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Martin Luther's Political Interpretation of the Song of Songs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2011

Jarrett A. Carty
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Abstract

Martin Luther argued that the Hebrew Bible's Song of Songs was “an encomium of the political order,” a praise and thanksgiving to God for the gift of temporal government. Luther's political interpretation of this book was unique in his age, and remains so in the history of biblical commentary. This paper offers an account of Luther's peculiar interpretation, as well as its place in his interpretation of the Bible and in the history of biblical commentary, by arguing that it exhibits the foundational idea of his political thought that secular authority is a precious gift from God, and that the Song of Songs, as a praise of conjugal love, provides for political authority a fitting biblical encomium.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 73 , Issue 3 , Summer 2011 , pp. 449 - 467
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2011

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References

1 LW 15:191; WA 32 II:587. All English textual references and excerpts are from Luther's Works (LW), American Edition (St. Louis and Philadelphia: Concordia and Fortress Presses, 1958–1986). German and Latin references to Luther's texts are from the authoritative Weimarer Ausgabe (WA) editions (Weimar: H. Bohlau, 1883–1993).

2 Bloch, Ariel and Bloch, Chana, The Song of Songs: A New Translation with an Introduction and Commentary (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 3Google Scholar.

3 LW 15:195; WA 32 II:595.

4 Part of the full title of the commentary, “Dr. Martin Luther's Brief but Altogether Lucid Exposition of the Song of Songs,” LW 15:194; WA 31 II:589.

5 The most seminal are the earliest writings that explain this teaching: Christian Liberty (LW 31:327–77; WA 7:1–38) and Temporal Authority (LW 45:75–129; WA 10:374–417).

6 Examples of each point of view are, respectively, Marius, Richard, Martin Luther: The Christian between God and Death (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999)Google Scholar and Wilson, Derek, Out of the Storm: The Life and Legacy of Martin Luther (New York: St. Martin's, 2008)Google Scholar.

7 Whitford, David M., “Luther's Political Encounters,” in The Cambridge Companion to Martin Luther, ed. McKim, Donald K. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 190Google Scholar.

8 Most notable and useful has been Estes, James, Peace, Order, and the Glory of God: Secular Authority and the Church in the Thought of Luther and Melanchthon, 1518–1559 (Leiden: Brill, 2005)Google Scholar; see also Whitford, David, “Cura religionis or Two Kingdoms: The Late Luther on Religion and the State in the Lectures on Genesis,” Church History 73, no. 1 (2004): 41–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Maxfield, John A., Luther's Lectures on Genesis and the Formation of Evangelical Identity, Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies 80 (Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2008)Google Scholar, esp. 73–140; Estes, James, “Luther on the Role of Secular Authority in the Reformation,” Lutheran Quarterly 17, no. 2 (2003): 199–225Google Scholar; Keen, Ralph, Divine and Human Authority in Reformation Thought (Nieuwkoop, Netherlands: De Graaf, 1997)Google Scholar. A classic introduction to Luther's political thought remains Thompson, W. D. James Cargill, The Political Thought of Martin Luther (Sussex: Harvester, 1984)Google Scholar; unfortunately this volume was published posthumously from manuscript notes and remains slightly underdeveloped, yet it remains very useful.

9 See Whitford, David, Tyranny and Resistance: The Magdeberg Confession and the Lutheran Tradition (St. Louis: Concordia, 2001)Google Scholar; Shoenberger, Cynthia Grant, “Luther and the Justifiability of Resistance to Legitimate Authority,” Journal of the History of Ideas 40 (1979): 3–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This issue is particularly focused on Luther's reaction to the Schmalkaldic League and the wars between the newly named “Protestant” territories and the Catholic lands of the Holy Roman Empire in the 1530s.

10 See Estes, Peace, Order and the Glory of God, and Whitford, “Cura Religionis or Two Kingdoms.”

11 LW 15:194–95; WA 31 II:590.

12 Ibid.

13 LW 15:200; WA 31 II:609.

14 Modern interpretation considers this verse to be the words of the woman.

15 LW 15:205; WA 31 II:621.

16 LW 15:210; WA 31 II:631.

17 LW 15:214; WA 31 II:643.

18 LW 15:216; WA 31 II:648.

19 LW 15:223–26; WA 31 II:666–73.

20 LW 15:225; WA 31 II:670.

21 LW 15:201; WA 31 II:613.

22 LW 15:221; WA 31 II:663.

23 The topic is far too large to treat adequately in this article. Luther's reaction to the Peasants' Revolt and the radical reformers behind it can be seen in his Admonition to Peace, A Reply to the Twelve Articles of the Peasants in Swabia (LW 46:3–43; WA 8291–334), Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants (LW 46:45–55; WA 18:357–61), and An Open Letter on the Harsh Book Against the Peasants (LW 46:57–85; WA 18:384–401). For an excellent overview of Luther and the “false brethren,” see Edwards, Mark U., Luther and the False Brethren (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1975)Google Scholar.

