Exposition on the Song of Songs (Volume 6)

Cistercian Fathers Series #6

by William of Saint-Thierry

Perhaps no book was more central to medieval spirituality and mysticism," writes Bernard McGinn, "or more problematic to contemporary readers, than the Song of Songs. . . Lingering Victorian attitudes towards the opposition between sex and religion find the Song's frank erotic language embarrassing and even distasteful." But in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, the Song of Songs was a favorite book of Cistercian monks. Bernard of Clairvaux, Gilbert of Hoyland, and John of Ford, as well as William of Saint Thierry, read it as a dialogue between Christ the Bridegroom and the human soul, the Bride. William of Saint Thierry began composing his commentary soon after entering the Cistercian abbey of Signy in 1135. Having left behind a busy life as a Benedictine abbot and author of theological treatises, he turned to writing meditations on Scripture as the means of listening to the voice of the Beloved. It is therefore ironic that he broke off his commentary on the Song, never to return to it, to alert the Church in France to the teaching of Peter Abelard and then to compose two treatises correcting what he deeply believed were Abelard's theological errors. "

169 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

Reviews

[香 靜 · Rating 4 out of 5]

As Kierkegaard’s book, this one is also my methodology for analyzing sponsa Christi, again I did not finish whole book before my deadline. For some mystical reason, I lagged behind my reading schedule for this book, and most of the time, I was enshrouded in the melancholy that I could never experience the bliss described by William of Thierry. I guess I am the girl without much faith.
As usual, I am enthralled by the Christian depiction of human’s struggle in satisfying appetites for vice and virtue, because it is the part that I can most relate to. However, I still cannot fully comprehend the author’s disputation about why God as the Bridegroom peers through the lattice to the Bride. Of course, for William of Thierry and other theologians, God’s intention cannot be deciphered by human, who is inferior to Him. But this metaphorical description always makes me associate with the sinister motto “Big brother is watching you!” I know this problem cannot be solved by reason, since every reasonable conjecture will finally hit the insuperable wall representing the abysmal disjuncture between human and God.
The biggest reward after reading this treatise is that I know that I aspire to the love described by William of Thierry. He specifies that reason or intellect functions totally different from love, for reasons conform the perceived object into its shape, while love transforms itself to the loved. The apparent testimony is Christ’s incarnation, by which he takes the human form in order to redeem human beings. Through love we reach out to others not force others to in or out.