The Song of Songs and the Love Affair with God
All of Torah is Holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies
Rabbi Aqiva (c. 40-135 CE)
Readings: Bernard of Clairvaux, Excerpts from Sermon on the Song of Songs; Richard of St. Victor, "On the Four Degrees of Passionate Charity;" [class handout] ;Hadewijch of Brabant, "Poems in Stanzas" [class handout]; D. Matt, ed., trans., Zohar: The Book of Enlightenment , 43-45 [coursepack]; Midrash Rabah on the Song's "ointments"; Zohar on "the kiss"
As you'll quickly discover when you begin this week's reading, this session assumes familiarity with the biblical Song of Songs (sometimes also called Song of Solomon or Canticle of Canticles, depending upon the Bible translation you're using). Be sure to read through the Song before you approach Bernard, Richard, and Hadewijch, and the Zohar.
While both St. Bernard of Clairvaux and Richard of St. Victor represent the learned Latin tradition, there are important distinctions between the two that you might want to consider as you read and think about the material. St. Bernard was a member of the recently established Cistercian Order [see Catholic Encyclopedia On Line if you want to know more about that], and in spite of playing quite an active role in the affairs of Latin Christendom, in theory he embraced the monastic ideal of contemplative withdrawal from the world. Richard of St. Victor, on the other hand, was a canon at the school of St. Victor near Paris. Canons lived in religious communities as monks did, but they simultaneously lived IN the world as secular clergy. By Richard's lifetime, canons were associated as much with the growing cathedral schools as they were with the administration of the cathedral and bishopric. Richard was intimately involved with teaching in the already famous school at St. Victor, and therefore his writing can also be seen as reflective of an emerging scholastic tradition.
The distinctions between the traditional monastic and emerging scholastic approaches can be seen most clearly when comparing Bernard's Sermons on the Song of Songs with Richard's Four Degrees of Passionate Charity.
For those of you intrigued by the idea of mystical approaches to the learned tradition within Latin Christianity, you may want to read an excellent discussion of the place of Pseudo-Dionysius in twelfth-century intellectual culture by Dale Coulter at ORB. There is a section on "Dionysian thought at the school of St. Victor" which has some useful insights into Richard's thought.
You should read a little bit about the beguine movement to which Hadewijch belonged. After that, it may be most useful to familiarize yourself with the contemporary courtly love literary tradition which Hadewijch drew upon. Just as it was necessary to read the biblical Song of Songs in order to understand Bernard and Richard, it is necessary to read in the courtly love tradition to understand Hadewijch. One of the things you will want to be looking for is how the love tradition Hadewijch draws upon (secular rather than "religious") affects her own mystical understanding and mystical expression. Is her love really of a "different kind" than that of Bernard? You may want to think particularly about how Hadewijch's poems compare to Bernard's sermons.
If you haven't read it before, you certainly will want to take a look at Andreas Capellanus' twelfth-century Art of Courtly Love. For the uninitiated, let me stress that while the text was clearly intended as satire, at the same time it demonstrates that a well-understood "cult of Love" existed within courtly culture that could be satirized.
You may be wondering what kind of connection is to be found between beguines like Hadewijch and courtly culture! Originally "courtly culture" emerged within the context of the courts of the nobility in Europe. While some beguines may have come from the lesser nobility (families on hard times), the vast majority would have come from the growing urban "middle classes." But by the thirteenth century, the love poetry/romance tradition that emerged first in a courtly context may have extended to urban culture as well, where are a growing literate public (literate in the vernacular, that is-- a new definition of literate) formed a ready audience.
I am including here an excerpt from Guillaume de Lorris's thirteenth-century Roman de la Rose, taken from the Charles Dahlberg translation (University Press of N. England, 1986), pp. 61-63.
from a thirteenth-century collection of German minne known
as the Codex Manesse
line 2225:
Now I want to recall briefly what I have told you so that you will remember,
for a speech is less difficult to retain when it is short. Whoever wants to
make Love his master must be courteous and without pride; he should keep himself
elegant and gay and be esteemed for his generosity.
