* According to another interpretation. Canticles portrays Solomon's love to Wisdom. fThe last representative of this view is Rosenmiiller, in his Scholia in Vet. Test. ; the Peshitta •ubstitutes ^^"^0 for "I'l? in the title of the book). Are we to infer from Wis 83 that the author of the Wisdom, of Solomon already held the same view?
t As a notable representative of this view we may specify Cocceius (fl669), whose federal theology this view of the Song suited admirably.
t Cf. Kostlin, if. Luther, tein Ltben u. aeine Schriften^t ^ P- 610 f.
even in the century of the Reformation, to dej art from the traditional allegorioU interpretation. Seb. Cast^Ilio of CJeneva learned this to his cost when, on account of having seen in the Song a 'geistlich Buhllied,' and having: pronounced it unworthy to stand in the Canon, he was accustd (not, it is true, simply for holding this opinion) by Calvin and banished from Geneva (1544).— A more decided movement in favour of an interpreta- tion correspondint,' to the original sense of the poem, woa inaugurated by Hugo Grotius (t 1*345). Even he, to be sure, does not yet break absolutely with the traditional view, for he does not simply reject an allegorical exegesis, but, primarily and according to the literal sense, the Song is for him concerned only with earthly love, in fact the love of Solomon for the Egyptian princess, his wife.* — The number of those who under- stood the subject to be earthly love and rejected the allegorical interpretation continued to grow ; in particular the pioneers of the critical study of the OT, men like R. Simon, Clericus, Whiston (Cambridge), belonged to this categorj*. "Die first to oppose the allegorical interpretation by weighty arguments was J. D. ilichaelis (in his edition of R. Lowth's De sacra porsi HebrcEoruni prcelectioius, Gottingen, 1753-61, Notes, p. (iiiaff., be even excluded the Song from his translation of tlie Bible). But to J. G. Herder belongs the credit of having helped to its triumphant recognition the only true view of the fundamental character of Canticles as a product of genuine and pure erotic poetry. In his work, entitled Lieder der Liebe, die ulU'Sten uiid scfionsteii aiis detn Morgenlande; nebsi U* alien Minneliedem (177S), he contends that the book is a collection of separate love- songs of an impassioned and morally pure character, and this view of his has continued to gain adherents (Reuss, Budde, et al.', see, further, below) down to the most recent times.
But the allegorical interjiretation also found champions not only among Roman Catholic, but also among Protestant theologians. In itself this is not at all surprising, for any one who took his stand upon the ground of the old orthodox doctrine of inspiration would feel compelled to do justice to the simple fact that the Song is included in the Canon. He would have to bring it into relation with the system of revealed truth, and discover revelation, that is, prophecy, in its contents as well ; for in no other way could he explain its reception into the Canon. Accordingly, we find, on the one hand, a movement in the direction of the old Jewish interpretation. So, in par- ticular, Keil {t'inleitujig, 1S53, p. 373) holds that in Canticles ' in dramatico-lyric responsive songs, and under the allegorj' of the betrothed love of Solomon and the Shulammite,' we have portrayed 'the loving intercourse between the Lord and His people in their ideal character resulting from Israel's choice to this privilege, according to which all disturbing of this inter- course by unfaithfulness on the part of Israel only leads to an establishing more firmly of the co\enant of love, through return to the true covenant God and His unchangeable love.' But, as he himself expressly notes, Keil does not mean by this that we can discover in the Song a literal reflexion of the actual ' history of the covenant relation' or * an allegorical veiling of the principal features of the theocratic history.' On the contrarj*. It is the loving intercourse of the Lord 'according to its Divine idea ' that is portrayed. In this way Keil obtains for the Song a Messianic character in so far as it describes a relation 'which was first realized through Christ.' Accordingly, he insists also upon the inspired character of the book, which is 'no product of the soil of the natural development of the theocratic God- consciousness, but, like the prophetical Psalms, one due to the supernatural working of the Holy Spirit in the mind of Solomon, and so constructed that the mutual love of king Solomon and the ideal Shulammite undergoes transfiguration and becomes an allegory of the marriage of tlie Heavenly Bridegroom with His elect bride on earth.' Of course Keil considers that this allegori co-prophetical view is amply supported by the above- mentioned Biblical description of the covenant relation be- tween Jahweh and Israel under the figure of a marriage union. — The same principle of interpretation lay at the root of Rosen- muller"s original view (cf. Keil and Tschirner's Analekten, i. [1813] p. 138fE. ; for his later \'iew see preceding col., note*), OS well as at that of Hengstenberg (/>a« Hohe Lied, 1853) and others.!— Another set of interpreters reier the contents of the Song (in a Messianic sense) to the mission of the kingdom of Israel to heathendom (H. A. Hahn, 1852), or of Christ to the presently divided Church, whicli is to be brought back to the perfection which belonged to it in the apostolic age (O. F. Goltz, 1850).