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Mass Communication 61
The preachers are not interested in that, but in the symbolism of
the marriage. Vashti the first queen represents the synagogue, and
Esther the Jewish girl stands for the Christian Church.
Could this Vashti–Esther symbolism have undermined marital
indissolubility? It seems unlikely. For one thing, the story is set
in Old Testament times, when the rules were di·erent, as preachers
knew and could explain. Much more importantly, the whole
emphasis is on the symbolism of salvation history and the point
about the Old Testament dispensation and its replacement by the
Christian Church, with the Old Testament narrative serving as an
allegory. When the preacher moves into scriptural narrative as the
basis for imagery, the change of discourse would probably have
been evident to most attentive listeners, especially since supplementary
clarification would have been possible in the ‘live’ sermon
preached from the model if any necessity had been apparent. The
message—replacement of Synagogue by Church—would have explained
to the listener why the story was being used. When it came
to types of discourse and changes of register in oral sermons, there
is no reason to think late medieval listeners were obtuse, and there
is an exotic tone to the story which marked it as belonging to the
Old Testament ‘other’. The line between this allegory and the analyses
of Christian marriage, whether as a symbol or at the literal
level, would not have been hard for most listeners to intuit.
The Esther story comes up again under our next heading: the
marriage of the individual soul to Christ or God. In Guibert de
Tournai this is linked with the ‘initiation–ratification–consummation’
topos:
The third marriage is the spiritual one of Christ and the faithful soul.
This is the marriage of Assuerus with Esther. Esther 2: 17–18: ‘the king
made Esther reign in the place of Vashti, and he ordered that a banquet be
prepared for the union and marriage with Esther’.
And this is what is said in today’s Gospel: that the water was changed
into wine, for the banquet of that marriage: the water, that is, of contrition,
into the wine of consolation. For it is said in Mark 2: 19: ‘Can the children
of the marriage fast, as long as the bridegroom is with them?’
This marriage is initiated in good thought, ratified in consent, and consummated
in good action.
Guibert is quite eloquent in his section on the marriage of the
D’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons: Guibert de Tournai, paras. 12–14.