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A
COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS:
FROM
I
PRIMITIVE AND MEDIJIVAL WRITEES
AlfD FEOil THE
ITarious <©fKce::t)oofe0 anti ?ggmns
ROMAN, MOZAEABIC, AMBEOSIAN, GALLTCAN, GREEK, COPTIC,
ARMENIAN, AND 8TEIAC RITES.
THE REV. jT Ikd'NEALE, D.D.,
SOMETIitE WABDEX OF SACKVIIXE COLLEGE.
VOL. I.
PSALM I. TO PSALM XXXVIII.
SECOND EDITION.
(0.
LONDON :
JOSEPH MASTEKS, ALDERSGATE STKEET,
AND NEW BOND STREET.
NEW YORK: POTT AND AMERY.
MDCCCLXIX.
LONDON :
PBINTED BY JOSEPH MASTEES AND SON,
ALDEESGATE STEEET.
TO THE AUTHOR OF
"THE CHRISTIAN YEAR,"
KAISED UP
BY GOD'S PBOVTDENCK
TO PEBFOBM THE SAME OFFICE
FOR THE ENGLISH,
THAT C0SMA8 EFFECTED FOR THE EASTEBX^
A>'D
ADAM OF S. VICTOR FOR THE WESTERN,
CHURCH,
^^is ©ommentarp
IS
MOST RESPECTFULLT AND AFFECTIONATELY
DEDICATED.
PREFACE.
From the time that I was called, at College, to a
necessary attendance at Daily Service, I began to
apply myself to a more special study of the Psalms.
My first attempt that regarded them in a literary
way, was a translation of S. Bernard's Commentary
on the 90th, (91st,) which, to my no small pride at
the time, was thought worthy of a place in one of
the ecclesiastical magazines of the day.
In the December of 1843, being admitted by the
kindness of the Canons of Funchal to the use of the
Cathedral library, a collection which, though rather
small, contains the best mediaeval writers, as well
as nearly all the Fathers, I commenced (what had
been some time definitely in my mind) a Commen-
tary on the Psalms, finishing seven in the course of
the winter. These, on my return to England, were
published in the Churchman^ s Companion ; and some
inquiry having been made whether the series was to
be continued, the publisher of that periodical re-
quested me to go on with what I had commenced.
I accordingly so far complied with his request, as to
begin the more diligent study of the regular commen-
tators on the Psalms ; as well as to open a common-
place book for detached references in the Fathers, and
in such mediaeval writers as I might happen to peruse.
The work had not been advertised, when Mr.
Parker's Commentary on the Psalms was announced.
I had resolved to give up my own, when my publisher
urged me to continue it, on the plea that there was
VI PREFACE.
room enough for the two works, — that Mr. Parker's
was of a more popular character than mine would be,
— and that the Clergy might well be disposed to go
more deeply into the mystical interpretation of the
Psalter than that had done. At the same time a
paper which I furnished to the Christian Remerri'
brancer on Mr. Parker's Commentary, was the occa-
sion of my receiving several earnest solicitations to
undertake one myself.
To this I may add, that my connection with the
Sisterhood of S. Margaret's, at East Grinsted, in-
volving the weekly recitation of the Psalter, tended
to make me more willing to persevere in the task in
real earnest : and the first part of the result is before
the reader. I mention these facts, principally for
the sake of excusing myself from the charge of pre-
sumption in undertaking a work for which so many
and such varied attainments ought to be requisite.
I wish, in the first place, to warn the reader that
the following commentary is not, in the slightest
degree, critical. My acquaintance with the Hebrew
is far too limited to enable me to offer anything of
value in that way. My design has been quite dif-
ferent. To treat the Psalms in the same way and in
the same spirit in which the mediaeval commentators
approached them, themselves entirely unacquainted
with Hebrew, is the height of my ambition ; employ-
ing them in the sense in which the Church has used
them, and endeavouring to trace, above all things,
their mystical meaning.
The mystical interpretation of Holy Scripture has
fallen so completely into abeyance with us, that it is
no unusual thing to hear authors, like Bishop Home,
who barely entered on it, called fanciful and crotchety
in virtue of those partial attempts. I know that very-
much in the following pages will appear beyond mea-
sure wild and unreal to persons who are not used to
primitive and mediaeval commentators. To those who
are, I would merely state, that not one single mystical
interpretation through the present Commentary is
original ; and (if I may venture on the term) that
fact constitutes its chief value.
PREFACE. VU
The Dissertation on the principles of mystical in-
terpretation was intended to be prefixed to the second
volume; but as I was unwilling that the present
should appear without it, it will be found at the con-
clusion of the 30th Psalm.
The authors from whom I have taken the following
pages are mentioned at length in the Second Essay.
But, as I wished to take the Psalms as the Church
has taken them, I thought that one of the most
valuable sources of assistance would be in the va-
rious responses and versicles, the Psalmelli, the Gra-
duals, the Communions, the Sacrificia, and other
anthems of the like kind made from the Psalms, but
more especially from the Antiphons. Of these, there-
fore, the reader will find considerable use made;
and it is my perpetual reference to these, as well as
to the Hymns of the Church, which is the most novel
feature in my book.
Very, very seldom do we find any reference, in
other expositors, to Western hymns : to Eastern,
never. I cannot but hope that the reader will be
thankful for having his attention called to some of
the magnificent bursts of poetry which are to be
found in the Odes and other Troparia of S. John
Damascene, S. Cosmas the Melodist, S. Andrew of
Crete, S. Theophanes, and even S. Theodore and S.
Joseph of the Studium.
With respect to the references in the margin of
my Commentary, the following explanation may not
be out of place. 1. Where a capital letter, as sub-
sequently explained, is used, it means that the writer
so quoted makes the particular observation referred
to in his Commentary on the verse of the Psalms
then under consideration. Thus in Psalm xix. 7, the
G. in the margin shows that the paragraph in ques-
tion is taken from the Commentary of Gerhohus on
that particular verse. 2. (And this I beg may be
particularly noticed.) Where a reference is made to
any other writer without particularising book or page,
it means that the quotation is taken from that writer's
Commentary on the particular part of Scripture to
which allusion is there made. If I had not em-
Vlll PREFACE.
13loyed this abbreviated method of reference, my
whole margin would have been a confused mass of
figures. Thus in Psalm xix. 7, which I have just
quoted, the following passage occurs : " This is the
mantle which fell from our ascending Elijah:" and
the name printed in the margin is Rupert. This
means that Rupert of Deutz makes the same obser-
vation in his Commentary on Elijah^s ascension into
heaven, namely, as related in 2 Kings ii.
With respect to the Collects given at the end of
each Psalm, and of the Introduction at the com-
mencement of each, it is to be observed that the
general meaning, rather than an exact translation is
to be looked for.
Reference is sometimes made in the Commentary
to a Fourth Dissertation. This, if God give me life
and health, will be found in the Second Volume.
I cannot conclude better than in the words of the
great hymnologist of modern Germany : ^' Faxit
autem Dominus Ecclesise Christianas O. M., cujus
honorem omnes hymni celebrant, quem cantica prae-
dicant et sequentise cum antiphonis certatim ex-
tollunt, ut hie etiam studiorum nostrorum fructus
ad salutem Ecclesiae Christianse valeat. Offerimus
opus nostrum tanquam donum omnibus quicunque
nomen Christi sancte colunt ; offerimus sanctissirao
Redemptori pro unitate atque amabili Ecclesiae Con-
cordia sacrificium, neque aliud quid ex intimo animo
precamur, nisi ut ipsi quoque sentiamus illud quod
de sanctissimo patriarcha scriptum legimus : Respexit
Dominus ad munera ejus"
Sackville College,
Feast of the Epiphany, 1860.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
In this re-issue of the first volume of the Commen-
tary on the Psalms, some variation from the exact
text of the original edition has been deemed neces-
sary.
There have been a few omissions. All the scat-
tered references to promised Dissertations and Ap-
pendices which were never completed have been
expunged, and some errors of textual criticism have
also been withdrawn, besides much incidental cor-
rection of casual faults of type or supervision.
But the chief difference between this edition and
its predecessor consists in the additional matter,
amounting to forty pages.
The seven earliest Psalms, as Dr. Neale mentions
in his preface, were originally contributed as papers
to a magazine, and were therefore much less elabo-
rated than the subsequent ones, undertaken when
once the idea of a formal commentary had been
adopted. And up to the twenty-second Psalm, many
of the most important expositors had not yet been
drawn upon for materials. Further, the authorities
consulted upon points of Hebrew criticism were all
old and some obsolete, and it seemed desirable to
bring the results of fuller scholarship to bear upon
many passages. And there was room for much ad-
ditional information in the account of Uses and An-
tiphons prefixed to each of the Psalms, as well as in
the Collects subjoined to them. All these details
X PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
have been considered in the present edition, and
some pains have been taken to make the new por-
tions as pithy and suggestive as may be, to avoid
any undue increase of bulk. The earlier part of the
volume has necessarily been dwelt upon at greater
length than the latter, on which Dr. Neale himself
lavished more care and erudition; and to avoid
any doubt as to his annotations, the new portions
have been uniformly inclosed within square brackets,
except in the liturgical details prefixed to the several
Psalms, where no attempt has been made to discri-
minate between original and supplementary matter.
E. F. L.
London, Jime^ 1869.
INTRODUCTION.
DISSERTATION I.
THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED IN THE OFFICES OF
THE CHURCH.
1. ^' If we keep vigil/' says S. John Chrysostom, ^' in s. chrysos-
the Church, David comes first, last, and midst. If gyric^oXe
early in the morning we seek for the melody of hymns, ^'**^^-
first, last, and midst is David again. If we are occu-
pied with the funeral solemnities of the departed, if
virgins sit at home and spin, David is first, last, and
midst, ^ O marvellous wonder ! Many who have
made but little progress in literature, nay, who have
scarcely mastered its first principles, have the Psalter
by heart. Nor is it in cities and churches alone that
at all times, through every age, David is illustrious ;
in the midst of the forum, in the wilderness, and un-
inhabitable land, he excites the praises of God. In
monasteries, amongst those holy choirs of angelic
armies, David is first, midst, and last. In the con-
vents of virgins, where are the bands of them that
imitate Mary ; in the deserts, where are men cruci-
fied to this world, and having their conversation with
God, first, midst, and last is he. All other men are
at night overpowered by natural sleep : David alone
is active ; and, congregating the servants of God into
1 9 C^\\im-rra/\a¥rkrv\ \a l.a-f'AivMi'rkrr 4-rk v /
iV T€ flfaoifflV
S. Chrysostom is referring to
that stanza of Theognis,
aW' ael irpurdv t6 Kot Sarrarou,
SiSov.
2 THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
sereaphic bands, turns earth into heaven, and con-
verts men into angels/' Nothing can more ad-
mirably shadow out the feelings of the Church to her
everlasting heritage, than these words of the great
Doctor of the East. The love, the veneration, the
delight which she has ever expressed for the Psalter,
have almost turned it into a part of her own being.
It is not only that, from the beginning till now, the
whole book of Psalms has been weekly recited by so
many thousand priests, but that the spirit of the
Psalter permeates and kindles every other part of the
service; that its principal features have received a
new and conventional character, have been trans-
figured from the worship of the synagogue to that
of the Church ; that, to use the mediseval metaphor,
the trumpets of the tabernacle have given place to the
Psaltery and the New Song of the Christian ritual.^
„ , . ,. 2. The Church of the primitive and of the Middle
Ecclesiasti- ^ 11,1 j
cai •* mytho- Agcs, thcu, adapted the Psalter to her own needs ;
Sten''^^ she employed all the luxuriance of her imagination
to elicit, to develope, — if you will, to play with, — its
meaning. There is, to use the word in a good sense,
a perfect treasure of mythology locked up in me-
diaeval commentaries and breviaries, — a mythology,
the beauty of which grows upon the student, till
that which at first sight appears strange, unreal,
making anything out of anything, perfectly fasci-
nates. The richness and loveliness of this system of
allegory have never yet been done justice to in our
language. Commentaries indeed we have, many of
them valuable in their way, but neither calculated
nor indeed professing to do more than to explain dif-
The literal ficultics, to dcvclopc the historical and literal mean-
fo?the*mo8t ^"^^ ^ ^^ somc of the very plainest passages to
pwrt, point out a possible reference by David to the Son of
David. Take, for instance, that commentary which
enters more deeply than any other into the mystical
and allegorical meaning of the Psalms, Bishop Home's.
Earnestly desirous as was the pious author of seeing
* Quarum tonat initium 1 says Adam of S. Victor in a se-
lu tubis cpulautium, quence on the dedication of a
Jit finis per Fsalterium, | church.
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 3
Christ everywhere, and acquainted to a certain degree,
as he certainly was, with the writings of the Fathers,
how many and many a clause, pregnant with the rich-
est meaninsr, does he pass in silence ! How often does noticed by
■t •!! r>T • ITT 11 modern
he seem incapable ot discovering the delicate shades commenta-
of meaning which depend on the conventional use of
phrases, or the order of sentences ! The Commen-
tary which the reader is about to peruse, however
short it may fall of its design, is intended, at least,
to supply an acknowledged want in our Ecclesiastical
literature. It has been virtually the work of nearly
twenty years; I do not mean that its composition
was begun so long ago (though that was commenced
thirteen years since,) but that its materials liave been
in course of collection, and the authors from which
it is compiled constantly perused ' for that period.
