The Song of Songs in the Early Middle Ages [ebook ed.] 9004389253, 9789004389250

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The Song of Songs in the Early Middle Ages

Studies in the History of Christian Traditions Editor-​in-​Chief Robert J. Bast (Knoxville, Tennessee) Editorial Board Paul C.H. Lim (Nashville, Tennessee) Brad C. Pardue (Point Lookout, Missouri) Eric Saak (Indianapolis) Christine Shepardson (Knoxville, Tennessee) Brian Tierney (Ithaca, New York) John Van Engen (Notre Dame, Indiana) Founding Editor Heiko A. Oberman†

VOLUME 191

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/​shct

The Song of Songs in the Early Middle Ages By

Hannah W. Matis

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Cover illustration: The Pericopes of Henry II, ninth-​century ivory cover, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 4452. Photo courtesy of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Matis, Hannah W., author. Title: The Song of Songs in the early Middle Ages / by Hannah W. Matis. Description: Boston : Brill, 2019. | Series: Studies in the history of Christian traditions, ISSN 1573-5664 ; VOLUME 191 | Includes bibliographical references. Identifiers: LCCN 2018051685 | ISBN 9789004361508 Subjects: LCSH: Bible. Song of Solomon–Criticism, interpretation, etc.–History–To 1500. Classification: LCC BS1485.52 .M38 2019 | DDC 223/.9060902–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018051685

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/​brill-​typeface. ISSN 1573-​5664 ISBN 978-​90-​04-​36150-​8 (hardback) ​I SBN 978-​90-​04-​38925-​0 (e-​book) Copyright 2019 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-​free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Acknowledgements vii Abbreviations viii Introduction: Love in a Cold Climate: the Song of Songs and the Carolingian Reform 1 1 The Mother of Invention: Bede’s Commentary on the Song of Songs 23 1.1 Late Antique Exegesis on the Song of Songs 24 1.2 Exegetical Authority on the Make: Bede’s Commentary on the Song of Songs 27 1.3 Re-​writing the Plot of the Song 34 1.4 Diversity in Unity: a Gregorian Ecclesiology of the Church 38 1.5 The Doctores 42 1.6 The Gregorian Interpretation of the Song of Songs 57 2 Adoptionism and the Song of Songs: Exegesis, Controversy, and Context 59 2.1 The Challenge of Adoptionism 62 2.2 The Challenge of the forma servi 68 2.3 Elipandus of Toledo and Beatus of Liébana 72 2.4 Iustus of Urgell 77 2.5 Theodulf of Orléans and the Opus Caroli regis contra synodum 78 2.6 Alcuin and the Pseudodoctores 85 2.7 Paulinus of Aquileia’s Three Books against Felix 88 2.8 The Legacy of Controversy 92 3 “Fair as the Moon, Bright as the Sun”: Visions of the Church in the Song of Songs 93 3.1 Ambrose Autpert: the Watchmen and the Bride 98 3.2 Agobard of Lyons’s De modo regiminis ecclesiastici 106 3.3 Haimo of Auxerre: the Pressures and Labors of This Age 111 3.4 Ecclesia and Synagoga 113

vi Contents 4 Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? The Making of the City Watch 117 4.1 Educating the Clergy, Defining the Church: Carolingian Baptismal Expositions 118 4.2 Labora in uerbo predicationis: Alcuin and the doctores 120 4.3 Haimo of Auxerre and the Song of Songs as Carolingian School Text 128 4.4 Amalarius of Metz’s On the Liturgy 135 5 Writing a Song for Solomon: Song Exegesis for Carolingian Kings 139 5.1 The King, the Prophet, and the Book of the Law 140 5.2 Like Dripping Honey: Alcuin and Charlemagne 147 5.3 Lothar, Angelomus of Luxeuil, and the Enarrationes in Cantica Canticorum 148 5.4 Charles the Bald, Hincmar of Rheims, and the Explanatio in Ferculum Salomonis 162 6 “Love’s Lament”: Paschasius Radbertus and the Song of Songs 176 6.1 Singing the Life of Heaven: Paschasius, the Liturgy, and the Song of Songs 180 6.2 Perfumes and Ointments: Paschasius’s Commentary on Matthew and the Song of Songs 184 6.3 Diverse Laments: Paschasius’s Commentary on Lamentations and the Song of Songs 188 6.4 The Absent Bridegroom: Paschasius, Adalhard, and Corbie 196 6.5 Lilies of the Valley: Paschasius’s Exposition on Psalm 44 (45) and the Nuns of Soissons 203 6.6 The Garden Enclosed: Paschasius and the Virgin Mary 210 Conclusion 214 Bibliography 223 1 Editions and Translations 223 2 Secondary Material 227 Index 253

Acknowledgements I owe a particular debt of gratitude to the Conant Fund of the Episcopal Church, who has given me generous research support over the course of the last three years. I would like to thank the Board of Trustees at Virginia Theological Seminary, likewise, for their support of my teaching and research through their grant of a semester’s sabbatical, in which I completed this book. I would like to thank those of my colleagues who participated in several faculty seminars in which we read draft chapters, particularly Melody Knowles, Justin Lewis-​Anthony, and Bob Prichard. I am extremely grateful to Mitzi Budde, head librarian extraordinaire of the Bishop Payne Library, and to her team of library staff:  for endlessly re-​shelving orange piles of the Corpus Christianorum, for letting me pounce early on new acquisitions, and for helping me to acquire books outside the ordinary remit of a small theological library. I would also like to thank my students at Virginia Theological Seminary; for a historian of clerical identity, it is a great privilege to watch the process happening in the moment and on the ground. This book began its life in the community of scholars at the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame. I owe a great debt to Tom Noble, my supervisor, for direction, support, and wry advice. I would also like to thank John Van Engen, Brad Gregory, John Cavadini, and Ann Astell for valuable input. Beyond Notre Dame, I would like to thank John Contreni, Karl Shuve, Tom Hall, David Ganz, and Clare Stancliffe. I would also like to thank Jon and Hollie Adamson, Sarah Baechle, Roberta Baranowski, Elizabeth Bentrup, Margaret Cinninger, Zack Giuliano, Mthr. Elizabeth Hadaway, Mthr. Susan Haynes, Mae Kilker, Evan Lamb, Anna Larsen, Hailey LaVoy, Paul Moberly, Jenny McAuley, Cara Rockhill, Julia Schneider, Megan Welton, Lauren Whitnah, and Stacy Williams-​Duncan. My family listened patiently to disquisitions on the Carolingian clergy, and then dragged me outside and put me on a horse, for which, always, and for everything, my love. For the maintenance of general sanity, I am grateful to the work of Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo—​hello to Jason Isaacs!—​David Attenborough, Georgette Heyer, and Terry Pratchett—​hello to Sam Vimes! At Brill, I am indebted to Robert Bast and Ivo Romein; what mistakes remain are entirely my own.

Abbreviations cccm ccsl Commentarium

Corpus Christianorum, continuatio medievalis Corpus Christianorum, series latina Haimo of Auxerre, Commentarium in Cantica Canticorum, PL 117, cols. 295–​358D Compendium Alcuin, Compendium in Canticum Canticorum, ed. Rossana E. Guglielmetti, in Commento al Cantico dei Cantici (Florence:  sismel, 2004), 117–​80 cpl Eligius Dekkers, Clavis patrum latinorum, 3rd ed. (Turnhout: Brepols, 1995) [cited by no.] cppm Johannes Machielsen, Clavis Patristica Pseudepigraphorum Medii Aevi, 1A-​B:  Homiletica (Turnhout:  Brepols, 1990); 2A:  Theologica, Exegetica; 2B: Ascetica, Monastica (1994); 3A: Artes Liberales (2003) [cited by vol. and no.] csel Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum [cited by no.] cslma Marie Hélène Jullien and Françoise Perelman, Clavis Scriptorum Latinorum Medii Aevi. Auctores Galliae 735–​987. 1:  Abbo Sangermanensis-​ Ermoldus Nigellus (Turnhout, 1994); 2:  Alcuin (1999) icc Bede, In Cantica Canticorum Libri VI, ed. David Hurst, in Opera exegetica, CCSL 119B (Turnhout: Brepols, 1983), 165–​375 mgh Monumenta Germaniae Historica ncmh New Cambridge Medieval History PL Patrologia Latina rbma Friedrich Stegmüller, Repertorium Biblicum Medii Aevi, 11 vols. (Madrid, 1950–​80) [cited by vol. and no.] SC Sources Chrétiennes

Introduction: Love in a Cold Climate: the Song of Songs and the Carolingian Reform

In the early medieval world, before the great universities and before many of the cathedral schools were founded, the intellectual life of Europe happened in monasteries. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, monasteries were the centers of literacy and of learning, as monks and nuns copied manuscripts and, in an enormous investment of labor, time, and resources, saved many texts from the ancient world from destruction.1 But monks were hardly disinterested researchers: their intellectual pursuits, however important for the preservation of western European culture, to them were ancillary to their primary purpose, the performance of the divine office. They could potentially have many other duties as well. In regions in which great monasteries often wielded greater material resources than the diocesan clergy and certainly had better reputations among local communities for holiness of life, early medieval monastic centers were also important staging points for missionary initiatives and pastoral care.2 In spite, or even because of their reputation for keeping some distance from the secular world, monasteries continued to be deeply enmeshed in complex political and social networks: land management, food and military renders, saints’ cults and pilgrimage traffic, intimate relationships with local families.3 1 Wilhelm Levison, England and the Continent in the Eighth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946), 132–​73; Pierre Riché, Education and Culture in the Barbarian West, Sixth through Eighth Centuries, trans. John J. Contreni (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1976); Rosamond McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); John J. Contreni, Carolingian Learning, Masters and Manuscripts (Variorum: Ashgate Publishing, 1992); Marcia Colish, Medieval Foundations of the Western Intellectual Tradition, 400-​1400 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 42–​75. 2 Pastoral Care Before the Parish, ed. John Blair and Richard Sharpe (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1992); Ian Wood, The Missionary Life: Saints and the Evangelisation of Europe, 400-​1050 (New York: Longman, 2001); Thomas L. Amos, “Monks and Pastoral Care in the Early Middle Ages,” in Religion, Culture, and Society in the Early Middle Ages: Studies Presented to Richard Sullivan, ed. Thomas F. X. Noble and John J. Contreni (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1987), 165–​80; Ingrid Rembold, Conquest and Christianization: Saxony and the Carolingian World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 205–​42. 3 M. M. Hildebrandt, The External School in Carolingian Society (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 21–​71; Matthew Innes, State and Society in the Early Middle Ages: The Middle Rhine Valley, 400-​1000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 100–​105; Renie S. Choy, Intercessory Prayer and

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 | DOI:10.1163/9789004389250_002

2 Introduction In this context, most of the ancient texts that survived were saved because they were seen to be helpful: if pagan, because they represented the riches of the Egyptians good Christians had a right to plunder, if Christian, because they spoke to the needs and interests of the monasteries. Much of the Christian material was biblical commentary, the works of the Greek and Latin fathers, who left behind a formidably complex body of interpretation and theology informed by the Roman educational system and classical rhetorical models.4 Although early medieval authors sincerely revered the patristic tradition, however, the fathers’ teaching was not always self-​evident or easy to follow; never systematic, the patristic tradition was not comprehensive in its coverage of the biblical text, either. Moreover, due to the scarcity and expense of manuscripts, at any one local monastery, at any one point in time, it was a tradition that would only have been accessible piecemeal. Scripture itself circulated not as a single volume but as a bewildering hodgepodge of texts, and the liturgy preserved many older variants, which often continued to be the most familiar versions of scripture to early medieval authors even when the Latin Vulgate became standard.5 Despite endless protests of monastic humility as they

the Monastic Ideal in the Time of the Carolingian Reforms (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016); Stuart Airlie, “ ‘For it is written in the law’: Ansegis and the Writing of Carolingian Royal Authority,” in Early Medieval Studies in Honor of Patrick Wormald, ed. Stephen David Baxter (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 222. 4 For a recent study of Cassiodorus’s Explanation of the Psalms situated in this context of textual preservation, see Derek A. Olsen, The Honey of Souls: Cassiodorus and the Interpretation of the Psalms in the Early Medieval West (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2017). Arguably, monasticism itself as an institution represented a particularly stringent and literal kind of biblical exegesis: the Benedictine Rule, for example, is thick with scriptural citation. Encoded within monastic devotional practice from its earliest days was a deep obsession with the biblical text, the memorization of the psalter in particular. See the essays contained in The Harp of Prophecy: Early Christian Interpretation of the Psalms, ed. Brian Daley and Paul Kolbet (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015); The Place of the Psalms in the Intellectual Culture of the Middle Ages, ed. Nancy Van Deusen (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999); Henry Mayr-​Harting, “Praying the Psalter in Carolingian Times: What Was Supposed To Be Going on in the Minds of Monks?” in Prayer and Thought in Monastic Tradition: Essays in Honour of Benedicta Ward, ed. Santha Bhattarcharji, Rowan Williams, and Dominic Mattos (Bloomsbury: T&T Clark, 2014), 77–​100. 5 See the essays by Pierre-​Maurice Bogaert, David Ganz, John Contreni, and Joseph Dyer, collected in The New Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 2, from 600-​1450, ed. Richard Marsden and E. Ann Matter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 69–​92, 327–​37, 505–​535, and 659–​79; Felice Lifshitz, Religious Women in Early Carolingian Francia: A Study of Manuscript Transmission and Monastic Culture (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014), 87–​90; Frans Van Liere, An Introduction to the Medieval Bible (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2014), 20–​52.

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followed “in the footsteps of the fathers,” early medieval authors frequently found themselves in uncharted territory. Scripture, then, continued to pose several intellectual challenges to the monasteries of the early medieval west: how to make it relevant, how to make it useful, and how to make it safe. At first blush, no biblical text would have seemed less relevant, less useful, or less safe than the Song of Songs. A collection of highly erotic poetry, traditionally understood as a wedding-​song in honor of its two protagonists known as the Bride and the Bridegroom, its imagery deliberately juxtaposes the lovers with the heady world of a Middle Eastern garden: figs, date palms, vines, lilies, spices and perfumes. The Bride is the central, justly celebrated figure of the Song, gloriously forthright in her sexuality and in celebration of her own body and that of her beloved. The poetry seems to have no agenda but itself; God, or indeed any religious subject, is not mentioned once. What was a group of celibate men in cold, dark northern Europe to make of this? One of the central premises of patristic, and in turn of early medieval biblical interpretation was that every word of scripture, including the Old Testament, was divinely inspired. God made allowances for the limitations of human nature, however, and for contingent human language in particular, and spoke to us over long periods of time in a way that we could understand, with the result that this inspiration was buried or encoded within the literal meaning of scripture.6 The biblical exegete sought to crack this code, so to speak, and to find the spiritual meaning hidden within the most shocking or disreputable saga of patriarchal dysfunction. To accomplish this, the central interpretive tool bequeathed to early medieval exegetes by the patristic tradition was allegory. Allegory could assume an underlying symmetry behind unrelated events; using allegory, chains of association could link a diverse assortment of imagery across Old and New Testaments.7 Multiple meanings layered one on top of another, without any real necessity to find a single correct interpretation of individual scriptural passages. After all, it was a trope of patristic exegesis that scripture was by definition inexhaustible, Gregory the Great’s ocean in 6 The classic western statement of this view is Augustine’s Book ii of De Doctrina Christiana. 7 James L. Kugel and Rowan A. Greer, Early Biblical Interpretation (Philadelphia, Westminster Press, 1986), 81–​90; Frances Young, Exegesis and Theology in Early Christianity (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2012); Hans Boersma, Scripture as Real Presence: Sacramental Exegesis in the Early Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017), 17–​26. It is arguable to what extent allegorical exegesis of scripture ever does manage to transcend the letter of the text, instead “interconnecting and criss-​crossing the verbal surface long before one can accurately speak of moving to another level ‘beyond’ the literal.” Maureen Quilligan, The Language of Allegory: Defining the Genre (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979), 28.

4 Introduction which a lamb could paddle and an elephant could swim.8 Within this hermeneutical tradition, biblical texts could be endlessly invoked, combined, and re-​ combined irrespective of their original historical context. However distressing to modern critical sensibilities, it did mean that the entire bible was “live,” to hand, relevant, and applicable. Allegorical interpretation understandably has had an abysmal reputation among modern scholars: allegory evades or ducks potentially unpleasant or challenging readings, elides complexities, and imposes alien and exotic interpretations upon texts that can’t sustain them. Allegorical exegesis can seem as obstinately misguided in its premises as alchemy, forcing far-​fetched interpretations on texts whose meaning should be self-​evident. For early medieval authors, however, allegory acted like a hermeneutical safety net, a route by which the bewildered exegete could find a way back to familiar home truths, offering a means by which the patchwork quilt of scripture could be harmonized and brought into accordance with the simple rule of faith. A tacit assumption often made by modern scholars is that the literal sense of scripture is somehow more “real” and grounded in scientific principles than allegorical interpretations of scripture, and that, by comparison, allegory is somehow always abstract, bizarre, and removed from reality. While this certainly can be the case, it obscures the degree to which allegory was often a way for the medieval exegete to anchor the strangeness of the biblical text to his commonplace, even everyday social and spiritual reality. In terms of Song language, for example, to the Venerable Bede, the literal sense of a date palm in eighth-​century Northumbria was, no doubt, a good deal more removed from his actual life experience than his allegorical understanding of it as a figure for the church. On occasion, allegory permitted more complex and creative ways of approaching the biblical text, particularly the Old Testament, than a modern reader’s post-​Enlightenment assumption that ancient texts were intended as literal depictions of events: Origen in the third century doubted whether Genesis 1 should be taken literally, for example.9 For the historian, leaving aside the question of whether early medieval allegorical interpretation was “correct” or not, the study of exegesis reveals which portions of the biblical text resonated with the pressing theological issues and political questions of the day. Since Origen, and even more, I  will argue, since the work of Gregory the Great and Bede, early medieval exegetes read the Song of Songs primarily, although not exclusively, as an allegory of the relationship between Christ and 8 “Quasi quidam quippe est fluuius, ut ita dixerim, planus et altus, in quo et agnus ambulet et elephas natet.” Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob, ed. M. Adriaen, CCSL 143 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1979), Epist. ad Leandrum, lns. 177–​78. 9 Origen, First Principles, trans. Rowan Greer (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1976), cap. 3.

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the Church. Read in this way, many of the frustrating or puzzling aspects of the Song text paradoxically became its greatest strengths. The discontinuity and ambiguity of the poetry, that it is not always clear who is speaking which parts of the Song and to whom, were not as troublesome if it could be assumed from the outset that the poetry always referred either to Christ or his church. The overall effect of the Song of Songs, in which its idealized figures float and even to some extent blur into their idealized landscape, strengthened the impression of the text as a vision of transcendent, eternal realities outside of time. The almost itemized praise of each individual feature of the Bride’s face and body became an ideal template which exegetes could use to think about the church, its mission, its structural organization, and in particular, the role played by its senior learned men, the doctores of the church.10 Moreover, the Song of Songs’ mix of formalized eulogy with small, dramatic personal narratives meant that any resulting model of the church would be dynamic; like Augustine’s City of God on pilgrimage through history, the Bride suffers, wanders, and waits, none too patiently, for her beloved to return. The entirety of the Song of Songs is spoken, and indeed, if the Bridegroom and the Bride could be imagined as Christ and the church, the whole text could be imagined as a dialogue, the dialogue somehow continually going on between the head and the body of Christ, on which the exegete could listen in. Finally, the very sensuality of the Song of Songs became its greatest asset, a way to draw in and intensify to the reader the immediacy of those transcendent figures of Christ and the church. More specifically, it magnified the urgency of the Bridegroom’s calls to his Bride to come out to him and to speak, understood allegorically as calls for preaching and for church reform. A cluster of commentaries on the Song of Songs dates from the ninth century. Two of these works, those of Alcuin11 and Haimo of Auxerre,12 are based 10

11

12

“It is a commonplace that medieval political thought sought, to some extent, a reflection of the divine order on earth. This implies that biblical exegesis is essential to political theory. In turn, if reform depended on notions about the heavenly city, then one would expect eschatological writings to be inherently about ecclesiology (though not exclusively).” Louis I. Hamilton, introduction to Reforming the Church Before Modernity: Patterns, Problems, and Approaches, ed. Christopher M. Belitto and Louis I. Hamilton (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2005), xxiii. Alcuin, Compendium in Canticum Canticorum, ed. Rossana E. Guglielmetti, Commento al Cantico dei Cantici (Florence: sismel, 2004), 117–​80; CSLMA 2, Alc. 15; also indexed under the name of Isidore in CPL 1220; CPPM 2.2371b; 2672; RBMA 5266. The later, longer, interpolated version of the work is sometimes indexed as CPPM 2.2371a; CSLMA 2, Alc. 15; RBMA 1092. Haimo of Auxerre, Commentarium in Cantica Canticorum, PL 117, cols. 295-​358D; CPL 910; CPPM 2.1904b, 2024a, 2125; CSLMA 3, Haimo 8; RBMA 1895.

6 Introduction on the earlier, magisterial commentary of the Venerable Bede,13 but they represent different redactions of their original text, at two different points within the Carolingian reform, with Haimo to some extent responding to Alcuin’s version. In addition, there is the commentary of Angelomus of Luxeuil,14 dedicated to Charlemagne’s grandson Lothar, an anonymous, southern French commentary, christened the Vox ecclesie by Rossana Guglielmetti, based on the small, sixth-​century Spanish commentary of Iustus of Urgell, and a further hybrid, the Vox antique ecclesie, which splices the Vox ecclesie with the work of Alcuin.15 Almost exactly contemporary with the commentaries of Haimo of Auxerre and Angelomus is a figural poem by Hincmar of Rheims, the Ferculum Salomonis, or King Solomon’s Litter, based on a single image from the Song of Songs (3:7–​11). One of Hincmar’s earliest works, it was dedicated to another grandson of Charlemagne, Charles the Bald; the poem has been lost but we have Hincmar’s prose explanatio of what the work contained.16 Beyond the commentary tradition strictly speaking, however, most of the major intellectuals of the Carolingian world also referred to the Song of Songs within their works, often at rhetorically important moments. Alcuin is well known for his love and use of Song imagery in his letters, but Song exegesis also crops up in various works by Ambrose Autpert, Theodulf of Orléans, Paulinus of Aquileia, Amalarius of Metz, Agobard of Lyons, Hrabanus Maurus, and Sedulius Scotus, as well as the Spaniard Beatus of Liébana. Much of this, as we will see, appears as an integral element of the Carolingian theological campaign against Spanish adoptionism. The culmination of the century-​long Frankish love affair with the Song of Songs is the body of exegesis by Paschasius Radbertus, who does not have a Song commentary that survives but who reveled as much as Alcuin in the text of the Song and used it in nearly all of his works.17 These names represent a fairly comprehensive role call of the architects of the Carolingian reform. This is no coincidence. Far from being an esoteric

13 14 15 1 6 17

Bede, In Cantica Canticorum Libri VI, ed. D.  Hurst, Opera exegetica, CCSL 119B (Turnhout: Brepols, 1983), 165–​375; CPL 1353; RBMA 1610; Gryson, Répértoire 1353. Angelomus of Luxeuil, Enarrationes in Cantica Canticorum, PL 115, cols. 551–​628; CSLMA i, Ang. 4; RBMA 1339. Vox ecclesie, ed. Guglielmetti, in Commento al Cantico dei Cantici, 201–​232; Vox antique ecclesie, ed. Guglielmetti, in Commento al Cantico dei Cantici, 265–​305. Hincmar of Rheims, Explanatio in Ferculum Salomonis, PL 125, cols. 817–​834; RBMA 3562. Both Paschasius Radbertus and Hrabanus Maurus may well have written commentaries on the Song of Songs which have not survived.

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intellectual pursuit divorced from the practical realities of church life, biblical exegesis was the central medium of shared theological discourse among the most prominent intellectuals in the Carolingian world at a transformative moment for the western church.18 Charlemagne and his court had resurrected the Eusebian dream of Christian empire and sought, with increasing self-​ confidence and aggression, to wrest prestige from the Byzantine Greeks.19 In the wake of Charlemagne’s conquests and missionary movements to the east, the church was firming up its existing institutional structure and extending it in new ways.20 Since the days of Charlemagne’s father, Pippin the Short, the Carolingian dynasty had enjoyed a flourishing symbiotic alliance with an equally ambitious papacy in Rome; now Charlemagne’s court circle propagated Roman models in liturgy and sought to standardize and improve the reputation of monastic observance throughout the empire. They also sought to improve overall standards of pastoral care and to impose elementary religious education.21 Carolingian court propaganda drew on classical models 18

19

20

21

See the essays collected in The Study of the Bible in the Carolingian Era, ed. Celia Chazelle and Burton Van Name Edwards (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003); Thomas F. X. Noble, “Carolingian Religion,” Church History 84.2 (2015): 287–​307; Jinty Nelson, “Religion and Politics in the Realm of Charlemagne,” Religion and Politics in the Middle Ages, ed. Ludger Körntgen and Dominik Wassenhoven (Berlin:  De Gruyter, 2013), 17–​29; Marcia Colish, “Carolingian Debates over Nihil and Tenebrae:  A Study in Theological Method,” Speculum 59.4 (1984): 758, 767–​69. For the immense increase in Carolingian manuscript production, see Bernhard Bischoff, Latin Palaeography: Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 208; David Ganz, “Book Production in the Carolingian Empire and the Spread of Caroline Miniscule,” NCMH 2:786–​87. It was one of the most important, if not the central thesis of Theodulf of Orléans’s Opus Caroli regis that the Franks understood exegesis correctly and the Byzantines had got it wrong: Thomas F. X. Noble, Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 180–​206. Eric Knibbs, Ansgar, Rimbert, and the Forged Foundations of Hamburg-​Bremen (Farnham:  Ashgate, 2011); Marios Costambeys, Matthew Innes, and Simon MacLean, The Carolingian World (New  York:  Cambridge University Press, 2011), 85, 95, 121–​22; Megan McLaughlin, Sex, Gender, and Episcopal Authority in an Age of Reform, 1000-​1122 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 137–​38; Noble, “Carolingian Religion,” 287–​307. For the roots of the Gregorian reform in the late Carolingian world, see John Howe, Before the Gregorian Reform: The Latin Church at the Turn of the First Millennium (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2016). Carine van Rhijn, Shepherds of the Lord:  Priests and Episcopal Statutes in the Carolingian Period (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007); Men in the Middle: Local Priests in Early Medieval Europe, ed. Steffen Patzold and Carine van Rhijn (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016); Rosamond McKitterick, The Frankish Church and the Carolingian Reforms (London: Royal Historical Society, 1977); Maximilian Diesenberger, “Compilers, Preachers, and Their Audiences in the Early Medieval West,” in Sermo doctorum: Compilers, Preachers, and Their Audiences in

8 Introduction of kingship but, in the wake of Augustine’s devastating critique of classical civilization in the City of God, was leery of relying too heavily on pagan Roman models. The Old Testament, both its immensely complex body of law and its character studies of good and bad kings, was much more influential.22 One of the corollaries to a program of royal propaganda saturated in images of David and Solomon was the expectation that the Carolingian king, like his Old Testament models, would be a guardian of the law and a propagator of correct biblical interpretation. Despite being produced in a monastic context, therefore, Carolingian biblical exegesis was not private or divorced from the secular and political sphere but appeared in the most noted schools within the Carolingian world and as an accepted part of court discourse and public theological controversy.23 Less formally, however, along with rediscovered classical texts, biblical exegesis formed a kind of shared imaginative universe inhabited by Carolingian monks, bishops, and scholars. In an era of child oblation, in which a significant portion of the intellectual elite had lived from a young age in monasteries and shared a common intellectual formation, a high degree of sophistication was possible, as well as some extremely erudite play.24 Biblical exegesis formed a kind of vast

22

23

24

the Early Medieval West, ed. Maximilian Diesenberger, Yitzhak Hen, and Marianne Pollheimer (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013; Charles West, “Hincmar’s Parish Priests,” in Hincmar of Rheims: Life and Work, ed. Rachel Stone and Charles West (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), 228–​46; Susan Keefe, A Catalogue of Works Pertaining to the Explanation of the Creed in Carolingian Manuscripts (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012). See also the works contained and translated in Faith in Formulae: A Collection of Early Christian Creeds and Creed-​Related Texts, vol. 4, ed. Wolfram Kinzig (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2017), 125–​336. Lawrence Nees, A Tainted Mantle: Hercules and the Classical Tradition at the Carolingian Court (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991); Mayke de Jong, “The Emperor Lothar and his Bibliotheca Historiarum,” Media Latinitas, ed. R. I. A. Nip, H. van Dijk et al. (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996), 229–​35; eadem, “Old Law and New-​Found Power: Hrabanus Maurus and the Old Testament,” in Centres of Learning:  Learning and Location in Pre-​Modern Europe and the Near East, ed. Jan Willem Drijvers and A. A. MacDonald (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 161–​76. In the case of Angelomus of Luxeuil, see Silvia Cantelli, Angelomo e la scuola esegetica di Luxeuil (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’alto Medioevo, 1990), 1:81–​89; in the case of Haimo of Auxerre, see E. Ann Matter, “Haimo’s Commentary on the Song of Songs and the Traditions of the Carolingian Schools,” Études d’exégèse carolingienne: autour d’Haymon d’Auxerre, ed. Sumi Shimahara (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 91–​98. Mayke de Jong, In Samuel’s Image: Child Oblation in the Early Medieval West (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 232–​45; Stuart Airlie, “Bonds of Power and Bonds of Association in the Court Circle of Louis the Pious,” Charlemagne’s Heir, ed. Peter Godman and Roger Collins (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 193; Mary Garrison, “The Social World of Alcuin: Nicknames at York and at the Carolingian Court,” in Alcuin of York: Scholar at the Carolingian

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primordial soup out of which many later forms of theology and philosophy would eventually evolve, but it also formed a space in which exegetes could respond aesthetically and emotionally to the biblical text. Carolingian exegesis of the Song of Songs reflected, intensified, and was in some sense the culmination of all of these trends. Because early medieval Song exegesis envisioned the Bride as a personification of the church as a whole, and not merely a church that was static but was involved in mission across a variety of fronts, the Song of Songs encouraged exegetes to meditate on the work of reform and on the life of the church as they envisioned it. It encouraged the articulation of ideals, on a broad, uncontroversial level that promoted consensus.25 As a text traditionally understood to have been written by Solomon, the third and most advanced of his three books of wisdom alongside Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs was thought to be potentially dangerous for the unskilled and unseasoned in religious life. That meant, however, that commentary on the Song of Songs in particular was a sign of special seniority and expertise, Rachmaninoff for biblical exegetes.26 As endlessly quotable

25

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Court: proceedings of the Third Germania Latina Conference held at the University of Groningen, May 1995, ed. L.  A. J.  R. Houwen and A.  A. MacDonald (Groningen:  E. Forsten, 1998), 59–​79. Gilbert Dahan has argued for the particular importance of the community in reading a text like the Song of Songs:  with an allegorical meaning that is not self-​evident, appealing to a broad consensus becomes all the more important in determining the meaning of the text. See Dahan, Lire la bible au moyen âge: essais d’herméneutique médiévale (Geneva:  Droz, 2009), 315. Within the Carolingian world, Jinty Nelson’s work has been foundational in stressing the importance and sophistication of consensus in Frankish politics: “Legislation and Consensus in the Reign of Charles the Bald,” in Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-​Saxon Society: Studies Presented to J. M. Wallace-​Hadrill, ed. Patrick Wormald, with Donald Bullough and Roger Collins (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983), 202–​ 27. Jennifer Davis has suggested that the varied profusion and confusion of terminology applied to the agents of royal justice was a deliberate rhetorical strategy employed by the Carolingians to demonstrate unity and consensus: “Charlemagne’s Delegation of Judicial Responsibilities,” in The Long Morning of Medieval Europe, ed. Jennifer R. Davis and Michael McCormick (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 243–​44. See also Rachel Stone, Morality and Masculinity in the Carolingian Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 313. Mary Alberi, “ ‘The Better Paths of Wisdom’: Alcuin’s Monastic ‘True Philosophy’ and the Worldly Court,” Speculum 76 (2001): 898–​900. Origen had warned that the Song of Songs was not for the unseasoned exegete: “In verbis enim Cantici Canticorum ille cibus est, de quo dicit Apostolus: ‘perfectorum autem est solidus cibus’ et tales requirit auditores, qui ‘pro possibilitate sumendi exercitatos habeant sensus ad discretionem boni vel mali’… Si vero aliquis accesserit, qui secundum carnem tantummodo vir est, huic tali non parum ex hac scriptura discriminis periculique nascetur. Audire enim pure et castis auribus amoris nomina nesciens ab interiore homine ad exteriorem et carnalem virum omnem deflectet auditum et a spiritu convertetur ad carnem nutrietque in semet ipso concupiscentias carnales et occasione divinae scripturae commoveri et incitari videbitur ad libidinem

10 Introduction as Lewis Carroll, it could be invoked in individual phrases, which acted as a badge of membership in the ranks of senior Carolingian doctores and reflects their cohesion as a social and intellectual caste in the face of the shared task of reform.27 As such, it could also be turned against anyone felt to stand outside their close-​knit ranks, and as such played a significant role in how the Carolingians understood and conceptualized heresy. In its association with Solomon, so central to Carolingian royal propaganda, the Song of Songs evoked, though it did not explicitly put forward, a tentative understanding of the king as a type of Christ. It supported the role of the king as the defender and propagator of church reform broadly speaking; more particularly, certain individual images from the Song of Songs, such as the ferculum Salomonis or the little foxes ruining the Bride’s vineyard, underpinned a Eusebian model in which theological controversy was dealt with by the king presiding over a panel of theologians like Constantine over Nicaea. And finally, it was beautiful: Carolingian exegetes seem to enjoy being able to quote long passages of the Song, seemingly for the pure pleasure of doing so, and no less than the Cistercians used the poetry to articulate their spiritual longings and griefs. This book argues that the Song of Songs and its interpretation, therefore, played a latent but powerful role within the Carolingian reform. While the Song of Songs was not illustrated in the early medieval period, and it certainly did not eclipse the volume of Carolingian commentary on the psalter or the gospels, the unique and flexible nature of the Song text meant that it could be deployed to great rhetorical effect at very particular moments within the Carolingian ideological program. Significantly, these moments were usually

27

carnis.” Commentarium in Canticum Canticorum secundum translationem Rufini, Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte 33, ed. W. A. Baehrens (Leipzig, 1925), prologue, lns. 5–​18. Arguably, the cohesion of the doctores could have made discussion of reform more possible, particularly when close social bonds formed such an important component of early medieval society. In response to Yves Congar’s Vraie et fausse réforme (1968), and Congar’s conviction that a “strongly institutionalized” sense of the church did not exist until the eleventh century, R. A. Markus suggests that, in talk of reform in late antiquity, “although reform could only be discussed in such personalistic terms [i.e., of individual sin], the conditions which made it necessary, and indeed the object that needed to be reformed, were clearly perceived as social, if not institutional, in nature.” Church reform in late antiquity was concerned with “individual or group holiness rather than with ecclesial realities.” Markus, however, acknowledges the figure of Boniface as opening a new era, and I would argue that it was precisely the creation of “ecclesial realities,” often where none had before existed, with which the Carolingians were most engaged, alongside an older model of group holiness. R. A. Markus, “Church Reform and Society in Late Antiquity,” Reforming the Church before Modernity, 3–​5, 14, 16.

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when Carolingian exegetes felt that the church was under threat, from heretics abroad and within. The rhetorical effect of invoking the Song of Songs relied on those exegetes having accepted as given the narrative established, I will argue, in the ecclesiological interpretation of the Song by Gregory the Great and Bede. Once these commentators had demonstrated how the text could be used to conceptualize the reform and work of the church, the imagery of the Song of Songs formed a kind of “theological shorthand,” encapsulating in lapidary phrases what a Carolingian exegete felt he and his fellow doctores should stand for and what they should be defending. Scratch the Carolingian reform—​its claims to doctrinal authority in particular—​and its exegetes bled the Song of Songs. The very flexibility of the Song tradition, which permitted reading the text as an allegory either of Christ and the church or of Christ and the individual soul, meant that, when the enthusiasm for reform began to falter in the political upheavals of the mid-​ninth century, early medieval Song exegesis could provide a springboard for those exegetes, most notably Paschasius Radbertus, articulating a more personal, private spirituality. One sees Paschasius at this time leaning toward using the text of the Song as a template for individual devotion and mystical religious experience; while we are not in the twelfth century yet by any means, many seeds were sown in the ninth century that would flower later. Not relevant only during the Carolingian reform, Carolingian commentaries would continue to circulate throughout the Middle Ages as the standard resource for interpreting the Song text. The Glossa Ordinaria is predominantly made up of early medieval exegesis on the Song of Songs: in particular the commentaries of Bede, Alcuin, and Haimo of Auxerre.28 Haimo’s commentary work alone would be one of the most popular Song commentaries in the entire Middle Ages, although, in an interesting parallel with Carolingian Song exegesis generally, its author was often forgotten.29 This book seeks to track how the poetry of the Song of Songs was employed to underpin the Carolingian systematization of biblical exegesis and the class formation of its elite clerical caste. While it has been widely recognized that Carolingian capitularies like the Admonitio generalis were deeply inflected by exegetical models, I argue here that the reverse was also true: exegesis was the preeminent intellectual gambit of the Carolingian doctores and reflects the 28 29

See the translation by Mary Dove, The Glossa Ordinaria on the Song of Songs (Kalamazoo: TEAMS, 2004). Burton Van Name Edwards, “From Script to Print: Manuscripts and Printed Editions of Haimo’s Commentary on the Song of Songs,” Études d’exégèse carolingienne: autour d’Haymon d’Auxerre, 60–​63.

12 Introduction aims, ambitions, and failures of the Carolingian reform.30 In studying how the Carolingians interpreted a single biblical text, this book draw together various subjects often treated separately by historians: the claims of the Carolingian dynasty and the promulgation of Carolingian political ideology, the creation of luxury objects by and for the court and the king, the social bonds connecting Carolingian religious and political elites, liturgical and monastic reform, pastoral care, theological controversy, and the evolution of orthodoxy. The multiplicity of ways by which the Carolingians approached the Song of Songs cautions against easy modern assumptions that the Carolingian reform was too naive or too primitive to produce theological, even mystical, reflection or complex aesthetic and emotional responses to the biblical text.31 That reflection was inescapably linked to the socio-​political context of the Carolingian court, which in turn had vested interests in the outcome of theological controversy, but the diffuse nature of the texts examined here should caution against Carolingian exegesis as a simplistic and purely moralistic genre. Biblical exegesis was not so much one branch of early medieval learning as the preeminent forum in which Carolingian intellectual culture happened. Within that forum, the exegesis of the Song of Songs held an important place. It remains the case that, in spite of recent interest in the role of the bible within medieval society and culture, medieval biblical exegesis is a difficult and under-​studied field.32 Falling neatly between the disciplinary boundaries of theology and history, unfortunately in the past it has often repelled rather than attracted attention from either camp. The two standard monographs on the field as a whole remain Henri de Lubac’s Medieval Exegesis: The Four 30 31

32

It is an ironic commonplace of the subject that an early medieval author like Bede did not expect to be known to posterity for the Ecclesiastical History but for his exegesis; the same could be said for Alcuin, Paschasius Radbertus, Beatus of Liébana, and others. As Grover A. Zinn, Jr., notes regarding the exegetical works of Gregory the Great, the tendency is for scholars of mysticism working in exegesis “to ignore the genre of a writing while resolutely mining its contents in a selective manner …” “Exegesis and Spirituality in the Writings of Gregory the Great” in Gregory the Great: A Symposium, ed. John Cavadini (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 169. Mary Agnes Edsall, Reading like a Monk:  Lectio divina, Religious Literature and Lay Devotion (Ph.D.  dissertation, Columbia University, 2000); Duncan Robertson, Lectio Divina: The Medieval Experience of Reading (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2011); The Practice of the Bible in the Middle Ages, ed. Susan Boynton and Diane J. Reilly (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011); Ian Wood, “ ‘The Ends of the Earth’: The Bible, Bibles, and the Other in Early Medieval Europe,” in The Calling of the Nations:  Exegesis, Ethnography, and Empire in a Biblical-​Historic Present, ed. Mark Vessey et al. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011), 200–​16; Derek A. Olsen, Reading Matthew with Monks: Liturgical Interpretation in Anglo-​Saxon England (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2015).

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Senses of Scripture and Beryl Smalley’s The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages. De Lubac’s work aimed to systematize a veritable ocean of biblical commentary and to show a broad continuity of interpretation from the patristic period throughout the Middle Ages.33 While deeply learned, in the name of continuity de Lubac unfortunately sacrificed any real sense of historicity, further contributing to a perception of exegesis as monolithic, apolitical, and hidebound by tradition. In fact, the “four senses of scripture” is a convention invoked much more often in theory than in practice even in the era of scholasticism. As a trope, it hardly appears at all in the early medieval period—​with one significant exception, in fact, in Bede’s Song commentary, under very particular circumstances.34 In contrast with de Lubac, Beryl Smalley’s magisterial work aimed to demonstrate that the much-​maligned medieval exegete was capable of rigorous textual scholarship. As a consequence her work focuses predominantly on those exegetes who emphasized the literal sense of scripture and an “Antiochene” approach to biblical exegesis, particularly privileging Andrew of St. Victor and Herbert of Bosham. Displacing critical scorn onto allegorical interpretation and the early medieval period in particular, she openly ridiculed the Carolingians, calling Carolingian exegesis “complicated and ungrateful work” and dismissing Haimo of Auxerre as an “anticlimax.”35 33

34

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Henri De Lubac, Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture, 3 vols., trans. Mark Sebanc and E. M. Macierowski (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998). De Lubac himself acknowledged that the model did not always appear “in its integrity or its purity”: 1:82. Gilbert Dahan has been a particularly vocal critic of the four-​sense model: L’éxegèse chrétienne de la Bible en Occident médiévale, XIIe–​XIVe siècle (Paris: Cerf, 1999), 239–​40, 299–​302, 435–​ 44; idem, Lire la bible au moyen âge, 18, 200–​201, 209, 283. For a recent survey of de Lubac’s thought as a whole, including the relation of Medieval Exegesis to de Lubac’s monumental 1946 work Surnaturel, see John Milbank, The Suspended Middle: Henri de Lubac and the Renewed Split in Modern Catholic Theology, 2nd ed., (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014), 1–​15; Charles Kannengiesser, “A Key for the Future of Patristics: The ‘Senses’ of Scripture,” in In Dominico Eloquio: Essays on Patristic Exegesis in Honor of Robert Louis Wilken, ed. Paul M. Blowers et al. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 100–​05. Bede appeals to the four senses of scripture only once in his entire Song commentary:​​ very significantly, in a passage explicating a single word, “Jerusalem,” whose connotations were particularly complex and loaded. “Vt enim unum demus exemplum, psalmista dicit: Lauda Hierusalem dominum, quod iuxta litteram quidem ciues urbis ipsius in qua templum Dei erat ad laudes ei dicendas hortatur; at uero iuxta allegoriam Hierusalem ecclesia Christi est toto orbe diffusa; item iuxta tropologiam, id est moralem sensum, anima quaeque sancta Hierusalem recte uocatur; item iuxta anagogen, id est intellegentiam ad superiora ducentem, Hierusalem habitatio est patriae caelestis quae ex angelis sanctis et hominibus constat.” Bede, In Cantica Canticorum Libri VI, ed. D. Hurst, Opera exegetica, CCSL 119B (Turnhout: Brepols, 1983), Bk. iii, iv, lns. 617–​25. Hereafter icc. Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame: Notre Dame Press, 1964) 38–​39. Likewise, the debate over whether there was a distinctively “Irish” method of

14 Introduction From Beryl Smalley onwards, the problem of how to approach medieval allegory and allegorical interpretation can be said to have dominated the field of medieval biblical exegesis in general and exegesis on the Song of Songs in particular. Frequently said to have no literal sense but instead several, interlocking allegorical senses, Song exegesis has sometimes served as a test case for scholars seeking to understand how patristic and medieval allegory worked. While commendable in and of itself, usually this has had the effect of abstracting commentaries and exegetes from their historical and political context and underscoring the perception of exegesis as a closed and timeless genre.36 In the ongoing critical conversation, the immense popularity of Song exegesis, in spite of or because of the direct eroticism of the original poetry, has demanded explanation. When the literal meaning of the Song of Songs seems so obviously sexual to a modern reader, the medieval allegory so outlandish, and its practitioners celibate into the bargain, scholars have turned to psychological rationalizations. In this view, allegory becomes either a form of censorship, or a way for monks to suppress, sublimate, or redirect their sexuality.37 When one

36

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exegesis has suggested that Hiberno-​Latin exegetes followed a more literal, “Antiochene” approach, casting the Carolingians, again, as the allegorical “Alexandrian” norm. For the often vehement debate surrounding the nature of Hiberno-​Latin exegesis, see Bernhard Bischoff, “Wendepunkte in der Geschichte der lateinischen Exegese im Frühmittelalter,” Sacris Erudiri 6 (1954): 189–​279; Clare Stancliffe, “Early Irish Biblical Exegesis,” Studia Patristica 12 (1975): 361–​70; Michael Gorman, “A Critique of Bischoff’s Theory of Irish Exegesis: the Commentary on Genesis in Munich Clm 6302 (Wendepunkte 2),” Journal of Medieval Latin 7 (1999): 178–​233; idem, “The Myth of Hiberno-​Latin Exegesis,” Révue Bénedictine 110 (2000): 42–​85; Charles D. Wright, “Bischoff’s Theory of Irish Exegesis and the Genesis Commentary in Munich clm 6302: A Critique of a Critique,” Journal of Medieval Latin 10 (2001): 115–​175. Cf. John David Dawson, Christian Figural Reading and the Fashioning of Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). Until the essays of Arthur Holder, the only major work on Bede’s Song commentary was the still unpublished dissertation by Mary Prentice Lillie Barrows: Bede’s Allegorical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles: A Study in Early Medieval Allegorical Exegesis (Ph.D.  dissertation:  University of California at Berkeley, 1962). Although Barrows devotes a chapter to Bede’s predecessors in Song exegesis, she acknowledges that she chose Bede’s commentary effectively as a test case for understanding medieval allegory (the Song was understood to have no literal sense and was therefore an ideal choice), not necessarily because of any historical interest in the development of the Song tradition:  at 79. See also Heinz Meyer, “Die Problematik und Leistung der Allegoriedefinitionen Bedas Venerabilis,” Frühmittelalterliche Studien 35 (2001): 183–​200. In their monographs on the medieval Song tradition, both Ann Matter and Ann Astell felt the need to defend allegory as a legitimate mode of interpretation and to find modern theoretical analogues for it: Bakhtin for Matter, Jung for Astell. Jean Leclercq, Monks and Love in Twelfth-​ Century France:  Psycho-​ Historical Essays (Oxford:  Clarendon Press, 1979), especially at 99–​105; Mary Dove, “Sex, Allegory and

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factors in the quirks of the Vulgate text, in which the Bridegroom in the first verse of the Song is described as having breasts, one is left imagining a male reader envisioning himself as female inviting the love of a male Christ possessing (at least figuratively) some female attributes. For medieval monastic readers, it is argued, Song exegesis becomes a sanctioned hermeneutical space for something risqué or otherwise forbidden: either gender morphing or a kind of monastic drag.38 While understandably fascinating, this theoretical approach to Song exegesis potentially carries with it the danger of overly exoticizing the medieval.39 Certainly it risks imposing on medieval texts modern ideas about what would be normative, obvious, or self-​evident and what would need special pleading. Many psychological theories assume allegorical Song exegesis as a product of predominantly Christian repressions, celibacy in particular. Allegory’s origins, however, are in classical Greek thought, and there has been a long-​standing Jewish tradition going back to Rabbi Akiva of reading the Song of Songs as an allegory of the mystical love between God and the Jewish people.40 Psychological explanations alone—​or more precisely, psychological explanations in which a supposedly suppressed, masked, or re-​directed sexuality

38

39 40

Censorship: A Reconsideration of Medieval Commentaries on the Song of Songs,” Literature and Theology 10.4 (1996): 317–​328; for objections to simple explanations of sublimation, repression, or censorship, see Roland Murphy, The Song of Songs: A Commentary on the Book of Canticles or the Song of Songs (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), 16; E. Ann Matter, The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990), 140–​41; Rachel Fulton, From Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800-​1200 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 241–​43; Denys Turner, Eros and Allegory:  Medieval Exegesis of the Song of Songs (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1995), 17–​18. Stephen D. Moore, “The Song of Songs in the History of Sexuality,” Church History 69.2 (2000): 333. See also Shawn M. Krahmer, “The Virile Bride of Bernard of Clairvaux,” Church History 69.2 (2000): 304–​27; Mark S. Burrows, “The Body of the Text and the Text of the Body: Monastic reading and allegorical sub/​versions of desire,” Scrolls of Love: Ruth and the Song of Songs, ed. Peter S. Hawkins and Lesleigh Cushing Stahlberg, (New York: Fordham University Press, 2006), 244–​54; Susan Schibanoff, “Hildegard of Bingen and Richardis of Stade,” Same Sex Love and Desire among Women in the Middle Ages, ed. Francesca Sautman and Pamela Sheingorn, (New York: Palgrave, 2001) 63–​67; Dyan Elliot, The Bride of Christ Goes To Hell (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), 34–​43, 171–​73, 247–​53. Cf. Paul Freedman and Gabrielle M. Spiegel, “Medievalisms Old and New: The Rediscovery of Alterity in North American Medieval Studies,” American Historical Review 103.3 (1998): 677–​704. Medieval Jewish exegesis on the Song of Songs had a deep impact upon the development of Kabbalah: see the commentary of Ezra Ben Solomon of Gerona, Commentary on the Song of Songs and Other Kabbalistic Commentaries, trans. Seth Brody (Kalamazoo: teams,

16 Introduction dominate—​do not adequately explain the popularity of allegorical Song exegesis as a phenomenon.41 Before we can understand the sheer complexity of the appeal of Song exegesis to medieval readers, we need to understand its full story. The overwhelming majority of scholarship to date, however, has focused only on exegesis of the Song of Songs that read the text as an allegory of Christ and the individual soul. With the Bride as a figure for the self, scholars have used Song exegesis to explore a broad range of questions about individual psychology, sexuality, personality, spirituality, mysticism, and the relationships between all of these. What this has meant, however, is that despite the interest generated by medieval exegesis on the Song of Songs overall, almost no scholarship exists on the early medieval ecclesiological material, which used the Song of Songs to think collectively about social and religious institutions.42 Instead, theological scholarship has tended to cluster around two charismatic figures in particular:  Origen, the brilliant third-​century theologian and founder of allegorical exegesis of the Song of Songs, and the equally fascinating Bernard of Clairvaux, often depicted as a twelfth-​century Origen redivivus.43 With Bernard depicted as the great innovator, emphasizing individual religious experience over the

41

42

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1999); The Poetry of Kabbalah: Mystical Verse from the Jewish Tradition, ed. Peter Cole (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012); Edmée Kingsmill, slg, “The Beloved: The Messianic Figure of the Song of Songs,” Prayer and Thought in Monastic Tradition: Essays in Honour of Benedicta Ward, slg, ed. Santha Battacharji, Rowan Williams, and Dominic Mattos (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 311–​28. For a modern allegorical commentary based on the medieval tradition, see Meir Zlotowitz and Nosson Scherman, Shir haShirim: An allegorical translation based upon Rashi with a commentary anthologized from Talmudic, Midrashic, and Rabbinic sources (Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, 1977). Barbara Newman has suggested that the gender-​switching and bending of the Song commentary tradition was intended to serve a broader, apophatic purpose within late medieval traditions of Christian mystical spirituality: “La mystique courtoise: Thirteenth-​ Century Beguines and the Art of Love,” in From Virile Woman to WomanChrist: Studies in Medieval Religion and Literature (Philadelphia:  University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 137–​67. The early medieval period receives scant treatment from the major works surveying the Song tradition as a whole: Friedrich Ohly, Hohelied-​Studien: Grundzüge einder Geschichte der Hoheliedauslegung des Abendlandes bis um 1200 (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1958), 64–​91; Matter, Voice of My Beloved, 92–​106; Helmut Riedlinger, Die Makellosigkeit der Kirche in den lateinischen Hoheliedkommentaren des Mittelalters (Munster: Aschendorff, 1958), 71–​97. The association of Origen with Bernard of Clairvaux—​particularly through noting Bernard’s use of Origen—​has been made with particular eloquence by Henri de Lubac and Jean Leclercq. For example, see Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, trans. Catherine Misrahi (New  York:  Fordham University Press, 1960), 8, 118–​20; idem, Monks and Love, 53, 113–​14. It is very common for Bede and the Carolingian exegetes to be completely elided in any discussion of medieval Song interpretation.

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collective, institutional, ecclesiological interpretation, early medieval exegetes have been cast as the plodding norm against which Bernard was reacting. Moreover, scholarship on Bernard, so heavily indebted to the work of Jean Leclercq, has often uncritically accepted Leclercq’s distinction between Abelard’s “scholastic” and Bernard’s characteristically “monastic” spirituality.44 Again, this has had the effect of associating Song exegesis with the individual, isolated experience of the twelfth-​century Cistercian choir monk rather than the emphasis on pastoral care that characterized the early medieval situation.45 Recent historical scholarship has done much to draw out the role played by biblical interpretation in the Carolingian world. By sheer volume, biblical exegesis is one of the most plentiful sources to survive from the early medieval period; no longer the “neglected step-​child of medieval studies,” Carolingian exegesis is now recognized as a far more complicated enterprise than mere redactions and repetitions of patristic authorities.46 Screened to some extent by humility topoi and often by their near-​anonymity, individual exegetes shaped and standardized the patristic tradition according to particular agendas of their own, even if that agenda was no more complex than to assemble in one place those pieces of the patristic tradition that most served their immediate needs. Ironically, it is very easy to take Carolingian formulations for granted in later centuries precisely because they were so influential and so foundational for what followed.47

44 45

46

47

John Van Engen, “The Christian Middle Ages as an Historiographical Problem,” The American Historical Review 91 (1986): 525; idem, “Crisis of Coenobitism Reconsidered: Benedictine Monasticism in the years 1050-​1150,” Speculum 61 (1986): 269–​304. Brian Stock, The Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 405–​ 06; Caroline Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother:  Studies in Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982). Martha G. Newman has challenged the extent to which the Cistercian love of the Song of Songs precluded any interest in pastoral care:  The Boundaries of Charity:  Cistercian Culture and Ecclesiastical Reform, 1098-​1180 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 82–​96; 107–​112. See also Suzanne LaVere’s recent study, Out of the Cloister: Scholastic Exegesis of the Song of Songs, 1100-​1250 (Leiden: Brill, 2016). The phrase is E.  Ann Matter’s:  “Haimo’s Commentary on the Song of Songs,” 89. Most recently, see Reading the Bible in the Middle Ages (Studies in Early Medieval History), ed. Damien Kempf and Jinty Nelson (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015); John Contreni, “The Patristic Legacy to c. 1000,” The New Cambridge History of the Bible, 2:505–​35. Silvia Cantelli points out perceptively that even the copying and transmission of particular works by the Carolingians was done not “in modo meccanico e meramente compilativo, ma con spirito critico.” Angelomo e la scuola esegetica di Luxeuil, 1:26. In a work which has intriguing parallels with medieval Song exegesis, Erik Thunø has recently argued for

18 Introduction In a critical era that has brought us “the New Bede,” not the passionless, disinterested scholar but a patriot and a partisan crafting a very particular historical narrative, scholars have a greater appreciation for the Carolingian exegetes not as pure theologians but as busy abbots and bishops enmeshed in highly complex political webs. Early medieval episcopacy in particular comprised a dizzying range of duties and responsibilities; the very ambiguity of everything they were supposed to do and to be, coupled with a shifting political scene, created deep anxieties about self-​presentation and about memory.48 The legacy of this model is perhaps most apparent in the tenth century under the Ottonians; however, the model itself was created in the Carolingian reform, crystallizing around the Synod of Paris in 829.49 The popularity of the works of Amalarius of Metz even in the face of rulings against their orthodoxy suggests the extent to which Carolingian bishops and clergy were seeking new and creative ways to conceptualize and to celebrate their offices. Fashion for the clergy, it has recently been argued, begins in the Carolingian period.50 Now critical of easy assumptions about the king’s “stunted sovereignty,” scholars have emphasized the pivotal role played by the king and the Carolingian court in creating consensus and shared expectations of appropriate behavior that weighed heavily not only on the clergy, but also on the king and aristocratic

48

49

50

“repetition as an artistic process,” in which works of art are products not only of their immediate historical context but, as a group, can create a continuum to deliberately anachronistic effect:  The Apse Mosaic in Early Medieval Rome:  Time, Network, and Repetition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 6–​9, 28, 61–​62. Steven Vanderputten, Imagining Religious Leadership in the Middle Ages: Richard of Saint-​ Vanne and the Politics of Reform (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015), 42–​72; Jennifer P. Kingsley, The Bernward Gospels: Art, Memory, and the Episcopate in Medieval Germany (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State Press, 2014); Sean Gilsdorf, The Favor of Friends: Intercession and Aristocratic Politics in Carolingian and Ottonian Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 125–​52. Steffen Patzold, Episcopus: Wissen über Bischöfe im Frankenreich des späten 8. bis frühen 10. Jahrhunderts (Ostfildern: Jan Thorbeke Verlag, 2008), especially at 179–​84. Although suggested some time ago by Morrison, several recent studies have also pointed to the increased confidence and aggression of the doctores, particularly from the 810s through the 830s: Karl Frederick Morrison, The Two Kingdoms: Ecclesiology in Carolingian Political Thought (Princeton:  Princeton University Press, 1964), 37–​44; Ildar H.  Garipzanov, The Symbolic Language of Authority in the Carolingian World (c. 751-​877) (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 116–​17; Courtney M. Booker, Past Convictions: The Penance of Louis the Pious and the Decline of the Carolingians (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press, 2009); Mayke de Jong, The Penitential State: Authority and Atonement in the Age of Louis the Pious, 814-​840 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Maureen Miller, Clothing the Clergy: Virtue and Power in Medieval Europe, c. 800-​1200 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014), 108–​10, 130–​33.

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elites.51 Haimo, Hrabanus, and Paschasius were fascinated, even obsessed by the Old Testament prophets, not only as models of anointed preachers but also because they provided a precedent for how to interact with royal authority. Carolingian theology and Carolingian politics shaded imperceptibly into one another; exegesis underpinned ideology, and ideology inflected exegesis.52 This is not to say that Carolingian exegesis is a straightforward political commentary on current events.53 More critical work is needed before we fully understand Carolingian exegesis as an ongoing intellectual and political conversation, and the roles played in that conversation by its major figures. Carolingian exegetes did indeed redact the works of the fathers; often at first glance a Carolingian commentary can look like an endless string of patristic citations. Much painstaking recent scholarship that has been done on Carolingian exegesis has been interested predominantly in tracking the proliferation of individual texts and manuscripts and determining centers of manuscript production. While this paleographical background has been absolutely necessary when our knowledge was in such a fragmentary state, it has come at cost of analyzing the actual content of the exegesis, historical explorations of why these texts might have been copied in the first place, or how they meshed with other texts being produced at that time. While acknowledging the extent to which Carolingian exegetes sought to preserve the patristic legacy, it is still possible to reconstruct something of the historical context and circumstances that drew an exegete to frame a static core of patristic authorities in certain particular ways. For this reason I have not attempted here either a comprehensive survey of the surviving manuscripts of the Song of Songs, or even a truly comprehensive 51

52

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David Ganz has suggested the complexities of Einhard’s supposedly “lay identity”: “Einhardus peccator,” Lay Intellectuals in the Carolingian World, ed. Janet L. Nelson and Patrick Wormald (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 37. For religious titles applied to Carolingian kings, see Yves Sassier, Royauté et idéologie au Moyen Âge:  Bas-​empire, monde franc, France IV-​XIIe siècle (Paris: Collin, 2002), 126–​28; Noble, Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians, 236–​40. Walter Ullmann, “Ecclesiology and Carolingian Rulership,” The Carolingian Renaissance and the Idea of Kingship (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010), 43–​70; Garipzanov, Symbolic Language of Authority, 43–​100; Sita Steckel, “Between Censorship and Patronage: Interaction between Bishops and Scholars in Carolingian Book Dedications,” in Envisioning the Bishop: Images and the Episcopacy in the Middle Ages, ed. Sigrid Danielson and Evan A. Gatti (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), 127–​56. A more direct and obvious correlation between commentary and current events can be found, for example, in the works of the “Biblical Moral School” of Petrus Comestor, Peter the Chanter, and Stephen Langton, as shown by Philippe Buc, L’ambiguité du livre: prince, pouvoir, et peuple dans les commentaires de la Bible au moyen age (Paris: Beauchesne, 1994).

20 Introduction review of the theological tradition of exegesis on the Song of Songs throughout the early Middle Ages.54 Instead, I have attempted to situate the intellectual tradition of Carolingian allegorical exegesis on the Song of Songs within its historical context, and to see what about that context mapped, affected, and controlled that intellectual tradition.55 I  will argue here that early medieval exegetes did not merely follow an already established patristic tradition on the Song of Songs, but instead took up the text because the Song of Songs resonated with the Carolingian reform in some very particular ways. To be sure, it is only a part of the much broader story of the relationship between biblical exegesis, the Carolingian reform, and the shaping of the patristic tradition. Following this single thread, however, will demonstrate how the Carolingians set certain parameters for both exegesis and devotion which would continue to be influential for those twelfth-​century exegetes who would, in their turn, take up the Song of Songs in a different historical context. In chapter one, I will examine the role of the Venerable Bede in inventing what I will term the Gregorian tradition of exegesis on the Song of Songs, which re-​invented the Song primarily as an ecclesiological allegory. Although this had been a possibility for late antique commentators it had not always been the most self-​evident path for them to take, or indeed, the interpretation that most interested them. After the breakup of the Roman Empire, late antique commentaries on the Song of Songs were not widely circulated in the early medieval Latin West. Something like a clean slate existed in practice, and it would be Bede who would synthesize a new, systematic approach to the Song from scattered citations from the works of Gregory the Great. In his massive, highly ambitious, and complete commentary on the Song, Bede made the ecclesiological reading of the Song of Songs the primary reading of the text, using

54

55

For a catalog of manuscripts of the Song of Songs, see Rossana E. Guglielmetti, La tradizione manoscritta dei commenti latini al Cantico dei Cantici (origini-​xii secolo):  Repertorio dei codici contenenti testi inediti o editi solo nella Patrologia Latina (Florence:  sismel, 2006). A similar approach to early medieval exegesis of the Apocalypse has recently been taken by James T. Palmer, The Apocalypse in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). A fascinating recent study has done the same for Calvinist exegesis of the Song of Songs in early modern England: Elizabeth Clark, Politics, Religion, and the Song of Songs in Seventeenth-​Century England (London:  Palgrave MacMillan, 2011). Joy Schroeder has done a case study on the Old Testament figure of Deborah in a range of historical contexts from early Christianity through the Middle Ages to the present day: Deborah’s Daughters:  Gender Politics and Biblical Interpretation (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2014).

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it as a rallying cry in his larger task of drafting and indoctrinating a new and impressive class of preaching clergy in the Northumbrian church. In chapter two, I will explore how events in the ninth century, specifically the Spanish adoptionist controversy, initiated a particular theological conversation around how to understand—​really, how to see—​Christ, and how Song exegesis became one polemical way of responding to that question. The Carolingian commentary tradition on the Song of Songs does not begin in a position of neutral, detached intellectual curiosity but at a particular historical moment, in the middle of the defining theological gambit of the Carolingian church to announce its coming of age and to tar its opponents with the brush of heresy. I will argue for the importance of the adoptionist controversy within the Carolingian reform as a whole. However well or ill the Franks understood the theological terminology used by the Spaniards, Spanish adoptionism as the Franks understood it posed a significant challenge to the entire Frankish project, and Alcuin and others responded accordingly. Not only was it a real threat, the implications and effects of the adoptionist controversy were far-​reaching and long-​ranging, influencing for many decades afterwards devotion to Christ but also to the Virgin Mary, with implications for liturgy, visual depictions of Christ and the Virgin, and political ideology. If adoptionism was the crucible in which the Song commentary tradition was re-​formed in the Carolingian world, in chapter three, I will examine what emerged. Bede’s massive Song commentary was, if anything, too ambitious to be easily usable, and so Carolingian exegetes abridged and shaped Bede’s work into something simpler and more easily accessible, in the process revealing their own concerns and priorities. I will survey how Carolingian exegetes used Song exegesis as a kind of ecclesiological laboratory:  a conceptual tool and a resource of images for exegetes engaged in the Carolingian reform to use to think about the nature of the church and its ultimately transcendent and glorified nature. In place of Bede’s essentially historical vision of the work of the ecclesia primitiva from the book of Acts, Carolingian exegetes instead used Song exegesis, often in combination with imagery from the Apocalypse, to emphasize a vision of the church that was timeless and removed from historical processes as it passed, persecuted, through a darkening world. In chapter four, the window becomes a mirror, as Carolingian exegetes used Song exegesis to examine their own role within the church and to reflect on the work of pastoral care. The use of Song imagery became a badge of shared membership in the ranks of the doctores, in a period when a distinctive clerical identity was beginning to crystallize, informing a distinctive “clerical spirituality” in which allegorical interpretation played an important role in enriching and conceptualizing the doctores’ understanding of their offices.

22 Introduction Chapter five compares two very different but almost exactly contemporary works written for Carolingian kings: the Song commentary by Angelomus of Luxeuil and Hincmar of Rheims’s prose explanatio of his figural poem, the Ferculum Salomonis. Contemporary with the emergence of the “mirrors for princes” genre, these works show two different approaches to the Song text: one, from Angelomus, a consoling, personal approach to the Song written in the wake of Lothar’s wife’s death, the other, from Hincmar, a complex fusion of word and image that used one of the most imperial images from the Song to read Charles the Bald a stern lecture on his duties as head and defender of the church. Finally, chapter six will examine the full range of Song interpretation as it is used across the exegetical oeuvre of one talented exegete, Paschasius Radbertus. Paschasius clearly had a special love of the Song, but the extent to which it plays a structural role in several of his works is not often recognized. Moreover, while Paschasius’s contribution to Marian devotion is well known, his use of Song exegesis does not create or duplicate the liturgical fusion of Song imagery with a narrative for the Assumption that would be so important in later centuries. While Carolingian Song interpretation, I would argue, is fairly consistent in its overall approach, its internal coherence did not necessarily lead inevitably to a set of twelfth-​century developments in Marian devotion. Instead, we should see Paschasius using Song exegesis rhetorically, in a variety of ways, depending on his audience and his aims. Of particular note will be Paschasius’s use of Song imagery in his commentary on Psalm 44 (45) to the community of cloistered nuns at Soissons, a work which foreshadows many themes of twelfth-​century spirituality. If nothing else, I hope to show in the following pages something of the range of early medieval exegesis on the Song of Songs: how many issues it could potentially address, how many debates to which it could potentially speak, and how central these issues were to the overall project of the Carolingian reform. Having some idea of the range and flexibility of early medieval Song exegesis and understanding its capacity to speak to the heart of what the Carolingian exegetes sought to do and to become goes some way—​perhaps a long way—​to answer the bigger question of how and why they read the Song of Songs as they did. More than any half-​guilty sexual frisson they may have gotten as they read, the Song of Songs gave its readers purpose, and assured them that the work of reform in which they were involved with was worthy, exalted, and whatever its difficulties, not ultimately in vain.

­c hapter 1

The Mother of Invention: Bede’s Commentary on the Song of Songs The medieval allegorical Song tradition has often been portrayed as having a very clear, if complex shape and trajectory—​clearer, in fact, than for most medieval biblical interpretation. Primarily the brainchild of a single genius, Origen, the subsequent medieval Song tradition built on but did not substantially change Origen’s framing interpretation of the biblical text. Origen was firm in positing that the Song of Songs had no literal sense; for that reason, an allegorical reading of the Song of Songs had to be entirely compelling in and of itself. Theologically Origen’s signature move, this small book of Old Testament poetry became a test case for the power and success of allegorical exegesis.1 Origen’s vision of the biblical text as a drama allowed, and indeed celebrated a model in which multiple layers of allegory intersected in the roles of the principal characters of the Song, creating multiple levels of meaning which later theologians could emphasize or de-​emphasize at will. The gift of Origen to the subsequent history of Song interpretation, its infinite flexibility, ensured its success and its continued relevance as much as the eroticism of its poetry. If one credits Origen with this central insight, then in a sense, every medieval exegete of the Song was following in Origen’s footsteps. At the same time, however, those footsteps were often indirect or well-​nigh imperceptible. Moreover, beyond the commentary tradition proper, the western Latin tradition in North Africa, Spain, and Italy had evolved several other responses to the Song text, variously concerned with the purity of the Christian community and the ascetic movement. To the Venerable Bede in the eighth century, that the Song of Songs could be read alternately as an allegory of Christ and the church and of Christ and the individual soul did not appear to be the insight of any one individual so much as simply a given, the teaching of the fathers. In terms of actual patristic commentaries on the Song, Bede had very little to go 1 Jean Daniélou, Origen, trans. Walter Mitchell (New  York:  Sheed and Ward, 1955), 304–​7; J. Christopher King, Origen on the Song of Songs as the Spirit of Scripture: The Bridegroom’s Perfect Marriage-​Song (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), especially at 134–​78; Alfons Fürst, “Origen: Exegesis and Philosophy in Early Christian Alexandria,” in Interpreting the Bible and Aristotle in Late Antiquity, ed. Josef Lössl and John W. Watt (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 18–​22, 29–​32.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 | DOI:10.1163/9789004389250_003

24 ­chapter  on, and interestingly, even what sources he did have access to he seems not to have used. Instead, in a highly ambitious tour de force, Bede sought to reframe his Song commentary around the exegesis and ecclesiology of Gregory the Great. Departing from the Neoplatonic spirituality of an Ambrose, for example, Bede’s commentary created a complete, systematic “Gregorian” interpretation of the Song of Songs that posited the ecclesiological interpretation of the text—​the Bride and Bridegroom as the church and Christ—​as its standard, normative reading. Bede succeeded so well that his Gregorian interpretation of the Song would remain standard throughout the Carolingian period, continuing, via the Glossa Ordinaria, to exert significant influence for the rest of the Middle Ages.2 1.1

Late Antique Exegesis on the Song of Songs

In Italy in particular, Origen’s late antique successors in interpreting the Song of Songs responded most powerfully to those elements of Neoplatonic spirituality in his thought, in which the Song was interpreted as a drama between Christ and the individual soul.3 For example, in his treatise Isaac, or de anima, Ambrose would fuse the language of the Song of Songs with Old Testament narrative to exhort the soul to leave behind the bonds of the body, translating the old classical ideal of otium and aristocratic leisure into the language of spirituality and making it an ideal text to appeal to the monastic movement.4 Origen himself had been deeply interested in the ultimate unity of the Jewish and Christian traditions, which seemed to be foreshadowed in the conversation between the Song’s two mature female figures, the Bride and an older female figure, understood to represent Synagoga.5 In an intellectual climate which overwhelmingly responded to the Song of Songs as a text to describe the experience of the spiritually advanced, however, the ecclesiological dimension of Origen’s thought tended disappear from view.

2 For Bede’s pivotal role in the Song tradition as a whole, see Riedlinger, Die Makellosigkeit, 71–​88. 3 Karl Shuve, The Song of Songs and the Fashioning of Identity in Early Latin Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016); Elizabeth A. Clark, “The Uses of the Song of Songs: Origen and the Later Latin Fathers,” in Ascetic Piety and Women’s Faith: Essays on Late Antique Christianity (Lewiston, NY: Edward Mellen Press, 1986), 391–​98. 4 Marcia Colish, Ambrose’s Patriarchs: Ethics for the Common Man (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 69–​91. 5 F. Ledegang, Mysterium Ecclesiae:  Images of the Church and Its Members in Origen (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2001).

