possibility of more fortunate or pure-hearted natures winning the prize he has failed to grasp. For his agnosticism never touches the existence of God Himself. However unable man may be to reach a satisfying knowledge of the Divine, He remains the great energizing Force behind all the phenomena of Nature. And to Agur this Divine presence is not the inscrutable First Cause of the modern agnostic. He is a real personal Being, with a Name, if only the sons of men could learn it! But there is yet more positive faith in the words of Agur. If God be inaccessible even to the boldest flights of speculative reason, He has nevertheless unveiled His mind and will through the visions of prophet and Psalmist. And on this revelation Agur finds a resting-place amid the surging waters of his doubt. Even if the brave notes of Ps. xviii. 30,

Every word of God is tried;

He is a shield unto them that trust Him,

be a later insertion in the words of Agur' (vv. 5f.), the sequel shows how God was still his refuge and strength. The request that he be kept true to the golden mean is a prayer addressed to Heaven. And the reason explicitly given is lest earthly riches and enjoyments tempt him to deny Jahweh, or on the other hand stress of poverty lead him to steal his neighbour's goods, and thus 'profane the name of his God' (v. 9).

Thus, as wisdom based her speculations on God, so does the fear of God remain the sure ground of the wise man's confidence to the end. His efforts to penetrate the final mysteries may drive him back bewildered on the thought of his own utter ignorance. Yet God is God for ever. And in Him there is salvation. The mind is, no doubt, left with an unsolved antinomy. But the very strength with which faith is maintained in the face of difficulty and doubt is the prophecy of its ultimate victory. In darkness itself the light is broadening' unto the perfect day.'

CHAPTER XVIII

The Song of Songs

THE scanty survivals of the old folk-poetry of Israel were found strangely lacking in love-songs. It can hardly be doubted, however, that here, too, the heart-strings of man and maiden were touched by the golden bow to sweetest music. In the more literary age the tender grace of human affection gave even to the quiet wisdom of Proverbs the true feeling of poetry. But far richer strains are drawn forth in the series of exquisite lyrics entitled shir hashshirim, 'the Song of Songs,' that is, the sweetest of all songs. Through the whole Book there breathes a fresh delight in Nature, and a joyous rapture of affection, that reminds one rather of the idylls of Theocritus and the Greek Anthologists, or the more passionate love poetry of modern times, than the grave religious tones of Scripture.

Our wider views of inspiration lead us to welcome the presence of love-songs in the Canon. We may even subscribe to Niebuhr's judgment, that 'the Bible would be lacking in something if one could not find in it expression for the deepest and strongest

sentiments of humanity.' But the Book had its struggle for admission. Its frank naturalism, and highly sensuous imagery, raised persistent suspicion against its sanctity. Not indeed till the Synod of Jamnia (A.D. 90) was the question finally set at rest. And even then the prohibition was laid down that no Jew must read the Book unless he had reached the mature age of thirty. But having finally secured its place in the Scriptures, the Song speedily captured the hearts of the most devout. The famous Rabbi Akiba, writing about the year 120, says, 'The whole world does not outweigh the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel; all the Writings are holy, but the Song is the holiest of all.' And he pronounces a solemn anathema against any who should dare to sing the Song at banquets, as was apparently still done, in the manner of secular songs : 'Whosoever sings from the Song of Songs in the wine-houses, making it a common song, shall have no share in the world to come.' The Song was thus no longer read by orthodox Jews as a human lovesong, but as a profound allegory of spiritual love, Solomon being identified with God, and the beloved with the Jewish people He had chosen for His own, and the sweet interchanges of affection being translated into passionate effusions of the heart of God and His people in mutual love. In the Targum and

1 Renan, Song of Songs, E.T., p. 106.

Midrash Shir rabba this mystical interpretation of the Song blossoms into wonderful luxuriance. And from the Synagogue it passed to the Christian Church, where it enjoyed still greater vogue. Traces of the influence of the Book may be noted as early as the Odes of Solomon.1 But it was Origen who gave the decisive impulse to allegorization. In his ten-volumed Commentary on the Song he is said to have surpassed even himself. He recognized the literal significance of the Book as an epithalamium, or marriage drama; but his real strength he gave to the elucidation of its mystical sense as a true lovesong of Christ and the soul He had redeemed, or of Christ and His Church. Reading the Book in this sense, devout natures, whose souls were starved by the hard, dry bones of Scholasticism, found in the warm feeling of the Song the refreshment and nurture their spirits craved for. The mystics naturally revelled in its fresh welling fountains of emotion. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux has no fewer than eightysix sermons on the first two chapters of the Song. And its influence is transparent in his own spiritual hymns. But even so sternly logical a thinker as Thomas Aquinas felt the spell of the Book. In his last illness, uplifted by visions of God's love that

1 Odes, iii. 5ff.

Cf. Riedel, Die Auslegung des Hoheliedes in der jüdischen Gemeinde und der Griechischen Kirche.