The Revelation given to John is the most widely and
contradictorily interpreted book of the New Testament. Revelation’s
multiplicity of interpretations can be partially explained by its symbolic
language and visionary style; commentaries written to explain its mysteries
range from the scholarly obtuse to the outrageously fanciful.
Surprisingly, it is the Song of Songs (Song of Solomon,
Canticle of Canticles) from the Old Testament that is equally varied in its
interpretations. Despite its straight-forward and ‘literal’ language the Song
has been described as "locks to which the keys have been lost.” What is
very clear to 13 year old boys giggling in the back of the chapel over the
words of “scripture” had been obfuscated by centuries of interpretation.
The Song has been understood as an allegory describing the
relationship between YHWH God and the People of Israel. This interpretation
relies on the prophets – specifically Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea and their
description of the marriage of Israel
and God for its key to understanding.
"Go and proclaim in the
hearing of Jerusalem :
" 'I remember the devotion of
your youth,
how as a bride you loved me
and followed me through the desert,
through a land not sown. Jeremiah
2:2
Later Christian theologians saw basically the same story in
the Song of Songs – but interpreted the allegory as Christ’s love for the
Church – drawing on Paul’s words in Ephesians as the key to interpretation.
"For this
reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and
the two will become one flesh." This is a profound mystery--but I am
talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love
his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians
5:31-33
Athanasius declared that the Song was a “Jubilee song of the
Church at the incarnation of the Son of God.” An exact fit for the allegory
wasn’t possible, apparently, as there are a number of different ways that the
specifics of the song were applied to Christ. For example: The lying down of
the king in Song 1:12 was alternately understood as 1) the repose of Christ as
part of the Godhead in heaven, 2) the incarnation of Christ, 3) his passion and
death, or 4) the indwelling of Christ in the soul of the believer.
Christian interpreters explained the Lover’s tree climbing
adventure (7:8 – 9) by relating the palm tree to the Church and that the
Beloveds breasts were either the Old and New Testaments, or the “Holy Teachers
of the Church who nourish with the milk of simple doctrine those who are reborn
in Christ.” Others said that the palm tree was the Cross which the Lover /
Savior climbed, and that the breasts of the Beloved were the “Holy Men of God
afflicted and tortured like grapes but producing the victory of salvation and
gladness to God their Husbandman and to Christ and to the Bride.”
Mystics of the Medieval period understood the Song to be a
description of the union of the Soul to God – a sort of spiritual wedding
between the individual believer and the divinity. Other mystics said that the
song was a description of the union of the “active and the passive aspects of
the intellect.”
Catholic scholars applied the song to the Blessed Virgin
Mary saying that what is true of the Church in general is true in particular
for the Virgin. One writer put words into Mary’s mouth to explain the lying
down of the king passage (same as above), “The King himself, Son of the Most
High King, Himself no lesser dignity, from His equal throne with the Father,
from His Royal seat, from the secret dwelling of His unapproachable Majesty
where the Angels see and desire His Face evermore, vouchsafed to come hither to
earth for the salvation of perishing souls, and rested in my chamber. In my
womb, I say, that King gladly laid Himself down, and found naught in me to make
His dwelling displeasing to Him. And there lying, He filled me marvelously with
His grace. While preserving my virginity, He took away my maiden barrenness,
and His forceful fire consumed me as a whole burnt-offering and filled the
entire house with the most fragrant perfume of ointment.”
The Song has been thought of as a cycle of wedding songs for
the near-eastern seven day wedding festival – a tradition that has some merit
as Rabbi Akiva , in trying to protect the sacredness of scripture, forbid the
Song to be sung at common wedding festivals; “Whoever warbles the Song of Songs
at banqueting houses, treating it like an ordinary song, has no portion in the
World to Come.” Others following a more theatrical urge have described the Song
as a two person drama.
Origen, who considered the Song to be a nuptial poem
dramatic form but applied it in higher sense to Christ and His Church – a
spiritual drama free from all carnality, read back through the Old Testament to
find that the Song is the seventh, and (according to biblical numerology) the
ultimate or climactic song. The other 6 were: 1) The Song of the Sea – Exodus
15, 2) the Song of the Well – Numbers 21:17, 3) the Song of Moses – Deuteronomy
32, 4) the Song of Deborah – Judges 5, 5) the Song of David’s Deliverance – 2
Samuel 18 / Psalm 18, 6) the Song of Asaph – 1 Chronicles 16:8
Bishop Theodore of Mopsuestia in the 4th century declared
the Song to be a defense of King Solomon’s marriage to an Egyptian princess.
Other writers determined that the Song was about King Solomon’s love affair
with Lady Wisdom (Proverbs 3: 13 – 18)
Historical interpretations of the Song have been popular
throughout the years. Some first century Jews found in the Song a description
of the Presence of God with the people from the Exodus to the destruction of
the temple in 70 A.D. Other historical interpreters have identified the Lover
as a combination of Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah and the Beloved as the
Jewish colonies outside of Jerusalem .
In 1992 Luis Stadlemann published a new commentary on the
Song. He identified the Song as a “text in code” about the “restoration of the
Davidic monarchy in Judah
after the exile.” His novel interpretation relied on a “hitherto unsuspected”
meaning of the word “love.” In his work “love” refers to the sociopolitical
alliance between the House of David and the Jewish community.
