The only genuine resemblance arises from identity of environment. If Theocritus and the poet of Canticles were contemporaries, they wrote when there had been a somewhat sudden growth of town life both in Egypt and Palestine. Alexander the Great and his immediate successors were the most assiduous builders of new cities that the world has ever seen. The charms of town life made an easy conquest of the Orient. But pastoral life would not surrender without a struggle. It would, during this violent revolution in habits, reassert itself from time to time. We can suppose that after a century of experience of the delusions of urban comfort, the denizens of towns would welcome a reminder of the delights of life under the open sky. There would be a longing for something fresher, simpler, freer. At such a moment Theocritus, like the poet of Canticles, had an irresistible opportunity, and to this extent the Idylls and the Song are parallel. But, on the other hand, when we pass from external conditions to intrinsic purport, nothing shows better the difference between Theocritus and Canticles than the fact that the Hebrew poem has been so susceptible of allegorization. Though the religious, symbolical interpretation of the Song be far from its primary meaning, yet in the Hebrew muse the sensuous and the mystical glide imperceptibly into one another. And this is true of Semitic poetry in general. It is possible to give a mystical turn to the quatrains of Omar Khayyam. But this can hardly be done with Anacreon. There is even less trace of Semitic mysticism in Theocritus than in Anacreon. Idylls and Canticles have some similarities. But these are only skin deep. In their heart of hearts the Greek and Judean poets are strangers, and so are their heroes and heroines.