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At the same time, the manuscript transmission of early Christian interpretation of the Song of Songs is fraught with rupture and discontinuity. Origen had completed a ten-​book commentary on the entire text of the Song, but his posthumous condemnations in Alexandria in 400, in Constantinople in 543, and the ensuing controversy over his thought and work, as well as the drifting apart of Latin and Greek theology, contributed to the loss of much of this work. Jerome had translated two of Origen’s homilies on the Song and Rufinus began a translation of the commentary; however, only the first three books of Origen’s commentary survive, and even these were not widely available in the early medieval West.6 Despite Ambrose’s undoubted reputation, the manuscript transmission of his works is extremely irregular, and Isaac—​including Ambrose’s emphasis on the individual soul—​was not known to early medieval exegetes.7 Perhaps because of the association of the Song of Songs with Neoplatonic spirituality, Augustine never attempted a Song commentary and, in fact, generally tended to avoid Song exegesis altogether, with the significant exception of his polemical works against the Donatists, which drew on North African traditions of Song exegesis pioneered by Cyprian.8 The massive commentary of Apponius, deeply influenced by Origen, was irregularly available and circulated in several different abridged versions, including one that became particularly popular in the early Irish church.9 Unexpectedly, Bede appears to 6

7 8

9

Jerome’s letter to Eustochium was full of the language of the Song of Songs, but perhaps as a result of the acrimony generated by Origenist controversy—​and Rufinus’s barbed and calculated praise of Jerome’s translations of Origen’s homilies—​he never attempted a commentary on the Song. See Elizabeth A. Clark, The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton:  Princeton University Press, 1992), 165; Krastu Banev, Theophilus of Alexandria and the First Origenist Controversy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). For example, see M. L. W. Laistner, “The Library of the Venerable Bede,” in Bede, His Life, Times, and Writings: Essays in Commemoration of the Twelfth Centenary of His Death, ed. A. Hamilton Thompson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), 247. Shuve, The Song of Songs and the Fashioning of Identity, 29–​37; 66–​78; Michael Cameron, “Augustine’s Construction of Figurative Exegesis against the Donatists in the Ennarationes in Psalmos,” vol. 1 (Ph.D. dissertation: University of Chicago, 1996), 397–​400, 408–​12; Maureen A. Tilley, The Bible in Christian North Africa: the Donatist World (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), 33; 88; 148–​9; James P. Keleher, Saint Augustine’s Notion of Schism in the Donatist Controversy (Mundelein, IL, 1961); Pasquale Borgomeo, L’Église de ce temps dans la prédication de Saint Augustin (Paris:  Études augustiniennes, 1972), 142; A.  M. La Bonnardière, “Le Cantique de Cantiques dans l’oeuvre de Saint Augustin,” Révue des Études Augustiniennes 1 (1955): 225–​37. See, for example, the reference to it in the Catechesis Celtica, ed. André Wilmart, Studi e Testi 59 (1933): cap. 8, 79–​82. An abbreviated version of Apponius was read in Irish circles, particularly by the Céli Dé, to the extent that his use suggests Hiberno-​Latin influence. See Martin McNamara, “Irish Affiliations of the Catechesis Celtica,” Celtica 21

26 ­chapter  have had access to a copy of Apponius’s commentary, but he seems to have used it, when he used it at all, at a structural and conceptual level rather than a reference guide for understanding specific passages.10 Of the other late antique authors of Song commentaries, the work of Gregory of Elvira was not widely known outside of Spain. The brief, ecclesiological commentary of Iustus of Urgel, Rossana Guglielmetti has argued, was known to Gregory the Great, via their common interlocutor, Leander of Seville, and also, she suggests, to Bede. Neither Gregory nor Bede allude to Iustus’s work, however, and, Bede might well have been influenced by Iustus at second-​hand, via Gregory, and taken Iustus’s interpretation as Gregory’s own work.11 He would have been aided in this impression by the fact that he did not seem to have known Gregory’s own sermons on the Song of Songs: as we will see, Bede’s “Gregorian” reading of the Song is derived not directly from sermons or commentary but from compiling Gregory’s allusions to Song imagery scattered throughout the Moralia in Iob, the Pastoral Rule, and the Homilies on Ezechiel. The manuscript history of Gregory’s homilies on the Song of Songs is a reminder that works even of an author so beloved and universally circulated as Gregory the Great might well be lost or inaccessible to early medieval exegetes.12 Like Origen, Gregory appears to have delivered a series of sermons that seem to

10

11

12

(1990): 310–​11, 332–​33, and “Sources and Affiliations of the Catechesis Celtica,” Sacris Erudiri 34 (1994): 219–​20. An unedited eighth-​century Song commentary in Orléans shows both Irish influence and some use of Apponius: Orléans Bibliothèque Municipale 56. How Bede managed to find an apparently complete copy of Apponius’s Song commentary, a rare text, is puzzling, to say the least. Intriguingly, we know that another abridged copy of Apponius, albeit a different recension from that used by Bede, circulated with a letter by the abbess Burginda to a young man of her acquaintance. The manuscript, once in the possession of St.-​Bertin and now in Boulogne, appears to have been made in the first half of the eighth century, Sims-​Williams suggests at the monastery at Bath. See Patrick Sims-​Williams, “An Unpublished Seventh-​or Eighth-​Century Anglo-​Latin Letter in Boulogne-​Sur-​Mer MS 74 (82),” Medium Aevum 48 (1979):  1–​9. See also Holder, “The Patristic Sources,” 373–​74; George Hardin Brown, “Patristic Pomegranates, from Ambrose and Apponius to Bede,” in Latin Learning and English Lore: Studies in Anglo-​Saxon Literature for Michael Lapidge, ed. Katherine O’Brian O’Keefe and Andy Orchard (Toronto, 2005), 1:138. Rossana Guglielmetti, “Tradizione Manoscritta e Fortuna del Commento al Cantico di Giusto d’Urgell,” Il Cantico dei Cantici nel medioevo, ed. Rossana Guglielmetti (Florence: sismel, 2008), 170–​74; Iustus of Urgel, Explanatio in Cantica Canticorum: Un vescovo exegeta nel regno visigoto, ed. Rossana E. Guglielmetti (Florence: Edizioni del Galluzzo per la Fondazione Ezio Franceschini, 2011), cii–​cvii. Jamie Wood argues, in fact, that Gregory’s reception in Spain by Leader and Isidore cemented a reputation for orthodoxy which was not uncontested in Rome: “Leander, Isidore, and the Legacy of Gregory the Great in Spain,” in Isidore of Seville and His Reception in the

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have covered the entire text of the Song. These were also influenced by Origen and stressed both aspects of Song interpretation, the tropological or individual and the ecclesiological. Gregory’s discussions, Paul Meyvaert argued, were given during his pontificate between 595 and 598 and were written down by notaries; however, of these, only those homilies survive which cover the first few verses of the Song.13 A certain portion of the homilies were evidently sent by Gregory to the Irish peregrinus Columbanus at Bobbio—​more than we presently possess, if Gregory moved sequentially through the Song—​along with the Pastoral Rule and some of the Homilies on Ezechiel.14 For whatever reason, these homilies on the Song were not widely copied and circulated, however. In later centuries, the Carolingian exegete Angelomus of Luxeuil, whose monastery had been founded by Columbanus, had a copy of Gregory’s homilies, as well as portions of Apponius, but he was the first of the Carolingian commentators to employ them. 1.2

Exegetical Authority on the Make: Bede’s Commentary on the Song of Songs

So far, then, from following an already established patristic tradition of reading the Song of Songs, Bede effectively had to manufacture a tradition of his own—​preferably one with an unimpeachable theological pedigree, of course. It may well have been precisely the intellectual challenge that drew Bede to the Song in the first place: one of the markers of Bede the mature exegete is that he increasingly gravitated toward biblical texts with little or no patristic treatment. Although there is no firm chronology of Bede’s exegesis, the Song commentary was composed probably in 716 or slightly before, making it, with one exception, the first work from this more confident phase of his career and the first to be copied and circulated in any numbers by the Wearmouth-​Jarrow scriptorium.15

13 14

15

Early Middle Ages: Transmitting and Transforming Knowledge, ed. Andrew Fear and Jamie Wood (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2016), 31–​56. P. Meyvaert, “The Date of Gregory the Great’s Commentaries on the Canticle of Canticles and on I Kings,” Sacris Erudiri 23 (1978/​9): 213, 215. See also Mark DelCogliano’s introduction to Gregory the Great: On the Song of Songs (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2012), 33–​43. “… transmitte et Cantica canticorum ab illo loco, in quo dicit, Ibo ad montem myrrhae et collem thuris (Cant. 4:6), usque in finem; aut aliorum aut tuis brevibus, deposco, tracta sententiis.” Columbanus, “Ep. 1,” ed. G. S. M. Walker, Sancti Columbani Opera (Dublin: The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1957), 2:10, lns.17–​19. Arthur Holder, “The Anti-​Pelagian Character of Bede’s Commentary on the Song of Songs,” in Biblical Studies in the Early Middle Ages: Proceedings of the Conference on Biblical Studies in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Claudio Leonardi and Giovanni Orlandi (Florence, 2005),

28 ­chapter  In fact, I would argue that the Commentary on the Song of Songs represents an announcement of Bede’s maturity as an exegete and a scholar, boldly presenting himself as a bastion of orthodox teaching and the preeminent scholar-​ in-​residence at Wearmouth-​Jarrow. Amidst the still unsettled aftermath of the Easter controversy, Wearmouth-​Jarrow proclaimed, even in the script in use by its scriptorium, its strong links to Rome, its stainless reputation for orthodoxy, its flamboyant abbots Benedict Biscop and Ceolfrith, the purity of its Benedictine monasticism, and its place as one of the leading lights of the Northumbrian Renaissance.16 Bede was very much a part of this ideological program: in his mid-​forties and already the author of several early commentaries, Bede was about to embark on a near-​frenetic writing career that would last for the rest of his life. What better way to advertise the role that he wanted to play within the church than to write an ecclesiological treatise focusing on the forms of life within the church and the work of reform?17 It is also around this time that Ceolfrith’s successor, the abbot Hwaetberht, began systematically copying Bede’s exegetical corpus, materially ensuring its survival and its influence in Northumbria and beyond.18 At Wearmouth-​Jarrow itself Bede’s commentaries would have been both read to the community and also made available to visitors.19 Particularly in an insular context, a monastic center like Wearmouth-​Jarrow would not have existed in isolation but would have been closely involved in evangelization, preaching, and pastoral care, not to mention a network of alliances with other Northumbrian monasteries. Many of Bede’s exegetical works in his subsequent career would be dedicated to Bishop Acca of Hexham, with the deliberate intention of using them to train young clergy in how to read scripture, while his Thirty Questions on the Books

16 17

1 8 19

91–​103; Roger Ray, “Who Did Bede Think He Was?” in Innovation and Tradition in the Writings of the Venerable Bede, ed. Scott de Gregorio (Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2006), 33–​34. For manuscripts of Bede’s Song commentary, see M. L. W. Laistner, A Hand-​List of Bede Manuscripts (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1943), 66–​70. Malcolm Parkes, “The Scriptorium at Wearmouth-​Jarrow,” Jarrow Lecture (1982), 4–​5, 20–​ 21; Patrick Wormald, “Bede and Benedict Biscop,” in The Times of Bede, ed. Stephen Baxter (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 9–​10. John William Houghton has argued that Bede’s earliest works on Acts, the Seven Catholic Epistles, and the Apocalypse centered, not only around the lectionary for the Great 50 Days of Easter, but also around the ecclesiology of the church, with Acts representing her past, the Epistles her present, and the Apocalypse her future. The Song commentary could then be seen as a mature summation of his earlier ecclesiological thought. Bede’s Exegetical Theology: Ideas of the Church in the Acts Commentaries of St. Bede the Venerable (PhD dissertation: University of Notre Dame, 1994), 42–​46. Ray, “Who Did Bede Think He Was?” 15 and 34–​35. See also Parkes, “Scriptorium,” 15–​16. Houghton, Bede’s Exegetical Theology, 48–​51; 73.

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of Kings were dedicated to Nothhelm, who would later become archbishop of Canterbury.20 At this time, then, Bede was an exegete on the make, armed with a Latin style unsurpassed among his contemporaries, what amounted to a publishing house, and a mixed audience of monks and clergy involved in the work of reform in Northumbria, with tendrils of influence extending south to Canterbury.21 It is an indicator of how effective Hwaetberht’s publishing campaign ultimately was that the Venerable Bede’s reputation as an arbiter of orthodoxy was largely assumed almost from the beginning. Recent scholarship has largely dismantled the traditional image of Bede as an irenic, dispassionate historian interested only in harmonizing discord left over from the Easter controversy.22 In examining his exegetical oeuvre, it is worth asking parallel questions about his supposed neutrality. If Bede came, comparatively quickly, to have the reputation of being the preeminent, unassailable guardian of the teachings of the fathers, how did that come about, and was there a time when Bede’s authority was not yet taken for granted? As well as occupying a pivotal place in launching the mature phase of Bede’s career, the Song commentary illustrates Bede’s related, abiding concern with questions of heresy and orthodoxy. These questions would resonate even more loudly in the Carolingian world and would remain an integral part of the early medieval understanding of the Song of Songs, as we will see in the next chapter. In 708, eight years before the composition of the Song commentary, Bede had been accused of heresy concerning his reckoning of the six ages of the world in his early work, De temporibus, by David, a monk from the monastery of Hexham in Bishop Wilfrid’s entourage.23 It is difficult to say how serious a charge this actually was, but the incident was made worse for the sensitive Bede by the fact that, even though the charge had been made in the bishop’s

20 21 22

23

See George Hardin Brown, A Companion to Bede (Woodbridge:  Boydell and Brewer, 2009), 33–​72. Most recently, Vicky Gunn has argued for an “elite monastic group” as the immediate audience for Bede’s “historical” works: Bede’s Historiae: Genre, Rhetoric and the Construction of Anglo-​Saxon Church History (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2009), 36. Most notably, for Bede’s attitude toward Wilfrid of Hexham, see Walter Goffart, The Narrators of Barbarian History (A.D. 550-​800) (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, rpt. 2005), 235–​328; for Bede as a partisan of his own house and a player in Northumbrian monastic politics, see Gunn, Bede’s Historiae; for Bede the “fundamentalist” and “idealist,” who deliberately excluded Northumbrian and Frankish society from his writings, see Patrick Wormald, The Times of Bede, ed. Stephen Baxter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 13–​14, 60–​64. See the recent analysis by Palmer, The Apocalypse in the Early Middle Ages, 95–​105.

30 ­chapter  presence, Wilfrid had done nothing to defend him or to defuse the accusation. That this rankled deeply is evident in Bede’s composition of an open letter to Plegwine—​one of two he would write on the subject—​in which he caricatures the Hexham monks as drunken sots. For all that he appeared to shrug off the accusation to Plegwine, Bede desperately wanted to set the record straight, and even seventeen years later in writing De temporum ratione his tone remained defensive.24 Bede’s infamously ambivalent portrayal of Wilfrid in the Ecclesiastical History arguably stems not only from Bede’s clear affection for the Irish, but also from Bede’s old sense of grievance and a continuing rivalry between Wearmouth-​Jarrow and Hexham. An accusation of heresy, then, had been sprung on Bede as a newly fledged scholar and had dogged his early career. With the launching of the ambitious Song commentary in 716, Bede may have expected a similar reaction and sought to preempt it. To be sure, Wilfrid had been succeeded in 709 by Acca, a much more supportive ear to whom Bede had already dedicated his commentaries on Acts and the Seven Catholic Epistles. Acca’s encouragement—​and, no doubt, his implicit protection—​clearly gave Bede the confidence to work as prolifically as he did. Some anxiety remained, however, and I would argue that Bede’s ongoing efforts to control and craft his public image as an orthodox authority helps to explain one of the most puzzling features of the entire Song commentary: the prologue, in which Bede directs a blast of his most ornate Latin at the fifth-​century Pelagian heretic and bishop of Campania, Julian of Eclanum. Julian had been the author of an opusculum on the Song of Songs, De amore, which does not now survive; quoting Virgil, Bede accuses Julian of being a “snake in the grass,” able to lead young and inexperienced readers astray.25 24

25

Bede begins the letter, after the salutation, with this description of the incident: “Venit ad me ante biduum, frater amantissime, nuntius tuae sanctitatis, qui pacificae quidem salutationis a te laetissima verba detulit. Sed haec tristi mox admixtione confudit, addendo uidelicet quod me audires a lascivientibus rusticis inter hereticos per pocula decantari. Exhorrui, fateor, et pallens percunctabar, cuius hereseos arguerer.” “Epistola ad Pleguinam,” ed. Charles W. Jones, Bedae Opera de temporibus (Cambridge, MA: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1943), lns. 3–​7. See also the remarks of Jones, 132; Peter Hunter Blair, The World of Bede (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970; rpt. 1990) 266–​67; Calvin B. Kendall and Faith Wallis, introduction to On the Nature of Things and On Times, trans. Calvin B.  Kendall and Faith Wallis (Liverpool:  Liverpool University Press, 2010), 29–​30; Goffart, The Narrators of Barbarian History, 241. “Scripturus iuuante gratia superna in cantica canticorum primo ammonendum putaui lectorem ut opuscula Iuliani Eclanensis episcopi de Campania quae in eundem librum confecit cautissime legat ne per copiam eloquentiae blandientis foueam incidat doctrinae nocentis sed ut dici solet ita botrum carpat ut et spinam caueat, id est ita in dictis eius sanos sensus scrutetur et eligat ut non minus uitet insanos, uel potius illud faciat Maronis: Qui

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On the whole, Bede’s attack on Julian has required some explanation for scholars.26 Benedicta Ward went so far as to suggest that Bede had come into possession of Julian’s De amore, wrote his commentary on the Song, and only belatedly realized the heretical status of his source, upon which he wrote a hasty and vehement prologue distancing himself from Julian.27 Bede’s use of Julian is so minor, however, and his overall interpretation of the Song so different, that this seems unlikely. So much spleen, even if rhetorically generated, directed towards a long-​dead heretic—​already thoroughly lambasted when alive by no less a pillar of the doctores than Augustine himself—​suggests that Bede had chosen Julian as something of a straw man to mask his real ambitions and concerns. Far more than an actual doctrinal threat, Julian represented a sort of test case for Bede to prove his exegetical prowess and membership in the class of doctores beyond all doubt. Another, related explanation for the prologue may lie in Julian’s association with Pelagianism and with Pelagius, that bad fruit produced by the bad tree, the British.28 According to Bede’s developing historical vision of the English church, colored by the scathing jeremiads of Gildas, the corruption of Pelagius and the British church had produced heresy and ultimately apostasy from Rome. As Arthur Holder has shown, there is anti-​Pelagian material scattered throughout the Song commentary.29 Bede may have attacked Julian, therefore, not necessarily because he was afraid to be seen in his intellectual

26

27 28 29

legitis flores et humi nascentia fraga, frigidus, o pueri, fugite hinc, latet anguis in herba, hoc est ab eius se per omnia lectione compescat cum habeat eos qui eundem librum et sanis sensibus et simplicioribus uerbis exposuerunt.” Bede, icc, prologue, lns. 1–​12. In the only English translation of the work, recently published, Arthur Holder has chosen to omit the prologue entirely, as well as the extracts from the works of Gregory the Great that form Book Six in Hurst’s edition. The Venerable Bede: On the Song of Songs and Selected Writings, trans. Arthur Holder (New York: Paulist Press, 2011). Elsewhere, Holder has argued that Bede’s attack on Julian is part of Bede’s rhetorical effort to associate himself with the fathers: “Hunting Snakes in the Grass: Bede as Heresiologist,” Listen, O Isles, unto me: Studies in Medieval Word and Image in honour of Jennifer O’Reilly, ed. Elizabeth Mullins and Diarmuid Scully (Cork: Cork University Press, 2011), 105–​14. Benedicta Ward, The Venerable Bede (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Pub., 1990), 76. Alan Thacker has suggested that Bede’s exegetical understanding of the Jews was conditioned by his attitude toward “the hated British.” See “Bede and the Ordering of Understanding,” in Innovation and Tradition, 56–​57. Arthur Holder, “The Patristic Sources of Bede’s Commentary on the Song of Songs,” Studia Patristica 34, ed. M. F. Wiles and E. J. Yarnold (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 371; idem, “The Anti-​ Pelagian Character of Bede’s Commentary on the Song of Songs,” Biblical Studies in the Early Middle Ages:  Proceedings of the Conference on Biblical Studies in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Claudio Leonardi and Giovanni Orlandi (Florence: sismel, 2005), 91–​103.

32 ­chapter  company, so to speak, or because he saw him as a live issue, but because Julian served as stand-​in for the British, a symbol of the wider dysfunction that had ultimately caused the forerunners of Bede’s beloved English nation to relapse into paganism. With Julian cast as the villain of his anti-​Pelagian parable, Gregory the Great could take the stage as Bede’s obvious hero: as in the Ecclesiastical History, if Pelagius, Julian, and the British had ultimately forfeited their part in Christendom, Gregory the Great—​and by extension, those doctores of the church reliant upon his teaching—​was instrumental in bringing Christianity back to the English and ensuring that the tradition remained pure. This implicit history brackets Bede’s Song commentary at both ends: the polemic against Julian in the prologue and in conclusion, the final sixth book of the commentary made up of extracts from various works of Gregory, excepting Gregory’s sermons on the Song, containing the pope’s exegesis of individual images from the Song of Songs. Bede sought to “thresh” Gregory’s scattered musings on the Song from the rest of his works, collecting and arranging the passages by order of their Song lemmata.30 Taken together, this small florilegium provided a foundation for a “Gregorian” reading of the Song, on which Bede would build the rest of the work and from which he would derive the controlling ecclesiological interpretation of his commentary. In this collection of extracts, chosen by Bede himself, the language of the Song is interpreted predominantly, though not entirely, in light of the church and her relationship with Christ. They would have provided Bede with a consistent methodology for how the baffling and erotic language of the Song of Songs might be safely transmuted into descriptions of the forms of life within the church, and they would have shown Bede how to convey Gregory’s deep concern with preaching and pastoral care in terms of Song language. Moreover, the extracts in the florilegium also show how Song imagery could be used to create snapshots of Christ and the Church as transcendent figures, which, particularly when used as a basis for meditation, suggested how the entire text could be made a window into heavenly realities. One of the great contributions of Gregory’s Moralia and the Homilies on Ezechiel to the early medieval exegetical tradition generally speaking was as a guide in the typological interpretation of Old Testament images. Architectural images

30

“Cudatur ergo septimus in cantica canticorum liber nostro quidem labore collectus …” Bede, ICC, Bk. vi, lns. 10–​11. Bede goes on to say that he has heard of Paterius’s abridgment of the Moralia but does not as yet have a copy, but that his effort is intended in the same spirit: lns. 17–​23.

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were particularly suggestive, which Gregory almost always used to signify the institutional church and those monks and clergy tasked with leading her people. Most famously, Gregory used Ezechiel’s extremely lengthy, complex, detailed, and highly numerological vision of the temple as an allegory for the church, present and future.31 In the same way, Gregory incorporated many of the most important images and narratives within the Song of Songs into his great works, interpreting them in light of these same concerns. In this way, the nose, cheeks, teeth, neck, and breasts of the Bride represent different functions of the doctores of the church, while the milk and honey under the tongue of the Bride signifies their preaching; the adulescentulae or “maidens” are those immature souls in need of their nourishment.32 The “black but beautiful” Bride signifies the humility of the church and the work of her preachers, who despite persecution have been placed in charge of many vineyards.33 The Bride, who longs to contemplate the face of her Bridegroom, must in the present life content herself in good works and in love of one’s neighbor.34 The leaps of the deer-​like Bridegroom correspond to the leaps of Christ from heaven to earth in the Incarnation, from earth to the tomb, and from the tomb to heaven.35 The church longs to see her Bridegroom in his full glory but must content herself with his earthly miracles and his passion, while she is called forth by the Bridegroom from her rest to go preach.36 The watchmen of the city the Bride encounters and the “mighty men” who stand around the 31

32 33 34 35 36

Kate Rambridge, “Doctor Noster Sanctus:  The Northumbrians and Pope Gregory,” and Thomas N. Hall, “The Early English Manuscripts of Gregory the Great’s Homilies on the Gospel and Homilies on Ezechiel: A Preliminary Survey,” in Rome and the North: The Early Reception of Gregory the Great in Germanic Europe, ed. Rolf H. Bremmer, Jr., Kees Dekker, and David F. Johnson (Paris: Peeters, 2001), 19, 115–​36; Christman Angela Russell, “What Did Ezechiel See?”: Christian Exegesis of Ezechiel’s Vision of the Chariot from Irenaeus to Gregory the Great (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 135–​52. The famous illumination of the Tabernacle in the Codex Amiatinus and Bede’s works on the Tabernacle and Temple were undoubtedly following the example of Gregory: Elizabeth Bailey, “The Tabernacle as an Allegory of Faith in Anglo-​Saxon England: The Codex Amiatinus and the Venerable Bede,” Medieval Perspectives 17.2 (2003): 2–​22. In turn, Scott De Gregorio has pointed out the qualitative similarity between Bede’s works on Old Testament buildings and the Ecclesiastical History, with Bede’s subtext a call for reform. Scott DeGregorio, “ ‘Nostrorum socordiam temporum’: the Reforming Impulse of Bede’s Later Exegesis,” Early Medieval Europe 11.2 (2002): 119. ICC, Bk. vi, lns. 532–​39 (Moralia); lns. 509–​520 (Hom. in Ezech.); lns. 334–​39 (Moralia); lns. 348–​377 (Hom. in Ezech.); lns. 43–​46 (Moralia); lns. 413–​23 (Moralia); lns. 47–​52 (Moralia). ICC, Bk. vi, lns. 53–​64 (Moralia). ICC, Bk. vi, lns. 94–​108 (Hom. in Ezech.). ICC, Bk. vi, lns. 127–​35 (Hom. Evang.). ICC, Bk. vi, lns. 136–​153 (Hom. in Ezech.).

34 ­chapter  litter of King Solomon are also the doctores, who lead her to the works of the fathers.37 The church proceeds through the desert of the world like a wisp of fragrant incense; she is both beautiful and terrible to those who oppose her.38 Following Gregory’s exegetical cues, Bede could, to some extent, reverse-​ engineer a Gregorian interpretation of the Song of Songs from this small florilegium. This collection was by no means exhaustive enough to make up a verse-​by-​verse reference or to explain all the puzzles of the Song text, however. Bede’s Song commentary illustrates the extent to which originality and tradition often coexisted and even paradoxically depended on one another within the medieval exegetical tradition: Bede deliberately followed Gregory’s authority, and yet selected and shaped that authority even as he followed it, systematizing Gregory’s thought in unexpected ways. Bede’s own priorities as a scholar and teacher, although derived from Gregory’s pastoral works, emerge in the Song commentary: the vital role played by the doctores of the church, their commitment to nurture those less strong in the faith, and the urgency and necessity of preaching. 1.3

Re-​writing the Plot of the Song

Ever the historian, Bede was alert to the power of both explicit and implicit narrative, as we’ve seen. Throughout his career, Bede experimented with various ways to convey and control the narrative being communicated over the course of his works, largely through tinkering with the texts’ overall format and the presentation and style of his exegesis.39 These small innovations may 37 38 39

ICC, Bk. vi, lns. 251–​322 (Moralia; Hom. in Ezech.). ICC, vi, lns. 486–​508 (Hom. in Ezech.); lns. 521–​31 (Moralia); lns. 562–​67 (Moralia). In his earlier works of exegesis, Bede had been dependent on patristic citation to the point of clumsiness, but in mature works like the Song commentary, citations are often paraphrased or smoothly integrated into the body of the text. Scott DeGregorio, “The Venerable Bede and Gregory the Great: Exegetical Connections, Spiritual Departures,” Early Medieval Europe 18 (2010): 50–​52. J. N. Hart-​Hasler, “Bede’s Use of Patristic Sources: The Transfiguration,” Studia Patristica, vol. 28, ed. Elizabeth A. Livingstone (Leuven: Peeters, 1993), 197–​204. The sourcing of Hurst’s editions of Bede’s works has been the cause for much scholarly complaint. For example, see George Hardin Brown, “Bede’s Commentary on I Samuel,” in Biblical Studies in the Early Middle Ages, 77–​90; Michael Gorman, “Source Marks and Chapter Divisions in Bede’s Commentary on Luke,” Revue Bénédictine 112 (2002): 256–​58. For Bede’s innovative system of source-​marks, see Bernice M. Kaczynski, “Bede’s Commentaries on Luke and Mark and the Formation of a Patristic Canon,” Anglo-​ Latin and Its Heritage: Essays in Honour of A. G. Rigg on his 64th Birthday, ed. Siân Echard and Gernot R. Wieland (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001), 17–​26.

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seem innocuous, just as Bede’s prefatory material may seem divorced from the main body of the Song commentary, but they are crucial to understanding the nature of Bede’s exegetical argument and the ways in which he deliberately shaped a new narrative by which to understand the biblical text. Bede’s Song commentary was preceded by one other major work, also composed in 716: the commentary on I Samuel. It is, in fact, his longest work on the Old Testament, and it was another book of the bible with no patristic interpretation. George Hardin Brown has noted the laborious care with which Bede crafted it, including showy prologues for each of its four books, a feat which Bede never attempted again.40 Given how few copies were made of the commentary on I Samuel, it is possible that Bede himself deemed it a failure, too large and elaborate for its own good, but when taken together with Bede’s Song commentary it demonstrates Bede’s careful attention not only to the content but also to the configuration of his works. The Song commentary can be understood as a follow-​up effort on Bede’s part to launch his new “line” in exegesis, still trying, perhaps, just a little too hard to be impressive.41 Similar to the prologues from the Samuel commentary, Bede assembled two sets of capitula, or chapter headings, to precede the main body of the Song commentary. The first set is made up of a numerical list of thirty-​nine headings describing the events of the Song as a continuous narrative and specifying the order of exchanges between the different allegorical personifications. The second set of capitula, not numbered, is the complete 40 41

George Hardin Brown, “Bede’s Neglected Commentary on Samuel,” in Innovation and Tradition in the Writings of the Venerable Bede, 121–​27. Bede’s exegetical style, as several scholars have pointed out, became progressively more difficult and complex in his later works, but the Song commentary already contains some of Bede’s most ornate and periodic Latin. In Richard Sharpe’s analysis, the Song commentary ranks fourth in the canon for sheer sentence length—​averaging around 34 words per sentence—​after the much later commentaries on Ezra-​Nehemiah and On the Tabernacle. Interestingly, the third of these is the Thirty Questions on the Book of Kings, whose date, in part due to parallels with the Samuel commentary, Paul Meyvaert proposed was as early as 715. (Laistner had suggested a date of 725 for the Thirty Questions on the Book of Kings, but Meyvaert found this unconvincing.) If Meyvaert is correct, it would only emphasize the aspirations of Bede’s Latin style in these crucial and productive years. Richard Sharpe, “The Varieties of Bede’s Prose,” Aspects of the Language of Latin Prose, ed. Tobias Reinhardt, Michael Lapidge, and J. N. Adams, Proceedings of the British Academy 129 (2005): 352–​53; Paul Meyvaert, “In the Footsteps of the Fathers: the Date of Bede’s 30 Questions on the Book of Kings to Nothelm,” in The Limits of Ancient Christianity, ed. William Klinshern and Mark Vessey (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 268–​69, 275; see also W. Trent Foley, “Thirty Questions on the Book of Kings: Introduction,” in Bede: A Biblical Miscellany, trans. W. Trent Foley and Arthur G. Holder (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999), 86–​87.

36 ­chapter  biblical text itself, with rubrics in which the speaker in each verse is clearly identified as well as who is being addressed.42 Capitula would become something of a specialty of Bede’s over the course of his career, enabling him to present his arguments essentially in bullet-​point form.43 But they serve a particularly important purpose in the case of the Song of Songs. Since the biblical text is declamatory, made up entirely of discontinuous segments of poetry, to turn it into a unified narrative at all is itself an enormously significant, and somewhat circular act of interpretation: one’s interpretation of the text as a whole decides which character is most likely to be speaking a particular passage, which one then explicates. Determining which allegorical personifications were even on the cast list, as it were, is an equally creative choice on the part of the exegete. Despite its orderly, numerical appearance, Bede’s first set of capitula are not anchored to particular verses from the biblical text in any precise way but instead form Bede’s narrative outline of his overall interpretation of the Song text: they are the proscenium, the set, and the plot summary to the drama of the Song. The second set of capitula, the biblical text, acts as the actual script. Complete and in the impeccable Vulgate translation of the Codex Amiatinus, Bede could control the quality of the Song text in circulation, as well as to make the association between his own work and a good-​quality biblical text.44 While there may not have been a great deal of late antique commentary on the Song of Songs available to Bede, there were rubrics he could have followed had he chosen to do so. While Bede’s commentary used the Vulgate text of the Song, he certainly also consulted a copy, probably complete, of Jerome’s 42 43

44

Bede, ICC, pp. 181–​89. In the list of his works that closes the Ecclesiastical History, Bede gives a list of the biblical books for which he has composed capitula lectionum (somewhat misleadingly translated as “summaries of lessons” by Colgrave):  the Pentateuch, Joshua and Judges, Kings and Chronicles, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs, Isaiah, and Ezra-​Nehemiah. These have been most recently studied by Paul Meyvaert, who has identified several previously unidentified “Teilhandschriften” as the work of Bede, containing unified sets of capitula for both testaments. One of Meyvaert’s criteria for Bede’s authorship of some of these capitula is their strikingly “literary quality,” and he notes as well in a set of capitula to the book of Hebrews their function as “summaries, attempting to articulate what Bede perceived to be the main lessons to be drawn from each of Paul’s letters.” P. Meyvaert, “Bede’s Capitula lectionum for the Old and New Testaments,” Révue Bénédictine 105 (1995): 353, 359–​60. See also Gorman, “Source Marks and Chapter Divisions,” 267–​69; George Hardin Brown, “Bede’s Style in His Commentary on I Samuel,” in Text, Image, Interpretation: Studies in Anglo-​Saxon Literature and its Insular Context in Honour of Éamonn Ó Carragáin, ed. Alastair Minnis and Jane Roberts (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 234. Christopher de Hamel speculates that Bede may have himself corrected the text of the Codex Amiatinus: Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts (London: Allen Lane, 2016), 87–​93.

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older hexaplaric “revision.”45 In his analysis of a yet older version which he termed the “préhiéronymienne,” De Bruyne discovered a set of rubrics for the Song which were reproduced in a certain class of Vulgate manuscripts, including the Codex Amiatinus, which identified several places in which speak the vox Christi, vox ecclesiae, and vox synagogae, suggesting a likely precedent for Bede’s own set of capitula.46 However, if this is the case, Bede also departs significantly in several key places from the interpretation of the pre-​Jeromian set of rubrics, which, for example, places a portion of the Song in the mouth of Mary Magdalene, who does not appear at all in Bede’s capitula.47 And while the rubrics were irregularly copied in de Bruyne’s manuscripts, generally they do not seem concerned to give an interpretation for every verse of the Song, as Bede does. In drawing up his own version, then, Bede had only one complete commentary on the Song which he might have followed, the commentary of Apponius, but in fact Bede also diverges significantly from Apponius’s exegetical narrative at several key points. The warning to the Daughters of Jerusalem, Adiuro uos, not to awaken love unless it so desires, which is repeated three times over the course of the Song, Bede places not in the mouth of the Bride, as Apponius does, but Christ.48 For Apponius, it is the Daughters of Jerusalem who twice ask the identity of the Bride coming up from the desert; Bede, however, identifies the speaker both times as Synagogue. The verses that follow this second example, beginning “I went down into the nut garden,” Bede also attributes to Synagogue; for Apponius, however, they had formed a miniature narrative of Christ’s incarnation and passion culminating in a repentant human race begging for Christ’s return.49 To turn from Apponius’s commentary to that of Bede is not so much to encounter strikingly different doctrines as to 45

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D. de Bruyne, “Les anciennes versions latine du cantique des cantiques,” Révue Bénédictine 38 (1926): 110. As de Bruyne notes, Bede refers to his alternate text as “antiqua” or “alia translatio” or several times as “quidam codices.” See ICC, Bk. ii, ii, ln. 732; Bk. iii, iv, lns. 407–​8; Bk. iv, v, ln. 760; Bk. v, viii, ln. 427. For an assessment of the Vulgate text of the Song found in the Codex Amiatinus and available to Bede, see Richard Marsden, The Text of the Old Testament in Anglo-​Saxon England (Cambridge, 1995), 151. De Bruyne, “Les anciennes versions,” 98–​105. For example, the pre-​Jeromian rubrics ascribe the famous declaration of Ecclesia, “I am black but beautiful,” to Synagoga, and at the close of the Song, when Christ speaks about an unnamed immature female character, Bede identifies her as Synagoga, while the pre-​ Jeromian text suggests that Christ is speaking to Synagoga about Ecclesia. De Bruyne, “Les anciennes versions,” 98 and 104. ICC, Bk. i, ii, lns. 239–​43; Bk. ii, iii, lns. 125–​30; Bk. v, viii, lns. 202–​7. This is, however, the interpretation of the pre-​Jeromian rubrics. Apponius, In Canticum Canticorum expositio, ed. B. De Vregille and L. Neyrand, CCSL 19 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1986), Bk. 9, lns. 422–​30; ICC, Bk. iv, vi, lns. 508–​13.

38 ­chapter  find at work a new governing organization and structure. Quite literally, Bede changed the plot of the Song. The most obvious result of this is that Bede’s capitula push aggressively to the forefront the ecclesiological reading of the Song of Songs. Instead of several different competing interpretations, in the style of an Origen or an Apponius, in which the Bride appears alternately as the church or the individual soul and in which neither is pre-​eminent, Bede’s capitula simply equate Sponsa with Ecclesia. This is a tactic all the more effective for Bede’s presentation of it as the self-​evident way of reading the text. Through his two lists of capitula, Bede systematizes the narrative of the Song in a way that had not previously existed, and ensures that even when he interprets certain passages as referring also to Christ and the individual soul it is the ecclesiological reading that remains central or normative. 1.4

Diversity in Unity: a Gregorian Ecclesiology of the Church

Bede develops a set of consistent hermeneutical principles, derived from Gregory the Great, by which he can link every aspect of the Song of Songs to a set of consistent interconnected themes, in particular emphasizing the Gregorian ecclesiological axiom of a diversity of forms of life united within the one body of the church.50 In particular, diversity within unity marked Gregory’s vision of the active life of the church in the world; perfect unity, on the other hand, the full incorporation of all the members of the body of Christ into itself, would only be fully realized outside of time.51 In the Homilies on Ezekiel, Gregory left a 50

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Historically, how diverse groups of people can come to be united in one faith, or exegetically, how the diverse books of Scripture can be found to contain one harmonious and consistent gospel, are intimately linked enterprises for Bede, although this hardly affected Bede’s working methodology within each genre. See Arthur G. Holder, “Allegory and History in Bede’s Interpretation of Sacred Architecture,” American Benedictine Review 40 (1989): 130–​31. In one of Bede’s gospel homilies, he similarly compares the work of exegesis in understanding the more obscure points of Scripture to gathering the broken pieces of bread left over from Christ’s feeding of the five thousand. As Lawrence Martin notes in his commentary, Bede plays on the dual meaning of “colligere,” to collect but also to meditate; as with Gregory the Great’s meditation on Ezekiel’s eating the heavenly scroll of his vision, scriptural study is a process of drawing out easily comprehensible, “digestible” doctrine from difficult texts. Bede, “Homily II.2,” Homilies on the Gospels, ed. and trans. Lawrence T. Martin (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1991) 20 and 22, n. 3. The need for a productive balance between diversity and unity parallels the distinctively Gregorian ideal of the blending of the active and contemplative lives within the church and in the individual believer. As R. A. Markus suggests, “Diversity in unity was the keynote of his conception of the Christian community. It became the guiding thread of the

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model for finding this culminating moment in Scripture and in the language of the Song of Songs in particular: the litter or ferculum of King Solomon.52 Built of wood just as Christ deigned to fashion his church from unworthy human beings, adorned with the shining silver columns of his preachers, who foster in their listeners the splendid light of truth signified in the litter’s golden back, the only way to enter the litter is by the purple steps or stairs, the true scarlet of Christ’s blood. The king spreads the midst of the litter with charity, media caritate constrauit, for the daughters of Jerusalem. Only by practicing charity can one attain to the silver and gold of the figure: the clarity of a quiet mind and a shining inner light, where “preaching” is no longer necessary.53 In the final book of his Song commentary, Bede would excerpt a portion of this particular passage from the Homilies on Ezekiel, and in his own interpretation of the image of Solomon’s litter, he would adopt Gregory’s exegesis essentially as outlined. Throughout his Song commentary, Bede is keenly sensitive to those images in which unity and multiplicity can be found to coexist. As figures of the church, they alternately point out the plurality of peoples found under the single umbrella of the church, or hint at that moment of transformation where the many are drawn back up into the one. Although Gregory provided a model for Bede, what is interesting and creative is the extent to which Bede re-​formulated and applied it, often without patristic precedent, consistently teasing the same theological principle out of a set of aesthetic cues within the images of the Song. For example, in speaking of the many vineyards tended by the Bride, Bede notes enthusiastically how beautiful, pulchre, it is that Christ now refers to them as a single unit: “for so he calls many vineyards one, just as he wanted the many churches throughout the world to be one church for himself.”54

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pastoral principles formulated in the Regula Pastoralis; and this it remained throughout his practice as bishop. The purpose of organisation and hierarchy in the church was to foster diversity within unity.” Gregory the Great and His World (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1997), 73. “This grammar of reconciliation and complementarity underlies the vision of unity and the sacramental reality that is distinctively and characteristically Gregorian.” Carole Straw, Gregory the Great: Perfection in Imperfection (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 18. Cant. 3: 9–​10. “Columnae ergo eius argenteae et reclinatorium aureum factum est, quia per lucem sermonis inuenitur apud animum claritas quietis. Ille quippe fulgor internus mentem irradiat, ut per intentionem ibi requiescat, ubi praedicationis gratia non quaeratur.” Gregory, “Homilia II.3,” Homiliae in Hiezechihelem prophetam, ed. M.  Adriaen, CCSL 142 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1971), cap. 14; Bede, ICC, Bk. vi, lns. 301–​05. “Et pulchre qui prius numero plurali uineas dixerat rursus singulari numero posuit, nam uinea nostra floruit; ita etenim multas uineas unam appellat uineam sicut multas per orbem ecclesias unam sibi ecclesiam uoluit.” ICC, Bk. ii, ii, lns. 595–​99.

40 ­chapter  Similarly, Bede the grammarian notes, the church can be referred to in the Song text alternately as one lily or several; the use of plural terminology need not impair the church’s underlying unity, just as the multitude of believers in the early church were said to be of one heart and one soul.55 The image immediately preceding his treatment of King Solomon’s litter is one on which Bede dwells at length and returns to several times over the course of the commentary: the comparison of the church to a line of smoke, the virgula fumi, of incense rising out of the desert. Both the dynamism and the unity implicit within the figure are important to Bede, but in his interpretation it also becomes a much richer ecclesiological image, in contrast to Apponius, whose reading had dwelled exclusively around the allegorical meanings of the different spices mentioned in the Song text.56 For Bede, the smoke rises toward heavenly things because it has been kindled by the Holy Spirit and dissipates into the air just as the church will be gathered in and born anew at the end of time, and throughout it has remained a cohesive unit.57 But this steady stream of smoke arises out of a collection of powdered spices “because one and the same church [of Christ] is built out of many faithful people,” each offering a different sort of virtue to God.58 In another Song figure, the Bridegroom exclaims: “There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and young maidens without number. One is my dove, my perfect one is but one …”59 Bede, interestingly, does not set all these groups in opposition as a modern translation might, but instead makes the queens, concubines, and maidens sub-​groups within the one perfect church, and the Bridegroom’s exclamation a paradoxical affirmation of her unity within—​or despite—​her multiplicity. Bede then invokes both Paul’s assertion to the Ephesians that there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one

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“Ita etenim sancta universalis ecclesia nunc liliorum pluraliter nunc unius lilii nomine designatur. Sicut enim lilium inter spinas, inquit, sic amica mea inter filias, quo modo et per uineas pluraliter ubi ait, uineae florent, et rursum singulariter per uineam ubi subiecit, nam uinea nostra floruit, eadem ipsa quae non nisi una est ecclesia figuratur; singulariter namque ob id nominatur quia multitudinis credentium est cor et anima una, et pluraliter rursum aptissime nuncupatur quia nimirum ipsa unitas cordis et animae fidelis non iam in paucis sed in multitudine credentium continetur.” ICC, Bk. ii, ii, lns. 635–​44. Apponius, In Cantica Canticorum, Bk. v, lns. 409–​28. “Quae merito non absolute fumo qui quolibet diffundi potest sed uirgulae fumi assimilatur ut et unitas fidei illius et simplex ad altiora significetur ascensus.” ICC, Bk. ii, iii, lns. 212–​14. “Quamuis et ita recte possit intellegi dilectam Christi ascendere sicut uirgulam fumi ex aromatibus murrae et turis et universi pulueris pigmentarii quia una eademque eius ecclesia ex multis fidelium personis construitur …” ICC, Bk. ii, iii, lns. 244–​47. Cant. 6:7–​8.

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God and Father of all,” and returns again to the image of the ecclesia primitiva from the book of Acts, a melting pot of peoples from all parts of the Mediterranean world, but sharing all things in common. Bede draws out a similar interplay between the many and the one in his discussion of the Bride’s physical features, where, as in a hologram, he continuously alternates his perspective between a particular part of the body of the Bride and her entirety, between individual members of the church and the totality of the institution. In the Song, the hair of the Bride is compared to a flock of goats ascending Mt. Gilead; as a particularly high and fruitful place, Bede explains, Mt. Gilead is a fitting metaphor for the city of the church. Its name means “great number of witnesses,” “because in that place the multitude of all the saints, the living stones who have borne witness to the faith, are gathered together and made one.”60 In another passage, the Song compares the Bride’s cheeks to the red, interestingly, not of a whole pomegranate but one of its seeds. The pomegranate had already acquired its traditional associations with the Passion by the eighth century; however, in the Song commentary Bede draws out its ecclesiological potential—​again, probably building on Gregory the Great. In the Pastoral Rule, in a discussion of the pomegranate-​shaped bells attached to the corners of the robes of an Old Testament priest, Gregory had suggested that the pomegranate could be taken as a figure for the church, for just as the rind of the pomegranate covered and held together many individual seeds, so the unity of the faith protected innumeros populos within the church.61 The single pomegranate seed of the Song, Bede argues, signifies that the rind had in fact been broken and the church had suffered persecution; paradoxically however, the more broken she is, the more clearly the church makes plain that the seeds of the virtues are enclosed and embraced in one faith.62 60

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“Legimus quippe in libro numerorum et paralipomenon quia mons Galaad bonas ualde et uberes pascuas habuerit. Quod illi singulariter alto ac multum fructifero monti conuenit de quo ciuitas ipsa quae in eo constructa est, id est sancta ecclesia, dicere solet: Dominus pascit me, et nihil mihi deerit, in loco pascuae ibi me conlocauit; congruit et ipsum nomen montis quod dicitur aceruus testimonii, aceruus quippe testimonii dominus est quia in ipso colligitur atque adunatur omnium multitudo sanctorum lapidum uidelicet uiuorum qui testimonio fidei probati sunt ut apostolus ait.” ICC, Bk. ii, iv, lns. 69–​78. “Nam sicut in malo punico, una exterius cortice multa interius grana muniuntur, sic innumeros sanctae Ecclesiae populos unitas fide contegit, quos intus diuersitas meritorum tenet.” Regula Pastoralis, ed. F. Rommel, SC 381–​82 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1992), ii, 4, lns. 74–​76. “Nec praetereundum quod malum punicum magnam granorum copiam uno foris cortice includit, unde et malum granatum dicitur, quae quidem integro adhuc malo uideri nequeunt sed fracto quam sint innumera crescunt. Sic etenim sic ecclesia sancta quo amplius eam frangi aduersis contigerit eo clarius quot uirtutum grana unius fidei tegmine complectatur

42 ­chapter  1.5 The Doctores If the church only ever attains perfect unity outside of time, multiplicity, brokenness, but also the diversity of the forms of life within the church is the mark of the present time, the experience of the church in history. And yet, as in the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, a significant aspect of Bede’s vision of the church’s mission in history is precisely its role in the gradual unification of a diverse group of peoples under the church’s common aegis. But who would carry out this work, and how would it be accomplished? In this way, Bede’s ecclesiology in his Song commentary leads naturally and directly into a discussion of the institutional make-​up of the church and in particular, the role and identity of the new Levitical priesthood that would minister to Bede’s chosen English nation. One of the most distinctive aspects of Bede’s reading of the Song of Songs is how he is able to take up a text so often read as an allegory of mystical experience and hear instead a clarion call for the reform of the church and for preaching in particular. For Bede’s purposes, the ubiquitous vineyards of the Song text suggest both the vineyards of Christ’s parables in the gospels and those of John’s Apocalypse, all of which would press upon the exegete the necessity and urgency of the Church’s work in the world while there is still time. The Song shifts its focus between the Bridegroom on the mountain heights and the agricultural work of the Bride waiting for him in the valleys, suggests the balance between the active and contemplative lives. The Bridegroom calls the Bride to arise and come; there is a time for rest, and there is a time surgendi ad laborem.63 Christ, figured in the mountain-​goats and hinds of his warning to the Daughters of Jerusalem, may revel in his contemplation of the highest things just as they do, but he still calls them to preach and to good works, for the winter rains have passed, the flowers have come, the time of pruning is at hand, the fig—​unlike the fig tree cursed by Christ in the gospels—​has put forth its fruit, and the vines are in flower.64 The Church, harassed though she

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reserat.” ICC, Bk ii, iv, lns. 191–​97. George Hardin Brown speculates that Bede may have seen an actual pomegranate, perhaps carried back to Wearmouth-​Jarrow by Benedict Biscop. See “Patristic Pomegranates, from Ambrose and Apponius to Bede,” Latin Learning and English Lore: Studies in Anglo-​Saxon Literature for Michael Lapidge, ed. Katherine O’Brian O’Keeffe and Andy Orchard (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 1:140–​41. ICC, Bk. i, ii, ln. 391–​93. “Restat nunc intimari quomodo eandem siue ad officium praedicationis seu ad exercitium bonae incitet operationis. Surge, inquit, propera amica mea columba mea formosa mea et ueni. Surge de stratu illo multum tibi amabili in quo tuimet curam agere in psalmis et orationibus ceterisque uitae studiis delectaris propera et ueni ad impendendam etiam

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might be and blackened by the sun, has been put in charge of many vineyards, not only in Judea but throughout the whole world; it is her responsibility to cultivate them. In the Gregorian tradition, the emotional draw toward contemplation is always to some extent deflected downwards, toward service within the Church and pastoral responsibility.65 Gregory envisioned the doctores of the church as the point where the two lives intersected, an exitus-​redditus scheme in which each leads naturally into and balances the activities of the other.66 On the whole, the thrust of Bede’s exegesis tends to be more intensely pragmatic than Gregory, as several scholars have noted,67 although we should be wary of too-​ easy categorizations of Bede’s thought as “contemplative,” “monastic,” or “pastoral.” These were distinctions that did not always exist on the ground in an eighth-​century monastic context; in any case, they make up complementary parts of a Gregorian ideal in which each aspect is dependent on the others. But for Bede, the sine qua non, for which he could forgive even unorthodox figures like Bishop Aidan, is the willingness on the part of clergy, bishops, and monks to preach. While hardly a critic or a categorical opponent of mystical experience necessarily, his passionate awareness of the need for preaching and teaching made him wary of any sort of spiritual withdrawal untempered by pastoral responsibility.68 Bede would say of Gregory himself in the Ecclesiastical History

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proximis curam salutis per studium sedulae praedicationis quasi enim tot passibus ad uocantem nos dominum properamus quot pro eius causa uirtutum opera patramus.” ICC, Bk. 1, ii, lns. 412–​20. G. R. Evans, The Thought of Gregory the Great (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 105–​111. See Gregory’s contrast, in a series of figures for the active and contemplative lives, of the fertile Leah with her sister Rachel, or of Jacob’s confrontation with the angel. Homilies on Ezechiel, Bk. ii, hom. ii, caps. 10–​12. The model, of course, is Christ’s humility and redemptive work through the Incarnation. In a famous passage in one of his gospel homilies for the Ascension, included by Bede in the sixth book of his Song commentary, Gregory described Christ’s incarnation, birth, crucifixion, descent to hell, and ascension as a series of “leaps” similar to the Bridegroom’s peregrinations over hills and mountains. Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Euangelia, ed. Raymond Étaix, CCSL 141 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), “Homily 29,” cap. 10; ICC, Bk. vi, lns. 127–​135. For an extended treatment of this theme, see Gregory’s exegesis of Ezekiel’s description of the four living creatures: Homilies in Ezechiel, Bk. i, hom. iii. See also Bk. ii, hom. ii, cap. 4; Regula Pastoralis, Bk. ii, cap. 5; Regula Pastoralis, Bk. i, cap. 7. Roger Ray, “Who Did Bede Think He Was?” in Innovation and Tradition, 25. In the same volume, see Arthur Holder, “Christ’s Incarnate Wisdom in Bede’s Commentary on the Song of Songs,” 183; Scott De Gregorio, “The Venerable Bede on Prayer and Contemplation,” Traditio 54 (1999): 10–​11. Clare Stancliffe, “The Polarity Between Pastor and Solitary,” in St. Cuthbert:  His Cult and Community to AD 1200, ed. Gerald Bonner, David Rollason, and Clare Stancliffe

44 ­chapter  that his pastoral work ultimately profited more people than his solitary monastic perfection.69 A passage in the Song text, “Avert your eyes from me, for they have made me flee away,” Bede interprets as a warning—​put in the mouth of the Bridegroom, no less—​to be careful not to push too hard at the boundaries of what the spiritual senses can do in the end to comprehend God. Immediately preceding the passage, Bede had spoken of a need for the balance of all spiritual virtues, especially humility, rather than possessing any one in excess. Ultimately no one can grasp Christ fully in this life, and so we are to avert our eyes from too much contemplation of the divine essence and majesty, lest we make Christ fly, avolare, from us; it is better to be pure of heart than to try to comprehend the incomprehensible.70 In his warning to the Daughters of Jerusalem not to awaken love, Bede interprets the second half of the verse, “unless it so desires,” as “unless she [the Church], mindful of her obligations, should consent to return to the communal care of human fragility, when the observance of [her] divine service has been duly completed.”71

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(Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1989), 32. An earlier work of Bede’s, De mansionibus filiorum israel, probably composed near-​contemporaneously with the Song commentary around 716 and written for Bishop Acca like so many of Bede’s more “pastoral” works, interprets the desert itinerary of the Israelites as an allegory for the ascent of the soul, largely inspired by exegesis of Psalm 83, a classic exegetical mini-​narrative of spiritual ascent. Bede’s commentary on Luke, if not his homilies, also shows pronounced “contemplative” or “mystical” leanings. Jennifer O’Reilly, “Bede on Seeing the God of Gods in Zion,” in Text, Image, Interpretation, 18–​28; Eric Jay Del Giacco, “Exegesis and Sermon: A Comparison of Bede’s Commentary and Homilies on Luke,” Medieval Sermon Studies 50 (2006): 9–​28. Bede, The Ecclesiastical History, Bk. ii, cap. 1, 66. “Quae tamen quia necdum faciem sui dilecti quam maxime quaerit cernere meretur subsequenter audit, Auerte oculos tuos a me quia ipsi me auolare fecerunt, ac si aperte dicatur, Oculos quidem tibi columbinos dedi quibus scripturarum archana cognosceres quibus uirtutes a uitiis secerneres quibus semitas iustitiae per quas ad me uenires dinosceres, sed caue ne ipsos adhuc oculos etiam ad me uidendum intendere quaeras, non enim uidebit homo faciem meam et uiuet; erit enim tempus cum uinculis absoluta carneis ad me peruenies et tunc implebitur quod promisi quia qui diligit me diligetur a patre meo et ego diligam eum et manifestabo ei me ipsum, at nunc dum in corpore constituta peregrinaris a perennibus bonis auerte oculos tuae mentis a contemplatione diuinae meae maiestatis et essentiae quia ipsi me auolare fecerunt, id est ipsi tui sensus spiritales quibus me perfecte cognoscere desiderasti quamuis multum se extollant non in hac tamen uita me ad perfectum comprehendere sufficiunt sed ad hoc solummodo peruenire queunt ut animaduertant diuinae gloriam naturae tantae esse sublimitatis quae nequaquam uideri possit nisi ab his tantum qui a uita uisibili funditus ablati atque ad inuisibilem fuerint introducti.” ICC, Bk. iv, vi, lns. 145–​65. “… donec ipsa uelit, id est donec rite completis diuinae seruitutis obsequiis ipsa ad communem redire curam humanae fragilitatis necessitatibus ammonita consentiat.” ICC, Bk. v, viii, lns. 214–​16.

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Consummate educator that he was, Bede emphasized the growth and education of weaker souls as the true work of the church. In his explication of the passage in which the Daughters of Jerusalem go out to see King Solomon in the crown with which his mother crowned him, Bede not only interprets this passage in doctrinal terms, he specifies precisely what these immature souls are supposed to be seeing: the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, expressed in almost creedal language.72 In addition to the Daughters of Jerusalem, the Song employs several other immature female figures to speak in dialogue with and to act as foils to the mature beauty of the Bride. The narrative of the Bride and Bridegroom is in a sense bracketed with these figures, the Bride’s first lines speaking of the maidens or adulescentulae who cannot help but love the Bridegroom, and at its close when the Bride has reached her full maturity and the Bridegroom—​according to Bede’s capitula, at any rate—​asks the fate of his still pre-​pubescent little sister. According to a famous reading of the Septuagint, the opening verse of the Song, which immediately precedes the entrance of the maidens, praises the breasts above wine—​and by extension the milk—​not of the Bride, but of the Bridegroom. Bede is swift to invoke Paul’s admonition to the Corinthians that he gave them the milk of basic doctrine rather than solid food; the rudimenta of the gospels and the primordia of the faith are infinitely more effectual than observance of the law, and he implies that these must precede the wine of contemplation in immature believers.73 Bede expresses the implicit division within the church between less and more mature souls in his exegesis of the differences between a maiden, queen, a concubine, and the perfect Bride.74 The first distinction is simple enough: the young maidens are born into the church but are not yet on such terms of intimacy with the Bridegroom that they are able to preach.75 The distinction between queens and concubines is somewhat more problematic, however. Both preach, both bear spiritual offspring for the kingdom of God, but the queens have greater maturity and seniority, confirmed by their number, sixty, the number of the preachers that Christ sent out in the gospels, while the concubines have not yet fully renounced carnal and temporal thoughts. Bede could

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“… quia uidelicet electi dum gloriam filii Dei coaequalem patri ac spiritui sancto credunt et confitentur humanae quoque assumptionem naturae in qua imperium mortis superauit in aeternum clarificatum esse cognoscunt non sua uidelicet potentia substantiae sed operatione assumentis eam uerbi, hoc est filii unici Dei …” ICC, Bk. ii, iii, lns. 468–​73. ICC, Bk. i, i, ln. 50–​67. Following Cant. 6:7: sexaginta sunt reginae et octoginta concubinae et adulescentularum non est numerus. ICC, Bk. iv, vi, lns. 365–​70.

46 ­chapter  easily have interpreted the figure in terms of Gregory’s tripartite schemata of the church, outlined twice in the Homilies on Ezekiel, of celibate, continent, and preachers—​in some ways it would have worked more cleanly than the interpretation he does adopt—​yet he does not.76 Obviously Bede was well aware of the instrumental place the celibate had within the church; perhaps, since he envisioned praedicatores who were monastic in any case, he simply collapsed the two categories for simplicity’s sake. In later works, he would envision a group of doctores, with whom he clearly identified himself, passing on their knowledge of scripture to a different group of praedicatores, whose involvement with pastoral care was much more hands-​on; one of the first a­ ppearances of this idea, in fact, is in the Samuel commentary.77 Ultimately, however, in the Song commentary, Bede’s is a two-​part rather than three-​part model, focusing primarily on the distinction between the mature, characterized by their ability to preach, and the immature laity. For Bede, the lists of the physical attributes of the Bride are often interpreted in terms of interactions between these two groups. Like Augustine before him, Bede interpreted the teeth of the Bride as the preachers, for whom, like Peter in his vision, nothing is unfit to eat and who are responsible for chewing and incorporating individual believers into the body of the Bride.78 In another interpretation of the Bride’s mouth, Bede compares preachers to the Bride’s lips like scarlet ribbon; their mission is two-​fold, sometimes restraining the teeth, interpreted as individual souls, but also described as dropping honey and milk, both encouraging (honey) and feeding (milk) the immature believers. Following Gregory, by association, preaching rather strikingly becomes linked for Bede with the many images of breasts in the Song of Songs. The breasts of the Church are wells of the words of salvation for the paruuli; preaching is a fundamentally nutritive enterprise.79

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Homilies on Ezekiel, Bk. ii, hom. 4, cap. 5 and hom. 7, cap. 3. Thacker, “Bede and the Ordering of Understanding,” 43–​44; 54–​55. Similarly, Scott De Gregorio suggests for Bede’s exegesis of Ezra-​Nehemiah: “The main thrust of the commentary, however, is concerned with the teachers and preachers themselves: in this respect, the work reads much like a speculum praedicatoris, outlining what it is the preacher should—​and shouldn’t—​do.” DeGregorio, “ ‘Nostrorum socordiam temporum,’ ” 116. “Et tamen nescio quomodo suauius intueor sanctos, cum eos quasi dentes ecclesiae uideo praecidere …” Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, ed. Joseph Martin, CCSL 32 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1962), Bk. ii, vi, cap. 7; ICC, Bk. ii, iv, lns. 84–​132. See also John David Penniman, Raised on Christian Milk: Food and the Formation of the Soul in Early Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), 165–​200. Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob, Bk. xxx, cap. 48, lns. 58–​60; ICC, Bk. iii, iv, lns. 268–​70. See also Bk. iii, v, lns. 50–​62.

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Throughout the commentary, Bede takes up several exegetical cues within individual Song images themselves that he consistently associates with preaching. Most obviously, preachers for Bede are always associated with the neck, and by extension the voice of the Bride; the voice of the turtle(dove) is the voice of the preacher.80 A necklace decorates the neck of the Bride, just as good deeds must adorn the words of the preacher.81 In the Song text, often following Gregory, Bede associates preachers with bright and eye-​catching, or redolent and sweet-​smelling things. Bede associates silver—​for example, in the columns of the litter of King Solomon—​with the preachers and doctors of the church, both for its resonance and its brightness.82 If the Bride’s dwelling place is an allegory of the church, the preachers are its cedar ceiling beams, who hold up the church by word and example: according to Bede (via Pliny and Isidore), the detail that they are made of cedar is important because cedar is so fragrant that it is said to drive serpents away, and it preserves what is kept within it.83 The litter of King Solomon is also made out of cedar.84 Preaching for Bede is often associated with scent, such as the sweet-​smelling flowers which appear throughout the Song text. Where the Bride describes bringing the Bridegroom into her mother’s house, Bede recalls Mary Magdalene and her anointing of Christ with expensive perfume whose fragrance filled the whole house, which Bede sees as an allegory of faith. Bede also notes that, as the first person to see Christ in the flesh, Mary Magdalene is the first preacher, the apostle to the apostles.85 Because of their role as the mediator of the truths of heavenly realities, the preachers of the church are also associated with eyes and with vision: the vigiles who guard the city, or the sixty strong men (fortes) who stand awake with drawn swords to guard the litter of King Solomon, whose Old Testament analogue, Bede tells us, is Israel, “the man who sees God.”86 Bede elicits from the smallest details of images within the text of the Song an urgent call for preachers to fulfill the Great Commission, to send the gospel out throughout the world, and to instigate reform in those places and among those people it has already reached. In making his point, Bede’s readings are sometimes, if not far-​fetched, at least not always entirely self-​evident, and he often sharply juxtaposes an “active” reading of the image with its more

80 81 82 83 84 85 86

ICC, Bk. i, ii, lns. 441–​445; Bk. ii, ii, lns. 541–​83; Bk. iv, vii, 226–​44. ICC, Bk. i, i, lns. 488–​522. ICC, Bk. ii, iii, lns. 377–​80. ICC, Bk. i, i, lns. 747–​787. ICC, Bk. ii, iii, lns. 367–​76. ICC, Bk. iii, iv, lns. 590–​605; Bk. ii, iii, lns. 109–​23. ICC, Bk. ii, iv, lns. 45–​48; Bk. ii, iii, lns. 48–​53; Bk. ii, iii, lns. 294–​352; Bk. iv, vii, 245–​68.

48 ­chapter  traditionally “contemplative” aspects. For example, images of lilies, pervasive in the Song text, are normally read as figures of the soul, and particularly, given Christ’s parable of the lilies of the field that do not labor or spin, as figures of the contemplative soul. Elsewhere in Bede’s Song commentary, the whiteness of lilies signifies those souls hungering and thirsting for righteousness, remaining pure in their faith and untainted by heresy;87 alternatively, he understands the image of the Bridegroom browsing among the lilies as Christ enjoying the pious works of the righteous or the holy thoughts of those chaste in mind.88 However, when the lily first appears in the Song, it is as a lily of the valley and a lily among thorns, and it is the implications of difficulty and hardship he finds there that interests Bede the most. Addressing the Bride directly, as if from the mouth of Christ, he reminds her that while he knows she loves to flourish in secret places he is the true source of all virtue, and he has called her to spread her fragrance throughout the world. Moreover, [she is/​they are] a lily of the valleys rather than the mountains because it is my will to lay open and reveal the brightness of my glorious humanity and the splendor of my eternal deity to them: those who humbly undertake this in apprehending my teachings of faith and love, those who seek to follow my will rather than their own, those who, even if they delight in the tranquility of my inner contemplation, nevertheless do not refuse, when I command, to go out to the work of preaching. For I gave you a share in my clarity itself so that you might appear like a lily, both white, namely, with the perfection of service, and precious, outstanding with the brightness of a clean heart.89 Even the righteousness of the Bride has here been made a means to the end, subservient to the ultimate goal of spreading the message. Similarly, the second book of Bede’s commentary opens with the Bridegroom beseeching the Bride to emerge and speak to him, comparing her to 87 88 89

ICC, Bk. iv, v, lns. 688–​703. ICC, Bk. iv, vi, lns. 57–​78. “Lilium quoque sum conuallium magis quam montium quia illis nimirum uel claritatem glorificae meae humanitatis uel splendorem aeternae deitatis pandere ac reuelare soleo qui se suspiciendo dicioni meae fidei ac dilectionis humiliter subdunt qui meam potius sequi quam suam quaerunt uoluntatem qui etsi otio delectantur internae meae contemplationis ad laborem praedicationis tamen me imperante progredi non detrectant; nam et ipse tibi participatione meae claritatis ut lilio compareris donaui et candida uidelicet perfectione operis et pretiosa exsistendo fulgore mundi pectoris.” ICC, Bk. i, ii, lns. 8–​18.

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a dove hidden in the clefts of a rock face. Again, Bede interprets this as an injunction to fruitful work, fructiferi laboris.90 As before, Bede makes his interpretation all the stronger by setting it as a paraphrase of the words of Christ, in the first person, reminding the Bride of all he has given her: “When these things have happened, I beseech, I say, that you share such gifts so that you do not desire to become lazy in sluggish ease, but rather, obliged to work and study, hasten to gird yourselves for battle for the sake of eternal rest.”91 The Bridegroom wants to hear the Bride’s face, and more particularly her voice, the voice of the turtle-​dove of the previous book, which for Bede is always the voice of praise and preaching, uox laudis siue praedicationis.92 It is not enough, Bede concludes, to tend to one’s own righteousness if one is not shoring up the weak at the same time against the wiles of heresy, figured in the next line by the “little foxes” run amok in the vineyard of the Church.93 While the Bride praises the beauty of their inward dwelling she shares with the Bridegroom, it is not a place where she can remain in the present time; now is the time for work, for virtuous action rather than ease, quam quieto otio, and virtuous action for Bede nearly always is a form of proclamation generally and of preaching in particular.94 Like Priscilla and Aquila, who remained tentmakers, even if—​or precisely because—​their gaze is directed heavenward, the spiritually mature must get things done on earth.95 In perhaps the most erotic of the mini-​narratives contained within the Song of Songs, one finds the Church quite literally aroused to go preach. Showing up at her door at night, the Bridegroom asks the Bride to come out to him. Initially reluctant, the Bride asks if she must put on her tunic again; Bede interprets this as the reluctance of the church to involve herself again in the work of preaching. Significantly, however, this is only because she is already so embroiled in the task, and because her rest enriches her further involvement:

90 91 92 93 94 95

ICC, Bk. ii, ii, lns. 519–​21. “… obsecro, inquam, qua talium es compos effecta donorum ne inerti otio lentescere uelis sed ad industriam potius studiumque debiti certaminis pro aeterna quiete festines accingi.” ICC, Bk. ii, ii, lns. 537–​40. ICC, Bk. i, ii, lns. 441–​45; Bk. ii, ii, lns. 550–​53. “Non autem sufficit nobis nostrae cura munditiae si non etiam errantes in quantum possumus corrigere, si non infirmiores quosque ab eorum insidiis defendere curamus.” ICC, Bk. ii, ii, lns. 581–​83. ICC, Bk. i, i, ln. 788–​96. “Quod ipsum et de arte scenofactoria quam cum Aquila et Priscilla exercebat intellegendum est quia temporales quidem erant cogitationes quibus eam explebant sed aeternorum intuitus quo ad hanc explendam trahebantur ut uidelicet hoc opera terreno ministerium euangelii quod erat caeleste iuuarent.” ICC, Bk. ii, iv, lns. 34–​38.

50 ­chapter  For she rests who girds herself for preaching and who takes up the care of guiding souls so that, to provide help to those to whom she preaches eternal things, she might also keep watch over the necessity of temporal things; and therefore, the church recalls the responsibility of those of hers who prefer to act in secret, the task which is taken up with the annoyances of laborious things, the tunic which she had taken off and not yet put on.96 Touched by her beloved through the lattice or keyhole, foramen, and trembling with anticipation and desire, the Bride goes out to open her doors to him. “In this passage,” Bede says succinctly, “to open [the door] to the Lord is to preach the word of the Lord.”97 Scott DeGregorio has pointed to the “amplified attention the later commentaries devote to pastoral care, especially the duties of preaching and teaching,” and elsewhere he has drawn attention to the parallels between Bede’s exegesis of Ezra-​Nehemiah and the Letter to Ecgberht, which DeGregorio sees as the culmination of a lifetime’s worth of pastoral concerns.98 In the Letter to Ecgberht, Bede famously caricatures those bishops who “give themselves up to laughter, jokes, storytelling, eating, drinking, and other seductions of the soft life.” He entreats Ecgberht to appoint priests and teachers to work in rural areas, and he fulminates against those bishops who accept tithes from such people but do not provide them with pastoral care.99 In the Ezra commentary, Bede blames “the sloth of our times” for the shortage of good preaching available, and takes particular issue with those who found monasteries but do not staff them with teachers.100 In On the Tabernacle, Bede similarly inveighs against those priests who accept—​and even have the gall to demand—​gifts from people that they have not earned, and whose lives do not reflect the content of their preaching.101 96

97 98 9 9 100 101

“Qui enim ad officium se praedicatoris accingit quique regendarum sollicitudinem suscipit animarum restat ut ad prouidenda eis quibus aeterna praedicat temporalium quoque necessitatum subsidia inuigilet ideoque ecclesia in eis qui suimet in secreto curam agere malunt quam molestiis laboriosarum actionum occupari exuisse se tunica sua nec denuo indui posse commemorat …” ICC, Bk. iii, v, lns. 207–​13. ICC, Bk. iii, v, lns. 280–​81. De Gregorio, “Nostrorum socordiam temporum,” 114; see also “Bede’s In Ezram et Neemiam and the Reform of the Northumbrian Church,” Speculum 79 (2004): 2–​8. “Bede’s Letter to Ecgbert,” in The Ecclesiastical History, 344–​47. On Ezra and Nehemiah, 62–​63 and 102. Bede, On the Tabernacle, trans. Arthur G. Holder (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1994), 133. As with the images of the Song, Bede finds analogues for preachers and

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The rhetorical urgency Bede draws out in the events of the Song and in its imagery suggests that Bede intended the commentary to create a common ethos among a perhaps amorphous group of preachers in the Northumbrian church; it may also have been designed to convince a reluctant Northumbrian clergy generally of Christ’s injunction to preach. In the Song commentary, perhaps the most vivid image depicting such a group is Bede’s exegesis of the sixty strong men standing around the litter of King Solomon, awake and on guard.102 In Bede’s interpretation, it is the same group that the Bride encounters in her night-​time wanderings around the city looking for the Bridegroom; here the strong men appear as the vigiles or watchmen of the city, the term used by Gregory the Great in the Homilies on Ezekiel to refer to the duties of a prophet toward his city. In one of his gospel homilies excerpted by Bede in the sixth book of the Song commentary, Gregory explicitly identifies the vigiles of the Song as the “holy fathers who watch over the welfare of the church” who teach by word and by their writings.103 Bede follows Gregory, though he is distinctive for his more practical, proactive stance and for his vivid sense that the vigiles are part of salvation history: For the watchmen who guard the city are the heralds of the truth who, with devoted care, always keep watch over the welfare of Holy Church spread throughout the whole world, and persevere with the words of preaching so that she might not be corrupted by treacheries.104

preaching in the most obscure details of the furnishings of the tabernacle: the preachers are the golden lip and embossed crown around the table in the tabernacle, the poles that bear the ark of the covenant (an image borrowed from Gregory’s Pastoral Rule), the golden vessels in which the priests offered libations, the loaves of proposition set out upon the table, the branches of the golden lamp-​stand, whose cups are like the ears of their hearers, and the humble haircloth that covered the tabernacle furnishings. See 23–​39, 55–​56. 102 ICC, Bk. ii, iii, lns. 48–​64. 103 Gregory the Great, Homiliae in euangelia, hom. xxv, caps. 1–​2; cf. also Moralia in Iob, Bk. 18, lns. 28–​32 and Bk. 27, lns. 32–​43. For Apponius, the guards around the ferculum of Solomon were simply those souls meditating on the law of God through the watches of the night: “Ciuitas ergo recta intellegitur fides; uici, prophetae; plateae uero, pia intellegentia incarnationis; uigiles autem qui hanc circueunt ciuitatem, supradicti die noctu que in lege Domini meditantes, qui quaerenti animae sponsum iter demonstrant: quomodo uerum Deum, uerum que eum hominem credendo, inuenire possit.” Apponius, In cantica canticorum, Bk. v, cap. 13, lns. 175–​80. 1 04 “Vigiles namque qui custodiunt ciuitatem praecones sunt ueritatis qui ad custodiam sanctae ecclesiae quae per mundum diffunditur uniuersum pia sollicitudine semper excubant ac uerbo praedicationis ne haec a perfidis corrumpatur insistunt.” ICC, Bk. ii, iii, lns. 49–​53.