Bernard of Clairvaux held a deep appreciation for the Song;
before he died he preached some 86 sermons from the Song of Songs – and only
got as far as the second chapter. He admonished reader to approach the Song
with “chaste” ears and to, “never imagine that it is a man or a woman to be
thought of, but rather the Word of God and a Soul. (Sermon 61)” You might think
that someone who devoted so much study into a book about love might have
learned to be a loving person – but Bernard was the one of the loudest voices
crying out for the 2nd Christian Crusade against the Muslims in the Holy Land,
“The Living God has charged me to proclaim that He will take vengeance upon
such as refuse to defend Him against His foes. To arms, then! Let a holy
indignation animate you to combat, and let the cry of Jeremiah reverberate
through Christendom: Cursed be he that withholdeth his sword from blood.”
Martin Luther refused the traditional allegorical
understanding of the Song – but couldn’t accept a face value interpretation. He
instead identified the beloved Bride as the happy and peaceful state under
Solomon’s rule, and the Song as a hymn in which King Solomon thanks God for the
divine gift of obedience.
In 1776 a German scholar with the unfortunate name of Herr
von Puffendorff (honest!) declared that Solomon, who was versed in the Egyptian
mystery religions, originally composed the Song in hieroglyphics. When
deciphered this way, Puffendorff found that the Song reveals the death and
grave of the Savior. In his commentary on the Song of Songs 1:3 Puffendorff
identified the virgins or maidens (No wonder the maidens love you! ) as “the
pure and chaste souls locked up in the dark sepulcher and waiting for the
light… the Egyptian Neitha, or Minerva, tutelary deity of pious souls, was
covered with a veil which none was allowed to uncover. The virgins, concealed
in the same manner, have to expect that through marriage they will emerge into
light. Thus the souls are here represented, which in the dominion of darkness
wait for salvation and light.”
In 1813 Roman Catholic priest Johann Leonhard first proposed
that the Song was a series of 38 fragmented and disjointed dream sequences.
Later psychology minded readers would find the Song to be filled with Freudian
images, but what do you expect in a song explicitly about Sex?
Some Scholars have pointed out certain similarities between
the Song and other Ancient Near Eastern fertility cults. Within this
interpretation the King and his bride are understood to have re-enacted the
marriage of Ishtar and Tammuz. Alternately some have identified Solomon as
Osiris, his Shulamite bride as Isis , and the
focus of their love songs is the resurrection and ritual stimulation of Osiris.
Phyllis Trible has used the Song as in support of the
women’s liberation movement. She describes the Song as a sort of “midrash” on
the egalitarian relationship of Adam and Eve in Genesis chapters 2 and 3. “Love
is the meaning of their life, and this love excludes oppression and
exploitation. It knows the goodness of sex and hence it knows not sexism. Sex
and love expand existence beyond the stereotypes of society. It draws into
itself the public and the private, the historical and the natural. It
transforms all life even as life enhances it. Grace returns to the female and
the male.”
In the 17th century prophetic interpretations of a decidedly
dispensationalist flavor began to appear. One such reading found 2
‘dispensations’ of the “Legal
Church
Another more detailed reading divided the Song into 7
‘dispensations’.
1-2 The period when the Gospel was preached to Jews and
Gentiles.
3-4 A time of increase for the Church and persecution
5-6:8 A time of peace without, but danger within.
6:9 – 7:10 Reformation
7:11 – 8:3 Unsettled Post-Reformation
8:4 – 8:6 Persecution
8:7 – 8:14 Rest and Longing for the spread of the Gospel and
the Triumph of Protestantism.
While through the centuries the face value reading of the
Song has been ignored or covered with allegory because of shame – there have
been many who have said that the song is exactly what it appears to be: a
celebration of sex between a Husband and a Wife.
In the fourth century a Roman monk named Jovinian
defended a literal understanding of the Song. Jovinian’s brazenly declared that
celibacy and virginity were in and of themselves no more valuable than marriage
and that the Song of Songs was to be understood as the praise and
sanctification of marital sex.
This didn’t set well with the ecclesiastical authorities. In
390 Pope Siricius called a synod in Rome
to condemn Jovinian and his followers. Jovinian left Rome
and took his followers to Milan ,
where in 395 Ambrose called another synod to reconfirm Siricius’s condemnation.
Augustine and Jerome also joined in the attack on Jovinian and his ‘heretical’
notion that sexual expression could be as holy as celibacy and virginity.
The rabbis and early church fathers were committed to an
allegorical interpretation because of their predetermined attitude that sex
was vulgar. The Rabbis, who never went so far as to demand celibacy, advocated
marriage and the “sober duty of procreation.” The church fathers went even
further, declaring celibacy to be the highest good. Origen went beyond this,
even, taking Christ literally and made himself a eunuch for the Kingdom. This
predetermined filter (sex is bad) warped their reading of the Song into a
multitude of various allegorical interpretations – each clinging tenuously to
the text.
And in time these flimsy allegories have fallen away. Modern
commentators are almost unanimous (there are always some hold-outs) in their
agreement that the Song is exactly what it purports to be: a celebration of
sacred sex.
Come, my beloved,
let us go out into the fields
and lie all night among the flowering henna…
There I will give you my love.
(Song of Songs 7: 12 –13)
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