Of the sources whence it is drawn, I shall have occa- mlamng,"*^
sion to speak at greater length towards the conclu- ^^^ principal
. &im of tli6
sion of the Introduction ; but it is well to state thus present
early, that scarcely any one of the interpretations '^^'^^'
given, either in the present essay or in the work it-
self, are my own. They have every one been handed
down to us with greater or less authority ; they have
been taught to many generations of those to whom
every sentence of the Psalms was a household word ;
and when they shall appear most strange and most
fanciful, the reader will do well to remember that
the life-long study, not of an individual, but, if I
may use the expression, of the Church, directed to
one subject, is likely to disclose mysteries and to
develope beauties which cursory perusals would ut-
terly fail to discover.
3. The first thing that strikes us in the primitive Ttmeoccu-
and mediaeval use of the Psalter, is the large proportion meluc^Vsa
of time which its recital employed out of the whole "recitation,
period disposable by ordinary human strength for the
service of God. To say that the Psalms were weekly
recited by every ecclesiastic, falls far below the truth.
For, additionally, the 119th Psalm was said daily:
three of those in Lauds scarcely ever varied ; while
the four at Compline remained unchangeable. The
decrease of devotion and the increase of worldly busi-
b2
4
THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
Modiseval
Canons en-
joining Ec-
clesiastics to
learn the
Psalter by
heart.
Council of
Oviedo.
8. Angiu-
tiiM.
ness, necessitated, as we shall see, a rearrangement,
so that each Psalm should be said once, but only
once, in the course of the week. But from the sixth
century to the sixteenth, it is scarcely an exaggera-
tion to assert that a portion of Psalms equal in bulk
to twice the whole Psalter, was hebdomadally recited.
In the Eastern Church it is well known that were
the Mesoria, as they are called, that is, the half-way
prayers between every two of the Hours, repeated
with the Hours themselves, at only a moderate speed,
it would be absolutely impossible to get through the
services of the day within the space of the day.
4. And as was naturally to be expected from this
so frequent recital, and from the scarcity of books,
it was no unusual thing during the first twelve cen-
turies that its committal to memory should be en-
joined on Ecclesiastics, So we find that S. Genna-
dius,^ Patriarch of Constantinople, in the fifth age,
refused to ordain any clerk who could not repeat
" David '^ by heart. S. Gregory the Great declined
to consecrate a Bishop who had not learnt the Psalter,
and his refusal was enjoined on others by the Se-
cond Council of Nicsea. The Eighth Council of
Toledo^ (653) orders that '^ none henceforth shall be
promoted to any ecclesiastical dignity who do not
perfectly know the whole Psalter, and in addition to
that the usual Canticles and Hymns, and the Formula
of Baptism.'^ In like manner the Council of Oviedo
(1050) decrees that " the Archdeacon shall present
such clerks for Ordination at the Ember seasons as
know perfectly the whole Psalter, the Canticles, the
Hymns, the Gospels, and the Collects.^^ So tho-
roughly did they carry out S. Augustine's exhorta-
tion with respect to the Psalms.3 " It is better for
us to seek the path of praise, the Scripture of God, .
that we turn not aside from the way either to the
right hand or to the left. God hath praised Himself
that He might be properly praised by man; and
» Theodoras Lector, Lib. i. 85.
- Concil. llispan. II. 566.
' Commentary on Psalm 145.
Here, aa wherever I have occa-
sion to quote S. Augustine's Ex*
position of the Psalter, I employ
the Oxford Translation.
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. O
because He hath deigned to praise Himself, therefore
have men found how to praise Him. For it cannot
be said to God, as it is to man, ' Let not Thine own
mouth praise Thee.' For man to praise himself is
arrogance : for God to praise Himself is mercy."
5. And of a recitation of the Psalms far more pgai°i/J;f
frequent than weekly, we have many examples in Palestine;
Church history. I will not insist on the beautiful
description which S. Jerome gives to his dear Paula,
of the employment of the husbandmen in Palestine ;
"The labourer while he holds the handle of the
plough, sings 'Alleluia; the tired reaper employs
himself^ in the Psalms; and the vinedresser while
lopping the vines with his curved hook, sings some-
thing of David. These are our ballads in this part
of the world : these (to use the common expression)
are our love songs." Nor will I relate as an historical
fact, the legend of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste ;
how, when they were cast into prison before their
exposure to the frozen pool, they commenced their
psalmody at sunset, and continued it till midnight;
and how, as they were about to desist, oiir Lord
Himself encouraged them to persevere with the
words, " You have begun well : but it is he that en-
dureth to the end who shall be saved ;" and how they
continued their Psalms till morning dawn. But to
speak of certain history: we find S. Patrick, the ^ ^ p^^
Apostle of Ireland, reciting the Psalter daily in the rick, j
fifth century : S. Kentigern, Bishop of Glasgow, in
the sixth, performing the same task every night. In
the same age S. Meralus never during his waking
hours desisted from their recitation except for prayer
or preaching, or some active work of mercy ; and g. Maurus
S. Maurus, the celebrated disciple of S. Benedict,
usually said the Psalter daily. In the seventh cen-
tury the Scotch monk, S. Egbert, when seized with
the plague, made a vow to recite it daily, and on his
recovery did so to the end of his life. S. Alcuin, s. Aicuin.
the famous preceptor of Charlemagne, tells us that
in his youth, he grudged the time bestowed on
psalmody : but in his old age, he too went through
it every day. The numerous labours of S. Leo IX.
S. Kenti- 1
gem, ■
Corruptions
6 THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
could not hinder him from the same observance. It
is a pretty picture which is drawn by the biographer
of Marinus and his disciple S. Romuald in the tenth
century : they had embraced the life of hermits in
Lombardy, and would wander forth in the fine spring
and summer mornings and recite twenty Psalms
under the shade of such a tree, thirty more from the
brow of such a hill, twenty others by the side of such
of theVac- q. strcam, till the whole number was complete. It is
sad to see the custom of daily recitation degenerate
s. Dominic luto such taskwork as that of S. Dominic the Cuiras-
thecuiras- g^gj, jjjg ordinary day^s employment was to recite
two Psalters, taking the discipline all the tijne ; but
in Lent he always said three, and often more, and
once informed his biographer, S. Peter Damiani, that
he never remembered to have spent such a day be-
fore, as he had recited eight. The curious computa-
tion of years of penance by Psalters, one Psalter with
the discipline counting for five, may be seen in the
same biography.
.Ferial reel. 6. I tum to a morc 'edifying subject : the method
pSs°^ *^^ in which the Psalter was divided for recitation in
Divine service ; or, to use the primitive expression,
in "the work of God.^^
It will be convenient to speak : first of the Western,
then of the Eastern Church.
Western ^^ *^^ Wcstcm Church I shall confine myself to
Church: its (1.) Thc Romau Use, as finally arranged by S.
five families. Qj.gg^^y^
(2.) The Monastic scheme, as first developed by
S. Benedict.
(3.) The Mozarabic, as the only surviving example
of the ancient Gallican rite.
(4.) The Ambrosian, as deriving its peculiarities
from the great father of Psalmody.
(5.) The various schemes which characterised the
different Gallican reforms of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries.
Roman OM. 7'. First then of the Roman use. Its general
synopsis woukl be this : (I use the word Psalm for
that which counts as a Psalm, even if only a portion.)
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 7
Matins: on Sundays (after the Invitatory Psalm) Roman use.
.three Nocturns. The first of twelve Psalms : the
jcond, three: the third, three, all varying. On
'eek-days : one Nocturn ; twelve Psalms, all varying,
jauds : four Psalms (or their equivalent,) and one Can-
iicle ; three of the Psalms fixed, one, and the Can-
ticle, varying. At Prime : four Psalms ; one varying,
lerce, Sexts, Nones : three Psalms, fixed. Vespers :
ive Psalms, varying. Compline : four Psalms, fixed.
The recitation of the Psalter commences at Matins
m Sunday. In the first Nocturn, after the 95th,
rhich always commences the service, and of which I
ihall presently speak at great length, twelve Psalms
ire said, namely, 1 to 15 inclusive, with the omission
)f the 4th, which belongs to Compline, and of the
>th, which is given to Lauds. In the second Noc-
turn, three Psalms : 16, 17, 18. In the third, three :
19, 20, 21, At Lauds, five Psalms, or rather that
which reckons as such : 93, 100, 63 and 67 together;
Benedicite; 148, 149, 150, together.
At Prime, four Psalms. The first, always 54 ; the
third, Ps. 119, 1—16; the fourth, Ps. 119, 17—32.
The second Psalm is, on Sunday, the 1 18th ; Monday,
24th ; Tuesday, 25th ; Wednesday, 26th ; Thursday,
23rd ; Friday, 22nd ; while on Saturday, as a Fes-
tival, there is no varying Psalm.
At Tierce three portions of Ps. 119, (each con-
sisting of two letters.)
At Sexts three portions.
At Nones three portions.
At Vespers (taking up the Psalter from where, as
we shall see, Matins has left it) five Psalms; 110 to
114 inclusive.
At Compline four Psalms, 4, 30, ver. 1 — 6, 91,
and 134.
On Monday. At Matins, commencing where the
Sunday Matins left off, twelve Psalms, namely, 27
to 38 inclusive.
At Lauds, five Psalms : namely, 51, 5 which was
left over from yesterday, 63 with 67, the Song of
Isaiah (Isaiah xii.) Psalms 148, 149, 150 together.
The Week-day Lauds have in fact a kind of frame-
Roman use.
8 THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
work, which never varies ; the insertions within that
frame changing daily. The first, third, and fifth of
the Psalms are constant : the first is always the 51st
Psalm, the second is always the 63rd with the 67th,
the third is always the 148th, 149th, 150th. (The
reason of this I shall presently explain at length.)
Tierce, Sexts, and Nones, have always the same
Psalms as on Sundays.
At Vespers, Psalm 115 (English Version 116, ver.
10 to end) down to 121 inclusive, omitting 119.
Tuesday. Matins, twelve Psalms ; 39 to 52 inclu-
sive; omitting 43, which is said at Lauds, and 51, as
recited daily.
At Lauds, the varying Psalms are 5, and the Song
of Hezekiah. (Isa. xxxviii. 10 — 20.)
At Vespers, five Psalms ; 122 to 126 inclusive.
Wednesday. At Matins, twelve Psalms ; 53 to 68
inclusive ; omitting the 54th, as said at Prime, and
63, which helongs to Lauds.
At Lauds, Psalm 65, and the Song of Hannah.
(1 Sam. ii. 1—10.)
At Vespers, five Psalms; 127 to 131 inclusive.
Thursday. At Matins, twelve Psalms; 69 to 80
inclusive.
At Lauds, Psalm 90, and the Song of Exodus,
(Ex. XV. 1—18.)
At Vespers, five Psalms; 132 to 137 inclusive.
Friday. At Matins, twelve Psalms, 81 to 97 in-
clusive ; omitting the 90th, which was said yesterday
at Lauds, the 91st, which belongs to Compline, the
92nd, the very title of which, A Psalm or Song for
the Sabbath day, appropriates it to Saturday, and of
course the 95th.
At Lauds, Psalm 143, and the Song of Habakkuk.
(Hab. iii. 2 to end.)
At Vespers, five Psalms; 138 to 142 inclusive.
On Saturday. At Matins, twelve Psalms ; 98 to
109 inclusive.
At Lauds, Psalm 92, and the Song of Moses.
(Dent, xxxii. 1—43.)
At Vespers, Psalm 144 to 147, thus joining on to the
three Psalms which form the usual conclusion of Lauds.
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. i)
This arrangement was the secular system of the
Latin Church from the earliest known Roman ritual
till the various reforms of the sixteenth century. One
alteration, however, has been made : the 5 1 st Psalm
was said at all the Hours till the time of Pius IV. ;
(as we find it to have been in the Sarum.)
8. Now we may notice : (1.) That the arrange- ^j^™*""^*
ment is, for the most part, in the numerical order of
the Psalms : beginning at Matins on Sunday, it
goes, almost regularly through the Psalter to Psalm
109 : there it is taken up by Vespers, and so by
them concluded. At Lauds, the order is somewhat
disturbed : 93, 5, 43, 65, 90, 143, 9.2. But, granting
that these seven Psalms were to be the Laudal Psalms,
(and we shall presently see why they were to be,) the
disturbance is less real than apparent. For 92 is by
its Hebrew title fixed for the Saturday : while 93 is so
extremely applicable to the Resurrection that it could
hardly be separated from Sunday : and, with these two
exceptions, the order is complete. (2.) That the ferial
recitation of the Psalter depends almost entirely on
Matins and Vespers: Lauds contributing only thirteen
*salms to it; Compline only one (the 4th) ; Prime six ;
[and the other Hours together only one, the 119th.
9. It will now be proper to give the spiritual expla-
lation of the arrangement: if highly fanciful, also su-
)erlatively beautiful. The writers who dwell mostfuUy
>n the subject are Durandus,^ Bishop of Mende,in his Principal
\Rationale : Sicardus, Bishop of Cremona, in his Mi- the subject.