52 ­chapter  Bede then compares the encounter of the Bride with the vigiles to that of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch in the book of Acts; for Bede, the vigiles are the inheritors of the apostolic call to preach, spreading the gospel throughout the world.105 Similarly, in Bede’s metrical life of St. Cuthbert, the saint’s devotions at night clearly exemplified the wakeful care practiced by the mature in the church.106 One can also see the similarities between Bede’s vigiles in the Song and his description of the Nativity shepherds in his Homilies on the Gospels, which he says are figures for “teachers of flocks, and also directors of the souls of the faithful”: awake and keeping watch over their flocks against “the dangers of temptations,” and similarly ready to preach.107 Throughout the Song commentary, the term that Bede uses to describe his class of preachers is, predominantly, the doctores or teachers. While this sounds completely self-​evident, what precisely the term means within the context of the institutional church is much more difficult to say. Ultimately the term derives from the bible, and yet even within the bible, there is no truly straightforward definition of what, as a class, the doctores are supposed to be and what their responsibilities are. In the Vulgate text of the Old Testament, Deuteronomy twice refers to a body of doctores without explication and, significantly, 1 Chronicles once refers to the doctores as one of the groups of musicians in David’s court who “taught the song of the Lord.”108 In the New Testament, it is 105 Cf. the verbal similarities with a passage in Bede’s Samuel commentary: “Hortatur apostolos saluator ut auditores suos non solum ad discendum sed etiam ad docendum uitae uerbum in quibus ipse mundum uincere possit instituant quia uirtutes angelicas per quas est ordinata lex in manu mediatoris quaque uigiles semper contra aerias potestates pro ecclesia decertant euangelii praecones per orbem mittere distulerit.” In primam partem Samuhelis libri iv:  nomina locorum, ed. D.  Hurst, CCSL 119 (Turnhout, 1962), Bk. iii, ln. 2622–​28. 106 Vita Cuthberti metrica, ed. W. Jaager, CPL 1380 (Leipzig, 1935), caps. 9 and 36. 107 As in the Song commentary, Bede is very clear that these do not necessarily have to be ordained: “It is not only bishops, presbyters, deacons, and even those who govern monasteries, who are to be understood as pastors, but also all the faithful, who keep watch over the little ones of their house, are properly called ‘pastors,’ insofar as they preside with solicitous watchfulness over their own house.” “Homily I.7,” Homilies on the Gospels, 65–​71. 108 Deut. 29:10; 31:28. “Fuit autem numerus eorum cum fratribus suis qui erudiebant canticum Domini cuncti doctores ducenti octoginta octo,” i Par. 25:7. Interestingly, the only exegesis of this passage I have been able to find is Carolingian, and clearly referring to the role of the doctores in performing the divine office and in reading and explicating scripture: “Apte doctores cantici Domini ducenti octoginta octo esse dicuntur, ut ostendatur ipsos merito doctores divinae laudis dici posse, qui canonem divinorum librorum sensu Evangelico exponunt. Quater enim septuaginta duo ducenta octoginta octo faciunt:  libros autem Veteris et Novi Testamenti septuaginta duos esse omnibus notum est. Et ideo necesse est ut quicunque divino officio fungi rite voluerit, quatuor principalibus virtutibus operam

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a highly ambivalent term, used polemically in the gospels to refer to the blind and hypocritical Jewish “teachers of the law,” and in a positive sense in the Pauline letters, with Paul in Ephesians envisioning the spiritual leadership of the church made up of apostles (euangelistas), preachers or pastors (pastores), and teachers (doctores) of the law.109 In the patristic period, the negative connotations of the term still survived,110 alongside the prominent role played in doctrinal controversy by teachers like Jerome, who, after all, was not a bishop himself and whose learning was his chief claim to spiritual authority.111 Augustine uses the term primarily to denote the Pharisees from the gospels and explicators of the biblical text generally, both good and bad.112 Augustine, as well as Ambrose of Milan, uses the phrase from Ephesians, pastores et doctores, in several different works, but only within the context of interpretation of the Pauline division of leadership within the church.113

dans, meditationi evangelicae doctrinae maxime incumbat, et secundum ejus normam, quidquid didicerit, vel quidquid docuerit, formare curet.” Hrabanus Maurus, Commentaria in libros ii Paralipomenon, PL 109, cols. 396A-​B. 109 “Et factum est in una dierum et ipse sedebat docens et erant Pharisaei sedentes et legis doctores qui venerant ex omni castello Galilaeae et Iudaeae et Hierusalem et virtus erat Domini ad sanandum eos,” Luke 5:17; “erant autem in ecclesia quae erat Antiochiae prophetae et doctores in quibus Barnabas et Symeon qui vocabatur Niger et Lucius Cyrenensis et Manaen qui erat Herodis tetrarchae conlactaneus et Saulus,” Acts 13:1; “Et quosdam quidem posuit Deus in ecclesia primum apostolos secundo prophetas tertio doctores deinde virtutes exin gratias curationum opitulationes gubernationes genera linguarum. Numquid omnes apostoli numquid omnes prophetae numquid omnes doctores,” i Cor. 12:28–​29; “Et ipse dedit quosdam quidem apostolos quosdam autem prophetas alios vero evangelistas alios autem pastores et doctores,” Eph. 4:11; “Volentes esse legis doctores non intellegentes neque quae loquuntur neque de quibus adfirmant,” i Tim. 1:7. 110 For example, see Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem, ed. E. Kroymann, CCSL 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1954), Bk. 4.27.6–​7, and his explication of Luke 11:46 and Christ’s warnings to lawyers. See also Jerome, Commentarius in Ecclesiasten, ed. M. Adriaen, CCSL 72 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1959), 12, cap. 12, 359; idem, Commentariorum in Esaiam, ed. M. Adriaen, CCSL 73 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1963), Bk. 2, cap. 3, par. 12, 52; Bk. 7, cap. 19, par. 12, 281–​2. 1 11 For a few examples of doctores in a more positive light, see Jerome, Commentariorum in Esaiam, Bk 7, cap. 22, par. 4, 301; Bk. 10, cap. 32, par 9, 410; idem, Commentarii in prophetas minores, ed. M. Adriaen, CCSL 76A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1970), “In Abacuc,” Bk. 2, cap. 3, 634; “In Zachariam,” Bk. 3, cap. 12, 864. 112 For example, see Augustine, Sermones, ed. C. Lambot, CCSL 41 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1961), sermon 23, lns 13–​15, 21–​23; De Doctrina Christiana, Bk. iv, cap. 16, 139–​40. For his use of biblical authors as teachers of eloquence, see De Doctrina Christiana, Bk. iv, cap. 7, lns. 250–​53. 1 13 Augustine, Enarrationes in psalmos, ed. E.  Dekkers and J.  Fraipont, CCSL 39 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1956), ps. 67, cap. 16, 879 and cap. 21, 884; idem, De ciuitate Dei, ed. B. Dombart and A. Kalb, CCSL 48 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1955), Bk. 22, cap. 18, pp. 836–​37.

54 ­chapter  In the early medieval period, with the breakdown of the Roman educational system, doctores who were not also pastores were significantly harder to come by, and in the works of Gregory the Great, one begins to see the terms used almost interchangeably, together with a third term, praedicatores.114 For Gregory, the doctores appear to signify the clergy broadly speaking: people with some degree of pastoral responsibility and pastoral care, although the distinction between monks and clergy remained blurry in practice.115 In the Pastoral Rule, Gregory speaks scathingly of those false doctores who want the appearance and the prestige of learning but, like the Pharisees in the gospels, do not particularly want the responsibilities of the “office of pastoral care.”116 A further component was the doctores’ ability to interpret scripture, and in particular, to be able to explicate the Old Testament.117 In the Moralia in Iob, Gregory likens them to the stars of the Hyades, harbinger of rain, because they bring down the waters of preaching into the hearts of men.118

114 “Si autem institores eosdem sanctae Ecclesiae praedicatores accipimus, institorum filios pastores et doctores, qui apostolorum uiam secuti sunt, nil obstat intellegi,” Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob, Bk. 18, xxxv, lns. 24–​27. “Quibus dum pastores et doctores subiuncti sunt per bona opera, manus brachiis inhaeserunt,” Gregory, Homiliae in Hiezechielem, Bk. 1, hom. 6, ln. 144–​45. 115 “Quando igitur sancti doctores quibusdam ad extrema ministeria deditis, unctionem dominicae incarnationis praedicant, butyro eloquii pedes lauant. Solent etiam pedes ipsa itineris asperitate lacerari. Vnde et omnino difficile est in terrenis actionibus huius uitae iter agere et nulla ex labore itineris uulnera sustinere. Cum ergo uigilantes praepositi, auditores suos curis exterioribus intentos ad cor reuocant, ut quae inter ipsa licita opera admiserint mala cognoscant, et quae cognouerint defleant, pedes butyro lauant, quia eorum uulneribus paenitentiae unguenta subministrant.” Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob, Bk 19, xiv, lns. 58–​68. See also Markus, Gregory the Great and His World, 18–​20, 27–​33. 116 “Sed quia auctore deo ad religionis reuerentiam omne iam praesentis saeculi culmen inclinatur, sunt nonnulli qui intra sanctam ecclesiam per speciem regiminis gloriam affectant honoris; uideri doctores appetunt, transcendere ceteros concupiscunt, atque attestante ueritate, primas salutationes in foro, primos in cenis recubitus, primas in conuentibus cathedras quaerunt; qui susceptum curae pastoralis officium ministrare digne tanto magis nequeunt, quanto ad humilitatis magisterium ex sola elatione peruenerunt.” Gregory the Great, Regula Pastoralis, i, 1, lns. 10–​18. 117 “Et quia noui testamenti doctores ad hoc usque perducti sunt, ut occultas quoque allegoriarum caligines in ueteri testamento rimarentur, recte subditur: profunda quoque fluuiorum scrutatus est et abscondita produxit in lucem.” Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob, Bk 18, xxxviii–​ix, lns. 26–​28, 1–​2. 118 “Bene ergo Hyadum appellatione expressi sunt qui, ad statum uniuersalis Ecclesiae quasi in caeli faciem deducti, super arentem terram humani pectoris sanctae praedicationis imbres fuderunt.” Moralia in Iob, Bk. 9, xi, lns. 74–​77.

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In desiring to appeal to everyone involved in pastoral care, and in his own concern to use monks within the church, Gregory may well have intentionally used doctores in his writings in the broadest possible sense. Ultimately, he would be of paramount importance in impressing upon Bede the crucial importance of the doctores or praedicatores as a cohesive group within the church and in suggesting to him their very particular identity and role as an “intellectual and moral elite.” For both Gregory and Bede, this did not correspond neatly to institutional categories; in fact, despite their very public, proactive role within the church, both envisaged the intellectual and spiritual formation of this elite within a primarily monastic context.119 For Bede, his inclusive use of a term like the doctores may simply reflect the rather amorphous practice of the Northumbrian church.120 As Susan Wood suggests of Old English minsters, “monastic life may have been the core purpose of most early minsters, but all or most probably had a pastoral role (especially preaching and baptizing), fulfilled by itinerant clergy living alongside the monks or nuns, or perhaps by ordained monks.”121 Moreover, for Gregory, Bede, and for the Carolingians who were influenced by both, the verb praedicare had a much wider range of meaning than the modern English “to preach,” encompassing a broad range of activities within the church and transcending distinctions between monastic and clerical ways of life. Although evangelization in the modern sense was certainly included in the term, the ability to expound scripture and the doctrine of the church or to be engaged in pastoral care were also activities that proclaimed the gospel, whether to Christians or the unconverted, and was therefore preaching or proclamation in some sense. Throughout the Ecclesiastical History, Bede seems to use the term doctores to denote not a precise institutional niche within the church, but to refer to a group of those actively engaged in teaching, defined broadly to include the

119 Alan Thacker, “Bede’s Ideal of Reform,” in Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-​Saxon Society, 130–​34. See also Scott DeGregorio, “Bede the Monk, as Exegete: Evidence from the Commentary on Ezra-​Nehemiah,” Revue Bénédictine 115.2 (2005): 362. 120 There has been a great deal of critical debate about the distinctions, or lack thereof, between monks and clergy within an insular context. See Richard Sharpe, “Some Problems Concerning the Organization of the Church in Early Medieval Ireland,” Peritia 3 (1984): 230–​70; the essays contained in Pastoral Care Before the Parish, ed. John Blair and Richard Sharpe (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1992); Colmán Etchingham, Church Organization in Ireland AD 650 to 1000 (Maynooth:  Laigin Publications, 1999); Thomas O’Loughlin, “Penitentials and Pastoral Care,” A History of Pastoral Care, ed. G. R. Evans (London: Cassell, 2000), 93–​111. 121 Susan Wood, The Proprietary Church in the Medieval West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 82–​83.

56 ­chapter  explication of scripture, basic sacred doctrine and history, or even a particular set of customs within monastic life. It is a word Bede often chooses for direct, if respectful evangelization between a group of missionaries and a king (or a region) they aim to convert. Bede uses the word to describe the missionary Augustine and his forty companions in Kent, significantly, when Aethelberht grants his “teachers in the way of salvation” “a place to settle in, suitable to their rank, in Canterbury, his chief city, and gave them possessions of various kinds for their needs.”122 When Augustine and Aethelberht call the council at Augustine’s Oak, it is a meeting of the episcopos siue doctores of the kingdom; Archbishop Theodore, likewise, calls to Hatfield an assembly uenerabilium sacerdotum doctorumque.123 Bede refers to Bishop Paulinus as Edwin’s doctor et antistes;124 by contrast, Edwin persuades Eorpwald to abandon the practices instituted by his father Raedwaeld, peruersis doctoribus seductus.125 Wilfrid is ordained a priest at Ripon because King Ahlfrith wanted him as his sacerdos ac doctor.126 It is the word Bede uses to describe the example paradoxically instituted by the institutionally iconoclastic Columba: “this island [Iona] always has an abbot for its ruler who is a priest, to whose authority the whole kingdom, including even bishops, have to be subject. This unusual arrangement follows the example of their first teacher, who was not a bishop but a priest and monk.”127 Birinus is consecrated bishop to the West Saxons, quo nullus doctor praecessisset. The East Saxon king Sigeberht asks Oswiu of Northumbria to send him doctores “to convert his people to the faith of Christ and wash them in the fountain of salvation,” and when the East Saxons apostasize, it is through

122 “Nec distulit quin etiam ipsis doctoribus suis locum sedis eorum gradui congruum in Doruuerni metropoli sua donaret, simul et necessarias in diuersis speciebus possessionibus conferret.” Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), Bk. i, cap. 26. 123 “Interea Augustinus adiutorio usus Aedilbercti regis conuocauit ad suum colloquium episcopos siue doctores proximae Brettonum prouinciae in loco ubi usque hodie lingua Anglorum Augustinaes Ác, id est Rober Augustini …” Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, Bk. ii, cap. 2. 124 Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, Bk. ii, cap. 14. 125 Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, Bk. ii, cap. 15. 126 Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, Bk. v, cap. 19. 127 “Habere autem solet ipsa insula rectorem semper abbatem presbyterum, cuius iuris et omnis prouincia et ipsi etiam episcopi ordine inusitato debeant esse subiecti, iuxta exemplum primi doctoris illius, qui non episcopus sed presbyter extitit et monachus.” Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, Bk. iii, cap. 4. It is nevertheless the word Bede uses to refer approvingly to the Irish bishops Colman and Tuda in his list of capitula at the beginning of Book Three and at Bk. iii, cap. 26.

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the preaching of the sacerdotes doctoresque that they return to the faith.128 The “more learned men” at the monastery of Whitby teach the illiterate Caedmon sacred doctrine and history, but his poetry and song transform them from his doctores to his auditores.129 It is the word Bede uses for the rural preaching of Cuthbert as well as Columba, one a bishop and the other an abbot, and both of them contemplatives of legendary stature.130 1.6

The Gregorian Interpretation of the Song of Songs

Bede’s Song commentary provided the first systematic, comprehensive treatment of the Song of Songs to be widely available in the early Middle Ages. The prominence of Anglo-​Saxon missionaries and scholars in Charlemagne’s court ensured that Bede’s commentary would form the intellectual foundation for the Carolingian commentary tradition on the Song of Songs. One can only speculate: to what extent did the Carolingians take up Bede’s Song commentary because it meshed with their aims, or did its passionate calls for preaching and for reform shape the ethos of the Carolingian reform almost from the beginning? Bede had transformed the Song of Songs from a treatise on elite religious experience to a text that anyone engaged in pastoral care could, and would, want to read. It was a love song for an institution, not only in the church’s existence beyond time but also in her work in the historical past and present. Bede’s Gregorian interpretation of the Song of Songs spoke eloquently of the mission of the church and broadly defined a body of spiritual elite within the church. In a sense it re-​defined them: Bede’s doctores were not pure contemplatives—​and did not aim to be, even in nostalgia—​but teachers whose lives centered around imparting the essentials of the faith to the less mature. Because his own historical context was a complex ecclesiastical mish-​mash in which abbots rubbed shoulders with bishops and monks were often priests and vice-​versa, Bede’s doctores are an institutionally imprecise group. To Bede’s mind, it was everyone’s responsibility to proclaim the gospel irrespective of ecclesiastical office; his Gregorian vision is deliberately, broadly inclusive. While the Carolingians may have agreed in principle, they were far more concerned than Bede to impose clear definitions and boundaries on the forms of life within their church. Even more urgently, as we will see in the next chapter, the 128 129 130

Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, Bk. iii, caps. 7, 22, 30. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, Bk. iv, cap. 22. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, Bk. iv, caps. 25–​26; Bk. v, cap. 9.

58 ­chapter  Carolingian reading of the Song of Songs occurred within the context of a real theological threat, Spanish adoptionism, which ensured that the Carolingians took up the idea of Bede’s doctores almost from the beginning with a view to defining its opposite: Alcuin’s pseudodoctores. And just as the Song text had given Bede the language of vineyards, figs, and flocks by which to frame his call for reform in the Northumbrian church, it would give the Carolingians another store of images to deploy: the purity of the Bride, unstained and immaculate, the little foxes who ruin the Bride’s vineyard, and the company of city guards whose responsibility it is to rough up the Bride when she errs.

­c hapter 2

Adoptionism and the Song of Songs: Exegesis, Controversy, and Context In the 790s, the religious reform Charlemagne had instituted came aggressively of age. From the Council of Frankfurt in 794, culminating in Charlemagne’s coronation in Rome in 800, the tight circle of Charlemagne’s religious advisors at court argued for Frankish religious precedence over the Byzantine East while still offering due deference to the pope in Rome.1 As a consequence, it was a decade marked by religious controversy both vehement and complex, as Charlemagne and the court scholars pronounced upon a variety of issues—​ Spanish adoptionism, Byzantine iconoclasm, and the controversy over the procession of the Holy Spirit—​not so subtly arguing for their own role as a new Nicaea, presided over by a Eusebian Constantine.2 Biblical exegesis was one arena in which Carolingian scholars could make this argument, demonstrating their mastery of, and connection to the patristic tradition, the undisputed source of doctrinal authority. In that respect, Carolingian biblical exegesis was by definition a traditional genre, preserving a core of patristic teaching on a scriptural text. Across the ninth century, Carolingian exegetes would consistently read the Song of Songs as an ecclesiological text, with a particular focus on the role of the clergy, containing a call to preaching and reform. However, the commentary tradition is only a part of the much larger story of how the Carolingians read the Song of Songs, and I would argue, can only be understood in the context of that larger narrative. In particular, the eighth and ninth-​century debates around adoptionism in the Frankish world are the historical context by which we need to understand the sudden blossoming in the ninth century of Carolingian exegesis on the Song of Songs. Formal Carolingian commentary on the Song of Songs, in fact, grew out of the adoptionist controversy and was predicated upon the threat

1 790, it has been recently argued, marks the “primary political transition” in Charlemagne’s reign of over forty years. Jennifer R.  Davis, Charlemagne’s Practice of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 25. 2 Adoptionism was intimately linked with the Carolingian need to demonstrate and defend correct Christology, and in turn with the controversy over the procession of the Holy Spirit and in turn with the Filioque. See Douglas Dales, Alcuin:  Theology and Thought (Cambridge: James Clark and Co., 2013), 59–​60, 70–​74.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 | DOI:10.1163/9789004389250_004

60 ­chapter  that it posed. Alcuin, redacting Bede’s Song commentary at the same time that he was engaged in writing anti-​adoptionist treatises, is perhaps the most obvious link between adoptionism and formal Song exegesis, but Ambrose Autpert, Paulinus of Aquileia, Benedict of Aniane, Agobard of Lyons, Paschasius Radbertus and others all drew on the imagery of the Song of Songs as one tool among many in their arsenal to combat heresy. The Carolingians needed the Song of Songs, in fact, and needed a reassuringly conventional understanding of it in particular, precisely because they were in the thick of hashing out highly complex and loaded questions about how to understand and, in some cases, literally how to see Christ, the king, and their own empire. In this context, religious and political questions not only ran parallel with one another, they were inextricably linked, even one and the same.3 The Song of Songs provided a narrative and a fund of imagery that addressed all of these questions in turn in a highly flexible and compelling way. Over time, Carolingian exegesis on the Song of Songs, while remaining doctrinally consistent, would be used in anti-​adoptionist polemic as a text to create social cohesion among a body of trained doctores, to reflect on the relation of the king with the church, and ultimately to inspire a particular kind of devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary. Over time, the nature and shape of the frame of Song exegesis was transformed by Carolingian exegetes, even as they preserved much of its central core of doctrinal content and theological teaching. Early medieval heresy is usually characterized as intellectual and theological error rather than as social movement, this error being confined to a few elites or the odd individual teacher. At first blush, eighth-​century Spanish adoptionism, which bears no real historical relation to the late antique heresy of the same name, appears to fit that paradigm: a Christological aberration, highly obscure and complex in its terminology. We know of only two named individuals owning to the heresy: Elipandus, bishop of Toledo, and Felix of Urgell in the Pyrenees.4 In the face of full-​throated Frankish disapproval, adoptionism 3 “… Carolingian theology was politics on a cosmic scale.” Matthew Bryan Gillis, Heresy and Dissent in the Carolingian Empire: The Case of Gottschalk of Orbais (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 7. 4 James Williams has proposed that, given its lack of historical connnection to late antique adoptionism, that the “heresy” be known instead as Felicianism, a term used also by Benedict of Aniane. Precisely because I would like to argue for its regional and cultural nature, however, I am reluctant to associate it overmuch with Felix of Urgell in particular, and so I have continued to employ the most commonly used term in scholarship. See James Williams, The Adoptive Son of God, the Pregnant Virgin, and the Fortification of the True Faith: Heterodoxy, the Cult of the Virgin Mary, and Benedict of Aniane in the Carolingian Age (Ph.D. dissertation: Purdue University, 2009), 39–​43.

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disappears from the historical record entirely and seems thoroughly incidental to the entire Carolingian project: a heretical soap-​bubble, here and gone in a moment, and of as little consequence. Falling into the deep disciplinary divide between theology and history, the debate appears separate enough from political and social developments internal to the Frankish world to seem peripheral to many scholars.5 If there are only two paradigms by which to understand medieval heresy, however—​popular social movement and the isolated rebel individual—​then there is no place in the scholarly conversation for those structural and institutional factors particular to the early medieval world which would have controlled and affected how heresy would have “presented” in the historical evidence. Sympathetic reevaluations of late antique heresy have moved away from discussions about whether a given figure was or was not “orthodox,” focusing instead on the only gradual emergence of precise, technical theological language, the evolution of the office and authority of the bishop, and linguistic and cultural differences in the regions where Christianity spread.6 These debates, however, rarely engage with early medieval exegetes, Cavadini’s work being a rare exception. In recent decades, scholars have reexamined medieval heresy in light of its social and cultural contexts: the gradual formation of inquisitorial procedures, distinctive regional and social identities, provincial vocabulary and customs, and the effective creation ex nihilo of proscriptive discourses by university-​trained inquisitors. These critical debates, shaped by the thought of Foucault and the seminal work of Herbert Grundmann and R. I. Moore, focus exclusively on heresy as it develops from the eleventh century onwards, giving special attention to the Cathars and the Waldensians, and to some extent explains these heresies as reactions against internal social and religious developments within Europe itself. Practically by definition, this analysis does not take into account the distinctive nature of the early medieval world, however. If early medieval Europe was, as Peter Brown has argued, a network of “micro-​Christianities,” each containing its own venerable traditions 5 For a recent example, see Christine Caldwell Ames, Medieval Heresies: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 128–​30. 6 Rowan Greer’s reassessment of Theodore of Mopsuestia and particularly of Origen has been instrumental. See also Rowan Williams, Arius:  Heresy and Tradition (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 2001); David G. Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy in Ancient Christianity: The Jovinianist Controversy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); Khaled Anatolios, Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011); John Behr, Irenaeus of Lyons: Identifying Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); Carlos R. Galvao-​Sobrinho, Doctrine and Power: Theological Controversy and Christian Leadership in the Later Roman Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013).

62 ­chapter  only tenuously connected with Rome and evolving, Galapagos-​like, in only periodic contact with one another, then it is not only possible but probable for accusations of heresy to be rooted in perceived differences in language and theological vocabulary, intellectual formation, ecclesiastical culture, and approaches to ecclesiastical authority.7 Something very like this, in fact, appears to have happened during the Easter controversy in seventh-​century Ireland and Northumbria, and likewise in the Carolingian debates with Constantinople concerning iconoclasm and the procession of the Holy Spirit. In his laborious work of reconstituting the theology of Elipandus of Toledo and Felix of Urgell, John Cavadini set out to prove that Spanish adoptionism was in and of itself legitimate theology, the “last Christology of the West” evolving out of deep Spanish indebtedness to North African Christianity.8 In this view, Alcuin and the rest of the Frankish apologists misread Elipandus and Felix, either deliberately to further the agenda of the Frankish church, or accidentally due to the barriers of culture, language, and different regional theological vocabularies, or some mixture of all these things. Cavadini’s concern to give due respect to the Spanish and to understand adoptionism on its own terms has had the unintended result, however, of making adoptionist theology appear disconnected from the Carolingian reform. At the same time, historians have pointed to the Carolingian annexation of the Spanish March as an important political and military dimension of the problem: in this view, Carolingian imperialist, expansionist tendencies met Spanish resistance, with the religious controversy acting as a convenient fig-​leaf for Frankish aggression. While I do not disagree, these arguments contain a tacit assumption: namely, that adoptionism qua adoptionism, that is, its intellectual or theological content, did not matter or was not threatening to the Carolingians. The political ramifications stemming from this very different theological content and social context of Spanish adoptionism, therefore, bear futher examination. 2.1

The Challenge of Adoptionism

Elipandus and Felix, in somewhat different ways, seem to have taught a Christology which centered on the self-​emptying of the Word. The Word taking on the form of a slave or a servant (servus) meant assuming a human form, and to Pope Hadrian and to the Frankish world, and in turn to heresiologists ever 7 Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), 13–​17. 8 John Cavadini, The Last Christology of the West:  Adoptionism in Spain and Gaul (785-​820) (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993).

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since, the separation between Word and the human form this suggested was a form of Nestorianism. To Frankish minds, adoptionist teachings necessitated that Christ would have distinct divine and human natures, meaning that the Father had two Sons in Christ, one by nature and one by adoption, whence the name. Cavadini argued for a more sympathetic understanding of adoptionism, in which the early medieval Spanish church, strongly inflected in turn by Augustinian North Africa, preserved and developed a western Christology centered on the self-​emptying Christ of Philippians 2: “who, though he was in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave (servus), and being made in human likeness.9“ In Cavadini’s reading, the adoptionists were neither attempting to separate Christ’s human from his divine nature nor suggesting that he was somehow less than co-​eternal with the Father and the Spirit. Alcuin, however, rhetorically depicts the adoptionists as a mere continuation of the Nestorian heresy, as if each of the major heresies had an underground existence independent of the individual heretics involved. To a great extent Alcuin simply did not understand, and did not try to understand, the terms in which the debate within Spain was being carried out. His central concern was to present the Frankish church as a bastion of orthodoxy against heresy. Language differences, of course, as well as disparate Christian traditions attaching different theological nuances to particular Latin words, also played a major role here in confusing the issue. Similar translation issues arose when the Frankish church responded to Byzantine debates about the use of images, precisely contemporary with the adoptionist controversy, and Alcuin and others had a vested interest in linking Spanish theological developments with Greek theological “error.”10 If not precisely a popular heresy, adoptionism clearly represented the beliefs of more than Elipandus and Felix in the Spanish March, where, at the end of the eighth century, Carolingian control over the region was a new and still potentially explosive state of affairs. Charlemagne’s grandfather, Charles Martel, and his famous contretemps with a Muslim scouting party at Poitiers in 732 was only the northernmost of an entire series of skirmishes, resulting in his 9 10

Philippians 2:6–​7: qui cum in forma Dei esset, non rapinam arbitratus est esse se aequalem Deo: sed semetipsum exinanivit, formam servi accipiens, in similitudinem hominum factus, et habitu inventus ut homo. John Cavadini, “Elipandus and His Critics at the Council of Frankfurt,” in Das Frankfurter Konzil von 794, ed. Rainer Berndt (Mainz:  Selbstverlag der Gesellschaft für Mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte, 1997), 2:806–​7; italics original. See also Ann Freeman, “Additions and Corrections to the Libri Carolini: Links with Alcuin and the Adoptionist Controversy,” in Theodulf of Orléans: Charlemagne’s Spokesman against the Second Council of Nicaea (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), item iv, 11–​17.

64 ­chapter  father Pippin’s conquest of the region from the Emirs of Cordoba in the 750s and 60s. The Spanish March continued to be a delicate political and military situation even after Charlemagne’s campaign there in 778, with Charlemagne’s son Louis, and Louis’s son Lothar in turn, quartered in the tense political space of Aquitaine. Felix’s Urgell was under Frankish control only from 789. The Royal Frankish Annals, which give us the bare bones of the Frankish response to adoptionism, are very concerned to describe it as a situation fully under Frankish control, in much the same way that Einhard is determined to present the potentially catastrophic Basque attack on the Frankish rearguard at Roncesvalles as a minor inconvenience to Charlemagne coming home from his unsuccessful siege of Barcelona. Insofar as the 792 and 794 entries from the Royal Frankish Annals go into the subject of Spanish adoptionism at all, they mention Felix of Urgell’s repeated condemnations, Angilbert’s escort of him to Rome, and his confession before Pope Hadrian. Felix is depicted as a particularly obdurate heretic in spite of repeated admonition to the contrary, and he is described as acting alone, a religious deviant with no support beyond himself or real historical context for his religious views. In fact, the only argument about the reach and relative influence of adoptionism—​or lack thereof—​comes from the annals, which have a vested interest in portraying Felix as an aberration acting in isolation, in lumping him together with the equally freakish Byzantine iconoclasts, and in connecting both movements back to the heresies of the patristic era. Behind our two named individuals, however, there is in play, if not a large-​ scale social movement, at least an ecclesiastical network and culture, a Spanish theological vocabulary, and some form of regional identity. Christology does not always presuppose an elite audience, however obscure the terminology may sound to modern ears; in the east, the Christological controversy was famously violent at a very popular level, despite the complexity of the debate. Spanish adoptionism was a different order of controversy from Gottschalk, or Paschasius’s eucharistic controversy, or even from iconoclasm, often ­associated with adoptionism by the Franks. Spain held to ancient and proud traditions of Catholic Christianity, which had eventually overcome Arian heresy and would survive the Muslim conquest. Elipandus’s Toledo was traditionally one of Spain’s most prominent sees and the site of numerous Visigothic church councils; while not associated with an imperial court, Toledo, even under Muslim control, commanded respect and could set a certain tone.11 The

11

Anne Christys, Christians in Al-​Andalus, 711-​1000 (Richmond: Curzon, 2002), 17–​27; Roger Collins, The Arab Conquest of Spain, 710-​97 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 217–​18.

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response to Elipandus by the isolated provincial Beatus of Liébana, as Cavadini has shown, has all the shrillness of an in-​house ecclesiastical squabble complete with factions. In Toledo, Elipandus was safely out of reach of anything the Franks might do to him, and he would evidently live to a ripe old age, dying in the 800s. Cavadini argues that Elipandus initially made contact with Felix of Urgell in effect to extend the ranks of his supporters outside of Spain proper and thereby to checkmate Beatus. If we take seriously the arguments of Cavadini, Abigail Firey, and Anne Christys that adoptionism came out of or relied upon a Spanish theological identity clearly visible, for example, to the southern French church, if not to Alcuin and the Franks, that presupposes that more than two isolated individuals were involved.12 The tenuous institutional connection, in fact, between Elipandus and Felix suggests that both were working independently with a shared theological vocabulary, rather than a pupil following a rebel teacher. After Felix’s first condemnation at Regensburg, a group of Spanish bishops would write both to Charlemagne and to the Frankish bishops in protest.13 The Franks’ subsequent handling of Felix of Urgell suggests both how delicate the situation was, and how much support the adoptionists potentially could command in the region. Alcuin’s initial efforts are deeply conciliating, appealing to Felix’s authority as a bishop of the church; when soft power failed, and in response to the Spanish bishops’ letters of protest, Charlemagne called a full plenary council of Frankish bishops, the Council of Frankfurt in 794. Frankfurt is a remarkable council, the announcement at large of the Frankish church’s coming of age, directed to some extent unilaterally at all forms of heresy, real and perceived, on all borders of Francia. Clearly modeled on Nicaea, with Charlemagne as the new Constantine, Frankfurt was intended to be the antithesis of, and the antidote to the Byzantine Nicaea ii in 787 called by the Empress Irene, which ruled in favor of the use of icons and images in worship. Ideologically part of the run-​up to Charlemagne’s coronation as Holy Roman Emperor in Rome in 800, Frankfurt sought to prove in theological terms that a woman at the head of the Byzantine Empire, and the resulting chaos of the iconoclasm debate and the controversy over the filioque, had forfeited the Greeks’ right to imperium. To pave the way for Charlemagne’s coronation, 12 13

Abigail Firey, “Carolingian Ecclesiology and Heresy:  A Southern Gallic Juridical Tract Against Adoptionism,” Sacris Erudiri 39 (2000): 309–​12. “Epistula Episcoporum Hispaniae,” Corpus Scriptorum Muzarabicorum, ed. John Gil (Madrid: Instituto Antonio de Nebrija, 1973) 1:82–​93; Wilfrid Hartmann, Die Synoden der Carolingerzeit im Frankenreich und in Italien (Paderborn:  Ferdinand Schöningh, 1989), 104–​105.

66 ­chapter  ideologically the Franks wanted to prove that Greek christological error somehow resurfacing in Spain was the root cause of adoptionism. In terms of real live threat on the edges of Frankish territory, however, adoptionism was the more pressing, pragmatic concern of the council of Frankfurt, and the major heretic that Frankfurt condemned, with all the prestige that it could command, was Felix of Urgell. Only a few years after Frankfurt and Felix’s third condemnation, however, further repeated at the 797 Council of Friuli, it was still deemed necessary to have a public debate between Alcuin and Felix in person at the Carolingian court in Aachen in 798/​99: this debate is not mentioned in the Royal Frankish Annals. Alcuin, not surprisingly, was pronounced the victor, and Felix was turned over to Bishop Leidrad of Lyons and his successor Agobard to spend the rest of his life in the episcopal residence under house arrest, never, it seems, entirely recanting and even further developing his theology at the time of his death in 818. At the same time as the public debate and perhaps in the wake of it, Leidrad and the Visigoth Theodulf of Orléans would go as Charlemagne’s missi dominici on a sort of preaching tour all over southern Gaul, reporting on the state of religious reform and in particular on whether adoptionism still survived—​again, suggesting its potential influence beyond Elipandus and Felix. Alcuin would ultimately expand his attack on Felix and adoptionism to a full seven books; he would be joined in writing anti-​adoptionist material by Theodulf, by Benedict of Aniane, and by Paulinus of Aquileia. The “second-​generation” Carolingian scholar Jonas of Orléans would accuse the Spaniard Claudius of Turin, who went with Leidrad, Agobard, and Felix to Lyons, of being a disciple of Felix: regardless of the truth of the accusation or lack of it, it is still significant that the accusation was made and was felt to be damaging.14 Even some fifty years after the controversy had died down, Paschasius Radbertus would write to the nuns of Soissons to guard the purity of their Trinitarian orthodoxy against the errors of Elipandus.15 It is a truism of high medieval scholarship that even while heresy can emerge out of the energy of religious movements, heresy also provides a

14 15

Johannes Heil, “Claudius von Turin: eine Fallstudie zur Geschichte der Karolingerzeit,” Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 45 (1997): 389–​91. “Sed miseri haeretici qui hoc persentire aut intelligere minime uoluerunt aut potuerunt quod in hac forma diuinitatis non nisi unitas esse potent Trinitatis una aequalitas una essentia deitatis cui numquam aut nusquam est aliud esse quam idem semper esse,” Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Psalmum XLIV, ed. Beda Paulus, CCCM 94 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1991), Bk ii, lns. 167–​71. See also ii.208–​255.

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spur to monastic reform. Likewise, the adoptionist controversy has a closer relationship to the implementation of monastic reform across the Empire in the ninth century than is usually acknowledged. One proven Carolingian strategy in any contested political region, as after Charlemagne’s conquest of northern Italy, was a policy of founding, endowing, and firming up monasteries. Leidrad of Lyons and Theodulf’s tour of southern Gaul employed networks of prayer and commemoration to buttress political and theological ties: in a region in which the institutional church could potentially be suspect, monastic reform was all the more important.16 Benedict of Aniane, himself a Visigoth like Theodulf, began his program of monastic reform immediately after Felix and Alcuin’s public debate at Aachen. The reform was not solely his creation, to be sure, but his place within it succeeded and gathered momentum through his connections not only to Alcuin and Louis the Pious, but also to other major figures within the Frankish response to adoptionism: Leidrad, who asked for some of Benedict’s monks to be sent to Ile-​ Barbe, Theodulf likewise for Micy, Alcuin for Cormery, and Count William of Toulouse’s abbey at Gellone near Aniane.17 Benedict’s own abbey church at Aniane was consecrated in the name of the Trinity and had three altars placed under the main high altar; like Angilbert at Saint-​Riquier, he used the very architecture of the church to defend and commemorate the effort against heresy.18

16

17 18

André Bonnery has described the presence of a Septimanian contingent at the Council of Frankfurt, the extensive itinerary that Theodulf and Leidrad traveled as missi in 798, and the warm reception they received there. “À propos du concile de Francfort (794):  l’action des moines de Septimanie dans la lutte contre l’adoptionisme,” Das Frankfurter Konzil von 794, 2:767–​86. Janet Nelson has noted how many Spaniards in the Carolingian court objected to pilgrimage and relic-​cults and suggested that their concern lay not with a proto-​Lutheran objection to pilgrimage or penance per se but with their anxieties about adoptionism and wandering monks: “Opposition to Pilgrimage in the Reign of Charlemagne?” Rome and Religion in the Medieval World: Studies in Honor of T. F. X. Noble, ed. Valerie L. Garver and Owen M. Phelan (Ashgate: Variorum Press, 2014), 72. Pierre Bonnerue, Introduction to the Benedicti Anianensis Concordia Regularum, CCCM 168 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), 41. Susan Rabe, Faith, Art, and Politics at Saint-​Riquier: The Symbolic Vision of Angilbert (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 113–​37. The church of Santa Maria in Tarrasa, north of Barcelona, refurbished in the ninth century with Carolingian frescoes, deliberately portrays Christ as Pantocrator, a depiction as far as possible from the forma servi of the adoptionists. Pedro de Palol and Max Hirmer, Early Medieval Art in Spain (London: Thames and Hudson, 1967), 46.

68 ­chapter  2.2

The Challenge of the forma servi

Mistakenly or not, one aspect of the Spaniards’ teaching particularly antagonized both the pope and the Frankish commentators who tackled the problem: the adoptionists’ contention that Christ took upon himself the forma servi, the form of a servant or slave. One can imagine that for Elipandus, bishop of an ancient Christian city fallen into Muslim hands, a particular Christology in which Christ emptied and abased himself in kenotic servanthood took on new and poignant significance. In fact, there were revolts in Toledo against Umayyad rule in 760–​61, 763–​64, and 785 and extended periods of revolt between 788–​91 and 796–​97, culminating in the massacre of the “Toledan Night” of 807.19 Far from arising out of Muslim influence, as Alcuin and others would argue, adoptionism may nevertheless represent a theological response to the conquest and to the presence, as well as the memory, of continued resistance in Toledo bloodily quashed by the Umayyads. If so, one can also imagine why to Beatus of Liébana, holed up in faraway Asturias, it seemed at best defeatist, and at worst collaborationist, blasphemy. When Pope Hadrian first read the works of Elipandus, the bishop of Toledo’s use of the phrase seems to have touched a particularly sensitive nerve: Christ took on the form of a servus, he insisted, but that did not make him a servus outright. It is the unavoidable class connotations of servus that Hadrian cannot have: No wonder, since such a great madness of rashness deludes you, that you do not blush to equate him with multitudes and law-​makers:  impious and ungrateful, you do not fear to hiss from venomous throats that our liberator is an adoptive son, so to speak entirely human, subject to human fallenness and—​which is shameful to say—​a slave. Why are you not afraid, hateful whiners, disparagers of God, to call him a slave, who freed you from service to the devil, to whom you again freely bend to offer your necks? Once, when you were sinful slaves, He Himself freed you by free gift through the grace of adoption into the lot of sons of God. Is it possible that the voice of that Lord will sound concerning you, saying: I honor my father, and you dishonor me. You return to Him deeds so ungrateful that the one who makes you children with honor by the price

19

Christys, Christians in Al-​Andalus, 19.

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of his blood, you are not dismayed to bark with your tongues wrongfully that he is adoptive and snarling that he is a slave.20 Hadrian, of course, was deeply respected and even beloved by the Franks, and his judgment carried weight. The Council of Frankfurt is very concerned to specify that the forma servi in no way lessened or diminished Christ’s forma Dei, and Charlemagne’s letter to the bishops of Spain would also stress that Christ’s one unique nature makes possible these two roles: “in the form of God equal to the Father, in the form of a servant less than the Father, in the form of God, creator, in the form of a servant, redeemer.”21 In a 799 letter to Elipandus, Alcuin also emphasizes that Christ’s taking on the form of a servant did not lessen his being in the form of God in any way.22 When Alcuin compiled his commentary on John for the benefit of Charlemagne’s sister Gisela and daughter Rotrud, running like a refrain through the work Alcuin returns again and again to define precisely what he means by the forma servi. Alcuin makes some of the same distinctions again and again: Christ made himself less than the Father in the form of a servant but is equal to the Father in the form of God, he is not a servant tout court, but is in the form of a servant, and so on.23 The 797 Council of Friuli slightly massages the Philippians text, omitting the

20

21 22

23

“Tanta nimirum vos temeritatis dementia deludit, ut equare eum nubibus et legislatoribus non erubescatis; adoptivum eum filium quasi purum hominem, calamitatis humanae subiectum et—​quod pudet dicere—​servum eum, impii et ingrati tantis beneficiis, liberatorem nostrum non pertimescitis venenosa fauce susurrare. Cur non veremini, queruli detractatores Deo odibiles, illum servum nuncupare, qui vos de servitute diaboli liberavit, cui vos iterum nitimini perfidiae sponte colla submittere? Porro, cum essetis servi peccati, ipse vos liberavit gratuito munere per adoptionis gratiam in sortem filiorum Dei. Numquid non sonat de vobis vox illa Domini dicentis: Ego honorifico patrem meum, et vos inhonorastis me. Tales gratiarum actiones infelices ei refertis, ut, qui vos honorifice liberos praetio sanguinis fecit, vos eum iniuriose adoptivum et servum caninis non confundamini linguis latrare …” “Epistola Hadriani I ad episcopos Hispaniae,” ed. Albert Werminghoff, in Concilia Francofurtense, MGH Concilia 2.1 (Hanover, 1896), 126. Concilia Francofurtense, MGH Conc. 2.1, 151, 164. “Adsumpsit igitur Dei filius formam servi, non minuens formam Dei; ita ut unus esset filius Dei in duabus naturis, salva utriusque naturae proprietate in unitate personae; ita ut in duabus naturis unus sit filius, unus Christus, unus etiam et Deus.” Alcuin, Ep. 166, ed. Ernst Dümmler, MGH Epp. 4 (Berlin, 1895), 269. “Hoc proprium est piorum, qui sic audiunt de incarnatione ejus, ut credant quia Filius Dei est, id est, sic eum propter se factum accipiunt minorem Patre in forma servi, ut credant quia aequalis est Patri in forma Dei … Iam ergo sicut homo, sicut quo major est Pater; jam ex forma servi, non ex forma Dei … Qui verus est Filius Dei, et Dominus in forma servi. Non servus, sed in forma servi Dominus.” Alcuin, Commentariorum in Iohannem, PL 100, cols. 812C, 815A, 869D-​870A.

70 ­chapter  clause that says that Christ did not consider equality with God something to be grasped (in the Vulgate, rapinam), and emphasizes instead his divine nature and his role as mediator.24 The Council of Aachen in 799, in a passage describing how Christ took on Mary’s flesh without the taint of original sin, stresses that Christ took on the form of a servant sine condicione servili.25 The political, religious, and ideological machinery of the Carolingians, the entire system of the Carolingian reform, was pyramidal, hierarchical, and imitative, exerting downward pressure from Christ to the king down in turn to bishops, missi, and aristocrats, with everyone in leadership obligated, at least in theory if not in practice, to be a moral example to those below them. The Carolingian argument for usurpation, the takeover of the throne by Charlemagne’s father Pippin in 753 legitimized by the pope, hinged on the Carolingian dynasty being somehow set apart from the rest of the aristocracy.26 The king—​ anointed, to distinguish him from an ordinary lay aristocrat—​was special, different, the new Constantine, the strong right arm and favorite son of the bishop of Rome. To preserve and support these distinctions and hierarchies the Carolingians particularly needed a high Christology, and, if anything, a Christ closer to the Father than he had generally been described and depicted.27 The 24 25 26 27

“… cum in forma Dei esset equalis Patri, semetipsum pro nobis exinanivit, formam servi accipiens, mediator inter Deum et nos fieri est dignatus …” Concilium Foroiuliense, MGH Conc. 2.1, 189. Concilium Aquisgranense, MGH Conc. 2.1, 225. Stuart Airlie, “Towards a Carolingian Aristocracy,” in Der Dynastiewechsel von 751:  Vorgeschichte, Legitimationsstrategien, und Erinnerung, ed. Matthias Becher and Jörg Jarnut (Münster: Scriptorium, 2004), 122–​24. Alain Boureau notes that, as a result of the adoptionist controversy, the western theological tradition both will be highly Christocentric and that Christ will to some extent take on some of the attributes of the Father in art. “Visions of God,” The Cambridge History of Christianity: Early Medieval Christianities, c. 600-​c. 1100, ed. Thomas F. X. Noble and Julia M.  H. Smith (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2014), 3:496–​97. Celia Chazelle entitled her monograph on the cross and Christ’s passion in the Carolingian world The Crucified God to emphasize the extent to which Carolingian theologians were “almost monophysite” in their emphasis on Christ’s divine nature, and she argued that Frankish theologians took this path as a response to adoptionism. Celia Chazelle, The Crucified God in the Carolingian Era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 58. See also Anne-​Orange Poilpré, Maiestas Domini: Une image de l’église en Occident (Ve–​IXe siècle), (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2005), 190–​203. Henry Mayr-​Harting also notes that the adoptionist controversy made the Franks wary of depicting scenes from Christ’s human life: “Praying the Psalter in Carolingian Times: What was Supposed to Be Going on in the Minds of Monks?” in Prayer and Thought in Monastic Tradition, 88. It would only be in eleventh-​century Swabia that the cross begins to appear as a part of depictions of Christ the Judge: John Munns, Cross and Culture in Anglo-​Norman England (Bristol: The Boydell Press, 2016), 34.

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entire Carolingian project needed, in short, a Christ in majesty.28 By the same token, a Christ who emptied himself and made himself nothing, if that self-​ emptying was not carefully defined and qualified, posed a challenge to the structure of the Carolingian reform itself. Far from being peripheral, adoptionism represented a pointed intellectual challenge to the entire Carolingian project, and at a very crucial moment in the run-​up to Charlemagne’s own claims to imperium. In the place of the forma servi, another vision of Christ was needed to offset the adoptionist reading of the Philippians text. One of the places it was found, I would argue, was in the Song of Songs. It is more common for modern readers, in thinking of the Song text, to recall the gloriously voluptuous descriptions of the Bride. But the Song of Songs is also a song about the Bridegroom, equally desirable, ruddy, “choice,” and understood allegorically since Origen to be a figure of Christ. In the medieval world, moreover, the Song of Songs was believed to have been composed by King Solomon, one of, indeed the highest of his three books of wisdom along with Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.29 In the Carolingian world in particular, where Charlemagne was frequently depicted as King David and his son Louis the Pious as Solomon, it would have been hard to impossible not to feel the power of association, all the more powerful for not being directly expressed. The language of the Song of Songs potently describes the Bridegroom: As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among young men. With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste (Cant. 2:3) … My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look, there he stands beyond our wall, gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice (Cant. 2:9)… What is your beloved more than another beloved, o fairest among women? What is your beloved more than another beloved, that you thus adjure us? My beloved is all radiant and ruddy, distinguished among ten thousand. His head is the finest gold, his locks are wavy, black as a raven. His eyes are like doves beside springs of water, bathed in milk, fitly set. His cheeks are like beds of spices, yielding fragrance. His lips are lilies, distilling liquid myrrh. His arms are rounded 28

29

Resurrected from Roman models, crimen maiestatis, punishable, increasingly commonly, by exile, became the favorite Carolingian political offense. Steven A. Stofferahn, “Paschasius Radbertus, Exile, and the Masters’ Honor,” Medieval Monks and Their World: Ideas and Realities: Studies in Honor of Richard E. Sullivan, ed. David Blanks, Michael Frassetto, and Amy Livingstone (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 49–​69. Mary Alberi, “Alcuin’s Monastic True Philosophy and the Worldly Court,” 896–​910.

72 ­chapter  gold, set with jewels. His body is ivory work, encrusted with sapphires. His legs are alabaster columns, set upon bases of gold. His appearance is like Lebanon, choice as the cedars. His speech is most sweet, and he is altogether desirable. This is my beloved and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. (Cant. 5:9–​16) The use of comparative and superlative language throughout in the text is particularly important: “more than another beloved,” “most sweet and altogether desirable,” “choice as the cedars,” “the apple tree among the trees of the wood.” The text of the Song of Songs offered Carolingian theologians a vision of Christ that emphasized his intrinsic superiority and difference; it supported a model of devotion and salvation by which Christ had to be superior to ordinary humanity in order to be efficacious. In the next chapter, we will examine how early medieval exegetes often linked the Song of Songs and the Apocalypse. The imagery used in both texts to describe Christ and the church, the Bridegroom and the Bride, reinforced a vision of these figures that was high, exalted, majestic, transcendent, and “anagogical” in the sense that exegetes used these texts to try to catch a glimpse of heavenly realities, which they could use to counter Christ in the form of a servant as taught by the adoptionists. 2.3

Elipandus of Toledo and Beatus of Liébana

In the teachings of Elipandus of Toledo, when Christ the Word assumed his humanity he became “first-​born” among believers by adoption. As well as John Cavadini can reconstruct his original meaning, Elipandus’s description of Christ’s sonship by his taking up his adoption was not meant to denigrate the status of the Son, however. Nor was it to suggest, like the Nestorians, that Christ had two persons, but instead it became the culmination of Christ’s perfect humility, his taking on the form of a servant and making himself nothing.30 In these theological terms, it was precisely Christ’s sonship by adoption that became

30

“Elipandus’s adoptionism is a creative but genuine development of a purely Western tradition of reflection upon and exegesis of Phil. 2:6–​11.” Cavadini, The Last Christology of the West, 34–​35. See also Wilhelm Heil, “Der Adoptianismus, Alkuin und Spanien,” Karl der Grosse, vol II: Das Geistige Leben, ed. Bernhard Bischoff et al. (Düsseldorf, Schwann, 1965), 95–​155; Matthias Kloft, “Adoptianismus,” 794:  Karl der Große in Frankfurt am Main:  Ein König bei der Arbeit, (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1994), 56–​57; Knut Shäferdiek, “Der adoptianische Streit im Rahmen der spanischen Kirchengeschichte I,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 80 (1969): 291–​311.

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salvific for believers. However, for Beatus of Liébana, Elipandus had gone so far in asserting Christ’s self-​emptying humility that, as Beatus accused Elipandus, Christ had become indistinguishable from humanity. And the stakes were particularly high for Beatus, for whom, as Cavadini notes, there was a striking and elegant “virtual equivalence of christology and ecclesiology.” In Beatus’s understanding, adoptionism threatened to undermine the very foundation of the relationship between Christ and the church. Like Ambrose Autpert, Beatus of Liébana was also the author of a significant commentary on the Apocalypse, a work which also was based on the North African tradition of Tyconius mediated through Primasius of Hadrumetum and which Beatus often quotes in his writings against Elipandus. As such, like Ambrose, Beatus was both heir and proponent of the polarized worldview contained within the Apocalypse, which gave him an interpretative framework through which he could understand the events of his own time.31 Beatus’s belief that Elipandus was somehow denying or denigrating the divinity of Christ would have reminded him immediately of I John 2:22–​23: “Who is a liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist, who denies the Father, and the Son. Whoever denies the Son, has not the Father either. He that confesses the Son, has the Father also.”32 Beatus’s belief that Elipandus and adoptionism represented, at least in some way, the powers of Antichrist33 and the last armies of the Apocalypse—​present, although to a lesser extent, in Alcuin’s writings and echoed by fellow Visigoth Benedict of Aniane in his brief treatise against adoptionism34—​ensured the central place of the Apocalypse and its imagery in the Adversus Elipandum. Also like Ambrose, for Beatus the 31

32 33

34

Beatus “interpreted the conflict between himself and Elipandus in the light of what he read in the Apocalypse and earlier commentaries on it. To comment on the Apocalypse was his way of coming to terms with his own society, and locating the church in the turmoil around him.” Sabine MacCormack, “The City Built in Heaven,” Seeing the Invisible in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. Giselle de Nie, Karl F. Morrison and Marco Mostert (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 395–​96. I John 2:22–​23: Quis est mendax nisi is qui negat quoniam Iesus non est Christus hic est antichristus qui negat Patrem et Filium omnis qui negat Filium nec Patrem habet qui confitetur Filium et Patrem habet. Examples are legion, but see Beatus of Liébana and Heterius of Osma, Adversus Elipandum libro duo, ed. Bengt Löfstedt, CCCM 59 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1984), i, ii, lns. 44–​45; i, xxiii, lns. 592–​617; i, xxxiv, lns. 882–​83; i, xlii, lns. 1115–​23; i, lxvi, 1869–​70; ii, vi–​viii, 144–​ 214; ii, xcv–​cii, lns. 2303–​2448. See also Wolfram Brandes, “Tempora periculosa sunt: Eschatologisches im Vorfeld der Kaiserkrönung Karls des Großen,” in Das Frankfurter Konzil von 794, 1:64–​65. Benedict of Aniane, Disputatio Benedicti levitae adversus Felicianam impietatem, PL 103, cols. 1399B-​1411B. See also Cavadini, “Appendix II,” Last Christology, 128–​30.

74 ­chapter  association between the Apocalypse and the Song of Songs was a natural one; he understood both the Apocalypse and the Song of Songs first and foremost as ecclesiological texts which reinforced one another and which encouraged a view of the church beleaguered by heretics.35 Like Ambrose, he views these heretics as a necessary but transient season of trial in the life of the church; Beatus closes the entire work with a flourish from the Song: the Bridegroom’s assurance to the Bride that the winter rains have now passed and gone.36 Even more precisely, however, in this context, the Song of Songs and its interpretation, which underscored the Bridegroom’s extraordinary qualities, became natural exegetical weapons for Beatus to deploy against Elipandus to emphasize the hierarchical nature of the relationship between Christ and the church and to argue for a Christology in which the union of Christ’s divine and human natures was explained in nuptial terms. In this way, Beatus’s understanding of the Annunciation becomes the moment not only when Christ’s divinity is joined to his humanity, but also when Christ is joined to the church; the moment of Christ’s conception is, in this way, also a sort of marriage in which Christ’s two natures are made into one flesh, with the womb of Mary acting as the wedding-​chamber. This was in many ways a deeply traditional reading suggested by the fathers, particularly Ambrose and Augustine, and buttressed by the patristic reading of Psalm 18:6, understood to refer to Christ in Mary’s womb: “He has set his tabernacle in the sun and, like a bridegroom emerging from his wedding chamber, rejoices like a champion [lit., giant] to run his course.”37 Beatus is distinctive, however, in his emphasis on Christ’s also being joined to the church at the same moment. Interestingly, he also invokes the famous beginning of the Song of Songs, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth,” to signify that union.38 Beatus notes: 35

36

37 38

For examples of how Beatus fused imagery of the Song of Song with that of the Apocalypse to describe heretics, see Beatus, Adversus Elipandum, i, xlvi, lns. 1210–​22; i, lxv–​ lxvi, lns. 1831–​68. Unlike the Bride, who ultimately finds her bridegroom, the heretics are searching and not finding him: i, cix, lns. 3194–​3203. Beatus includes verbatim an extract from Iustus of Urgel’s Explanatio of the Song concerning heretics as the little foxes of the Song: ii, xxvii–​viii, lns. 690–​722. “Quamobrem orandus est Dominus, ne in exordio fidei et crescentis aetatis horiatur yems frigoris, id est hereticorum praedicatio nobella. De qua hieme scribtum est ex uoce sponsi: Iam enim hiems transiit, imber abiit et recessit.” Beatus, Adversus Elipandum, ii, civ, lns. 2530–​32. Psalm 18:6: In sole posuit tabernaculum suum et ipse tamquam sponsus procedens de thalamo suo exultavit ut gigans ad currendam viam suam. “Vnde et in Canticis canticorum ex uoce sponsae dicitur: Osculetur me osculo oris sui, quoniam bona ubera tua sunt super uinum et odor unguentorum tuorum super omnia aromata. Audistis epitalamium carmen, dilectissimi fratres, quod Spiritus sanctus per

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For “one person” is designated with a double word: both the head, that is the Bridegroom, and the church, that is, the Bride was made known. So then, it must be noted in the scriptures when the head in particular is described, when both the head and body [are described], or when both pass into each other or from one to the other. And in this way, the experienced reader should know what applies to the head, and what to the body.39 It is part of Beatus’s central argument against Elipandus that the fluid and seemingly two-​fold complexities of the terminology are still contained within a single body, a single person. The Song of Songs is superior to other spiritual songs, Beatus argues, because in it, diuina et humana sibi inuicem copulantur,40 and he returns in more detail to the first chapter of the Song, explicating the text, phrase by phrase, from the initial kiss through to Cant. 1:3. This brief encapsulated commentary on the Song’s first verses, much of it traditional “ecclesiological” interpretation like that found in the works of Iustus, Bede, or Alcuin, opens with—​and, Beatus implies, is contingent upon—​the kiss that joins Christ’s human and divine natures and joins him in turn to the church. The church’s day-​to-​day work and teachings, expressed in the language of the Song, proceed ultimately from this initial mystical union: Christ’s breasts, the gospels, are superior to the wine of the law, his ointment, chrism, is superior

39

40

Salomonem ex uoce sponsi et sponsae, id est Christi et eglesiae, pro caelestium nuptiarum allegorica decantatione praedixit, quando Christus sponsus et anima sponsa obpignerauerunt sibi castam imuicem coniugii uoluntatem et facti sunt duo in carne una, id est Deus et homo duo hii, id est Verbum et anima, una persona, sponsus et sponsa in una carne. Et illius sponsi talamus fuit uterus uirginis, quia in illo utero uirginali coniuncta duo, sponsus et sponsa, quia scribtum est: Et erunt duo in carne una; et Dominus dicit in euangelio: Igitur iam non sunt duo, sed una caro, quia Christus et eclesia non sunt duae carnes et duo homines, sed una caro et unus homo.” Beatus, Adversus Elipandum, ii, lxxv, lns. 1883–​97. “In una enim persona duplici uocabulo nominata: et caput, id est sponsum, et eclesiam, id est sponsam, manifestauit. Proinde notandum in scribturis, quando specialiter caput describitur, quando et caput et corpus aut quando ex utroque transeat ad utrumque aut ab altero ad alterum. Sic que quid capiti, quid corpori conueniat, prudens lector intellegat.” Beatus, Adversus Elipandum, ii, lxxvii–​lxxviii, lns. 1940–​47. “Sic enim pronuntiatur Cantica canticorum, eo quod supra omnia cantica, quae aut Moyses aut Maria in Exodo aut Esayas aut Abbacuc et ceteri cecinerunt, haec meliora sunt cantica, quia illi aut pro liberatione aut pro conuersatione populi aut pro admiratione diuinorum operum accensi animo hac mente Deo laudes dixerunt; hic autem, quia Dei eclesiae uox psallentis auditur, propter quod diuina et humana sibi inuicem copulantur, ideo Cantica canticorum, id est meliora meliorum, nuncupantur.” Beatus, Adversus Elipandum, ii, lxxviii, lns. 1953–​61.

76 ­chapter  to all other ointments, and the church is inducted into the king’s wine-​cellar when she (in what is surely a jab at Elipandus) confesses that Christ is the Son of God. Throughout, Sponsus et sponsa in una carne is Beatus’s refrain: using one kind of paradox to illustrate another, Beatus uses a dramatic, highly rhetorical and memorable argument, based in part on interpretation of the Song of Songs, to suggest that Elipandus is under-​valuing Christ’s divinity and, in turn, eroding the foundation of the church. Throughout the work, Beatus returns repeatedly to a quotation from Elipandus’s treatise, like a sore place he cannot help probing: Et nos adobtibi et ille adobtibus, et nos Christi et ille Christus, et nos paruuli et ille paruulus.41 Elipandus was perhaps being deliberately provocative, building on Pauline and patristic convention to emphasize the utter self-​emptying of Christ’s humility. Paruuli was a term used particularly by Augustine, sometimes as a synonym for the class of catechumens and, by extension, a word for that majority of Christian believers not able to read scripture in a spiritual sense, those in need of spiritual guidance and leadership. Beatus, too, firmly defines the paruuli as the spiritual children of the church, the ones in need of the hierarchy and of Christ’s mediation, and it is precisely Elipandus’s use of that particular term that seems to have irked him inordinately; it is precisely for the sake of the paruuli in the church, Beatus would argue, that Christ cannot be a paruulus. Paruuli, however, was a particularly important and charged word within the ecclesiological interpretation of the Song of Songs, which stressed the distinction between head and members, doctores and paruuli, particularly the mediating and nurturing role of the doctores. Whether Elipandus intended particularly to subvert or redefine the word in connection with Song interpretation in particular we cannot know, but certainly the ecclesiological interpretation of the Song of Songs could represent a tacit response to adoptionist thought, on both sides of the Pyrenees.42

41 42

Beatus, Adversus Elipandum, i, xlix, lns. 1311–​12; i, lvi, lns. 1550–​52; i, lix, lns. 1643–​45; i, cxii, ln. 3291–​93; i, cxviii, lns. 3531–​34; i, cxxi, lns. 3617–​19. Alcuin appears to have known of Beatus’s existence, at least, through the complaints of Felix: “Quod vero quemdam Beatum abbatem et discipulum ejus Hitherium episcopum dicitis huic vestrae sectae primum contraire, laudamus eos in eo quod veritatem defendere conati sunt.” Alcuin, Contra Felicem Urgellitanum Episcopum Libri Septem, PL 101, col. 133D. Although it is virtually impossible to prove, the suggestion by Johannes Heil that Haimo of Auxerre was a pupil of Theodulf of Orléans and perhaps of Visigothic extraction himself casts interesting light on his decision to comment on both the Song of Songs and the Apocalypse. See Johannes Heil, “Haimo’s Commentary on Paul: Sources, Methods and Theology,” in Études d’exégèse carolingienne: autour d’Haymon d’Auxerre, 114–​19.

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77

Iustus of Urgell

At some point in the eighth century, an anonymous compiler in southern France spliced together the Vox ecclesie, a fusion of the Song commentaries of Gregory of Elvira and Iustus of Urgell, significant portions of which were incorporated into Alcuin’s Compendium. In fact, a version of the Vox ecclesie combined with Alcuin’s Compendium, called the Vox antique ecclesie, from the first half of the ninth century, would be quoted in turn by Angelomus of Luxeuil in his Song commentary. Of particular note in all of these texts is the role played throughout by the Explanatio mystica of the sixth-​century Spaniard Iustus of Urgell, either by itself or as part of the Vox ecclesie and the Vox antique ecclesie.43 Rossana Guglielmetti has argued that Iustus’s work influenced Gregory the Great and perhaps Bede as well, though neither author directly credits Iustus for his ecclesiological interpretation of the text. The first explicit citation of Iustus by an early medieval authority, in fact, is none other than Beatus of Liébana, in his Adversus Elipandum.44 After Beatus, Claudius of Turin borrowed portions of Iustus’s prefatory letter for his own dedicatory letter to Louis the Pious for his commentary on Ephesians; Theodulf of Orléans also quotes Iustus at several points in the Opus Caroli.45 According to the manuscript stemma compiled by Guglielmetti, who sees three distinct textual families in circulation, Beatus, Claudius, and the compiler of the Vox ecclesie were all working with the “Spanish family” of the text. However, Iustus’s commentary was also copied independently in the Frankish world in the ninth century, where, to quote Laistner, it “enjoyed a certain popularity.”46 Theodulf had a copy at Micy, and there were copies at St. Gall and Reichenau, Salzburg, St.-​Riquier, and Murbach.47 43

44 45 46 47

Rossana Guglielmetti has recently edited the work: Iustus of Urgell, Explanatio in Cantica Canticorum: Un vescovo esegeta nel regno visigoto (Florence: sismel, 2011). In a separate volume, she has also edited the Vox ecclesie and the Vox antique ecclesie: Commento al Cantico dei Cantici (Florence: sismel, 2004), 181–​232 and 233–​305, respectively. Guglielmetti, “Tradizione manoscritta e fortuna del Commento al Cantico di Giusto d’Urgell,” 174–​76. Guglielmetti, “Tradizione manoscritta,” 176–​78. For Theodulf’s use of Iustus, see the Opus Caroli contra synodum, 102, 266, 430, and 434. Theodulf also quotes Iustus’s Sermo de S. Vincentio. M. L. W. Laistner, “Some Early Medieval Commentaries on the Old Testament,” Harvard Theological Review 46.1 (1953): 40. Laistner, “Some Early Medieval Commentaries.” According to Guglielmetti, manuscripts of Iustus now lost were inventoried at St.-​Riquier, Reichenau, and Murbach: “Tradizione manoscritta,” 185. See also David Ganz, “In the Nets or on the Line: A Datable Merovingian Manuscript and Its Importance,” in Listen, O Isles, unto me: Studies in Medieval Word and Image, 39–​46.

78 ­chapter  What does this mean? Certainly, it is suggestive that Iustus’s text, even if it wasn’t known as a Spanish text per se to Carolingian exegetes, resurfaced at the time of the adoptionist controversy. Either in and of itself or through a southern French fusion of it with the late antique homilies of Gregory of Elvira, another Spaniard, Iustus’s commentary then entered the mainstream, as it were, of Carolingian intellectual culture, and would be copied at some of the most important and well-​connected monasteries in the Carolingian world. That its “certain popularity” was a particularly Carolingian phenomenon is further underscored by the fact that it virtually disappeared in later centuries. At the very least, the spread of Iustus’s short commentary within a comparatively narrow window of time suggests that it was the right kind of text at the right place at the right time:  it provided a succinct ecclesiological interpretation of the Song of Songs which harmonized with—​perhaps because it had once tacitly influenced—​the more authoritative treatments of Gregory the Great and Bede. With copies in the Spanish March, and more possibly brought to the Frankish world by Visigothic emigrés, it resurfaced in a zone of expanding Frankish influence, at a time when the Song of Songs was part of an exegetical argument not only by Beatus but also by the Franks, against both adoptionism and iconoclasm. 2.5

Theodulf of Orléans and the Opus Caroli regis contra synodum

In the masterpiece of Theodulf of Orléans, the Opus Caroli regis contra synodum, also called the Libri Carolini, Theodulf takes up the Song of Songs as part of a general defense of the Frankish doctores’ responsibility to defend correct doctrine.48 In the preface to the Opus Caroli, Theodulf turns to Song language for its traditional associations with the doctores’ claims to eloquence and their right to explicate scripture. Following the Gregorian association of silver with resonant eloquence, the speech of the doctores ought to signify the chains of gold, inlaid with silver, that the Bride’s friends offer to make for her (Cant. 1:10):

48

The most recent summary and analysis of the Opus Caroli is Noble, Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians, 180–​206. See also the essays of Ann Freeman collected in Theodulf of Orléans: Charlemagne’s Spokesman against the Second Council of Nicaea (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003). For a study of Theodulf’s exegetical method and his treatment of patristic sources, see Elisabeth Dahlhaus-​Berg, Nova Antiquitas et Antiqua Novitas:  typologische Exegese und isidorianisches Geschichtsbild bei Theodulphe von Orléans (Köln:  Böhlau, 1975), 76–​91.

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Since, therefore, the leaders of the two aforesaid synods do not have the speech of the unskilled one [the prophet Micheas (3 Kings 22:8)]—​by which the Apostle himself calls unskilled in speech, but not in knowledge [cf. 2 Cor. 11:6]—​and they do not have the brilliance of his eloquence with the spiritual sense, concerning which it is said by the characters (persona) of the holy preachers to the church in the Song of Songs, We will make for you golden chains inlaid with silver, we consider it marvelous how they are inflated with a wind of such vanity that they presume not only to bestir themselves, but also that they attempt to be numbered with the six venerable [i.e., earlier ecumenical] synods.”49 One of the central arguments of the Opus Caroli was that the Greeks had mistaken physical images for spiritual reality; in an exegetical context, Theodulf claimed that they could not read images spiritually when they occurred in the biblical text or as signs for higher spiritual reality, and in so doing, had taken signifier for signified. This central error had, in turn, caused the Greeks’ present disorder in worship. In a coming-​of-​age announcement of the Frankish church, Theodulf argued that the Greek East had forfeited its right to imperium through political and religious deviance. Moreover, he also suggested that the Frankish church was ready to take up the standard that the Greeks had let fall. Theodulf’s response in the Opus Caroli was, therefore, a formidable apologia for how the doctores should read scripture and how metaphorical language in scripture should be understood. At several points in the Opus Caroli, Theodulf associates imagery from the Song of Songs with the choice and precious nature of Christ, underscoring his “headship” of the church. In Book One, chapter sixteen, for example, Theodulf turns to the case study of Bezaliel, the Old Testament craftsman inspired by God to fashion the Ark of the Covenant and the other physical objects a­ ssociated with the tabernacle, whom the Greeks had cited as a biblical precedent for the creation and use of images in worship. In the biblical text, Bezaliel the “son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah,” is said to be filled “with the spirit of

49

“Cum igitur praefatarum duarum synodorum conditores nec illius inperitiae sermonem habeant, qua se Apostolus imperitum dicit sermone, sed non scientia, nec illius eloquentiae cum spiritali sensu nitorem, de quo ex persona sanctorum praedicatorum in Canticis canticorum ecclesiae dicitur: Murenulas aureas faciemus tibi vermiculatas argento, mirum ducimus, quur tantae vanitatis vento inflati sint, ut eas non solum agitare praesumpserint, sed etiam sex venerabilibus synodis adnumerari conati sint.” Opus Caroli Regis contra synodum (Libri Carolini), ed. Ann Freeman, MGH Conc. 2, Supp. 1 (Hannover: Hahn, 1998), Praef., 101.

80 ­chapter  God, with wisdom and understanding, and knowledge in all manner of work to devise whatever should be made out of gold and silver and bronze, out of marble and gems and a variety of woods.”50 Interpreting not only Bezaliel’s own name allegorically but also that of his father, his grandfather, and that of his tribe, Theodulf followed the etymologies found in Jerome’s Book of the Interpretation of Hebrew Names: Bezaliel as “in the shadow of God,” Uri as “fire,” and Hur as “light.”51 Theodulf associates the positive darkness of Bezaliel’s name with the shadow of Christ the apple-​tree under which the Bride sits in Cant. 2:3; Theodulf argues that Bezaliel was given the spirit of prophecy and foresaw Christ, the true “light from light,” as he constructed the Ark, becoming for Theodulf not a precedent for the making of images but yet another Old Testament type of the law fulfilled in Christ.52 As well as stressing that Christ was the true spiritual fulfillment of the law, also important for Theodulf’s purposes is the allegorical significance of Bezaliel’s divinely designated helper and participant in the work, Ooliab son of Achisamech, understood to signify the group of apostles and doctors, and the silver brought for the work as their particular artistic medium, divine eloquence.53 Theodulf, of course, would himself later commission a glorious (and unique) apse mosaic of the Ark of the Covenant for the oratory of the church at Germigny des Prés, in a very tangible sense linking himself to this group of craftsmen.54

50

51 52 53

54

Exodus 31:1–​5: Locutusque est Dominus ad Mosen dicens ecce vocavi ex nomine Beselehel filium Uri filii Hur de tribu Iuda et implevi eum spiritu Dei sapientia intellegentia et scientia in omni opere ad excogitandum fabre quicquid fieri potest ex auro et argento et aere marmore et gemmis et diversitate lignorum. Jerome, Liber interpretationis hebraicorum nominum, ed. P.  de Lagarde, CCSL 72 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1959), 74 and 77. Cf. Heidi C. Gearhart, Theophilus and the Theory and Practice of Medieval Art (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017), 84–​88. See Ann Freeman, “Scripture and Images in the Libri Carolini,” in Theodulf of Orléans, item vii, 182–​83. “Quia ergo in argento eloquiorum divinorum nitor intelligitur, psalmistae testimonio adprobandum est dicentis:  Eloquia Domini eloquia casta, argentum igne examinatum terrae, purgatum septuplum. Huic namque Beseleel ad peragendum opus in adiutorium datur Achisama. Quem namque Achisama iste, qui adiutorium Christo praebet, nisi sanctos apostolos et apostolicos viros significat, qui nimirum, dum per praedicationum studia et bonorum operum exempla homines in ecclesiae gremio et virtutibus coruscare faciunt et ad aeternam patriam pertrahunt, Christo adiutores existunt? De quibus profecto erat ille, qui dicebat:  Dei adiutores sumus, Dei agricultura estis, Dei aedificatio estis.” Opus Caroli Regis, Bk. i, cap. 16. The most thorough treatment of the artistic and exegetical precedents for the image is that of Paul Meyvaert, “The Meaning of Theodulf’s Apse Mosaic at Germigny-​des-​Prés,” rpt. in The Art of Words: Bede and Theodulf (Ashgate: Variorum, 2008), item viii.

