OF THE CANTICLE OF CANTICLES — Heresy VIII (De Cantico Canticorum. Haeresis VIII)
That the Canticle of Canticles is an obscene ditty of a shameless lover, composed for the sake of pleasure [voluptuousness].
ASSERTORES HVIVS HAERESEOS [The Assertors of this Heresy]
This heresy, which the Anabaptists have now renewed, Philastrius, in his catalogue, reckoned among the Unnamed [heresies]. Which Luther, wishing somewhat to moderate, in the exordium of his Annotations upon the Canticle, followed the error of certain heretics — whom Theodoret, in the preface to the Canticles, narrates to have asserted that this little book is nothing else than a familiar colloquy between Solomon and the Commonwealth of the Jews, inviting Solomon her beloved to reign over her. But Castalio [Sebastian Castellio], in the Annotations on the same book, thinks with the Anabaptists that this Canticle is a colloquy of Solomon with a certain lover [amica] of his, a Sulamite [Shulammite], concerning whom it is said: “Return (Revertere), return, O Sulamite; return, return, that we may behold thee” — to whose courtly women [ladies of the court] Solomon sometimes directs [his] speech, and they too in turn [direct theirs] to him, and to her. This stolid opinion, Philastrius and Jacobus [James] Christopolitanus, bishop, in the preface to this book, explaining more at large, write that of old there existed certain heretics who believed this Canticle [was] composed by Solomon — [when] now depraved by his concubines — in praise of the daughter of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, whom he loved as the most beautiful of all his women; esteeming that Solomon said concerning her: “To my cavalry (Equitatui meo) [company of horses] in the chariots of Pharaoh have I likened thee, my love. And there are sixty queens, and eighty concubines, and of young maidens there is no number; but one is my dove, and my chosen one. The daughters of Sion saw her, and proclaimed her most blessed, and the queens praised her.” 1
Which words, [they held,] cannot be referred to a spiritual and divine understanding; and this they confirmed by this token [indication]: that never in this Canticle is the name of God set down. And that this is [so] stands [as agreed], against the custom of divine scripture, in which there exists no book wherein is not written that name — the τετραγράμματον (tetragrammaton), or four-lettered יהוה (Iehova [Yahweh]) — or at least some other name of God, of which the others are: אדני (Adonai), אל (El), שדי (Saddai [Shaddai]), צבאות (Zebaoth [Sabaoth]), and others similar to these; none of which, since they found [none] in this book, they pronounced its matter to be profane, and accordingly [held] that Solomon, led by religion [scruple], did not dare to mingle the holy name of God with amatory songs — lest, against the precept of the law, he should take the name of God into vain discourses. 2
CONFVTATIO [The Confutation]
But how far (Sed quantum) the carnal opinion of these men strays from the aim [target, σκοπός] of this divine Canticle, the very words of the Canticle demonstrate — [words] which do not suffer themselves to be expounded according to the letter. For such are the similitudes by which they describe that beloved spouse, that — understood according to the exterior sound of the voice [i.e. the literal surface] — they rather deform and disfigure her than illustrate and adorn her. For what can be said, or feigned, more inept than what is here reported concerning the spouse? — namely, that she has an ample head like Mount Carmel; eyes very like the great fishpools which are in Esebon [Heshbon]; a nose exhibiting, by its magnitude, the tower which looks toward Damascus; teeth like flocks of sheep; a neck like the citadel [tower] of Sion, from which a thousand shields hang; hands like golden spheres [globes]; legs like marble columns erected upon golden bases; and moreover, that she is fair as the place [town] of Tirza [Tirzah], comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army set in array. All which things, if [taken] even of the daughter of Pharaoh 3
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[if] of the daughter of Pharaoh, or of a Sulamite [Shulammite] they be understood, [these similitudes] are so rude, unpolished, and rustic that far more elegant and polished are those [songs] which that rude Cyclops, among the poets, is feigned most ineptly to sing to his Galatea. It behooves us, therefore — if we would (as is fitting) free Solomon, the wisest of all men, from the mark of ineptitude — to recall the words of this Canticle from the carnal to the spiritual and mystical understanding, and in it to understand the chaste nuptials of the mystic Bridegroom CHRIST, and of his spouse the Church, or of the soul, whose Epithalamium [wedding-song] is sung in the present volume: as all the fathers testify in the preface to it, and especially Origen, who begins his commentaries in this manner: “The little book (Epithalamium) — that is, the nuptial song — seems to me to have been written by Solomon in the manner of a drama, which he sang after the likeness of a bride about to wed, and burning with heavenly love toward her Bridegroom, who is the Word of God. For he loved him — whether [as] the soul which is made to his image, or [as] the Church. But how magnificent and perfect this Bridegroom [is], [and] with what words he used [speech] toward the soul joined to himself, or [toward] the Church, this same scripture teaches us. The companions also of the bride — young maidens [ladies-in-waiting] placed with the bride herself — what they say; and what likewise the friends and companions of the Bridegroom [say], we come to know out of the same book, which is entitled ‘the Canticle of Canticles.’” These [things] Origen. From which it is most evident that, by the one lover, spouse, and dove of Solomon, is signified the Church, the spouse of Christ; and by the queens and concubines, holy souls joined to Christ through charity — as by “Solomon,” that is, “the peaceable,” Christ, who is truly peaceable, is designated.
As to the fact (Quod) that the carnal readers of this Canticle, not recognizing [it], can find no divine name in it — whereas nevertheless its single songs are full of divine names, by which God names himself, now [as] shepherd, now [as] brother and friend, now [as] bridegroom, now [as] beloved and desirable, of set purpose — those ancient names being passed over (not without the greatest mystery), by which that incomprehensible Majesty had been wont, not without fear, to be circumscribed [bounded] by men: such as אל (El), that is, “the strong”; or אדני (Adonai), that is, “lord”; or שדי (Saddai), that is, “the robust”; or צבאות (Zebaoth), that is, “mighty in arms”; or יהוה (Iehova), which by the Hebrews is reckoned ἀνεκφώνητον (anekphoneton), that is, “unpronounceable” [ineffable]. For when that heavenly Bridegroom, in the present Canticle, wished to console his mystic spouse — [who was] now for so long a time awaiting the kisses of her beloved Bridegroom, and pining away with the deferral of [her] desire — he omitted that most ancient appellation of the divine names, formidable by its very sound, [and] taking in their place new and more gracious names, by the sweetness of whose sounds he might soothe the glowing [ardent] mind of the spouse: calling himself, in place of “lord,” [her] brother, friend, beloved, and bridegroom; in place of “mighty-in-arms,” the peaceable one, and shepherd; in place of “strong and robust,” the wounded and stricken one; in place of “ineffable,” poured-out ointment, a little bundle of myrrh, a cluster of Cyprus [henna], a young hart, chosen out of thousands, fairest of all, wholly desirable and lovable: thus in turn calling his spouse — not, as of old he had been wont to call [her], the land of Israel, the daughter of Sion, the land of Juda — [but] handmaid and servant; nay rather, sister, spouse, friend [beloved], dove, beloved one, only one, fairest of women, and by many other new and coaxing appellations of this kind, by which he might sweetly refresh his beloved spouse, worn out with the long desire of the Bridegroom.