\trale ; and John Beleth, a Theologian of Paris. Du-
randus wrote in 1286 ; Sicardus about 1190 or 1200;
Beleth was contemporary with the latter. The host
of mediaeval expositors who have treated the symbol-
ical explanation of the Divine Offices, have confined
themselves almost entirely to the Missal : thus, in
the celebrated Micrologus, and in the admirable trea-
tise of Rupert of Deutz, de Divinis OfficiiSy the reader
^ The work of Durandus is i Sicardus was first given to the
common enough, some twenty world by the Abbe Migne in
editions of it having been pub- 1855 ; it is in the 113th volume
hshed : that of Beleth frequently j of his Patrologia.
accompanies it. The Mitrale of I
B 3
10 THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
would vainly seek for any detailed explanation of the
Breviary and its Psalter.
MatSs*"* 10. To begin with the Sunday Nocturns. The
ritualists remind us of the three night watches of a
besieged city, and thence deduce the triple prayer of
a city which, like the Church, is never free from the
assaults of her spiritual enemies. More fancifully
they make each Nocturn to represent respectively the
patriarchal, the legal, and the Christian dispensations.
The first Nocturn, divided by its antiphons (as we
shall presently see) into three portions, or, as they are
technically called, " distinctions,^' sets forth the three-
fold division of the Patriarchal period ; that before
the flood ; that between the flood and Abraham ; and
that between Abraham and Moses. In each of these
divisions they discover four principal Saints, to each of
whom in consequence they attribute one of the Psalms.
In the first period, Abel, Enos, Enoch, and Lamech.
" Blessed is the man,'' says Abel, '^ that hath not
walked in the counsel of the ungodly :" thus setting
forth the distinction between himself and Cain.
^' Why do the heathen so furiously rage together ?"
exclaims Enos, in whose time the grand division be-
tween polytheists and the worshippers of the One
true God took place. " Thou art my worship, and
the Lifter up of my head," exclaims Enoch, — lifted
up, indeed, when translated, that he should not see
death. '' O Lord, rebuke me not in Thine indigna-
tion," is the Psalm of Lamech, who was blessed by
Their sym- ^rOD with a SOU, the prcscrver of the human race
boiicai In. from the indignation that destroyed the world. I
ion. j^gg^ ^^^ explain how, in the same way, they make
the four Psalms of the next distinction to signify Noah,
Shem, Heber, and Terah, nor the third to set forth
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. The second
Nocturn, as we have seen, has three Psalms : and
these are referred to the three epochs of the legal
dispensation : the Priests, the Judges, and the Kings.
They are respectively set forth in the sixteenth Psalm:
wlicn the Priest says, " The Lord Himself is the por-
tion of mine inheritance and of my cup:" in the seven-
teenth, where the Judge prays, " Let my sentence"
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 11
— that is, the sentence I shall pronounce — "come
forth from Thy Presence ;" and the eighteenth^ where
the Monarch declares, " Great prosperity giveth He
unto His King/' In the same way, the dispensation
I of grace may be divided into three epochs, — that of
'.. Apostolic preaching, that of persecution, and that of
j peace. Apostolic preaching is set forth by the 19th
( Psalm, which, as we shall see in its proper place, has
always been applied to the Apostles. The epoch of
persecution, and therefore of the martyrs, is expressed
I by the 20th Psalm, " The Lord hear thee in the day
I of trouble. '^ The time of peace is represented by the
' 21st, "Thou hast given him his heart's desire, and
hast not denied him the request of his lips.'' The ap-
, pearance of Antichrist is prophesied towards the end
I of that Psalm ; " Thou shalt make them like a fiery
oven in the time of Thy wrath :" and then the promise
[ of final felicity ; " Be Thou exalted. Lord, in Thine
own strength, so will we sing and praise Thy power.'"*
With such holy ingenuity did mediaeval writers ex- seven works
plain their " Daily Service." In like manner, if we origbiaily
proceed to the one Nocturn said on ordinary week- six.
I days, we shall find that its twelve Psalms, braced two
and two together by their Antiphons, are explained
of the sia: works of mercy : for the addition of a Rupert.
seventh, — that of burying the dead — is a later inven- 46!"coi. i.''"
tion. It appears that, in many churches, each two
and two of these Psalms were not only said with one
Antiphon, but under one Gloria : a trace of which
exists in the present use of reciting two portions of
the 119th Psalm to one doxology.
11. The office of Lauds has received a not less in- Lauds: its
genious explanation. The first Psalm on Sundays, plainfs/
" TheLoRD is King,and hath put on glorious apparel,"
requires but little symbolizing to set forth to us the
Resurrection, and was probably, bond fide, appointed
on that account. The 51st, which always occupies
the first place on week-days, sets forth that repent-
ance by which only we can pass from the night of sin
to the day of righteousness, just as we are, while re-
citing that office, in the physical passage from night
to morning. The six varying Psalms which occupy
12
THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
The six vary
ing Psalms
and Canti-
cles of the
Ferial use.
the second place on week-days, have all some mani-
fest reference to the morning. Thus, the 5 th, on
Monday, "My voice shalt Thou hear betimes, O
Lord ; early in the morning will I direct my prayer
unto Thee, and will look up." In the 43rd, on
Tuesday, " O send out Thy Light.'' In the 65th, on
Wednesday, " Thou that makest the outgoings of the
morning to praise Thee." In the 90th, on
Thursday, " In the morning it is green/' In the
143rd, on Friday, "O let me hear Thy loving-kind-
ness betimes in the morning." In the 92nd, on Sa-
turday, " To tell of Thy loving-kindness early in the
morning."
12. In like manner, in the six varying week-day
Psalms and six Canticles of Lauds, they see a mystical
reference to the six states of the Church. That of
the Primitive Church, set forth by " My voice shalt
Thou hear betimes, O Lord ;" " Lead me, O Lord, in
Thy righteousness," &c., in the Psalm for Monday ;
and with reference to the Nativity of our Lord, and
the wrath of God thus turned from the world, the " O
Lord, I will praise Thee ; though Thou wast angry
with me. Thine anger is turned away," in the Canticle.
On the Tuesday, the epoch of persecution expressed
by the prayer, " Defend my cause against the ungodly
people," of the Psalm : and the " I said, in the cutting-
oft' of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave,"
of the Canticle. On the Wednesday, the overthrow of
heathen persecutors, in the *^ Who stillest the raging
of the sea, and the noise of his waves, and the mad-
ness of the people," of the Psalm, and the Song of Han-
nah, the Church's triumph over her persecutor, which
forms the Canticle. Briefly, on Thursday we have the
Conversion of the Jews ; on Friday, the Lord's Pas-
sion ; and on Saturday, the true and eternal Sabbath.
The63r(iand 13. The most difficult portion of Lauds is the ex-
i'hJ[ornS"'planation why the 63rd and 67th Psalms are taken
together. It has been so from the beginning; but
the reasons alleged are but unsatisfactory. Because,
it is said. Thirst after God is set forth in the one, —
the doctrine of the Trinity, by which alone that
thirst can be satisfied, in the other. Or again ; be-
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH.
13
I
cause the first expresses love to God, ^' O God, Thou
art my God, early will I seek Thee :" the second,
love to our neighbour, " Let the people praise Thee,
O God/'' Or, again, because the first speaks of hu-
man misery, the second, as its correlative, of eternal
felicity. In all probability, however, the true reason
of this conjunction has yet to be learnt.
14. It would be too long to go through all the The twenty-
Offices in the same way. One ingenious observation, of the 119th
however, must not be omitted. The trespass-offering double oirer-
of the poorest Israelite consisted of two pigeons. In jjl g^J^^^^,
like manner we, poor, indeed, of good works, offer oftrausgres-
daily the 22 portions of the 119th Psalm for that ''°'''
ELEVEN which is the symbol of «// transgression : be-
cause this number is the first which oversteps that
of the Ten Commandments. The mystical meaning
of the position of these Psalms in Divine worship,
will be found in the Commentary.
15. Thus we have glanced at the Ferial arrange- Jgg'JS"'"^^
ment of the Latin Psalter : let us now see what was tions.
its Festal type. It is to be observed, that we are
only concerned with Matins ; except on very rare oc-
casions, the Little Hours remain unaltered, whatever
be the solemnity of the day, and Lauds and Vespers
usually substitute the Sunday for their own Psalms :
a somewhat jejune arrangement, which has not es-
caped modern animadversion. I will give the Gre-
gorian, as distinguished from the modern Roman.
The latter has, in some respects, deviated from the
more ancient form. I translate from the " Distribu-
tion of Psalms for the work of God" published by
Thomasius in his second and also in his third volume.
The Nativity.
At the Vigil,' in the beginning or twilight of night. No The Nati-
Invitatory Psalm. I. Nocturn, Psalm 2, 19, 24. II. Noc- ^i^-
turn. Psalm 45, 87, 96. III. Nocturn, Psalm 97, 98, 99. In
the same holy night, in the Vigils of the Cock-crow. I. Noc-
turn, Psalm 2, 19, 45. II. Nocturn, 48, 72, 85. III. Noc-
^ In the early Roman Church,
the custom was, on certain great
Festivals, to have two sets of
Matins: the one at the commence*
ment, the other in the middle, of
the night : a custom manifestly
connected with thegreatandlittle
Vespers of the Eastern Church.
14
THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
Greg^orian
Festal
Psalms.
The Epi-
phany.
turn, 89, 96, 98. At Vespers on the holy day, Psalm 110,
111, 112, 130, 132.
The Epiphany.
No Invitatory Psalm. I. Nocturn, Psalm 29, 47, 66. II.
Nocturn, Psalm 72, 86, 95. III. Nocturn, Psalm 46, 96,
100. (The modern Roman use, on the Epiphany, but not
during the Octave, omits the Invitatory Psalm, placing it,
however, first in the III. Nocturn, not, as above, last in
the II.)
Maundy Thursday.
No Invitatory Psalm. I. Noctum. Psalm 69, 70, 71. II.
Nocturn, Psalm 72, 73, 74. III. Nocturn, Psalm 75, 76, 77.
At Vespers, Psalm 116, 120, 140, 142, 144.
Good Peiday.
No Invitatory Psalm. I. Nocturn, Psalm 3, 22, 27. II.
Noeturn, Psalm 38, 4D, 53. III. Nocturn, Psalm 59, 88, 94.
At Vespers, as yesterday.
Eastee Eve.
Easter Eve. No Invitatory Psalm. I. Nocturn, Psalm 5, 15, 16. II.
Nocturn, Psalm 24, 27, 30. III. Nocturn, Psalm 54, 76, 88.
At Lauds, as on ordinary Tuesdays.
Maundy
Thursday.
Good Fri-
day.
Easter
Week.
Eastee Week.
I. Nocturn only, Psalm 1, 2, 3. Monday, Psalm 4, 5, 6.
Tuesday, Psalm 7, 8, (9, 10.) Wednesday, Psalm 12, 13, 14.
Thursday, Psalm 15, 16, 17. Friday, Psalm 19, 20, 21. Sa-
turday, Psalm 23, 24, 26. (According to others, 24, 25, 26.)
Ascension.
I. Nocturn, Psalm 8, 11, 19. II. Nocturn, Psalm 21,
30, 47. III. Nocturn, Psalm 97, 99, 104.
Whitsunday.
whitsun- Ijj tije pij.gt yigQ_ j^^ Invitatory. Psalm 48, 68, 102.
(The other Matins the same as ordinary Sundays : this last
is a remarkable peculiarity.)
Foe the Office op the Dead.
No Invitatory Psalm. I. Nocturn, Psalm 3, 4, 6. II.
Nocturn, Psalm 23, 25, 27. III. Nocturn, Psalm 40, 41, 42.
(Otherwise, 35, <U), 42.) Lauds : Psalm 51, 65, 63, with 67,
Song of Hezekiah. Psalm 148, 149, 150. Vespers : Psalm
110 (1—9), 120, 121, 130, 138.
For the Of-
fice of the
Dead.
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 15
On the Hypapante, oe Pueification.
In the Vigils of the First Cock-crow ; I. Nocturn, Psalm Gregorian
8, 19, 45. II. Nocturn, Psalm 48, 72, 75. III. Nocturn, SSs
Psalm 79, 96, 98.
The Annunciation of S. Maey, the Mothee of
ouE LoED Jesus Cheist.
I. JSTocturn, Psalm 8, 19, 24. II. Nocturn, Psalm 45, 46,
87. III. Nocturn, 96, 97, 98.
BlETHDAT OF THE ApOSTLES PeTEE AND PaUL.
In the Vigil, at Twilight. No Invitatory Psalm. I. Noc-
turn, Psalm 19, 34, 45. II. Nocturn, Psalm 47, 61, 64. III.
Nocturn, Psalm 75, 97, 99.
In the Vigils of the First Cock-crow. I. Nocturn, Psalm
1, 2, 3. II. Nocturn, Psalm 4, 8, 11. III. Noctum, Psalm
15, 16, 20. Vespers, Psalm 110, 113, 116 (10 to end,) 126, 139.
Tbansfigubation.
I. Nocturn, Psalm 8, 29, 45. II. Nocturn, Psalm 76, 84,
87. III. Nocturn, Psalm 89, 97, 104.
The Exaltation of the Ceoss.
I. Nocturn, Psalm 1, 2, 3. II. Nocturn, Psalm 4, 11, 21.
III. Nocturn, Psalm 96, 97, 98.
the Dedication of the Basilic of S. Michael the
Aechangel.