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Theodulf found rhetorically useful the image from the Song of Songs of the true church unspotted and unspoiled and adorned with precious ornaments, juxtaposed against those heretics who would attempt to tarnish her beauty. In the preface to the Opus Caroli, Theodulf suggests that the Greeks are like a drunken man who mistakes his doctor’s advice and forgoes water as well as wine, lurching from one extreme to another. On the church, “of whom it is said in the Song of Songs, ‘You are entirely beautiful, my love, and there is no spot in thee,’ they are trying to inflict a blemish, while these ones propose to her that she abandon things rightly possessed and those ones propose to her that she use badly things rightly possessed—​so long as, namely, both these ones endeavor to remove her ornaments and those ones urge her to adore her ornaments.”55 In Book I, after an exhaustive sequence of examples of how the Greeks in their arrogance have fallen away from the apostolic tradition and have lost the ability to understand scripture spiritually, Theodulf turns to a series of examples from the psalter, including Psalm 11(12): 3: “Every one of them has spoken vain things to his neighbor; with deceitful lips and a double heart they have spoken.” Then, even though it does not exactly follow directly from the psalm text, Theodulf could not resist bringing up the classic description from the Song of Songs of the heretics as the little foxes ruining the Bride’s vineyard: Concerning whom it is said in the Song of Songs: Catch for us the little foxes which are destroying the vines, for our vineyard flourishes, because, namely, while the heresiarchs and their followers, the heresiarchs or the disciples of heresiarchs are caught in their errors by the saints and catholic men, the vineyard of the Lord, that is, the church, is always more and more fruitful with sacred gifts, since she perpetually offers cups with a fragrance as sweet as nectar to her Farmer, who shed his blood for her.56 55

56

“… aut si quis medicus aegrotantem temulentiae arguat, ille putans se medici parere dietis non solum vini sed etiam laticum sibi interdicat umorem, adeo ut, qui dudum languebat nimio vini haustu madefactus, omni sibi liquore interdicto langueat siti arefactus, cum tamen, et si diversa sit causa languoris, unus tamen sit effectus desidiosi erroris. Interea cum in neutra parte neque isti neque illi temperantiae teneantur habenis, sed utrique praecipites per abrupta discurrant et dispari cursu ferantur, uno tamen occursu sponsae Christi, ecclesiae, cui ipse dicit in Canticis canticorum: Tota speciosa es, amica mea, et macula non est in te, maculam inferre conantur, dum et illi ei bene habita abicere et isti bene habitis male uti suadent, dum scilicet et illi ei ornamenta auferre studeant et isti eam ornamenta adorare permoveant.” Opus Caroli Regis contra synodum, Praef., 100. “Potest etiam hic versiculus et de hereticis sive scismaticis intelligi, qui, dum sint mundanae sapientiae versutia inbuti et ad vanas investigationes et superfluas contentiones potius quam ad credendum prompti, vana loquuntur unusquisque ad proximum suum,

82 ­chapter  The image of the little foxes would have a long life in high medieval discourses against heresy, and it is worth remembering how it was first deployed in the early medieval period. Theodulf’s most extensive treatment of how an exegete should treat the images of the Song of Songs occurs in Book Two, chapter ten, as part of a formidable barrage of scriptural passages he compiled from the Old Testament to describe the nature of images and their proper use. While lengthy, it should be quoted in full: How what is written in the Song of Songs should be understood, Show me your face and let me hear your voice, since your voice is sweet and your face is lovely, because, indeed, they very unwisely have put forward this verse to support their [conceptual] vision of images. The face of the church, whom Christ addresses with a sweet variety of names—​sometimes her as a dove, sometimes beautiful, sometimes calling her sweetheart—​whom he commands to come forth, that is, to believe, to hurry, to grow in good works, to come, to attain her eternal reward, is not physical but spiritual; because the rest, which were written about her in this same Song of Songs, should be understood not literally but spiritually. For if this little verse can be adapted [to apply] to that same physical reality, as they dream who put this forward to support their vision of images, therefore everything which is written about the members of the Bride of Christ, the church, should be understood as physical body parts. And if all these are appropriate not to visible members but to invisible virtues, therefore her face as well ought to be understood rather as her invisible virtue rather than a vision of that same image. And so the appearance of the church is the recognition of her virtue, by means of the charm of the beauty of which she is loved by the Bridegroom, to whom it is well said through the prophet, since the king has desired your beauty … Therefore Christ exhorts the church to show him her face, that is, so that she might always contemplate him with faith and works, so that she might say with Elisha, the Lord quoniam, dum male de Christo aut de ecclesia sentiunt, ad eundem errorem proximos suos, id est ceteros hereticos, invitare non desinunt, quatenus maiore infestatione ecclesiam, quae Christi vinea est, demoliri possint. De quibus in Canticis canticorum dicitur: Capite nobis vulpes parvulas, quae demoliuntur vineas, nam vinea nostra floruit, quia videlicet, dum hereses sive earum sequaces, heresei hereseorumve discipuli, a sanctis et catholicis viris in suis erroribus capiuntur, vinea Domini, id est ecclesia, sacrosanctis charismatibus semper magis magisque exuberat, quatenus suo agricolae, qui pro ea sanguinem fudit, nectarei odoris pocula perpetim ministret.” Opus Caroli Regis contra synodum, Bk. i, cap. 26, 220.

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lives, in whose sight I stand; so that she might not be among those about whom he observes, through the prophet, saying, they turned their backs to me and not their faces. He also exhorts her, so that her voice might resound in his ears, because he was prepared to listen to his saints, as the psalmist attests, saying, The just cried out and God heard them and delivered them from all of their distress. Your voice is sweet, he says, and your face lovely, because the prayers of the saints are always pleasing to God and their presence welcome, who have received from the light of Christ that they might remain in the grace of his justice. So be it, that this little verse, Show me your face, or your face is lovely, might be suitable to support their seeing of images, what will be able to be said about her voice, which the prophet both called sweet and urged her to be made heard? Certainly, if souls are not re-​vivified, how much less do they profit by a voice! If, therefore, souls are not re-​vivified, nor do they get possession of the sweetness of a voice. From which it is crystal clear, that just as in the rest of their assertions from this business on the matter their irrelevant sayings are refuted, so also they are refuted on this point, particularly since it cannot rightly be said concerning the vision of the face of those ones, Show me your face, and not concerning the voice of those ones, which they utterly lack, And make your voice heard in my ears, since your voice is sweet and your face lovely.57 57

“X. Quomodo intellegendum est, quod in Canticis canticorum scribitur: Ostende mihi faciem tuam et auditam fac mihi vocem tuam, quoniam vox tua suavis est et facies tua speciosa; quod quidem capitulum illi inpudentissime ad imaginum visionem protulerunt. Facies ecclesiae, quam Christus blandis nominum varietatibus alloquitur, modo eam columbam, modo formosam, modo amicam vocans, quam surgere, id est credere, properare, in operibus bonis excrescere, venire, ad aeternam remunerationem accedere, iubet, non corporalis, sed spiritalis est, quia et cetera, quae de ea in hisdem Canticis canticorum scribuntur, non carnaliter, sed spiritaliter intellegenda sunt. Nam si hic versiculus cuidam corporali rei adcommodari potest, ut illi somniant qui hunc ad imaginum visionem protulerunt, ergo et omnia, que de sponsae Christi, ecclesiae, membris scribuntur, corporalia credenda sunt. Et si haec omnia non membris visibilibus, sed virtutibus conveniunt invisibilibus, ergo et facies eius virtus potius invisibilis quam cuiusdam debet intelligi visus imaginis. Facies itaque ecclesiae cognitio virtutum eius est, cuius pulcritudinis venustate ab sponso diligitur, cui bene per prophetam dicitur: Quoniam concupivit rex speciem tuam. Hortatur ergo Christus ecclesiam, ut faciem suam ei ostendat, id est, ut semper eum contempletur fide et operibus, ut cum Helia dicere possit: Vivit Dominus, in cuius conspectu sto; ne sit de illis, quos per prophetam denotat dicens: Verterunt terga ad me, et non faciem. Hortatur etiam, ut vox eius sonet in auribus illius, quia paratus est ad exaudiendum sanctos suos psalmista adtestante, qui ait: Clamaverunt iusti, et Dominus exaudivit eos et ex omnibus tribulationibus eorum liberavit eos. Vocem eius dulcem et faciem dicit esse decoram, quia orationes sanctorum semper Deo acceptae sunt eorumque grata

84 ­chapter  Throughout this complex passage, Theodulf is playing with classic distinctions between figurative and literal scriptural meanings and physical and spiritual depictions of the Bride. Significantly, in accordance with patristic tradition, Theodulf refers to the literal sense of scripture as the “body” of the text; to read literally, as he accuses the Greeks of doing, is to read carnaliter. Theodulf’s analysis of this portion of the Song text echoes the broader themes of the Opus Caroli: that in the case of the Song of Songs the Greeks have once again tried to make inflated and over-​literal claims for biblical language which should only be understood figuratively, not as a precedent or license for making actual images. The Greeks’ exegetical blindness, their over-​literalism, has led ultimately to disorder in worship. In the context of a long series of examples from scripture, the Song of Songs is the perfect case study for Theodulf to cite: while full of descriptions of the appearance of the body of the Bride and the Bridegroom, nevertheless the commentary tradition on the Song unanimously insisted that this was a book about which nothing could be taken literally. As he notes in Book Four, it is a book which points toward spiritual realities that will be make clear “when the day breaks and the shadows flee,” (Cant. 2:17), but they cannot be used as a guide to create physical images of Christ in this life.58 In Book Three, Theodulf directly attacks the orthodoxy of the second Council of Nicaea and, in chapter thirteen, specifically targets Empress Irene as the head of the council: a false doctor who, as a woman, should not presume to teach.59 The proper relationship between head and members, Theodulf argues, has been perverted. Interestingly, in addition to Theodulf’s quite sufficient spleen, the corrector has also added a slight disclaimer to Theodulf’s point that Christ has no “head,” no one in oversight over him; the corrector notes that the head of Christ is God the Father, the “best gold” of the Song of Songs.60 Similarly, in chapter twenty-​one, Theodulf assembles a short collection of images

58 59 60

praesentia, qui de Christi lumine acceperunt, ut in decore iustitiae permanerent. Esto, convenit, ut ad imaginum visionem aptari possit hic versiculus, Ostende mihi faciem tuam sive Facies tua speciosa, quid de voce dici poterit, quam et suavem propheta decantat et auditam sibi fieri hortatur? Quae utique, si anima non vegetantur, multo minus voce fruuntur. Si igitur anima non vegetantur, nec vocis dulcedine potiuntur. Unde liquido patet, ut sicut in ceteris ex hoc negotio adsertionibus illorum ad rem non pertinentia dicta frustrantur, ita etiam et in hac parte frustrentur, praesertim cum nec de earum faciei visione recte dici possit: Ostende mihi faciem tuam, neque de earum voce, qua prorsus carent: Et auditam fac mihi vocem tuam, quoniam vox tua suavis est, et facies tua speciosa.” Opus Caroli Regis contra synodum, Bk. ii, cap. 10, 255–​56. Opus Caroli Regis contra synodum, Bk. iv, 13. Noble, Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians, 196–​97. “Sicut igitur caput viri Christus est, ita nimirum caput mulieris vir, ac per hoc, si mulier viris praesse debet, iam eorum caput est. Et si illa eorum caput est, illi necessario caput

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from the Song of Songs used to describe the beauty of Christ and his exalted nature: his head is of best gold, he is the fruitful apple tree.61 Particularly important for Theodulf is that these images from the Song are inherently comparative: that the gold is optimum, that he is the apple tree by comparison with the rest of the trees of the forest. This makes a christological point: that Christ is not simply adopted, by implication equal with humanity, but is set apart from and superior in nature to the believer whom he saves. Noble has suggested that the revisions at the opening of Book Three of the Opus Caroli seem “to have been occasioned by a desire to quote a text that could be read as an explicit refutation of adoptionism,” further underlining the Frankish position as the proper defenders of orthodoxy.62 In this context, the corrector’s emphasis on the Father as the head of Christ, as well as Theodulf’s choice of images in Book Three, would seem to be more of the same. Like Beatus against Elipandus, Theodulf uses the Song of Songs to argue a set of theological and christological points against Irene, the false doctor and head of the Greek church: that the imagery from the Song of Songs describes a spiritual, not a physical reality, and that the beauty of the Bridegroom described in the Song indicates the inherent superiority in nature of Christ to the rest of believers, expressed through hierarchical language of “head and members.” 2.6

Alcuin and the Pseudodoctores

In a 793 letter to Felix of Urgell, Alcuin uses Song exegesis both to appeal to Felix, on whom he had not yet given up hope, and to remind him of the terrifying unity and authority of the holy catholic church. One paragraph in particular contains several implicit echoes both of the Song text and its exegesis, some

61

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Christi erunt. Non autem ullus caput Christi [praeter Patrem esse potest secundum Apostolum, qui ait: Caput Christi Deus, et de quo in Canticis canticorum dicitur: Caput eius aurum optimum.]” Opus Caroli Regis contra synodum, Bk. iii, cap. 13, 389. “De eo etiam dicitur in Canticis canticorum:  Caput eius aurum optimum, quoniam sicut auro nullius potest metalli coaequari natura, ita Creatori omnium, qui caput utique Christi est, nulla potest coaequari creatura. De quo etiam in eisdem Canticis canticorum ab sponsa dicitur: Sicut malum inter ligna silvarum, sic dilectus meus inter filios, quoniam sicut malum, cum sit pulchrum aspectu odoreque suavissimum, praeminet lignis silvarum, ita nimirum Redemptor noster, qui est odor vitae in vitam, quem quotidie ecclesia in odore sequitur unguentorum, cunctis praeminet coetibus sanctorum, qui idcirco filiorum nomine censentur, quia non mundo, cui nati sunt, sed Christo, cui renati sunt, adhaerere noscuntur.” Opus Caroli Regis contra synodum, Bk. iii, cap. 21, 429. Noble, Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians, 195.

86 ­chapter  of which are fairly subtle, but taken in combination with and as a lead-​up to a completely unambiguous invocation of the Song text, it seems likely that that is what Alcuin meant to suggest. “Revertere,” Alcuin begs, “Return, and do not desire to slaughter those enemies persecuting you,” recalling the voice of the Church of the Song begging the Synagogue to return to the faith and come to the full recognition of Christ: Revertere, revertere sulamitis, revertere, revertere ut intueamur te.63 “Seek him day and night,” Alcuin tells Felix, which may be meant to recall the Bride’s nocturnal vigils and peregrinations in search of the Bridegroom. “Seek him … so that he might turn you back to the peace of the catholic faith … so that he does not deny you eternal peace,” Alcuin entreats, perhaps referring to Christ’s repeated warnings to the Daughters of Jerusalem not to disturb the peace of the church.64 Replacing carrot with stick, Alcuin then reminds Felix: “Behold the authority of the holy church of God; behold, the terror for those falling away from her!” recalling the church “terrible as a battle-​line.”65 Alcuin concludes with a point-​blank barrage of Song text, reminding Felix, if he had ears to hear, that in the true church there is no spot or blemish: We know there to be one holy catholic and apostolic church, concerning which the Bridegroom himself sang, “One is my dove, my perfect one, my unspotted one, the favorite of the one who bore her. Her daughters saw her and proclaimed (praedicauerunt) her blessed.” Behold schismatic error breaks a part away from her and stains the unity of charity.66 Alcuin is hardly addressing specific doctrinal issues here, but in fact, it may have been precisely in the all-​embracing universality of the Song narrative that Alcuin hoped to appeal to Felix, in a conciliatory effort to remind Felix of their

63 64

65 66

“Revertere et persequentes te hostes trucidare non desire …” Alcuin, Ep. 23 in Dümmler, 61, lns. 11–​12. Cf. Cant. 6:12. “Deprecare eum die noctuque … ut … et fidei catholicae pacem conuertat … ne … illic te in aeterna pace habere contradicat.” Alcuin, Ep. 23, lns. 20–​23. As Cavadini has shown, “catholica pax” was a phrase that had its origins with Augustine, specifically his treatises against the Donatists. Cavadini, “Sources and Theology,” 127. “Ecce qualis auctoritas sanctae Dei ecclesiae; ecce qualis terror recendentibus ab ea.” Alcuin, Ep. 23, lns. 26–​27. “Scimus enim unam esse sanctam Dei ecclesiam, de qua in symbulo catholico decantare solemus: ‘Unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam.” De qua et ipsa sponsus decantauit: Una est columba mea, perfecta mea, electa genetrici suae. Uiderunt eam filiae, et beatissimam praedicauerunt. Ecce schismaticus error partem rumpit ab ea, et caritatis unitatem maculauit.” Alcuin, Ep. 23, lns. 27–​32. Cf. Cant. 6:8.

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shared doctrinal responsibilities in the care of the church, the formidable spotlessness of the one perfect dove, the Bride, and the terror she held for “those falling away from her.” This letter would later form the preface to Alcuin’s Seven Books against Felix Bishop of Urgell, composed after the public debate between Alcuin and Felix at Aachen in 799. In the work, Alcuin turns at several points to images from the Song of Songs of the church as the fortified tower-​neck of the Bride, defended by the shields of her doctores. In this particular case, however, Alcuin deliberately and significantly reverses the traditional speakers of the verses so that it is the Bride who sings about the neck of Christ: But through this it should be seen more properly that that heretic be censured, who should dare to introduce new sects, than he who, nurtured and taught in the traditions of his fathers, standing manfully on the ramparts of his city, strives strongly to defend himself and his fellow-​ citizens, having the arms of which, in the Song of Songs, the Bride herself sang: Your neck is like the tower of David, which is built with ramparts; a thousand shields hang from it, and all the arms of strong men. Who is David the king of Jerusalem, if not Christ our Lord the strong king and true, who was of the shoot which grew out of the root of Jesse and grew like a flower, whose city is the holy and universal church, who partly reigns with him crowned in the heavens, partly labors for him in pilgrimage on earth, until she might be crowned and attain the heavenly fatherland. The ramparts of this city are the holy scriptures, and the examples of the fathers who came before, with which she is furnished against all enemies; and these are the arms of strong men, that is, of the holy doctors, who with these arms emerge the victors against all heretical depravities. With these, for the portion of our strength, with divine grace aiding us, armed against all novelties and unheard-​of inquiries, we stand manfully, defending apostolic traditions and the faith which we imbibed from the breasts of those [doctors].67 67

“Ac per hoc justius videtur alium haereticum censeri, qui novas audet introducere sectas, quam illum qui, paternis traditionibus enutritus et edoctus, in propugnaculis suae civitatis viriliter stans, se suosque concives fortiter defendere nititur, habens armaturam, de qua in Cantico canticorum ipsa decantat sponsa: Sicut turris David collum tuum, quae aedificata est cum propugnaculis, mille clypei pendent ex ea, omnis armatura fortium [Cant 4:4]. Quis est David rex Hierosolymitanus, nisi Christus Dominus noster rex fortis et verus, qui de virga quae de radice Jesse exiit, ut flos ascendit; cujus civitas est sancta et universalis Ecclesia, quae partim cum illo regnat coronata in coelis, partim pro illo laborat peregrinata in terris, donec coronetur et perveniat in patriam. Hujus civitatis propugnacula sanctae sunt Scripturae, et praecedentium Patrum exempla, quibus munita est contra

88 ­chapter  Like Beatus and Theodulf, Alcuin, quoting Bede’s Song commentary, also turns to the description of the Bridegroom from the Song as being choice and select in his appearance in order to counter the teaching of the adoptionists that Christ was somehow similar to humanity.68 In his Adversus Elipandum Libri IV, Alcuin would deploy again a familiar sequence of images from the Song depicting the doctores as the strong men standing around the bed of Solomon, charged to capture the heretics, the little foxes of the Bride’s vineyard.69 2.7

Paulinus of Aquileia’s Three Books against Felix

Alcuin’s use of the Song text and Song exegesis generally in his letters is both pervasive and well-​known. Less noted, perhaps, is the use of Song imagery by Paulinus of Aquileia in his Contra Felicem Libri Tres, drawn up around the same time as Alcuin’s first work against Felix. As patriarch of Aquileia, Paulinus was one of the most prominent churchmen in the Carolingian world and, along with Theodulf, certainly one of its most distinctive poets, heavily involved in the activities of Charlemagne’s palace school, where he was a master of grammar; his work against Felix has been called “elegant and accomplished,” and may in turn have influenced Alcuin.70 His poetry, such as his Versus de Lazaro,

68

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omnes adversitates: et est haec armatura fortium, id est, sanctorum doctorum, qui his armis contra omnes haereticas pravitates victores exstiterunt. His nos pro virium nostrarum portione, divina auxiliante gratia, armati [contra] omnes novitates et inauditas quaestiones stamus viriliter, defendentes apostolicas traditiones et fidem quam ab illorum ebibimus uberibus.” Alcuin, Contra Felicem, cols. 133B-​133D. “De hac quoque testificatione paternae vocis et beatus Beda presbyter in expositione Cantici canticorum hujusmodi mentionem fecit: Dilectus meus candidus et rubicundus, electus ex millibus [Cant. 5: 10]: candidus, quia sine peccato; rubicundus, quia suo sanguine nos redemit; electus ex millibus, quia ex omni genere humano unus mediator Dei et hominum, per quem mundus reconciliatur, assumptus est a Deo.” Alcuin, Contra Felicem, cols. 138A-​B. “Qui in luce sagittarum Dei ibunt, fulgurantis hastae vibramine parati ferire adversarios fidei catholicae. Ipsi sunt LX fortes ex fortissimis Israel, qui ambiunt lectulum veri Salomonis, omnes tenentes gladium verbi Dei, et ad bella promptissimi: uniuscujusque ensis super femur suum propter timores nocturnos. Ad hos Sponsus de coelesti thalamo clamat: Capite nobis vulpes pusillas, qui demoliuntur vineas. Nam vinea nostra floruit.” Alcuin, Adversus Elipandum Libri IV, PL 101, cols. 263D-​264A. Cavadini, Last Christology, 82. Paulinus was a prominent and vocal presence in the Frankish response against iconoclasm, adoptionism, and the procession of the Holy Spirit at the councils of Regensburg (for which he composed his Liber sacrosyllabus), Frankfurt, and Cividale. See Peter Godman, Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (Norman:  University of Oklahoma Press, 1985). For the most recent analysis of Paulinus’s career, see

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frequently dealt with exegetical themes, distinguishing between the literal, allegorical, and tropological readings of a particular incident from scripture while remaining conversant with the rhetorical conventions of the court.71 Similarly, after his prefatory letter, Paulinus opens the first book of his Contra Felicem with a highly rhetorical pastiche of imagery from Job, the Psalms, Lamentations, and the Song of Songs: The voice of that same one, the dove, the favorite of her mother, calling, rejoicing and mourning, is heard in our land with renowned praise: “ ‘Now he has exalted my head above my enemies,’ and ‘Now younger men despise me, whose fathers I would not have deigned to put with the dogs of my flock.’ ” The one, indeed, who is hindered, fenced about everywhere with various difficulties for the sake of her tender chicks, remembers in another time, evidently, the days of her youth, when brought forth before her little brother she rejoiced more securely on an affectionate breast … Who are those hundred-​year-​old youths [cf. Is. 65:20], oh most beautiful of women? Oh dove, only daughter of the one who bore you, beautiful in his blood on account of the sevenfold graces of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, whitened in baptism, a sister through the cord of charity, neighbor in the society of [Christ’s] assumed nature, sweet in the delights of scripture, who are those?72 In addressing the church as “sister,” Paulinus, of course, implicitly echoes Song language. Moreover, when he calls her “whitened in baptism,” candidata in

71 72

Giorgio Fedalto, “Il significato politico di Paolino di Aquileia,” in Das Frankfurter Konzil von 794, 1:103–​23. For his significance in the adoptionist controversy, see especially 113–​15. The Versus de Lazaro has been translated by Godman in Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance, 91–​107. See also Paul E. Prill, “Rhetoric and Poetics in the Early Middle Ages,” Rhetorica 5.2 (1987): 146. “Vnius eiusdem que praecinentis columbae electae que genetricis suae [Cant. 6:8] letantis ac dolentis uox nostra famoso audita est in terra praeconio [Cant. 2:12]:  Nunc autem exaltauit caput meum super inimicos meos [Ps. 26:6] et Nunc autem derident me iuniores tempore quorum non dignabar patres ponere cum canibus gregis mei [Job 31:1] Quae quidem alio in tempore uariis undique ob tenerum pullorum incommoda circumuallata angustiis reminiscitur nimirum dierum adulescentiae suae, quando enixa super fratruelem suum alacri securius pectore laetabatur … Qui sunt isti lasciuientes centum annorum iuuenes, o pulcherrima mulierum? [Cf. Cant. 5:9; 5:16] Qui sunt isti, o unica genetricis tuae, columba, [Cant. 6:8] propter sancti spiritus septemplicia donorum carismata speciosa in sanguine, candidata in lauacro [Cf. Cant. 5:10 and Old Latin Cant. 8:5], soror in funiculo caritatis, proxima in societate adsumptae naturae, suauis in deliciis scripturarum?” Paulinus of Aquileia, Contra Felicem libri tres, ed. Dag Norberg, CCCM 95 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1990), Bk. i, caps. 1–​2.

90 ­chapter  lauacro, he fuses two different verses from the Song and its interpretation: the description of the Bridegroom as candidus et rubicundus (Cant. 5:10), and the old Latin version of Cant. 8:5, Quae est ista quae ascendit dealbata, which in early medieval Song interpretation was understood primarily as an allegory for baptism.73 While, to be sure, Paulinus is using language from many different sources, the images from the Song of Songs form his dominant narrative, that of the church as a beautiful but embattled woman. For example, even though the exact wording that Paulinus employs in this passage is taken at points from the book of Job rather than the Song of Songs, one cannot help remembering other images from the Song describing the Bride in dire straights: the “lily among thorns,” “black but beautiful,” persecuted by her brothers and forced to do manual labor. As with Alcuin’s letter to the adoptionists, where explicit quotation of the Song of Songs existed alongside other, less precise allusions, the very generality of these images made them rhetorically useful for Paulinus. The Song of Songs provided something of a shared narrative to which Paulinus and others could appeal, a common, familiar fund of images of the church to which even adoptionist heretics could be expected to respond. In this vein, later in Book One, Paulinus again pieces together several related images both from the Song of Songs and the psalter, appealing to Felix to return to the catholic fold: At last, finally, start to go out, if you are not wholly dead, and wake from the sleep of infidelity, having been struck after so deafening a commotion. How long, intoxicated with the drink of perfidy, will you not cease to snore with bear-​like nostrils? For now the winter is over, the rains have gone and passed. Come out now from the shadowy cave of the abyss. The flowers have appeared in the land, the voice of the turtle-​dove is heard in our land. The raven has departed, so that it might inhabit the ruins. Now the dove has returned with silvered wings, bearing a branch of green olive to the ark. Remember that it returns in the evening, so that, by chance, while you are weighed down with sleep and hesitate to get up, the dove might not enter the ark with the door closed from the outside [and] you begin to stray wandering after the raven.74 73

74

The verse, particularly according to the Vulgate text, would, as Rachel Fulton has shown, come to acquire Marian associations in the liturgy, beginning around this time. See “ ‘Quae est ista quae ascendit sicut aurora consurgens?’ The Song of Songs as the Historia for the Office of the Assumption,” Mediaeval Studies 60 (1998): 91–​116. “Expergescere tandem aliquando, si funditus non es defunctus, et a somno infidelitatis post tam tumultuoso euigila pulsatus clamore. Quousque crapulatus perfidiae poculo

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We have seen how Beatus closed his work against Elipandus with the Song image of the winter rains, an allegory for the heretics’ assault on the church that she must endure in the present time. Beneath Paulinus’s explicit citation, moreover, are other, more subtle echoes of the imagery of the Song of Songs, alongside his obvious references to the Genesis story of Noah, the dove, and the raven: the Bridegroom knocking to raise the drowsy Bride, his repeated injunctions to her to get up and go out to him, and the incident, so often invoked by Ambrose Autpert, when a languorous Bride missed her chance to let in her lover and went looking for him through the streets of the city, only to be beaten by the night watch. At other points in the Contra Felicem in which Paulinus quotes the Song of Songs, his interpretation of it and where it fits into the broader context of his argument is tellingly similar to that of Beatus. For example, in Book One, like Beatus, Theodulf, and Alcuin, Paulinus invokes Cant. 5:10, the image of the Bridegroom as being “white and ruddy, chosen out of thousands,” to underline Christ’s choice and precious nature, worthy of adoration.75 In Book Two, like Beatus, Paulinus also uses the beginning of the Song of Songs, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth,” as a metaphor for the Incarnation—​not the most obvious or usual exegetical choice for that particular verse.76

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ursina stertere non desines nare? Iam enim hiemps transiit, imber abiit et recessit. Egredere nunc de tenebrosi cauerna profundi. Flores apparuerunt in terra, uox turturis audita est in terra nostra [Cant. 2:11–​12]. Abiit coruus, ut degat in ruinosis. Reuersa est iam columba pennis deargentata [Cf. Psalm 64:17], ferens ramum uirentis oliuae ad arcam. Memento quia ad uesperum reuertitur, ne forte, dum tu somno grauaris perfidiae et surgere pigritaris, ingrediatur arcam columba clauso que a foris ostio tu euagare incipias errabundus post coruum.” Paulinus, Contra Felicem, Bk. i, cap. 21. “Et secundum id quod Verbum in principio erat apud deum, et iuxta illud quod Verbum caro factum est et habitauit in nobis, sub uniuersa caeli latitudine sincerissima inuiolabilis fidei regula et uerissimo praedicat et religioso adorat affectu. Hinc illud est quod in amoris carmine epythalamio sponsa modulamine cantat: Dilectus meus candidus et rubicundus, electus ex milibus. ‘Candidus’ nimirum per id quod In principio erat uerbum, ‘rubicundus’ uero per id quod Verbum caro factum est et habitauit in nobis. Propter quod quadripertite+ crucis purpureo in roseto, asparsus praetioso sanguinis ostro, rubicundus nihilominus sponse+ dilectus refulsit, cui per Esaiam dicitur: Quare rubrum est indumentum tuum et uestimenta tua sicut calcantium in torculari.” Paulinus, Contra Felicem, Bk. i, cap. 33. “Quod quidem haec omnia redemptorem nostrum regem dominum Sabaoth ueri que regis filium—​in semetipso factus homo—​exercuisse sincerae professionis omnium redemptorum inuiolabilis fides declarat. Per id enim quod indigno seruo benignius porrigere oscula non dedignatur iuxta illius prorsus desiderium, quae clamabat Osculetur me osculis oris sui, per id etiam quod uestem serui, hoc est incarnationis uelamen suscipere non recusauit secundum anhelantis illius suspirium, qui plena expectantis exorabat cordis dulcedine dicens, Suscipe me secundum eloquium tuum … .” Paulinus, Contra Felicem, Bk. ii, cap. 4. However, see also the interpretation of Amalarius: “Sed expectandum est, usque

92 ­chapter  2.8

The Legacy of Controversy

The adoptionist controversy raised for Charlemagne and his court a set of intellectual and theological, as well as political challenges, to which the Song of Songs became an ideal response. The peak of the Frankish campaign against adoptionism occurred in the 790s, with the Council of Frankfurt in 794 as the most impressive public refutation of the heresy, although the debate continued to simmer within Frankish intellectual circles for decades. While it is just possible that the Carolingian authors discussed here knew of the work of Beatus of Liébana, the Carolingian use of the Song of Songs to counter adoptionism was not reliant on patristic precedent. This means, therefore, that the Carolingian commentary tradition on the Song of Songs followed, rather than inspired, those patterns of use of the Song imagery in the adoptionist controversy, and interest in the Song text was arguably spurred and shaped by the controversy and not the other way around. The Carolingian commentary tradition on the Song of Songs, then, did not begin in a neutral space but in a moment in time shadowed and shaped by the threat of heresy and by the need of the Carolingians to affirm particular ways of talking about Christ and Mary, the church, and the king. The identity of those Carolingian doctores, the referents of nearly all the Song imagery connected to the Bride, evolved in tandem with, and in opposition to what Alcuin nicknamed the pseudodoctores: namely, the adoptionists. If the adoptionists were for the Franks the new Nestorians, the Carolingian bishops of Frankfurt set themselves up to be the new Nicaea, the new fathers of the church. Carolingian Song exegesis from the beginning, therefore, was concerned about questions of heresy and orthodoxy, the purity of the church, and the role of the doctores in maintaining that purity and ensuring that the Bride was without spot or blemish. With this argument as a premise, Song imagery became an excellent way for Carolingian exegetes to signal their own orthodoxy, their own status as the doctores of the church, and their aggressive attitude against heresy. dum id fiat quod precatur sponsa in Canticis canticorum: Osculetur me osculo oris sui. Scitis, dicente apostolo, Christum semet ipsum exanivisse se et formam servi accepisse.” Amalarius of Metz, Liber officialis, ed. J.  M. Hanssens, Amalarii episcopi opera liturgica omnia (Vatican, 1949; Studi e testi 139), vol. 2, Bk. iii, cap. 5, 21.

­c hapter 3

“Fair as the Moon, Bright as the Sun”: Visions of the Church in the Song of Songs In the wake of the adoptionist controversy and Charlemagne’s bid for Eusebian imperium, his courtiers found in the imagery of the Song of Songs a window through which to see Christ as a cosmic figure, shielded from the stigma of the forma servi. As an intellectual discipline, much of the challenge of early medieval exegesis in the Latin West lay in explicating the strange and often baffling images of the Hebrew Old Testament and reducing them to a comprehensible system, suitable for furthering the cause of reform in their own time and place. This was necessarily a process of cultural appropriation: early medieval exegetes did not learn Hebrew and were reliant almost completely on the Vulgate and on the deeply respected, although hardly objective, authority of Jerome.1 Central to patristic exegesis and carried forward into the monasteries of the medieval west was the belief that the effort of interpretation was itself an act of devotion and labor, occasionally lightened by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. At the same time, therefore, that early medieval exegetes understood themselves to be preserving the teachings of the fathers, a certain amount of innovation was also sanctioned and even encouraged under the guise of lectio divina. Over the course of the slow education and Christianization of Europe by the missionary doctores, no one would be more influential on early medieval exegesis than Gregory the Great. To the doctores, Gregory was seminal for his allegorical explication of some of the most complex and potentially confusing imagery of the Old Testament: Job, Ezechiel, and the Song of Songs. Gregory did not merely suggest “safe” and edifying explanations of every detail, for example, of Ezechiel’s vision of the temple, down to and including its architectural specifications and its barrage of numerical measurements. With surprising consistency, he noted parallels with other scriptural passages and set up patterns of associative reading that would establish the catena, or chains, of 1 Megan Hale Williams, The Monk and the Book: Jerome and the Making of Christian Scholarship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 146–​67; Michael Graves, Jerome’s Hebrew Philology: A Study Based on His Commentary on Jeremiah (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 76–​127; Andrew Cain, The Letters of Jerome: Asceticism, Biblical Exegesis, and the Construction of Christian Authority in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 53–​67.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 | DOI:10.1163/9789004389250_005

94 ­chapter  interpretation so characteristic of medieval exegesis.2 Gregory hardly invented these techniques, but the quality of his Latin, which earned him the epithet “Golden-​mouth” in insular circles, the scale of his magnum opus, the Moralia in Iob, his practical sense of the realities of pastoral care, his promotion of Benedict’s Rule, and his commissioning of Augustine’s mission to Canterbury, all ensured that the works of Gregory would have pride of place in every monastic library in early medieval Europe.3 The astonishingly confident work of the Venerable Bede would build on and further systematize the imagery of the Song of Songs that Gregory had first explicated. Together, Gregory the Great and Bede made the “ecclesiological interpretation” of the Song of Songs the predominant reading of the text in the early Middle Ages, first in the Northumbrian church and then in the Carolingian reform. Read in this way, the Song of Songs became a text that invited early medieval exegetes to imagine and reflect in diverse ways on the nature and life of the church, both as an organic whole outside of time and as an institution within the world. For the exegete working with this overarching “ecclesiological interpretation” of the text, the poetry of the Song created a mixture of sweeping, dramatic narratives and small, discrete snapshots in which he could envision both the church’s quotidian activities on earth and her ultimate, triumphant place in heaven.4 Although the dialogic nature of the Song of Songs would be inspirational for those liturgical innovators first creating the office of the Assumption, and even more central to the commentary

2 Markus, Gregory the Great and His World, 41–​50; Evans, The Thought of Gregory the Great, 87–​ 95; Claude Dagens, Saint Grégoire le Grand: Culture et expérience chrétiennes (Paris: Études augustiniennes, 1977), 55–​81; Scott DeGregorio, “Gregory’s Exegesis:  Old and New Ways of Approaching the Scriptural Text,” in A Companion to Gregory the Great, ed. Bronwen Neil and Matthew Dal Santo (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 269–​90. See also the new translation of the Moralia by Brian Kerns, ocso, Gregory the Great, Moral Reflections on the Book of Job, Bks 1–​5 (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2014). 3 Constant J. Mews and Claire Renkin, “The Legacy of Gregory the Great in the Latin West,” in A Companion to Gregory the Great, 315–​42; George E. Demacopoulos, Gregory the Great: Ascetic, Pastor, and First Man of Rome (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015), 139–​48. 4 Yves Congar remains the authority on medieval ecclesiology: L’ecclésiologie du haut moyen âge (Paris: Éditions du cerf, 1968). Congar’s aim was to depict the overall uniformity of the traditions of the church and, therefore, despite a very strong historical sense, does not emphasize transformations within that tradition over time. Moreover, he did not believe that there was a strong sense of the church as an institution until the eleventh century. Nevertheless, it is worth noting how often early medieval Song commentaries, particularly that of Bede, appear in the work. See, for example, the notes to 13, 61–​2, 64, 68–​72, 75, 77–​80, 83–​84, 90–​93, 99–​101, 103–​5, and passim.

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tradition in later centuries,5 in the Carolingian reform the Song of Songs was important, first and foremost, as a collection of images or figures (figura). As with Gregory’s interpretation of Ezechiel’s visions or Bede’s On the Tabernacle and On the Temple, these images of the Bride and Bridegroom were important, not least, for their structural, schematic, mnemonic potential.6 To early medieval exegetes, the formalized praise of one another by the Bridegroom and the Bride, so typical of ancient Near Eastern love lyric, suggested patterns by which the church could be understood as the body of Christ and how that body should be structured and organized. To the early medieval doctores, faithful to the Neoplatonic underpinnings of patristic exegesis, figura were not accidental or even approximate: they were representations of heavenly reality encoded in scripture as part of divine accommodation to contingent human language.7 As such, once past the difficulty with which scripture was initially approached, scripture’s meaning was understood to be consistent, even from book to book within the bible. Once the code had been cracked, the careful exegete could uncover those truths expressed in the Song of Songs elsewhere in scripture, cued by the recurrence of particular images and metaphors. Carolingian exegetes, therefore, frequently juxtaposed the Song of Songs with other portions of scripture or exported the allegorical understandings of Song figura already established by the “ecclesiological reading” of the Song to explain similar imagery elsewhere. As we will see, Pachasius Radbertus would read the Song of Songs in parallel with Jeremiah’s Lamentations and with the wedding hymn in Psalm 45. Without question, however, the most important text to be read in lockstep with the Song of Songs was the Apocalypse. Within the Latin medieval tradition, beginning in the eighth century and continuing throughout the Middle Ages, nearly all of those exegetes who chose to compose commentaries on the Song of Songs also composed commentaries on the Apocalypse: including the Venerable Bede, Beatus of Liébana, Alcuin, and Haimo of Auxerre.8 There are 5 6 7

8

Cf. Rachel Fulton’s analysis of William of Newburgh’s Song commentary, which took the form of an actual dialogue between Christ and Mary: From Judgment to Passion, 441. Mary Carruthers, The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400–​1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). See the remarks of M. D. Chenu: in the thought of Pseudo-​Dionysius, “the symbol was the true and proper expression of reality; nay more, it was through such symbolization that reality fulfilled itself.” “The Symbolist Mentality,” in Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth Century:  Essays on New Theological Perspective in the Latin West, ed. and trans. Jerome Taylor and Lester K. Little (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), 125–​26. François Dolbeau, “L’association du Cantique des Cantiques et de L’Apocalypse, en Occident, dans les inventaires et manuscrits médiévaux,” L’Apocalisse nel Medioevo, ed. Rossana E. Guglielmetti (Florence: sismel, 2011), 361–​402; E. Ann Matter, “The Apocalypse in

96 ­chapter  some obvious points of contact between the two biblical texts. John’s vision of the heavenly Jerusalem dressed as a bride is perhaps the most obvious; the Vulgate uses the same term, sponsa, for both. But early medieval exegetes also saw similarities between the dazzling, jewel-​like appearance of the risen Christ in the Apocalypse, the direct inspiration for the figure of Christ in Majesty, and the description of the Bridegroom of the Song of Songs.9 Linking both texts was their capacity to be read as ecclesiological allegories without a “historical” or “literal” sense. Both the Apocalypse and Song of Songs, despite or even because of the beauty, complexity, and obscurity of much of the imagery, tended to attract the interests of those exegetes who were concerned to explore the nature and makeup of the institutional church. The hermeneutical decision to read those two texts together, however, had important ramifications: while the love poetry of the Song softened some of the imagery of the Apocalypse, the urgency and sense of immanent judgment so characteristic of the Apocalypse crept into how early medieval exegetes read the Song of Songs. By and large, early medieval exegetes sought to extrapolate principles from the narrative of the Apocalypse by which they could understand historical events within their own time, often as a way of reassuring themselves of Christ’s ultimate triumph in the face of seeming catastrophe.10 Read in the same way, certain images from the Song text, such as the “little foxes” who ruin the vineyard of the Bride, the thorns that surround the Bride’s pure white lily, or the “sons of the mother” of the Bride who abuse her, throw her from her vineyard, and make her “black but beautiful,” could not be relegated to episodes from the distant historical past or future but remained “live” in the present. One perhaps unintended consequence, therefore, of reading the Song of Songs in lock-​step with the Apocalypse was a vision of the church triumphant in heaven, but in this life constantly beset by heresy, Antichrist, and Satanic persecutions. Particularly when taken together, both texts could effectively polarize the worldview of the early medieval exegete, encouraging a transcendent, “anagogic” vision of the eternal church, on the one hand, and on the other, a vision of the church in this world hemmed in, persecuted, and even

9 10

Early Medieval Exegesis,” in The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, ed. Richard K. Emmerson and Bernard McGinn (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), 46–​47; eadem, “Exegesis of the Apocalypse in the Early Middle Ages,” in The Year 1000: Religious and Social Response to the Turning of the First Millennium, ed. Michael Frassetto (London:  Palgrave, 2002), 34–​35; eadem, “The Love Song of the Millennium: Medieval Christian Apocalyptic and the Song of Songs,” Scrolls of Love: Ruth and the Song of Songs, ed. Peter S. Hawkins and Lesleigh Cushing Stahlberg (New York, 2006), 232. Apoc. 21:2, 21:9–​27, and 22:17; cf. Cant. 5:10–​16 and Apoc. 1:12–​18. Palmer, The Apocalypse in the Early Middle Ages, passim.

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beaten. In this way, exegesis of the Song of Songs could simultaneously produce experiences of near-​mystical longing for the establishment of the New Jerusalem and vehement, even violent excoriations against heretics and other groups, such as the Jews, who for the exegete seemed to stand in the way of the glorious and inevitable unity and sovereignty of the church.11 To many modern readers, some of the most powerful language in the Song of Songs is the Bride’s description of herself as “black but beautiful,” nigra sed formosa.12 Each of those three words has invited endless speculation by readers of the Song of Songs over the centuries, not least the sed: is this the Bride’s triumphant embrace of her dark skin or its repudiation as inherently inferior in spite of its beauty?13 Further ambiguity is injected into the phrase when the Bride goes on to explain that she is “blackened,” deeply tanned by the sun as a consequence of being sent to work in the vineyards by her mother’s sons (it is implied, not entirely her own kin). To early medieval exegetes, this was an allegory for the church’s experience of persecution by secular authorities in the past and by heretics and enemies in the present day. Far from being a statement of racial diversity or inclusion, it invited the early medieval exegete to ponder his experience of persecution, to self-​identify with the blameless and injured Bride, and to condemn the culprits responsible, which, given the breathtaking elasticity of interpretation possible, could and did come to include entire religious and ethnic groups.14 The ultimate effect of the figura, 11

12 13

14

The Song of Songs in the early Middle Ages was hardly ever illustrated. However, early medieval exegesis of the Song of Songs did inform later depictions of heretics in high medieval texts. See Alessia Trivellone, L’Hérétique imaginé: Hétérodoxie et iconographie dans l’Occident médiéval, de l’époque carolingienne à l’inquisition (Turnhout:  Brepols, 2009), 285–​297. I would disagree with Trivellone, however, that the early medieval exegesis of the Songs of Songs referred only to the church’s past historical experience with heresy and that the image of the “little foxes” referring to contemporary heresies was specifically a product of twelfth-​century Cistercian polemic. Cant. 1:5. Gilbert Dahan, “Niger sum sed formosa: aux origines d’un stéréotype? l’exégèse de Cantique 1,5 (4) aux xiie et xiiie siècles,” Au cloître et dans le monde: femmes, hommes et société (ixe-​xve siècles), ed. Patrick Henriet et Anne-​Marie Legras (Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-​Sorbonne, 2000), 15–​32. Geraldine Heng has recently argued for the flexible, connective role played by religion in forming racial discourses in the Middle Ages: “… religion—​the paramount source of authority in the medieval period—​could function both socioculturally and biopolitically: subjecting peoples of a detested faith, for instance, to a political theology that could biologize, define, and essentialize an entire community as fundamentally and absolutely different in an interknotted cluster of ways. Nature/​biology and the sociocultural should not thus be seen as bifurcated spheres in medieval race-​formation: They often crisscrossed in the practices, institutions, fictions, and laws of a political—​and a biopolitical—​theology operationalized on the bodies and lives of individuals and groups” (italics original). The

98 ­chapter  therefore, was polarizing and even inflammatory, particularly when linked with similar language of martyrdom, persecution, and Antichrist in the Apocalypse. Before there was a persecuting society in the eleventh century, the Song of Songs taught many of its clergy in the ninth that it was their duty and responsibility to come to the rescue of a betrayed, beleaguered, and yet innocent church. 3.1

Ambrose Autpert: the Watchmen and the Bride

One of the earliest and most shadowy figures in the Carolingian period to take up the Song of Songs as a vision of the church is the eighth-​century abbot, Ambrose Autpert. We know frustratingly little about his background and education.15 According to his later biographer, the monk John from San Vincenzo al Volturno, he was a Provençal who arrived at the court of Pippin the Short. After Charlemagne’s conquest of the Lombard kingdom, Ambrose was part of the influx of Carolingian power into Italy in the eighth century, perhaps on the heels of Stephen ii’s visit to the Frankish world, becoming the abbot of San Vincenzo al Volturno in 777. Forced to resign after only a year in office, Ambrose and several other Frankish monks left the monastery for the protection of Duke Hildeprand in Spoleto. Ambrose died in 784, en route to Rome after having been called by Pope Hadrian as a witness against San Vincenzo’s elected abbot, Poto, accused by another faction of San Vincenzo’s monks of refusing to pray for Charlemagne and his family.16

15

16

Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 3. There is one monograph: Jacques Winandy, Ambroise Autpert, moine et théologien (Paris, 1953). See also Leo Scheffczyk, Das Mariengeheimnis in Frömmigkeit und Lehre der Karolingerzeit (Leipzig: St. Benno Verlag, 1959). Taking vehement issue with Winandy’s interpretation of Ambrose’s thought and spirituality is the sustained study by Claudio Leonardi, “Spiritualità di Ambrogio Autperto,” Studi Medievali 9.1 (1968): 1–​131; see especially 8–​12. For a description of the complex politics and ethnic tensions, real or rhetorical, surrounding Ambrose’s resignation and “the Poto affair,” see Marios Costambeys, Power and Patronage in Early Medieval Italy: Local Society, Italian Politics and the Abbey of Farfa, c. 700-​900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 159–​62. For a summary of the earlier history of San Vincenzo, see Richard Hodges, “The San Vincenzo Chronicles,” Light in the Dark Ages: The Rise and Fall of San Vincezo al Volturno (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), 23–​41; Chris Wickham, “Monastic Lands and Monastic Patrons,” San Vincenzo al Volturno 2, ed. Richard Hodges (London: British School at Rome, 1995), 138–​52. Ambrose Autpert’s brief tenure as abbot preceded the major architectural re-​structuring and expansion of the monastery under Abbot Joshua. For a recent description of the archaeological site,

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Ambrose’s most famous work is his massive ten-​book commentary on the Apocalypse.17 It was based heavily on north African sources, particularly the sixth-​century bishop, Primasius of Hadrumetum, who in turn had adopted material from the Apocalypse commentary of the fourth-​century Donatist, Tyconius. Ambrose’s work was, nevertheless, a hugely ambitious enterprise.18 The central focus of Ambrose’s Apocalypse commentary is predominantly “the mystical reality of Christ and his Church”; the first words of his prefatory letter dedicating the commentary to Pope Stephen are, fittingly, Sanctorum ecclesia.19 Ambrose’s potent ecclesiology was intimately, organically connected to his Mariology; he was one of the first theologians in the medieval West to elaborate an interrelated, redemptive relation between Christ and mankind, Christ and his church, and Mary both as the perfect “sequel” to Christ and as a type of the church in her union of humanity and divinity.20 In terms of his exegetical method in particular, this focus on the relationship between Christ and his church is often expressed by Ambrose’s splicing together of the images of the Apocalypse with those from the Song of Songs.21 In a commentary based so heavily on that of Primasius, Ambrose’s extensive use of the Song of Songs,

17 1 8 19

20

21

see Richard Hodges, Goodbye to the Vikings: Re-​reading Early Medieval Archaeology (London: Duckworth, 2006), 80–​140. Ambrose Autpert, Expositio in Apocalypsin, ed. Robert Weber, CCCM 27–​27b (Turnhout: Brepols, 1975). E. Ann Matter, “The Apocalypse in Early Medieval Exegesis,” 47–​48. “Sanctorum Ecclesia, quae corpus sui Redemptoris est, cuius tu quoque pontificalis ordinis primatum sortitus es, inter cetera sua miracula uerbo praedicationis eminet. Vt enim doctissimi eiusdem Ecclesiae tractatores dixerunt, plus est sanctis exhortationibus numquam essentialiter morituram animam a peccati morte uiuificare, quam corpus denuo moriturum coactis interuentionibus suscitare.” Ambrose Autpert, Expositio in Apocalypsin, “Epistula,” lns. 5–​11. Leonardi, “Spiritualità,” 35–​38; 103–​113. In Bk. i, Ambrose describes John the Evangelist as a type of the church, both as a member himself and but also as he prefigures the future church, containing within himself the seven lampstands, or seven churches: in uno Iohanne unitas credentium. John, who leaned against the breast of Christ at the Last Supper, and whose reputation as a mystic “transcending the bounds of human understanding,” is particularly beloved in the same way as the Bride of the Song of Songs, who shared in her lover’s embraces. Expositio in Apocalypsin, i (1, 2), lns. 15–​45; see also i (1, 12), lns. 12–​16. Paschasius Radbertus, who was deeply influenced by the Mariological dimensions of Ambrose’ work, may also have taken from him the methodological technique of reading the Song of Songs alongside and in counterpoint to other pieces of scripture which were nominally the focus of the work. In the Apocalypse commentary, Ambrose Autpert himself links the text of the Song of Songs with Psalm 44: Expositio in Apocalypsin, i, (1, 11b), lns. 146–​155.

100 ­chapter  expanding on Primasius’s use of the text, could in fact be said to be one of his most significant innovations within the tradition he had received. As much or more than Primasius, Ambrose reveals his intellectual debt to Gregory the Great and Augustine over the course of the commentary, particularly with regard to explicating the strange imagery of the Apocalypse. In his preface, Ambrose introduces a three-​part distinction derived from Augustine and from Hiberno-​Latin texts attributed to Jerome used to explicate the figura of visionary texts: this confusing imagery can be understood carnally, spiritually, and intellectually.22 This reproduces the traditional, two-​part distinction between the flesh and spirit of scripture, but adds the further dimension of the difference between reading scripture spiritually, which Ambrose defines as the strange things one sees in dreams and visions (in extasi, id est, in excessu mentis), and intellectually, which he understands as the Holy-​Spirit-​inspired apprehension of spiritual realities, the “very truth of things” (ipsa rerum veritas).23 In practice, when actually delving into the text of the Apocalypse, Ambrose only really explores this third “intellectual” sense. Using the language of De Lubac’s later model, one could argue that Ambrose was making an effort to understand the Apocalypse anagogically; the central intellectual problem posed by the Apocalypse, as with the Song of Songs, is how to understand its procession of strange imagery. Ambrose’s solution is to provide a prologue to each of the ten books of the commentary; like Bede’s capitula, they give him a platform from which to establish an overarching interpretation of each chapter of the text. Because little is known about Ambrose but his Apocalypse commentary and his involvement in San Vincenzo al Volturno, he is not usually considered in parallel with other Carolingian doctores. When he is considered at all, it is as an exile and an outsider, unconnected with events at court. And yet, the Apocalypse commentary anticipates and is consistent with the later Carolingian commentary tradition on the Song of Songs. Along with Alcuin and Paulinus of Aquileia, Ambrose stresses the beautiful appearance of the Bridegroom as necessary in the apprehension of his divinity by the church. In Ambrose’s understanding, the opening image of the Song of Songs, to receive the kiss of the Bridegroom (Cant. 1:1), is to apprehend Christ’s divinity and to be moved to love

22

23

“Tres itaque visionum modos patres nostri intellegendos docuerunt:  primum scilicet corporalem, secundum spiritalem, tertium intellectualem.” In Apocalypsin Praefatio, lns. 219–​21. For the “three visions” tradition in the early Middle Ages, see Jesse Keskiaho, Dreams and Visions in the Early Middle Ages: The Reception and Use of Patristic Ideas, 400-​ 900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 179–​213, and for Ambrose’s use of it at 185–​89. Expositio in Apocalypsin, Praefatio, lns. 304–​311.

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him through the Gospels.24 Ambrose follows Primasius in understanding the church at Sardis, etymologically, to mean “the beauty of the prince,” and here and in John’s description of the appearance of Christ, he invokes parallel ­images from the Song of Songs.25 Ambrose notes that John’s vision, in which Christ has the appearance of “jasper and sardonyx,” signifies his two-​fold nature, and the emerald-​like rainbow that surrounds his throne signifies the lushness of the pasture which feeds his flock. “But the church can also be signified through the appearance of these stones, whom Christ so unites to himself, such that Sponsus and Sponsa can be called one person, head and members can rightly be called one body.”26 In a passage that strongly parallels the use of the Song of Songs in the adoptionist controversy, Ambrose likens the myrrh and frankincense of the merchants mourning the fall of Babylon (Apoc. 18:13a) to the scent of the Bridegroom’s name poured out (Cant. 1:2), and in turn with the self-​emptying of Christ in Philippians 2:6–​7.27 In the pure gold of the new Jerusalem (Apoc. 21.18), Ambrose sees the moment when the church sees Christ in his divinity, no longer as when his “assumed humanity hid him from her eyes,” which Ambrose likens to the hidden Bridegroom of the Song (Cant. 2:9).28 One can see in Ambrose’s Apocalypse commentary early explorations of what would develop more fully in the exegesis of the high Middle Ages: an exegete using the anticipation and the yearning of the lovers of the Song of Songs as a way to express his own desire for the ultimate fulfillment of the promises of God which would form such a central component of the spirituality of monasticism.29 The elect wait for the final Day of Judgment, “browsing among the lilies,” the examples of the fathers, “until the day awakes and the shadows flee.”30 When that day finally comes, the day of the new creation looks, to

24 25 26

27 28 29 30

Expositio in Apocalypsin, i (1, 4a), lns. 145–​198. See also Expositio in Apocalypsin, ix (20, 12), lns. 27–​32. Expositio in Apocalypsin, i (1, 11b), lns. 140–​151; i (1, 13c) lns. 34–​38; i (1, 14a), lns. 52–​56. “Potest autem per horum lappidum species Ecclesia designari, quam sibi Christus ita uniuit, ut una persona sponsus atque sponsa, unum corpus iure uocentur caput et membra … Quia enim sanctorum Ecclesia, arentia huius mundi ac peritura bona despiciens, aeternae uiriditatis iam per fidem et spem pascuis inheret, recte hyaspidi comparatur. Cui etiam in Canticis Canticorum dicitur: Quae habitas in horti, amici auscultant: fac me audire uocem tuum.” Expositio in Apocalypsin, iii (4,3), lns. 44–​52. Expositio in Apocalypsin, viii (18,13a), lns. 53–​79. Expositio in Apocalypsin, x (21,18), lns. 47–​59. Leclercq, The Love of Learning, 65–​86; Turner, Eros and Allegory, 88. “Vnde et apte illic tempus de ipso liliorum pastu definitur dum dicitur:  Donec aspiret dies et inclinentur umbrae. Tamdiu quippe refici iustorum exemplis indigemus, donec praesentis mortalitatis umbras aeterno die aspirante transeamus. Cum enim huius

102 ­chapter  Ambrose, like nothing so much as the picture painted by the springtime of the Song of Songs. Interestingly, while Ambrose breaks down the complex allegory into its component pieces, he first simply lets the text speak for itself, in all of its poetic power, and then returns and lingers on each phrase: [Scripture] seems to me to speak figuratively concerning this making new of the elect in the voice of the Spouse in the Song of Songs:  Rise, hurry, my beloved, my dove, my perfect one, and come: for now the winter has passed, the rain has gone away and departed, the flowers have appeared on the earth, the time for pruning has come, the voice of the turtle-​dove is heard in our land, the fig put forth its young fruit, the flowering vines give forth their fragrance [Cant. 2:10–​13]. With these words, namely, using a past time to stand for the future, divine speech is understood to invite the church to a love of the time of spring, that is, of her future renewal. For what is meant by the winter or rain, if not the time of mortality? But it was well said that afterwards, the flowers appeared on the earth, the time of pruning has come, the voice of the turtle-​dove is heard in our land, the fig put forth its young fruit, the flowering vines put forth their fragrance. No doubt, as was said before, the time of the future resurrection seems to be signified with such metaphors. For instance, the flowers have appeared on the earth, because, namely, the bodies of the resurrected elect will appear both white after old age and fragrant after the stench of decay. The time of pruning has come, you understand, [the time] of separating the wicked from the good, when the useless brush will be thrown into the fire. The voice of the turtle-​dove is heard in our land, as if it were saying, “The hour is coming when those who are in their tombs will hear the voice of the Son of God and come out.” In fact, the turtle-​dove is that bird, remarkably, about which it is said through the Psalmist, the sparrow has found a home for herself, and the turtle-​dove a nest where she may keep her chicks. The voice of which, namely, just as the flowers seen in the land and the time for the pruning of the vines, thus of the springtime, signifies figuratively the beatitude of the future resurrection. Or certainly the voice of the turtle-​dove is heard in the land, when the Church of the elect, appearing in her new state of incorruption, sings a song of new exultation, a voice of new praise. The fig put forth its young fruit, because these which are now hidden within the lap of faith, as if under a covering of bark, are temporalitatis ac mortalitatis umbra fuerit transacta, quia ipsius diei internum lumen cernimus, nequaquam iam appetimus ut ad amorem eius per aliorum exempla flagremus.” Expositio in Apocalypsin, Bk. ix (20,12), lns. 46–​52.

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made visible, so that the fruit of a perfect church might appear, following after, as it were, the unripe figs, fallen early from the trunk of that same church in the whirlwind of that judgment. The flowering vines give forth their fragrance, because the elect, indeed, in that same resurrection of the flesh, like flowers, show forth their fragrance, the fruits of the divine reward which are to be had in eternity.31 Despite the length of the passage, the allegory is not a particularly complex one, nor does Ambrose dwell extensively on each aspect of it, but simply enjoys the imaginative and rhetorical power that the imagery of the Song affords him. Particularly in the context of the slow, cumulative, meditative reading which would have been normal practice in Carolingian monastic circles, the reader would have been suspended for a time, even surrounded, by a set of images from the Song and encouraged to imagine eternal realities and the “time of the church’s future renewal” in terms of those images. Passages like these are suggestive, I would argue, of a kind of early medieval spirituality, even a kind of mysticism that could grow organically out of the ecclesiological interpretation 31

“De hac electorum innouatione sponsi uoce in Canticis Canticorum figuraliter mihi dicere uidetur: Surge, propera, amica mea, columba mea, perfecta mea, et ueni: iam enim hiems transiit, imber abiit et recessit, flores apparuerunt in terra, tempus putationis aduenit, uox turturis audita est in terra nostra, ficus protulit grossos suos, uineae florentes dederunt odorem. Quibus scilicet uerbis, praeterito pro futuro utens tempore, Ecclesiam ad amorem uerni temporis, id est futurae innouationis, inuitare cognoscitur sermo diuinus. Quid enim per hiemem uel imbrem, nisi tempus mortalitatis designat? Bene autem post haec subdit: Flores apparuerunt in terra, tempus putationis aduenit, uox turturis audita est in terra nostra, ficus protulit grossos suos, uineae florentes dederunt odorem. Quibus proculdubio similitudinibus, ut supra dictum est, tempus futurae resurrectionis significari uidetur. Flores enim in terra apparuerunt, quia uidelicet resurgentium electorum corpora, et  alba post uetustatem, et odorifica post corruptionis putredinem apparent. Tempus putationis aduenit, subaudis separandi malos a bonis, quando inutilia sarmenta in igne proicientur. Vox turturis audita est in terra nostra, tamquam diceret: Veniet hora quando hii qui in monumentis sunt, audient uocem Filii Dei, et procedent. Ille etenim singulariter turtur uocatur, de quo per Psalmistam dicitur: Passer inuenit sibi domum, et turtur nidum ubi reponat pullos suos. Cuius scilicet uox sicut flores uisae in terra tempus que putationis uineae, sic uerni temporis figuraliter beatitudinem futurae resurrectionis designet. Vel certe uox turturis in terra auditur, cum electorum Ecclesia apparente noua incorruptionis aestate, nouae exultationis canticum, nouae laudis uocem emittit. Ficus protulit grossos suos, quia hii qui nunc intra sinum fidei quasi sub tegmine corticis latent, ut perfectae fructus Ecclesiae subsequens appareat, tamquam acerbae ficus, illius iudicii turbine mox a soliditate eiusdem Ecclesiae casuri foris apparent. Vineae florentes dederunt odorem, quia electi quique fructus diuinae remunerationis quos in aeternum habituri sunt, in ipsa carnis resurrectione tamquam floris ostendunt odorem.” Expositio in Apocalypsin, ix (21,4), lns. 96–​131.

104 ­chapter  of the Song of Songs. As we will see with Paschasius Radbertus and to some extent with Angelomus of Luxeuil, these exalted visions of the church often grew out of frustration or despair over contemporary politics, or, as with Ambrose, as part of a theological and emotional response to political failure. One dimension of this strategy is to invoke several images from the Song of Songs understood, within the “ecclesiological reading” of the Song of Songs, to signify the purity of the persecuted church and the malicious attacks of heretics. For example, Ambrose juxtaposes the church at Smyrna, faced with the challenge of those “who say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan” (Apoc. 2:9), representing, therefore, the true, united church, who does not want to be united to them for fear of schism.32 The true church, like the church at Philadelphia, lives “where Satan has his throne” (Apoc. 2:13). Persecuted by the “synagogue of Satan,” she is beloved by God, “black but beautiful,” and “a lily among thorns.”33 Elsewhere, Ambrose compares the white hair of Christ in John’s vision to the blackened appearance of the church.34 In another passage, Ambrose likens the church’s appearance, normally “beautiful as the dawn” but blackened in the present age by heresy, to the moment in the Apocalypse when, at the angel’s fourth trumpet, the heavens are darkened, with the sun, moon, and stars losing a third of their light.35 Here and in one other case, that of the infernal army sent to torment and kill a third of mankind (Apoc. 9:16), Ambrose cites Cant. 6:7, “There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and maidens without number.” As we have seen, within the Song tradition, sixty was a number usually understood to refer to the doctores of the church—​in the number of Solomon’s mighty men, for example. Eighty, on the other hand, for Ambrose (following Primasius) signified the number of heretics faced by the church: it is the number for concubines, not legitimate wives.36 In the case of Satan’s army, who have the tails of scorpions, Ambrose notes the poisonous lies of heretics, contrasted with the milk and honey under

32

33

34 35 36

“Et quia illi quae una est Christi sponsa, una est eius columba, uniri nolunt, plures de seipsis Satanae synagogas faciunt. Sed nec dubium quod iam in plures sint diuisi, qui ab ipso Redemptoris aduentu duos de se populos diuersae hereseos dogmanti inlectos reddiderunt, Pharisaeos scilicet ac Saducaeos. Haec specialiter proprieque de apertis ac falsis Iudaeis dicta sunt.” Expositio in Apocalypsin, Bk. ii (2, 9b), lns. 33–​39. Expositio in Apocalypsin ii (2, 12–​13a) lns. 34–​37; ii (3, 9), lns. 1–​59. Ambrose returns to the verse in understanding the figural meaning of one of the dark gemstones, sardonyx, that forms part of the foundation of the heavenly Jerusalem: Expositio in Apocalypsin x (21, 19b-​20), lns. 86–​102. Expositio in Apocalypsin i (1, 14), lns. 50–​69. Expositio in Apocalypsin iv (8,12), lns. 1–​27. Expositio in Apocalypsin iv (8, 12), lns. 68–​93; iv (9,16), lns. 38–​59.

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the tongue of the Bride.37 The church longs to introduce Christ into the house of her mother, Synagoga (Cant 8:1ff); the church in the Song of Songs calls Christ her brother, because through the Incarnation he submitted to being called the “brother of the elect” and to submit to the Law and the Prophets, but since Christ was rejected by Synagoga, the church and Christ must kiss out-​of-​ doors, i.e., among the Gentiles. Throughout the Apocalypse commentary, Ambrose uses similarly vehement, even violent language to speak about the role of Christ’s doctores (usually called praedicatores) with respect to the church. Like the church at Laodicea, those believers who are “neither hot nor cold” require the brisk North Wind from the Song of Songs to shock them out of their passivity.38 Christ is the rider on the white horse (Apoc. 6:2)—​for Ambrose signifying those “whitened” in baptism. The Latin, dealbata, is an allusion to a variant in the Old Latin text of the Song of Songs, which would have a long life preserved in Carolingian texts on baptism. The rider bears a bow and quiver of arrows and rides forth to conquer; for Ambrose, the rider’s bow signifies the Testaments, while his quiver recalls the Bride’s tale of how, in her search for the Bridegroom through the streets of the city, she met the watchmen on the walls, who percusserunt me, uulnerauerunt me (Cant. 5:7).39 In the Song of Songs, twice in her nightly searches for her lover the Bride had encountered these “watchmen”; the first time they were helpful and even guided her directly to her beloved, but the second time they gave her a rough reception, taking her cloak away from her (interestingly, the word in the Vulgate is pallium). Late antique exegetes differed over whether these two groups of watchmen the Bride encountered were one and the same; for Apponius, the first group signified the Old Testament prophets and the learned doctors, who guided the soul and the church toward Christ, while the second group signified the violence of unbelievers and even demons toward the soul seeking God, or that of heretics against the church.40 Ambrose, however, follows Gregory the Great and Bede, who understood the violent treatment that the Bride receives as merely part of the duty of the doctores to discipline the unruly and to wound the heart with love of heavenly things.41 According to the text of the Apocalypse, a sword came not only from the mouth of the rider on the white horse, but also from the mouth of Christ in John’s initial vision (Apoc. 1:16; 2:16). Throughout his commentary, Ambrose 37 38 39 40 41

Expositio in Apocalypsin iv (9, 3b), lns. 1–​14. Expositio in Apocalypsin iii (3, 15), lns. 14–​20. Expositio in Apocalypsin iv (6, 1–​2), lns. 100–​104. Cf. Apponius, In Canticum Canticorum Expositio, Bk. 8, lns. 328–​56. Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob, Bk. xxvii, lns. 25–​44; Bede, ICC, Bk. iii, 5, lns. 399ff.

106 ­chapter  again and again associates this fearsome image with the role of the “watchmen on the walls” of the Song of Songs, authorizing the use of the sword of salvation against the church herself, who, in this interpretation, invites and even asks for such treatment.42 Ambrose justifies some difficult images within the scriptural text using the deliberately polarizing language of an ascetic and a reformer of the church; in so doing, however, he effectively sanctions and even encourages a violent dimension to the ministry of the doctores, deployed not only against heretics, defined as a monolithic group, but also against the church’s more ordinary rank-​and-​file. 3.2

Agobard of Lyons’s De modo regiminis ecclesiastici

Despite the exegetical commonplace that the Song of Songs was a difficult and potentially dangerous text for the uninitiated, either through the liturgy, biblical commentaries, or as part of the conversation of educated doctores, the Carolingian monk or priest would have encountered the Song of Songs as a more mundane part of the life of the church. The popularity of a somewhat

42

“Hoc gladio iugulantur hi, qui ob amorem patriae caelestis parentes ac carnales propinquos deserunt, Domino attestante qui ait: Non ueni mittere pacem in terram, sed gladium. Veni enim separare hominem aduersus patrem suum, et filiam aduersus matrem suam, et nurum aduersus socrum suam. Hoc certe a sanctis praedicatoribus percussa fuerat sancta Ecclesia, quae dicebat:  Inuenerunt me custodes qui circumeunt ciuitatem, percusserunt me, et uulnerauerunt me.” Expositio in Apocalypsin i (1,16b), lns. 11–​19. “Littera enim occidit, spiritus autem uiuicat. Hoc certe gladio in suae salutis remedium a sanctis praedicatoribus percussa fuerat Ecclesia, quae in Canticis Canticorum ardens et amans dicebat: Inuenerunt me custodes, qui circumeunt ciuitatem, percusserunt me et uulnerauerunt me.” Expositio in Apocalypsin vii (15,1), lns. 416–​20. “Aliquando einim exaudita uerbi praedicatione, in quibusdam electis diuina iudicia lamentorum uulneribus uirtutes examinant atque a praesentis uitae amore abscisos Dei caritati coniungunt. In quibusdam autem eisdem saluberrimis plagis mortifera animarum uulnera sanant. Quot enim sunt paenitentiae gemitus, quot conuersorum lamenta, tot sunt animarum salubria uulnera. Nisi enim quoddam salutare uulnus diuina iudicia per Ecclesiae praedicationem infligerent, nequaquam eadem Ecclesia de sanctis praedicatoribus in Canticis Canticorum diceret: Inuenerunt me custodes …” Expositio in Apocalypsin vii (15, 6a), lns. 36–​45. “Hinc saepe in hac Apocalypsi de ipso praedicationis auctore dicitur:  Gladius utraque parte acutus exiebat de ore eius. Hoc nempe gladio uulnerata fuerat Ecclesia quae in Canticis Canticorum dicebat: Inuenerunt me custodes qui circumeunt ciuitatem, percusserunt me et uulnerauerunt me.” Expositio in Apocalypsin ix, (prol.) 93–​97. “Quid enim sagittas, nisi uerba praedicatorum accipimus? Quae dum ex uoce bene uiuentium distringuntur, auditorum corda transfigunt. His sagittis sancta Ecclesia percussa fuerat quae dicebat: Uulnerata caritate ego sum [cf. Cant. 1:5].” Expositio in Apocalypsin ix (19, 19), lns. 22–​25.

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risqué text like Amalarius’s Liber officialis, even after the judgment of the Synod of Quierzy, suggests a group of doctores hungry for an ever-​more complex allegorical understanding of their activities within the church, while episcopal statutes show the various efforts of Carolingian bishops to interest and educate their lower clergy and to endow their pastoral activities with spiritual significance.43 It is perhaps in the same kind of context, that of a bishop explaining to the clergy or priests under his direction certain elements of Song exegesis, that we should understand the Song imagery that appears in a brief treatise by Agobard of Lyons, De modo regiminis ecclesiastici. Although we do not know its precise date or the context in which it was written or read, Boshof and Van Acker believe that De modo regiminis was composed during the period when Agobard was exile in the 830s, as part of his effort to keep control at a distance over ecclesiastical affairs in Lyons.44 For our purposes, the most striking thing about Agobard’s text is that he opens it by presenting to his audience a sequence of images describing the church as a whole, first as the Bride of the Apocalypse, and then as the Bride from the Song of Songs. Because I have come to know among certain ones, those same rumors and various murmurs, I have written these things added below through which you might come to learn, what I myself believe ought to be mastered in the course of ecclesiastical direction, and when my intent has been made clear to everyone, let the grumbling of a few cease. The Bridegroom is one, who has his Bride, who should be loved on account of himself, not on account of anything else, since he himself is peace, truth, justice, sanctification, and redemption and everything good; and without him [there is] nothing good; who came from heaven, and is above all people; those whom he rescues from the ground, he raises to heaven. The friends of the Bridegroom are those who, seeing and hearing him, are built up in love and worship of the Bridegroom; but the sons of the Bridegroom, are those who both build and are built up. The lamb is one who has his Bride, concerning which it is said by John the Apostle, Come, I will 43

44

Celia Chazelle, “Amalarius’s Liber officialis:  Spirit and Vision in Carolingian Liturgical Thought,” Seeing the Invisible in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, 329–​30. Susan Keefe, in her study of Carolingian baptismal expositions, stressed her belief that these texts were intended for the instruction of the lower clergy. See Water and the Word, vol. 1 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), 16, 21, 123–​25, 152. See also van Rhijn, Shepherds of the Lord. Egon Boshof, Erzbischof Agobard von Lyon (Köln: Böhlau, 1969), 301–​3; Lieven Van Acker, Introduction to the Agobardi Lugdonensis Opera Omnia, CCCM 52 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1981), xlvi–​ii.

108 ­chapter  show you the bride of the Lamb, and he showed him the city, the heavenly Jerusalem, descending from heaven from God, having the brightness of God. Concerning this Bride and city it is sung in heaven, Alleluiah, since our Lord God reigns omnipotent. Let us rejoice and exalt and give glory to Him, because the wedding-​feast of the Lamb has come, and his spouse has prepared herself. And they were given fine linen to clothe themselves. Concerning this spouse and city John the evangelist says, that she herself is also the tabernacle of God. For he said, And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice from heaven saying, Behold the tabernacle of God will come and live with men. And they themselves will be His people, and he will be among them and will be their God, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death, nor weeping, nor grieving, nor will there be any more sorrow. From this city and virgin spouse the Lamb of God, the Lamb, God, omnipotent Lamb, the Lamb of all power, will beget lambs and sheep, whom he commends to the blessed apostle Peter, saying, Feed my lambs, and again, Feed my sheep.45

45

“Quia noui inter aliquos quosdam rumores et suspitiones diuersas, hec subter adiecta scripsi, per que cognoscere dignemini, que ego in actione ecclesiastici regiminis tenenda putem, cesset que paucorum murmuratio, cum omnibus mea fuerit intentio patefacta. Vnus est sponsus qui habet sponsam, qui diligendus est propter se, non propter aliud aliquid, cum ipse sit pax, ueritas, iustitia, sanctificatio et redemptio et omne bonum; et sine illo nullum bonum; qui de celo uenit, et super omnes est; qui quos eripit de terra, leuat ad caelum. Amici sponsi sunt, qui se uidentes et audientes hedificant in amorem et cultum sponsi; filii uero sponsi, et qui hedificant et qui hedificantur. Vnus est agnus qui habet sponsam, de qua dicitur Iohanni apostolo: Veni, ostendam tibi sponsam agni; et ostensa est illi ciuitas sancta Hierusalem descendens de celo a Deo, habens claritatem Dei. De hac sponsa et ciuitate cantatur in celo:  Alleluia, quoniam regnauit Dominus Deus noster omnipotens. Gaudeamus, et exultemus, et demus gloriam ei, quia uenerunt nuptiae agni, et uxor eius preparauit se. Et datum est illi, ut cooperiat se byssino. De hac uxore et ciuitate dicit Iohannes euangelista, quod ipsa sit et tabernaculum Dei. Ait enim: Et ciuitatem sanctam Hierusalem uidi nouam, descendentem de celo a Deo, paratam sicut sponsam ornatam uiro suo. Et audiui uocem magnam de throno dicentem: Ecce tabernaculum Dei cum hominibus, et habitabit cum eis. Et ipsi populus eius erunt, et ipse cum eis Deus erit eorum Deus; et absterget Deus omnem lacrimam ab oculis eorum, et mors ultra non erit, neque luctus, neque clamor, neque dolor erit ultra. De hac ciuitate et uxore uirgine generat agnus Dei, agnus Deus, agnus omnipotens, agnus omni potentis, agnos et oues, quos commendat beato Petro apostolo dicens:  Pasce agnos meos, et iterum:  Pasce oues meas.”  Agobard of Lyons, De modo regiminis ecclesiastici, ed. L. Van Acker, Agobardus Lugdunensis opera omnia, CCCM 52 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1981), caps. 1–​2.

