Note 106 — INTRODUCTION. (continued 2)

1776. It was not to be expected that the opposition of sound critics, and much less the newly propounded view of Jacobi, would at once subvert the old allegorical theories, or check fertile imaginations from inventing new speculations. The Song of Songs was too darling an object of those whose minds were addicted to allegories and mysticisms to be so easily surrendered to the simple meaning of the text. So far from being surprised, we rather expect that every one who rejects the obvious sense of the Song will find in it some new view which his predecessors had overlooked. And Herr von Puffendorf’s new theory, therefore, only realises our expectations. He explained this Song hieroglyphically, and by a process of reasoning as sound as that of the other allegorisers, found his interpretation corroborated by analogy. The sacred picture language constituted the wisdom of Solomon’s days, and was therefore used among all nations to express everything divine. As Solomon was more versed in the Egyptian mysteries than any of his contemporaries, he would necessarily write the divine mysteries contained in this book in hieroglyphics, in accordance with the custom of those days. According to the deciphering of these hieroglyphics by Puffendorf, “this much disputed Song treats almost exclusively of the sepulchre of the Saviour, and his death, and the communion of believers, especially of Old Testament saints; but it also describes their longing for his Advent, whereby, however, the condition of the New Testament community, and even the resurrection from the dead, are represented in prophetical types.”106 On the clause,