I. Nocturn, Psalm 5, 8, 11. II. Nocturn, Psalm 15, 19,
54. III. Nocturn, Psalm 96, 97, 104.
The Bibthday of Apostles and Evangelists.
I. Nocturn, Psalm 19, 34, 45. II. Nocturn, Psalm 47, '
61, 64. III. Nocturn, Psalm 75, 97, 99. Vespers : Psalm
,110, 113, 116 (10 to end,) 126, 139.
The Bibthday of Maetyes, Confessoes, and Viegins.
I. Nocturn, Psalm 1, 2, 3. II. Nocturn, Psalm 4, 8, 10.
III. Nocturn, 15, 16, 20.
16. This seems to be the oldest classification of the
Psalms appropriated to the " Work of God.'^ I shall
have occasion, in treating of the Psalms themselves^
to dwell on the peculiar reason for the assignation of
each to its peculiar position. I will give one or two
lists, which appear not later than the fourth or fifth
16
THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
centuries, of the adaptation which may fix certain
Psalms to certain purposes.
Diurnal ca- A vcry aucicut "^ diumal Canon ^^ of the Psalms
''°''*- assigns them as follows :^
1 a.iii.
1 p.m. Psalm 75
2 a.m.
Psalm 30.
2 p.m.
„ 30
3 a.m.
1.
3 p.m.
» 55
4 a.m.
42.
4 p.m.
» 6
5 a.m.
51.
5 p.m.
4
6 a.m.
71.
6 p.m.
,, 41
7 a.m.
70.
7 p.m.
» 52.
8 a.m.
85.
8 p.m.
„ 81.
9 a.m.
112.
9 p.m.
„ 88.
10 a.m.
141.
10 p.m.
„ 96.
11 a.m.
100.
11 p.m.
„ 22.
12 noon
121.
12 midnight
„ 57.
Here is another list, principally composed from
the Epistle of S. Athanasius to Marcellinus, and not
without its use.
Prayer. Psalm 17, 68, 90, 102, 132, 142.
In prayer, with supplication for deliverance. Psalm 5, 6,
7, 12, 13, 16, 25, 27, 31, 35, 38, 43, 54, 55, 56, 57, 59, 61, 64,
83, 86, 88, 140, 141, 143.
In supplication for deliverance alone. Psalm 3, 26, 69, 70,
71, 74, 79, 80, 123, 130, 131.
In confession of sins. Psalm 51.
If thou desirest to render thanks to God for His many
marvels, or on the accomphshment of some good work.
Psalm 8, 81.
If thou desirest to know how others praise God. Psalm
113, 117, 125, 146, 147, 148, 150.
If thou desirest to stir up thyself to bless God. Psalm
103, 104.
If thou desirest to praise God. Psalm 92, 105, 106, 107,
108, 112, 136, 138.
If thou desirest to sing to God. Psalm 93, 98.
If thou desirest to remember the mercy and lustice of
God. Psalm 101.
If thou desirest to exhort to faith and obedience. Psalm 41.
If thou desirest to show to others of what kind is the man
who is a citizen of heaven. Psalm 15, 24.
If thou desirest to ridicule heretics or Gentiles.^ Psalm 76.
^ I have used two of such
Canons, both given by Thoma-
BiuB, and have made one to sup-
ply the defects of the other.
^ Notice, in this very phrase,
the extreme antiquity of the pre-
sent " Canon."
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH.
17
If thou belioldest heretics gathering together against the
House of God. Psalm 83.
If thou desirest to convince heretics. Psalm 87.
If thou desirest to remember the benefits of the redemp-
tion of man. Psalm 8, 87, 116 (ver. 10 to end.)
If thou desirest to admire sermons, and the grace of the
preacher. Psalm 19.
If thou wouldest remember the Incarnation of our Lord.
Psalm 45, 110.
If thou wouldest remember the Lobd's Cross. Psalm
22, 69.
If thou wouldest sing of the E-esurrection. Psalm 16, 66.
If thou wouldest remember the Ascension. Psalm 24, 47.
If thou wouldest call to remembrance the future judg-
ment. Psalm 50, 72.
If thou wouldest commemorate martyrs. Psalm 79.
If thou wouldest praise God on Festivals. Psalm 81, 95.
If thou wouldest sing on Good Friday. Psalm 93.^
If thou wouldest sing on Saturday. Psalm 92.
If thou wouldest return thanks on Sunday. Psalm 34, 119.
17. AVe now turn from the secular to the monastic TheMonas.
use, derivmg its origm immediately from S. Bene-
dict, but remotely, and with considerable alterations,
from the Egyptian ascetics. Its principal differences
from that which we have been considering, are
these : —
(1.) The Sunday has indeed three Nocturns : but '^^ '^i^*'"-
the first two have six Psalms each, and the third, features.
three Canticles. Each of the Nocturns, moreover,
has four lessons instead of three.
(2.) On week-days there are always two Nocturns,
with six Psalms each; and a complex system of
lessons which it would be foreign to our present pur-
pose to explain.
(3.) There are five Psalms at Lauds, but the frame-
work is different. The first is always the 51st; the
last is always the 148th, 149th, 150th. The second
and third are always varying Psalms, and the fourth
a varying Canticle.
(4.) The difference of the Little Hours will be best
seen at more detail presently.
(5.) Vespers have four Psalms instead of five.
1 Notice the magnificent ap-
plication of verse 3, " Ever since
the world began hath Thy seat
been prepared," to that Cross
which was fore-ordained before
the foimdation of the world.
18
THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
Psalms at
Prime :
18. The arrangement of the Psalms is as follows : —
The recitation of the Psalter commences at Prime on Mon-
day, and is continued through the week-day Primes in this
manner : —
Monday.
Tuesday.
Matins and Sunday.
Lauds.
Psalm 1, 2, 6. Psalm 3 is omitted for a reason
to be presently mentioned ; 4 as said at Com-
pline ; 5, because given to Lauds on Monday.
Psalm 7, 8, 9. Psalm 9 and 10 are, of course,
in the Vulgate, one Psalm : it is here di-
vided, half belonging to Tuesday, half to
Wednesday.
Wednesday. Psalm 10, 11, 12.
Thursday. Psalm 13, 14, 15.
Friday. Psalm 16, 17, 18 (to ver. 20.)
Saturday. Psalm 18 (ver. 20 to end,) 19, 20.
The course is now taken np by Matins. These
commence with the 3rd Psalm, (a monastic pecu-
liarity,) and the 95th j and then continue the series,
thus : —
First Nocturn. Psalm 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26.
Second Nocturn. Psalm 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32.
„ Third Nocturn. Three Canticles : (1.) Isaiah
xxxiii. 2—12; (2.) Isaiah xxxiii. 13—19;
(3.) Ecclesiasticus xxxvi. 14 — 20.
Lauds. Psalm 67, 51, 118 (or 93, 100,) 63,
Benedicite : 148, 149, 150, as one.
Monday. First Nocturn. Psalm 33, 34, 35, 37 in two
divisions, 38 : (36 is omitted, because said at
Lauds.)
„ Second Nocturn. Psalm 39, 40, 41, 42, 44,
45 : (43 is omitted, as said at Lauds on
Tuesday.)
„ Lauds. The variable Psalms are : 5, 36, Song
of Isaiah (Isa. xii.)
Tuesday. First Nocturn. Psalm 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52 :
(51 is omitted, as occurring elsewhere so
frequently.)
„ Second Nopturn. Psalm 53, 54, 55, 56, 58,
59 : (57 is omitted, as given to Lauds.)
M Lauds. The variable Psalms : 43, 57, Song of
Hezekiah.
Wednesday. First Nocturn. Psalm 60, 61, 62, 66, 68 (in
two parts : (63 and 67 are omitted, as having
been said on Sunday.)
M Second Nocturn. Psalm 69 (in two parts,) 70,
71,72,73.
„ Lauds. The variable Psalms : 64, 65, Song of
Hannah.
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 19
Thursday. First Nocturn. Psalm 74, 75, 77, 78 (in two
I parts,) 79: (76 is omitted, because said at
Lauds on Friday.)
Second Nocturn. Psalm 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85.
„ Lauds. The variable Psalms : 88, 90, Song
! of Exodus.
Friday. First Nocturn. Psalm 86, 87, 89 (in two di-
I visions,) 93, 94 : (88 is omitted, as said at
[ Lauds yesterday.)
Second Nocturn. Psalm 96, 97, 98, 99, 100,
101.
I „ Lauds. The variable Psalms : 76, 92, Song of
[ Habakkuk.
Saturday. First Nocturn. Psalm 102, 103, 104 (in two
divisions,) 105 (in two divisions.)
„ Second Nocturn. Psalm 106 (in two divi-
sions,) 107 (in two divisions,) 108, 109.
„ Lauds. The variable Psalms : 143, and the
Song of Moses (in two divisions.)
Vespers continue the Psalter to the end.
19. The Gregorian Psalter, then, was said by the SfJilS
secular Priests of the Latin Church, till the Council ^^'^"^1''^"*®
I of Trent : that is, nominally. But, in point of fact, Psaiter.
the principle on which it was framed — that of a
■weekly recitation of the Psalms — was almost for-
gotten. As we have seen, the festival Psalms were
only nine in number; whereas those for ferial use
were twelve. And not only so : it so happened that
the festival Psalms were, comparatively speaking,
short; whereas the others of course were, in the
nature of things, of average length. Hence the na-
Itural disposition of avoiding trouble would lead to
the substitution, wherever it were possible, of the
former for the latter. Thus, by degrees, the greater
number of week-days were robbed of their own
Psalms; the Office of the Saint supplanted the Ferial
rite, and not half the Psalter was recited in the
course of the week. The Council of Trent, to re-
medy this evil, recommended the retrenchment of
Festival Offices, so that a far larger proportion of
week-days should have their own Psalms. But this
wise provision was, in point of fact, again swept away
by Clement X. ; who, by the example that he set of innovations
making almost every new festival a double, opened of element
the door to the re-entrance of the old abuse. It is
20 THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
on this account that the Ultramontane Gueranger
calls him the author of a true liturgical revolution.
But not content with this, the Roman authorities
contrived an ingenious expedient for getting rid of
the longest Psalms, which would sometimes occur in
spite of the multitude of festivals. The heaviest
Matins, as the idleness of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries called them, are those of Thursday and
Saturday : the former, because it contains the im-
mensely long 78th Psalm; the latter as embracing
Shorter (so- ^^^ oi^ly ^hc 102nd to the 107th Psalm, all of them
ttcJs of De ^^"^^ ^^* ^^^^ (^* Lauds) the Song of Moses, forty-
votion four verses, for the most part of considerable length.
Hence the introduction of offices of so-called devotion
for those two nights: that of the Blessed Sacrament for
Thursday; that of S. Mary for Saturday. By this
contrivance, the former, instead of having 421 verses,
has only 197 ; the latter, instead of 452, only 208.
It is manifest that if any day of the week could claim
the prerogative of an office of devotion, it would be
supplant the Friday ; but the Friday Psalms happened to be by
us"e^^'^^"^ no means long, and that day has therefore been left
without any distinctive honour. Again : as doubles
take precedence of ordinary Sundays, the eighteen
Psalms of the latter have generally been replaced by
the nine of the former; and even on those Sundays
which are of the first or second class, dispensations
have not unfrequently been allowed, to skip the al-
ternate Psalms. Thus, in point of fact, according to
the practice of the modern Boman Church, a Priest
is in the habit of reciting about fifty Psalms, and
not more ; these fifty being on the whole the shortest
of the Psalter.
Q^noi'B ^^' "^* ^^^ ^^ remedy this abuse, and at the same
reform. time to equalise the daily portion of the Psalms, that
Cardinal Quignon undertook his revision of the Bre-
viary. Hoot and branch he did abolish it ; but in
reforming much that needed reformation, he lopped
away much that was beautiful. His Ferial Psalms
were never supplanted by those of any festival. If
Christmas-day fell on Friday, its Psalms were the
same with those of Good Friday. Maundy Thurs-
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH.
21
day and Ascension day were so far undistinguished
from each other.
21. The first edition of Quignon dijQfers in some its details,
respects from the second. Both on account of their
extreme rarity, their importance as the source of our
own Prayer Book, and their intrinsic value, deserve a
particular notice here. The first was printed at Rome
in 1535 or 1536.^ The editions which I use are the
reprint, even more rare and curious, of Paris, by
Jehan Le Petit, 1536, and of Antwerp, by the widow
of John Stelsius, 1566. The Psalms are thus arranged
by Quignon : the difference, it will be observed, be-
tween this and any previous order is extremely great.
I
Sunday.
Matins. Psalm 95, with the
Invitatory : the latter said
once at the beginning, and
once at the end ; but not in
themiddle. Ps.l(9,10,)18.
Lauds. Te Deum, Ps. 66, 96,
Benedicite.
Frime. Ps. 54 ; two portions
of the 119th Ps.2
ce. Three portions of the
119th Ps.
Sexts. Ditto.
Nones. Ditto.
Vespers. Ps. 110, 111, (114,
115.)
Compline. Ps. 4, 31, 1—6, 91.
Monday.
M. Ps. 31, 35, 105.
i. Ps. 98, 104; Isa. xii.