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Agobard stresses both the marriage of the Bride and Bridegroom and also the connection of the individual Christian, the “lambs and sheep,” with their heavenly Lamb and their citizenship in the heavenly Jerusalem. As with Ambrose Autpert, as part of his exposition of the text Agobard simply reads long portions of the Apocalypse, letting the text speak for itself. Agobard continues, moving without pause from the Apocalypse material to images of the Bride found in the Song of Songs. It is difficult to convey just how condensed is Agobard’s summary of the allegories of the Song of Songs—​and just how much of the text he manages to include—​without including all of the relevant portion: This Bridegroom and omnipotent Lamb tells his Bride and Spouse, Your hair is like a flock of goats, which have ascended from Mt. Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of sheep, which have ascended from washing, all of them bearing twins, and not one of them is infertile; and again, Your two breasts are like the two twin fawns of a goat, who browse among the lilies. This Spouse is also the daughter of her husband, the Lamb and the Prince, to whom he says, How beautiful are your feet in your sandals, daughter of a prince. The Prince is himself the father of the Bridegroom and her brother. For he calls her his spouse and his sister, You have wounded my heart, my sister, my bride, you have wounded my heart with one glance of your eyes, and with one lock of hair from your neck. How beautiful are your breasts, my sister, my bride. Nor is it strange, if the spouse is his sister, because, also, her breasts are [compared to] towers and she herself [to] a wall. For thus the Father and Bridegroom speaks concerning her, What shall we do for our sister in the day when she is spoken for? If she is a wall, we will build towers of silver upon her; if she is a door, we will build it with cedar panels. And she responds, I am a wall and my breasts are like towers, since I have become in his presence like one finding peace. What is strange, if she [is] a wall and city, since she [is] also a vineyard having a husband? For the vineyard, she says, has been made peaceful in herself, which contains the peoples; he gave her to guardians, a man offered for her fruit a thousand silver pieces. Concerning which the Man himself and the Father immediately add, saying, My vineyard is before me. The vineyard herself is also queen and bride, concerning whom it is sung in a wedding-​song by that king and bridegroom himself: The bride stands at your right hand in a golden crown. And the Bridegroom and Father says to that same bride: Listen, daughter, and see. And the singer of this song himself says to that same one:  And, o daughter of the very strong one, the wealthy among the people entreat your face in their gifts. This is according to the Hebrew version, an older  translation, so that

110 ­chapter  he might show that same spouse a queen and daughter of a king; thus he [the psalmist] says to the king himself: The queen is seated at your right, and a little later, All the glory of the king’s daughter is within [Ps. 44:14]. This queen is not only a vineyard, but also a garden, and a fountain: You are a garden enclosed, my sister, my bride, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed. And she is called a woman, as it is written, A powerful woman who can find? [Prov. 31:10] … To whom, herself, Christ the Lord speaks: You are entirely beautiful, my lovely one, and there is no spot in you, and from her concerning him, Let my beloved come into his garden, and let him eat the fruit of my apple trees. These multiple names of the Bride and Bridegroom, of Christ and the church, are taken not from any particular historical events, as when scripture speaks of Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, in which are figured the marriage of Christ and the church, and not from that sort of figure of speech by means of which they are placed in physical things with significant prefiguration, such as the mountain of the house of the Lord [Is. 2:2], where the mountain signifies the Lord and the house the church, and many things of this sort, but concerning those places [in scripture] where scripture follows no ordained narrative of events, but indicates Christ and the church with such a variety of names of this kind, and in which things, no one is so foolish as to suppose something should be sought other than Christ and the Church.46 46

“Hic sponsus et agnus omnipotens dicit sponsae et uxori sue: Capilli tui sicut greges caprarum, que ascenderunt de monte Galaad.  Dentes tui sicut grex ouium, que ascenderunt de lauachro, omnes gemellis fetibus, et sterilis non est in eis; et iterum:  Duo ubera tua sicut duo inuli capreae gemelli, qui pascuntur in liliis. Hec uxor et filia est uiri sui agni et principis, cui ipse dicit: Quam pulchri sunt gressus tui in calciamentis, filia principis. Ipse princeps pater sponsae sue et frater eius est. Dicit enim ipsi uxori et sorori sue: Vulnerasti cor meum, soror mea sponsa, uulnerasti cor meum in uno oculorum tuorum, et in uno crine colli tui. Quam pulchre sunt mamme tue, soror mea sponsa. Nec mirum, si uxor soror est, quia et mamme atque ubera turris et ipsa murus. Sic enim de illa pater et sponsus loquitur: Quid faciemus sorori nostre in die quando adloquenda est. Si murus est, edificemus super eum propugnacula argentea; si ostium est, compingamus illud tabulis cedrinis. Et illa respondit: Ego murus et ubera mea turris, ex quo facta sum coram eo quasi pacem reperiens. Quid mirum, si murus et ciuitas, cum et uinea habens uirum. Vinea enim, inquid, fuit pacifico in ea, que habet populos; tradidit eam custodibus, uir affert pro fructu eius mille argenteos. De qua ipse uir et pater statim subiungit dicens: Vinea mea coram me est. Ipsa uinea regina quoque est et coniux, de qua in carmine nuptiali canitur ipsi regi et sponso: Stetit coniux in dextera tua in diademate aureo. Et ipse sponsus et pater ait eidem coniugi: Audi filia, et uide. Et ipse cantor huius carminis eidem dicit: Et, o filia fortissimi, in muneribus faciem tuam deprecabuntur diuites populi. [Ps. 44:13, Jerome’s translation, “iuxta Hebraicum”] Haec iuxta Hebraicum, antiquior autem translatio, ut eandem coniugem reginam et filiam regis ostenderet, sic ait ipsi regi: Adstitit regina a dextris tuis, et post pauca: Omnis

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One wonders what exactly the mumuratio was at Lyons that Agobard felt he had to counter with such a basic primer of Song exegesis: why he insists that only Christ and the church can be read into these images, and if the rumors he had heard had anything to do with the innovative allegorical teachings of Agobard’s bête noir and temporary replacement, Amalarius. Alternatively, it was also at Lyons where the unrepentant adoptionist bishop, Felix of Urgell, would live out his days. What is certain is that to appeal to the Bride of the Song and the Apocalypse in the way that Agobard does is to stress the unity of the church, her connection to the divine nature of Christ, and the individual believer’s role within the church; ultimately, it is very condensed ecclesiology. Agobard’s text is striking in part because of its very economy: he does not delve into elaborate allegorical details associated with all of these images, but instead lists image after image from the Song in a rapid-​ fire barrage. Agobard is presenting merely the basics of Song interpretation to his audience. But De modo regiminis does seem to assume that the clergy at Lyons would have encountered these images from the Song and would have to grapple with Song interpretation in one form or another at some point, even if they had only a very elementary understanding of it. In its way, Agobard’s text is a witness to the presence of Song exegesis, however disputed, within Carolingian ecclesiastical life, and not only in commentaries but trickling down piecemeal into the working life of the clergy. 3.3

Haimo of Auxerre: the Pressures and Labors of This Age

Fifty years after Alcuin, the dream of a revivified, unified Christian empire under the Carolingians was beginning to unravel.47 Both Haimo of Auxerre

47

gloria eius filie regis ab intus. Haec regina non solum uinea est, sed et hortus, et fons: Hortus conclusus soror mea sponsa, hortus conclusus, fons signatus. Dicitur et mulier, sicut scriptum est: Mulierem fortem quis inueniet … Cui ipse Christus Dominus loquitur: Tota pulchra es amica mea, et macula non est in te, et illa de illo: Veniat dilectus meus in hortum suum, et commedat fructum pomorum suorum … Haec multiplicia nomina sponsi et sponse, Christi et Ecclesiae, non de aliquibus gestis historicis, sicut est, cum Scriptura de Sara, Rebecca, Rachel loquitur, in quibus coniunctio Christi et Ecclesiae figurata est, nec de eo locutionis genere, quo in rebus sensibilibus significatiua praenuntiatione ponuntur, sicut est mons domus Domini, ubi mons Dominum et domus Ecclesiam significat, et multa huiusmodi, assumpta sunt, sed de illis locis, ubi nullam ordinatam narrationem gestorum Scriptura exsequitur, sed tantum diuersis huiusmodi nominibus Christum et Ecclesiam indicat, et in quibus nullus ita insipiens est, ut aliud querendum existimet, nisi Christum et Ecclesiam.” Agobard of Lyons, De modo regiminis ecclesiastici, caps. 2–​6. Although obviously the text is not ideal, I have used Haimo’s Commentarium in Cantica Canticorum, PL 117, cols. 295–​358D. Hereafter abbreviated Commentarium.

112 ­chapter  and Paschasius Radbertus would have seen the challenges of Louis the Pious’s reign—​a king who had deeply internalized the importance of biblical exegesis to right ruling and was, if anything, more sympathetic to its claims than his father had been—​and he would have heard the increasingly vocal criticisms of secular rulers by the self-​confident Carolingian episcopacy, who could not help but view the crises of Louis and his successors as a judgment of God upon the moral quality of their reigns.48 Sumi Shimahara has noted a possible reference to Louis’s 833/​34 deposition in Haimo’s brief commentary on Daniel. Elsewhere, she has recently pointed out the close proximity of Auxerre to Fontenoy, where the extremely bloody battle between Louis’s sons for the succession took place in 841, and she speculates that Haimo in particular may well have seen too much of the battle and its aftermath for comfort.49 The slaughter of Fontenoy and the subsequent deep disillusionment it caused was difficult for anyone in the Carolingian empire to forget, although some, like Notker the Stammerer, certainly did try to avoid the subject at critical moments.50 That Haimo of Auxerre chose to write commentaries on Isaiah, Ezechiel, Daniel, Hosea, and Jonah, as well as the Apocalypse and the Song of Songs, rather suggests that he, like Paschasius with the figure of Jeremiah, identified strongly with the role of prophet to a wicked nation.51 Although in his Song commentary Bede was far from sanguine about human nature, even he does 48

49 50

51

For the rising ambitions of the Carolingian episcopacy, see Morrison, The Two Kingdoms, 37–​44. For the monastic nature of Louis’s rule, see T. F. X. Noble, “The Monastic Ideal as a Model for Empire: the Case of Louis the Pious,” Revue Bénédictine 86 (1976): 235–​50. For Louis’s love of exegesis and the “crystallization of an idealized set of norms” among the Carolingian episcopacy that culminated in overt rebellion, see Booker, Past Convictions, 33 and 130–​46; De Jong, The Penitential State; Sassier, Royauté et idéologie au Moyen Âge, 135–​44. Sumi Shimahara, “La representation du pouvoir séculier chez Haymon d’Auxerre,” in The Multiple Meanings of Scripture: the Role of Exegesis in Early Christian and Medieval Culture, ed. Ineke van ‘t Spijker (Leiden, 2009), 85; Shimahara, “Le succès médiéval,” 162–​3. Simon MacLean, Kingship and Politics in the Late Ninth Century: Charles the Fat and the End of the Carolingian Empire (Cambridge, 2003), 219. See also Paul Edward Dutton, The Politics of Dreaming in the Carolingian Empire (Lincoln:  University of Nebraska Press, 1994), 98–​100. For his analysis of the poetry of Engelbert in light of Fontenoy, see 118–​20. After the sack of Lindisfarne, even Alcuin turned to the figure of Jeremiah. See Mary Garrison, “An Aspect of Alcuin:  ‘Tuus Albinus’:  Peevish Egotist? or Parrhesiast?” Ego Trouble: Authors and Their Identities in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Richard Corradini et al. (Vienna, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2010), 147. In the same volume, for Paschasius’s modeling of himself on the figure of Jeremiah, see Mayke de Jong, “Becoming Jeremiah: Paschasius Radbertus on Wala, Himself, and Others,” in Ego Trouble: Authors and Their Identities in the Early Middle Ages, 185–​96.

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not return to the trials and tribulations of this present life with the obsessive frequency that Haimo does.52 In Haimo’s vision, the church is called to persevere per pressuras et labores huius saeculi to reach eternal rest,53 and is said to need Christ’s protection inter praesentis uitae adversa.54 The voice of the beloved calls to the church out of the nocte praesentis uitae; until Christ the sun of justice appears, the church must press through omnia nubile moeroris et tenebrae praesentis saeculi.55 The Daughters of Jerusalem are called to leave the turbulenta huius saeculi, while the Bride is said to seek the Bridegroom per lata itinera gradientes huius saeculi.56 While this language may be to some extent simply the topoi of a medieval exegete acknowledging and even reveling in the fallenness of the present world, in Haimo’s Song commentary it also serves a functional, structural purpose, enabling him to set up a dramatic opposition between the spotless lily, the Bride, and the thorns by which she finds herself surrounded. Like Ambrose Autpert, Haimo contrasts the darkness and despair of “this present life,” dominated by the forces of Antichrist, with the impregnable light-​filled beauty of the heavenly city, and again, something of the mystic’s longing for heaven comes through Haimo’s commentary on the Song of Songs. 3.4

Ecclesia and Synagoga

In the mid-​to late-​ninth century, responding to the controversy over the Eucharist created by Paschasius Radbertus’s De corpore et sanguine domini, a group of Carolingian doctores working under the patronage of Charles the Bald begin to depict the crucifixion as part of an allegorical system.57 In a miniature 52

53 54 55 56 57

“… plus que tous ses prédecesseurs, Haimon enserre l’Apocalypse dans la langue du mépris du monde, et il concentre les flèches de son aggresivité à l’encontre du pouvoir terrestre, du pouvoir politique: il en résulte un trouvaille singulière.” Guy Lobrichon, “L’ordre de ce temps et les désordres de la fin: apocalypse et société, du ixe à la fin du xie siècle,” in The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages, ed. Werner Verbeke, Daniel Verhelst and Andries Welkenhuysen (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1988), 230. Haimo, Commentarium, col. 302B. See also col. 345D. Haimo, Commentarium, col. 302D. Haimo, Commentarium, col. 308B and 318C. Haimo, Commentarium, col. 314A and 309B. Chazelle, Crucified God, 239–​99; eadem, “An Exemplum of Humility: The Crucifixion Image in the Drogo Sacramentary,” in Reading Medieval Images: The Art Historian and the Object, ed. Elizabeth Sears and Thelma K. Thomas (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002), 27–​35. For a recent study of Drogo’s Handbook of 809, and how astronomical study could mesh with biblical exegesis to further the Carolingian reform, see Eric M. Ramírez-​ Weaver, A Saving Science: Capturing the Heavens in Carolingian Manuscripts (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2017).

114 ­chapter  from the Drogo Sacramentary, a dying Christ hangs on the cross, while a veiled personification of Ecclesia reaches up with a chalice to catch the blood from his side. Mary and John are present, but Ecclesia is the center of the image as the closest figure to Christ; immediately opposite her is a seated man that Celia Chazelle has argued is a personification of Nicodemus, a figure, like Melchizedek, that represents the transition from the old law to the new. In a group of ivories produced around Metz, at the instigation, Chazelle argues, of Hincmar of Rheims, the figure of Christ on the cross is flanked, not by Nicodemus but by two women, Ecclesia and a personified Synagoga. Ecclesia holds her chalice, while Synagoga is often portrayed as veiled and either blind or facing away from Christ, sometimes carrying a banner, and sometimes in the place of Stephaton, who carries the pole with the vinegar-​soaked sponge given to Christ on the cross.58 Also regularly present in these allegorical crucifixion scenes are the snake at the base of the cross, personifications of Terra and Oceanus, and the sun and moon.59 The frequent pairing of Ecclesia and Synagoga, along with the development of the iconography of the veiled and blind Synagoga, would become particularly prominent in monumental art by the thirteenth century.60 The origins of the image, however, are in the Carolingian world, whether as an expression of the gathering strength of eucharistic devotion or a reaction, most famously expressed by Agobard of Lyons, against the tolerant policy toward the Jews adopted by Louis the Pious. The exploration of the Song of Songs by Carolingian exegetes, I would argue, contributed to the creation of the image. By the

58

59

60

Perhaps the most important example is the ivory cover of the Pericopes of Henry ii, now Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4452; see also an ivory panel now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, 250–​1867; for other examples from the “second school of Metz,” see Danielle Gaborit-​Chopin, Musée du Louvre: Ivoires médiévaux, ve-​xve siècle (Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 2003), 146–​47, 155; Peter Lasko, Ars Sacra, 800-​1200, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 26–​30. For a recent study of the depiction of the cross within the Christian tradition, see Robin M. Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017); for the political ramifications of Carolingian depictions and diagrams of the zodiac, see Benjamin Anderson, Cosmos and Community in Early Medieval Art (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), 73–​105. Miri Rubin, “Ecclesia and Synagoga: The Changing Meanings of a Powerful Pairing,” in Conflict and Religious Conversation in Latin Christendom: Studies in Honour of Ora Limor, ed. Israel Jacob Yuval and Ram Ben-​Shalom (Turnhout:  Brepols, 2014), 55–​86; Judith A. Kidd, Behind the Image: Understanding the Old Testament in Medieval Art (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2014), 201–​28. John Munns has noted the virtual disappearance of the chalice from representations of the crucifixion until the thirteenth century in England in Cross and Culture in Anglo-​Norman England (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2016), 66.

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mid-​ninth century, Carolingian exegetes—​not least, Hincmar of Rheims—​had already become habituated to borrowing images from the Song of Songs in order to ponder the cosmic nature of the church. Early medieval exegesis of the Song of Songs encouraged the Carolingian doctores to see both Ecclesia and Synagoga personified, in images such as the “black but beautiful” Bride, forced to work in the vineyards of the world, according to Alcuin, by the “harshness of the persecution by the sons of Synagoga.”61 In Alcuin’s Compendium, we see the ecclesiological narrative created by Gregory and Bede presented in its most condensed and direct form. Ecclesia and Synagoga are in constant dialogue. Alcuin understands Cant. 3:6, “Who is it who comes up through the desert,” to be a question asked by Synagoga concerning Ecclesia; likewise, Cant. 5:17 and 6:9.62 At 6:11–​12, Synagoga complains that she does not understand the nature of the spiritual gifts lavished on Ecclesia, who asks her to return to the purity of the faith and the understanding of the messiah promised through the prophets, while Christ consoles Ecclesia over “Obdurate Synagoga.”63 The most explicit reference to the cross, however, occurs in the sequences of images of Christ the “apple tree” at Cant. 2.3, repeated in greater depth in ­chapter 8. There, in a three-​way conversation between Christ, Ecclesia, and Synagoga, the Bride wishes she could introduce her beloved into her mother’s house, and (in Alcuin’s interpretation, following Bede), the Bridegroom describes how he was raised under the apple tree, the wood of the cross, where his mother was “corrupted” when the Jews chose Barabbas over Christ.64 The ecclesiological reading of the Song of Songs, therefore, presented to the exegete and to the artist a complete set-​piece, easily translated into visual terms, in which Christ hung suspended on the cross between Ecclesia, whose appearance is likened both to the sun and moon at Cant. 6:3, and the blind and willful Synagogue. Early medieval exegesis of the Song of Songs, in conjunction with the eucharistic controversy, seems a likely exegetical precedent inspiring the allegorical crucifixion images produced near Metz. For the early medieval exegete, the Song of Songs represented a repository of images of Christ and his church, a window into the true nature of the church as she appeared outside of time that was associated with and strengthened by a Carolingian high Christology which stressed the need to truly apprehend the divine nature of Christ. In parallel with the similarly cosmic imagery of 61 62 63 64

Alcuin, Compendium in Canticum Canticorum, 1.5; 119. Alcuin, Compendium 3.6, 131–​2; 5.17, 156; 6.9, 161–​2. Compendium, 6.11–​7.1, 163–​4. Compendium 8.1–​8.6, 172–​75. The Vulgate reads: ibi corrupta est mater tua; ibi violata est genetrix tua.

116 ­chapter  the Apocalypse, the poetry of the Song of Songs created a macro-​narrative of the church expressed through personifications which could be very easily expressed in single images like the allegorical crucifixion. Ultimately, the Song became a way for exegetes to see themselves as part of the greater life of the church, inspiring and justifying their efforts as the church expanded its influence within Europe on an unprecedented scale. As we are increasingly beginning to understand, the Carolingian “reform” did not merely restore dilapidated or arcane usages that had always existed, although the fidelity of the Carolingian doctores to the patristic tradition often led them to depict their activities in that light, but, rather, it aggressively sought to extend the reach of the church into the lives of common people within the empire. In this regard, while occasionally frustrating to modern historians, the very generality and universality of many of the images in early medieval Song exegesis—​not to mention its emphasis on the unity of the church—​proved useful.65 The “large-​ scale” images of the church in the texts collected here encompassed and encouraged, to some extent, other more particular, tangible concerns: the role of the doctores, the doctores’ response to heresy, their felt responsibilities toward political power, and a more private, interior spirituality. 65

An analogy might be the generality of the “language of moral exhortation” used in the political sphere by both bishops and aristocrats, and how that language could be appropriated by ambitious rebels: again, see Costambeys, Innes, and MacLean, The Carolingian World, 185, 212–​13, 217.

­c hapter 4

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? The Making of the City Watch The Carolingian reform crystallized the institutional structures of Christendom, in places extending the church into regions of Europe, such as Saxony, where it had not yet established a firm foothold, and everywhere attempting to impose standardized models for the liturgical, clerical, and monastic life of the Empire.1 In an early medieval society defined by a network of social bonds, the implementation of those models and standards relied upon the formation of the Carolingian doctores as a clerical caste, a Levitical priesthood concerned with the maintenance of correct ritual practice. Clerical culture, unavoidably, was intertwined with court culture, as Charlemagne and his successors patronized scholars like Alcuin of York and Theodulf of Orléans and generations of their students. Alcuin had inherited from the Venerable Bede a model of what the central responsibilities of a doctor and bishop of the church should be: first and foremost, to teach and baptize. It was always clear in the injunctions of Alcuin, who disapproved of forced conversion, that the former had to precede the latter, and that after baptism the essentials of the Christian faith, including the creed, should be taught to the laity.2 In biblical commentary but also in letters, baptismal expositions, and liturgical commentary, the Carolingian doctores used the imagery of the Song of Songs to identify an “in-​group” of doctores at court, further cementing a sense of clerical identity and shared mission. Alcuin himself famously reveled in the Song of Songs and used its imagery very deliberately and rhetorically to emphasize the continuing tenderness between student and teacher and between absent friends, even as he dubbed the adoptionists the pseudodoctores and signalled, by contrast, the unity of the Carolingian clergy. I have argued in the previous chapter that the Carolingians used the Song of Songs to meditate

1 Peter Cramer, Baptism and Change in the Early Middle Ages, c. 200-​c. 1150 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 138–​42; Carine van Rhijn and Marjolijn Saan, “Correcting sinners, correcting texts: a context for the Paenitentiale pseudo-​Theodori,” Early Medieval Europe 14 (2006): 32–​35; van Rhijn, Shepherds of the Lord, 62; Jean Chélini, L’Aube du moyen âge: naissance de la chrétienté occidentale (Paris: Picard, 1991). 2 Owen Phelan, The Formation of Christian Europe: The Carolingians, Baptism, and the Imperium Christianum (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 94–​146.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 | DOI:10.1163/9789004389250_006

118 ­chapter  on the transcendent natures of Christ and his church. When not meditating on their ultimate union, however, Carolingian commentators, inspired by the work of Gregory the Great and Bede, would interpret most of the imagery from the Song, particularly the serial praise by the Bridegroom of individual features of the body of the Bride, as a meditation on the role and duties of the doctores.3 The eroticism of the Song of Songs, particularly those images describing the breasts of the Bride, was transmuted into a language of maternal care and nurture, which stressed the doctores’ need to provide milk rather than solid food to their flock.4 By the mid-​ninth century, Amalarius of Metz would read the liturgy as if it were scripture, an allegory of Christ’s relationship with the church, connecting the rhythms of the mass and the divine office with the larger patterns of association and narrative already established in scripture by the doctores. 4.1

Educating the Clergy, Defining the Church: Carolingian Baptismal Expositions

Baptism was the Carolingian shibboleth, and as such, they frequently returned to a number of images from the Song of Songs used to understand baptism and baptismal purity: sheep fresh from washing, the Bride freshly come from her bath, and the ointments and fragrances of the Bridegroom and Bride suggestive of chrism. If baptism is the Carolingian “ordering concept,” as Owen Phelan has argued, the moment when the populus Christianus is effectively created and the central metaphor for understanding the Carolingian understanding of community, then it is suggestive of the importance of the Song of Songs as an ecclesiological model that it should appear in connection with these texts.5 In the history of patristic and early medieval interpretation of the Song of Songs, several images, such as the fons signatus of Cant. 4:12, had always been associated with baptism. In the collection of baptismal expositions and instructions compiled by Susan Keefe, two networks of images in particular appear that were borrowed from the Song of Songs. The first set of images is

3 The one image from the Song usually applied to the laity was, significantly, the Bride’s hair like a flock of goats (Cant. 4:1 and 6:5): multitudinous, tangled, and possibly on the road to damnation. 4 Hannah W. Matis, “Early Medieval Exegesis of the Song of Songs and the Maternal Language of Clerical Authority,” Speculum 89.2 (2014): 358–​381. 5 Owen Phelan, The Formation of Christian Europe, 8; Carine van Rhijn, Shepherds of the Lord, 114–​19.

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based around Cant. 1:2–​3: “For this reason the maidens love you; we will run after you in the odor of your ointments.” The fragrance of the Bridegroom described in the Song image was an important verse in association with the ritual touching of the nostrils and ears of the baptized, re-​enacting the gospel miracle of Mark 6:34, while the “ointments” of the Song were understood as an allegory for chrism and the anointing of the baptized person. This verse appears, for example, in connection with this particular moment in the ordo in Jesse of Amiens’s 802 instruction for his priests.6 The other set of images to be incorporated into the baptismal expositions comes out of the Old Latin version of Cant. 3:6/​8:5, Quae est ista quae ascendit dealbata, dealbata being eventually replaced in the traditional Vulgate text by de deserto.7 This variant reading was widespread in the works of Augustine, Jerome, and Ambrose, was explicitly linked with baptism in Isidore’s Etymologies, and would be largely taken up by those baptismal instructions influenced by Isidore.8 It appears in an anonymous text, probably from Fleury, for example, that formed a collection of excerpts from Isidore on baptism.9 In response to Charlemagne’s 812 circulatory letter asking his bishops to instruct their dioceses concerning baptism, Leidrad of Lyons compiled an allegorical exposition of baptism which included three Song excerpts, including Cant. 4:2, the comparison of the Bride’s teeth like sheep white from washing, Cant. 1:3, and Cant. 3:6/​8:5.10 Also writing in response to Charlemagne’s letter, Theodulf of Orléans wrote an allegorical exposition of the ceremony to Magnus of Sens, including Cant. 1:3, followed by two more images from the Song of Songs emphasizing the compelling fragrance of Christ.11 The baptized are anointed with oil as a sign of the grace of 6 7 8

9 10 11

“Text 30” in Water and the Word: Baptism and the Education of the Clergy in the Carolingian Empire, ed. Susan Keefe (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), 2:418. Cantici Canticorum: Vetus Latina translatio a S. Hieronymo ad graecum textum hexaplarem emendata, ed. Albert Vaccari (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1959), 30. “Baptismum Graece, Latine tinctio interpretatur; quae idcirco tinctio dicitur, quia ibi homo spiritu gratiae in melius inmutatur, et longe aliud quam erat efficitur. Prius enim foedi eramus deformitate peccatorum, in ipsa tinctione reddimur pulchri dealbatione uirtutum; unde et in Canticis scribitur canticorum (8,5): Quae est ista quae ascendit dealbata?” Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum siue originum, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911), Bk. vi, cap. 19, par. 44, 250. Cf. Beatus, Adv Elip., i, 58, lns. 1619–​20. “Text 20” in Water and the Word, 2:332. “Text 25” in Water and the Word, 2:356, 361, and 375. See also the florilegium of Leidrad’s text, “Text 26” in Water and the Word, 2:386. “Tanguntur itaque de sputo nares et aures et dicitur effeta. Nares ut christum in odore unguentorum sequantur et dicant: trahe me, post te curremus [Cant. 1:3] et cum apostolo confiteantur, dicentes: christi bonus odor sumus deo [2 Cor. 2:15] et illius membra efficiantur cui dicitur: et odor vestimentorum tuorum super omnia aromata [cf. Cant. 4:10–​11].” “Text 16,” in Water and the Word, 2:293–​4.

120 ­chapter  the Holy Spirit, Theodulf notes, and gives several examples from both testaments, concluding with Cant. 1:2: He himself says to the church, Your name is like oil poured out; for this reason the maidens love you. Because, namely, the name of Christ has come from chrism, and the name of Christians from Christ. Indeed, before his coming, only kings were anointed and priests, who were also called christs. But after his coming, not only kings and priests alone, but the entire church was consecrated with this unction, because it is agreed that she is both kingdom and priesthood, and her sons kings and priests. And so the heads of the baptized are anointed with chrism, so that, anointed into the kingdom and priesthood of the church, they might take on the title of the name of Christian and be strong to be made members of him who redeemed them and who is their head.12 The latest example from Keefe’s collection including both sets of images from the Song of Songs is that of Angilmodus of Soissons, written probably from Corbie for Odo of Beauvais in 861.13 That these bishops borrowed, for the most part, with such consistency the same two texts from the Song of Songs (there were many others that could have been invoked, such as the fons signatus, that were not) over a century of very diverse practice, suggests a fairly firm and established exegetical tradition in connection with the ordo of baptism that the Carolingian bishop or prelate wished to impart to his clergy. 4.2

Labora in uerbo predicationis: Alcuin and the doctores

Alcuin’s Compendium in Cantica Canticorum preserved intact Bede’s ecclesiological interpretation of the Song of Songs, particularly the role of the doctores in baptizing, preaching, teaching, and setting a moral example to the laity. At 12

13

“… ipsi enim ecclesiae dicit: oleum effusum est nomen tuum ideo adulescentulae dilexerunt te. [Cant. 1:2] Quia videlicet, et a chrismate christi, et a christo christianorum nomen exortum est. Ante adventum etenim eius, reges solummodo unguebantur et sacerdotes, qui etiam christi vocabantur. Post adventum vero eius, non solum iam reges et sacerdotes, sed omnis hac unctione consecratur ecclesia, quia constat eam esse regnum et sacerdotium, et filios eius reges et sacerdotes. Baptizatorum itaque capita chrismate liniuntur, ut in regno et sacerdotio ecclesiae delibuti, et christiani nominis praerogativam accipiant, et eius membra qui eos redemit et eorum caput est, effici valeant.” “Text 16,” in Water and the Word, 2:307–​08. Cf. Theodulf, Opus Caroli Regis contra synodum, ii, 16. “Text 32” in Water and the Word, 2:453 and 459.

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a formal level, however, Alcuin made several independent and creative decisions to make Bede’s Song commentary shorter, more accessible, and more dramatic and immediate to his audience. He did this while not seeming drastically to undermine Bede’s overall message, although Alcuin’s own concerns do bleed through at certain points. Alcuin’s rhetorical use of the Song of Songs and of Song exegesis in his letters, whether to fellow scholars, bishops, or Charlemagne himself, suggests that the ecclesiological interpretation of the Song as outlined in the Compendium provided a mental fund of images that was shared, even beloved, by those involved in the Carolingian reform, and that at need could be turned against those who had set themselves beyond its pale. Although we do not know in what social context or for what specific audience the Compendium was intended, certainly it would have resonated strongly with the doctores to whom and about whom it predominantly speaks. In fact, the very generality of Alcuin’s Song exegesis and the lack of a specific recipient for his Song commentary may have been one of its strengths. If the Compendium was meant to be a primer to promote a shared ethos and sense of mission among the Carolingian doctores of the church, then its message was meant for anyone with the ears to hear. Alcuin interprets the vast majority of the Song text as a description of the role and duties of the doctores within the church. He acknowledges that, while contemplation is the life to be preferred, nevertheless the doctores have a task to be done in this world, now. The spiritual authority of the doctores hinges upon their understanding of scripture,14 and their mission—​at least, as revealed in the Song text—​is twofold. First, they are called to preach the gospel.15 For both Bede and Alcuin this did not necessarily imply that preaching would be directed to a pagan or non-​Christian audience, although they obviously very much did want this to occur when applicable; neither, particularly in a context where so many were recently Christianized, would have used the modern distinction between preaching and evangelism. Both Bede and Alcuin are vehement that preaching should be done “by word and example,” and that the moral life of the doctores should not detract from their lofty message.16 Second, the doctores serve a defensive function against the “false shepherds” who would disturb the peace of the church;17 in the language 14 15 16 17

Alcuin, Compendium in Canticum Canticorum, 141, ln. 70; 152, lns. 84–​86; 176, lns. 58–​60. Alcuin, Compendium 126, lns. 53–​55; 128, lns. 63–​68; 131, lns. 16–​18; 147, lns. 25–​27; 148, ln. 40; 160, lns. 33–​36; 169, lns. 61–​65; 179, lns. 86–​88. Alcuin, Compendium, 121, lns. 42–​43; 122–​23, lns. 62–​64; 128, lns. 63–​64; 132, lns. 36–​37; 135, lns. 1–​3. Alcuin, Compendium, 120, lns. 28–​34; 128–​29, lns. 70–​72.

122 ­chapter  of the Song, they are the watchmen of the city, or the shields hung on its battlements.18 Perhaps because of the extremely compressed nature of the work, Alcuin had a narrower historical focus than Bede; he is less concerned to track the activities of the doctores through the history of the apostles and the early history of the church. Similarly, in the Compendium, Alcuin seems to have a narrower and more precise focus on the sacraments, and a specific, and very Carolingian emphasis on the place and importance of baptism. Where Bede had i­ nterpreted the role of the doctores within the church very generally, and had taken such images as poured-​out perfume or the vineyards of Engaddi as figures for the spiritual gifts of the priesthood in the broadest sense, Alcuin understood such passages to be purely and specifically about baptism. This is a statement, not least, of what Alcuin understood ordained ministry to be for: the incorporation of the faithful through baptism into Christendom, here understood as both a spiritual and a political project.19 The grace of the Holy Spirit, Alcuin says, is shed upon all the faithful in baptismate; the young maidens who love Christ are those renovatae through baptism.20 For Bede, the vineyards of Engaddi had been a figure for the carismata divina, referring inclusively to any act of unction and the imposition of a priest’s hands on the newly baptized, the dedication of an altar, or anything sacrosancta which should be anointed.21 For Alcuin, by contrast, Engaddi, the name of which means “the spring of the young kid,” simply baptismum significant.22 The Bride’s teeth in the fourth chapter of the Song, which are white as sheep come from the washing, both Bede and Alcuin read as a figure for the baptized. But Alcuin, who whenever possible combines Bede’s short lemmata, here breaks up Bede’s formulation to create a separate, individual place for “those who came up from the washing,” and then dramatically front-​loads his interpretation with the central place of baptism: “That is, in the well [fonte] of holy baptism, those who are shorn and washed, that is, naked in the leaving behind of the world and cleansed in the font of life.”23 In the seventh chapter of the Song, Alcuin points out independently of Bede that the church can call herself a prince’s daughter only “by the grace of baptism.”24 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Alcuin, Compendium, 130, lns. 11–​12; 132–​33, lns. 32–​41; 137, lns. 25–​33; 150, lns. 57–​60; 176, lns. 57–​60. Phelan, The Formation of Christian Europe, 147–​206. Alcuin, Compendium, 118, lns. 6–​8. Bede, ICC, Bk. i, i, lns. 632–​40. Alcuin, Compendium 122, ln. 55. “Id est fonte sancti baptismatis, qui et tonsi et loti sunt, hoc est nudati renuntiando saeculo et uitae lavacro mundati.” Alcuin, Compendium 136, lns. 13–​14. Alcuin, Compendium 164, ln. 7.

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The urgency with which Alcuin encouraged preaching, pastoral care, and the clergy’s knowledge of scripture, together with his particular emphasis on baptism, makes the Compendium in Cantica Canticorum very much a commentary in the spirit of the Carolingian reform, in a different genre but nevertheless akin to the Admonitio generalis of 789—​which, incidentally, asked its bishops to be vigiles, an image that had roots both in the exegesis of Ezekiel and the Song of Songs.25 Through the rich agricultural metaphors of the Song, Alcuin could construct something similar to what, in his letters, Kate Rambridge has termed “a figurative language of nurture” that stressed the mediatory, mothering role of the doctores.26 The model of the church found in the Compendium was general, all-​encompassing, and central enough to Alcuin’s view of the church that one can hear its echoes beyond his biblical exegesis. Throughout his years at court and while semi-​retired at Tours, Alcuin worked tirelessly and in multiple genres simultaneously to heighten the self-​awareness of the doctores within the church and to make them conscious of the loftiness of their mission, expressing his concerns to Arn of Salzburg and Paulinus of Aquileia that preachers be sent to the Avar frontier, and in letters to bishops exhorting their priests to preach and to become involved with pastoral care.27 Alcuin was a deacon but was not himself ordained to the priesthood, though this perturbed him considerably less than, for example, the Ferrières monk who later wrote his Vita.28 As Mayke de Jong suggests, with his Northumbrian background Alcuin 25

26

27

28

The Admonitio generalis was itself a deeply exegetical form of legislation:  Rosamond McKitterick, Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 239–​40; Noble, Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians, 237–​ 42; De Jong, The Penitential State, 131–​33; Albrecht Diem, “The Emergence of Monastic Schools:  the Role of Alcuin,” in Alcuin of York: Scholar at the Carolingian Court, 35–​36; Sassier, Royauté et idéologie au Moyen Âge, 125–​29. Kate Rambridge, “Alcuin’s Narratives of Evangelism: the Life of St. Willibrord and the Northumbrian Hagiographical Tradition,” in The Cross Goes North: Processes of Conversion in Northern Europe, AD 300-​1300, ed. Martin Carver (Woodbridge: York Medieval Press, 2003), 373; eadem, “Alcuin, Willibrord, and the Cultivation of Faith,” Haskins Society Journal 14 (2003): 15–​16. As Beatrix Dumont has shown, Alcuin, interestingly, never liked using barbaric terms for pagans, preferring instead to stress their immaturity: a pagan was not a savage but “l’infans dénue de parole et de raison,” and preaching, as a consequence, was the most basic and essential activity of any mission work prior to baptism. See “Alcuin et les missions,” in Alcuin: de York à Tours, 423–​28. Alcuin may also have been the author of Primo paganus, the most copied and circulated baptismal tract under the Carolingians, as has been a­ rgued by Owen M.  Phelan in “Textual Transmission and Authorship in the Carolingian Empire:  Primo Paganus, Baptism, and Alcuin of York,” Revue Bénédictine 118.2 (2008): 262–​88. For an analysis of Alcuin’s concerns over the Avar frontier, see Wood, The Missionary Life, 85–​86. Vita Alcuini, ed. Wilhelm Arndt, MGH SS 15/​1, 182–​97.

124 ­chapter  simply did not always distinguish between a monastic and canonical life. What mattered to Alcuin was the model of church reform achieved through a class of doctores active in preaching, teaching, and pastoral care, seen in theory in the Compendium and in the Admonitio generalis as well, if Alcuin was involved in its composition, and in practice by preaching doctores like Sts. Vaast, Willibrord, and Richarius, and by good kings like Charlemagne.29 Outside the context of a formal Song commentary, Alcuin is famous for his use of the Song of Songs in his letters, part of the intense, often homoerotic literary culture Alcuin cultivated between himself and a ring of students.30 C. Stephen Jaeger has argued that much of the heat of Alcuin’s language, including that contributed by the Song imagery, is informed by the conventions of the court and is therefore to some extent “opaque” to us concerning Alcuin’s personal motivations: “what we are reading here are roles played and scenarios staged.”31 Mary Alberi has noted how the Song could mark out an inner circle of students identified by their possession of vera sapientia, capable of understanding the mysteries of Solomon’s highest book of wisdom.32 I would suggest, at least as regards Alcuin’s use of Song imagery in his letters, that language from the Song of Songs served as a badge of class membership, a kind of fund of imagery the doctores could use to speak to one another and to many of their aristocratic female correspondents. This should in no way detract from the sincerity of Alcuin’s affection for Arn or for his brothers at York, for example; if anything, it should underline the importance of the Song of Songs as a medium through which the doctores expressed a shared identity. Certainly, if one examines how Alcuin uses the Song of Songs in his letters, certain patterns recur. The second half of Cant. 8:6, into 8:7, “[Love] burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away,”33 appears to have been a particular favorite for Alcuin to send

29

30

31 3 2 33

Cf. Les Vitae d’Alcuin:  Edition et Traduction, in L’oeuvre hagiographique en prose d’Alcuin: Vitae Willibrordi, Vedasti, Richarii: Edition, traduction, etude narratologiques, ed. and trans. Christiane Veyrard-​Cosme (Florence, 2003), 28–​137. See also her translation of a “Homily on St. Vaast,” xxxviii–​xl. John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 1980), 188–​91; for discussion of the more heated elements within Alcuin’s letters with regard to his possible sexual orientation, see D. A. Bullough, Alcuin: Achievement and Reputation (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 110–​17. C. Stephen Jaeger, Ennobling Love: In Search of a Lost Sensibility (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 43–​50, at 49. Mary Alberi, “Alcuin’s Monastic True Philosophy and the Worldly Court,” 896–​910. Cant. 8:6–​7: Lampades eius lampades ignis atque flammarum. Aquae multae non poterunt extinguere caritatem, nec clumina obruent illam.

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to absent friends, occurring in letters to Ricbod of Trier, to Paulinus of Aquileia twice, Aedilthyde the mother of King Aethelred, and in four separate letters in 801 to Adalhard of Corbie, Theodulf of Orléans, Charlemagne’s sister Gisela, and Arn of Salzburg respectively.34 Alcuin also returns again and again to three similar verses in the Song, all revolving around the verb introducere: Cant. 1:3 and 2:4, both of which say, “The king brought me into his wine cellar,” and Cant. 3:4, “I held on to him and did not let him go until I had brought him into the house of my mother, into the room of the one who bore me.”35 Alcuin uses these verses alternately to describe a soul coming into its eternal reward and the more practical process of communicating divine grace and knowledge to others through preaching. The former sense appears in one letter Alcuin sent to Gisela in 791, and in a letter sent by Gisela back to Alcuin in 800—​significantly, between Alcuin and a cloistered and very royal woman not expected to engage directly in pastoral care. In a 793 letter to an anonymous pupil, the verse is applied to the labor of seeking out Christ in the scriptures; whatever he finds, Alcuin admonishes, the student is to hand on and teach diligentissime.36 One or other of these verses occurs in three separate letters to Arn of Salzburg between 798 and 799. The first occurs as part of a typically playful and affectionate wish of Alcuin’s that Arn, aquila mea, could fly to him at Tours,37 but the second two occur as part of impassioned exhortations by Alcuin to preach and to continue with the work of pastoral care. In the first of these, Alcuin hopes that physical infirmity does not discourage Arn from the work he has been called to do.38 In the other, a letter written on the occasion of Arn becoming archbishop, Song language is placed as the resounding rhetorical conclusion to Alcuin’s hopes for his future career.39 34 35 3 6 37 38

39

Alcuin, Ep. 13 (791–​2) in Dümmler, 38, lns. 16–​17; Ep. 28 (789–​95), 70, lns. 13–​14; Ep. 60 (787–​96), 104, lns. 14–​15; Ep. 79 (793–​96) 120, lns. 18–​19; Ep. 220 (801) 364, ln. 13; Ep. 225 (801) 368, lns. 23–​24; Ep. 228 (801) 371, lns. 32–​33, and Ep. 242 (801) 388, ln. 28. Cant. 1:3/​2:4; 3:4: Introduxit me rex in cellaria sua … Tenui eum nec dimittam, donec introducam illum in domum matris meae in cubiculum genetricis meae. Alcuin, Ep. 88 in Dümmler, 132, lns. 14–​24. Alcuin, Ep. 157 in Dümmler, 255, lns. 33–​35. “Labora, labora pro me et pro te, ut tuus labor mihi proficiat; mea uoluntas, si quid posit, te adiuuet. Trahe me post te precibus tuae sanctitatis: curremus simul, donec introducat nos rex in cellam uinariam ordinans in nobis suae caritatis suauitatem. Et quia uox uestrae dilectionis ad nos peruenire non potest, saepius carta quam relationis uocant currat. Frater, qui a fratre adiuuatur, quasi ciuitas firma est. Quam pulchri sunt pedes euangelizantium pacem euangelizantium bona. Exalta sicut tuba uocem tuam …” Alcuin, Ep. 158 in Dümmler, 256, ln. 32-​257, ln 4. “Ideo dum tempus habeas, labora in uerbo predicationis, in uirtute caritatis, in exemplo sanctitatis, in pietatis officio, in elimosinarum largitione, in misericordiae et pietatis constantia, quatenus ex huius caliginis miseria ad perpetuae beatitudinis lucem peruenire

126 ­chapter  The suspicion that knowledge of Song exegesis was widely shared among the Carolingian abbatial and episcopal elite is further strengthened by a brief letter of Alcuin’s to Theodulf of Orléans, written between 796 and 798. Ostensibly its purpose was to ask Theodulf to share part of his wine cellar, but the entire letter, to an extent not quite revealed by Dümmler’s notes, is an intense pastiche of various pieces of Song language, the extremely obscure figure of Zabdias the Aphonite, one of David’s overseers over his vineyards, and Christ’s changing of water into wine at Cana.40 While not precisely an Alcuinian nickname for Theodulf—​who, significantly in Charlemagne’s circle of advisors, did not have a usual pet-​name designated for him—​“Zabdias” verges on it very closely.41 In the salutation, Theodulf is addressed as a pater uinearum, and in the body of the letter Alcuin invents an exchange between “Zabdias” and a certain “Ionathan,” David’s uncle and counselor from later in the same biblical passage, clearly meaning Theodulf and himself. It is difficult to convey both how playful and how compressed Alcuin’s language is in this letter without quoting a significant section. We read in the Paralipomenon that in the time of David, king most beloved by God, Zabdias was in charge of the wine cellars. By God’s mercy, now a second David has charge of a better people, and under him, a nobler Zabdias has charge of his wine cellars. The king brought him into his wine cellar and set charity in order in him, so that the scholastici might stay him with flowers and sustain him with the apples of those languishing with love of him which delights the heart of man [Ps. 103:15]. Now, if he were to lack what might strengthen him [Ps. 103:15], as luck would have it there is no lack of what might delight him in the cellars of Orléans; whence there is hope in the flowering vine, not in the withering fig. For this reason Jonathan, a counselor of David, a learned man, sends to Zabdias, saying: “Let us go early to the vineyards; let us see if the vines of Sorech are blooming well; with the shouts of those singing over it, the springs of the wine-​cellar might be diverted outside.” And now that the storehouses

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merearis, et me tuae salutis unanimem filium, fratrem, consocium, assiduis efficiamur, donante aeternae pietatis largitore: Introduxit nos rex in cellaria sua, exultabimus et laetabimur in te.” Alcuin, Ep. 173 in Dümmler, 286, lns. 25–​31. Zabdias is also known as Zabdi the Shiphmite. See i Para. 27:27. For Cana, see Jn. 2:7. Mary Garrison discusses the exegetical dimension of Alcuin’s pet-​names, comparing it to Christ’s re-​christening of particular disciples, and also explores the use of nicknames to define groups in “The Social World of Alcuin: Nicknames at York and at the Carolingian Court,” 65–​69.

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have been opened with the keys of charity, let this verse be performed from the towers of Orléans by the keeper of the vineyard, “Eat, my friends, drink and be drunk. I sleep in sweetness, and my heart wakes in charity; come, take my wine and milk without end. My tongue is as the best wine, worthy for my beloved to drink, and to be savored with his lips. I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.” He did not say, “I have taken off my tunic, how should I put it on again? I have washed my feet, how can I soil them again? I cannot get up and give [anything] to you.”42 This is vintage Alcuinian hi-​jinks, and one can only hope that Theodulf the Old Testament scholar was sufficiently appreciative. Interestingly, though this romp through the Song of Songs may be, as Lawrence Nees interpreted it, simply an elaborate request to cadge some of the best the Orléans wine-​cellars had to offer,43 it is just possible that, given the close equation of wine with teaching and doctrine in Song exegesis and his reference to the learned scholastici surrounding the king, Alcuin was asking not for wine but for Theodulf’s opinion on some unspecified matter. On one level, the joke of the letter is that whether one reads the Song imagery literally or figuratively entirely determines one’s interpretation of what Alcuin is asking for. On another level, the joke may rely on the assumption, often quoted in exegesis, that the Song of Songs had no literal sense; the joke may well be that, just on this one occasion, Alcuin was asking Theodulf to read the Song literally and to send him a few bottles. It is impossible to know for certain. But it should caution against too-​easy assumptions that early medieval exegetes read the Song of Songs willfully blind to the 42

43

“Legimus in paralipomenon cellis praeesse uinariis Zabdiam tempore David, Deo dilectissimi regis. Modo miserante Deo meliori populo secundus praeest David, et sub eo nobilior Zabdias cellis praeest uinearum. Quem ordinata caritate introduxit rex in cellam uinariam, ut scolastici floribus fulcirent eum et stiparent malis amore languentium, illius, qui laetificat cor hominis. Iam si desit qui confirmet, forte non deest qui laetificet in cellis Aurelianis; dum spes est in uinea florente, non in ficulnea arescente. Quapropter Ionathan, consiliarus Dauid, homo litteratus, mittit ad Zabdiam dicens: ‘Mane surgamus; uideamus, quam bene uinea floreat Sorech; cantantibus celeuma super eam, diriventur fontes cellarii foras.’ At nunc apertis apotecis caritatis clauibus, a procuratore uineae caelebretur uersiculas iste per turres Aurelianas: ‘Comedite amici mei, bibite et inebriamini. Ego dormio in dulcedine, et cor meum uigilat in caritate: uenite et accipiter absque ulla commutatione uinum et lac. Guttur meum sicut uinum optimum, dignum dilecto meo ad potandum labiisque illius ruminandum. Ego dilecto meo dilectus meus mihi.’ Non est dicendum: ‘Exspoliaui me tunica mea, quomodo induar illa? Laui pedes meos, quomodo inquinabo illos? Non possum surgere et dare tibi.’ ” Alcuin, Ep. 192 in Dümmler, 318, ln. 30–​319, ln. 14. Nees, A Tainted Mantle, 120.

128 ­chapter  literal content of its language; Alcuin did not seek to suppress but, if anything, emphasized the erotic aspects of the Song even while using it to exhort his fellow doctores further into the fray. 4.3

Haimo of Auxerre and the Song of Songs as Carolingian School Text

Like Alcuin, Haimo sought to present Bede’s text to his students in as clear and accessible a fashion as possible. Haimo felt less pressure to create a brief, portable primer full of rhetorical impact and epigrammatic formulations, and could, as a consequence, incorporate a great deal of material that Alcuin had needed to cut. Haimo’s formal adjustments, however, and his “repackaging” of Bede’s work reveal the authorial judgment required and the creative methods he employed in communicating Bede’s difficult text. His was hardly the work of a copyist, but that of an independent exegete using a reliable, orthodox interpretation as a starting point to achieve his own ends. Like Alcuin, Haimo was in agreement with Bede’s overall ecclesiological interpretation of the Song. As with Alcuin, however, Haimo was to some extent also addressing the needs of his church as he saw them, and his commentary reveals yet another set of thematic preoccupations distinct from those of Alcuin and Bede. As E. Ann Matter points out, with its prologue, “a formula of accessus ad auctores” neatly laying out auctor, materia, modus agendi, and intentio, “the very first paragraph of Haimo’s commentary on the Song of Songs announces itself as a school text.”44 Unlike Bede and Alcuin, Haimo turns to Origen to explain that it is the Song of Songs “because it surpasses all [other] songs,” and that it is an epithalamium. Haimo also observes rather plaintively that it is an obscurissimus liber because none of the characters in it are explicitly named, and that it was composed quasi comico stylo.45 Alcuin’s Compendium, which has no prologue, never stated any of this explicitly, though, as I have suggested, one could read his entire commentary, with its layout, use of voice, and rubrics, as an argument for precisely this. Bede, for his part, pointed out the names of the principal characters, but gave no real background on the nature of the text, and certainly he included nothing like the clear, compact formula—​complete with a teacher’s appealing touch of deprecation on the difficulty of his subject matter—​used here by Haimo. Unlike Bede and Alcuin, Haimo also includes

4 4 45

Matter, “Haimo’s Commentary on the Song of Songs,” 97–​98. Haimo, Commentarium, col. 295A.

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several summaries and asides to clarify a particular point in the text. He will take time to note, for example, each repetition of Christ’s warning to the Daughters of Jerusalem not to awaken love and to explain what it means, or he will usefully recap for his reader all the parts of the Bride to which the doctores have been compared.46 Like Alcuin, Haimo continues to integrate rubrics into the body of the text to indicate to his reader a change in speaker, and sometimes he will even tell the reader explicitly that there has been a change in cast.47 In one case he borrows from Alcuin the rubric, Ecclesia de suis pressuris.48 More often, however, Haimo follows a particular pattern of his own devising, in which he gives the scriptural text, then briefly explains what the character in question is doing or to whom he or she is speaking, and returns and repeats the scriptural text again before explicating the allegory. For example, at Cant. 2:5, Haimo explains: Stay me with flowers, sustain me with apples, for I languish with love. After the church or the soul beloved by God said that he had ordained charity in her, she shows how she wishes to rest, or to remain in that bed with her beloved spouse, saying, Stay me with flowers, etc. She speaks to the souls now perfectly clinging to divine love. The flowers are understood as the beginnings of a holy way of life, but the apples as perfect examples of good works.49 This approach may, on the one hand, reflect schoolroom practice, but it may also be influenced by Bede’s first set of capitula, cut by Alcuin, which, in attempting to write a “plot” for the Song of Songs, accomplished something very similar to Haimo’s initial sentence or two of explication. The overall effect is, in each verse of the Song, to lead the student on a gradual ascent from the “letter” of the text and the logistics of who is speaking to whom, toward an exploration 46

47 48 49

“…supra ad ecclesiam primitivam de Iudeis collectam pertinet, hic uero ad Ecclesiam de gentibus congregatam.” Haimo, Commentarium, col. 310B; “Nec mirum quod una eademque res diuersis figuratur modis. Sancti enim doctores oculi sunt … dentes sunt … collum sunt … sunt et ubera Ecclesiae,” col. 317D-​318A. “Hic est permutatio persona. Nam hactenus locuta est Synagoga, hic incipit loqui Ecclesia de gentibus.” Haimo, Commentarium, col. 295D. Haimo, Commentarium, col. 296B. “Postquam Ecclesia uel anima Deo dilecta in se charitatem ordinatam dixit, qualiter uelit requiescere, uel in quo lecto cum dilecto sponso suo pausare, ostendit dicens, ‘Fulcite me floribus,’ etc. Alloquitur animas iam perfecte diuino amori inhaerentes. Per flores, initia sanctae conuersationis intelliguntur; per mala uero, perfecta bonorum operum exempla.” Haimo, Commentarium, col. 303B-​303C.

130 ­chapter  of the different layers of meaning contained within the Song figura. At moments, he will also explicitly say what a verse means iuxta litteram or when he turns to unravel the figure mystice.50 On the whole, Haimo’s pattern of exegesis in his Song commentary would more explicitly demarcate the letter of the text from its allegorical meaning than either Bede or Alcuin had done. Scholars have suggested that, in methodology, Haimo’s exegesis foreshadows the early scholastics, particularly his statement of multiple interpretations of a particular point in scripture, joined by an aliter or a siue without necessarily harmonizing their contradictions.51 Although he does not do this often in the Song commentary,52 one senses Haimo working with a more clearly systematized model of scriptural exegesis than Bede or Alcuin had used. In this context, it may be significant that Haimo adds back in to his commentary a classic “de Lubac-​ian” formulation of the four senses of scripture that Bede had included in passing in his Song commentary.53 While neither Bede, Alcuin, nor Haimo yet follow this consistently, one can see Haimo making a greater effort than Bede or Alcuin to distinguish between letter and allegory. For all its directness and immediacy, Alcuin’s Compendium had assumed on the part of its audience a working knowledge of what might be called the Song’s natural history. Perhaps he had simply concluded that the allegorical narrative was more important to its reader than descriptions, for example, of what nard or mandrakes were. As a consequence, Alcuin cuts all of Bede’s extracts from Pliny’s Natural History and Isidore’s Etymologies. Haimo, interestingly, adds all of these back into the text, frequently also mentioning, where applicable, words that were Greek in origin, further strengthening and demarcating the letter of the text from its allegorical interpretation and making the commentary far more useful as a teacher’s reference.54 Moreover, Haimo also 50 51 52 53

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Haimo, Commentarium, col. 299B-​299C. Dominique Iogna-​Prat, “L’oeuvre d’Haymon d’Auxerre: État de la question,” in L’Ecole Carolingienne d’Auxerre:  de Murethach à Remi, 830-​908, ed. Dominique Iogna-​Prat, Colette Jeudy and Guy Lobrichon (Paris: Beauchesne, 1991), 167. One exception would be Haimo’s multiple suggestions for the meaning of “pulsat,” at Commentarium, col. 327B. “Recte ergo diuina Scriptura favus distillans uocatur, quia multipliciter intelligitur et uariis sensibus exponitur, nunc iuxta litteram, nunc iuxta allegoriam, nunc iuxta moralitatem, nunc iuxta anagogen, id est superiorem sensum.” Haimo, Commentarium, col. 321C. Cf. Bede, ICC, Bk. iii, iv, 260, lns. 620–​25, where he uses the one particular case of the word “Ierusalem” to act as an example. Alcuin’s interpretation of the verse had merely referred to the “multifarious sensus” of Scripture: Compendium, 141, ln. 70. “Christus” col. 295C; “disseminati” col. 297C; “cyprus” and “Engaddi” col. 300B; “thus” cols. 321D-​322A; “paradisus” 322C-​322D (this is not in Bede); “cyprus,” “nardus,” and “crocus” cols. 323A-​323C; “fistula” and “cinnamomum” col. 323C; “ligna Libani” 323D-​324A;

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re-​integrates many of Bede’s scriptural references that Alcuin had excised, anchoring the Song more securely to the rest of the biblical text, and, one imagines, further facilitating its use as a school-​text. Bede, as we have seen, predominantly used the third-​person in his commentary, while Alcuin had striven to match exegesis with scriptural text, using the first-​person s​ ingular with particular frequency. Again, Haimo emerges with a mixed approach in which he usually uses the third-person, but livens it up with a very liberal use of paraphrase-​interpretation that seems to recall the immediacy and drama of Alcuin’s text. But where Alcuin would balance lemma with interpretation to achieve a quick, dialogic effect, Haimo carefully signals to his reader when he is paraphrasing the biblical text with particular phrases: quasi diceret, ac si diceret, et est sensus, and sometimes a simple hoc est or an inquit. When he launches into the paraphrase proper, however, Haimo matches voice of his interpretation to the lemma in the way that Alcuin had done in the Compendium. At Cant. 1:9, for example, where the Bridegroom compares the Bride’s cheeks to turtle-​doves, Haimo explains the verse as if in the words of the Bridegroom reassuring the Bride: “And the sense is, “Don’t fear that you will wander after the flocks of other shepherds, because I have given you such a respect of my love, and such modesty, that I am certain you could not forsake me or turn aside after strangers.”55 Where the Bridegroom tries to coax the Bride out to speak to him, Haimo paraphrases, As if he were saying, “Come out from your very sweet bed, that is, from your rest, in which you long to please me alone in psalms, hymns, and prayers; hasten “and come,” that is, hasten to the benefit of your neighbors, so that you might make imitators of your example through the office of preaching and good works, and lead them to salvation.56 As this example shows, Haimo’s paraphrase of a Song figure—​in effect, putting words in the Bride’s mouth—​could very easily shade into a “moral” or

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“myrrha” and “aloe” col. 324A; “elatae palmarum” cols. 331C-​331D; “Libanus” col. 334D; “purpura” cols. 345B-​345C; “paganos” col. 348C; “mandragora” col. 349B. “Et est sensus: Noli timere ne vageris per greges sodalium meorum, quia tanto te amoris mei pudore, et tanta uerecundia donaui, ut certus sim te me non posse deserere, uel ad alienos deflectere.” Haimo, Commentarium, col. 299A. “Ac si diceret: Surge de strato tuo illo dulcissimo, hoc est de quiete, in qua soli mihi placere in psalmis, hymnis, et orationibus desideras, festina ‘et veni,’ id est festina ad utilitatem proximorum, ut illos quoque per praedicationis officium et bonorum operum exemplo tui imitatores facias, et ad salutem perducas.” Haimo, Commentarium, col. 305D.

132 ­chapter  “tropological” interpretation of a particular verse even while expressing the nutritive language used by Bede and Alcuin to describe the duties of the doctores. Similarly, at very particular points, Haimo will break into the first-​person-​ plural in what sounds very much like classroom asides to his students, and it is significant that in these moments, he has usually been speaking about the role and place of the doctores. In one case, the neck of the church represents the doctores, says Haimo: “Thus the holy doctors proffer the food of the teaching of salvation to us, and also make plain to us the secrets of the scriptures.”57 At Cant. 4:11, when the Bride’s garments are said to smell of frankincense, just before launching into a potted history of frankincense harvesting, Haimo notes the injunction to pray always: “And unless all our life and conduct is as a prayer in the sight of God, it should never be thought, in any way, to be completed before the Lord.”58 In the passage where the Bridegroom reaches his hand to touch the Bride through the keyhole of her door, Haimo is clear that the Bridegroom is calling nos, pro nobis, touching cordis nostri.59 Even in a predominantly ecclesiological reading of the Song, moments like these, when Haimo directly addresses his readers and locates them within the Song narrative, foreshadows the use of Song exegesis as mystical text by later medieval authors like Bernard of Clairvaux. As we have seen, the dichotomy between the doctores and their auditores was intrinsic to Bede’s Song exegesis and to Alcuin and Haimo as well. All three saw the role of the doctores as fundamentally mediatory and nutritive; in Song language, the doctores were likened to the neck of the church, for example, connecting the head of the Bride, Christ, to the rest of her body, the source by which nourishment was conveyed to that body, or they were compared to her breasts, providing the milk of spiritual teaching to the Daughters of Jerusalem and to those still immature in the faith. Both Bede and Alcuin had come from the nebulous institutional world of the Northumbrian church, however, and both were obsessed with the sacrificial service and the work of preaching they were calling upon doctores like Arn of Salzburg to provide. Because the need for preaching and pastoral care was felt to be so great, almost by definition their model of the church could not be prohibitively closed—​elitist, perhaps, but not utterly exclusive. Haimo of Auxerre, by contrast, seems to have lived in a more hierarchical, stratified world. Bede had compared the hairs of the 57 58 59

Emphasis mine. “Sic doctores sancti et cibum nobis salutaris doctrinae ministrant, et etiam secreta scripturarum nobis manifestant.” Haimo, Commentarium, col. 299B. “Nec semper ante Dominum hoc aliter impleri potest nisi tota nostra uita et conuersatio talis sit ut conspectu Dei oratio deputetur.” Haimo, Commentarium, col 321C. Haimo, Commentarium, col. 328B.

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Bride to ordinary people within the church, subject to the taming and controlling efforts of the doctores. For Haimo, similarly, the hairs of the church are the innumeram multitudinem simplicium fidelium, but for him this sense of the simple faithful had become a formal category by which to understand society; they are those constituted in laicali ordine.60 Where Bede, borrowing from Gregory the Great, had noted that there were three men declared just by God, Noah, Daniel and Job, Haimo makes of them a type of the three orders of the church: the doctors, the continent, and the married.61 Edmond Ortigues has called the tripartite division of society “une affair carolingienne,” and Haimo certainly experiments with several different versions, in the Song commentary but also in his commentaries on Paul and the Apocalypse, that suggests that the “ordering” of society was a growing preoccupation of his.62 After fifty years of Carolingian reform legislation, Haimo, like Alcuin, had deeply internalized the importance of baptism as the lone entry-​point of a soul into the church. As with Alcuin, baptism appears in Haimo’s Song commentary with a certain institutional specificity that it did not have with Bede. The church has cast off her servitude to the devil per baptismum and, through it, has been cleansed of her sins;63 the maidens who love Christ are those souls who have in baptismo reliquerunt sordes ueteris hominis.64 “No one,” says Haimo, “can be faithful without the bath of baptism.”65 For Haimo, like Alcuin, “Engaddi” signifies baptism specifically and not simply any general outpouring of divine grace through the doctores, as it had done with Bede, and Haimo follows Alcuin as well in saying that the church can call herself a daughter of the king because she has been eius sanguine redempta, eius baptismate regenerata.66 Ultimately, baptism for Haimo is the distinguishing mark of the church in the way that circumcision had been for the Synagogue and those under the law;67 in one instance, the entire church is described as being “whitened,” a candidate in both senses of the term.68

60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68

Haimo, Commentarium, col. 315B. “Tres enim sunt ordines Ecclesiae: doctorum, continentium, et coniugatorum; quae species in tribus uiris illis demonstratae sunt, Noe, Daniel et Iob.” Haimo, Commentarium, col. 337A; Cf. Bede, ICC, 302, lns. 110–​113. Edmond Ortigues, “Haymon d’Auxerre:  théoricien des trois orders,” in L’ecole carolingienne d’Auxerre, 181–​83; Guy Lobrichon, “L’ordre de ce temps et les désordres de la fin,” 232. Haimo, Commentarium, col. 298D. Haimo, Commentarium, col. 295C-​D. See also col. 302C and 343B. Haimo, Commentarium, col. 316A. See also 349 B-​C. Haimo, Commentarium, col. 300C and 342A. Haimo, Commentarium, col. 310B. Cf. also col. 339C. Haimo, Commentarium, col. 319C.

134 ­chapter  Perhaps because he views baptism as so crucial—​the most important of the ways the doctores serve as conduits of divine grace—​one doesn’t sense Haimo obsessively trying to locate preaching in the images of the Song in quite the same way as Bede and Alcuin. Haimo respects Bede’s interpretation, and preaching certainly has a significant place in his Song commentary,69 but it is possible that of equal or even greater personal interest to him is the art of exegesis itself and the puzzling out of the arcana et intima scripturarum, displayed in his careful explication of both letter and allegory in the images of the Song.70 Haimo does not seem to feel the white-​hot sense of urgency radiating throughout the commentaries of Bede and Alcuin, such that all the learning and good living of the doctores is only a means to the ultimate end of preaching the gospel message. As befitting a school-​text rather than a practical primer, Haimo’s Song commentary, both in its layout and its thematic emphases, has a more academic interest in exegesis than Alcuin’s impassioned rhetorical plea for pastoral care. It is revealing that, in the moment in the Song where the Bride searches for the Bridegroom throughout the watches of the night without success, Haimo suggests that she is hampered by her own infidelity and ignorance, but then launches into a small tirade against those pagan philosophers who, similarly, searched fruitlessly for knowledge of God. Alcuin had mentioned that the Bride had gone first to the magisteria philosophorum, but Haimo goes out of his way to name the names of the principal culprits as he sees them, who tried to seek the Creator through His creation and “did not find him”: “such as Plato, who in the Timaeus argued many things about the soul, and such as Aristotle, Socrates, and the rest, who spent all the times of their lives in studies in order to seek the truth.”71 In Haimo’s Song commentary, the doctores are, in short, nos: the class identity of the doctores, as seen in the letters of Alcuin, is for Haimo simply a fact. While Haimo does preserve in his commentary the obligation of the doctores to be nurturing providers of doctrine to the unlearned in the church, his is a school text, and he is more detached about the need for preaching. What exercises Haimo most, in fact, is intellectual error:  the threat of heresy, the

69 70 71

Haimo, Commentarium, cols. 314D; 317A-​B; 327A; 327D; 328C; 342A-​B; 347D. Haimo, Commentarium, cols. 299C; 308B; 321C; 326B-​327A; 332B-​332D; 335A. “Multi enim philosophorum Deum ignorantes, studio tamen summo illum requirebant, per creaturam Creatorem cognoscere volentes; sicut Plato, qui in Timaeo multa de anima disputauit, et sicut Aristoteles, Socrates, et caeteri, qui omne uitae suae tempus in studiis exquirendae ueritatis expendebant. Quaesivi illum, et non inveni. Non enim per mundanam sapientiam Deus cognosci potuit.” Haimo, Commentarium, cols. 309 A-​B; cf. Alcuin, Compendium 130, lns. 8–​9.

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disruptive activities of heretics within the church, and the shortcomings of pagan philosophers. Haimo’s approach to the Song is both more concise than Bede’s and more academic than Alcuin’s. In striking that balance, he created what would become the most popular, and most misattributed Song commentary in the entire Middle Ages. 4.4

Amalarius of Metz’s On the Liturgy

Given its associative nature, early medieval allegorical exegesis had a distinct tendency to proliferate: the Carolingian reform would produce commentaries on the Benedictine Rule and the liturgy as well as on scripture, reflecting the confidence and self-​conscious consistency of the reform. Amalarius of Metz’s On the Liturgy reflects the systematization and crystallization of clerical identity in exegesis, freighting the tiniest details of vestments and vessels with meaning. On the Liturgy is an argument for clerical identity as rooted and expressed in scripture, and in particular in the Old Testament; just as Louis the Pious is described as the novus Solomon, the Carolingian doctores are represented as the new Levitical caste.72 That Amalarius’s work was declared heretical at the Synod of Quierzy in 838 as a result of the sustained campaign by Florus of Lyons was perhaps not widely known outside of southern France. While the condemnation appears to have affected the transmission of Amalarius’s other works, On the Liturgy survives in numerous manuscripts, and is a testament to how it resonated among the Carolingian clergy. I have argued that the Song of Songs exerted its influence as a macro-​or governing narrative of ecclesiology and clerical identity, as part of the Carolingian systematization of the interpretation of scripture. As important as the direct quotation of the Song text, therefore, are those biblical texts associated with the Song as epithalamium and understood to represent a continuation or extension of the narrative and imagery of the wedding of Christ and the church. While On the Liturgy shows Amalarius invoking the Song explicitly, it also shows him, like Paschasius Radbertus after him, taking up those texts read in association with or in contradistinction from the Song: the Apocalypse, Psalm 45, the foil of the prophet Jeremiah, and the forma servi of Philippians 2:7. In this way, both Septuagesima and Lent proper are understood to signify times when the “voice of the bride and the bridegroom” (Jer. 25:10–​12) are 72

I have used here the modern translation by Eric Knibbs: Amalar of Metz, On the Liturgy, two vols. (Harvard University Press:  Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, 2014), Preface, cap. 7.

136 ­chapter  not heard as a necessary part of penitence: “Let the bridegroom go forth from his bed, and the bride out of her bride chamber” (Joel 2:12, 16).73 Amalarius stressed the divinity and the splendor of the appearance of Christ in terms of the ointments and perfumes of the bridegroom; while he invokes Psalm 44 (45) directly, similar language also appears in the Song of Songs. In this way, Amalarius understands that balsam is added to the oil of chrism, which, as we have seen, already had associations in Carolingian exegesis with the Song of Songs, “because celestial splendor shines in the face of Christ.”74 In a fascinating passage on the litanies surrounding the rite of baptism, Amalarius suggests that they signify the intercession of all saints and describes the appearance of the throne room of heaven in the language of the Apocalypse: Christ enthroned, the seven lampstands, the sea of glass or crystal representing the water itself. Amalarius goes on to discuss why those baptized are robed in albs, linking the baptized anointed with chrism with the community of the faithful saints in heaven, and directly refers to those encyclicals produced “by some archbishops in the time of Charles of most blessed memory, in a letter to the same Charles that they wrote at his request.”75 It suggests the extent to which the Carolingian clergy envisioned the liturgy as a means to duplicate and thereby participate in heavenly realities which found their most vivid evocation in the narratives of the Apocalypse and the Song of Songs. Significantly, Amalarius invokes the Song of Songs directly at the moment when the bishop appears at Mass: the bishop, qui vicarius est Christi, is Christ’s stand-​in and surrogate.76 His entrance into the church, says Amalarius, “calls to mind Christ’s coming and the union of the people with him, whether through his preaching or the preaching of his preachers.”77 The incense “signifies Christ’s body suffused with a pleasing odor” and the candles for the “light of the preachers.” In procession, Amalarius argues that the procession of seven deacons in ministry, with the bishop in the middle, echoes the division between the Old Testament, the gospels, and the rest of the New Testament, and he outlines several other possible processional scenarios depending on the number of deacons and subdeacons present. Always, clerical identity deliberately

73 74 75 76 77

Amalar, On the Liturgy, 1.1 and 1.7, 1:30–​31 and 68–​69. See also his discussion of fasting at Pentecost at 1.36, 1:326–​27. On the Liturgy, 1.12, 1:114–​15. On the Liturgy, 1.28–​29, 1:276–​83. Sigrid Danielson, “The Bishop’s Presence: Detecting Episcopal Authority in the Early Middle Ages,” Envisioning the Bishop, 135–​51. On the Liturgy, 3.5, 2:30–​31.

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mirrors the ordering of the scripture they proclaim. Once the procession is complete, and before the Gloria is sung, the clergy offer to one another the kiss of peace. But we should wait for this until what the bride begs for in the Song of Songs comes to pass: “Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth.” You know, as the Apostle says, that Christ emptied himself and took the form of a servant. Thus, after the bishop has been brought to the church, he stands and bows until his act of humility, in which he was “made obedient” to the Father “unto death,” is accomplished. In the midst of this bow he gives the kiss of peace to the ministers who are at his right and left. And this is the peace through which the church is reconciled to God, whether in the New Testament or the Old. It destroyed that middle wall of hostilities, and made both one; it gave peace to those were far away and those who were near. He offers the same kiss of peace to the cantors who stand behind him, fulfilling what he said to his disciples: “My peace I give unto you, my peace I leave with you.” He gives it to those who are present; he leaves it with those who are absent, whether in the Old Testament or the New. This is what we are accustomed to say.78 In a single set of gestures Amalarius binds together in the person of the bishop the Bridegroom of the Song of Songs, the forma servi of Philippians, and the reconciliation of the Old and New Testaments. It is intriguing that Amalarius, who briefly held Agobard’s archdiocese at Lyons, where, as we have seen, the adoptionist Felix of Urgell lived out his days, would deliberately invoke the once-​contested image of the forma servi in the liturgical context of the kiss of peace between clergy. A little further in the service, the bishop’s kiss of the altar before reading the gospel Amalarius likens to the ferculum of King Solomon from the Song of Songs: “spread with charity for the daughters of Jerusalem.”79 As we will see in the next chapter, this would be the single image which Hincmar of Rheims would take up to signify the church as a whole, and which Paschasius Radbertus would also compare to the eucharistic table. The Song of Songs did not only give Carolingian exegetes a set of imagery by which to visualize Christ and the church; the nature of the original Hebrew poetry, itemizing the Bride’s beauty feature by feature, led an exegete further to ponder the specific roles and duties of the component orders within the church. Gregory the Great had inspired Bede to read the Song of Songs in this 78 79

On the Liturgy, 3.5, 2:42–​43. On the Liturgy, 3.5, 2:46–​47.