24 LW 15:192; WA 31 II:588.

25 LW 15:211; WA 31 II:634.

26 LW 15:203; WA 31 II:616.

27 LW 15:229; WA 31 II:680.

28 LW 15:231; WA 31 II:686.

29 Ibid.

30 LW 15:249; WA 31 II:736.

31 For example, in one of the most controversial works of his early career as a reformer, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Luther famously rejected marriage as a sacrament, precisely on the grounds that this turned it into works of righteousness and robbed secular government of its proper domain (LW 36:92–106). See Luther's A Sermon on the Estate of Marriage of 1519 (LW 44:7–15; WA 2:166–171) and the 1522 treatise The Estate of Marriage (LW 45:17–49; WA 10 II:275–304).

32 LW 35:362; WA DB VI:10. These words on James, among many others, did not ever appear in Luther's complete Bible, nor in editions of Luther's New Testament after 1537. See LW 35:358n5.

33 LW 35:398; WA DB VII:387.

34 LW 35:398–99; WA DB VII:404.

35 Bainton, “The Bible in the Reformation,” 25; McGrath, Alister E., The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 152CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 LW 10:4; WA 3:11. See Ebeling, Gerhard, “Der vierfache Schriftsinn und die Unterscheidung von litera und spiritus,” Lutherstudien 1 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1971), 51–61Google Scholar.

37 LW 10:4; WA 3:11.

38 See Althaus, Paul, The Theology of Martin Luther, trans. Schultz, Robert C. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1966), 74–78Google Scholar; Bornkamm, Heinrich, Luther and the Old Testament, trans. , Eric W. and Gritsch, Ruth C. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969), 81–83Google Scholar.

39 LW 15:195; WA 31 II,594.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid.

42 Pope, Marvin H., ed., Song of Songs: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977), 89Google Scholar.

43 Murphy, Roland E., “Book of Song of Songs,” in Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. Freedman, David N. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1992), 6:154Google Scholar

44 Murphy, Roland E., A Commentary on the Book of Canticles or The Song of Songs (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 11Google Scholar; Rowley, Harold H., “The Interpretation of the Song of Songs,” in The Servant of the Lord, and Other Essays on the Old Testament (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965), 197Google Scholar.

45 Murphy, “Book of Song of Songs,” 154; Pope, Song of Songs, 89; Bloch and Bloch, The Song of Songs, 29.

46 Scheper, George L., “Reformation Attitudes toward Allegory and the Song of Songs,” PMLA 89, no. 3 (1974): 552CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 Ibid., 552.

48 LW 15:194; WA 31 II:589.

49 See Origen, , The Song of Songs: Commentary and Homilies, trans. Lawson, R. P. (Westminster, MD: Newman, 1957)Google Scholar. Only part of Origen's commentary survives.

50 Murphy, Commentary on the Book of Canticles, 18.

51 Brown, Peter, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity, rev. ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 172–73Google Scholar.

52 For a concise summary of these interpretations see Pope, The Song of Songs, 117–19; Murphy, Commentary on the Book of Canticles, 21.

53 Murphy, Commentary, 22.

54 Ibid., 23.

55 Bloch and Bloch, Song of Songs, 29–30; Grossfeld, Bernard, ed., The Targum to the Five Megilloth (New York: Hermon, 1973), 171–252Google Scholar.

56 Cohen, Gerson D., “The Song of Songs and the Jewish Religious Mentality,” in The Canon and Masorah of the Hebrew Bible, ed. Orlinsky, Harry M. (New York: Ktav, 1974), 279Google Scholar.

57 Although it is quite clearly the category of interpretation most widely accepted today. See Phipps, William E., “The Plight of the Song of Songs,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 42, no. 1 (1974): 82–100CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

58 Theodore's views on the biblical interpretation and the Incarnation were condemned by the councils of Ephesus (431) and Constantinople (553).

59 Pope, Song of Songs, 120.

60 Bloch and Bloch, Song of Songs, 30.

61 Bainton, Roland H., “The Bible in the Reformation,” in The Cambridge History of the Bible: The West from the Reformation to the Present Day, ed. Greenslade, S. L. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), 8Google Scholar. For a detailed account of the dispute and Castellio's life, see Guggisberg, Hans R., Sebastian Castellio, 1515–1563: Humanist und Verteidiger der religiösen Toleranz im konfessionellen Zeitalter (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997)Google Scholar.

62 LW 46:238; WA 30 I:153.

63 Pope, Song of Songs, 125–29.

64 Brecht, Martin, Martin Luther: Shaping and Defining the Reformation, 1521–1532, trans. Schaaf, James L. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 249Google Scholar.

65 Skinner, Quentin, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, vol. 2, The Age of Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978)Google Scholar.