P. Ps. 23, 24, 25.
T. Ps. 14, 19, 20.
S. Ps. 39, 62, 116, 1—9.
N. Ps. 80, 99, 126.
V. Ps. 77, 116, 9 to end, 143.
C. Ps. 7, 15, 125.
Tuesday.
M. Ps. 37, 44, 109.
L. Ps. 95 (according to the
Gallican version,) 145, Song
of Hezekiah.
P. Ps. 5, 17, 26.
T. Ps. 21, 29, 32.
S. P^. 53, 72, 121.
N. Ps. 90, 97, 127.
V. Ps. 34, 41, 113.
C. Ps. 11, 16, 30.
Wednesday.
49, 59, 78.
81,135, SongofHan-
M. Ps
L. Ps.
nah.
P. Ps.
T. Ps.
S. Ps.
N. Ps.
F. Ps.
C. Ps.
6, 118, 131.
43, 45, 60.
42, 65, 122.
82, 87, 94.
33, 84, 112.
40, 120, 134.
Thubsday.
M. Ps. 68, 73, 89.
L. Ps. 100, 103, Song of Ex-
odus.
* I cannot say which of the
two years, as I have never been
fortunate enough to see the vo-
lume itself, and the authorities
seem equally balanced.
2 Though not immediately
connected with our subject. I
cannot but remark that the
Athanasian Creed was, as usual,
said in this Office on Sundays ;
but on other days the Apostles'
I Creed is substituted in its place :
I clearly the germ of the arrange-
' ment of our own Prayer Book.
22
THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
P. Ps. 8, 27, 28.
T. Ps. 92, 93, 108.
S. Ps. 50, 75, 123.
N. Ps. 36, 83, 101.
V. Ps. 132, 137, 146.
C. Ps. 46, 47, 48.
Feidat.
M. Ps. 22, 69, 71.
L. Ps. 149, 150, Song of
Habakkuk.
P. Ps. 2, 12, 51.
T, Ps. 3, 38, 56.
S. Ps. 57, 64, 140.
N. Ps. 61, 70, 74.
F. Ps. 138, 139, 142.
C. Ps. 13, 86, 141.
Saturday.
M. Ps. 55, 106, 107.
X. Ps. 117, 150, Song of
Moses.
P. Ps. 63, 67, 136.
T. Ps. 52, 58, 88.
S. Ps. 76, 79, 124.
N. Ps. 102, 128, 133.
V. Ps. 144, 147.
C. Ps. 85, 129, 130.
Principle of
Quignon's
arrange-
ment of the
Psalms.
22. It is to be noticed that, in this arrangement
of the Psalter, the numerical order is entirely given
up : that Quignon appears to have selected the Psalms
for Wednesday and Friday with some reference to
the Betrayal and Crucifixion_, but to have allotted
those for the other days without any definite prin-
ciple, only taking care that the Psalms for Matins
should be the longest. In the two first editions there
were no Antiphons whatever; in the third there
is an unchangeable Antiphon for each of the lesser
hours ; while the principal Feasts have also one for
Matins and Vespers : the latter on Ferise and ordi-
nary Sundays are not provided with any. To use
the author^s own words : " It must be understood
that, when we say, To-day the Office is of such a
Festival, it is the same thing as if we said that at
Matins the Invitatory, Hymn, Antiphon, and Third
Lesson, — at Lauds, the Antiphon and Collect (which
also is said at all hours except Prime and Compline,)
— at Vespers, the Hymn and Antiphon, — are said of
that Feast ; and in the change of these alone consists
the diversity of the Office.'^
Whatever corruptions were swept away by Quig-
non,— however the Scripture lections resumed their
suitable prominence, and the weekly recitation of the
Psalter was carried out, — yet the intolerable mono-
tony of such an Office, which made no difference in
the Psalms between Easter, Christmas, and Good
Friday, can scarcely be imagined ; and our own Re*
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 23
formers, however unpoetical were their minds, found
it necessary to deviate from their prototype in this re-
spect. It might be partly in consequence of this Bre-
viary having been the origin of the English Prayer
Book, that it was rigidly suppressed by Pope Pius V.
23. The reformers of the Parisian Breviary struck Parisian re-
out^ it seems to me, the happy mean between the
two extremes. I do not say but that it had been
better to preserve the venerable use of twelve hundred
years, and to say daily the same Psalms which S. Leo
and S. Gregory had on that day themselves said;
but experience had shown that love and devotion had
waxed cold; that the Clergy would not recite the
longer portions of the Psalter ; that means would be
devised for the omission of the " heaviest*^ Matins ;
and that, if the Ferial recitation of the whole Psalter
was to be insisted on, the whole Psalter must be re-
arranged. The first thing to be done was to substi-
tute, like Quignon, the varying, for the till then fixed,
Psalms of the Little Hours and of Lauds. This re-
lieved the Clergy, at a stroke, of more than half the
burden. The next thing was to divide the longer
Psalms into two or more portions, each treated and
counted as a separate Psalm. Next, except on the
very highest Festivals, the Ferial Psalms were re-
cited ; and the result of the whole was, that, with a
very much abbreviated Office, the whole Psalter was
regularly said weekly.
24. Another important alteration was the aban- The prin.
donment of the principle of recitation according to medca^ re."
numerical order. The Psalms were distributed on ^l**"?" ,
an entirely new prmciple ; each day bemg appointed
to some special subject, round which the Psalms of
that day were, so to speak, grouped. Thus Sunday
was consecrated to God's praise, and connected with
His gift of Holy Scripture ; Monday to the benefits,
spiritual and temporal. He bestows on man; Tues-
day, to love; Wednesday, to hope; Thursday, to
faith; Friday, to the remembrance of our Lord's
Passion ; Saturday, to general thanksgiving.
25. From the Parisian Breviary a host of imita- imitationsof
tions sprang up. In the beginning of the eighteenth Brev^a.^!'*"
24
THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
Families of
Rouen and
Amiens.
century, every Bishop of more than ordinary talents
or learning seemed to consider it necessary to sig-
nalise his accession to his see by the promulgation
of a new Breviary ; till at length there were almost
as many Office-books as dioceses. It is for the re-
tention of these symbols and badges of a national
Church that Gallicanism is now striving against the
overbearing, oversweeping Ultramontanism of the
present day. When the Parisian Breviary fell, the
death-blow was in that, I fear, given to all.
26. Conspicuous among the countless families of
French Office-books are three : those of Paris, Eouen,
and Amiens, which far surpassed the rest in the
beauty of their Antiphons, the happy arrangement
of their Psalms, and above all, the loveliness of their
Responses. I have studied these three with con-
siderable care; and, in my opinion, the Rouen, as
edited by the Archbishop De Lavergne de Tressan,
excels all. But as the Parisian has obtained so far
the wider circulation, and is regarded as possessing
the most authority, it is this that I will give now, as
the keystone to a synopsis of the three : —
PARIS.
Sunday.
Matins.
1 Noct. Ps. 1, 2, 3.
2 Noct. 18 (in 3 div.)
3 Noct. 28, 30, 66.
Lauds. 63, 70, 100,
Benedicite, 148.
Prime. 118, 119, 1-
32.
Tierce. 119, 33-80.
Sexts. 119, 81-128.
Nones. 119, 129 to
the end.
Vespers. 110, 111,
112,113(114,115.)
Compline. 4, 91, 134.
Monday.
3f. 10^1 (in 3 div.)
105 (in 3 div.), 106
(in 3 div.)
ROUEN.
Sunday.
The same as Paris.
Monday.
M.
1 JVocf. 104 (in 3 div.)
2 iVoc^. 105 (in 3 div.)
AMIENS.
Sunday.
M. The same as Paris.
L. 63,93, 100, Bene-
dicite, 150.
P. The same as Paris.
T.
S.
N.
V.
C.
Monday.
M.
1 Noct. 8,
div.)
(in 2
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH.
25
PAKIS.
i. 92, 136 (in 2 div.,)
the Songof Exodus,
(or on Festivals,
Ecclus. 39, 14-20,)
135.
T. 9, 77 (in 2 div.)
T. 25 (in 2 div.,) 96.
S. 47, 98, 99.
N. 53, 73 (in 2 div.)
F. 116, 1-9, 121, 124,
126, 137.
C. 6, 7 (in 2 div.)
Tuesday.
M. 15, 19 (in 2 div.,)
72 (in 2 div.,) 101,
107 (in 3 div.)
L. 24, 85, 97, Song
of Hezekiah, (or on
Festivals, Ecclus.
36, 1-14,) 150.
P. 35 (in 3 div.)
T. 26, 50 (in 2 div.)
S. 37 (in 3 div.)
If. 109 (in 3 div.)
F. 120, 122, 133, 141,
142.
a 13, 32, 79.
Wednesday.
M. (9, 10) (in 3 div.)
78 (in 6 div.)
L. 5, 36, 65, Song of
Isaiah, ch. 12, (or
on Festivals, Tobit
13, 1-8,) 147, 1-11.
P. 31 (in 3 div.)
T. 42 (in 2 div.,) 43.
S. 21, 103 (in 2 div.)
N. 82, 94 (in 2 div.)
F. 123,125,127,130,
131.
C. 11, 14, 16.
KOUEN.
3iVoc^. 106(in3div.)
L. 92, 136 (m 2 div.,)
Song of Exodus,
(or on Festivals,
1 Chron. 29, 10-
19,) 135.
P. 5, 25 (in 2 div.)
T. 20, 43, 96.
S. 21, 27 (in 2 div.)
N. 53, 73 (in 2 div.)
r. 116 (i. e., in the
Vulgate, 114, 115,)
120, 121, 122.
a 6, 7 (in 2 div.)
Tuesday.
M.
1 Nod. 9, 19 (in 2
div.)
2 Noct. 76, 77 (in 2
div.)
3 Noct. 107 (in 3 div.)
X. 36, 47, 65, Song
of Hannah, (or on
Festivals, Tobit 13,
1—8,) 150.
P. (9, 10) (in 3 div.)
T. 29, 85, 149.
S. 37 (in 3 div.)
N. 58, 94 (in 2 div.)
F. 123, 124, 125, 126,
127.
a 11, 12, 13.
Wednesday.
M.
1 Noct 24, 33 (in 2
div.)
2 iV^oc^. 68 (in 3 div.)
3 Noct. 97, 98, 99.
i. 44 (in 3 div.,) Song
of Judith, (16, 2, 3,
13-16; or on Fes-
tivals, Ecclus. 39,
19-25,) 147, 1-13.
P. 102 (in 3 div.)
T. 50 (in 2 div.,) 54.
S. 101, 103 (in 2
div.)
N. 109 (in 3 div.)
F. 128, 129, 130, 131,
133.
C. 14, 15, 16.
C
AMIENS.
2 Noct. 102 (in 3 div.) Ferial uses
3i\roc^.l04(in3div.)«;th« 3^^.
L. 19, 136 (in 2 div.,) Ses.
Song of Hannah,
148.
P. 82, 90 (in 2 div.)
iP. 74 (in 2 div.,) 96.
S. 92 (in 2 div.,) 97.
N 103 (in 3 div.)
F. 138, 139 (in 2
div.,) 144 (in 2
div.)
a 6, 7 (in 2 div.)
Tuesday.
JIf.
1 Noct. 62, 80 (in 2
di».)
2iVbc^.l05(in3div.)
3 iVoc/. 106 (in 3 div.)
L. 107 (in 3 div.,)
Song of Moses, 135.
P. (9, 10) (in 3 div.)
T. 20, 23, 54.
S. 57, 94 (in 2 div.)
N 44 (in 3 div.)
F. 120, 121, 124, 125,
127.
a 11, 12, 13.
Wednesday.
M.
1 Noct. 37 (in 3 div.)
2 Noct. 78 (in 6 div.)
3 Noct.
L. 68 (in 3 div.,) Ba-
ruch 4, 1-5; 147,
12 to end.
P. 5, 34 (in 2 div.)
T. 29, 50 (in 2 div.)
/S. 49 (in 2 div.,) 53.
iV^. 73 (in 2 div.,) 74.
F. 128, 131, 145 (in
2 div.)
C. 14, 15, 16.
26
THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
Ferial uses
of the
French Bre-
viaries.
PAEIS.
Thitesdat.
M. 20, 33 (in 2 div.,)
68 (in 3 div.,) 89
(in 3 div.)
L. 81, 108 (in 2 div.,)
Song of Hannah,
(or on Festivals,
1 Chron. 29, 10—
13,) 147, 12-20.
P. 67, 90 (in 2 div.)
T. 27 (in 2 div.,) 84.
-S". 23, 34 (in 2 div.)
N. 80 (in 2 div.,) 93.
F. 116, 10-16, 138,
146 (in 3 div.)
C. 12, 39 (in 2 div.)
Feidat.
M. 52, 55 (in 2 div.,)
59 (in 2 div.,) 61,
69 (in 3 div.)
L. 54, 71 (in 2 div.,)
Song of Habakkuk,
(or on Festivals,
Isa. 26, 1-13,) .146.
P. 44 (in 3 div.)
T. 40 (in 2 div.,) 58.
S. 102 (in 3 div.)
N. 22 (in 3 div.)
V. 129, 139 (in 2
div.,) 140 (in 2
div.)
C. 38 (in 2 div.,) 56.
Sattjedat.
M. 41, 49 (in 2 div.,)
62, 64, 75, 76, 83
(in 2 div.)