138 ­chapter  way, but the eighth-​century Northumbrian church was institutionally flexible and amorphous and Bede’s interpretation of the Song was not wedded indissolubly to a particular institutional culture and structure. Alcuin, on the other hand, took from Bede the clarion call to preach, teach, and baptize, which Bede heard in the Bridegroom’s multiple entreaties to hear the voice of the Bride, and his commentary would present Bede’s ecclesiological interpretation in simple narrative form, a rallying cry for a Carolingian cadre of doctores. Alcuin would also frequently invoke the imagery of the Song of Songs in his network of letters, encouraging others to use it as means to define an in-​group and a crystallizing social caste of Carolingian religious elite. By the time Amalarius of Metz and Haimo of Auxerre take up the Song of Songs, it is in a far more demarcated and delineated institutional context. Moreover, it is also when Carolingian biblical exegesis as a discipline had reached an unprecedented level of maturity and confidence, even when the political stability of the Carolingian regime began to show signs of strain. How Carolingian exegetes would become bold enough to use the Song of Songs, long associated with the Old Testament kings David and Solomon, to advise the Carolingian king is the subject to which we must now turn.

­c hapter 5

Writing a Song for Solomon: Song Exegesis for Carolingian Kings At the Council of Frankfurt and later, central to the Carolingian dynasty’s claim to imperium was Charlemagne’s visible support and defense of correct Trinitarian doctrine. The Carolingian dynasty held the throne, went the argument of both Theodulf and Alcuin, by virtue of their kings’ ability to see and recognize the divinity of Christ, supported by a class of learned doctores able to interpret scripture correctly. In this way, the exalted, special nature of Christ, as portrayed in the Song of Songs’ depiction of the Bridegroom, underpinned a high Christology which, in turn, supported a high, Eusebian conception of Carolingian kingship. Early medieval Song exegesis played an instrumental role in conceptualizing the nature of Christ, the relationship between Christ and the church, and within the church itself, the role and duties of the doctores toward the people of God. Biblical exegesis generally, and Song exegesis in particular, therefore, played an inescapable part in Carolingian court life, underpinning royal ideology and court ceremony, inspiring royal patronage of art and scholarship, and providing models of personal conduct for the ruler to be emulated by the rest of the nobility. The traditional association of the Song of Songs with Solomon, and the importance of Old Testament kingship, and of David and Solomon in particular, to Carolingian political ideology, virtually guaranteed that Song exegesis would have a particular political charge. While the essential core of the ecclesiastical interpretation of the Song remained intact, Carolingian doctores adjusted how they framed Song exegesis in order to make it suitable and edifying reading for kings. This chapter will focus on two works in particular: the Enarrationes in Cantica Canticorum by Angelomus of Luxeuil and the Explanatio in Ferculum Salomonis by Hincmar of Rheims. Strikingly, both works were written within only a few years of each other and, significantly, both were commissioned, custom-​made responses by Angelomus and Hincmar to personal requests from two brother kings: respectively, from Lothar at some point after his wife Ermengard’s death in 851 and from Charles the Bald between 853 and 856. Both works, I would argue, were intended to encourage kings to meditate upon the nature of their own kingship, refracted in different ways through the prism of the Song of Songs. Angelomus stressed the importance of a king’s understanding of scripture as part of the defense and administration of the realm, common to much of Carolingian

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 | DOI:10.1163/9789004389250_007

140 ­chapter  biblical exegesis. More particularly, however, Angelomus used the imagery of the Song of Songs to show the transformation of both the church and Christ into transcendent glory by humility and suffering; in so doing, he emphasized the need for the king to have both humility and self-​control to govern rightly both himself and his realm. By contrast, Hincmar’s In ferculum Salomonis was originally an acrostic poem, a sophisticated fusion of word and image popular in the Carolingian court. Although the original unfortunately does not survive, Hincmar would have arranged particular words—​in this case, particular doctrines—​in such a way as to form the larger image of the ferculum, understood to be the church. Hincmar’s allusion to the Song and its exegesis certainly underscores the extent to which Carolingian doctores used the imagery of the Song to think about the church as a whole. Like Paschasius’s use of Solomon’s ferculum in his preface to De corpore et sanguine Domini, and perhaps directly inspired by it, in his choice of image Hincmar emphasizes his own membership among the doctores and their role as arbiters of orthodoxy. Moreover, in presenting the work to Charles, as Paschasius had done before him, Hincmar implicitly makes Charles one of the doctores himself with the responsibility of protecting the church, and the entire image of the ferculum of King Solomon a kind of mnemonic device for the orthodox teachings of the church that he particularly wanted Charles to defend. 5.1

The King, the Prophet, and the Book of the Law

If the Franks increasingly viewed themselves as a new Israel, their kings modeled themselves after the few upright rulers to be gleaned from the pages of the Old Testament—​Josiah, Hezekiah, Joseph, and most ubiquitously, David and Solomon—​all of whom were judged by their ability to live according to the laws of God and to propagate correct worship.1 If, by the 820s, the notion 1 The great learning of the king, whether real or patently false, had been a fixture in Frankish court panegyric since the days of Venantius Fortunatus. See Peter Godman, Poets and Emperors:  Frankish Politics and Carolingian Poetry (Oxford:  Clarendon Press, 1987), 18, 55, 64–​65; Rosamond McKitterick, “Charles the Bald (823–​877) and His Library: the Patronage of Learning,” The English Historical Review 95 (1980): 34. For the impact of biblical models on Carolingian kings, see Sassier, Royauté et idéologie au Moyen Âge, 122–​40; Mary Garrison, “The Franks as New Israel? Education for an identity from Pippin to Charlemagne,” The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Yitzhak Hen and Matthew Innes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 159; T. F. X. Noble, “Tradition and Learning in Search of Ideology: the Libri Carolini,” in The Gentle Voices of Teachers: Aspects of Learning in the Carolingian Age, ed. Richard E. Sullivan (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1995), 238–​40, and most recently,

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of the Franks as a chosen Israel had paled in favor of the more inclusive and empire-​friendly ecclesia gentium, the figure of Solomon, with a reputation for wisdom and peace, may have seemed a more appealing model than his father.2 Solomon’s great wisdom, his construction of the Temple, and his reputation as a just judge suggested to Carolingian kings and doctores the kind of all-​ encompassing reform that would be pleasing to God, while Solomon’s fabulous wealth, given to him by God, hinted at the potential rewards of a successfully implemented program.3 In the hands of the poets, the trope of the king’s great learning was a form of flattery intended to link patron and encomiast, as much to call attention to the latter as to glorify the former: a poet like Paul the Deacon

Images, Iconoclasm and the Carolingians, 234–​40. For an analysis of Theodulf of Orleans’s dismissal of similar Byzantine claims, see 207–​216. 2 Paul J.  E. Kershaw, Peaceful Kings:  Peace, Power, and the Early Medieval Political Imagination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 174–​77; Hans Hubert Anton, Fürstenspiegel und Herrscherethos in der Karolingerzeit (Bonn: Ludwig Röhrscheid Verlag, 1968), 112, 420–​30. See also Mayke de Jong, “Charlemagne’s Church,” Charlemagne: Empire and Society, ed. Joanna Story (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005), 114. 3 “Ut post mortem bellicosissimi David multo tempore finitimae gentes manu fortissima subiugatae eius filio Salomoni pacifico tributa dependerunt, ita propter timorem et tributa augustissimo imperatori Karolo persoluta, filium eius Hludowicum gens immanissima Nordmannorum simili veneratione solebat honorare.” Notker Balbulus, Gesta Karoli Magni, MGH SS rer. Germ. N.S. 12, Bk. ii, cap. 19, 89, lns. 16–​21. “Quid Hiberniam memorem, contempto pelagi discrimine, pene totam cum grege philosophorum ad littora nostra migrantem. Quorum quisquis peritior est, ultro sibi indicit exsilium, ut Salomoni sapientissimo famuletur ad votum.” Heiric of Auxerre, Vita Sancti Germani Antissiodorensis, PL 124, col. 1133C-​D. Over the course of his career, Sedulius Scottus would cannily address Charles the Bald, Lothar, and Lothar ii all as Solomon, and compare Lothar’s wife Ermengard to Solomon’s bride—​and by implication, to the Sponsa of the Song. For Lothar, “Alter Salemon redolens charisma pacis,” Carm. liii, ln. 8; also for Lothar, “Gnosce, Sion, dominum nunc Salemona tuum,” Carm. xxvi, ln. 12; “Rex tuus mitis, sapiens, honorus/​Pacifer ductor Salemonis instar/​Nunc venit Caesar, tuus, alma, princeps …” from “De adventu imperatoris Lotharii,” Carm. lx, lns. 17–​20; “Hic tuus est Salemon, felix o Francia, gaude,” from “Incipiunt reciproci versus scripti domino imperatori Lothario,” Carm. lviiii, lns. 25–​26; for Ermengard, “Caesar amat talem Salemonque Lotharius almam/​Augustam niveam diligit ipse suam,” Carm. xx, lns. 33–​34; for Charles, “Hic sedet altitrhonus celsi Salemonis ad instar/​Floriferae pacis gaudia dans populis,” Carm. xxviii, lns. 31–​32; also for Charles in 869, “Mente Salemonis sapientia prisca refulsit,” Carm. xii, ln. 21; for Lothar ii, also in 869, “Te Salemona pium uotis exoptat habere/​Eligit in regem te Salemona pium,” Carm. xxx, lns. 67–​68. Sedulius Scottus, Carmina, ed. I. Meyers, CCCM 117 (Turnhout:  Brepols, 1991). Hincmar’s life of Remigius frequently cites the proverbs of Solomon, invoked by name, as does his consecration prayer, citing Solomon’s “strength in peace,” which would be continually in use by Frankish kings from the time of its inclusion in the 877 ordo. Cf. Meredith Parsons Lillich, “King Solomon in Bed, Archbishop Hincmar, the Ordo of 1250, and the Stained-​Glass Program of the Nave of Reims Cathedral,” Speculum 80 (2005): 783–​84.

142 ­chapter  attributed to Charlemagne precisely that degree of learning that he wanted to advertise himself as possessing.4 At court, Carolingian kings were surrounded by learned lectores who could help them decipher the complexities of the biblical text and who could, as Hrabanus Maurus complains, occasionally misinterpret the intention of the exegete.5 As Mayke de Jong has demonstrated with Hrabanus’s work, biblical exegesis formed “part of the circuit of gift-​exchange between royal fideles and the ruler,” with the exegete’s work both privately emphasizing his loyalty to the monarch and publicly acclaiming the ruler’s legitimacy. As she suggests, “It was the legitimate ruler who deserved biblical commentary, for only he (or she) would possess the sapientia needed for a true spiritual understanding.”6 What better gift for “our Solomon” than an exegesis of the book said to contain the highest form of that vera sapientia? Exegesis intended for kings could operate in a double-​edged fashion, however. While reinforcing the symbolic authority of the ruler, as interpreter of the biblical text the exegete also dictated the terms in which that symbolic authority was expressed. To be acclaimed as a new Solomon was contingent on the agreement and support of the Carolingian doctores.7 Far from viewing Carolingian ecclesiastical leaders solely as royal functionaries, scholars now have a deeper appreciation for the degree to which bishops, abbots, and biblical scholars strenuously argued the cause of reform to the king. By virtue of their offices, the doctores were expected to be masters of the biblical text and to advise the king on the importance of religious devotion and correct religious observance, even if it meant striking a delicate balance between flattery and criticism of the king.8 Like the monks of Tours in creating the First Bible—​a 4

5 6 7

8

Godman, Poets and Emperors, 55. For an extended discussion of the delicate issue of Charlemagne’s actual scholarly ability, see Paul Edward Dutton, “Karolus Magnus Scriptor,” Charlemagne’s Mustache: And Other Cultural Clusters of a Dark Age (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 1994), 69–​92. Epistolae, ed. E. Dümmler, MGH Epp. 5 (Berlin, 1899), 381–​516; De Jong, “Old Law and New-​ Found Power,” 165–​66. Mayke de Jong, “Empire as Ecclesia: Hrabanus Maurus and Biblical Historia for Rulers,” in The Uses of the Past, 205–​06. Like Booker, Garipzanov also sees a transformation in the clergy between the 810s and the 830s, in their titles becoming much less submissive servants of the realm: “they viewed themselves primarily as subjects of God and servants of the Christian community, and only secondly as subjects of a Christian ruler.” This only intensified after 840, with regional loyalties helping to exacerbate tensions. The Symbolic Language of Authority, 216–​17. See also Lynda Coon, Dark Age Bodies: Gender and Monastic Practice in the Early Medieval West (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 4. For Ganshof, the church was one of the few areas in which a Carolingian king could exercise truly effectual control, with “the Frankish church … in large measure at the service of the monarchy,” with the political and administrative duties of the doctores taking precedence

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“painted Trojan horse”—​for a young Charles the Bald, exegetes could and did send extremely elaborate coded messages to their kings in hopes of influencing them.9 Hincmar of Rheims in particular, as we shall see, was unequalled at this sort of subliminal advertising, secreting the archbishop’s personal views concerning church-​state relations or the moral conduct of the ruler within ornate luxury objects intended for the king, the court, or on occasion, even as far afield as Rome. Although Hincmar would be the consummate master of the “mirror for princes,” the quantity and diversity of Hincmar’s works emphasizes the extent to which the Fürstenspiegel genre was indicative of an entire Carolingian mode of court discourse, in which, I would argue, the Song commentary of Angelomus of Luxeuil also participates.10 As the lynch-​pin of Carolingian government, the

9

10

over their religious ones. F. L. Ganshof, The Carolingians and the Frankish Monarchy: Studies in Carolingian History, trans. Janet Sondheimer (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1971), 206–​207. The work of Janet Nelson, Rosamond McKitterick, Stuart Airlie, David Ganz, and Mayke de Jong, among others, has replaced this view with a more interactive, consensual, symbiotic model between a Carolingian ruler and his senior ecclesiastical officials. For example, speaking of the 870 Salzburg text, the Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum, Stuart Airlie writes of a “two-​way street” between the king and his churchmen: “But the Conversio’s author did not simply assume that Louis would be a sympathetic audience. He skilfully portrayed rulership in his text so as to shape the king’s response. His picture is designed to act both as a record of, and a blueprint for the behavior of right-​thinking Frankish rulers. As such it reveals much of what the great churchmen on active pastoral service in the Carolingian world expected of their rulers, as well as demonstrating how the latter sought to fulfil these expectations. Relations between Salzburg and Louis were a two-​way street. If the Conversio is to some extent a mirror for a prince, it is one with a very clear reflection.” Stuart Airlie, “True Teachers and Pious Kings: Salzburg, Louis the German, and Christian Order,” in Belief and Culture in the Middle Ages: Studies Presented to Henry Mayr-​Harting, ed. Richard Gameson and Henrietta Leyser (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) 101–​02. Paul Edward Dutton and Herbert L. Kessler, The Poetry and Paintings of the First Bible of Charles the Bald (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997), 4. Christopher Heath has recently argued for Paul the Deacon’s Gesta Episcopum Mettensium as an early example of a similarly coded message advertising the role of Metz and its bishops in promoting both the cause of the Carolingian dynasty and its connections with Rome: The Narrative Worlds of Paul the Deacon: Between Empires and Identities in Lombard Italy (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2017), 86–​107. The major studies of the genre are Anton’s Furstenspiegel and Otto Eberhardt, Via Regia:  Der Fürstenspiegel Smaragds von St. Mihiel und seine literarische Gattung (Munich:  Wilhelm Fink, 1977). See also Wojciech Falkowski, “The Carolingian speculum principis: the Birth of a Genre,” Acta Poloniae Historica 98 (2008): 5–​27; Michel Rouche, “Miroirs des princes ou miroir du clergé?” Settimane di studio del centro Italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo 39 (1992): 48–​49; Marta Christiani, “Ego Sapientia, Habito in Consilio, Proverbia 8:12–​16:  nella teologica politica carolingia,” Consilium:  Teorie e pratiche del consigliare nella cultura medievale, ed. Carla Casagrande, Chiara Crisciani, and Silvana Vecchio (Florence:  sismel, 2004), 125–​38; Luned Davies, “Sedulius Scottus:  Liber de

144 ­chapter  king had to be seen to lead not only in matters of military and administrative policy but also in conduct and behavior, which would (hopefully) be imitated by lay elites.11 For the monarch, this necessitated deadly earnest, near-​constant self-​examination. As Janet Nelson dryly remarks, this “remorseless probing and exposing of individual conversatio, that is, motivation and conduct, sounds like a cross between Quaker meeting and quality inspection, with traces of confessional, lawcourt, touchgroup, and management training session.”12 This is a more interior, less linear activity than merely navigating between the good and bad exempla that were so much a part of the classical Fürstenspiegel text. I  would argue, however, that Angelomus’s Song commentary was written to encourage precisely this sort of intense, personal meditation on kingship. In fact, both Angelomus’s commentary and Hincmar’s acrostic poem assume structured meditation on scripture, whatever form it took, as an integral part of an active life in the world, something enjoined on both clergy and educated laymen, and particularly kings. Meditation did not preclude withdrawal from the world, rather the reverse.13 Both texts represent a similar approach to meditation in the Carolingian world, in which the mind, anchored and guided by the structure of the base text, relied on an unexpected juxtaposition of texts or images, sometimes

11 1 2 13

Rhetoribus Christianis, a Carolingian or Hibernian Mirror for Princes?” Studia Celtica 26–​27 (1993): 34–​50; Amber Handy, “The Specula principum in Northwestern Europe, AD 650-​900: The Evolution of a New Ethical Rule” (Ph.D. dissertation: University of Notre Dame, 2011). T. F.  X. Noble, “Secular Sanctity:  Forging an Ethos for the Carolingian Nobility,” in Lay Intellectuals in the Carolingian World, ed. Patrick Wormald and Janet L.  Nelson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 8–​36. Janet L. Nelson, “The Voice of Charlemagne,” Belief and Culture in the Middle Ages, 81. The affective, charged language of the Song may well have played the functional role that Mary Carruthers suggests in imprinting the allegorical meaning of a text on the memory. Less reductively, however, the passion and intimacy of the Song no doubt also harmonized well with the warmth and strength of feeling encouraged in some Carolingian aristocratic lay devotion. In her handbook of advice, the Carolingian noblewoman Dhuoda repeatedly enjoins her son William to keep the teachings of the Fathers in his heart, and when reciting the canonical hours with the Psalter, to say them with intimam orationem, intimam confessionem, intima actionum, and intima mente. The strength of her own maternal feeling, she says, is what compelled her to write her little book, though she is weak and tepid by comparison to the fathers’ example. Dhuoda, Liber manualis, ed. Pierre Riché, SC 225 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1991), Bk. i, caps. 5 and 7; Bk. ii, cap. 3, Bk. iii, caps. 1 and 4; Bk. xi, cap. 1. For a study of the social bonds between kings, senior nobility and young aristocrats, and pervasive language of the “nourishing” of the pueri, see Matthew Innes, “ ‘A Place of Discipline’: Carolingian Courts and Aristocratic Youth,” in Court Culture in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Catherine Cubitt (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), 64–​65.

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reconfigured from familiar, patristic sources, to sharpen and awaken spiritual vision.14 In this context, the movement from the literal sense of the Song of Songs to an understanding of its allegorical sense could be considered in and of itself an act of meditation—​as Angelomus suggests, the machina from Gregory the Great’s homilies on the Song, elevating the soul toward God. As Mary Carruthers has argued, such meditative techniques routinely turned to visual aids like Hincmar’s acrostic, “making mental images or cognitive ‘pictures’ for thinking and composing,” and blurred modern boundaries between text and image. Sharp, vivid imagery, such as the self-​contained similes one finds in the Song text, was particularly helpful in etching information on the memory, where, as part of meditation and recall, the “recombinant sets of design elements” could be shuffled and rearranged at will.15 It was in particular the union of text and image that made an image potent, functional, a tool in a “craft of thought”; as David Ganz has noted, Hrabanus valued an image for its beauty but concentrated chiefly on its purpose as a “spur to contemplation,” and an image without a titulum was of no use at all.16 Given how saturated the Carolingian court was with images of David and Solomon, it was perhaps inevitable that exegetes writing for the court would eventually address Song interpretation to a Carolingian ruler. And yet, within the parameters of the early medieval Song tradition, it was a slightly problematic association to make. As we have seen, to Carolingian exegetes the Song of Songs signified the third and most advanced of Solomon’s books of wisdom, an allegory of Christ and the church, and in most early medieval Song commentaries, an exploration of the position, role, and duties of the doctores within the church. The king, however, was neither a doctor nor a Christ-​figure, though imperial ideology partook of elements of both, and paradoxically, even though it was a commonplace of that ideology, the king could not be directly and 14

15 16

Celia Chazelle has suggested that this sort of meditation is exemplified by Amalarius of Metz’s Liber officialis, as well as by Hrabanus’s famous collection of acrostic poems, In honorem sanctae crucis. See “Amalarius’s Liber officialis,” 333. For the image of Louis the Pious in Hrabanus’s In honorem sanctae crucis as an extended meditation on imperium, see Michel Perrin, “La répresentation figurée de César-​Louis le Pieux chez Raban Maur en 835: Religion et idéologie,” Francia: Forschungen zur westeuropäischen Geschichte 24 (1997/​8): 39–​64. Carruthers, The Craft of Thought, 3, 136–​39, 167. David Ganz, “Pando quod ignoro: In Search of Carolingian Artistic Experience,” in Intellectual Life in the Middle Ages: Essays presented to Margaret Gibson, ed. Lesley Smith and Benedicta Ward (London: Hambledon Press, 1992), 29–​30; see also Rosamond McKitterick, “Text and Image in the Carolingian World,” in The Uses of Literacy in Early Medieval Europe, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 297–​318.

146 ­chapter  explicitly addressed as “Solomon” within either work of Song interpretation without setting him in the traditional place of Christ.17 Even to be known as a Solomon, I would suggest, contained an element of tacit warning as well as praise. For Alcuin, Hrabanus, Angelomus, and others, although Solomon was understood allegorically as a type of Christ as well as a potential model for the ideal king, the historical Solomon was a rather more problematic figure. While a paragon of virtue in his youth, in his later years the biblical Solomon was overly influenced by his wives and prone to idolatry, calling down the wrath of God upon Israel and causing the ultimate division of the kingdom. This was always a very sensitive political flashpoint for the Carolingians, and particularly for Louis.18 Instead of likening the Carolingian monarch directly 17

18

Gilbert Dagron has pointed out both the power and the danger inherent in the use of Old Testament models, particularly those of Saul, David, and Solomon, within a Byzantine context. That the emperor could be both king and priest “was both what could not be said and what it was impossible not to think,” and it remained an extremely powerful ideal even when (or precisely because) it could not be directly stated. In an interesting parallel to the role of the Carolingian doctores, Dagron argues that it was not the ambiguity surrounding the role of the emperor which necessarily caused instability within Byzantine ecclesiology, but the role and ambitions of the patriarch. Gilbert Dagron, Emperor and Priest: The Imperial Office in Byzantium, trans. Jean Birrell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 4, 50, 310. The Council of Paris (829) reiterated to Louis the Pious David’s warnings to Solomon, perhaps implying, none too delicately, that he might go the same way as the late Solomon: “Adtendite etiam et David instruentem Salomonem filium suum, de quo in primo libro Malachim legitur: Ego’, inquit, ingredior viam universae terrae; confortare et esto vir fortis et observa, ut custodias precepta domini Dei tui, ut ambules in viis eius et custodias ceremonias eius et iudicia eius et precepta et testimonia, sicut scriptum est in lege Moysi’; et in libro Paralipomenon:  Tu autem Salomon, fili mi, scito Deum patris tui et servi ei corde perfecto et animo voluntario.’ ” Cap. 196, ed. Alfred Boretius, Additamenta ad Hludowici Pii Capitularia, MGH Cap. 2.2 (Hanover, 1897), cap. 5, 49–​50. See Ermoldus Nigellus’s depiction of the pernicious influence of the unnamed wife of the Breton king Murman, in which she uses her sexuality to incite him to rebel, and Ermoldus’s pointed and explicit invocation of Solomon: Carmen in honorem Hludowici, ed. Ernst Dümmler, MGH Poetae 2 (Berlin, 1884), Bk. iii, lns. 221–​27. Isidore of Seville struggled with Solomon’s two extremes, in a passage copied into Hrabanus’s commentaries on Kings and Ecclesiastes, and the Kings commentaries of Claudius of Turin and Angelomus of Luxeuil. “Jam porro de caeteris operibus Salomonis quid dicam, quem vehementer arguit sancta Scriptura atque condemnat, et nihil de poenitentia ejus vel in eum indulgentia Dei omnino commemorat?… Apparet enim in persona huius Salomonis mira excellentia, et mira submersio. Quod igitur in illo diversis temporibus exstitit, prius bonum, et posterius malum, hoc in Ecclesia in isto adhuc saeculo simul uno tempore ostenditur. Nam bono illius bonos Ecclesiae, mala autem illius, malos Ecclesiae significari puto: tanquam in unitate illius areae: sicut in illo uno homine, bonos in granis, malos in paleis, aut certe in unitate unius segetis, bonos in tritico, malos in zizaniis.” Mysticorum expositiones sacramentorum seu Quaestiones in Vetus Testamentum, PL 83, col. 417C-​418A. Hrabanus Maurus,

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to the historical Solomon in the biblical text, Angelomus and Hincmar suggest in their different ways how the king might imitate the Bridegroom, taking on elements of Christ’s suffering and glory and his love and defense of the church. 5.2

Like Dripping Honey: Alcuin and Charlemagne

In the letters of Alcuin to Charlemagne concerning the role of exegesis in general and the use of the Song of Songs in particular, one can see that these complex tensions surrounding the imitation of Solomon had always existed. In a letter to Charlemagne written in 799, Ad dominum regem, Alcuin described biblical commentary as a necessary part of a ruler’s education.19 Particularly in a court context with “our Solomon” presiding, or between bishops and their chosen scholastici,20 one can easily imagine Alcuin’s Compendium or extracts from it being taught or read aloud to a small circle of spiritual elites.21 A letter of Alcuin reveals that even laymen could sometimes raise exegetical questions in Charlemagne’s presence; interestingly, Charlemagne, while forwarding the query to Alcuin at Tours, felt it necessary to say that he could have addressed the matter himself if he had wanted to.22 Certainly, the Song had a way of cropping up in Alcuin’s advice to the king.23 In a letter written in 794–​95, Alcuin reminds Charlemagne that David was chosen and beloved by God, and in addition to his military victories was also an eximius praedicator to his people. It is by the grace of Christ, the “flower of the field and the lily of

19 2 0 21

22 23

Commentariorum in Ecclesiasticum libri decem, PL 109, Bk. 10, cap. xv, cols. 1098C-​D; Hrabanus, Commentaria in libros IV Regum, Bk. iii, cap. 11, col. 198D-​199B; Claudius of Turin, XXX Questionum Super Libros Regum, PL 104, Bk. iii, cap. 11, cols. 739B-​740A; Angelomus of Luxeuil, Enarrationes in Libros Regum, PL 115, Bk. iii, cap. 11, cols. 470C-​D. “Ut pote in sancti scripturis uel saecularibus historiis te adprime eruditum esse nouimus. Ex his omnibus plene tibi scientia data est a Deo ut per te sancta Dei ecclesia in populo christiano regatur, exaltetur et conservetur.” Alcuin, Ep. 174 in Dümmler, 289, lns. 13–​15. De Jong, “From Scholastici to Scioli,” 48–​49. These need not necessarily have been male. The king’s sister Gisela and Rotrud, knowing that “neque aliam esse veram sapientiam,” wrote to Alcuin requesting that he write for them a commentary on John, complaining that Augustine’s Tractates were too difficult for them. Ep. 196 in Dümmler, 323–​25. See especially lns. 2 and 25–​27. Ep. 136 in Dümmler, 205–​210. A detailed study of this letter can be found in Mary Alberi, “The Sword which You Hold in Your Hand: Alcuin’s Exegesis of the Two Swords and the Lay Miles Christi,” in The Study of the Bible in the Carolingian Era, 117–​131. See also Alcuin’s letter to Charlemagne on the death of Queen Liutgard, whom Alcuin remembers, in a rather charming and poignant touch, in the language of the Song: “Soror mea, sponsa mea …” Ep. 197, in Dümmler, 325, lns. 33–​34.

148 ­chapter  the valleys” (Cant. 2:1), that he has granted to his people another David to be both rectorem et doctorem, whose responsibility it is to preserve the catholic faith.24 Rather like Paschasius to the nuns of Soissons, Alcuin’s 796–​7 letter to Charlemagne likens the school of York to the hortus conclusus; as well as suggesting Alcuin’s lasting affection for his old school, the letter implies that the language of the Song was associated, to Charlemagne and his advisors, with the propagation of the Carolingian reform. Finally, in conclusion to a long letter from 798, in response to two letters from Charlemagne, Alcuin professes himself bowled over that his lord should take such an interest in his humble affairs, that the sweetness of his words to Alcuin were quasi fauum distillans (Cant. 4:11), and he recalls the exclamation of the Queen of Sheba on hearing the wisdom of King Solomon on how blessed his servants were to live in close proximity to such wisdom.25 This seems fairly standard courtly adulation,26 but it is interesting how references to the Song and to Solomon appear in a letter also studded with phrases from Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, the other two “Solomonic” books of wisdom. Moreover, these references appear in the context of a discussion of new treatises by Alcuin concerning the phases of the moon and his latest broadside against the adoptionists. Given that Solomon was renowned both for his knowledge of the natural world and his wisdom in dealing with troublesome subjects, as well as for his construction of the temple, to invoke the Song would have been a way both of flattering Charlemagne and tacitly reminding him of his responsibilities. 5.3

Lothar, Angelomus of Luxeuil, and the Enarrationes in Cantica Canticorum

We know nothing about Angelomus of Luxeuil but what he tells us himself in the three biblical commentaries of his that survive, his only extant work. Nevertheless, it is suggestive of the prominence of Song interpretation in the Carolingian world and in the Carolingian court in particular that, after proving that he could tackle the abyssos of Genesis and spending a brief stint at Lothar’s court—​very likely teaching while he was there—​he turned to the Song of Songs. His third commentary, on Kings, shows a mature exegete fully 2 4 25 26

Ep. 41 in Dümmler, 84, lns. 12–​24. Ep. 145 in Dümmler, 234, lns. 21–​32. For an analysis of Alcuin’s occasionally overheated rhetoric to royalty and his cultivation of a passionate “cult of friendship,” based in part on Song language, see Jaeger, Ennobling Love, 43–​50.

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conversant with fashions in exegetical “gift exchange” with the ruler and the delicate business of advising a Carolingian king. Moreover, as with Bede’s commentary on the Song, Angelomus’s work was a carefully crafted rhetorical announcement not only of his own skill, but also of the refurbished glory of his recently reformed house, and in this light, perhaps also a bid for further patronage from Lothar. If Angelomus sought to impress Lothar, however, Lothar was perhaps equally desirous of seeming the sort of king who would want a Song commentary. Lothar, like Charles the Bald, was responsible for the commissioning of a number of luxury manuscripts emphasizing his interest in scripture and exegesis, most famously, the Lothar Gospels, produced at Tours between 849 and 851. The Lothar Gospels were requested, not as a gift for Lothar like the First Bible of Charles the Bald, also produced at Tours a few years earlier, but by Lothar himself as a votive offering for Tours itself, so that the monks would pray for him. As John Lowden and David Ganz have argued, the ruler-​images of Lothar in the Gospels and in his Psalter (London BL Add. MS 37768) would have been meaningless, use-​less, for both giver and recipient without the understanding of its social and religious context.27 As evidenced by his patronage of Hrabanus Maurus, the king’s interest in exegesis seemed to have been genuinely active; when he traveled, as Mayke de Jong has argued, Lothar carried with him a formidable bibliotheca historiarum for his use.28 The books of Kings and other “historical” works were the usual reading for a Carolingian monarch, as Angelomus, himself the author of a commentary on Kings, would have known quite well. In a letter to Hrabanus, Lothar suggests how understanding one of the ultimate Old Testament models of military leaders, Joshua, aided him in modeling his own conduct after Christ, the ultimate victor, the fulfillment of these Old Testament types: Others have brought things, whether small or great, out of the devotion of their faith, [but] you have offered from your service to us a very great 27

28

Ganz, “Pando quod ignoro,” 26; John Lowden, “The Royal/​Imperial Book and the Image or Self-​Image of the Medieval Ruler,” in Kings and Kingship in Medieval Europe, ed. Anne J. Duggan (Exeter: Short Run Press, Ltd., 1993), 221–​23. Garipzanov suggests that “the appearance of the ruler’s imagery in religious manuscripts, therefore, meant more active involvement of the clergy in the visual dialogue on royal authority,” and that royal authority and the divine ordo were being placed on the same level. The Symbolic Language of Authority, 238. The reference is from a letter of Hrabanus Maurus: Ep. 49 in Dümmler, 503; qtd. in Mayke de Jong, “The Emperor Lothar and his Bibliotheca Historiarum.” For her suggestions about how exegesis could serve as a traveling companion, see 34–​35.

150 ­chapter  book about the very noble leader Joshua. He displays a type of the true, eternal King, Jesus Christ, so that we who are soldiers should follow Jesus, nor can we otherwise attain and achieve victory, unless we cling to the Lord of virtues.29 Lothar’s request to Angelomus for a Song commentary suggests a king even more intellectually and spiritually ambitious, wanting to appear on a par with his doctores in his understanding of the highest of the book of Solomonic wisdom. Moreover, while Angelomus suggests that the king would have the work read to him—​auribusque lectione relata and lectitare, Deo favente—​in his allusion to Theodosius ii, as we shall see, Angelomus made much of the Roman emperor’s habit of personally transcribing with his own hand the texts he wanted to study, again suggesting to Lothar the model of a monarch who chose to live like a monk, and like a monk more learned than most.30 Written at Luxeuil or not, there is no escaping that Angelomus’s work is court exegesis, in dialogue with and partaking of the conventions of court literature.31 As we have seen, Angelomus reminds Lothar that it was in uestro sacro palatio, in the king’s presence, that the subject was first suggested, and 29

30

31

“Alii conferunt ex devotione fidei suae parva vel magna, tu contulisti muneribus tuis nobis maximum librum ducis nobilissimi Iesu Nave, qui tipum veri regis aeterni Iesu Christi preferebat, ut Iesum comitemur armati, nec aliter ad capessendam victoriam valemus accedere, nisi Domino virtutum adhereamus.” Lothar I, Ep. 38, ed. Dümmler, MGH Epp. 5, 475. I have followed Eric Miller’s translation of the passage. It is in this light that we should probably understand Einhard’s famous description of Charlemagne struggling to form his letters—​not as a guilty admission of the king’s ignorance, but as a description of the king’s intellectual ambitions—​of which, presumably, Lothar would have been well aware. Einhard, Life of Charlemagne, cap. 25. A significant feature of the Carolingian reform in the eighth and ninth centuries, as Rosamond McKitterick has shown, was its concern with the propagation and dissemination of an “ ‘official’ court-​based history” like the Annales regni francorum or Paul the Deacon’s Historia langobardorum to provide the Carolingian family and the aristocratic elite with a coherent past to which they could refer and around which their identity could fully crystallize: History and Memory in the Carolingian World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). See also Stuart Airlie, “The World, the Text, and the Carolingians: Royal, Aristocratic, and Masculine Identities in Nithard’s Histories,” in Lay Intellectuals in the Carolingian World, 61–​62. For a discussion of the nature of Carolingian courtly society, see J. Nelson, “Was Charlemagne’s Court a Courtly Society?” in Court Culture in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Catherine Cubitt (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), 39–​57. For a critique of too narrow definitions of court literature, in the same volume, see Lawrence Nees, “The Illustrated Manuscript of the Visio Baronti [Revelatio Baronti] in St. Petersburg (Russian National Library, cod. lat. Oct.v.I.5),” 91–​92. Rosamond McKitterick also suggests that, at least in the reign of Charles the Bald, royal patronage did not necessarily create a single centralized location for an atelier or palace school. “The Palace School of Charles the Bald,” Charles

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after the queen’s death became particularly apropos. Despite imperiis imperialibus, the magnitude of the undertaking nearly overcame Angelomus, he recounts, and he only rallied, he says, due to the encouragement of his abbot Drogo, who exhorted him to continue “not only because he was the son of the Emperor Charles the Great, and the brother of your most holy and pious father Caesar Louis, but because he was the highest pontiff (pontifex) and my distinguished abbot.”32 Whatever Drogo’s actual involvement with Luxeuil at that point, which may well have been considerable, nevertheless, in the context of the court, it was a canny maneuver for Angelomus to drop Drogo’s name and to ascribe to him an influential, even pivotal role in the production of the Song commentary, all the while casting himself as the quiet, self-​effacing monk: … But since he is very meek and with persuasive courtesy, with very outstanding kindness, and is very zealous for the good of all, he ordered, in the fashion of his modesty, not only naturally by his independent authority, but also with mild calm and pious speech, so that I was not able to refuse to undertake the anguishing (angustale) work and the spiritual distinction, insofar as I was able.33 Practically incoherent with superlatives, Angelomus’s fulsome praise of Drogo makes the Song commentary very much a Carolingian family affair, one that, incidentally, brings the humble exegete, basking in its reflected glory, some measure of spirituale decus. The prefatory letter shows Angelomus drawing on every scrap of Greek he knows—​and a few he doesn’t—​and his construction of an inflated, not to say, tortured style when addressing the king directly. Phrases such as his introduction of himself rely for their impact on the changes Angelomus could ring on a single Latin word: Angelomus, ultimus monachorum, exorans exorando exorat nancisci perennem gloriam, or, Quem supplex supplicando supplico, or concerning Priscian’s grammar, disertitudine mira dissertissimum.34 Alliteration

32 33

34

the Bald: Court and Kingdom, ed. Margaret Gibson and Janet Nelson (Hampshire: Variorum, 1990), 339. “… non solum quod Caroli Magni imperatoris filius, atque frater sanctissimi et piisimi genitoris uestri Ludovici Caesaris, sed quia summus erat pontifex atque abbas meus egregius.” Angelomus, Enarrationes, Col. 552C. “… uerum ut est mitissimus et affabilitate suadibilis, benignitate praestantissimus, et ad omne bonum ferventissimus, more suae modestiae non tantum ingenue libera auctoritate imperauit, sed blanda tranquilitate et pio affatu, ut angustale opus, et spirituale decus quomodo quiuissem aggredi non abnuissem.” Angelomus, Enarrationes, Col. 552C-​D. Angelomus, Enarrationes, col. 551B; 627D; 628A.

152 ­chapter  abounds, and he cannot resist the near pun-​like juxtaposition of sanctorum doctorum with doctorum sanctorum.35 At critical moments, such as his opening sentence after his inscriptio to Lothar, his sentences extend themselves to over half a column in the Patrologia Latina, culminating in his borrowing of Alcuin’s injunction from his Song commentary to do penance. The preface and conclusion are studded with obscure, Greek-​inspired words: stromata, syrmata, oroma, salpinx, and enchiridion, one actual Greek phrase (τοις βιβλοις), and several words, like trutinatione, calcetenus, and bilanciis, which, if not unheard-​ of, are at least comparatively rare.36 While a complete commentary, Angelomus’s Enarrationes is nothing like the concise dramatic style of Alcuin or the methodic clarity of Haimo of Auxerre, and certainly it is less consistent, alternating between contemplative flights of exegesis and brief, condensed exposition. Once past the ornate gilt frame of the prefatory letter and conclusion, the body of the text is largely a piecework of different texts on the Song: Gregory the Great’s homilies, the commentary of Apponius, and the anonymous ninth-​century Song commentary, the Vox Antique Ecclesie, itself a splicing together of Alcuin’s Compendium with the Vox Ecclesie, which, in turn, combined elements from Iustus of Urgell and Gregory of Elvira. This should not be taken as a criticism of the work or as a detraction from Angelomus’s creativity in putting it together; in fact, one of its p ­ urposes for Angelomus, rather as Bede had done before him, was to draw together in one place for Lothar diverse texts that perhaps were not always and everywhere available or in easily accessible form. As Angelomus explains, he was thus … relying on divine aid and challenged by the prayers of the learned saints, o most learned prince, I will try to undertake and I will attempt to complete, in the fashion of a little book, what I was able to find scattered in the sayings of the holy doctors, above all the glorious eloquence of the most blessed Roman Pope Gregory, in a single condensation 35

36

For example, his description of scripture as a Mount Zion is an alliterative sequence of words beginning with “p” and “s”: “Quod profecto plenius penetrare, et quodammodo montem diuinae Scripturae subire, nisi solerti studio et puritate cordis, et pudicitia corporis nequiveris. Scriptura etenim sacra, ut saepe praefatus tractator ait, mons est …” Angelomus, Enarrationes, col. 552D. Angelomus, Enarrationes, col. 551C. “Trutinatione” probably comes from Cassian (Collatio 12, cap. 8), and appears once in Paulinus of Aquileia’s Contra Felicem, Beatus of Lièbana’s Adversus Elipandum, and Sedulius Scotus’s Collectanea, respectively. “Calcetenus” appears in a letter of Charlemagne to Elipandus (Ep. vi) and Milo of St. Amand’s Vita metrica. “Bilance,” interestingly, appears in a letter of Hincmar of Rheims to Pope Nicolas concerning, among other things, the heresy of Gottschalk.

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[compactum]—​because I cannot find one anywhere—​and in the tradition of the Teacher [Gregory], with the reasoning of my mind with flowing pen, divided rather and succinct in speech—​though unpolished—​ such that your swiftness might have a handbook [enchiridion], that is, as it were, a little book of excerpts [libellum excerptum], which it might please you to read [lectitare] at fitting times, God willing, after the cares of empire, after the anxieties of the church, to mull over for the consolation of divine things.37 On display here is Angelomus’s deep reverence for the patristic tradition, particularly Gregory the Great, but also his ready willingness to abridge, condense, and modify that tradition to fill the practical needs of a busy king engaged in the business of ruling. It should be understood in parallel with the Carolingian artistic taste for placing gems, classical works of art, or sculpture in a contemporary matrix; in short, it is a collection of exegetical spolia.38 Hardly devaluing the creativity of the artist, it is worth noting that Angelomus certainly felt that his own ingenium was involved, deeply so, in the act of compilation. As with Alcuin and Haimo of Auxerre, he retained a good deal of liberty and initiative in the selection of which texts he would pass on to Lothar, and in the overall message he sought to communicate.39 Moreover, Angelomus clearly possessed a copy of the Vox antique ecclesie: his excuse that he couldn’t find a compact, complete Song commentary anywhere is perhaps a little disingenuous. Angelomus might protest to Lothar that he wrote out of necessity and an utter dearth of helpful texts, but as with his humility topoi, this should not obscure

37

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“… diuinis auxiliis fretus sanctorumque doctorum orationibus prouocatus, quod, o doctissime princeps, in doctorum penes nos sanctorum sparsim inuenire potero, praesertim in beatissimi Papae Gregorii Romanae decoris eloquentiae dictis, quia a nullo solum per omnia reperio compactum atque ex traditione magistri ingenii mei conjectura stylo currente, commatico potius compendiosoque sermone, licet impolito aggredi tentabo, et in libelli modum finire conabor, ut habeat uestra celsitudo uelut enchiridion, hoc est manualem quodammodo libellum excerptum, quem congruis horis lectitare Deo fauente post studia imperii, post sollicitudines Ecclesiae ad consolationem diuinarum ruminando complaceat.” Angelomus, Enarrationes, col. 552D-​553A. For a recent treatment of the “Carolingian Aesthetic of Bricolage,” see Coon, Dark Age Bodies, 42–​68. As Michael Gorman has suggested, “Angelomus marks the start of a new era in biblical exegesis in the Carolingian period: the commentator is now a self-​conscious creator, not a mere excerptor of previous opinions, and relies on his teacher and his own creativity.” “The Commentary on Genesis of Angelomus of Luxeuil and Biblical Studies under Lothar,” Studi Medievali 40 (1999): 567–​68.

154 ­chapter  the fact that Angelomus was, all the while, consciously innovating for reasons of his own. As with court panegyric, Angelomus makes much of the king’s learning: Lothar is addressed as o doctissime princeps, possessing sagax prudentia, solertia, which appears several times, and celsitudo. Lothar is also gloriosissimo praestantissimoque imperatori, o invictissime Caesar, and in his conclusion, o Caesar Auguste. But as with Hincmar’s advice, as we shall see, all this honey is understood very much as part of an exchange: recognition of the king’s power in exchange for his recognition that he is subject to the laws of God, and he is required, in order to rule others, also to rule himself. In his commentary on Kings, as Eric Miller has shown, Angelomus was one of the few Carolingian exegetes to incorporate Gregory the Great’s remarks from the Regula pastoralis on Nathan’s rebuke of David after he had married Bathsheba, who was, of course, Solomon’s mother: an exegetical model for the doctores to correct the behavior of kings if they committed particularly notorious sins.40 Twice in the course of his preface to the Song commentary Angelomus invokes Gregory the Great’s reference to Proverbs 25:2: “It is the glory of God to conceal the word, but the glory of kings to search out speech.”41 Gregory had mentioned the verse in passing; Angelomus seizes on this snippet of biblical text, seemingly ideal for his purposes, and returns to it twice like a refrain at the culmination and conclusion of his opening letter.42 The verse is particularly fitting in the context of a Song commentary, since the Song has no historical meaning in the way that, for example, the books of Kings would have been understood to contain. To understand the mysteries of the Song carefully concealed by God, Angelomus implies, becomes Lothar’s bounden duty and his glory—​even more

40

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Eric Miller, “The Politics of Imitating Christ: Christ the King and Christomimetic Rulership in Early Medieval Biblical Commentaries” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia, 2001), 196–​202; Angelomus, Enarrationes in Libros Regum, col. 363C-​365D. The selection from Gregory the Great’s Regula Pastoralis is from Book iii, cap. 2. Proverbs 25:2: Gloria Dei celare verbum et gloria regum inuestigare sermonem. For all that it seems an ideal verse to quote to a king, it is not a verse that is invoked by many early medieval authors outside the Proverbs commentaries of Bede and Hrabanus, where it would have been covered as a matter of course. However, it is a verse that shows up several times in the work of Sedulius Scotus, although not in complete form in his elegiac poetry: in the Collectaneum miscellaneum, ed. D. Simpson, CCCM 67 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1988), cap. 13, ln. 42; also In euangelium Matthaei, ed. B. Löfstedt, Kommentar zum Evangelium nach Matthäus (Freiburg, 1989), vol. 1, Bk. 1, cap. 10, 297, ln. 62. The phrase “gloria regum” does appear, as one would expect, in both Sedulius’s poetic works and Engelmodus’s: Sedulius Scottus, Carmina, ed. Dümmler, MGH Poetae 3 (Berlin 1886–​96), 234, ln. 21; Engelmodus of Soissons, ed. Dümmler, MGH Poetae 3, 60, ln. 57.

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so, given his present, penitent lifestyle. As Angelomus warns, playing with the rich associations of regere, to order and to rule: “For those who not only rule the lands, but also their own bodies, or know to rule and to understand the motions of the flesh, are kings.”43 Angelomus’s parting shot to Lothar smacks even more of the Fürstenspiegel: Therefore it is the glory of kings to investigate speech, because the glory of those living well is to study carefully (perscrutari) the secrets of the commands of God. Therefore, most glorious emperor, study the scriptures carefully, to the extent that, in penetrating and understanding divine mysteries, your wisdom and skill are able to understand and rule the desires and movements of the flesh, to teach your empire and the rest of [your] subjects, and to govern your actions most honestly and with prudence and counsel.44 Exegesis and understanding of scripture form the bridge between the moral and political spheres. In this context, the ministerium of the king sounds nothing so much as that of the good monk, who has placed himself under a rule for the ordering of his body. In his conclusion to the Enarrationes, Angelomus addresses Lothar directly once again and returns even more strongly to the theme of the king’s own body as an example to others and a microcosm of his realm. Hoping that he had not taxed the king’s patience, he hopes that Lothar’s skill may now be able to read his opuscula alongside the summo studio sanctorum doctorum. Then Angelomus launches into the case of the emperor Theodosius ii, the grammar of Priscian, and his subsequent program of correctio—​significantly, all told as part of one massive conditional sentence. While lengthy, it should be quoted in full: For if Emperor Theodosius came forth born to empire and educated with such excellence that he obtained absolute rule over all the world, and

43 44

“Qui enim non solummodo regnat terrarum, sed corpora sua, uel motus carnis regere et inuestigare nouerunt, reges sunt.” Angelomus, Enarrationes, col. 554D. “Regum ergo gloria est inuestigare sermonem, quia bene uiuentium laus est perscrutari secreta mandatorum Dei. Scrutare ergo gloriosissime imperator scripturas, quatenus mysteria diuina penetrando et intelligendo desideria et motus carnis inuestigare et regere uestra sapientia et solertia caeterosque imperio uestro subjectos docere, et actus prudentia consultuque honestissime gubernare ualeat.” Angelomus, Enarrationes, cols. 554D-​555A.

156 ­chapter  took care to transcribe (describere) all the way through with tender fingers and his own hands (articulis) the book of Priscian, the Roman grammarian of distinguished utterance, extremely eloquent with marvelous eloquence, and on account of its value, he [Theodosius] was accustomed always to live separating himself from commerce and despising imperial banquets, and kept vigil with such care, that with continual meditation and his own transcription (descriptione) he copied Roman law excellently, and he corrected the perverse way of life of the Romans and curbed their stiff-​necked-​ness, to some extent the standard of righteousness with the sharp edge of the law, to the extent that, when things had been completed, in a night vision an angelic trumpet called to him from heaven and in the vision of a dream raised its voice in congratulations, saying, “Let not the book of the law,” it said, “depart from your mouth, meditate on it day and night,” [Josh. 1:8] how much more, o meekest prince, be strong to run through in your own studies the authority of the Holy Scriptures with continual meditation, and to assail the height of divine law, as it were, like a mountain, so that, learned in spiritual teaching, you might be strong to pass wisely to the heights of the virtues and to call forth others to the path of righteousness.45 Angelomus goes on to extend the metaphor of scripture as Zion, on which, when the power of God descended on the mountain, no animal was allowed to set foot, continuing the repeated message to the king to impose on himself, for the sake of the realm, a regimen of strict self-​control. The transitions between grammatical, moral, and political acts are meant to be seamless; it is precisely

45

“Si enim Theodosius imperator in imperio natus et educatus tantae excellentiae exstitit, ut singularem totius orbis monarchiam obtineret, Prisciani grammatici Romanae eloquentiae decoris librum, disertitudine mira disertissimum calcetenus teneris digitulis, propriisque articulis describere curaret, atque ex eius pretio, distratoque commercio, despectis imperalibus dapibus uiuere semper consueuerat, et tanto studio viguit, ut iugi meditatione et propria descriptione legem Romanam diuinitus describeret, et mores Romanorum distortos, mucrone quodammodo legis normam rectitudinis corrigeret, atque a sua duritia coerceret, adeo ut, aliis expletis, angelica salpix [reg. salpinx] nocturna uisione, coelitus ei intonuit et per oroma [Gk. horama] somnii gratulando uocem extulit, dicens: ‘Liber, inquit, legis non recedat de ore tuo, meditare in eo die ac nocte,[‘] quanto magis, o mitissime princeps, propriis studiis sanctarum Scripturarum auctoritatem iugi meditatione percurrere, et altitudinem diuinae legis uelut quodammodo montem appetere, ut doctrina spirituali instructus, et te sagaciter ad altiora uirtutum provehere, et  alios ad tramitem rectitudinis prouocare ualeas.” Angelomus, Enarrationes, cols. 627D-​628B.

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Angelomus’s point that all are part of a single, exquisitely Carolingian program of correctio.46 Once Angelomus had impressed upon Lothar the gravity of scriptural exegesis generally, he could introduce his royal reader to the Song itself. It is perhaps no coincidence that this is also the moment that Angelomus turns to his ­sources. As Cantelli’s sourcing has revealed, Angelomus is often content to juxtapose quite long passages from his sources with an aliter or a siue. That said, for all his use of quotation and paraphrase, Angelomus should not be caricatured as a mere compiler. Even in his Song commentary, he remains a very judicious selector of texts.47 In his exposition of Song 1:9, “Beautiful are your cheeks, as the turtle-​dove’s,” he pieces together two of his sources, interspersing his own connecting phrases throughout.48 While Angelomus’s primary source for this passage is Apponius, he draws in the ecclesiological interpretation from the Vox Antique Ecclesie, and he reminds his reader that he treated this material himself to some extent in his preface. Even when he is not contributing most of the content, Angelomus remains a constant, professorial presence throughout the Enarrationes, smoothing difficult texts and reminding the reader when he is going over familiar ground.49 Always highly conscious of the number of different texts he is working with, at one point he notes that he is compelled to repeat himself occasionally as he incorporates the opinions of everyone.50 For all that the Enarrationes is largely a collection of texts, they can still be said to be arranged by Angelomus for a particular purpose and, very 46

47

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50

Cf. Smaragdus of St. Mihiel’s commentary on Donatus: Liber in partibus Donati, ed. Bengt Löfstedt and Louis Holtz, CCCM 68 (Turnhout:  Brepols, 1986); Margaret Gibson, “RAG Reads Priscian,” in Charles the Bald: Court and Kingdom, ed. Margaret Gibson and Janet L. Nelson, 2nd ed. (Aldershot: Variorum, 1990), 261–​66. Cf. Claudio Leonardi’s assessment of Angelomus’s sources in “Old Testament Interpretation in the Church from the Seventh to the Tenth Century,” in Hebrew Bible Old Testament: the History of Its Interpretation, vol. I/​2: The Middle Ages, ed. Magne Sæbø (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2000), 193. Angelomus, Enarrationes, cols. 577D-​578C; Cantelli, Angelomo e la scuola esegetica di Luxeuil, 1:392. Rossana Guglielmetti has since proven that Angelomus was working with the Vox antique ecclesie and not Alcuin’s Compendium or the Vox ecclesie directly. For example, “ac si apertius dicat,” col. 562C; “se nos, ut coepimus, superiorem sensum exsequamur,” col. 585C; “seu per apostolos, ut dicere coepimus superius,” col. 594C; “de quibus superius tanquam ex armatura fortium disputatum legimus,” col. 608D; “et hinc iam superius disputauimus,” col. 609A; “quem uersiculum iam superius exposuimus,” col. 603C. “… ad superiora apostropham facere, et nonnulla aliter inserere … iuxta opiniones quorundam rursus iterare.” Angelomus, Enarrationes, col. 566C. See also “sed secundum opinionem aliquorum,” 578C; “sicut nonnulli opinantur,” col. 589C; “dicamus opiniones diversorum, ne forte ignorasse causari uideamur,” col. 589A-​B.

158 ­chapter  definitely, for a particular person:  Lothar, himself not ordained, but trying nevertheless to live a semi-​monastic life. It may not be a coincidence that Angelomus’s sources, with the exception of Alcuin, pre-​date or lie outside the “Bedan” ecclesiological reading of the Song of Songs:  he had neither Bede’s commentary, nor Haimo’s, nor Alcuin’s Compendium in its complete form. Instead, Angelomus includes almost in its entirety, verse by verse, Gregory’s homilies on the Song, as far as they go—​Gregory, after all, had once sent his homilies directly to Columbanus at Luxeuil—​and he includes large extracts from Apponius, which, even in the version he did possess, was a comparatively rare text. Interestingly, whether or not Angelomus was aware of this, the commentaries of Apponius, Gregory of Elvira (a portion of whose work is part of the Vox ecclesie and Vox antique ecclesie), and the homilies of Gregory the Great are all texts that are heavily influenced by Origen in one way or another.51 Almost by default, therefore, Angelomus’s commentary is more sympathetic to a personal, “mystical” reading of the Song as a drama between Christ and the individual soul. This effect is heightened by the fact that Angelomus’s initial chapters of the Song, where he had material from Gregory and Apponius to include, are much fuller and longer than his later chapters. Particularly central is his use of the homilies of Gregory the Great, who understood the rich, sensual language of the Song as part of God’s accommodation in communicating with fallen human nature in the only language it can understand, exemplified most fully by Christ’s Incarnation. The allegory of the Song as a whole was a machina, a theatrical crane lifting the soul to God; the breasts of the Bridegroom, humillima praedicatio, nourish the soul more than the wine of the law. As we have seen, Bede’s Song commentary also drew heavily on such language, albeit from Gregory’s other works, but Angelomus does not continually relate it to the role and duties of the doctores as Bede does. While the doctores certainly do appear in his commentary, the main focus of the text is what the Song imagery reveals of the nature of Christ. As with Angelomus’s commentary on Kings, I would suggest that Angelomus’s ultimate goal was to encourage Lothar in his imitation of Christ. However, it is not only the humility and suffering of the Savior that Angelomus wanted to convey, but also the revealed, resurrected, transcendent Christ in glory—​an altogether more imperial image. If Gregory the Great emphasized the humility of Christ’s incarnation, Angelomus’s use of Apponius brought out the contrast between Christ’s suffering and the glory of his resurrection. This 51

See Matter, Voice of My Beloved, 36–​37.

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is a point that Angelomus himself may have wanted to underscore even further. In his treatment of Cant. 1:12, in which the the Bride compares her lover to a sachet of myrrh hidden between her breasts—​allegorically understood as the church keeping fresh the bitter memory of Christ’s passion—​Angelomus inserts original material between long extracts of Apponius underlining how the sufferings and the glory of Christ are inextricably intertwined: “… from which it says, always having in the memory of her recollection, which is near to the breasts of her heart, and how he suffered for her in the glory of his redemption.” Quoting briefly from Alcuin via the Vox Antique Ecclesie, he goes on, “As if she had said, the death of my beloved, which he underwent for my salvation, is always held in my memory,” and adds in his own words, “for the imitation and glory of his praise. And because having suffered, he rejoices also to have been resurrected from the dead …”52 The myrrh of Christ’s passion is juxtaposed with the cedar of the next verse, which because of its sweet scent and ability to preserve whatever was kept within it, as well as its associations with the temple and tabernacle, signified Christ’s resurrection. Angelomus admonishes: Behold, for the sake of brevity, these things are said succinctly, so that it may be more quickly driven home in mind of my reader. But let us say it more fully, because the holy church desires to imitate in her own members the mystery of the passion of Christ, so that she might attain to the glory of the resurrection with Christ, and deserve to be placed, not with the goats on his left hand, but with the sheep on his right.53 Implicit is the charge to Lothar to take up himself such meditation on the passion, resurrection, and glory of Christ. Ultimately, Angelomus’s aim was not necessarily to break new exegetical ground or to present an original overarching approach to the Song, but to frame the text as a quasi-​mirror and to introduce the king to the Song in a comparatively user-​friendly way. In fact, the most 52

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“Unde semper habens in memoria recordationis quam propinqua est uberibus pectoris, et qualiter passus est pro ipsa in gloriam suae redemptionis dicit … Ac si dixisset: Mors dilecti mei quam pro salute mea subiit, semper in mea memoria commorabitur, ad imitationem et gloriam laudationis. Et quia gaudet cum passum, gloriatur etiam eum resurexisse a mortuis, recte subiunxit …” Angelomus, Enarrationes, 580D-​581A. “Ecce brevitatis causa ista succincte dicta sunt, ut menti lectoris mei citius inculcentur. Sed quia sancta Ecclesia in membris suis mysterium passionis Christi imitari desiderat, ut ad gloriam resurrectionis cum Christo perueniat et non cum haedis ad sinistram, sed cum ouibus segregari mereatur ad dexteram, dicamus plenius.” Angelomus, Enarrationes, 581B-​C.

160 ­chapter  significant place where Angelomus strikes out entirely on his own in the body of his commentary shows him reiterating the themes of his prefatory letter.54 In his explication of Cant. 1:8, “To a company of horsemen among the chariots of Pharaoh have I likened you, my beloved,” Angelomus begins with a long passage taken from Gregory’s homilies on the Song, but then, perhaps thinking that the military language of the Song made an ideal springboard, he leaps into an apology for Lothar’s understanding of scripture cast in military terms, rather like a teacher trying to interest a slightly recalcitrant pupil: Behold, finally recall, magnificent Caesar, that nothing historical is to be found in this little book, which we said before in the preface (isagoge), but everything is redolent with profusions of allegories, and is perfumed [flagrant] with the pageants of dramas and with the sweetnesses of morality. Wherefore, I  long to suggest—​no indeed, to propose, however rashly—​to your zenith of excellence, that because you have obtained great wisdom of skill and come into the defense and guardianship of the Holy Church, that you not only protect [it] from the external incursions of foreign peoples, having been furnished by vote of arms in readiness for battles, surrounded by legions of nobles, and crowded by troops of soldiers, but also that you persist, devoted and painstaking in sacred doctrine and in the understanding of the holy scriptures, so that you might be able to defend that same Holy Church in its subjects, furnished with the shields of the gospels against internal, namely evil spirits, equipped with the javelins of the fathers’ opinions (sententiarum): [against] those who always seek to extinguish not the bodies but the souls of the faithful. Hence Peter urges, “Keep watch, because your enemy the devil roams about like a roaring lion, seeing those whom he may devour; resist him, staying strong in the faith.” And so that your nobility may be learnedly strong to avoid the plots of the enemy and to preach to others, may you busy yourself in studying with the interpretations (expositionibus) of this volume and of other books at fitting times after the business of empire.55 54

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The importance of the prefatory letter, for Angelomus, at least, can be gauged by the number of times he refers his reader back to it: “unde iam superius in praefatione disputauimus” (col. 557B); “sicut in praefatione praelibauimus” (col. 578B); “… superius in praefatione succinctim disputare decrevimus” (col. 610C). For other examples of short phrases that Angelomus inserts, perhaps intended to catch the king’s attention, see above, and see also “cerne libenter, Caesar Auguste …” Angelomus, Enarrationes, col. 562D. “Ecce tandem advertis magnifice Caesar, quam in isagoge praefati sumus quod nil historialiter in hoc uolumine reperitur, sed omnia allegoriarum allusionibus redolent, et dramatum decursionibus, moraliumque suavitatibus flagrant. Quocirca suadere, imo suggerere,

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For Angelomus in this passage, the king’s military and exegetical responsibilities are placed on a par, necessitating skill in both areas to protect the realm from inward and outward threats. It not only underscores the extent to which Carolingian kings felt—​or were at least supposed to feel—​themselves personally responsible for the spiritual well-​being of their people, it also suggests the kind of quasi-​clerical scriptural and patristic study the doctores felt necessary for the king properly to fulfill his ministerium.56 Rather like Dhuoda’s bruisingly comprehensive program concocted for her son William, the king’s way of life was a form of proclamation and preaching, designed to encourage imitation. In his Enarrationes in Cantica Canticorum, Angelomus of Luxeuil sought to explain a difficult piece of scripture in light of the deeply respected but piecemeal and fragmentary authorities he possessed. It suggests the ambitions, but also what one might call the good faith, of Carolingian kings in attempting to understand scripture, as well as their fervently held conviction that biblical exegesis was a necessary component of the kind of just and wise rule that would bring about divine blessing. It suggests the degree to which Carolingian exegetes encouraged this conviction, to the point that Angelomus found himself re-​framing for a king a text usually interpreted as a commentary on the doctores. As a condensation, even a sort of florilegium of respected texts on the Song, Angelomus preserved those aspects of the patristic tradition he most valued, particularly the works of Gregory the Great. Less obviously, however, Angelomus sought to impress upon Lothar his duties as a Christian monarch

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quanquam temere, excellentiae culminis vestri exopto, ut quia magnam solertiae sapientiam nactus, et defensionem tuitionemque sanctae Ecclesiae indeptus, ut non solum armorum suffragio in procinctu bellorum constitutus, cuneis procerum uallatus, et turmis militum constipatus, ab incursionibus exterarum gentium aduersariorum protegas, uerum sacrae doctrinae et intelligentiae diuinarum scripturarum deuotus et sedulus persistas, ut eamdem sanctam Ecclesiam in subjectis ab internorum uidelicet malignorum spirituum ancillibus Evangeliorum munitus, gladiis diuinarum Scripturarum accinctus, spiculis sententiarum ornatus, defendere possis: qui semper non corpora, sed animas fidelium exstinguere quaerunt. Unde Petrus hortatur, dicens:  “Uigilate, quia adversarius uester diabolus tamquam leo rugiens circuit, quaerens quem deuoret; cui resistite fortes in fide.” Et ut hostis insidias antiqui cauere, et aliis praedicare uestra nobilitas docte ualeat, huius uoluminis, aliorumque librorum expositionibus studere congruis post dispositionem imperii horis satagas …” Angelomus, Enarrationes, cols. 577A-​C. Cf. Hrabanus Maurus’s analogy in his Kings commentary (and copied by Angelomus into his Kings commentary) from I Kings 1:13, that kings have been equipped by their ironsmiths, the doctores, with spiritual weapons, so that they might protect true doctrine and defend the church against heretics and false Christians. Commentaria in libros IV regum, PL 109, col. 42A-​B. Miller, “Politics of Imitating Christ,” 225–​29.

162 ­chapter  and the necessity, if he wanted to share in the imperial glory of the risen Christ, also to share in his humility. 5.4

Charles the Bald, Hincmar of Rheims, and the Explanatio in Ferculum Salomonis

At the same time that Lothar requested a Song commentary from Angelomus of Luxeuil, Hincmar, newly appointed bishop of Rheims, composed between 853 and 856 a figural poem for Charles the Bald, In ferculum Salomonis, together with an explanatio in prose.57 The lectulum or ferculum, the bed, couch, litter, or palanquin, as it is variously called, is a single image from the Song, and one of the few that mention Solomon by name: Behold threescore valiant ones of the most valiant of Israel, surrounded the bed of Solomon, all holding swords, and most expert in war: every man’s sword upon his thigh, because of fears in the night. King Solomon hath made him a litter of the wood of Libanus:  The pillars thereof he made of silver, the seat of gold, the going up of purple: the midst he covered with charity for the daughters of Jerusalem.58 In his Homilies on Ezechiel, Gregory the Great had most famously understood Solomon’s litter as an allegory of the Church, flanked by her mighty men, the doctores; the silver corresponded to their resonant eloquence, the gold of the seat to the mystical bliss of eternity, the purple-​scarlet stairs to Christ’s 57

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Paul Kershaw has argued that the rhetoric produced by the court of Charles the Bald seemingly advertised “the triumph of Solomonic kingship”: Peaceful Kings, 212–​34. For the more troubled relationship between Lothar and Hincmar, see Elina Screen, “An Unfortunate Necessity? Hincmar and Lothar I,” in Hincmar of Rheims: Life and Work, 76–​92. By far the most comprehensive treatment of Hincmar’s work is by Burkhard Taeger, Zahlensymbolik bei Hraban, bei Hincmar—​und im “Heliand”? (Munich, 1970), 89–​192. See also Jean Devisse, Hincmar: Archevêque de Reims, 845-​882, vol. 1 (Geneva: Librarie Droz, 1976), 54–​63; Ulrich Ernst, Carmen Figuratum: Geschichte des Figurengedichts von den antiken Ursprüngen bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters, Pictura et Poësis 1 (Köln: Böhlau Verlag, 1991), 340–​55; Maria Antonietta Barbàra, “Su Alcuine Fonti dell’explanatio in ferculum Salomonis di Incmaro di Reims,” Itinerarium 5 (1997): 21–​27; Chazelle, The Crucified God, 209–​25. Cant. 3:7–​10: En lectulum Salomonis sexaginta fortes ambiunt ex fortissimis Israhel, omnes tenentes gladios et ad bella doctissimi uniuscuiusque ensis super femur suum propter timores nocturnos. Ferculum fecit sibi rex Salomon de lignis Libani, columnas eius fecit argenteas, reclinatorium aureum, ascensum purpureum, media caritate constravit propter filias Hierusalem.

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sacrifice on the cross. Gregory’s interpretation would be followed by Bede, Alcuin, ­Haimo of Auxerre, and in turn by Hincmar.59 Paschasius Radbertus had used the image to great rhetorical effect in his preface to his famous work on the Eucharist, De corpore et sanguine domini, and Hincmar, who supported Paschasius’s interpretation of the Eucharist, may well have borrowed the image directly from the treatise. Particularly apt for Paschasius’s and Hincmar’s purposes was the double meaning of the word ferculum, which can mean a couch or litter, as in the Vulgate, but was as often understood, particularly in classical times, as a dinner tray. It was a perfect metaphor for emphasizing the church’s role in consecrating the Eucharist: architectural structure, doctrinal edifice guarded by the doctores and accessible through the “purple” blood of Christ, but also the place where that blood of Christ was made available to everyone. In addition, in many ways, the ferculum Salomonis seems to evoke many of the connotations of the Carolingian solarium: a private royal space, raised up, from which the (usually sleepless) king can monitor the goings-​on of the court.60 Hincmar’s explanatio has survived but not the complete poem itself, of which there are partial fragments in Bamberg and in a Rheims manuscript now in Vercelli.61 Scholarly opinions of the work have generally not been favorable.62

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Gregory, Homilies in Ezechiel, Bk. ii, homily iii, ln. 276–​337. For a history of the image’s use as a figure of the church in medieval exegesis, see Karin Lerchner, Lectulus Floridus: Zur Bedeutung des Bettes in Literatur und Handschriftenillustration des Mittelalters, Pictura et Poësis 6 (Köln: Böhlau Verlag, 1993), 204–​220. See the study of Mayke de Jong, “Charlemagne’s Balcony: the Solarium in Ninth-​Century Narratives,” The Long Morning of Medieval Europe, ed. Jennifer R. Davis and Michael McCormick (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 277–​89. The two surviving stanzas of the verses were edited by Ludwig Traube and printed in the mgh, Poetae 3 as Carm. 4, 414–​15. A fragment of the work, along with 47 folia of various materials, including Hincmar’s life of Remigius and the Capitula of 852, is now in Bamberg: Class. 53 HJ IV 24. Bernhard Bischoff discovered further fragments in Vercelli cix, a mid-​ninth century Rheims manuscript reconstructed by Taeger, 141–​47. For reconstructions of what the poem may have looked like, see Bischoff’s suggestion in Ernst, Carmen Figuratum, 347, fig. 100. See also Taeger, 166, n. 402, reproduced in Lillich, “King Solomon in Bed,” 786, fig. 12. Most charitably, Taeger referred to the “Eigentümlichkeit” of Hincmar’s pervasive love of numerology, Devisse called the poem a “lourd exercice scolaire,” Spicq called it “non seulement strictement allégorique, mais bizarre,” van Noorden as “mystische und schwülstig,” Manitius as “sinnverwirrender Zahlenmystik,” and Lillich as “cryptic and obscure.” Devisse further notes, “Le premier essai d’exégète de notre prélat n’ajoute rien à la réputation que lui valent d’autres écrits. Le style est lourd et volontiers précieux … Le prélat baigne encore dans la formation ‘alcuinienne’ reçue durant ses jeunes années.” Devisse, Hincmar, 54, 58–​59; Taeger, 89; C. van Noorden, Hinkmar, Erzbischof von Rheims (Bonn,

164 ­chapter  In this chapter, I  would like to re-​examine the Explanatio in ferculum Salomonis not in light of later developments in Hincmar’s glittering career or his considerable contributions to early medieval political thought, and not as an exhaustive analysis of Hincmar’s numerical symbolism, such as that provided by Taeger. Instead, I would like to consider the text in light of other works of Carolingian Song exegesis and suggest how Hincmar may have wanted the work to be read by Charles the Bald. Hincmar’s Explanatio, like Angelomus’s Enarrationes, demonstrates how Carolingian exegetes could simultaneously preserve a respected tradition of patristic exegesis and still re-​frame it in an entirely new and unexpected way. Like Lothar, Charles the Bald seems to have requested the work, and like Angelomus, Hincmar drew for inspiration on Gregory the Great’s homilies on the Song, Alcuin’s commentary, and Hrabanus Maurus’s commentary on Kings.63 Both works sought to impress upon the monarchs that commissioned them the importance of biblical exegesis to ensure the propagation of correct doctrine, using the vivid, politically charged imagery of the Song of Songs to build on the language of court ideology. If Angelomus sought to present to Lothar the Song text as consolation after the cares of empire, I would argue that Hincmar’s acrostic poem, like Hrabanus’s In honorem sanctae crucis, was intended to give the king a structure on which to build a system of meditation on what Hincmar viewed as the most vital tenets of the Christian faith, particularly those that he felt were under attack. The Ferculum Salomonis was Hincmar’s first foray into biblical exegesis, when he was still very much under the influence of Alcuin and heavily reliant on Bede’s homilies on Luke and his Song commentary in particular. An elaborate carmen figuratum like the Ferculum was nevertheless a very ambitious display of Hincmar’s learning and skill, just as it had been for Hrabanus Maurus, an opportunity for the newly minted archbishop of Rheims to display his learning for the king. Like Angelomus’s Enarrationes, Hincmar’s Ferculum was a Song work notable not so much for its originality of content as for how that content was framed and presented. Even though it is an early work, the Ferculum displays both Hincmar’s extremely close relationship with authority and his deeply felt responsibility to correct and somehow contain and direct that authority; as with Angelomus’s Enarrationes, I would argue that it partakes of elements derived from the Fürstenspiegel genre. Also very much in evidence already is Hincmar’s great skill in what one might call “mixed media,” encoding

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1863), 91; M.  Manitius, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters (Munich, 1965), 354; Lillich, “King Solomon in Bed,” 786. Devisse, Hincmar, 55–​56.

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doctrinal and political messages into eye-​catching and usually luxurious visuals, rather than writing full-​length commentaries.64 This is particularly striking and noteworthy given that the Song of Songs was rarely, if ever illustrated in the early Middle Ages; Hincmar’s carmen figuratum is, in a way, the closest early medieval exegesis came to understanding the Song in visual terms.65 Despite his conviction that kings occupied a separate sphere from that of the doctores, and that the model of “king and priest” could only be truly followed by Christ, throughout his long career, Hincmar attempted to educate kings in the values and morals of the clergy through a series of mirror-​texts, luxury manuscripts, and pieces of artwork. In contrast to Hrabanus Maurus, whose portrait of Louis the Pious in the In honorem sanctae crucis was firmly based on classical, imperial images, Hincmar treated the classical tradition much more warily, wanting instead to create a set of models and iconography for the ruler that were divorced from those of the pagan, classical past—​and from Charles’s claim to the imperial title, which he hated. Lawrence Nees has suggested that Hincmar was behind the construction of the ivory throne sent on to Rome for Charles’s coronation, with its strange and rather sinister Hercules ivories acting as a warning to Charles.66 In an interesting parallel to the Ferculum, Celia Chazelle has argued that Hincmar was responsible for commissioning the ivory of the Pericopes of Henry ii, and that they too should be understood in the context of the Fürstenspiegel genre. Also intended for Charles, the ivory contains at least two representations of Ecclesia, one holding out a chalice, and the other with her hand on the disk or orb of Tellus, the figure for secular authority. Chazelle argues, “… Ecclesia’s gesture implies that the mundane authority designated by the disk must be wielded in cooperation with or in submission to the Church.”67 In the S. Paolo Bible, which William Diebold has argued was commissioned by Hincmar, the similarities between the ruler-​portrait of Charles the Bald and the miniature of Solomon at the beginning of the book of Proverbs would have been evident. Even if it was

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Again, one is reminded of Hrabanus, not only with regard to his unsurpassed expertise at carmina figurata, but also his building program at Fulda, recounted in detail most recently by Coon, Dark Age Bodies, 33–​34. For the argument that Hincmar may have been responsible for commissioning the Utrecht Psalter, see Celia Chazelle, “Archbishops Ebbo and Hincmar of Rheims and the Utrecht Psalter,” Speculum 72 (1997): 1055–​77. Isabel Malaise, “L’iconographie biblique du Cantique des Cantiques au xiie siècle,” Scriptorium 46.1 (1992): 67–​73. Nees, A Tainted Mantle, 211–​212; 235–​37. Celia Chazelle, “Charles the Bald, Hincmar of Rheims, and the Ivory of the Pericopes of Henry II,” in Lay Intellectuals in the Carolingian World, 153–​58.