Next, I ordain that night and day, in a penitential spirit and without turning back you place your thought on love, that you think of it always, without ceasing, and that you recall the sweet hour whose joy dwells so strongly in you. And in order that you may be a pure lover, I wish and command you to put your heart in a single place so that it be not divided, but whole and without deceit, for I do not like division. Whoever divides his heart among several places has a little bit of it everywhere. But I do not in the least fear him who puts his whole heart in one place; therefore I want you to do so. Take care, however, that you do not lend it, for if you had done so, I would think it a contemptible act; give it rather as a gift with full rights of possession, and you will have greater merit. The favor shown in lending something is soon returned and paid for, but the reward for something given as a gift should be great. Then give it fully and freely, and do so with an easy manner, for one must prize that which is given with a pleasant countenance. I would not give one pea for a gift that one gave in spite of himself.
line 2265:
When you have given your heart away, as I have been exhorting you to do, things
will happen to you that are painful and hard for lovers to bear. Often, when
you remember your love, you will be forced to leave other people so that they
might not notice the suffering which racks you. You will go alone to a place
apart; then sighs and laments, shivers, and many other sorrows will come to
you. You will be tormented in several ways, one hour hot, another cold, ruddy
at one time and pale at another. You have never had any fever as bad, neither
daily nor quartan agues. Before this fever leaves you, you will indeed have
tested the sorrows of love. Now it will happen many times, as you are thinking,
that you will forget yourself and for a long time will be like a mute image
that neither stirs nor moves, without budging a foot, a hand, or a finger, without
moving your eyes or speaking. At the end of this time you will come back in
your memory and will give a start of fright upon returning, just like a man
who is afraid, and you will sigh from the depths of your heart, for you well
know that thus do those who have tested the sorrows that now so torment you.
line 2299:
Next it is right for you to remember that your sweetheart is very far away from
you. Then you will say: "Oh God, how miserable I am when I do not go where
my heart is! Why do I send my heart thus along? I think constantly of that place
and see nothing of it. I cannot send my eyes after my heart, to accompany it;
and if my eyes do not do so, I attach no value to the fact that they see. Must
they be held here? No, they should rather go to visit what the heart so desires.
I can indeed consider myself a sluggard when I am so far from my heart. God
help me , I hold myself a fool. Now I shall go; no longer will I leave my heart.
I shall never be at ease until I see some sign of it." Then you will set
out on your way, but under such conditions that you will often fail of your
design and spend your steps in vain. What you seek you will not see, and you
will have to return, thoughtful and sad, without doing anything more.
line 2325:
Then you will be in deep misery and be visited again by sighs, pangs, and shivers,
that prick more sharply than a hedgehog. Let him who does not know this fact
ask it of those who are loyal lovers. You will not be able to calm your heart,
but will continue to go around trying to see by chance what you long for so
much. And if you can struggle until you attain a glimpse, you will want to be
very intent on satisfying and feasting your eyes. As a result of the beauty
that you see, great joy will dwell in your heart; know too, that by looking
you will make your heart fry and burn, and as you look you will always quicken
the burning fire. The more anyone looks upon what he loves, the more he lights
and burns his heart. This fat lights and keeps blazing the fire that makes men
love. By custom every lover follows the fire that burns him and lights him.
When he feels the fire from close by, he goes away by approaching closer. The
fire consists in his contemplation of his sweetheart, who makes him burn. The
closer he stays to her the more avid he is for love. Wise men and simpletons
all follow this rule: he who is nearer the fire burns more. (line 2358)
The Zohar, variously translated as The Book of Radiance, The Book
of Enlightenment, or The Book of Splendor, functions as a kind of
a mystical commentary on the Torah. While written in the voice of a second century
rabbi, Shimon Bar Yochai, the text actually emerged in thirteenth-century Spain,
edited most likely by a group of kabbalists, among them the man who claimed
to have "discovered" of the text, Moses de Leon. Zohar, like midrash,
roams freely around the Bible text itself as well as the larger received tradition.
For helpful background to the text, read the introduction by Daniel Matt in
his Classics of Western Spirituality edition of Zohar (available in the library).