X. 17 (in 2 div.,) 57,
Song of Moses, (or
on Festivals, Song
of Judith,) 117.
P. 88, 143 (in 2 div.)
T. 29, 45, 149.
S. 46, 48, 87.
EOUEN.
Thtjesday.
M.
1 Nod. 78, 1-40 (in
3 div.)
2 met 78, 41 to end
(in 3 div.)
3 Noct. 89 (in 3 div.)
L. 81, 108 (in 2 div.,)
Song of Isaiah, (or
on Festivals, Isa.
26, 1-12,) 147, 12
to end.
P. 67, 90 (in 2 div.)
T. 42 (in 2 div.,) 84.
S. 23, 34 (in 2 div.)
N. 79, 80 (in 2 div.)
V. 132 (in 2 div.,)
137, 138, 142.
C. 32, 39 (in 2 div.)
Feidat.
M.
1 Noct. 52, 55 (in 2
div.)
2 Noct. 59 (in 2 div.,)
61.
3 Noct. 69 (in 3 div.)
L. 70, 71 (in 2 div.,)
Song of Habakkuk,
(or on Festivals,
Wisd. 10, 17-21,)
146.
P. 35 (in 3 div.)
T. 26, 40 (in 2 div.)
S. 22 (in 3 div.)
N 31 (in 3 div.)
r. 139 (in 2 div.,)
140 (in 2 div.)
C. 38 (in 2 div.,) 56.
Satuedat.
JIf.
1 Noct. 4r, 49 (in 2
div.)
2 iVocl 62, 64, 75.
3 Noct. 82, 83 (in 2
div.)
i. 17 (in 2 div.,) 57,
Song of Moses, (or
on Festivals, Song
I of Jonali,) 117.
AMIENS.
Thuesdat.
M.
1 Noct. 45 (in 2 div.,)
46.
2 Noct. 65, 77 (in 2
div.)
3 iVoe^. 85, 143 (in 2
div.)
Z,. 21, 72, 98, Song of
Isaiah, 147, 1-12.
P. 25 (in 2 div.,) 61.
T. 42 (in 2 div.,) 43.
S. 81 (in 2 div.,) 84.
N. 89 (in 3 div.)
F. 116, 10-16, 123,
126, 132 (in 2 div.)
C. 32, 39 (in 2 div.)
Feidat.
ilf.
1 Noct. 52, 55 (in 2
div.)
2 iVbc?5. 59 (in 2 div.,)
64.
3 iVbc^. 69 (in 3 div.)
L. 70, 71 (in 2 div.,)
Song of Habakkuk.
P. 35 (in 3 div.)
T. 26, 40 (in 2 div.)
>S. 22 (in 3 div.)
N. 31 (in 3 div.)
F. 129, 130, 140 (in
2 div.,) 142.
C. 38 (in 2 div.,) 55.
Sattjedat.
ikf.
1 iVbc^. 17 (in 2 div.,)!
24.
2 iVbe^. 27 (in 2 div.,)
36.
3 Noct. 47, 48, 87.
Z. 58, 67, 76, Song
of Moses, 117.
P. 41, 99, 108.
T. 88 (in 2 div.) 150.
'
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH.
27
PAEIS.
N. 60, 74 (in 2 div.)
r. 128, 132 (in 2
div.,) 144 (in 2
diy.)
a 51, 86 (in 2 div.)i
ROUEN.
P. 88, 143 (in 2 div.)
r. 45, 72 (in 2 div.)
-S. 46, 48, 87.
N. 60, 74 (in 2 div.)
F. 144 (in 2 div.,)
145 (in 3 div.)
C. 51, 86 (in 2 div.)
AMIENS.
^. 101, 109, (in 2
div.)
N. 60, 79, 83.
r. 115, 122, 133, 137,
141.
a 51, 86 (in 2 div.)
27. The Ambrosiau Rite, still in use in the pro- TheAmbro.
vinee of Milan, and deriving its ground-work from ^*
the great Father who is the glory of that Church,
but its details in a considerable degree from S. Sim-
plicianus, Archbishop of that See, is, as will be at
once seen, entirely and perfectly diflFerent from the
Roman Use. Into its other peculiarities I have not
now to enter : its Psalter is, in some respects, the
most singular in existence. In the first place we
must observe that the Psalms said at Matins, i.e. as
in the Roman Rite, 1 to 109 inclusive, are divided
t i-cu. j^cf^ui lie. J.X1COC j_/cuui icc arc its luiiuws : Decuriae.
The first contains Psalm 1 to Psalm 16 inclusive.
The second
17
))
31
The third
32
40
The fourth
41
50
The fifth
51
it
60
The sixth
61
ft
70
t
The seventh
71
80
The eighth
81
>>
90
n
The ninth
91
100
f
The tenth
101
„
108
>
2nd. That the Psalms are not recited every week,
but every fortnight.
3rd. That Saturday and Sunday have a Matins
entirely different from, and not reckoned in the same
order with, the Matins of other days.
28. We shall now be in a condition to understand General ar-
the general arrangement. Every Matins begins with ofXtins:
the Lord's Prayer, the usual Versicles, a Hymn, and
^ These Psalms are allotted
to Saturday evening in all the
French Breviaries — for the First
Vespers of Sunday, as some of
them call it : the first as asking
God's forgiveness of the sins of
the week ; the second, as, in our
Lord's own mouth, a prophecy
of the Eesurrection.
c2
28
THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
Psalter ac-
cording to
the Ambro-
sianrite.
Matins.
lAQds.
part of the Song of the Three Children. (In our
Version, verse 29 — 34.) This Psalm concludes every
verse on Festivals with "Laudable and glorious for
ever :" on ordinary days with " And laudable" only.
There is no Invitatory Psalm.
Matins, (after this commencement,) has on Sunday
three Nocturns :
Ist JSTocturn. The Song of Isaiah (xxvi. 9 — 20) only.
2nd Noctum. The Song of Hannah only.
3rd ISToctum. The Song of Habakkuk only.
On Monday of the first week, the first Decuria, in,
three Nocturns, containing eight, four, and four
Psalms respectively.
Tuesday of the first week, the second Decuria in.
the same way : and so on, with the following days
of the week.
Monday of the second week, the sixth Decuria,
&c. : so that the tenth Decuria is said on the Friday
of the second week.
On Saturday of the first week, the first Nocturn
has the Song of Exodus only : the second Nocturn,
Psalm 119, 1—48; the third Nocturn, 49—88.
Saturday of the second week contains in its first
Nocturn, the Song of Exodus, as before : in the
second. Psalm 119, 39 — 128 : in the third Nocturn,
129 to end. This resemblance of the Saturday t
the Sunday Office is very curious, and shows how th
Milanese ritual was borrowed from, and approximate
to, the Eastern. The Decurise of the Ambrosi
recall the Cathismata of the Eastern rite. Every om
wiU remember how S. Monica, spending her tim
between Milan and Rome, was puzzled by the differ
ent observances of the Saturdays and Sundays ; in thi
former, as a Festival, inferior only to Sunday ; in thi
latter, as a day of abstinence, yielding only to Friday
29. The disposition of the Lauds is most singular
On ordinary week-days the Psalms are : first, Bene
dictus; then Psalm 51; then Psalms 148, 149, 150,|
and 117; then a varying Psalm called the Psalm
directus, because sung right through by the choir, and
not autiphoually ; then (a most peculiar use) a Psal
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 29
called the four- versed Psalm, because only the first Ambrosian
four verses are said: this also varies every day. As "^®- ^***'^*'
this Office is very curious and very short, I will give
an example of it, and will take the Thursday of the
first week :
O God, make speed, &c. ;
Antijphon. From the hands of all.
Benedictus.
Antiphon. From the hands of all that hate ns, deliver us,
0 Lord. Kyr. Kyr. Kyr. (The Ambrosian abbreviation of
the Kyrie Eleison ; sometimes written also K. K. K.)
Secret Prayer. Have mercy upon us, Almighty God, ac-
cording to tile mercy of Thy loving-kindness, that the deep
calamity of our sins may be remedied by the assistance of
Thy deep mercv : [aloud] through our Lord Jesus Christ,
Who liveth and reigneth
^. Together with the Holy Ghost, for ever and ever.
lU. Amen.
^. The Lord be with you ;
I\?. And with thy spirit.
Antiphon. Turn Thy face.
Psalm 51.
Antiphon. Turn Thy face, O Lord, from my sins. Kyr.
Kyr. Kyr.
y. The Lord be with you ;
I\?. And with thy spirit.
Colhct 1. God, Which scatterest the darkness of ignorance
with the light of Thy Word, increase in the hearts of Thy
servants the virtue of that faith which Thou didst give them :
that the fire which was kindled by Thy grace, may not be
extinguished by any temptations. Through.
/. The Lord be with you ;
^. And with thy spirit.
Antiphon. O ye mountains and hills.
Psalms 148, 149, 150, 117.
Chapter. Praise the Lord, ye servants, O praise the Name
of the Lord, (This Chapter is always taken from some Psalm
or Canticle.)
Antiphon. O ye mountains and hills, bless ye the Name of
the Lord. Kyr. Kyr. Kyr.
f. The Lord be with you ;
IV^. And with thy spirit.
Psalmus Directus. 113.
Hymn. " Thou Brightness of the Father's ray.
(This Hymn is said on every ordinary Sunday and week-
day of the year.)
30
THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
Ambrosian Kyr. Kyr. Kyr. Kyr. Kyr. Kyr. Kyr. Kyr. Kyr.
rite: Lauds. Kyr. Kyr. Kyr.
f. The LoED be with you ;
I^. And with thy spirit.
Response in the Baptistery. Let the IN'ame of the Loed
be * blessed for evermore.
f. Praise the Loed, ye servants, O praise the Name of the
LoED, * blessed for evermore.
Collect 2. Vouchsafe, O Loed, to hear those that call upon
Thee ; that Thou mayest deliver us from the deep of iniquity.
Through.
Antiphon. 0 GoD, Thou art my God.
Four-versed Fsalm. 63.
Antiphon. O God, Thou art my God, early will I seek
Thee.
Complenda. I will bless the Loed at all times : * His prais^
shall ever be in my mouth. Kyr. Kyr. Kyr.
Collect 3. Behold, O God, our Defender ; and grant us toi
serve Thee for evermore. Through.
f. The Loed be with you ;
I^. And with thy spirit. Kyr. Kyr. Kyr.
f'. God bless and hear us.
^. Amen.
'f. Let us proceed in peace ;
I^. In the Name of Cheist.
"f. Let us bless the Loed ;
IV^. Thanks be to God.
Our Fathee.
f. The Holy Trinity save and bless us evermore. Amen.
Directi and
fnur-versed
Psalms. as lOllOWS
30. The Psalmi Directi and four-versed Psalms are
Fsalmus Directus.
Monday of both weeks, 54
Tuesday „ 67
Wednesday „ 70
Thursday „ 113
Friday „ 143
Saturday „ 90
'
The Four-versed Fsalms.
Monday of the 1st week, 5
Tuesday „ 88
Wednesday „ 67
Thursday „ 63
Friday „ 108
Saturday „ 89
Monday of the 2nd week, 81
Tuesday „ 8fif
Wednesday „ 67
Thursday „ 63
Friday „ 108
Saturday „ 89
Ambrosian
Mozarabic
Office.
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 31
The Sunday Lauds have, instead of the 51st Psalm,
the Song of Exodus and of the Three Children : the
Saturday Lauds, Psalm 118 : the Psalmus Directus
on Sunday is 93. The four- versed Psalm varies with
the Sunday.
The other Hours are clearly very much horrowed
from the Roman Use.
Prime. Psalm 54, 119, ver. 1 — 32, followed by an Epis-
toletta. The Creed of S. Athanasius : Psalm 51.
Tierce. Psalm 119, ver. 33—80.
Sexts. Psalm 119, ver, 81—128, 57.
Nones. Psalm 119, ver. 129 to end, 86.
Vespers, so far as the Psalms are concerned, are the same
as the Latin use : so is Compline, with the addition of Psalms
117 to 134.
• 31. This may suffice for the Ambrosian ; I now
turn to the Mozarabic rite. Into its most com-
plicated system I shall not enter at full length, since
to do so would require a volume : a general idea is
all that I can attempt to give.
The Mozarabic Hours are nine : Vespers, Compline,
Matins, Lauds, Aurora, Prime, Tierce, Sexts, and
Nones.
At Vespers, no Psalms are said : their place is, to
a certain extent, supplied by the Sonus and the
Lauda, each composed from the Psalter. Thus, the
Lauda for many martyrs is :
^. There is sprung up a light in the darkness for the true vespers,
of heart.
IV- The Lord is long-suffering, and merciful, and righteous.
f. He hath made straight the path of the just, and hath
prepared the way of the saints.
I^. The Lord is long-suffering, and merciful, and righteous.
The Sonus is :
I^. The salvation of the righteous cometh of the Loed, and
He shaU deliver them. Alleluia. Alleluia.
'f. Because they have hoped in the Living God.
I^. And He shall deliver them. Alleluia. Alleluia.
Matins are very short, and contain no Psalm but
the 51st. Lauds commence with a Canticle, have
also part of the Song of the Three Children, (ver. 29
—34,) and Psalm 17.
32
THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
Mozarabic
rite.
Compline.