166 ­chapter  not ultimately intended for Charles but for the Lateran, Hincmar’s view that Charles ought to be a defender of the church were very clear.68 In 852, Hincmar had orchestrated an ostentatious translation of the relics of St. Remigius from the church of St. Christopher to a new cathedral built especially for the relics in Rheims. It was a ceremony meant to underscore Hincmar’s arrival in the city as much as to display his reverence for its patron saint. As Devisse notes, during the translation both Hincmar’s love of luxury manuscripts and connections to the royal family were very much on display; accompanying the relics were an evangeliary with gold lettering and a cover encrusted with precious stones, a sacramentary, and a lectionary, while the relics themselves were placed on a pillow embroidered by Charles the Bald’s sister.69 Hincmar composed a life of Remigius particularly for the occasion: perhaps noteworthy are the number of times Hincmar quotes from Proverbs and invokes Solomon by name.70 Also composed at that time, in an interesting parallel to the Ferculum, was Hincmar’s numerological excursus on the Council of Nicaea, suggesting none too subtly Hincmar’s views on a Carolingian king’s responsibility to safeguard correct doctrine from heretical teaching. Hincmar’s concern was not simply an academic one:  unlike Angelomus’s Enarrationes, still intended in some measure as consolatio for Lothar, Hincmar’s In ferculum Salomonis was composed in a much fiercer polemical environment. In particular, Hincmar had embroiled himself in the still-​simmering quarrels with Hrabanus’s former monk, Gottschalk of Orbais, who from 849 had been imprisoned in the monastery of Hautvillers after he was condemned at the Synod of Mainz in 848 because of his teachings on predestination, in part because of Hincmar’s involvement.71 More generally, however, the Ferculum should be understood within the broader context of the Carolingian eucharistic controversy surrounding Paschasius Radbertus’s De corpore et sanguine Domini, in which Gottschalk also participated, as one of several works written in the early 850s that refer to the controversy. Celia Chazelle has suggested how Gottschalk’s and Hincmar’s differences over predestination almost necessarily led them to take opposite sides over church doctrine concerning

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William J. Diebold, “The Ruler Portrait of Charles the Bald in the S. Paolo Bible,” The Art Bulletin 76 (1994): 11–​17. Devisse, Hincmar, 59–​63. Hincmar of Rheims, Vita Remigii episcopi, ed. B.  Krusch, MGH SS rer. Merov. 3 (Berlin, 1896), 252, 277, 283, 301, and 331. Gillis, Heresy and Dissent, 134–​46, 164–​77; 183–​94; idem, “Heresy in the Flesh: Gottschalk of Orbais and the Predestination Controversy in the Archdiocese of Rheims,” in Hincmar of Rheims: Life and Work, 247–​67.

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the Eucharist:  “for Hincmar, the Eucharist’s ability to redeem everyone who receives it in faith, because God willed the salvation of all humanity, depends on its identity with the crucified body and blood.”72 Paul Edward Dutton has suggested that both Hincmar and Hrabanus turned on Gottschalk with such vehemence in part because they viewed him as the doctrinal and ecclesiastical equivalent of Fontenoy, undercutting both with predestination and also with a more symbolic understanding of the Eucharist the unity and universality of the church.73 In the Ferculum, he would simultaneously defend both, and in turn, impress upon Charles his need to do the same. And yet, while one hears echoes of both theological controversies in the Ferculum, they are hardly presented in a systematic fashion. In fact, they are oddly muted, given that Gottschalk or any other offending party is never actually named by Hincmar.74 The text of the explanatio begins: “this couch of kings, which the holy doctors say to indicate the Church, namely, the body of Christ, in the unity of which with that same Christ through faith, as we have shown above, each person is incorporated …”;75 in so doing, Hincmar underscores the nature of the church as the body of Christ and the means by which each believer is made a part of that body, as well as the authority of the doctores. Hincmar compares the staining of the ascensus, with purple dye to the immaculate lamb cleansing us from our sins,76 and he stresses that Christ cleanses us from our sins with his blood: not only when he gave his blood on the cross for us, or when each of us was cleansed with the waters of baptism into the mystery of his most holy passion, but also daily he takes away the sins of the world and cleanses us from our everyday sins in his blood, when the memorial of 72 73 74

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Chazelle, Crucified God, 214–​15, 224.. Dutton, The Politics of Dreaming in the Carolingian Empire, 131–​32; Gottschalk and A Medieval Predestination Controversy: Texts Translated from the Latin, ed. Victor Genke and Francis X. Gumerlock (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2010). One can see this in Chazelle’s analysis: while she says that she will “take into account” Hincmar’s In Ferculum in her analysis, to reconstruct Hincmar’s theological position she uses, as much or more than the Ferculum, the last book of Hincmar’s De cavendis vitiis et virtutibus exercendis, which, as she notes, post-​dates the eucharistic controversy proper. “Hoc regium ferculum, quod doctores sancti designare dicunt Ecclesiam, corpus scilicet Christi, in cuius unitate eidem Christo per fidem, ut supra monstrauimus, quisque incorporatur …” Hincmar, Explanatio in Ferculum Salomonis, col. 817 B. It is striking how often Hincmar in the course of the Ferculum invokes the carnis immaculata of the Virgin; rather like Paschasius Radbertus’s Cogitis me, it may be a sign of the growing place of Mary in early medieval Song exegesis. See Hincmar, Explanatio, Col. 817C; 824A; 826D.

168 ­chapter  that same blessed passion is repeated (replicatur) at the altar, when the created things of bread and wine are transformed (transfertur) into the sacrament of his body and blood by the ineffable sanctification of the Spirit …77 Hincmar has written nothing terribly controversial here, beyond emphasizing the continuity between Christ’s historical passion and the Eucharist, and even that is so carefully phrased that a Ratramnus of Corbie could hardly find fault with it. It may be that in the early 850s, when the issues raised by Paschasius remained unresolved, Hincmar, though sympathetic to the Paschasian position, did not wish openly to declare his views. As a newly minted archbishop, he may have also wished to wait, in a text intended for the king, not to provoke a theological quarrel until the matter had been more fully and formally deliberated at court by Charles the Bald and a panel of theologians of his choice.78 About predestination, in the aftermath of the Council of Mainz, Hincmar could be somewhat more forthright. He notes that Solomon’s couch is made of cedar, just as the church excels in virtues “not from herself, but from him, who built that same wood into this structure of this couch, that is, of the church, by the free grace (gratiosa gratia)—​that is, freely given (gratis data)—​of that same predestination and his election, he who wants all men to be saved, and does not want anyone to perish.”79 Hincmar later notes how some are preaeordinati to the blessed elect, but how others, on account of their evil deeds, must atone for their sins in purgatory until they are cleansed, or are helped by the prayers and acts of devotion of the faithful and eventually “attain the rest of the blessed,” emphasizing that even those souls in purgatory are not predestined for damnation, and that their fates are affected by the pious actions

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“…non solum quando sanguinem suum dedit in cruce pro nobis, uel quando quisque nostrum in mysterium sacrosanctae passionis illius baptismi aquis ablutus est, uerum etiam quotidie tollit peccata mundi, lauatque nos a peccatis nostris quotidianis in sanguine suo, cum eiusdem beatae passionis ad altare [sic] memoria replicatur, cum panis et uini creatura in sacramentum carnis et sanguinis eius ineffabili Spiritus sanctificatione transfertur …” Hincmar, Explanatio, col. 827A-​B. See Thomas F. X. Noble, “Kings, Clergy, and Dogma: the Settlement of Doctrinal Disputes in the Carolingian World,” in Early Medieval Studies in Memory of Patrick Wormald, 250–​52. “… non a se, verum ab illo, qui haec eadem ligna in aedificio huius ferculi, id est Ecclesiae, istiusmodi gratiosa praedestinationis et electionis suae gratia, id est gratis data, composuit; qui omnes homines uult saluos fieri, et neminem uult perire.” Hincmar, Explanatio, Col. 818A-​B.

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of others.80 Elsewhere, Hincmar simultaneously uses the term predestinati to describe those souls God has ordained for eternal beatitude, and specifying that those who will go to the eternal fire were “not … predestined by God, but by Him were left behind in the mass of destruction” (non a Deo … praedestinati, sed ab eo … in massa perditionis relicti).81 His most direct formulation of his position comes when he reminds Charles of the twenty-​four stanzas of his now lost preface, summing up: … just as to each faithful soul the Lord says through the prophet, “from me your fruit is found” [Hosea 14:9]. That is, the gift of my prevenient grace through which you do well is from me, and the fruit is found in your subsequent choice. And thus it is shown by God, that what good we want, think, speak, and do, both is of God through prevenient grace, and is ours through the subsequent obedience of free will.82 Gottschalk was not without supporters in his position on predestination—​ among them, Ratramnus of Corbie, with a treatise that was a formidable proponent of Augustine’s later and gloomier views on the subject—​and even though the issue had been directly confronted at the Council of Mainz, in the Ferculum Hincmar seems to want to redefine the terms of the debate rather than confront Gottschalk or any other potential opponents directly. In the History of the Church of Rheims, Flodoard’s catalogue of the works of Hincmar illustrates both how closely linked the issues of predestination and the Eucharist were for Hincmar and also, in some ways, what a grab-​bag of theology the Ferculum ultimately was:

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Hincmar, Explanatio, Col. 820D-​821A. Lawrence Nees has argued for a Rheims origin for the elaborately and ambitiously illustrated St. Petersburg manuscript containing both the Visio Baronti and the Visio Rothcharii, which are equally fascinated with the afterlife and particularly with purgatory. See “The Illustrated Manuscript of the Visio Baronti [Revelatio Baronti] in St. Petersburg (Russian National Library, cod. lat. Oct.v.I.5)” in Court Culture in The Early Middle Ages, 106–​08. Hincmar, Explanatio, Col. 824C. “… sicut ad unumquemque fidelem dicit Dominus per prophetam: Ex me fructus tuus inuentus est; id est donum gratiae meae praeuenientis qua bene agis ex me est, et subsequenti arbitrio tuo fructus inuentus est. Sicque monstratur a Domino, quia quod bonum uolumus, cogitamus, loquimur, et agimus, et Dei est per praeuenientem gratiam, et nostrum est per liberi arbitrii subsequentem obedientiam.” Hincmar, Explanatio, col. 828D-​829A.

170 ­chapter  He wrote also to that same King Charles a certain metrical work concerning grace and the predestination of God, concerning the sacraments also of the body and blood of Christ and concerning the vision of God and the origin of the soul, also concerning the faith of the holy Trinity, which work was called the Litter of King Solomon.83 The vast majority of the Ferculum is made up of catena of numerological chains, based on simple mathematical principles and illustrating a bevy of very familiar and very orthodox doctrines and theological issues.84 Much of this, I would argue, is mnemonic and rhetorical in function.85 As in passages from Augustine’s De doctrina Christiana and frequently in those texts associated with the Hiberno-​Latin exegetical tradition, numbers were ways to encapsulate aggregations of doctrine in an extremely compact form, with particular numbers becoming associated with particular aspects of Christian theology.86 83

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“Scripsit et ad eundem Karolum regem opus quoddam egregium metrice de gratia et praedestinatione dei, de sacramentis quoque corporis et sanguinis Christi et de videndo deo atque origine anime, simul ac de fide sancte trinitatis, quod opus appellavit Ferculum Salomonis.” In that same list, one senses how very preoccupied with Gottschalk Hincmar was at this time. Flodoard, Historia Remensis ecclesia, ed. Martina Stratmann, MGH Scriptores 36 (Hanover: Hahn, 1998), Bk. iii, cap. 15, 241. A representative passage from the Ferculum: “Propterea igitur omnem hanc Christus expectauit aetatem, per quod omne tempus iustitiam legis impleuit, ac tunc demum uenit ad baptisma, quasi cumulum illud cunctis obseruationibus legis adimplens. Qui quoniam ipso, quod tricenarius inchoauit, baptismo totius sit Ecclesiae sordes expiaturus, eorumdem quoque numerorum mystica cognatio declarat:  quia uidelicet triginta aequalibus suis partibus computata pariunt amplius duodecimum, qui est patriarcharum et apostolorum numerus, et fiunt quadraginta duo. Habent enim partes, tricesimam, unum, quintamdecimam duo, duodecimam tria, sextam quinque, quintam sex, tertiam decem, dimidiam quindecim, quae simul iuncta quadraginta duo consummant: ubi mystice, ut diximus, innuitur totam Ecclesiae perfectionem in Christi fide et gratia consistere …” Cols. 819D-​820A. Mary Carruthers alludes briefly to the mnemonic role of medieval numerical symbolism but she does not treat it at length. See Craft of Thought, 167. For example, two was usually associated with the testaments or the Golden Rule, three with the Trinity, four with the evangelists, six with the work of creation, seven with the sabbath and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, eight with baptism and the resurrection and the beatitudes, ten with the commandments and the Old Testament, etc. Texts such as the Liber de numeris, which received extremely wide circulation in the Carolingian world, may have served to popularize an originally Irish habit. Numerology may also have played an important role in catechesis (particularly if it was done by Irish missionaries): see the so-​called Verona Homilies, which exhibit certain affiliations with Hiberno-​Latin exegesis but were not necessarily composed in an Irish foundation: Homiliarum Veronense, Scriptores Celtigenae, ed. L. T. Martin, CCCM 186 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1990). In a Carolingian parallel to Hincmar’s Ferculum, in her handbook the noblewoman Dhuoda composed

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In this context, adding, subtracting, multiplying, and breaking a number down into its component factors became a form of theological shorthand, expressing the myriad perceived interconnections of these doctrines within the Christian faith in terms of simple, memorable mathematical operations. Probably conflating the biblical description of Solomon’s temple with that of the ferculum, Hincmar laid out his carmen figuratum to have two columns, each made up of thirty-​three capitulis: the number of the Trinity multiplied by the Decalogue, plus an additional three, corresponding to Christ’s age when he began his earthly ministry.87 The other column was made up of thirty-​eight capitulis: the number of years the Israelites spent wandering in the desert, the Decalogue multiplied by the four evangelists minus the two commandments of the Golden Rule.88 There were one hundred verses on the columns, eight on the golden reclinatorium of the ferculum, thirty on the purple ascensus, all oriented around the two commandments of the golden rule and the four points of the cross, the “charity” strewn at the heart of the ferculum for the daughters of Jerusalem, for a total of six verses, and forty-​six verses decorating the top of the ferculum. While not necessarily to modern aesthetic tastes, these numerological cadenzas formed an intrinsic part of the Ferculum, locating it within a tradition of numerical symbolism expressed in architectural terms and rooted in scripture, the works of Gregory the Great, particularly the Homilies on Ezechiel, and Bede’s works on the Tabernacle and the Temple. Following Bischoff’s reconstruction, Ernst drew parallels between the center of the ferculum, marked with a cross, and an image on a sarcophagus at the Villa Parisi in Frascati, in which two columns enclose an altar surmounted by an “ichthus wheel,” a chi-​ rho enclosed in a circle.89 I would suggest that in envisioning Solomon’s ferculum Hincmar may also have been influenced by one of the most familiar

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a numerological excursus to encourage her son William to be the perfect man, based around the eight Beatitudes and seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Book Nine of the handbook is almost entirely made up of numerology, including fifteen blessings for William, keyed to particular numerical sequences whose significance she details. Dhuoda, Liber manualis, Bk. vi, cap. 4; Bk. ix, caps. 1–​6. For the use of numerology within the Hiberno-​Latin tradition, see Charles D. Wright, “The Enumerative Style in Ireland and Anglo-​Saxon England,” in The Irish Tradition in Old English Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 49–​105. D. A. Howlett has contended that the Irish use of numerology served a predominantly mnemonic purpose, perhaps even serving to reduce scribal error. David Howlett, “Collectanea Pseudo-​Bedae,” Peritia 19 (2005): 30–​43. Col. 818D-​819B. Col. 824D. Ernst, Carmen figuratum, figs. 100 and 102, 347.

172 ­chapter  “architectural” images in a Carolingian bible:  the columns and capitals of a canon table. Hincmar specifies that there are two—​and only two—​columns of capitula in his carmen figuratum, a detail that is certainly not in the biblical text, surmounted by the forty-​six verses of the roof or cover of the ferculum, suggesting the framing space and layout of a canon table; even the idea of a column made up of capitula also suggests it. Moreover, as Florentine Mütherich has noted, manuscripts produced by the school at Rheims under Hincmar’s aegis, such as the Ebbo Gospels, the Loisel gospels, the St. Remi gospels, the Saint-​Thierry gospels, and the Gospels of Morienval, among others, became particularly noteworthy for the increasingly elaborate nature of their “characteristic and unmistakable” canon-​tables, often containing beautifully drawn plants and fantastic animals.90 As an image in which biblical text, numerology, and architecture came together by tradition—​and, moreover, was intended as a helpful guide to the ordering and understanding of scripture—​there are obvious parallels to how Hincmar constructed the image of the ferculum in the Song of Songs. As we have seen, in their shared preoccupation with the role of the doctores and the reform of the church, the architectural works of Bede certainly had certain affinities with his Song commentary, but actually to work out a way to portray a Song image visually is Hincmar’s innovation. It may have been that the association between the church, the Eucharist, and an architectural structure came more easily to Hincmar than it would have done to Bede: Hincmar was part of a much broader transition in Carolingian attitudes toward the sacraments, a shift in emphasis away from baptism as the pre-​eminent sacrament in the church toward the Eucharist.91 As Dominique Iogna-​Prat has argued, such a shift in ecclesiology meant an understanding of the church primarily as a eucharistic community, and necessarily emphasized the symbolic value of the physical building in which the bread and wine were consecrated that had not been there in earlier centuries.92 Increasingly, when early medieval people envisioned the church as a whole they thought about a church in small, the rite 90 91 92

Florentine Mütherich, “Carolingian Manuscript Illumination in Rheims,” Studies in Carolingian Manuscript Illumination (London: Pindar Press, 2004), 312. See also figs. 10–​12, 15, 18, 19, 24, and 29. Cramer, Baptism and Change in the Early Middle Ages, 217–​20. D. Iogna-​Prat, “Lieu de culte, eucharistie, et représentations de l’Église dans l’Occident latin (ixe-​xie siècle),” in Pratiques de l’eucharistie dans les Églises d’Orient et d’Occident (Antiquité et Moyen Age), ed. Nicole Bériou, Béatrice Caseau, and Dominique Rigaux (Paris, 2009), 1:154, 157–​60. For comparison with an earlier understanding, see George Hardin Brown, “The Church as Non-​Symbol in the Age of Bede,” in Northumbria’s Golden Age, ed. Jane Hawkes and Susan Mills (Thrupp: Sutton Publishing, 1999), 359–​64.

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and the community enclosed in a physical building. In the Song commentaries of Alcuin and Haimo of Auxerre, architectural imagery used to describe the Bride, such as the comparison of her neck as a tower hung with shields, reminded exegetes of the duties of the doctores to protect and fortify the church from the attacks of heretics and false Christians. Similarly, in its finished form, the Ferculum would have encouraged Charles the Bald to meditate upon the nature of the church and its teaching that, like Solomon, he was supposed to protect and foster. Moreover, in the format of Hincmar’s carmen figuratum, each piece of doctrine, like the church’s teachings on predestination or the Eucharist, would have seemed inextricably tied to the rest of the edifice of orthodoxy, indispensable and part of a single, unified church “terrifying as a battle-​line.” Although Angelomus of Luxeuil’s Enarrationes in Cantica Canticorum and Hincmar’s De ferculum Salomonis are very different works, dedicated to different Carolingian kings, concerned with different theological debates, and utilizing different portions of the Song text, they have in common their aim to encourage the ruler to use the images of the Song as a text for meditation. Angelomus pieced together loose, soaring excursuses from the works of other early medieval exegetes, while Hincmar created a highly structured acrostic whose explanatio was made up of complex chains of numerical symbolism. Neither Angelomus’s or Hincmar’s Song works can really be called specula principum per se, but both have affinities with the Fürstenspiegel genre and the injunctions of the doctores for the king to fulfill his particular ministerium.93 A traditional mirror-​text would include both good and bad exempla on which the prince was supposed to model his conduct, and there is no major character in the Song that could serve as an anti-​type of the Bridegroom. Be that as it may, the ambivalence of the figure of Solomon, with his equally great gifts and failings, and that of some of the other models invoked by Angelomus may have served a similar function as a negative model in a mirror-​text. In the figure of the litter of Solomon, the king would have been simultaneously drawn, on the one hand, to the image of the king and the ideal of the king as builder and shaper of the church, and on the other, recognition of the necessity to heed the church’s teachings. Moreover, the allegorical nature of the Song may have further emphasized the importance of the king’s right conduct; as he read, the Carolingian king would have been poised between the historical, ultimately 93

For the hefty section devoted to the reams of good advice written for kings by Hincmar alone—​some twenty-​nine works—​see Anton, Fürstenspiegel, 281–​356. The genre is a fairly capacious and flexible one; certainly, Lawrence Nees has argued that a poem of Theodulf of Orleans, the Contra Iudices, is at least a proto-​mirror: A Tainted Mantle, 129–​131.

174 ­chapter  fallible Solomon and the figure of Christ the Bridegroom, understood as the perfection of the flawed Old Testament type. Eric Miller has noted the potentially subversive elements of even a positive exegetical rendering of Solomon as a type of Christ, such as that of Hrabanus: Christ’s triumph through suffering and humility was an implicit critique of all worldly ambition, including that of the Old Testament kings, just as the majesty of the risen Christ was the great leveler of any pretensions worldly power might have.94 Similarly, in these works of Song exegesis, the Carolingian king was enjoined to imitate both the Old Testament type, modified in light of how it reflected the teachings and character of Christ, and the glory of Christ the Bridegroom, which could not be perfectly imitated or even fully comprehended; in these works of Song exegesis for kings, meditation and mirror come together. Ultimately, Song exegesis for kings both represents the fulfillment of the early medieval commentary tradition and a form of departure from it. The ecclesiological reading of the Song articulated and mirrored the aims of the class of Carolingian doctores and supported their claims to ratify orthodox teaching. The king, like a Carolingian Constantine or Theodosius, was responsible for convening the most senior ecclesiastical officials in his kingdom and for forming orthodox consensus, which would be then promulgated throughout the realm. He was encouraged to think of his high office in terms of a Gregorian ministerium and was thus a member of the doctores even while he had other, less obviously religious responsibilities. In this sense, a Song commentary for a Carolingian Solomon was the most natural thing in the world. In another sense, however, the equivalence of Solomon or the Bridegroom with Christ was so fixed within the ecclesiological reading of the Song as to leave no room, or not very much, for the king; when Hincmar presented his acrostic of Solomon’s ferculum to Charles the Bald, was Charles actually supposed to liken himself to Solomon-​Christ, even though it was axiomatic throughout so much of Carolingian imperial ideology? I have argued that the answer was a cautious blend of yes and no: that he was encouraged to model his behavior on that of Christ, while knowing that he must ultimately fall short. Moreover, if Song exegesis had hitherto mirrored an entire social and religious class in the process of formation, the works of Angelomus and Hincmar, designed particularly for 94

The “Christo-​mimetic” aspect of the Old Testament kings was certainly a very active concern in all of Angelomus’s works of exegesis. For an analysis of his understanding of King Saul as a type of Christ, see Eric P. Miller, “The Political Significance of Christ’s Kingship in the Biblical Exegesis of Hrabanus Maurus and Angelomus of Luxeuil,” Biblical Studies in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Claudio Leonardi and Giovanni Orlandi (Florence: Sismel, 2005), 197–​205; idem, “The Politics of Imitating Christ,” 88, 99, 124–​27.

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kings, had a different, more individual and personal thrust. In this re-​framing of the Song tradition, the very flexibility of Song interpretation, with its constant shifts of emphasis, as well as the sheer variety of texts available to aid in its interpretation, was in this way a help to Angelomus and Hincmar. It should serve as a testament to the originality of Carolingian exegetes, to their judicious selection of sources, and to the sheer range of Carolingian exegesis of the Song of Songs.

­c hapter 6

“Love’s Lament”: Paschasius Radbertus and the Song of Songs The Song of Songs was understood by many Carolingian exegetes as the greatest, highest, and most obscure of Solomon’s three books of wisdom. But these Carolingian exegetes would also have understood the Song as a dialogue, a sung exchange between Christ and his church: in fact, as the quintessential spiritual song. Like the liturgy of the Eucharist and the divine office, the Song of Songs would have served as a window into heavenly realities, offering glimpses of a triumphant, spotless Bride and a resurrected, glorified Bridegroom that ninth-​ century reformers’ grim views of the church in their day would have found all the more tantalizing. For Paschasius Radbertus, abbot of the great Carolingian monastery of Corbie and as warm and passionate a personality as Alcuin, the Song became more than simply a treasury of imagery. In this chapter, I will be examining Paschasius’s use of the Song of Songs throughout his body of work. Although this is necessarily only a preliminary effort in understanding many of the underlying themes at work in Paschasius’s biblical exegesis, I argue that the Song of Songs played a central, formative role in his exegetical imagination and a structural role in many of his major exegetical works. If Paschasius wrote a Song commentary, it has not survived; nevertheless, the Song of Songs is ubiquitous in the rest of his exegesis, and I would suggest that Paschasius’s love for the Song and its rich imagery formed a prism through which the rest of his work was refracted. Paschasius’s understanding of the “ecclesiological interpretation” of the Song of Songs and the role of the doctores in particular has much in common with the work of Bede, whom he knew, and the commentaries of other Carolingian exegetes. Paschasius’s work is evidence of the reach and impact of Song exegesis in the Carolingian world at this time, particularly in its influence on Carolingian ecclesiastical culture. In fact, precisely because Paschasius had deeply internalized so much of the tradition, in particular the allegorical interpretation of certain images from the Song lifted from the formal commentary tradition, he was free to innovate, to apply the principles and images of Song exegesis in new contexts, and to push at the boundaries of what Song exegesis could be made to express. Paschasius Radbertus is best known to scholars for his contributions to the Carolingian eucharistic controversy in the 840s and 850s, particularly his treatise on the eucharist, De corpore et sanguine Domini. Paschasius’s

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 | DOI:10.1163/9789004389250_008

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De corpore was originally written in 822 for the monks at Corbie’s daughter-​ house of Corvey, attempting to impress upon newly converted Saxons the significance of the Eucharist. However, the work incited such a firestorm of distortions, exaggerations, and miscommunications in its readers that Charles the Bald and many of the most senior theologians in the Carolingian world would ultimately intervene to restore consensus.1 A fascinating and complex personality, Paschasius seemingly had a talent for polarizing political and theological opinion:  a touchy hybrid of social insider and voluntary exile, a consummate communicator, an innovative and occasionally rebarbative stylist, and an obsessive perfectionist who revised several of his works continually until his death.2 A foundling raised by the nuns of Soissons, Paschasius owed his position to natural talent but even more to social connections, particularly to Abbess Theodrada, cousin to Charlemagne, and her brothers Adalhard and Wala of Corbie. Paschasius would be fiercely loyal to these mentors, even when they in turn dug in their heels against Louis the Pious, and he would retain his affection for Theodrada, her daughter Emma, and the nuns of Soissons, writing several works particularly for them. Over the course of his life, Paschasius faced opposition from within Corbie as well as from without, and not only to his eucharistic theology. Confronted with financial squabbles over the management of Corvey, factionalism within Corbie itself, and possibly with a temporary lapse in royal favor, he would spend several years in voluntary exile at the monastery of St. Riquier from around 852, before returning to the abbacy at Corbie at the end of his life.3 Paschasius’s withdrawal may not have been 1 See Chazelle, Crucified God, 209–​38; eadem, “Figure, Character, and the Glorified Body in the Carolingian Eucharistic Controversy,” Traditio 47 (1992):  1–​36; Thomas F.  X. Noble, “Kings, Clergy, and Dogma,” 250–​52; Patricia McCormick Zirkel, “The Ninth-​Century Eucharistic Controversy: A Context for the Beginnings of Eucharistic Doctrine in the West,” Worship 68.1 (1994): 2–​23; A. Bisogno, Il Metodo Carolingio (Brepols: Turnhout, 2008), 307–​10. For a brief comparison of the two positions of Ratramnus and Paschasius, see Fulton, From Judgment to Passion, 12–​16, 41–​59; Stock, The Implications of Literacy, 259–​72; Willelmien Otten, “Between Augustinian Sign and Carolingian Reality: the Presence of Ambrose and Augustine in the Eucharistic Debate between Paschasius Radbertus and Ratramnus of Corbie,” in Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis 80 (2000): 137–​56. 2 In his ability to create controversy, his sensitive personality, colorful literary style, and theological interests—​deep interest in biblical exegesis, eucharistic teaching, and Marian exegesis of the Song of Songs—​Paschasius bears some resemblances to Rupert of Deutz. See John Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983). 3 David Ganz notes several letters between Paschasius and Lupus of Ferrières concerning the monk Ivo, a relative of Charles the Bald, who had escaped from Corbie to the king’s displeasure, but it is not clear what Paschasius’s attitude to or role in the escape might have been, or how he might have gone against the king’s wishes in the matter. See Ganz, Corbie in the Carolingian Renaissance (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1990), 32.

178 ­chapter  a strictly necessary step, the action of a sensitive man who felt he had been misunderstood and attacked unfairly. It may have been that he modeled his conduct on that of the revered Adalhard and Wala, both of whom had spent considerable time in political exile, only to emerge eventually justified.4 In any event, the embattled abbot would revise De corpore in 843/​4 at Charles’s request and write a defense of his position in 859, supported by Charles and the court, shortly before his death. Despite the controversy it had excited, De corpore et sanguine Domini would go on to lay the foundations for all subsequent medieval teaching on the Eucharist.5 However vindicated Paschasius might have felt if he had known the direction history would ultimately take, that his small treatise on the Eucharist has so monopolized critical attention to his work would, no doubt, have come as a surprise. Like Bede, Paschasius Radbertus thought of himself first and foremost as a biblical exegete, a doctor responsible for the teaching and study of scripture and the propagation of correct doctrine. Other than De corpore, Paschasius was the author of a monumental twelve-​book commentary on the gospel of Matthew, commentaries on Psalm 44 (45) and the book of Lamentations, treatises on the cardinal virtues, the blessings of the Old Testament patriarchs, and the Virgin Birth, two letters on the Assumption inspired by Jerome, and finally, saints’ lives of Adalhard, Wala (also called the Epitaphium Arsenii), and the double martyrs of Soissons, Rufinus and Valerius. It is a rich and varied corpus, but sadly one that has been neglected by most scholars, despite Paschasius’s reputation as one of the greatest and most innovative of Carolingian theologians. What work has been done has tended to treat Paschasius’s works in isolation from one another, focusing in turn on his eucharistic theology, his Marian works, his biographical works on Adalhard and Wala, and more recently, his Christology.6

4 Both Adalhard and Wala become beloved everywhere their exile brings them, even to their supposed captors or jailers, so much so that Paschasius can write of Wala, “to him there was no exile at all, but an augmentation of virtues,” a form of “scattering seed.” Paschasius notes as biblical parallels the productive exiles both of David and of the Apostle John. Paschasius Radbertus, “Life of Wala,” Charlemagne’s Cousins, trans. Allen Cabaniss (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1967), Bk. ii, caps. 12–​13:5. The best Latin edition of the Epitaphium Arsenii, while difficult to find, is still that of E. Dümmler, “Radbert’s Epitaphium Arsenii,” Abhandlungen der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (1900), 18–​98. 5 Miri Rubin, Corpus Christi:  The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (New  York:  Cambridge University Press, 1991); Gary Macy, Treasures from the Storeroom: Medieval Religion and the Eucharist (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1999), 59–​80. 6 Despite his recognized importance, the only monograph on Paschasius Radbertus is now over seventy years old: Henri Peltier, Pascase Radbert: abbé de Corbie (Amiens, 1938).

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In many ways, Paschasius, or Deacon Radbert as he occasionally styles himself,7 can be understood as the product of a mature, articulate, not to mention politically engaged clerical class. More practically, he was also the beneficiary of decades of scribal labor under the Carolingian reform. At Corbie, Paschasius had access to a formidable number of manuscripts and worked, as the Epitaphium Arsenii illustrates, in a rarefied intellectual environment in which the dialogue’s complex classical allusions and late-​antique pseudonyms would have been fully appreciated. In fact, there, the work’s in-​jokes and sheer stylistic difficulty would have been part of its inner-​circle charm.8 As David Ganz has noted, Paschasius’s use of sources in the Epitaphium is far more sophisticated than mere collage, “with an intensity of feeling closer to the allusive culture of Boethius than to the scissors-​and-​paste anthologies of quotations of Hrabanus Maurus. The quotation, like a Roman coin in a Carolingian mint, is melted down and stamped in a new mold.”9 That is not to say that Paschasius would not resort to lengthy quotation, particularly in a large work like the Matthew commentary, but he definitely felt that a unified style of presentation was to be preferred, and in fact, in the prologue to that work he would go so far as to apologize for the occasionally patchwork quality of the exegesis.10 The nature of the work permitting, however, Paschasius was an extremely self-​ conscious stylist. As we shall see, all of Paschasius’s writings are richly allusive, containing countless echoes, sometimes encapsulated only in brief phrases, of his biblical and liturgical environment; his works reveal a scholar who had so thoroughly mastered the tools and texts of his intellectual formation that he could recombine them to form an original synthesis. To some extent this could be said of many medieval theologians, but Paschasius is particularly noteworthy for his responsiveness to liturgical changes 7 8

9 10

Paschasius Radbertus, De fide, spe, et caritate, ed. Beda Paulus, CCCM 97 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1990), “Carmen ad Warinum.” Ganz, Corbie in the Carolingian Renaissance, 36–​67; 81–​87. For example, among many others, Paschasius had access to at least a portion of the extremely rare commentary on the Old Testament songs by Verecundus of Iunca, used in Bk. v of his Lamentations commentary. Cf. Michael M. Gorman, “The Deceptive Apparatus Fontium in a Recent Edition (CChr.SL 82),” Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 8.1 (2004). David Ganz, “The Epitaphium Arsenii and Opposition to Louis the Pious,” Charlemagne’s Heir, ed. Peter Godman and Roger Collins (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 537. “Si forte uirtus diuina siccam uellet fonte doctrinarum rigari pectoris rupem et mei laboris stilo sanctorum Patrum sensus unitatis eloquio legentibus coaptari. Ita sane ut nec eloquentia uariis obscene sententiarum consuta pictatiis animum lectoris offenderet nec rimarum tramites diuersi nitorem intellegentiae confunderent.” Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Matthaeo, ed. Beda Paulus, CCCM 56 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1984), Bk. 1, lns. 16–​20.

180 ­chapter  made during the Carolingian reform and his willingness to broaden the scope of the formal commentary tradition based on those changes. These were deliberately ambitious and creative decisions, reminiscent of Bede’s readiness to break new exegetical ground with commentaries on Ezra-​Nehemiah, Tobit, and works on the Tabernacle and Temple. As E. Ann Matter has noted, before the Carolingian fusion of Gallican and Gregorian sacramentaries a formal commentary tradition on the Old Testament book of Lamentations simply did not exist. Perhaps inspired by readings from the book chosen for the service of Tenebrae, as well as particular passages in Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Iob, Hrabanus Maurus and Paschasius both choose to comment on the work, but Paschasius invented a striking approach to the text, drawing it into the formal commentary tradition using what Matter describes as a “system of resonances” linking it indissolubly to more familiar biblical passages, chiefly among them, the Song of Songs.11 In his pseudo-​Hieronymian letter Cogitis me and in the treatise De partu Uirginis, Paschasius was inspired to apply imagery from the Song of Songs to Mary not by any sustained patristic exegetical precedent but by the use of the Song text in the liturgy for the office of the Assumption. When Paschasius quotes the Song, the version of the text he uses is not the Vulgate at all but the text preserved in the Antiphoner of Compiègne.12 6.1

Singing the Life of Heaven: Paschasius, the Liturgy, and the Song of Songs

The experience of participating in the liturgy and hearing it performed was at the center of Paschasius’s exegesis. In his Life of Adalhard, Paschasius describes the intense passion with which his mentor engaged in the divine office—​significantly, as if he were already in the presence of God: When he entered upon God’s office, which he was accustomed to say with pleasant spirit, he laid aside all plans and temporal matters at the door and went in to be present to God and himself completely and entirely. If you had observed him, you would have seen him suddenly enter the more secret matters of the mind and look with fearsome countenance upon 11 12

E. Ann Matter, “The Lamentations Commentaries of Hrabanus Maurus and Paschasius Radbertus,” Traditio 38 (1982): 138–​39; 155. Fulton, “Quae est ista quae ascendit,” 57; 91–​97; eadem, “Mimetic Devotion, Marian Exegesis, and the Historical Sense of the Song of Songs,” Viator 27 (1996): 86–​87; Matter, The Voice of My Beloved, 153–​55.

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something I know not what. He dipped his tongue like a pen in the fountain of the Holy Spirit that he might be pure enough to sing the praises of God. Amid praises he discerned some kind of music and sometimes wept beyond measure.”13 In his commentary on Psalm 44 (45), Paschasius describes the office of the nuns of Soissons as an epithalamium to Christ, the teaching of scripture interspersed with sung praises in which the nuns can forget themselves in their holy otium: “While the readings instruct, the singing lightens crushing burdens and eases anxieties.”14 Paschasius describes the worship of the nuns in near-​ ecstatic terms: “And so, in this epithalamium, such musical instruments move the virgins of Christ before your vigils that, with their honey-​sweet sounds, all human gladness in present things is overwhelmed and the joys of future things are now already being celebrated.”15 For Paschasius, the liturgy transported, in both senses of the word; it uplifted the soul, literally and figuratively, and made it a participant in the life of heaven. Although he was a doctor of the written scriptures, for Paschasius, much of Christian worship—​and particularly the very heart of worship, encountered in the Eucharist—​was fundamentally and inescapably oral. It can be no coincidence that Paschasius so emphatically defended to Warin and his Saxon audience at Corvey not only the words of the biblical text per se but, in particular, the power of the priest’s spoken words of consecration to transform the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.16 For Paschasius, the power of the spoken word in all its forms was immense. Paschasius’s magnum opus, the immense commentary on Matthew, was a Sisyphean act of exegesis on which he labored all his life, but the work began, 13

14 15

16

Paschasius Radbertus, “The Life of Saint Adalard,” Charlemagne’s Cousins, trans. Allen Cabaniss (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1967), cap. 27. Paschasius’s Life of Adalard is still available only in Migne’s edition printed in the Patrologia Latina. Cabaniss’s translation is occasionally problematic; I will supplement it when necessary with the Latin text. “Nam lectiones instruunt cantus labores sublevat arduos et solatur angustias.” Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Psalmum XLIV, Bk i, lns. 125–​26. “In quo itaque epithalamio talia movent uirgines Christi ante uestras excubias musicorum organa ut eorum mellifluis sonis inpraesentiarum omnis uincatur humana laetitia et futurorum in his iam iamque celebrentur gaudia.” Paschasius, Expositio in Psalmum XLIV, Bk. iii, lns. 1004–​7. “… Paschasius’s eucharistic doctrine may be seen as an attempt to assert not so much the power of the spoken or oral tradition as against that of the written or literate tradition, but rather to assert the power of the spoken word despite a tradition that located the efficacy of words not in their evanescent performance but in their material inscription.” Fulton, From Judgment to Passion, 45.

182 ­chapter  as we have seen for Haimo of Auxerre and as must have happened so often in the Carolingian world, through his duties teaching novices—​effectively as lecture-​notes. One of the most striking features of Adalhard to Paschasius was the sensuous power and beauty of his voice, which he likens to the “voice of the turtle-​dove” from the Song: “the words of all who testify are that they never heard anyone speaking more richly or expressively. More melodious in voice than a swan, he caressed the listener, but sweeter than honey was the melody to the palate of the heart.” As Paschasius notes, Adalhard’s voice actually strengthened when he was appointed to the abbacy at Corbie.17 Paschasius’s late antique models were written texts with a significant oral component that made a deep impression: Paschasius explicitly bases the Life of Adalhard on the funeral orations of Ambrose and Jerome, while its opposite bookend, the Epitaphium Arsenii, was constructed as a dialogue between multiple speakers, known by Alcuinian nicknames drawn from late antique sources—​Severus, Adeodatus, Ambrose—​but clearly modeled on real individuals at Corbie. If the Life of Adalhard vividly gives voice to a community in collective mourning, the Epitaphium Arsenii is an equally noisy act of collective memory, the monks exhorting, correcting, exclaiming, and describing shared experiences together. Moreover, this dialogic, performative aspect of both texts is crucial in forming and illustrates the process of creating a “house memory” of Adalhard and Wala, crystallizing particular qualities about them that Paschasius wanted to emphasize—​most notably, those that he felt his contemporaries lacked. To defend Adalhard and Wala adequately required speaking and writing of a different order. It was central to Paschasius’s mission as an exegete to model himself after the Old Testament prophets, envisioning Wala, and of course himself, as one of a series of latter-​day Jeremiahs to the sinful Carolingian world.18 Insofar as the Life of Wala is also an apology for an abbot who had rebelled against Louis the Pious, it is a deeply political text, in which proclaiming the merits of Wala acquires a gospel-​like urgency for his apostle-​like followers, despite the potential danger of doing so. Writing himself into the dialogue under his own name, Paschasius is careful to assert, echoing Peter in Acts and the

17

18

For Paschasius, oral and written communication, in German or Latin, were hardly neatly compartmentalized categories. Speaking again of Adalhard: “Or who, without mental anguish, can recite the brightness of his eloquent letters, letters which (if you should hearken to the crowd) the sweet-​dripping man spoke abroad? If that barbarous tongue called Germanic was spoken, it excelled in clarity of expression; but if Latin, the spirit was not beyond the greed of sweetness.” “Life of Saint Adalard,” caps. 5, 15, 63, 77. Paschasius, “Life of Saint Adalhard,” Bk. ii, cap. 2.2–​5. See Mayke de Jong, “Becoming Jeremiah: Paschasius Radbertus on Wala, Himself, and Others,” 185–​96.

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gospel of John, that “we are not speaking about matters unseen or unknown.” There is nothing hole-​and-​corner about their discussion, even though Paschasius suggests he is keeping back a few juicy secrets: I have not yet spoken; I  am still guarding certain hidden matters. But that day will come, I believe, when it will be permissible for me to declare openly his deeds and to unfold more plainly what is more significant about him [Wala]. In the meantime, however, just as you warn that “there should be nothing excessive,” it is suitable to speak with greater caution and to lament with greater abundance …19 The prophet is remarkable for his ability to speak the truth, even if it brings punishment, exile, and death. And the truth, for Paschasius, was not only written and copied but spoken, proclaimed, taught, and sung; both his saints’ lives, as well as Paschasius’s various treatises for the nuns of Soissons, were probably intended to be read aloud. It is within this context—​a context in which the written word existed alongside and to some extent inseparable from the liturgy and its spoken performance generally—​that one must understand the equally important place of the Song of Songs in Paschasius’s exegesis. Though the Song of Songs was a written text, it encapsulated an ongoing dialogue spoken between the Bride and her heavenly Bridegroom in which the exegete could himself participate. In The Voice of My Beloved, E. Ann Matter has characterized Paschasius as a turning-​point in the history of medieval Song interpretation, with his works De partu Uirginis and Cogitis me marking “the beginning of a new mode of exegesis.”20 Be that as it may, Paschasius’s Mariological innovations, however significant, are not necessarily representative of his use of the Song of Songs in his exegesis as a whole. Moreover, such an approach has the effect of using Paschasius merely as a stepping-​stone to the fully-​fledged Marian exegesis of the twelfth century—​to the work of Honorius of Autun or Rupert of Deutz, among 19

20

“… erit, ut credo, illa dies, mihi cum liceat eius aperte dicere facta, et quae potiora sunt de illo, manifestius explicari. Interdum uero, sicut mones, ne quid nimis fiat, cautius loqui iuvat, et uberius deplorare …” Epitaphium Arsenii, Bk. i, cap. 11.1–​9. In fact, the entire chapter is an extended play on speaking clearly and plainly, what can be kept back and what must be expressed circuitously. Matter, The Voice of My Beloved, 154. Despite her valuable work elsewhere on Paschasius’s biblical exegesis, including her doctoral work on an edition of De partu (CCCM 56C), Matter here is chiefly concerned with Paschasius’s Mariological material and in particular, his influence on Honorius of Autun, dealing only with Cogitis me and mentioning only in passing De partu and the commentary on Psalm 44 (45).

184 ­chapter  others—​instead of understanding the significance of the Song within Paschasius’s own work. Concentrating too narrowly on Paschasius’s Mariological use of the Song, amounting to a few isolated passages out of a voluminous corpus, obscures just how complex his reading of the Song could be, how central Song interpretation in all its forms was to his entire approach to exegesis generally, and how deeply rhetorical his use of it ultimately was. Paschasius subtly shifted his reading of the Song from work to work, depending on what biblical book was the main focus of his commentary, who his intended audience was, and what points he most desired to make. While I would not argue that the liturgy was the primary inspiration for Paschasius’s Mariological readings of the Song, these grew out of and harmonized with Paschasius’s more traditional interpretations of the text. Just as Paschasius succeeded in passing off Cogitis me as a work of Jerome, concealing the names of his interlocutors in the Epitaphium Arsenii, subtly re-​directing how the church viewed the Eucharist for the rest of the Middle Ages and into the present day, or even forging the pseudo-​Isidorian decretals, his innovations were so deeply rooted in the patristic tradition that they slipped into the formal exegetical tradition without raising any alarm—​ indeed, without anyone being any the wiser.21 6.2

Perfumes and Ointments: Paschasius’s Commentary on Matthew and the Song of Songs

On the most basic level, the treasury of lush, botanical images Paschasius found in the Song of Songs had so impressed themselves upon his mind that, given the opportunity in the biblical text, he often emphasized “resonances,” to use Matter’s term, between individual images from the Song and the main focus of his exegesis. In Paschasius’s allegorical interpretation of Jacob’s and Moses’s blessings on the twelve tribes of Israel, heavily influenced by similar 21

For Paschasius’s rather uneasy blend of innovation and loyalty to tradition, see Gérard Mathon: “On en a dégagé les deux caractéristiques: audacieux pour ce qui regarde l’approfondissement de la vérité révélée qui doit s’imposer à tous sans se trouver limitée aux expressions dont elle s’est momentanément revêtue, mais tout autant hostile aux innovations qui tentaient de détourner les esprits de cette tâche.” “La théologie de Pascase Radbert,” Corbie Abbaye Royale (Lille, 1963), 152. For the theory that Paschasius was responsible for a substantial portion of the pseudo-​Isidorian decretals, see Klaus Zechiel-​Eckes, “Ein Blick in Pseudoisidors Werkstatt. Studien zum Entstehungsprozess der falschen Dekretalen,” Francia 28.1 (2001): 37–​90. Johannes Fried concurs with this “new, radical, and I  believe, unavoidable conclusion”:  Donation of Constantine and Constitutum Constantini (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2007), 70.

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works by Ambrose and Rufinus, often a single word forms an associative link between the Song text and the patriarchs’ blessings, which are often plays on what the name of a tribe means. Thus, Reuben “pitching his tent at midday” recalls the Bride asking where the Bridegroom lies down at midday; Dan, meaning “judgment from the North,” recalls the Bride’s request for the north wind to blow on her garden.22 Naphtali, flourishing like a palm tree, evokes a stream of Song language of palms and vines; the daughters of Joseph, whose daughters are said to “run to and fro upon the wall” evoke the Daughters of Jerusalem.23 Revealingly, the Song text is so much in the forefront of Paschasius’s mind that he mistakes Christ’s injunction from John’s Apocalypse, “Behold, I stand at the gate and knock,” as a quotation found in Canticis.24 In his commentary on Matthew, Paschasius sought to connect discrete, individual images from the Song with events from the life of Christ. That these connections were hardly obvious and even, on occasion, forced emphasizes how important they were to Paschasius and the extent to which they represented creative exegetical decisions on his part. Several times Paschasius takes up Jerome’s image of the root or tree of Jesse and his comparison of Christ growing up in relative obscurity in Nazareth to the Song image of Christ as the “flower of the field, the lily of the valleys.”25 The Holy Spirit descending on Christ in the form of a dove Paschasius compares to the dove-​ eyes of the Bride, who is made one with Christ through the action of the Holy Spirit;26 when Christ goes into the desert to be tempted, Paschasius recalls the Bride, whose head is Christ, coming up from the desert.27 Christ calming the Sea of Galilee recalls the Bride’s words to the north wind;28 elsewhere, Paschasius notes that the woman who touched only the fringe of Christ’s 22 23 24 25 26

27 28

Paschasius Radbertus, De benedictionibus patriarcharum, ed. B. Paulus, CCCM 96 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1993), i.269–​9; i.301–​2. Paschasius, De benedictionibus, ii.790–​803; ii.949–​954. Paschasius garbles the Vulgate text, inserting “totis noctibus” between “Ecce sto ad ostium” and “et pulso”; he goes on to invoke the parallel “in eisdem Canticis” in which the Bridegroom asks the Bride to let him in: De benedictionibus, i.1489–​1499. Paschasius, Expositio in Matthaeo, i. 1512–​15; ii.2186–​90; vi.57–​60; ix.2970–​75. Paschasius, Expositio in Matthaeo, ii.3321–​3385. Paschasius also invokes this image (as as well as other parts of the Song) in connection with Christ’s words on adultery in the Sermon on the Mount and again, in the need for the single, innocent, undistracted eye, and also Christ’s injunction for his disciples to be as simple as doves: iii.3157–​66; iv.1738–​54; vi.1265–​83. Paschasius, Expositio in Matthaeo, iii. 96–​110. Paschasius takes up this image again in connection to Christ’s discussion of the narrow gate of righteousness, the desert way of penance: iv.2538–​51. Paschasius, Expositio in Matthaeo, v.1315–​19.

186 ­chapter  garment, touched his head as well, drawing from him the dew of salvation, and recalls the dew-​soaked head of the Bridegroom.29 In his Matthew commentary, his Expositio in Psalmum 44 (45), and in Cogitis me, Paschasius borrows Ambrose’s comparison of the good odore of Christ to Jacob masquerading as Esau, whom his father likened to the scent of a ploughed field. As we shall see, Paschasius appears to have been particularly fascinated with the Song’s descriptions of perfumes and fragrances; any mention of ointments in the gospel—​the ointments Christ orders believers to put on when they fast, the nard of Mary Magdalene, or the ointments the women bring to Christ’s tomb—​immediately recalls the perfumes of the Song.30 Dramatically, Paschasius compares Judas’s kiss of betrayal to the kiss of the Bridegroom from the opening lines of the Song, and Christ’s crucifixion at noon recalls the Bride asking where her Bridegroom lay down at midday.31 Paschasius compares Mary Magdalene’s search for Christ’s body to the Bride’s desperate search for her vanished lover, and the garden where his tomb was located to the “garden of delights” in the Song.32 As we shall see, the “garden enclosed” was one of Paschasius’s favorite images of Mary, and he uses the metaphor in connection to her several times in his Matthew commentary. But Paschasius also included the more traditional, ecclesiological interpretation of the passage: the garden of delights as the walls of the church, in which each “faithful soul rests secure.”33 The image of the Virgin and Mary Magdalene going to Christ’s tomb in the garden was also an image of the Jewish and Gentile churches, united into the single, perfect dove of the Song.34 Elsewhere, he jumps from the gospel text to traditional readings of Song passages:  like Christ’s lamp on a hill, the church is the neck of the Bride, the tower of the Song, hung about with shields and defended by Solomon’s mighty men, the doctores.35 The church is the lily among thorns, the hen whose chicks have been scattered by the depredations of the fox-​heretics.36

29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

Paschasius, Expositio in Matthaeo, v.2378–​92. Paschasius, Expositio in Matthaeo, iv.1617–​23; v.1793–​1814; vii.1024–​35; xi.2054–​56; xii.154–​88 and 289–​308. I have not found any patristic parallel—​or any other medieval writer, for that matter—​ that connects the kiss of Judas with Cant. 1:1. Paschasius, Expositio in Matthaeo, xii.1837–​ 41; i.2360–​2; xii.3698–​3705. Paschasius, Expositio in Matthaeo, xii.1264–​71 and 5072–​3. Paschasius, Expositio in Matthaeo, ii.3740–​9. Paschasius, Expositio in Matthaeo, xii.4816–​17. Paschasius, Expositio in Matthaeo, iii.2443–​65. Paschasius, Expositio in Matthaeo, vi. 1006–​10; v.1148–​52. This last is a quotation from Ambrose’s commentary on Luke.

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While these interpretations are hardly original in and of themselves, it is striking that when Paschasius appeals to the Song text and invokes its traditional, ecclesiological interpretation, it is often to emphasize the security and the fortified nature of the church, the protection which she could offer an embattled and besieged soul. In the second prologue to De corpore et sanguine Domini, revised for Charles the Bald, Paschasius implicitly places himself in the camp, if not among their number itself, of the sixty strong men standing guard around the ferculum of King Solomon (Cant. 3:9), and warns of the dangers awaiting contemptuous intruders: For which reason I  should wish that the greatness of your skill should read these things through not with a superficial mind, led by love of precious words to other things, but that your prudence might thus attend to this little pauper’s table, as if to the table (ferculum) of King Solomon, which is circled by sixty of the strongest elect heavenly citizens. Where, certainly, if any arrogant or envious or unworthy person should ever approach so far—​I speak safe in the protection of those concerning whom this passage speaks; these things are not despised without danger, since the sword of each of them quivers upon either side—​so that it repels the audacity of such people, just as they guard the bedroom of the king against enemies.37 We have seen how Hincmar of Rheims, in the context of the eucharistic debate in its later phases, understood this image in particular as a figure for the church itself, for the growing prominence of the Eucharist in Carolingian devotion, and for Charles’s own role in propagating correct doctrine. De corpore was written in 822 and revised for Charles in 843 or 844, and in all likelihood Hincmar, Paschasius’s ally against Gottschalk, borrowed the image directly from Paschasius’s preface.

37

“Qua de causa uelim non leui animo ista perlegat uestrae solertiae magnitudo, uerborum ad alia pretiosorum amore ductus, sed sic super hanc intendat prudentia uestra mensulam paupertatis ac si ad ferculum Salomonis quod ambiunt ex fortissimis supernorum ciuium electorum sexaginta fortes. Vbi profecto si quis superciliosus aut inuidus uel indignus accesserit usquam, eorum tutus loquor praesidio de quibus est sermo, non ista absque periculo contempni, quoniam uniuscuiusque ensis hinc inde uibrat, tam ut talium retundat audatiam, quam ut regis excubias custodiant contra hostes.” Paschasius Radbertus, “Prologus ad Karolum,” De corpore et sanguine Domini, ed. B. Paulus, CCCM 16 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1969), lns. 27–​37.

188 ­chapter  6.3

Diverse Laments: Paschasius’s Commentary on Lamentations and the Song of Songs

But what if the walls of the church felt as if they might not be up to the challenges of the world? What if, in fact, the enemies appeared to be not only at the gates but within her walls itself? After all, the historical city of Jerusalem had hardly proved invulnerable. In the biblical book of Lamentations, the prophet Jeremiah wept over the plight of his beloved city, which had suffered invasion, siege, and the exile of many of its inhabitants after turning away from the right worship of God. Throughout the book, Jeremiah likens Jerusalem to a widow, bereft of children and protectors; the personified city and her prophet in turn entreat God for deliverance and the restoration of their fortunes. For Paschasius in his commentary on Lamentations, the weeping of Jeremiah and the sufferings of Jerusalem became an ideal vehicle for his own outrage over the state of the worldly, corrupt church.38 In the prologue dedicated to Odilmannus Severus—​probably to be identified with the dour, if deeply r­ espected Severus from his Life of Wala—​Paschasius describes how his own personal miseries led to his decision to take up the work, probably the same miseries that led to his temporary resignation of the abbacy at Corbie.39 The Jeremiah commentary is not, however, unfortunately for historians, a recital of Paschasius’s own tale of woe; rather, it represents the channeling of these energies into passionate exhortations for the church and her doctores to reform. Like Jeremiah’s own promises of the return of her people to Jerusalem, at the same time as he inveighed against present abuses, Paschasius was equally keen to insist on the eternal beauty of the church, untouched by present corruption. 38

39

Cf. Paschasius’s vita of Rufinus and Valerius, in which Jeremiah is the emblematic voice of the coming judgment of God against the wicked tyranny of the powerful: “Sed cum nullus ex hoc clementiae ejus intellectus populis redderetur, quin potius, velut ignorantes Deum, absque divina Providentia res agi ducerent, et per hoc eo magis persisterent in malis suis, atque ipsi, qui duces populi videbantur, et principes divini mandati immemores effecti, adversus se invicem contentionibus, zelo, livore, superbia, inimicitiis, atque odiis inflammarentur, ita ut tyrannidem potius quam sacerdotium tenere se crederent, Christianae humilitatis et sinceritatis obliti, sacra mysteria profanis mentibus celebrarent, tunc demum, secundum vocem Jeremiae prophetae, obscuravit Dominus in ira filiam Sion; et dejecit de coelo gloriam Israel, nec rememoratus est scabelli pedum suorum in die irae suae.” Paschasius Radbertus, De passione SS. Rufini et Valerii, PL 120, cols. 1493A-​B. “Vnde congelatus usu longiori durior effectus, nullis iam emolliri queo fletibus quamuis multis miseriarum mearum intus foris ue premar doloribus. Quibus cottidie saltem ad suspiria propulsus Hieremiae prophetae inter discrimina ultimae uitae Threnos explanare decreui.” Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Lamentationes Hieremiae, Libri quinque, ed. Beda Paulus, CCCM 85 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1985), Bk. i, lns. 10–​14.

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The dynamism and effectiveness of the work as a spur toward reform lies in the juxtaposition of the heavenly and earthly Jerusalems. For this purpose, Paschasius could have no better foil for the biblical book—​or, as Paschasius insisted, the song—​of Lamentations than the Song of Songs. In his prologue, he makes the parallel explicit: Just as we read diverse songs in the holy scriptures, so also we read diverse laments, with the Holy Spirit making them accessible. And just as the book of Solomon is rightly called the Song of Songs, so also the threnodies of Jeremiah can be called the Laments of Laments. Because just as in every way the former excel, in which the Bridegroom and Bride enjoy sweet embraces, so in the same way, these Lamentations, in which the departure of the Bridegroom from the Bride is exceedingly mourned with great weeping, exceed all the other laments of the scriptures. In which it is very bitterly lamented that the city and mistress of the nations sits alone as a widow. In the former songs, indeed, diverse characters are introduced into the joys of the wedding, but in the latter diverse characters are mourned. The former are fitting, if indeed it be the case, in our homeland; the latter, rather, in this our wandering.40 Running through Paschasius’s Lamentations commentary and his two lives of Adalhard and Wala is the argument, influenced by the monastic tradition and in particular by certain works of Gregory the Great, that weeping is the right and proper response to the wickedness of the world,41 the mark of a soul not despairing but deeply grieved over its own imperfections and longing for the

40

41

“Sicut in diuinis Litteris diuersa leguntur cantica ita et Spiritu sancto reserante lamentationes diuersae. Et sicut proprie appellatur liber Salomonis Cantica Canticorum ita et appellari queunt Threni Hieremiae Lamentationes Lamentationum. Quia sicut omnino praecellunt illa in quibus sponsus ac sponsa dulcibus fruuntur amplexibus ita et Lamentationes istae uincunt omnia Scripturarum lamenta in quibus abscessus sponsi ab sponsa magnis cum fletibus uehementius deploratur. Ex quo sola ciuitas sedere ac domina gentium quasi uidua amarissime satis plangitur. In illis quippe canticis diuersae introducuntur ad gaudia nuptiarum personae in istis uero diuersae planguntur. Illa siquidem decent in patria, ista uero in hac nostra peregrinatione.” Expositio in Lamentationes, Bk. i, lns. 31–​43. For example, “Multa namque nunc exhibenda sunt quae in paradiso necessaria non fuerunt. Nunc quippe opus est uirtute patientiae, laboriosa eruditione doctrinae, castigatione corporis, assiduitate precis, confessione delictorum, inundatione lacrimarum, quorum profecto omnium conditus homo non eguit, quia salutis bonum ex ipsa sua conditione percepit.” Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob, Bk. 35, 17, lns. 53–​58.

190 ­chapter  next world, where “blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be ­comforted.”42 Paschasius notes biblical parallels: Peter after his betrayal of Christ, the case of Ezechiel, David after the death of Saul and Jonathan, and the Jews under Titus and Vespasian. In rare moments when heaven and earth converge, as during the Eucharist, the office, or in the rare person of a saint like Adalhard, joyful weeping is often the most appropriate response, and even a potential gift of the Holy Spirit.43 Early medieval theologians did not distinguish clearly between an allegorical and an anagogical interpretation of the Song of Songs, as in de Lubac’s later, classic formulation. Rather, the so-​called anagogical sense could be better understood as a dimension of allegory, a sort of eschatological longing or urgency underpinning and intensifying particular aspects of Song exegesis.44 This is most obviously apparent when exegetes, trying to create a consistent narrative out of such discordant images as the “black but beautiful” Bride who is also a dove “without spot or blemish,” juxtaposed the temporal church and its work in the world with the heavenly Jerusalem.45 Similarly, exegetes c­ ontrasted the Christ of the gospels with the risen, transcendent Christ as he appears in the book of Revelation, which describes Christ’s body in vivid, lapidary language that evokes the Song’s glowing description of the Bridegroom. This sort of double vision is commonplace in early medieval Song exegesis, particularly as a way of understanding difficult or contradictory images. Paschasius is 42

43

44 45

The role of tears in Paschasius’s theology has much in common with the developing Greek and Byzantine concept of penthos (Syriac abila). See Hannah Hunt, Joy-​Bearing Grief: Tears of Contrition in the Writings of the Early Syrian and Byzantine Fathers (Leiden, 2004). See especially 9–​16. The Carolingian idea of a baptism by tears was derived from Greek thought, particularly Gregory of Nazianzen:  Marcia L.  Colish, Faith, Fiction, and Force in Medieval Baptism Debates (Washington D.  C.:  Catholic University Press, 2014), 26–​27. With regard to Paschasius’s emphasis on tears, see Piroska Nagy, Le don des larmes au moyen âge: un instrument spirituel en quête d’institution (Ve-​XIIIe siècle) (Paris, 2000), 163–​65. Nagy only examines the Vita Adalhardi, however, and not the Epitaphium Arsenii or any of Paschasius’s exegetical works. For the somewhat contradictory nature of tears in the Christian tradition, see also Tom Lutz, The Natural and Cultural History of Tears (New York, 1999), 35–​39. “Sed huiuscemodi cantica caelestis patriae sunt gaudia lamentationes uero Spiritus sancti aut ex merore aut ex desiderio aeternae uitae cordis infusio.” Expositio in Lamentationes Bk. i, lns. 94–​96. Cf. “Sed quia ut dixi nemo qui semper uno impetu queat affluere ideo temperauit egregius lacrimarum doctor ut ad eum stillet flagrans ex desiderio inpresentiarum in cuius non ualet inreuerberata acie fixus permanere obtutus.” Expositio in Lamentationes Bk. ii, lns. 1574–​77. “Irreverberata acie” is a phrase taken from Gregory’s Moralia in Iob, Bk 9, 32, ln. 1. Cf. Turner, Eros and Allegory, 88. Dahan, “Niger sum sed formosa: aux origines d’un stéréotype?” 15–​32.

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distinctive, however, in his bold decision to set one entire book of the bible in counterpoint with another, in effect, using the Song as an anagogical reading superimposed on his base text; as a consequence, Paschasius’s Lamentations commentary is almost a double work, with Paschasius incorporating into it almost the entire text of the Song of Songs. In this way, Paschasius contrasts the ruined, wasted appearance of Jeremiah’s Jerusalem, symbolizing the church in her present time of tribulation, with her glittering, fortified, impregnable appearance in the Song of Songs.46 In short, she is truly “black but beautiful,” in parallel with the prophet’s own crippled and dejected appearance; ecclesiological and tropological readings here mirror one another. Paschasius compares the black skins of the tents of Kedar, to which the Bride compares herself, with the appearance of those in penance and martyrdom, but also with the ignorance of those the church must convert and Satan’s sarcastic “Skin for skin!” which is the prelude to Job’s physical afflictions.47 Similarly, the tear-​stained cheeks of the present church conceals the pomegranate-​red beauty of the heavenly Bride, but Paschasius e­ mphasizes that they are the same: “Indeed, these same are the cheeks of the church …” Again, he emphasizes that weeping is a mark of those whose are following both the theoricam and practicam uitam; theirs is the true beauty, just as it is a weeping whose abundance inebriat.48 For Paschasius, the flowing tears of the prophet paradoxically signify the flowing waters that enrich the “garden of delights” that is the nursery of all other virtues; it is a sign of the grace of the Holy Spirit that—​in this barrage of Song imagery—​is a fountain, a well, a garden enclosed and a fountain sealed.49 Very significantly for Paschasius, the image itself of the soul as a watered garden is found most famously in the Song of 46 47 48

49

Expositio in Lamentationes, Bk. i, lns. 669–​71; Bk. ii, lns. 251–​52; Bk. ii, lns. 1053–​58. Expositio in Lamentationes, Bk. iii, lns. 259–​74. “Plorat autem in nocte quia in mestitia posita tenebras delictorum suorum non ignorat et lacrimas in maxillis portat ut pulchritudo ipsius cottidie renouetur. Ipsi quidem sunt maxillae ecclesiae qui et cortex mali punici. Quia non solum traiciunt nos in corpus Christi sed et tegunt cum rubore pulchritudinis Christi sanguine decoratos et celant omnia infra ipsius uiscera quae intrinsecus latent. Dicuntur ergo genae ecclesiae fore etiam et sicut turturis ut eos designet qui solitariam et castam diligunt uitam. Dicuntur et sicut areolae aromatum quae consitae sunt a pigmentariis etiam ut et eos insinuet qui theoricam sectantur uitam et orationibus die noctuque deseruiunt in quibus uere est pulchritudo ecclesiarum et uirtutum odor quos impetus fluminis intus laetificat et ubertas lacrimarum inebriat. Quia nimirum eorum lacrimae omnium sunt lamenta etiam eorum qui practicam gerunt uitam dum hi maxime gemunt pro omnibus et deflent qui sunt ac si areolae uirtutum consitae a pigmentariis apostolis uidelicet et apostolicis uiris.” Expositio in Lamentationes, Bk. i, lns. 314–​31. Expositio in Lamentationes, Bk. iii, lns. 2098–​2107.

192 ­chapter  Songs but also at Jeremiah 31:12, “… their soul shall be as a watered garden and they will hunger no more.” This immediately precedes the prophet’s famous comparison of Jerusalem to Rachel, “Thus saith the Lord, ‘A voice was heard on high of lamentation, of mourning and weeping, of Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted for them, because they are no more.”50 At Lamentations 3:49–​51, Paschasius contrasts the failing, weeping eyes of the prophet with the eyes of the Bride, likened in the Song to the fishpools of Hesh­ bon, which, since the Song commentary of Bede, had been associated not only with the clarity of the prophet’s teaching but also its productivity and fertility.51 Similarly, Lamentations 2:10, “the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground,” immediately recalls the Daughters of Jerusalem from the Song and the Bride made faint with love, beseeching them tearfully (lacrimabiliter) about the Bridegroom—​except that, in Paschasius’s interpretation, these Daughters can be trusted to converse (confabulari) with the Bridegroom precisely because they are dressed in sackcloth and ashes.52 The judgment of God upon his church, like the ferocity of a bear or an archer choosing a mark, to use Jeremiah’s metaphors, terrible though it may seem, is only meant to pierce the hard-​hearted, to make them “languish with love,” just as the frequent absences of the Bridegroom are intended to inflame the love of the Bride.53 Though the church may ask plaintively “if there is a sorrow like my sorrow,” her work in the world is constructive and vital. Paschasius, like other early medieval exegetes, envisioned the work of the church in nutritive, maternal terms, but in Paschasius’s case in particular this language was juxtaposed with her more grim, defensive aspects, a function of the nature of a fallen world: And this virgin spouse of Christ, the mother of all of us, because she bears and produces, nourishes and gives milk, is discouraged in sadness, and mourns in humility, since she sees that nearly all go to destruction and the extinguishing of life; in some people indeed she is tried unto their death, but giving birth, she is followed by others, other immature ones she nourishes, other hardened ones she calls back, reluctantly, to the ways of life; others, hesitant and slow to go, she awaits, others, hasty, she 50 51 52 53

Jeremiah 31:12 and 31:15: … eritque anima eorum quasi hortus inriguus et ultra non esurient … haec dicit Dominus vox in excelso audita est lamentationis fletus et luctus Rachel plorantis filios suos et nolentis consolari super eis quia non sunt. Expositio in Lamentationes, Bk. iii, lns. 1964–​88. Expositio in Lamentationes, Bk. ii, lns. 958–​68. Expositio in Lamentationes, Bk. iii, lns. 752–​55; Bk. iii, lns. 1164–​69.

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chastens so that they might go with her own, so that the enemy does not discover such strong people outside of camp: no surprise, because all of these passing through the way bear arms with the Bride of Christ in her camps. Concerning whom, of course, in the Song of Songs, “Who is it?” he asks, “who ascends through the desert, rising like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, choice as the sun, terrible as a battle-​line?”54 The transformation is a slow and gradual one. Elsewhere, juxtaposing the fear of the personified Jerusalem in Lamentations with the Bride’s injunctions in the Song, Paschasius underlines the still-​imperfect nature of the work of the Bride in this world: her heart is disturbed, but if she had had fully carried out the command of Christ, she would not be afraid.55 Alternatively, Paschasius could employ the very beauty of the heavenly Bride as a scathing critique of what the earthly church has become. Paschasius, like other early medieval exegetes, interpreted Cant. 1:6–​7, in which the Bride asks the whereabouts of her lover and is asked, “Don’t you know, most beautiful of women?” as a sarcastic injunction to repent and reform: the Bride’s ignorance shows the degree to which she has already fallen away.56 As Jeremiah laments that the crown that Jerusalem had once possessed has tumbled from her head, Paschasius notes that the church, likewise, loses her crown in wickedness. Particularly he notes the wickedness of those who make up her head and are supposed to be her crown, the doctores.57 In the same way that Bede had used his work on Ezra-​Nehemiah as a platform from which to attack church abuses, 54

55 56 57

“Et haec Sponsa Christi uirgo quia parit et generat nutrit et lactat omnium nostrum mater in tristitia contristatur, et in humilitate luget. Quoniam uidet quod pene omnes in perditionem uadunt, et exterminium uitae. In aliis quidem usque ad mortem periclitatur. Ab aliis uero pariens persequitur. Alios teneros lactat. Alios exasperatos uix ad uias uitae reuocat. Alios ire nolentes et pigros expectat. Alios praecipites ut cum suis eant castigat ne fortes tales hostis ex castra inueniat. Nimirum quia omnes isti transeuntes per uiam cum sponsa Christi in castris militant. De qua sane in Canticis: Quae est ista inquit quae ascendit per desertum sicut aurora consurgens pulchra ut luna electa ut sol terribilis ut castrorum acies?” Expositio in Lamentationes, Bk. i, lns. 1206–​17. “Ac deinde cor meum ait subuersum est quia omnino illud quod sponsus iusserat in Canticis non impletur: Pone me inquit ut signaculum super cor tuum. Quod si poneret, hostis eam non adiret ut subuerteret.” Expositio in Lamentationes, Bk. i, lns. 1774–​77. Expositio in Lamentationes, Bk. iii, lns. 1734–​8. “Quam sane coronam ecclesia quae uere sponsa Christi est tunc perdit quando decorem fidei et integritatem operum eius amittit in his qui summi uidentur in membris Christi. Aut certe corona capitis nostri tunc ruit quando hi qui uidebantur ad decorem et gloriam insigniri pro diademate in Christi qui caput est totius Ecclesiae in perfidiam uel in scelera aut flagitia cadunt. Cadit quippe corona capitis nostri cum hi defluunt qui in Christo ornamentum uidebantur esse decoris. Sed tunc uae inminet cum et hi per diuersa corruunt

194 ­chapter  Paschasius used his Lamentations commentary to bewail the sorry state of the church of his day—​in particular, the state of its leaders—​and to warn that, unless reform was effected, she would lose her divinely mandated position. It cannot be a coincidence that Paschasius opens his Jeremiah commentary with a quotation, however subtle, from Gildas’s equally Lamentations-​inflected De excidio et conquestu Britanniae, with its thundering rhetoric against the wickedness of the perfidious British, who brought their conquest down upon their own heads.58 Using the sacked city of Jerusalem as a warning, Paschasius inverts the traditional image of the church and her doctores that early medieval exegetes had compiled from the Song of Songs: instead of being identified as the vigiles, the guardians of the city whom the Bride encounters, the head of the church, Solomon’s mighty men, wicked doctores unwittingly become the enemy within the walls who actively erode the church’s security: And so her fortifications are destroyed when the watchmen and guardians of the churches, who would have a duty to defend and encircle her with their help and teaching, with all care and concern, are corrupted by the enticements of this life and pleasures. The chorus of the saints groans and mourns them, because they do not understand that they have been demolished and scattered by their own depraved actions. Because in them both her beauty perishes and the strength of her flock is weakened. For the church of Christ is like Jerusalem, which is built as a city and like the tower of David with her battlements. A thousand shields hang on her and all the armor of strong men. But when her “walls,” which is to say, the pastors or guardians of souls, are destroyed by their own acts, the enemy easily pulls down and plunders all precious things within and she becomes like a city which is being sacked.59

58 59

qui uidentur summi, deinde uulgus lasciuiens in peccata et flagitia uenit.” Expositio in Lamentationes, Bk. v, lns. 726–​35. Expositio in Lamentationes, Bk. i, lns. 114–​15. Gildas, De excidio et conquestu Britaniae ac flebili castigatione in reges principes et sacerdotes, ed. T. Mommsen, MGH Auct. Antiquiss. 13 (1898), 25, lns. 19–​20. “Destruuntur itaque munitiones eius quando peruigiles et custodes ecclesiarum qui eam munire et circumdare suo auxilio et doctrina cum omni cura et sollicitudine deberent, oblectamentis huius uitae et uoluptatibus deprauantur. Quos quia non se intelligunt destructos et dissipatos suis prauis actibus gemit et deplorat chorus sanctorum. Quia in illis et pulchritudo deperit et fortitudo gregis infirmatur. Est namque ecclesia Christi quasi Hierusalem quae aedificatur ut ciuitas et sicut turris Dauid cum propugnaculis suis. Mille clipei dependent in ea omnis armatura fortium. Sed cum muri eius pastores uidelicet ac custodes animarum suis destruuntur actibus facile hostis omnia introrsus speciosa

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At Lamentations 2:11, “My eyes have failed with weeping … my liver is poured out upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people, when the children, and the sucklings, fainted away in the streets of the city,” Paschasius’s interpretation again upends the biblical passage. Although he is hardly accusing Jeremiah of personally causing the destruction of Jerusalem, Paschasius suggests that, allegorically, the distress of the prophet-​doctor is not the result of what has happened to his city but the cause. Significantly, the chief culprits are the earthly appetites of the “wealthy” (diuites) and “powerful” (potentes), who are symbolized by the prophet’s liver.60 As he dryly remarks, quoting from Ambrose’s Expositio psalmi cxviii: “How rare in the lands the man who can say, “The Lord my portion!” How [rare the man] free from vices, separated from every lapse of sin, who has nothing in common with the world!”61 For a busy Carolingian abbot like Paschasius, as for Ambrose before him, the complete renunciation of the world was, of course, not a terrifically realistic or even an entirely desirable goal. He was, however, one of many voices at this time who reacted against the perceived worldliness of Carolingian elites and the misfortunes that began to feel, to many, like the judgment of God. In the bleak mental landscapes inhabited by many Carolingian writers after the battle of Fontenoy, there was certainly no lack of general disillusionment on which Paschasius could draw.62 In this environment of doctrinal controversy and political and military instability, Paschasius’s use of the Song anticipates the more personal, mystical readings of the twelfth century. Early medieval Song exegesis contained within itself a tension between the church’s ultimate

60

61

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ciuitatis deicit et diripit fit que quasi ciuitas quae uastatur.” Expositio in Lamentationes, Bk. ii, lns. 264–​76. “Super contritionem filiae populi mei cum deficeret paruulus et lactans in plateis oppidi. Ac si diceret: Effusum est iecur meum in terra super contritionem filiae populi mei. Quia ecclesia Christi quae filia sanctorum iure uocatur tunc conteritur et afficitur temptationibus quando iecur ipsius diuites uidelicet et potentes in terrenis se effundunt desideriis et sola quae presentis uitae sunt inhiant. Tunc itaque paruulus et lactans in plateis oppidi deficiunt quando tales omni felicitate saeculi abundare uident. Sin alias nisi paruuli et lactantes essent in fide et doctrina Christi pro talibus numquam in plateis deficerent.” Expositio in Lamentationes, Bk. ii, lns. 1117–​27. “Quam rarus in terris qui possit dicere: Pars mea dominus! Quam alienus a uitiis, quam segregatus ab omni labe peccati, qui nihil habeat commune cum saeculo!” Expositio in Lamentationes, Bk. iii, lns. 1179–​82; Ambrose of Milan, Expositio psalmi cxviii, ed. M. Petschenig, CSEL 62 (Vienna, 1913), 150. Cf. the similarly pessimistic attitude of Nithard, whose portraits of Adalhard and Wala Paschasius would have seen in exile at St. Riquier and against whom, Ganz has argued, Paschasius was arguing with his hagiographical works. See Stuart Airlie, “The World, The Text and the Carolingian: Royal, Aristocratic, and Masculine Identities in Nithard’s Histories,” Lay Intellectuals in the Carolingian World, 51–​76; Ganz, “The Epitaphium Arsenii,” 541.

