re Za.Xcomdw, in support of the view that it indicates the subfrct of the song, is nugatory, in asmuch as 2a)tum6v is not the nominative but geni tive (Winer, N. T. Grammar, sec. to). But though the inscription ascribes the authorship to Solomon, internal evidence is decidedly against it, and leaves no doubt that the title owes its origin to the voice of tradition, as will be seen from the following reasons The author of the book invariably uses the abbreviated form V.1 of the relative pro noun, whereas the inscription has the relative -in; in its full and usual form. The homoeophony of the words 'int and 'TV is not sufficient to account for so extraordinary a divergence, seein,g that no such homoeophony occurs in the book itself, where it might easily have been employed. ii. Solomon would surely not designate his own production by the appellation the most excellent song:' iii. The description of the royal cortege, and the summons to the people to admire Solomon in his grandeur (iii. 6-r t), cannot possibly be ascribed to him without accusing him of great conceit and vanity.