Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 429) refused to recognize any other than the literal sense. For this he was condemned by the council of Constantinople in 553. Some of the Anabaptists seem to have taken the same view. Sebastien Chateillon recognized the secular character of the poem, and for this offense he was driven out of Geneva through the influence of Calvin. Luis de Leon (d. 1591) made a Latin translation of it for a sister in a convent with out suggesting any mystical sense, and was in carcerated by the Inquisition for five years as a punishment. Jean le Clerc maintained that only earthly love was depicted in the songs; and J. D. Michaelis, regafcling the work as in part obscene, was unwilling to give it a place in his translation of the Bible. The growing con viction that the poet, or poets, had no other purpose than to depict the love of man and woman has not strengthened this feeling as regards the book; on the contrary there has been during the last century a decidedly higher estimate of its moral worth as well as a greater admiration of its literary charm.
On two important points there is as yet no consensus of opinion. Is Canticles a drama or a mere collection of lyrics? And is the love described that of husband and wife, a bride groom and a bride, a betrothed couple, or only that of man and woman. Caspar Sanctius, in 1616, affirmed that Canticles was a sacred drama; Cornelius a Lapide (d. in 1637) divided it into five acts; Laurentius Petraus, a Danish pastor, arranged it in dramatic form, translated it metrically and set music to it in 1640; Huet, in 1670, declared it to be a drama; Hermann von der Hardt (before 1706), an anonymous Breslau pastor in 1720. G. Wachter in 1722, and Nicholas Nonnen in 1725 presented various attempts to indicate a plot. A shepherd lover as a rival of Solomon was introduced by J. F. Jacobi in 1771. While Franz Delitzsch gave the most perfect expression to the type of dramatic construction which made Solomon and Sulamith the real lovers, it was largely through Ewald that the idea of a heroine, faithful to her absent shepherd in the face of the blandish ment of the infatuated despot, became widely popular. It furnished an ethical motive, pre sented a moral struggle and suggested the ulti mate triumph of virtue. Duhm in 1902 and Driver in 1910 still adhere to this view. The chief difficulties that have been raised against it are that the ancient Hebrews possessed no theatre; Canticles has no plot, on which two interpreters can agree; Solomon's character and conduct are unintelligible; Sulamith's speeches, ostensibly answering his, in reality addressed to her absent friend, place her in an absurd situa tion and a morally dubious light; the tone of the King's words, those assigned to the shep herd, and those placed on her own lips is very much the same; and the •necessity for putting her to sleep on the stage, to dream through entire scenes, is not less embarrassing because these scenes are so short that they can scarcely have occupied more than a minute or two.
Already Bossuet and Lowth suggested that Canticles may have been written for a royal wedding, and divided it in sections for the seven days of the festival. Renan (1860) threw out the idea that it may be the libretto of a simple play performed at some rural wedding, where the singers took the parts of Solomon's guards, ladies of Jerusalem and others. He was in fluenced by Charles Schefer who had seen such performances in Egypt and in Syria. In 1873 J. G. Wetzstein described, in an article on the °Syrian Threshing Table° a wedding at El Hamma, near Damascus. On the morning after the wedding night the husband and wife played king and queen, sitting upon the threshing table as a throne, dancing and listening to songs in their praise. At a Jewish wedding in Tunis similar ceremonies were observed by Saint Haon in 1882; though there was no sword-dance by the bride. Especially through Budde the view has gained much currency that Canticles is a collection of songs brought to gether by an old wedding poet from his lore. This scholar insists that throughout the col lection wedded love is described. All pictures of natural scenery are covered allusions to the complete satisfaction of the sexual instincts in wedlock. The purpose is to commend matri
mony. Against this view it has been urged that it is difficult to see wedded love in scenes which describe the husband, according to the theory, as knocking at his wife's window and being re fused admittance because she is not dressed, or the wife as expressing a wish that he were her brother so that she might kiss him without being reproved.
According to Luis de Leon (1569), Rene Rapin (1659), Charles Cotin (1662), Richard Simon (1678), Jean le Clerc (1685), Claude Genest (1707), J. T. Leasing (1777), J. G. Herder (1778), E. Reuss (1879), W. W. Baudissin (1901), L. Gautier (1906), Paul Haupt (1907), N. Schmidt (1911) and H. Gressmann (1913), Canticles is an anthology of love-songs, idyls, eclogues or madrigals. Reuss has especially called attention to the poet's peculiar manner of making the i woman with whom he is in love the speaker by preference. There is an un mistakable similarity of this diwan to the eAnthologia Palatina.* Greek influence seems certain; it is not impossible that the poet had heard some idyl of Theocritus; and his sense of beauty in nature reminds of Meleager. Nevertheless, it may not be safe to go as far as to the reign of Aretas IV (c. 85-63 a.c.), while it would seem necessary to assume a date later than the 3d century sc. The language, with its Aramaisms, neo-Hebraic turns, and Persian and Greek loanwords appears to be as late as the 2d century B.C. But if the author lived in the East-jordan country this appearance may to some extent be due to dialectical differences. There is no hint that he was a married man, or a wedding poet. He did not sing to teach the value of a social institution, but to voice, in the most delicate and beautiful terms he could master, the joy with which the glories of spring and the impulses of love filled his heart. The mention of Solomon by way of comparison naturally led to the idea that he, who had so much experience with love, was the author, and Solomon's reputation for wisdom led to the search for a hidden meaning. This meaning made it appropriate to read the book at the Passover when the intimate relation between Yahwe and Israel was celebrated. There does not seem, therefore, to be any occasion on this account to suspect, as Erbt and Sellin do, that originally these songs were composed in honor of a sun-god and a moon-goddess whose nuptials were celebrated at the feast of the vernal equinox.
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