All Commentaries on Song of Songs 1:1 Go To Song of Songs 1
Hippolytus of Rome
AD 235
For the only ones extant are Proverbs, and Wisdom, and Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs. What then? Does the Scripture speak falsely? God forbid. But the matter of his writings was various, as is shown in the phrase Song of Songs; for that indicates that in this one book he digested the contents of the 5, 000 songs. In the days moreover of Hezekiah, there were some of the books selected for use, and others set aside. Whence the Scripture says, These are the mixed Proverbs of Solomon, which the friends of Hezekiah the king copied out. And whence did they take them, but out of the books containing the 3, 000 parables and the 5, 000 songs? Out of these, then, the wise friends of Hezekiah took those portions which bore upon the edification of the Church. And the books of Solomon on the Parables and Songs, in which he wrote of the physiology of plants, and all kinds of animals belonging to the dry land, and the air, and the sea, and of the cures of disease, Hezekiah did away with, because the people looked to these for the remedies for their diseases, and neglected to seek their healing from God.