Aurora has four varying Psalms. This Office in
point of fact is only said in the Mozarabic chapel at
Toledo on high Festivals.
The four other Hours are as follows :
Prime. Psalm 67, 145 (in two divisions,) 113, 119, ver.
25 — 48 (in three divisions.)^
Tierce. Psalm 95, 119, ver. 49—72 (in three divisions.)
Sexts. Psalm 54, 119, ver. 73—96 (in three divisions.)
JVTones. Psalm 146, 122, 123, 124.
The excessive beauty of Compline demands a
longer notice. After a part of the 4th and the 134th j
Psalms^ there follows this short Canticle :
Blessed art Thou, Loed God of our fathers : laudable and
glorious for ever.
Vouchsafe, O Loed, this night : to keep us without tribu-
lation and sins.
0 Loed, have mercy upon us : have mercy upon us.
Because Thou art my help : into Thy hands I commend my
spirit.
Thou hast redeemed me, O Loed : Thou God of truth.
Then the Hymn, Sol Angelorum respice, and Psalm
91.
After which follows this Canticle, which strikes
me as singularly lovely :
His truth shall be thy shield : thou shalt not be afraid of
any terror by ni^ht.
If I climb up into my bed : remember me, O Loed.
If I give sleep to my eyes, or slumber to my eyelids, or
suffer the temples of my head to take any rest : remember
me, O Loed.
Until I find out a place for the Loed, an habitation for the
mighty God of Jacob : remember me, O Loed.
Glory and honour to the Fathee, and to the Son, and to
the Holy Ghost, for ever and ever, Amen : remember me,
O Loed.
If I climb up into my bed : remember me, O Loed.
1 beseech Thee, O Loed, Source of Light, leave me not,
but : remember me, O Loed.
Then follow the Hymn Cultor Dei memento and
the usual Collects and prayers.
' The Mozarabic ritual, like
our own Prayer Book, divides
the 119th Psalm into portions
of eight verses : not, as does the
Roman, into portions of six-
teen.
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH.
33
32. We now turn to the arrangement of the Psalter no"oSan"
which has been adopted by the Church at Constant!- rite.
nople. It is divided into twenty sections or cathis-
mata as follows :
I. contains Psalm 1 to Psalm 8 inclusive.
II.
9 ,
17
III.
18 ,
24
IV.
25
32
V.
33 ,
37
VI.
38
46
VII.
47 ,
55
VIII.
56
64
IX.
65
70
X.
71
77
XI.
78
85
XII.
86
91
XIII.
92 ,
101
XIV.
102
105
XV.
106
1()9
XVI.
110
118
XVII.
119
IVUl.
120
132
XIX.
133
14:3
XX.
144
150
Each of these cathismata is divided into three
"staseis;" and at the end of the latter only — not of
each Psalm, as in the Western Church — the Gloria
is said. The word " cathismata/' in this sense, must
not be confounded with the " troparia'* so-called.
33. The general arrangement for the lection of the Psaiterfor
Psalms is as follows : In the weeks of the Apocreos *^® "°"''''
and Tyrophagus (Sexagesima and QuinquagesimaJ
two cathismata at Matins, one at Vespers ; so that the
Psalter is said through once a week. In the six weeks
of the Great Fast the quantity is doubled, the Psalter
being repeated twice in each week. In Holy Week
it is said once, but finishes on the Wednesday. Prom
Maundy Thursday till the Eve of the Anti-Pascha
(Low Sunday,) it is not said at all. At the first Ves-
pers of Low Sunday it begins again, and, till the 20th
of September, two cathismata are said at Matins and
one at Vespers. From the 20th of September till the
Vigil of the Nativity, three cathismata in Matins :
one, namely the 18th, at Vespers, together with the
c 3
34 THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
constanti- i33rcl and 136th Psalms. Thence, to the Octave of
nopohtan ^^^ Epiphany, two at Matins, one at Vespers.
Thence, till the Saturday before the Apocreos, one
at Matins, one at Lauds, and two at Vespers.
The arrangement, however, of the Hours is as
follows : Matins. Psalm 51, 119 (this is said in a first
" stasis" from verse 1 to 72 ; a second from 73 to 93 j
a middle stasis from 94 to 131 ; and a third stasis
from 132 to the end :) Psalm 121, 134. Lauds. 3
38, 63, 88, 103, 143.
Prime. Psalm 5, 90, 101.
Mesorion of the First Hour. Psalm 46, 92, 93.
Tierce. Psalm 17, 25.
Mesorion of the Third Hour. Psalm 30, 32, 61.
Sexts. Psalm 54, 55, 91.
Mesorion of the Sixth Hour. Psalm 56, 57, 70.
Nones. Psalm 84, 85, 86.
Mesorion of the Ninth Hour. Psalm 113, 138, 140.
Vespers. Psalm 104, 141, 142, 130, 117.
Great Compline. Psalm 4, 6, 13, 25, 31, 91, 51, 102, 70, 143.
Little Compline. Psalm 51, 70, 143.
Matms on Saturday. Psalm 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70.
The above table will give the reader a genera
idea of the 'arrangement adopted by the Eastern
Church. Just as the Magnificat is the Cantich
round which Latin Vespers arrange themselves, sc
the 141st Psalm occupies the same place in the Eastj
and the Stichoi, &c., ordered to be said slg to Kv p i\
sKSKpu^oi. answer to the varying Antiphons to tl
Magnificat.
Gener^ 34. We uow tum to an entirely difiierent bran(
Antiphons. of our subjcct. Hithcrto I have spoken of the coi
stant and frequent repetition of the Psalms in Ecch
siastical ofiices. The same Psalm was said at Chrisi
mas, said at Easter, said in Lent, said at Whitsuntide
said on the Festivals of Martyrs, said in the Ofl&c
for the Dead : it could not, at all these seasons, "
recited with the same feelings, in the same frame
mind. Its diflPerent emphases required to be brougl
out ; the same sun-ray from the Holy Ghost restec
indeed, at all times on the same words, but the prisi
of the Church separated that colourless light into it
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 35
component rays : into the violet of penitence, the
crimson of martyrdom, the gold of the highest sea-
sons of Christian gladness. Hence arose the won-
derful system of Antiphons, which, out of twenty
different significations, definitely for the time being
fixed one : which struck the right key-note, and en-
abled the worshipper to sing with the spirit and to
sing with the understanding also. Ancient as is the
alternate chanting of Psalms in the Church, it may
be doubted whether that of antiphons is not of even
more venerable antiquity; and the relation of So-
crates about the vision of S. Ignatius, and his intro-
duction into the service of the Church on earth, of
that which he had heard in the Church in heaven,
more probably refers to this system than to that of
responsory chanting. An Antiphon, then, in the ori- ongrmaisys-
ginal sense of the word, was the intercalation of some tShoninur^
fragment or verse between the verses of the Psalm eJe^*^ve^/sr
which was then being sung: one choir taking the
Psalm, the other, the intercalated portion. Into
this subject I propose to enter at some length, since
it has not, to the best of my knowledge, as yet re-
ceived any notice from English scholars.
35. Take an example of the primitive Antiphon in Example
its plainest and most unadulterated shape, from the Mozarabic
Mozarabic Office at Prime. "*^^*
First Choir. The Lobd said unto Me : Thou art My Son,
this day have I begotten Thee.
Second Choir. The Lobd said unto Me : Thou art My Son,
this day have I begotten Thee.
First Choir. Why do the heathen so furiously rage to-
gether : and why do the people imagine a vain thing ?
Second Choir. The Lord said unto Me : Thou art My Son,
this day have I begotten Thee.
First Choir. The kings of the earth stand up, ani the
rulers take counsel together : against the Loed, and against
His Anointed.
Second Choir. The Lord said unto Me : Thou art My Son,
this day have I begotten Thee.
36. Or take another example, from the Lauds of From the
Septuagesima Sunday, as said in the Ambrosian A'"^'^°s»*"-
Office:—
36 THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
Early Anti- ^. In Thy hand, O Lord, lie all things, and there is none
phons. ^-^^^ ^^^ j.g^-g^ rpj^y ^-jl Pqj. rpj^^^ jj^g^ j^g^^g everything ;
heaven and earth, and that which is under the heaven : Thou
art the Lobd of all things.
Antiphon. Kyr. Kyr. Kyr.
f. In Thy hand, &c.
Antiphon. Kyr. Kyr. Kyr.
f. In Thy hand, &c.
Antiphon. Kyr. Kyr. Kyr.
f. In Thy hand, &c.
Antiphon. Kyr. Kyr. Kyr.
f. In Thy hand, &c.
Glory.
'. In Thy hand, &c.
I^. As it was.
f. In Thy hand, &c.
lyr. Kyr. Kyr. Kyr.
?°te*^^t ^^' ^^^ know that this intercalation was in use
* among the Arians, who inserted the clause, " And
now, where are they that worship the Trinity in
Unity ?" between the verses of their Psalms. And
nothing is commoner in the Greek ritual than to find
the Antiphon thus said at the present day. For ex-
ample, on Christmas Day we have the following :
Antiphon. In secresy wast Thou brought forth in the earth ;
but the sky, O Savioue, heralded Thee, as a mouth to all,
employing the star. And the wise men, adoring Thee in
faitn, brought gifts to Thee: with whom have mercy upon us.^
Her foundations are upon the holy hills : the Lord loveth
the gates of Sion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.
Antiphon. In secresy wast Thou brought forth, &c.
Very excellent things are spoken of thee : thou city of]
God.
I will think upon Eahab and Babylon : with them that]
know me.
Antiphon. In secresy wast Thou brought forth, &c.
Behold ye the Philistines also : and they of Tyre, with
the Morians ; lo, there was he born.
A'niiphon. In secresy wast Thou brought forth, &c.
And of Sion it shall be reported that He was born in her :
and the most High shall stablish her.
Antiphon. In secresy wast Thou brought forth, &c.
The Lord shall rehearse it when He writeth up the peo-
ple : that He was born there.
The singers also and trumpeters shall He rehearse : All
my fresh springs shall be in Thee.
Antiphon. In secresy wast Thou brought forth, &c.
* The Greek is undoubtedly corrupted : I have given the sense.
I
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 37
38. Or again : take the following from the Office Early Anti-
for Pentecost. (I should observe that the Antiphon p^"""*
is technically called the Prokeimenon ; each verse of
the Psalm, Stichos.)
ProJceimenon. Who is so great a God as our God ? Thou
art the God that doest wonders,
Stichos 1. Hath God forgotten to be gracious : and will
He shut up His loving-kindness in displeasure P
Prok. Who is so great, &c.
Stichos 2. And I said, It is mine own infirmity : but I will
remember the years of the right hand of the most Highest.
Prok. Who is so great, &c.
Stichos 3. I will remember the works of the Loed : and
call to mind Thy wonders of old time.
Prok. Who is so great, &c. And so on.
39. Two more examples shall suffice ; both from Pentecost,
the same Festival. Three Psalms/ with their Anti-
phons, are said here, as in all Liturgies, before the
little entrance. They are here the 19th, 20th, and
21st. The 20th Psalm is thus recited :
The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble : the Name of
the God of Jacob defend thee ;
Antiphon. Save us, O Good Paraclete, who chant to Thee,
Alleluia.
Send thee help from the sanctuary : and strengthen thee
out of Sion ;
Antiphon. Save us, O Good Paraclete, who chant to Thee,
Alleluia.
Kemember all thy offerings : and accept thy burnt-sacrifice ;
Antiphon. Save us, O Good Paraclete, who chant to Thee,
Alleluia.
Glory be to the Fatheb, and to the Son, and to the Holy
Ghost.
Antiphon. Save us, O Good Paraclete, who chant to Thee,
Alleluia.
Both now and ever, and to ages of ages.
Antiphon. Save us, O good Paraclete, who chant to Thee,
Alleluia.
Psalm 21.
The King shah rejoice in Thy strength, O Lord : exceed-
ing glad shall he be of Thy salvation.
Antiphon. Blessed art Thou, O Christ, our God.
' A novice in the subject l the Greek Ritual the first, the se-
would be puzzled by finding these con d, and the third, ^w^epAoTW.
Psalms tliemselves, with their But I always use the word in
respective prokeimena^ called in | the Latin sense.
38
THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
Example of
a differing
Antiphon
thus inter-
calated.
Thou hast given him his heart's desire : and hast not de-
nied him the request of his lips.
Antiphon. Blessed art Thou, O Cheist, our God.
For Thou shalt prevent him with the blessings of goodness :
and shalt set a crown of pure gold upon his head.
Antiphon. Blessed art Thou, O Christ, our God.
He asked life of Thee, and Thou gavest him a long life :
even for ever and ever.
Antiphon. Blessed art Thou, O Christ, our God.
Glory be, &c.
Antiphon. Blessed art Thou, O Christ, our God.
Both now and ever : and to ages of ages.
Antiphon. Blessed art Thou, O Christ, our God.
40. A variation from this use of the Antiphon, in
which the verses of the Psalm are intercalated by a
clause different each time, — in fact, to borrow a term
from mediaeval architecture, when two Psalms or
Canticles interpenetrate each other, — frequently oc-
curs. The following is an example from the '^En-
comia^^ on the " Great Sabbath."
Blessed are those that are undefiled in the way : and walk
in the law of the Lord.
