> Here we have the language of the Song of Songs applied to Mary, which
> suggests of course an incestuous relationship with Christ, the
> Son/Bridegroom. I've this sort of thing on occasion before, though I can't
> say where at the moment. But I was wondering if anyone writing in this vein
> ever mentions the problems that arise in applying the sensual language of
> the Song of Songs, not to the soul or the church, but to Mary.
John Wickstrom raises a very interesting question which perhaps needs to
be set within the general context of the tensions within medieval biblical
hermeneutic. Generally speaking, as I understand it, the system of the
four senses allowed each level of meaning to be interpreted without
reference to the others. The meaning of a figure or symbol in a given
biblical passage could be explored in one direction, and then another
taken up and interpreted in a contradictory or inharmonious sense, without
reference to the meaning of the whole. Uneasiness with this procedure led
Aquinas to insist that the spiritual senses had to be founded in the
literal sense (ST 1.10, ad 1), but the habit still continues of holding
together metaphors that are logically incompatible. It is a habit of mind
which disconcerts our more linear logic.
As Jo Ann McNamara said, medieval people did not take this imagery too
literally. But I wonder to what extent were they aware of the tensions it
contains? Baldwin of Ford (d. 1190), commenting on Lk 1.28, explains how
Mary can be at once God's mother (through fruitful virginity), daughter
(through the grace of adoption), sister (through the grace of communion),
spouse (through the pledge of betrothal), friend (through the reciprocity
of love), and neighbour (through the closeness of likeness) (Sermon 13).
It seems hard to tell whether this represents an attempt to clarify a
paradox or simply rejoices in it.
It would be very interesting to know when the "modern", "logical"
criticism, of the kind John proposes, first begins to gain widespread
currency.
And is it significant that when similarly incompatible (and
sexually-charged) metaphors are applied to the church (mater, virgo,
sponsa, meretrix) they don't seem to us (or do they?) to pose such
problems of interpretation?
--
Paul Chandler || Yarra Theological Union
[log in to unmask] || Melbourne College of Divinity
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