In this work, Karl Shuve provides a new account of how the Song of
Songs became one of the most popular biblical texts in medieval
Western Christianity, through a close and detailed study of its
interpretation by late antique Latin theologians. It has often been
presumed that early Latin writers exercised little influence on the
medieval interpretation of the poem, since there are so few extant
commentaries from the period. But this is to overlook the hundreds
of citations of and allusions to the Song in the writings of
influential figures such as Cyprian, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine
as well as the lesser-known theologian Gregory of Elvira. Through a
comprehensive analysis of these citations and allusions, Shuve
argues that contrary to the expectations of many modern scholars,
the Song of Songs was not a problematic text for early Christian
theologians, but was a resource that they mined as they debated the
nature of the church and of the virtuous life. The first part of
the volume considers the use of the Song in the churches of Roman
Africa and Spain, where bishops and theologians focused on images
of enclosure and purity invoked in the poem. In the second part,
the focus is late fourth-century Italy, where a new ascetic
interpretation, concerned particularly with women's piety, began to
emerge. This erotic poem gradually became embedded in the
discursive traditions of Latin Late Antiquity, which were
bequeathed to the Christian communities of early medieval Europe.
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