196 ­chapter  destiny and the pastoral, apostolic work in which she and her doctores were engaged in the world. By sharply contrasting Lamentations and the Song of Songs in the way that he does, Paschasius designates the siege and sack of Jerusalem and the blindness of the prophet as the narrative properly belonging to this world, while the Song is relegated, more completely than had previously been the case, to a purely spiritual realm. According to this view, the Song is no longer really a rallying-​cry of the doctores and praedicatores and a spur onward to fulfill their apostolic mission, but a more distant, difficult, and personal ideal, toward which only a choice few could hope to aspire. 6.4

The Absent Bridegroom: Paschasius, Adalhard, and Corbie

In this way, Paschasius’s Vita Adalhardi, which is well-​nigh saturated with Song language, uses this language precisely because it has become simultaneously remote, personal, and emotional, the language of grief, of joy, and of memory.63 In a highly rhetorical passage at the beginning of the work, Paschasius defends his passionate, even excessive mourning of Adalhard, invoking Christ’s weeping over Lazarus. While he invokes for precedent the funeral oration of Ambrose on the death of Valentinian, Paschasius does not wish his work to function in the way that his late antique models did, enabling the listener to purge the excessive violence of grief and move toward stoic, and even glad acceptance of loss.64 Indeed, the act of remembering Adalhard places Paschasius at the crux between grief over his hero’s passing and joy at his merits, but if anything, Paschasius’s description of the rejoicing of heaven and Adalhard’s entrance into Christ’s wedding-​feast throws into relief and even exacerbates his own personal sense of loss on earth.65 Tears, whether bitter tears of grief or 63

64 65

Leclercq noted the brevity with which Paschasius referred to his biblical citations in the Life of Adalhard, a mark of how thoroughly he had internalized his material. “L’ecriture sainte dans l’hagiographie monastique du haut moyen âge,” La bibbia nell’alto medioevo (Spoleto, 1962), 119. See also David Appleby, “ ‘Beautiful on the Cross, Beautiful in His Torments’: The Place of the Body in the Thought of Paschasius Radbertus,” Traditio 60 (2005): 8–​9. Life of Adalhard, cap. 3–​5.1. Describing Adalhard’s death, Paschasius writes, “… it was a holy experience to rejoice with so great a man and it was a holy experience to weep at his departure,” Life of Adalhard, cap. 82. “You have been made sweet and seemly amid the delights of paradise. On you there is no stain. You are embraced by the right hand of Christ. Sleeping the sleep of peace, you press the left hand under your head. In His presence you have become as one who has found peace. Your couch is flowery according to the quality of reward because you are situated in Christ’s peace. The beams of your house are of cedar and your ceiling of cypress.” Life of Adalhard, cap. 85.1.

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the sweet tears of the contemplative, are to be encouraged and even cultivated, with both Adalhard and Wala acting as Paschasius’s models in this regard; they are the mark of the righteous soul enduring its present “place of pilgrimage,” a protest against the evils of the world, and they help both the individual monk and the collective monastery of Corbie to remember. Inherent in the Song text, as we have seen, is the running play of proximity, intimacy, distance, and separation between the Bride and Bridegroom, which amplifies the longing felt by both parties to the point of near-​physical pain. Similarly, Lamentations speaks of the exile but also the restoration of God’s chosen people, mourning over God’s judgment but hoping for his future favor. In the Vita Adalhardi, Paschasius uses passages from both books to create an emotional space in which longing and grief perpetually coexist. According to Paschasius, Adalhard’s gift of tears and his devotion to Christ was such that he could say, like the Bride in the Song, “I am wounded with love”; again, Pachasius reminisces, “Even as you [Adalhard] were lamenting, all those things were present before your eyes. Full of love you had fainted as you said, ‘I adjure you, O daughter of Jerusalem, if you have found my beloved, that you may announce to him that I am fainting with love.’”66 Even Adalhard’s final fever is described using the language of the Song: “Support me with flowers, press me with apples, for I am sick with love.”67 During the saint’s time in exile, Adalhard’s minders and keepers acquire with regard to him, as if by sheer proximity, the same chiastic emotions of intense longing combined with equally intense grief that the saint himself felt toward Christ: during their acquaintance, they come to “burn with love” for him, and weep copiously when he departs, watching him as long as he is in sight, effectively becoming the longing bride to Adalhard’s elusive Bridegroom.68 As the community’s collective mourning of Adalhard intensifies after his death, Paschasius subtly but explicitly links Jeremiah with the Song of Songs, significantly, with the double phrase, “weeping, weeping.” Without Adalhard, Paschasius insists, “Mother Corbie” is like Jeremiah’s Jerusalem, “Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted” (Jer. 31:15). At the rhetorical climax of the passage, Paschasius’s own words fail him, or they seem to, and he breaks into another soaring pastiche of Song quotations: Behold, O men, and see, all people: Mother Corbie, beehive of monks, weeping, weeping, and saying, “My illustrious one has been taken from 66 67 68

Life of Adalhard, caps. 25 and 26.2. Life of Adalhard, cap. 78. Life of Adalhard, caps. 41 and 47.

198 ­chapter  me”… The one most dear to me has gone away; he has departed. The virgin of Israel has returned to her own cities and now walks gloriously upon the waters of redemption. To me he was the dearest of longings, the one converting my soul and the guardian of my life … But while the ages remain and night divides its lot with day, the fame of your most holy life will be proclaimed. We will never be without your praise. But draw us after you, we beg, and we will run in the odor of your perfumes. The upright ones love you. So we ask to arrive where you are grazing, where you are lying.69 Paschasius depicts Adalhard himself as simultaneously present and absent in a number of respects. While still alive, Adalhard frequently appeared absent-​ minded, already engaged in heavenly affairs. In keeping with the nature of a funeral oration, the saint is simultaneously described as being only recently departed, newly entering into his heavenly inheritance and just achieving consummation of his achievements, but he is nevertheless cut off from his bereaved monks at Corbie, who can only imagine, however tantalizingly, what he must be experiencing now. And finally, of course, the central purpose of the Vita Adalhardi is to keep the memory of the saint spring-​green in the hearts of the monks at Corbie. With respect to the formal commentary tradition, Adalhard stands in the place in which ecclesiological and tropological readings of the Song overlap: his personal beauty, spiritual dedication, and moral virtues obviously evoke the beauty of the Bride and the soul’s perpetual quest for the Bridegroom, while his consummate gifts as an abbot, teacher, and the fosterer and nurturer of his monks fulfill the ideal of a doctor as described in the Song. Again, for Paschasius, the Song image that best encapsulates these various gifts is that of the walled and watered garden: the epitome of the self-​contained, self-​sufficient soul, with its energies both productive and protected. In this way, Paschasius says of Adalhard, “His spirit was as the garden of Paradise, enclosed with the wall of faith, planted with all kinds of virtues.”70 In recounting the events of the abbot’s early life, Adalhard’s appointment as gardener affords Paschasius a perfect, unmissable opportunity to put the words of the Song in his hero’s mouth: If I am not mistaken, he said (perhaps not with voice, but with mental disposition), he said, Let my beloved come into his garden planted with

69 70

Life of Adalhard, cap. 83.1–​2. Life of Adalhard, cap. 19.

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virtue, and let him eat fruits of his fruit trees … Adalhard … consecrated his soul to the Lord as a garden of delights. He remembered what He said to him, Put me as a seal upon your heart. Encompassed by this fortification he delighted in the Lord’s spiritual conversation with him more than matters of temporal importance. His beloved, Christ, had come down to visit the garden of his spirit. He came down as to a garden of spice and there he grazed on delights of virtues … Christ had, therefore, come down to it to gather the lilies of charity and to see the pomegranates that have sprouted.71 While this is, in one sense, a deeply traditional reading of the Song, what is striking and innovative, particularly in early medieval exegesis, is the degree to which Paschasius “animates” and makes personal the hitherto very static image of the soul as virtue-​producing garden. The Song comes alive, as Paschasius describes Adalhard’s private spiritual resolution and the mystical conversation with Christ that ensues. Notably, this occurs in the context of a quite physical garden, perhaps one which the monks of Corbie knew, visited, or in which they had even worked themselves. Evoking God walking in the garden of Eden, Mary Magdalene’s mistaking Christ for the gardener in the gospel of John, and the river and fruit trees of John’s Apocalypse, Paschasius grounds the Song text in real places, events, and the person of Adalhard, but also imbues the manual labor of his hero with a spiritual, exegetical dimension. As with his interpretation of Lamentations, Paschasius’s use of the Song in the Vita Adalhardi is meant to articulate a near-​otherworldly ideal, to act as a fund of imagery to describe a man who in his own worship, according to Paschasius, frequently seemed to hover on the boundary between earth and heaven.72 Paschasius’s description of Adalhard’s physical appearance is a long catena of Song quotations. Significantly, these are not only those understood to describe the Bride, which would be usual in a tropological interpretation, but an entire conglomeration of metaphors which include those traditionally applied to the Bridegroom, or Christ. While long, the passage is worth quoting in full: A statement from the Song of Songs is not unworthily adapted to him, His head is of the best gold; his hair indeed as the peaks of palm trees, for daily he took care to ascend upward to God. His eyes are as doves above streams of water which are flowing with milk, because his guileless face 71 72

Life of Adalhard, cap. 9. See also Dieter von der Nahmer, “Die Bibel im Adalhardleben des Radbert von Corbie,” Studi Medievali, ser. 3, 23.1 (1982): 23. Cf. Peltier, Pascase Radbert, 35.

200 ­chapter  was wholly intent on Christ’s teaching, from which we as little children were nourished with milk, not mixed with the gall of desires, but bathed with true innocence of mind. Moreover, his cheeks are as beds of spices which were planted by paint-​sellers, namely, adorned by holy teachers with every flower of doctrine and vegetable of virtue. His hands are beautifully wrought, molding the appearance of holiness and quickly pressing with special movement to every good; full of hyacinths, glistening in the likeness of heaven, laying up treasure in heaven, filled with many rewards. His belly is ebony, studded with ranks of virtues. His throat is very sweet, because of the honeycomb of eloquence; and he is wholly desirable, with credibility of manners and extraordinary charity. We therefore seek you, father, while you graze among the lilies. We seek him whom our soul loves. On the bed night after night we seek you with tears. Let your voice sound in our ears, I pray. Your voice is sweet and your face handsome.73 Over the course of the work, Paschasius takes full advantage of the degree to which the different personifications of the Song in early medieval exegesis feed and meld into one another: the individual believer as part of a broader church, the church joined to Christ, the individual believer imitating Christ. With regard to Adalhard’s own spiritual life, Paschasius depicts Adalhard as the Bride of the Song; with regard to his monks, however, he is their pre-​ eminent Christ-​proxy, and Paschasius frequently casts his hero in the role of Christ-​Bridegroom, with the listening monks as the Daughters of Jerusalem and Corbie, collectively, as the bereft Bride. For example, in another pastiche of Song language, Paschasius beseeches Adalhard, the voice of the turtle-​dove, to look through the lattices and visit those deprived of his presence; the monks, in turn, the Daughters of Jerusalem, are invited to gaze upon the diadem with which, like the Bridegroom on his wedding-​day, Adalhard was crowned.74 73

74

Life of Adalhard, cap. 57; see also caps. 54 and 62. For Paschasius’s emphasis on the beauty of Christ, see Appleby, “Beautiful on the Cross,” 22–​25. Cf. his Song-​infused description of the bodies of Rufinus and Valerius: “Inter eas enim positi, tanquam luminaria in mundo radiabant, ut digne Spiritus sanctus super Ecclesiae suae laude praecinuerit: Quam speciosa est amica mea! Quam decora! Pulchra ut luna, electa ut sol, terribilis ut castrorum acies ordinata. Revera enim speciosa erat, quando sanctis componebatur moribus; decora, quando uirtutum illustrabatur insignibus: unde in uita plebis honesta lunari nitebat pulchritudine, in rectorum meritis solis splendore fulgebat, et per ornatissimam diligentissime religionis modestiam aduersariis cunctis incutiebat tremorem.” De passione, cols. 1492B-​C. Life of Adalhard, cap. 6.2. For monks addressed as the Daughters of Jerusalem, see also cap. 73.

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Though it contains no explicit quotations from the Song, “The Eclogue of Two Nuns,” which closes the Vita Adalhardi, is another dialogue, a “plaint of praise” between Adalhard and two churches personified:  surely Corbie and Corvey. Galathea, the elder, whom Adalhard “in Christ’s stead nurtured in marriage” is described as a mother, while the younger, Philis, is her daughter; the structural similarities of the “Eclogue” to the Song of Songs, with its plethora of female characters, all of varying degrees of maturity, are self-​evident. The sheer quantity of Song quotation that Paschasius incorporates into the Vita Adalhardi is striking, unprecedented, and to some extent unparalleled in early medieval hagiography.75 It is one thing to borrow a single image or two from the Song, and quite another to appropriate a large portion of the text and place it directly in his own mouth, the mouth of Adalhard, and those of the monks of Corbie. We have seen how certain interpreters of the Song, Alcuin in particular, stripped down Bede’s commentary in order to help the Song speak for itself and thereby achieved a dramatic level of immediacy and urgency. Similarly, Paschasius captures the oral, dialogic nature of the Song, to the extent that the characters of the Vita Adalhardi seem to be reenacting the text. The effect can be sweet to the point of cloying. But why did Paschasius feel such a tactic was necessary in the first place? What overall purpose, beyond that of sheer rhetorical display, did he intend his use of the Song in the Vita Adalhardi to accomplish? I would suggest that a part of the answer lies in the fraternal relationship of the Vita Adalhardi to the Epitaphium Arsenii, and of both, in turn, to Paschasius’s Lamentations commentary. Despite the formal differences among all three works, in a very real sense, for Paschasius, Adalhard was to Wala what the Song of Songs was to Jeremiah’s Lamentations: at the boundary between heaven and earth, opposite but harmonic poles exploring Paschasius’s favorite, complex state of giddy exaltation combined with heart-​wrenching sorrow. Significantly, there is not a single Song reference in the entire Life of Wala. This may be the only work of Paschasius about which this can be said. Not coincidentally, in its place there is near-​constant language of weeping, mourning, and lamentation.76 Paschasius may have seized upon the figure of Wala as Jeremiah as a way of deflecting criticism from a man known for his seriousness, 75 76

In the Matthew commentary (Bk. ii, lns. 3740/​1 and 3750/​1), Paschasius twice borrows a line from the life of Agnes that is adapted from the Song, “signatus quippe est fons iste annulo fidei”: Passio S. Agnetis, ed. F. Jubaru (Paris, 1907), Bk. iii, 3–​7. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but see the Epitaphium Arsenii, Introduction, caps. 3, 4, 5, 14, 15; Bk i, caps. 1.4, 2.4, 2.6, 5.5, 8.4, 8.5, 8.6, 10.3, 10.8; Bk. ii, caps. 2.1, 5.2, 10.5, 22, 23.5.

202 ­chapter  severity, and near-​excessive self-​discipline, but in the broader context of the Epitaphium Paschasius contrasts the virtues of the weeping prophet against the immaturity, indecision, political intrigue, and childish playfulness by which he was beset. One of the central contentions of the Epitaphium is that the manifold evils of Paschasius’s day were caused by a confusion between the two orders of prelates and kings to the fatal detriment of both: kings meddling in church affairs (and particularly with church property) and prelates becoming infected by the cares of the world, with the ensuing chaos ultimately bringing about civil war.77 According to the Astronomer, at the assembly at Nijmegen “Abbot Wala was ordered to go back to the monastery of Corbie and to keep to the monastic life there.” While the order came from Louis, attempting to weaken those in opposition to him, including Hilduin, there may have been some who felt all too keenly that Wala was one of these worldly prelates himself.78 In response to these or similar charges, Paschasius contends that the voice of sane, steady opposition to this topsy-​turvy world, to church and king alike, is that of the prophets in exile, lamenting that not they but the people have gone astray. Over the course of the work, Paschasius compares Wala chiefly to Jeremiah, but also to Elijah and Elisha, David, John in exile, and the three boys in the fiery furnace. Of particular importance to Paschasius, still smarting at the treatment of his hero by the Empress Judith, wife of Louis the Pious, were those prophets who found themselves in opposition to wicked queens: Elijah and Jezebel, Nathan and Bathsheba, even Columbanus and the Merovingian Brunhild.79 Corbie had, after all, been founded by a contingent of monks from Luxeuil. Of equal, if more implicit, importance haunting both the Life of Adalhard and the Epitaphium, with their self-​confessed plethora of models, are the figures of Ambrose and of Boethius; Paschasius’s pseudonym for Judith was “Justina,” probably so named for the empress and wife of Valentinian I who had persecuted Ambrose.80 As David Ganz has suggested, the political difficulties attached to the reputation of Adalhard and Wala, as well as their overall lack of miracles, required 77 78

79 80

Epitaphium Arsenii, Bk. ii, cap. 2.2. See also Bk. ii, cap. 5.3. The Astronomer, “The Life of Louis the Pious,” in Charlemagne and Louis the Pious: Lives by Einhard, Notker, Ermoldus, Thegan, and the Astronomer, trans. Thomas F. X. Noble (University Park: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 277. See also Mayke de Jong, The Penitential State, 43 and 105. Epitaphium Arsenii, Introduction, caps. 5, 10; Bk. i, caps. 1.4, 2.2, 6.2, 21.4; Bk. ii, caps. 2.1, 5.2, 12, 15.3, 23. See also Elizabeth Ward, “Agobard and Paschasius as critics of the Empress Judith,” Studies in Church History 27 (1990): 21–​25. Epitaphium Arsenii, Bk. 1, cap. 7.12; Bk. 2, cap. 23:10; Ganz, Corbie in the Carolingian Renaissance, 115.

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Paschasius effectively to invent “a new form of biography.”81 By the time Paschasius wrote the Vita Adalhardi, Song exegesis in the Carolingian world had precipitated into religious and political discourse a cluster of familiar, consistent, and immediately recognizable imagery concerning the church’s role and that of her doctores, so much so that Song exegesis could be used to admonish and instruct kings. Its very accessibility and immediacy meshed well with Paschasius’s overall aims to justify his heroes’ political decisions, ensuring that Adalhard, partaking of aspects of both the Bride and Bridegroom, would strike a deep and personal chord in readers or listeners. The potent combination of the Song of Songs and Adalhard, the more immediately lovable figure of the two brothers, would have enlisted the emotions of his audience, to be followed up by the more sober, reasoned political discourse of the Epitaphium, which may have been intended only for a select like-​minded few. Fundamentally, in his commentary on Jeremiah and in his two lives of Adalhard and Wala, Paschasius creates a political argument that transcends usual charges of rebellion, an argument of protest by grief, to describe the actions of Adalhard and Wala in terms distinct from the worldly prelates that Paschasius so criticized, using deeply traditional biblical and patristic models.82 In a way, Paschasius continued to employ Song exegesis as it had always been used—​to fire the hearts and minds of the clergy—​but he did so in an atmosphere of political division to craft an ideal in opposition to the many within the larger church. 6.5

Lilies of the Valley: Paschasius’s Exposition on Psalm 44 (45) and the Nuns of Soissons

Paschasius’s jeremiad was delivered from the fairly private immunity of the “garden enclosed” at Corbie. Within this magic circle, as in his works for the nuns of Soissons in which Paschasius is effectively among family, Paschasius’s use of the Song shifts into another and even more intimate register. In his Exposition on Psalm 44 (45), dedicated to Theodrada’s daughter Emma, Paschasius yet again uses an Old Testament base text as a springboard to the Song of Songs. As with Paschasius’s Lamentations commentary, the form the Expositio would take and the role the Song of Songs would play within it was probably suggested by certain symmetries within the biblical text itself:  Psalm 44 81 82

Ganz, Corbie in the Carolingian Renaissance, 103. For discussion of the Field of Lies and the penance of Louis, see Booker, Past Convictions; Mayke de Jong, The Penitential State. For her discussion of the Epitaphium Arsenii, see especially 164–​70.

204 ­chapter  (45), Eructauit cor meum uerbum bonum, is a wedding-​song, a canticum pro dilecto, as the heading of the psalm itself states, and there are many obvious similarities between the two texts. Also like the Lamentations commentary, the structure of the work is entirely of Paschasius’s own devising; there was no patristic precedent for a commentary based around that particular psalm, although Paschasius does borrow considerably from the relevant portions of Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmos, Cassiodorus’s Expositio psalmorum, a letter of Jerome, and two letters of Fulgentius of Ruspé. Härdelin suggests that Paschasius’s choice of text was determined by the psalm’s well-​known properties as an epithalamium, making it a perfect choice for a community of nuns dedicated to Christ.83 Be that as it may, I have argued that Paschasius was equally, if not more inspired by the opening words of the Benedictine Rule, which is a paraphrase of Psalm 44 (45):11: Obsculta, o fili, praecepta magistri et inclina aurem cordis tui et admonitionem pii patris libenter excipe et efficaciter comple … .84 In all, by Paulus’s calculations, the Expositio contains some twenty-​two different extracts from the Benedictine Rule, some employed multiple times. Part of a wider Carolingian program of correctio, implementing and celebrating uniform standards of monastic observance, Paschasius’s work can probably be placed, however loosely, in the same historical context as the reforms of Benedict of Aniane, the formal commentaries on the Rule written by Smaragdus of St. Mihiel and Hildemar, and the mystical commentaries on the liturgy by Amalarius of Metz.85 Paschasius had a unique relationship with the nuns of Soissons; once his fosterers, he was now in a position to provide them with spiritual nourishment in turn, and a genuine affection seems to have helped to lubricate the political and cultural alliance between Soissons and Corbie. An aristocratic and well-​ educated audience, the nuns of Soissons provided Paschasius both with an intellectual challenge and a large degree of latitude to experiment freely; in effect, Paschasius could reinvent himself, like Alcuin, as another Carolingian

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Härdelin, “An Epithalamium for Nuns,” 84. Benedicti Regula, ed. Rudolph Hanslik, CSEL 75 (Vienna, 1960), prologue, cap. 1. That the biblical text originally addressed “filia” rather than “fili” would only have made it a more obvious choice as the basis for a work for nuns. Hannah W. Matis, “Paschasius Radbertus and the Nuns of Soissons,” Church History 85.4 (2016): 665–​89. For analysis of what Paschasius might have encountered at St. Riquier, where he wrote the Expositio in Ps. 44, see Susan Rabe, Faith, Art, and Politics. For discussion of the “monastic” nature of Louis’s reign and his increasing identification of the empire with the church, see T. F. X. Noble, “The Monastic Ideal as a Model for Empire: The Case of Louis the Pious,” 243–​49.

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Jerome writing to set of highly educated and nobly born virgins and widows. Like Cogitis me, also written for the nuns of Soissons, the Expositio is riddled with direct address and may well have been read aloud to the entire community, particularly given its frequent injunctions to the nuns to be one with one another and with Christ. As with the Life of Adalhard, the orality and dialogic nature of both the Song and Psalm 44 (45), as well as Paschasius’s endearments to the nuns, heighten the immediacy and intimacy of the work. Like the Epitaphium Arsenii, the Expositio is a work that, if not precisely for an inner circle, certainly is pervaded with an elitist, aristocratic sensibility. Psalm 44 (45) begins with the rather perplexing heading: “Unto the end, for them that shall be changed, for the sons of Core, for understanding”;86 the identity of these mysterious “sons of Core” or “Chore” and the nature of the intellectum they received, in Paschasius’s capable hands, meshes perfectly with the idea of the Song as Solomon’s highest and most difficult sort of wisdom. The sons of Chore are a figure for the calve or tonsured, the doctores ecclesiastici, in contrast to the learned ignorance of quidam philosophi; the doctores’ vera intelligentia of the Song is, ultimately, Christ, but the imagery requires unpacking, and fit ears to hear.87 Being cloistered, Emma and her household could hardly be appropriately encouraged to participate in preaching or teaching or in spiritual care, the activities of the doctores, or to become tearful prophets railing against the abuses of the potentes. With the nuns out of the world entirely (at least, in theory), the central paradox animating the Expositio, as with the Benedictine Rule, is how to flourish and be spiritually productive in solitude. Their central activity, of course, was the office, and the music that Paschasius so loved: hence Paschasius’s idée fixe on Psalm 44 (45) as an epithalamium.88 For the Carolingians, the nuns’ music and prayers were hardly idle amusements, but part of the broader effort to safeguard the realm and to ensure the continuance of divine favor. In a very real sense, the life of the nuns would have been believed, paradoxically, to help bring about the fertility and fecundity of nature traditionally 86 87

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In finem pro his qui commutabuntur filiis Core ad intellectum. Expositio in Ps. 44, Bk. i, lns. 440–​47; “Quapropter quidam philosophi cum essent sine Deo omnia dubia esse dixerunt. Alii uero hoc longe a se remouentes praesumpserunt se scire quae nesciebant. Et ideo recte pars scientiae esse dicitur scire quod nescias. Quae tamen nescientia ideo scientia uocatur quia et si pars scientiae nescientia est scire quod nescias. Multo magis est tamen ignorantia uel si nescias quid quaeras.” Bk. ii, lns. 6–​11; “Ac per hoc ut dixi paulo superius mysterium huius cantici lectorem spiritalem requirit et intentum. Alioquin ubi simplex est sensus et apertus quid necesse erat audientem praemoneri uerbo intelligentiae et dici ad eum: Qui habet aures audiendi, audiat?” Bk. 1, lns. 781–​85. Härdelin, “An Epithalamium for Nuns,” 84–​88.

206 ­chapter  associated with an epithalamium and already present in both Psalm 44 (45) and the Song.89 At the opening of the work, Paschasius admits that he has allowed his own appreciation for the beauty of nature to enhance his approach.90 Like Adalhard in his garden at Corbie, Paschasius suggests to the nuns a program of assiduous self-​cultivation in their chosen, holy otium, couched in the language of the Song, based around meditation on their chosen Bridegroom, Christ. Throughout the Expositio, Paschasius refers to the Song as spoken by the Sponsus and Sponsa, but then offers parallel injunctions to the nuns, effectively applying the words of the Song directly to them and not to a personified Ecclesia, though he hardly rules out the traditional interpretation of such passages entirely. In Book Three, for example, Paschasius invokes in quick succession Cant. 4:1, Cant. 6:6, and Cant. 4:1 as an image of the glory shining from the church, but then immediately uses this as a platform to admonish the nuns to be mindful of both their vocations and their consciences.91 In Book One, Paschasius acknowledges that Song passages such as Sicut lilium inter spinas sic amica mea inter filias are usually applied to the church, but in the next breath excuses himself from following this traditional interpretation and suggests that, opportunissime, it can be applied to the nuns as well.92 Concerning the invitation of the Bride to the Bridegroom to come enjoy the produce of her vineyard (Cant. 7:11–​12), Paschasius suggests, “Therefore the Bride knows, also the true virgin knows that the Bridegroom, the complete flower of the field, goes into his

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Cf. Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom, 226–​31. “Sed quia incidi in partes huius floris ne uidear uirginibus importune ingerere quae non leguntur in diuinis Litteris ipsa natura docet quae suggerimus. Quoniam iuxta apostolum per ea quae facta sunt intellecta conspiciuntur. Non enim elaboro nostra ut habeant tam splendorem uerbi quam sensuum elegantiam et ornatum intelligentiae. Idcirco non adhibeo ornatricem facierum eloquentiam ut pulchra sit et laudabilis nostra oratio sed tantum quod possit illicere sponsas iuniores in amore sponsi et dilectionem sponsalitatis augere.” Expositio in Ps. 44, i, lns. 630–​38. “Quapropter carissimae considerate diligenter uocationem uestram discutite conscientias uestras quia nulla est uera gloria nisi quae de propria uenit conscientia. Sunt enim prudentes uirgines sunt et fatuae quarum laus interdum falsa potius est quam uera maxime earum quas et ornat lingua adulantium et delectatur uana gloria.” Expositio in Ps. 44, Bk. iii, lns. 556–​61. “Nam ut fassus sum duobus ecclesia generaliter istis comparatur floribus quae rubet Christi respersa sanguine … Sed quia scribere decreui ad uirgines uerasque uiduas caelestem uitam agentes opportunissime uisum est etiam quia flores paradisi sunt ut ad eas de multis edisseram floribus in quibus delectatur sponsus.” Expositio in Ps. 44, Bk. i, lns. 532–​42.

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crops and takes delight in flowers.”93 Lilies, roses, nard, crocuses, “humble violets,” “heliotrope flowers, which immediately rejoice at sunrise”: for Paschasius, these are images both of the nuns and of the scriptures generally, and he takes up the image, made classic by monastic writers, of the community as a hive of bees busily engaged in producing honey by gathering nectar from “the flowers of the holy scriptures.”94 The nuns’ guarded virginity in the world becomes an image for the “lily of the valleys”; in the Expositio, they are the garden enclosed and the fountain sealed.95 When the church appears at all in the Expositio, it is in a peripheral role. In Book Two, for example, Paschasius notes the “ecclesiological” reading of a verse of the Song, only to re-​direct it even more pointedly toward the nuns: And the church in the Song of Songs had perceived the fragrance of this odor with her nostrils when she said, Your name is a perfume poured out. For this reason the maidens love you. Without doubt, dear ones, you are the maidens about which this is said; you are, I say, the ones who sing among those same virgins of which there is no number. You say (Quae dicitis) to the Bridegroom in that same Song of Songs: Draw me after you. We will run toward the fragrance of your ointments.96

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“Nouit igitur sponsa nouit et uera uirgo quod sponsus flos campi totus uadit in fructum et delectatur in floribus.” Expositio in Ps. 44, Bk. i, lns. 567–​8. “Quis enim nesciat quod pudicitia uirginalis seu castitas uidualis aliud operari non norunt nisi in quibus delectatur sponsus? Inde est quod quasi apes sanctarum Scripturarum carpitis flores. Quoniam qui pascitur inter lilia totus uadit in floribus, in floribus delectatur et non in aliis quibuslibet floribus nisi qui in conualle humilitatis floruerint.” Expositio in Ps. 44, Bk. 1, lns. 588–​593; “… quasi apes sanctarum Scripturarum campos perlustrantes non solum sponso uerum etiam uobismet et omnibus mellificatis. Ad hoc quippe ac si ad aluearium Christi ex omni parte | conuolastis unamque praeesse uobis elegistis quatinus ad instar earum quia de ore prudentum mella procedunt, Deo fauos et fructum uitae reddatis. Vere aluearium monasticae disciplinae iure hic locus uocatur quo aeterna clausura uos obserastis ne ullis insidiarum fraudibus castra uiolentur Domino consecrata.” Bk. 1, lns. 652–​60. Cf. Rufinus’s description of the monastic community of Nitria, in his additions to Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History: Rufinus of Aquileia, Historia Monachorum, cap. 21; PL 21, col. 443–​44. Expositio in Ps. 44, Bk. 1, lns. 598–​600. “Huius namque fraglantiam odoris naribus persenserat ecclesia in canticis cum dicebat: Unguentum effusum nomen tuum. Ideo adolescentulae dilexerunt te nimis. Nec dubium carissimae uos esse adolescentulas de quibus dicitur: Uos estis inquam quae canitis inter easdem uirgines quarum non est numerus. Quae dicitis sponso in eisdem canticis: Trahe me post te. Curremus in odorem unguentorum tuorum.” Expositio in Ps. 44, Bk. ii, lns. 431–​38.

208 ­chapter  Again in Book Three, Paschasius stresses the extent to which the verse can be applied not just to the church but to the nuns: … the church says in the Song of Songs, Draw me after you. We will run toward the fragrance of your ointments. The faithful soul knows well that if the grace of the Lord does not draw it, no one of themselves is sufficient to arrive. But what virgins would be conducted so specially to the king and to the wedding chamber of the king? I think, dear ones, that it was said about virgins of this kind, which I believe you to be.97 Psalm 44 (45):  4, “Gird your sword upon your thigh, most mighty one,” Paschasius compares to the sixty strong men around Solomon’s ferculum, as well as the sons of Core, and interprets the verse not as an allegory of the doctores but as a warning to the nuns militantly to guard their chastity.98 As with Paschasius’s comparison of the nuns’ chastity to the “lily of the valleys”—​as we have seen, usually an image applied to Christ or to the doctores, as in Bede’s commentary—​Paschasius takes up the image of the Bride ascending from the desert and also compares it to the nuns’ “daily” ascent through the desert of the world to Christ.99 For Carolingian exegetes, the body or the human nature of Christ was to be understood and revered in terms of the text of the Song—​that is, glorious, precious, and beautiful—​not the degraded forma servi of the adoptionists. By extension, therefore, the body of Mary also was to be envisioned in terms of the

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“Et ecclesia in canticis: Trahe me post te. Curremus in odorem unguentorum tuorum. Bene nouit anima fidelis quod nisi trahat Domini gratia per se nemo idoneus est ut perueniat. Sed quae uirgines ad regem et ad regis thalamum tam specialiter deducantur? Ego puto carissimae de huiuscemodi uirginibus dictum quales uos esse credo.” Expositio in Ps. 44, Bk. iii, lns. 860–​866. See also Bk. ii, 1214–​18: “Curritis ergo et uos sanctae uirgines curritis quam bene post unguenta uaria post odorem sponsi et ipsae pretiosissimis delibutae unguentis. Idcirco carissimae ut dixi iam bonus odor estis in omni loco et in omni negotio uitae.” Expositio in Ps. 44, Bk. ii, lns. 707–​738. For a similar reading of Cant 2:6 and 1:1, see lns. 912–​18. “Quia ille specie sua speciosus dicitur haec uero ideo pulchra et speciosa quia sibi eam sociauit Dominus in coniugium. Unde sicut Sponsus a principio sua in specie formosus ita et ipsa speciosa laudatur quia dealbata ascendit. De qua in canticis mirantur etiam uirtutes angelicae: Quae est ista quae ascendit inquiunt per desertum quasi aurora consurgens pulchra ut luna electa ut sol terribilis ut castrorum acies ordinata. Felix igitur nimium carissimae et beata uestra uirginitas felix et uiduitas sancta quae sic quotidie ascendit ut stet a dextris Dei sicque stat armis succincta caelestibus ut ascendat.” Expositio in Ps. 44, Bk. iii, lns. 369–​79.

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language of the Bride of the Song: a queenly figure of unimpeachable purity.100 As with other Carolingian anti-​adoptionist polemic, in Paschasius’s hands, the beauty of the Bridegroom becomes a Christological, and indeed, a Trinitarian argument emphasizing Christ’s unique and exalted nature:  “Therefore, God Himself, having been made man on men’s behalf, rightly alone among men can be called beloved and most loving before anyone else (amantissimus prae omnibus).”101 At the beginning of Book Two, Paschasius refers explicitly to the “wretched heretics” who have argued for less than the full divinity of Christ, and he counters in return that the forma serui need not preclude Christ’s full and equal participation in the majesty of God.102 In Book Three, Paschasius is even more direct: “He is not the adoptive Son of God nor the so-​called son of man as a certain one (quidam, identified by the editor, Paulus, as Felix of Urgell) not long ago wickedly presumed …”103 A perhaps surprising proportion of Books Two and Three of the commentary consists of Paschasius incorporating long extracts of certain Trinitarian sermons of Fulgentius of Ruspé, Hilary of Poitiers, and Augustine, suggesting, not least, that the community of Soissons was capable of digesting such discourse. Ultimately, in the commentary on Psalm 44 (45), Paschasius was able to use his commentary as a platform for many of the themes he had previously addressed in Cogitis me and De partu Uirginis. Although he was not as directly concerned with questions about Mary in particular, Paschasius’s commentary, like Cogitis me and De partu, stressed the special, separate nature of both Christ and his mother, pointedly addressed as the genetrix Dei, as reason for particular devotion. As a corollary, Paschasius, like many of the anti-​adoptionist writers, felt powerfully and instinctively

100 In view of these debates, Paschasius’s repeated use of the title, Dei genetrix, for the Virgin throughout Cogitis me and De partu Uirginis probably had a highly polemical, anti-​ adoptionist edge. For Cogitis me, see lns. 200, 249, 279, 397, 429, 440, 748, 761, 766, 786, 829, 884–​5, 991. For De partu, see Bk. i, ln. 1, Bk. i, ln. 145, Bk. i, ln. 156, Bk. i, ln. 240, Bk. ii, ln. 22, Bk. ii, ln. 69, Bk. ii, ln. 195, Bk. ii, ln. 209, Bk. ii, ln. 269. 101 “Interea ipse solus Deus pro hominibus homo factus iure solus inter homines dicitur dilectus et amantissimus prae omnibus.” Exp. in Ps. 44, Bk. i, lns. 832–​33. 102 “Sed miseri haeretici qui hoc persentire aut intelligere minime uoluerunt aut potuerunt quod in hac forma diuinitatis non nisi unitas esse potest Trinitatis una aequalitas una essentia deitatis cui numquam aut nusquam est aliud esse quam idem semper esse.” Exp. in Ps. 44, Bk. ii, lns. 167–​71. See also Bk. ii, lns. 208–​255. 103 “Non adoptiuus Dei Filius nec nuncupatiuus hominis filius sicut quidam nuper male praesumpsit nesciens Dei sacramentum sed in utraque natura totus et verus est Christus uerus Deus et uerus homo. Totus in diuinitate atque humanitate sua unigenitus et uerus Dei Filius idem cum Patre et cum Spiritu sancto unus et uerus Deus.” Exp. in Ps. 44, Bk. iii, lns. 308–​13.

210 ­chapter  that arguments which emphasized the common, shared humanity of Christ and Mary, destroyed the basis for that devotion. While the use of the Song of Songs as a mystical text in the high and later Middle Ages and its foundational influence in the rise of Brautmystik makes the connection appear obvious to modern readers, it is worth remembering that Paschasius’s commentary on Psalm 44 (45) was one of the first times, in the early medieval West, at least, that a tropological reading of the Song had appeared free-​standing, largely without the “ecclesiological” interpretation that usually dominated exegesis of the text within the formal commentary tradition. In Paschasius’s lush, impassioned style, the Expositio anticipates many of the favorite themes of twelfth-​century spirituality that found its inspiration in the Song. Certainly, the Expositio belonged to a different order of Song exegesis than the sort we have seen in the formal commentary tradition, concerned far more with the nuns’ personal spiritual state than had been the case with the doctores. As with Paschasius’s Life of Adalhard and the Lamentations commentary, the Expositio is also a work of and for seclusion from the desert and the valleys of the world; the Song, therefore, as Paschasius employs it, has become the language of the cloister. 6.6

The Garden Enclosed: Paschasius and the Virgin Mary

As we have seen, Paschasius’s command of the Song of Songs and his use of it in his exegesis was deeply internalized, associative, and personal, a flexible vocabulary of imagery that he could adapt depending on his audience and what points he was desiring to make. Bearing this in mind, I  would like to turn, f­ inally and briefly, to Paschasius’s use of the Song in his De Assumptione Sanctae Mariae Virginis, otherwise known as Cogitis me. Despite the fact that applying the Song narrative to Mary has often been seen as Paschasius’s most note-​worthy contribution to Song exegesis by scholars, it is worth remembering that Paschasius’s interests, respectively, in Mary and the Song of Songs could be and often were kept entirely separate. As we have seen, much of his Song exegesis contains no references to Mary whatsoever, such as his Expositio in Psalmum 44(45), despite the fact that the convent at Soissons was ­dedicated to her, whereas a thoroughly Marian work like De partu uirginis contains precisely one explicit Song reference.104 Compared to his use of the Song in his Lamentations commentary, his Expositio in Psalmum 44 (45), or his Vita 104 For Mary as the hortus conclusus, see De partu Uirginis, Bk. i, ln. 320.

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Adalhardi, Cogitis me shows Paschasius at his most cautious, knowing full well how reliant he was on precisely those apocryphal works he warned the nuns of Soissons against using.105 It is possible that, as with his use of pseudonyms in the Epitaphium Arsenii, the playful fiction of Jerome, Paula, and Eustochium masked real concern. Paschasius was inspired to write Cogitis me not by the formal commentary tradition but by the liturgy, and that would not have offered him a great deal of guidance. Once Paschasius had begun, I would argue that his Marian innovations grew out of more traditional tropological readings he had already employed to such great effect in the Expositio in Ps. 44 (45), in De fide, spe, et caritate, and also out of his interest in reading the life of Christ—​and by extension, that of his mother—​into the Song, as seen in his Matthew commentary.106 To some extent, what could be said about virgins generally could be said specifically about the Virgin; conversely, outlining the events of the Virgin’s life after the Ascension, Paschasius admonishes the nuns, “[Christ and Mary] Whom you also imitate, o daughters, who vowed to remain in the school of Christ …”107 The Virgin is to other virgins as the Song of Songs is to all other songs; Mary is held up as the ultimate exemplar of spiritual virtue. Mary is hailed as the Bride coming up through the desert, beautiful as the moon. Interestingly, in Cogitis me, the speaker of these verses concerning Mary is not the usual Bridegroom, Christ, but the Holy Spirit.108 It is the Spirit’s role to incite love; when Paschasius returns to the Christological implications of Jacob masquerading as Esau, and Isaac’s comparison of the scent of his son to a ploughed field, very strikingly, he likens the role of Rebecca in the deception to that of the Holy Spirit, and notes in his defense that the Hebrew word for the Spirit is a feminine noun.109 Invoking Jeremiah 31:22, “I will do a new thing on earth; also 105 “… ne forte si uenerit uestris in manibus illud apocryphum de transitu eiusdem uirginis, dubia pro certe recipiatis, quod multi latinorum pietatis amore, studio legendi …” Paschasius Radbertus, Epistula Beati Hieronymi ad Paulum et Eustochium de assumptione sanctae Mariae uirginis, ed. Alberti Ripberger, CCCM 56C (Turnhout: Brepols, 1985), ln. 53–​55. 106 Cf. Paschasius’s tropological readings of Song references in De fide, spe, et caritate: Bk. i, lns 247–​51; Bk. i, lns. 1118–​27; Bk. ii, lns. 62–​3; Bk. ii, lns. 383; Bk. iii, lns. 224; Bk. iii, lns. 1214–​15; Bk. iii, lns. 1234–​47; Bk. iii, lns. 1297–​1302. Gambero notes how Paschasius stresses the humility and prayer of Mary, as well as her faith, hope, and love. Luigi Gambero, Mary in the Middle Ages: The Blessed Virgin Mary in the Thought of Medieval Latin Theologians (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005), 75–​80. 107 “Quos et uos, o filiae, imitamini, quae in schola Christi permanere uouistis …” De assumptione, lns. 180–​81. 108 De assumptione, caps. 46–​47. 109 “Sed forte dicturus est aliquis: Quid ad Rebeccam Spiritus Sanctus pertinet, cum multis in locis personae pro Deo figurate accipiantur. Verumtamen et Spiritus Sanctus in hebraeo

212 ­chapter  a woman shall surround a man,” Paschasius hails Mary as the “garden enclosed and fountain sealed,” an image he would use several times in his Matthew commentary.110 On the whole however, it is only in discrete, static images like the “garden enclosed” that Paschasius links the Song to Mary, and then casts the Holy Spirit as the Bridegroom rather than Christ; we are a very long way yet from reading the entire Song as a dialogue between Christ and Mary, for example, as would develop in the devotional texts of the high Middle Ages. Nevertheless, in the works of Paschasius Radbertus one can see that the ground in Song interpretation has quietly shifted, albeit in a slightly different way, I  would argue, than has previously been suggested by scholars. In early medieval exegesis, for example, the famous image of the “garden enclosed, fountain sealed” was nearly exclusively interpreted as an image of the baptismal font, particularly prominent in Augustine’s De baptismo, but also appearing in Gregory the Great, Bede, Alcuin, Haimo of Auxerre, Angelomus of Luxeuil, and the author of the Vox ecclesiae.111 In the works of Paschasius, however, the “garden enclosed” acquires a new range of meanings: the guarded chastity of Paschasius’s nuns, the soul of Adalhard walled off from the temptations of the world, or as an image of Mary, the acme in inviolate souls. With Paschasius, we see the resurgence of the tropological reading of the Song, a shift away from its use as an idealistic rallying cry for the doctores toward an evocation of a more private, spiritual, emotional garden of delights. Recent scholarship has shown a much greater level of acceptance of and interest in the occasionally grim developments of the later Carolingian world, even finding encouragement in the Carolingians’ efforts and certain ­resonances with our own troubled, chaotic times.112 Such patient and even optimistic ruha feminino genere dicitur, non quod sexus in Deo monstretur, immo ne forte suspicetur. Sub regula trium linguarum Spiritus Sanctus diuerse accipitur: in hebraeo scilicet, ut dixi, feminino genere legitur, in graeco uero, ne sexus in eo credatur, pro neutro inuenitur, et in latino masculinum esse discernitur.” De assumptione, caps. 68; 83. 110 De assumptione, cap. 59. 111 The exceptions to this are Apponius, though it is hard to know how widely or how well (or in what abridged version) his commentary was known, and very briefly, Ambrose and Jerome. 1 12 “There is a general point in all this, and it is the Carolingians’ gradually developing capacity to bite on the bullet of failure: human failure, failure to change people quickly, failure in battle. Where Fichtenau saw critics as if from outside showing up how the Carolingian ideal did not or could not work, I see also insiders deeply involved in the ideal, admitting to their own failures. The Carolingians had a recognition of failure without having to turn it into either martyrdom or a sign of opposition to God’s will.” Henry Mayr-​Harting, “Alcuin, Charlemagne, and the Problem of Sanctions,” in Early Medieval Studies in Honor of Patrick Wormald, 214–​15.

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acceptance of the slow work of God, did not come easily to everyone in the Carolingian world, however. Paschasius reacted to events with his own distinctive form of protest, turning away from what he saw as the upside-​down worldliness of many within the Carolingian ecclesiastical hierarchy and seeking instead a refined monastic otium. Perhaps this is because he had no other choice. For Paschasius, the Song of Songs was the narrative belonging to the soul withdrawn from worldly involvement and seeking only knowledge of Christ. When shunted out into the world, the Song changed registers, transforming from a song of eschatological longing into the lament of a Jeremiah, bewailing the state of the earthly Jerusalem. For Paschasius, who, however much he sought monastic withdrawal, was called upon both to pronounce upon theological matters and to defend the stances that he took, the soul paradoxically existed to some extent in both states at the same time, with the Song of Songs and Lamentations as opposite ends of a common exegetical continuum. It is Paschasius’s distinctive achievement to have adapted Song exegesis to function within these new theological parameters, and to have accomplished this not by creating something ex nihilo, but by drawing attention again to a facet of Song interpretation present in late antiquity but largely neglected in the early medieval world, innovating while remaining squarely within the patristic tradition.

Conclusion

In the early eleventh century, the abbess of the imperial community of canonesses at Niedermünster in Regensburg commissioned a gospel book, now known as the Uta Codex. In the wake of the council of Aachen in 816, the community had seen the imposition of the Benedictine Rule on the canonesses. In parallel with the efforts of Romuald at St. Emmeram, Abbess Uta would oversee further attempts at reform, commemorated in the creation of a luxury manuscript. The Uta Codex’s lavish illuminations were clearly inspired by the Codex Aureus of Charles the Bald. The manuscript, Adam Cohen has argued, is a careful sleight of hand balancing polite memorialization of Niedermünster’s noble past with present efforts at reform, any potential awkwardness over its pre-​Benedictine years bridged and smoothed over in the depiction of its founder, Erhard, presiding over the eucharistic table.1 Uta’s striking portrayal of Erhard shows him wearing an elaborate assortment of vestments combining diaconal and priestly orders: alb, maniple, deacon’s stole, dalmatic, priest’s stole, and chasuble. In addition, Erhard is wearing a white turban imitating Levitical priestly garb, and his complex gold orphrey, inscribed with individual words over his breast, deliberately mimics Old Testament descriptions of an ephod, or is, in fact, meant to be an actual depiction of one. As with the images for meditation used by Hincmar of Rheims, multiple tituli are inscribed on his vestments: hierarchia, and sacer principatus. On the facing page, in deliberate counterpoint to Erhard’s sacrifice of the mass, is an allegorical crucifixion, in which a crowned Christ is clad, very unusually, in a stola.2 Flanking Christ at the foot of the cross are the two figures of Vita, also crowned, and Mors, while in the two central border medallions one sees Ecclesia, crowned as well and wearing robes of the same color as Vita, and a very creative depiction of a blind Synagoga, whose vision has been cut off by the border itself (Figures 1-2.). The only explicit invocation of the Song of Songs in the Uta Codex is in the dedication image: an inscription in gold addresses the Virgin, genetrix Dei, as electa ut sol, pulchra ut luna. The manuscript itself was made over a century after the Carolingian reform took up the Song of Songs, which, understandably, 1 Adam Cohen, The Uta Codex: Art, Philosophy, and Reform in Eleventh-​Century Germany (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 92–​93. 2 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 13601 (Uta Codex), fol. 3v-​4r.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 | DOI:10.1163/9789004389250_009

Conclusion215

Figures 1–2 The Uta Codex, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm. 13601, 3v-​4R.  P hotos courtesy of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich.

216 Conclusion

Figures 1–2  The Uta Codex, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm. 13601, 3v-​4R.

was not generally illustrated in this period. And yet, the Uta Codex represents in visual terms the success of the ecclesiological reading of the Song of Songs established in the Carolingian world over the course of the ninth century, the interconnectedness of its central themes, and the triumph of its particular vision of Christ, Ecclesia, and the doctores, which reigned supreme for the rest of the early medieval period and would remain influential for the rest of the Middle Ages. The complex, condensed thicket of image and symbolism one

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encounters in the opening illuminations of the Uta Codex is the direct descendant both of the luxury think-​pieces produced by Charles the Bald’s palace school and of the luxury biblical exegesis produced by the Carolingian doctores throughout the empire, for Carolingian kings and for their own communities. Scholars have noted the strong dualisms present in its imagery: the Uta Codex deliberately juxtaposes four phrases—​ordo saeculorum, umbra legis, corpus ecclesiae, and lux aeternae vitae—​all written on Erhard’s vestments, and there are the running associations and oppositions, among others, between the sun and moon, Mary and Ecclesia, Ecclesia and Synagoga, life and death, the crucifixion and the mass, and Christ and Erhard.3 These are not explicit references to the Song of Songs, of course, and may be found in many Carolingian texts other than Song exegesis, but the importance of the Song narrative and its ecclesiological interpretation was precisely that, like the Uta Codex, it collected so many threads and themes into one place. It was, in short, a macro-​or governing narrative: as Paschasius Radbertus would have put it, the Song of Songs. For all that it was not explicitly illustrated, the Song of Songs as a collection of figura, together with their interpretation as developed by Carolingian exegetes, played a vital, connective role in the particular way that the Carolingian reform set about systematizing scripture. Early medieval Song exegesis, precisely because its meaning was understood to be self-​evident from the work of Bede and Gregory onwards, acted as an interpretive key describing the relationship between Christ, the church, and the doctores, eventually enabling their depiction in more abstract terms. The Song of Songs could be understood as a hermeneutical spine to which the ribs of exegetical catena could be attached: it helped to sustain a unified, systematic vision of scripture in which the early medieval exegete could leapfrog mentally from figura of sheep and goats in the gospel parables via the verses of the Song of Songs to similar imagery in the psalter, the Apocalypse, or the Old Testament prophets. As these associations across scripture became more firmly established and traditional, a kind of aggregative theology and spirituality could, and would, evolve out of the primordial soup of early medieval biblical commentary. The ecclesiological reading of the Song of Songs buttressed, I have argued, a very high Christology which shied away from the kenotic forma servi of the adoptionists, stressing instead the divinity of Christ the Bridegroom and the timeless physical beauty of his person. In so doing, it underscored the importance of Mary as genetrix Dei, and the traditional patristic association between

3 Jutta Rütz, Text im Bild: Funktion und Bedeutung der Beischriften in den Miniaturen des Uta-​ Evangelistars (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1991), 106–​11.

218 Conclusion Mary and the personified Ecclesia. It distilled and condensed the scriptural associations between the bridal imagery used by Christ in the gospels, the epithalamium that is Psalm 45, and the personified church as a bride in the Apocalypse, all of which contributed to a vision of both Christ and the church as abstract, exalted figures outside of time. The allegorical crucifixion image itself most likely had its origins in Charles the Bald’s court and was informed, in its depiction of Ecclesia and Synagoga, by their juxtaposition and dialogue in early medieval Song of Songs exegesis. In place of Bede’s fascination with the messy history of the early church and the proclamation of the gospel by any means possible, Carolingian exegetes by the mid-​ninth century saw the work of the church, now an embattled, persecuted figure, in terms of an established and ordered sacramental system carried out by her doctores. To the Carolingians, baptism—​signified in the Song by all figura of washing, springs, pools of water, and enclosed fountains—​was the most important work of the doctores, but already in the work of Paschasius and Hincmar one can sense the mounting importance of the Eucharist to an ecclesiastical elite increasingly seen as vicarii Christi. The Carolingian reform would see the transmutation of religious and political ideology into networks of social bonds; exegesis mirrored and sustained the claims of the reform and the relationships established between bishops and between bishops, the court, and the king. The ecclesiological interpretation of the Song of Songs encouraged the Carolingian elite to see themselves as part of the glorious figure of Ecclesia, united with one another against the attacks of the pseudodoctores. Alongside the exegesis produced by the reform, the practice of child oblation helped to form and shape a common class of men with similar educational and liturgical formation, linked with one another through the social nerve center of the court. Modeled on the Levitical priestly caste, the doctores used the eminently quotable Song of Songs as a badge of membership to signal their status and function within the body of the Bride: as her eyes, her voice, her breasts, working her vineyard, tending her flocks, searching for the ever-​elusive Bridegroom. In turn, the early medieval ecclesiological reading of the Song also stressed the special, if ambiguous religious status of the Carolingian king, who was himself enjoined to imitate Christ; more than an ordinary layperson, he was still not a priest nor a bishop, and yet his responsibilities included the guardianship of the church and, preferably, deep personal knowledge of scripture. At the intellectual center of the Carolingian reform lay the task of unraveling the mysteries of the bible. What to modern scholars seems a disparate collection of texts readily available in a plethora of standardized versions and published as a single volume, to the Carolingians the bible was available as

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a text only in piecemeal form, cloaked in secrets, requiring special handling and the expertise of their spiritual elders, yet nevertheless concealing a unified outpouring of divine communication across millennia culminating in the revelation of Christ. Long before Henry viii’s Great Bible, biblical scholars like Theodulf of Orléans and Alcuin of York saw as central to the success of Charlemagne’s imperial ambitions a purified biblical text, free from scribal error, its interpretation moderated and controlled by a trained class of teachers. Under Charlemagne’s aegis, these teachers set about re-​creating the legacy of orthodoxy immortalized at Nicaea, copying and preserving the legacy of the patristic era. And yet, the act of preservation subtly changes the nature of the thing preserved. Far from being objective, the Carolingian doctores gravitated toward those texts in particular which ratified their considerable intellectual labors, and they systematized the unwieldy patristic tradition in new ways that would, in time, give rise to more abstract theological inquiry. Envisioning themselves as the gatekeepers of Jerusalem and the watchmen on the walls, the doctores saw it as their duty to direct the Bride in her search for the Bridegroom—​with a discretionary measure of force, if that was required. The ecclesiological interpretation of the Song of Songs both justified and celebrated such directives; it suggested to the doctores the importance of their work, unified their labors, and articulated their deep longings and griefs. Far from being ancillary or extraneous to the rest of scripture, the Song of Songs came instead to be seen by Carolingian exegetes as the expression of the love of Christ and the mission of the church in its most condensed and powerful form. This book has argued that, for this reason, one can follow the progress of the Carolingian reform and its doctores through an analysis of early medieval exegesis on the Song of Songs. Exegete mirrored interpretation, and the infinitely capacious imagery of the Song of Songs stretched to accommodate the particular needs and concerns of the doctores. The concerns of Ambrose of Milan were very different from those of Hincmar of Rheims, even if the former served as a model for the latter. This study began with the Venerable Bede, as he sought to establish his own reputation as an authority and arbiter of orthodoxy in eighth-​century Northumbria. Desirous of drawing on the teachings of the fathers, in the case of the Song of Songs Bede found himself in possession of a highly fragmented tradition, dogged by the conflicted reception and loss of Origen’s exegesis in the early medieval West. Bede’s innovation, and his re-​ casting of the Song tradition, was entirely consistent with his understanding of the unfolding arc of God’s providence among the English people: where Pelagius and the British had failed and apostasized, Gregory the Great had restored the teachings of the church, in Rome as well as among the English. In both cases, Pope Gregory had accomplished this through the recruitment and training

220 Conclusion of good clergy who were able to understand and to proclaim the mysteries of scripture. Bede’s call for preaching and for the education of the laity did not distinguish or privilege, but rather thrived on the recruitment of a diverse group of doctores drawn from all forms of life within the church, clerical and monastic. The nature of “preaching,” as Bede defined it, encompassed virtually all activities that could be construed as spreading the gospel message and furthering the good reputation of the church among the English. For Bede, the imagery of the Song of Songs spoke not of an individual’s religious experience but of the church as a collective body of teachers following in the footsteps of the apostles from the book of Acts, and he would turn his Song commentary into a clarion call for action. When one turns to the works of Paschasius Radbertus, over a century after Bede wrote his Song commentary, it is possible to see both the successes and the failures of the Carolingian reform. The association of the Bridegroom with Christ was firmly established, and in his works to the nuns of Soissons and in his Matthew commentary, Paschasius adopts the anti-​adoptionist technique of using Song imagery as an argument for the beauty of, and emphasis on the divine nature of Christ. Bede’s doctores had found an eloquent advocate in Alcuin, and Paschasius can take for granted their place in the Carolingian reform as an elite clerical caste. By the mid-​ninth century, however, the unity of the Carolingian empire under Charlemagne and Louis had started to fracture, and to those experiencing political upheaval and civil war, a likely explanation was the engrained worldliness and wickedness of God’s people and of God’s church in particular. In his Lamentations commentary, Paschasius overlays Alcuin’s triumphant Song narrative with the poignant weeping of Jeremiah over his fallen city. The watchmen on the walls had failed; the children were fainting in the streets for lack of nourishment. In answer to the full-​throated consensus that so dominated Frankish politics, Paschasius, finding himself politically harried if not outright alienated, envisioned himself as a latter-​day Jeremiah. The Song of Songs, instead of a triumphant call for evangelism and reform, now spoke to Paschasius of the consolations of exile and withdrawal: the garden of delights was no longer the baptismal font but the seclusion behind the monastery wall. Instead of a love song for and about an institution, Paschasius was beginning to envision the imagery of the Song of Songs as applying to particular individuals and to individual religious experience: the Virgin Mary, the nuns of Soissons, and his spiritual hero and vicarius Christi, Adalhard. Insofar as he found himself exiled from the world of the court, losing himself in the beauty of the divine office and the riddles of scripture as compensation, Paschasius may have duplicated some of the conditions under which the Cistercians would later create their own distinctive monastic culture. Paschasius

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was in the minority, however, as he knew very well: in the ninth century, most Carolingian bishops did not, and perhaps could not, seek a life of refined seclusion unless it was thrust upon them. For them, the more immediate reality would have been their shared sense of clerical identity as they supported the divinely mandated Carolingian dynasty, as well as the stratified, hierarchical experience of the life of the church within their diocese. The legacy of early medieval interpretation of the Song of Songs to the rest of the Middle Ages is that it could potentially be invoked as relevant to both kinds of experience. Alongside the private, rhetorical flights of Paschasius, Bede’s commentary on the Song, as well as the commentaries of Alcuin and Haimo, continued to be copied and circulated, ultimately forming the traditional bedrock of the Glossa Ordinaria on the Song. Early medieval exegesis of the Song of Songs, moreover, also left a legacy of chains of association within biblical commentary: the Song was almost never read on its own but was set against and alongside the gospels, the psalter, Lamentations, and the Apocalypse. While not to modern critical tastes, early medieval exegetes were not unreasonable as they painstakingly traced patterns of imagery across the biblical text, their knowledge of which was exhaustive and formidable. Within such a traditional genre, early medieval exegetes found many opportunities to innovate, usually while loudly proclaiming their fealty to the patristic tradition. In so doing, they systematized their own reading of the Song of Songs and laid the groundwork for the use of the Song as a text for mystical and devotional experience in the high Middle Ages.

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2

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Airlie, Stuart. “Bonds of Power and Bonds of Association in the Court Circle of Louis the Pious.” Charlemagne’s Heir: New Perspectives on the Reign of Louis the Pious (814-​40). Ed. Peter Godman and Roger Collins. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990. 191–​204. Airlie, Stuart. “Towards a Carolingian Aristocracy.” Der Dynastiewechsel von 751:  Vorgeschichte, Legitimationsstrategien, und Erinnerung. Ed. Matthias Becher and Jörg Jarnut. Münster: Scriptorium, 2004. 109–​27. Airlie, Stuart. “True Teachers and Pious Kings: Salzburg, Louis the German, and Christian Order.” Belief and Culture in the Middle Ages: Studies Presented to Henry Mayr-​ Harting. Ed. Richard Gameson and Henrietta Leyser. Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2001. 89–​105. Airlie, Stuart. “The World, the Text, and the Carolingians: Royal, Aristocratic, and Masculine Identities in Nithard’s Histories.” Lay Intellectuals in the Carolingian World. Ed. Janet L. Nelson and Patrick Wormald. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 51–​76. Alberi, Mary. “ ‘The Better Paths of Wisdom’: Alcuin’s Monastic True Philosophy and the Worldly Court.” Speculum 76 (2001): 896–​910. Alberi, Mary. “The Sword which You Hold in Your Hand: Alcuin’s Exegesis of the Two Swords and the Lay Miles Christi.” The Study of the Bible in the Carolingian Era. Ed. Celia Chazelle and Burton Van Name Edwards. Turnhout: Brepols, 2003. 117–​131. Althoff, Gerd. Family, Friends, and Followers: Political and Social Bonds in Early Medieval Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

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Index Aachen 66–​67, 70, 87 Acca of Hexham 28, 44n68 Adalhard of Corbie 125, 177–​178, 180–​182, 190, 196–​203, 220 Admonitio generalis 11, 123 Adoptionist controversy 21, 59–​92, 101, 208–​210 Agobard of Lyons 6, 66, 106–​111, 114, 137 Aidan 43 Akiva 15 Alcuin 117, 124–​128, 139, 146–​148, 164, 219–​221 Anti-​adoptionist works 21, 60–​67, 69, 85–​88, 117, 148 Song commentary 5–​6, 115, 120–​124, 128–​135, 152 Allegory 3–​4, 129–​130, 145, 190 Amalarius of Metz 6, 18, 107, 111, 118, 135–​137, 145n14, 204 Ambrose of Milan 24, 53, 74, 119, 182, 185–​186, 195–​196, 202, 219 Ambrose Autpert 6, 73–​74, 98–​106 Angelomus of Luxeuil 6, 22, 27, 77, 139–​140, 143–​144, 148–​162 Angilbert of St. Riquier 64, 67 Antichrist 73, 98, 113 Antiochene exegesis 13 Apocalypse of John 21, 42, 72–​74, 95–​113, 135–​136, 185, 199, 217–​218, 221 Apponius 25–​26, 37, 40, 152, 157–​159 Arn of Salzburg 123–​125 Augustine of Canterbury 56, 94 Augustine of Hippo 3n6, 5, 8, 25, 31, 46, 53, 74, 76, 100, 119, 169–​170, 204 Baptism 117–​122, 172, 212, 218 Beatus of Liébana 6, 65, 68, 72–​77 Bede, the Venerable 4, 6, 11, 12n30, 13, 18, 20–​21, 23–​58, 94, 120–​121, 128–​135, 164, 193, 217, 219–​221 Benedict of Aniane 60, 66–​67, 73, 204 Benedict Biscop 28 Benedictine Rule 2n4, 204, 214 Bernard of Clairvaux 16–​17 Bible 2–​4, 52–​53, 144, 172, 218–​219

Biblical commentary 2, 7–​9, 12, 14, 17, 33, 59, 93, 112, 142–​143, 147–​150, 155, 161, 164, 178, 217, 221 Bishops 18, 50, 56–​57, 61, 112, 116n65, 119–​120, 123, 136–​137, 142, 147, 202, 218 Boniface 10n27 Bride (Sponsa) 3, 5, 9, 16, 33, 41–​42, 45, 48–​50, 52, 86, 91, 96, 105, 107–​110, 118, 131–​132 Black but beautiful 33, 97–​98, 115, 190–​191 Breasts 46, 132, 159 Cheeks 191 Eyes 185, 192 Hair 132–​133 Lips 46 Neck 47, 132, 173, 186 Teeth 46, 122 Voice 47–​49, 135–​136, 182 Bridegroom (Sponsus) 3, 5, 15, 40–​42, 44–​45, 48–​50, 91, 131–​132, 173–​174 Absence 186, 192, 197–​198 Appearance 71–​72, 84–​85, 87–​88, 96, 100–​101, 136, 139, 190, 199–​200, 210, 217 Breasts 15, 45, 75–​76, 158 Kiss 74–​75, 91, 100–​101, 137, 186 Leaps 33 Ointments 75–​76, 118–​120, 136, 184, 186, 207–​208 Canticles  see Song of Songs Charlemagne 7, 57, 59, 64–​65, 69–​71, 92, 93, 98, 119, 124, 142, 147–​148, 177, 219 Charles the Bald 6, 22, 113, 139–​140, 143, 162–​174, 177–​178, 187, 214, 217–​218 Charles Martel 63 Claudius of Turin 66, 77 Clergy 54–​55, 59, 111, 120, 136–​137, 219–​220 Codex Amiatinus 36–​37 Columba 56–​57 Columbanus 27, 158, 202 Corvey 177, 181 Crucifixion 113–​116, 186, 214 Cuthbert 52, 57 Cyprian 25

254 Index David (biblical king) 8, 71, 126, 139–​141, 147–​148, 178n4, 190, 202 Dhuoda 144n13, 161, 170–​171n86 Doctores 5, 10–​11, 18n49, 21, 34, 42–​57, 60, 76, 78–​80, 92, 105–​107, 116, 117–​143, 193–​195, 218–​220 Drogo of Metz 113n57, 114, 151 Easter controversy 28–​29, 62 Einhard 64 Elipandus of Toledo 60–​68, 72–​76 Eucharistic controversy 113–​115, 166–​170, 176–​177, 187 Exegesis  see also biblical commentary Felix of Urgell 60–​67, 85–​88, 111, 137, 209 Figura 95, 144–​145, 217 Florus of Lyons 135 Fontenoy, battle of 112, 167, 195 Frankfurt, council of 59, 65, 69, 92 Fürstenspiegel, genre of 22, 143–​144, 164–​165, 173 Gildas 31, 194 Gisela 69, 125, 147n21 Glossa ordinaria 11, 24, 221 Gottschalk of Orbais 64, 152n36, 166–​169, 187 Gregory the Great (pope) 3–​4, 11, 20, 24, 26–​27, 32–​47, 51, 54–​55, 77, 93–​94, 133, 145, 152–​154, 158–​163, 171, 189, 219 Gregory of Elvira 26, 77, 152, 158 Hadrian i (pope) 62, 64, 68–​69, 98 Haimo of Auxerre 5–​6, 11, 13, 19, 111–​113, 128–​135, 221 Heretics 49, 60–​64, 96–​97, 104–​106, 134–​135, 173, 186, 208–​209 Hincmar of Rheims 6, 22, 114, 139–​140, 143, 162–​175, 187, 219 Hrabanus Maurus 6, 19, 142, 145–​146, 149, 164–​165, 174, 179 Hwaetberht of Wearmouth-​Jarrow 28–​29 Iconoclasm/​image controversy 62–​64, 78–​85 Irene (Empress) 65, 84–​85 Isidore of Seville 47, 119, 146n18 Iustus of Urgell 6, 26, 77–​78, 152

Jeremiah 112, 135, 182, 188–​198, 201, 213, 220 Jerome 25, 53, 80, 93, 119, 178, 182, 185, 204–​205, 211 Jerusalem 13n34, 96, 188–​190, 194–​196 Judith 202 Julian of Eclanum 30–​32 Leander of Seville 26 Leidrad of Lyons 66–​67, 119 Libri Carolini see Theodulf of Orléans Opus Caroli Regis Liturgy 2, 7, 21, 118, 176, 179–​184, 211 Divine office 1, 176 Lothar 6, 22, 64, 139, 148–​62 Louis the Pious 64, 67, 112, 114, 146, 165, 177, 182, 202, 220 Mary (Virgin) 21–​22, 60, 70, 74, 92, 99, 114, 178–​180, 183–​184, 186, 208–​212, 214, 217, 220 Mary Magdalene 37, 47, 186, 199 Monasteries 1–​3, 50, 55–​57, 93 Monastic reform 7, 67 Monastic spirituality 17, 101–​104, 210, 212–​213, 220 Nicaea i, council of 10, 59, 65, 166 Nicaea ii, council of 65, 84 Origen 4, 9n26, 16, 23–​27, 128, 158, 219 Origenist controversy 25 Paris, Synod of (829) 18, 146n18 Paschasius Radbertus 6, 11, 19, 22, 66, 99n21, 163, 176–​213, 217, 220–​221 Commentary on Lamentations 188–​196, 201–​203 Commentary on Matthew 179, 181, 184–​186 Commentary on Psalm 44(45) 22, 203–​210 De corpore et sanguine Domini 166, 176–​178, 187 Paulinus of Aquileia 6, 66, 88–​91, 123, 125 Pelagius 31 Pippin the Short 7, 64, 70, 98 Preaching 47–​52, 55–​57, 121, 161 Priests  see clergy Psalter 2n4, 10

255

Index Ratramnus of Corbie 169 Rome 28, 59, 62, 65, 98 Rufinus 25, 185

Spain 62–​65, 68, 77–​78 Synagoga, as opposed to Ecclesia 24, 37, 86, 105, 114–​115, 133, 214, 217

Scripture  see bible St. Germigny-​des-​Prés 80 Sedulius Scotus 6, 141n3 Soissons 22, 66, 148, 177, 181, 203–​210, 220 Solomon 8–​10, 34, 39–​40, 45, 47, 51, 71, 124, 135, 137, 139–​175, 194, 208 Song of Songs 3, 9–​12, 14–​16, 19–​21, 25, 32–​38, 57–​58, 78, 81–​84, 86, 89–​90, 93–​100, 104, 115–​16, 127–​128, 137–​138, 145, 165, 176, 183–​184, 189, 201, 210, 221

Theodosius ii 150, 155–​156 Theodulf of Orléans 6, 66–​67, 77, 119–​120, 125–​127, 139 Opus Caroli regis 77–​85 Uta Codex 214–​217 Wala 177–​178, 182–​183, 189, 197, 201–​203 Wearmouth-​Jarrow 27–​30 Wilfred of Hexham 29–​30