Thou, O Christ, our Life, wast laid in the tomb, and the
armies of angels were struck with astonishment, glorifying
Thy condescension.
Blessed are they that keep His testimonies : and seek Him
with their whole heart.
How dost Thou die, O our Life, and how dost Thou dwell
in the tomb : It is that Thou art paying the tribute of death,
and raising the dead out of Hades.
For they who do no wickedness : walk in His ways.
We magnify Thee, O Jesu, our King, and honour Thy
sepulchre and Thy Passion, by which Thou didst save us from
destruction.
Thou hast charged : that we shall diligently keep Thy com-
mandments.
Thou that didst establish the foundations of the earth, O
Jesu, King of all, dwellest to-day in a narrow tomb ; Thou
That dost raise up the dead from the tomb.
O that my ways were made so direct : that I might keep
Thy statutes.
O Jesu Christ, the King of all, why didst Thou go down
to those that were in Hades P was it that Thou mightest free
the race of mortals ?
Thus the whole 119th Psalm is gone through in
three stations : the first choir taking the first and
third; the second, the second.
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 39
41. Anotlier, and that a very beautiful, example cospei for
occurs on Easter Eve. I am not aware that so per- S^the'^ES-
feet an example of inter penetration is to be found in f^^gJ^I^J^^ed
any Western Office. with the
Magnificat.
In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the
first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other
Mary to see the sepulchre. Alleluia ! Alleluia !
My soul doth magnify the Lord.
And, behold, there was a great earthquake : for the angel
of the Lord descended from heaven. Alleluia ! Alleluia !
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savioue.
And came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat
upon it. Alleluia ! Alleluia !
For He hath regarded the lowliness of His handmaiden.
His countenance was like lightning, and bis raiment white
as snow. Alleluia ! Alleluia !
For He that is mighty hath magnified me : and holy is His
Name.
And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as
dead men. Alleluia ! Alleluia !
And His mercy is on them that fear Him : throughout all
generations.
And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear
not ye : for I know that ye seek Jesus, Which was crucified.
Alleluia ! Alleluia !
He hath showed strength with His arm : He hath scattered
the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He is not here : for He is risen, as He said. Come, see
theplace where the Lord lay. Alleluia ! Alleluia !
He haith put down the mighty from their seat, and hath
exalted the humble and meek.
And go quickly, and tell His disciples that He is risen
from the dead ; and, behold, He goeth before you into Galilee.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
He hath filled the hungry with good things : and the rich
He hath sent empty away.
There shall ye see Him ; lo, I have told you. Alleluia !
Alleluia !
He, remembering His mercy : hath holpen His servant
Israel.
Be not afirighted : Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was
crucified : He is risen ; He is not here : behold the place where
they laid Him. Alleluia ! Alleluia !
As He promised to our forefathers : Abraham and his seed
for ever.
And very early in the morning, the first day of the week,
they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun. Alle-
luia ! Alleluia!
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son : and to the Holy
Ghost.
40 THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away
the stone from the door of the sepulchre ? Alleluia ! Alleluia !
Both now and ever, and to ages of ages.
Degreneracy 42. I need scarcely point out to the reader the ex-
cLSioJAnTo traordinary beauty of this intercalation. But this
"Farces." ]^j^^ ^f intercalation approximates as nearly to a
" Farce'' as it does to an Antiphon. A Farce, as is
well known, is the insertion in a Gospel, Epistle, or
Canticle, such as the Gloria in Excelsis, of inter-
calated sentences, intended to have the same effect as
an Antiphon, and to fix a determinate sense for the
time being, on the composition so farced. But the
clauses thus inserted became in process of time tho-
roughly jejune and miserable ; sometimes, in fact,
utterly absurd. Hence, from the ludicrous character
of the intercalation, the word came to be applied to
anything ludicrous : whence its present use.
Antiphon in 43. But of all the antiphous retained, after the
JtJfodeTp^non. aucicnt manner, by the Eastern Church, that is by far
the most remarkable which forms a part of the Great
Apodeipnon ; that is. Compline on the highest fes-
tivals. It clearly dates from a time when heathen-
ism, though overthrown, was only just overthrown,
and when a change of succession in the line of em-
perors might have involved the renewal of such a
persecution as that of Decius or Diocletian. It is
said immediately after the 91st Psalm, and in the
monotone, except (singularly enough) in Lent. And
thus it runs : —
God is with us ; hear it, O ye nations, and be ye subdued.
Fur God is with us.
Hear it unto the uttermost bounds of the earth.
For God is with us.
Having been mighty, be ye brought under.
For God is with us.
And if ye shall again become mighty, again also ye shall be
brought under.
For God is with us.
And if ye shall devise any counsel, the Loed shaU scatter it.
For God is with us.
And if ye shall speak any word, it shall not remain in you.
For God is with vs.
And wo will not be afraid of your fear, neither will we be
troubled.
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 41
For God is with us.
But we will sanctify the Lokd our God, and He shall be
our fear.
For God is with us.
And if I trust in Him, He shall be to me for sanctification.
For God is ivith us.
And I will trust in Him, and I shall be saved by Him.
For God is toiih us.
Behold I, and the children whom God hath given me.
For God is with us.
The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light.
For God is with us.
They that dwell in the land and the shadow of death, the
light shall shine upon them.
For God is with us.
For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given.
For God is with us.
And the p^overnment shall be upon His shoulder.
For God is with us.
And of His peace there shall be no end.
For God is with us.
AndHis Name shall be called the Angel of the Great Counsel.
For God is with us.
The Wonderful Counsellor.
For God is with us.
The Mighty God, the Potentate, the Prince of Peace.
For God is with us.
The Father of the age to come.
For God is with us.
Glory be to the Fatheb, and to the Son, and to the Holy
Ghost.
For God is with us.
Both now and ever, and to ages of ages.
For God is with us.
God is with us ; know it, O ye nations, and be ye subdued.
For God is with us.
44. It is clear that the repetition of the Antiphon Gradual dis.
after every verse must have rendered the services AnUpho^lf
nearly twice their actual length. While the Canons ve//e^^®'y
of Cathedral and Collegiate Churches lived, as their
name implies, by a certain rule, and in common, and
while they thus had more time to devote to " the
work of God," the old system remained in force.
When Amalarius published his invaluable work, De
Divinis Officiis, which was about 830, it was still car-
ried out. Yet almost at the same time, we find an
anonymous author addressing a work De Benedictione
Dei to Batheric, Bishop of Ratisbon (elevated to that
42 THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
.
see in 814,) and expressing himself thus in the pre-
face : " In my travels through different parts, I have
frequently heard the Divine Offices celebrated in a
hurried manner, and without anything to gratify the
sense of hearing. There are some who go to church
merely for the sake of keeping up appearances, and
that they may not be considered idle by men, and
who negligently perform God's service, without any
Antiphons, and with all possible celerity, — active
enough though they may be in the business of this
world. They know not that the holy doctors and
teachers of the Church, full of the Holy Ghost and
of the grace of God, instituted that most excellent
modulation, the repetition of Antiphons or Responses;
to the end that the soul, excited by their sweetness,
might be more ardently inflamed in the praises of
God, and in the desire after the celestial country.^'
From this time it would seem that the abbreviation
of antiphons continued rapidly : for in the tenth cen-
tury we read, in the life of S. Odo of Cluny, that the
monks of that religious house, having a singular de-
votion to S. Martin, intercalated the Antiphons on
that Festival (for the Matins, remarks the writer, are
short, and the nights are long,) between every two
verses. This clearly shows that by that time the
original practice was obsolete,
andadop. 45. The first change was undoubtedly the repe-
present sys- titiou of the Autiphou before and after each Psalm ,
^^' only. A still further abbreviation shortly took place.
It was now, on ordinary occasions, said only so far as]
the mediation at the commencement; and repeated!
entire at the end of the Psalm. Festivals were distin-
guished by doubling the Antiphon : that is, saying it
whole before as well as after. And then came the last
step, the binding several Psalms under one Antiphon.
The first edition of Quignon's revised Breviary went
further still, and destroyed the Antiphons altogether.
The mediation of an Antiphon sometimes elicits a sin-
gularly beautiful emphasis. Thus : that in Wednesday
Matins for Psalm 55 and 56 is simply the word for ;
that for the 7th Psalm, as recited in the Office for
the Dead, lest ; the two being respectively parts of,
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH.
43
" For my soul trustetli in Thee," and " Lest he de-
vour my soul like a lion, and tear it in pieces." The
only Psalm in which the ancient use is at all retained
is the 95th, when the Invitatory — which is simply an
Antiphon — is repeated, not indeed after every verse,
but nine times. The present use was already ancient
in the age of Durandus, 1216; for he gives its mys-
tical explanation. The Invitatory is repeated six
times at full length, according to him, because six is
the first perfect number ; and the sixfold repetition,
therefore, sets forth the perfection with which we
should endeavour to perform the service of God.
Three is an imperfect number; and therefore the
imperfect repetition takes place three times.
46. I now proceed to offer some remarks on the invitatory.
general spirit
(1.) Of the Invitatory.
(2.) Of Antiphons generally.
The Ferial Invitatories of the Gregorian use are Feriaiinvi
simply
order.
clauses
Thus :-
of the 95th Psalm itself, taken in
tatories.
On Monday the Invitatory is, O come * let us sing unto
the Lord.
On Tuesday : Let us heartily rejoice * in the strength of
our salvation.
On Wednesday : In Thy hands, 0 Lobd * are all th^ cor-
ners of the earth. ^
On Thursday : Let us worship the Lord * our Maker.
On Friday : Let us worship the Lord * for He made us.
On Saturday : The Lord our God * O come let us worship. ^
47. I will give the principal Invitatories during godln^inV
the course of the Ecclesiastical year ; — vitatories.
Advent : The King, the Lord that is to come * O come
let us worship.
The Vigil of the Nativity : Christ shall come to us : * O
come let us worship.
The Nativity : Christ is bom to us : * O come let us wor-
ship.
^ This, according to the an-
cient Gregorian usage, was, "The
Lord, the great King, O come
let us worship."
2 The ancient Gregorian usage
was " In Thy hands, O Lord,
are all the comers of the earth."
44 THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
The Epiphany : " To-day," says the ancient rubric, " we
sing no Invitatory, but begin at once."
Sunday in the Octave : The Loed is a great God, and a
great King above all gods.
Third Sunday in Lent : O come let us worship, and fall
down before the Loed : let us weep before the Loed our
Maker.
Fourth Sunday : People of the Loed, and sheep of His
pasture : O come let us worship the Loed.
Passion Sunday : To-day if ye will hear the voice of the
Lord : harden not your hearts.
Palm Sunday : They did not know My ways, unto whom
I sware in My wrath, if they shall enter into My rest.
Easter Day : The Loed hath risen indeed. Alleluia.
In Eastertide : Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.
Whitsun Day : The most ancient usage is varied. Some
have " Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia ;" some (which is the mo-
dern use,) " Alleluia. The Spirit of the Loed hath filled the
world : O come let us worship. Alleluia." Others : '* Sud-
denly there came a sound from beaven, as of a rushing,
mighty wind, Alleluia."
The Common of Apostles : The Loed, the King of Apos-
tles * O come let us worship. And so of other Saints. For
virgins there were originally two Invitatories : that for those
to whom most honour was paid was, " The Lamb, the Bride-
£room of the virgins ;" that for those of less celebrity, " The
lOED, the King of the virgins," &c.
Gaiiican In- 48. Having thus considered the Gregorian Invi-
vitatones. -tatories, I will proceed to another form of the same
Versicles ; that, namely, which they assumed in the
great Gaiiican reformation of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. Of these I will take six speci-
mens : the Breviaries of Paris, Rouen, and Amiens,
. which are, as it were, the heads of their various fa-
milies ; and to these I will add three others of con-
siderable beauty, those of Coutances, Blois, and S.
Omer. The interval from the beginning of Lent till
Whitsuntide will give us a sufficient idea of their
general arrangement. In these, as in every Response
and Antiphon, the compilers confine thefnselves to
the exact words of Holy Scripture.
Sundays In 49. Tke Sundoys in Lent. Here the Amiens and
Rouen have : " O come let us worship, and fall down *
and weep before the Lord our Maker.'^ The others :
" O come let us return unto the Lord * and He wiU
heal us.'' In this last, observe the beauty of the refer-
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 45
ence to the sheep of His hand, taken in connection caiiicanin
with that one sheep that went astray in the wilder- '^^^*'°"^^-
ness, and could not return till the Good Shepherd
went to seek it. In the week-days of Lent, while
the others merely repeat the Sunday Invitatory, the
Amiens very beautifully has it : " The God that
calleth sinners to repentance * O come let us wor-
ship/' In Passiontide, the Amiens and the Rouen
have : " The Son of Man, about to be betrayed into
the hands of sinners, ^ O come let us worship/' The
others : " Christ, Who suffered for us, * O come let
us worship/' On Palm Sunday, while the Rouen
merely continues the former Invitatory, all the others
have : " Christ Jesus, Who gave Himself a Re-
demption for all, * O come let us worship/^ On
Easter Day the Amiens has: "Alleluia. Christ,
Who was crucified, hath arisen : * O come let us wor-
ship/' All the others : *' Alleluia. The Lord is
risen indeed : "^ O come let us worship. Alleluia.''
On Ascensiontide, all agree in giving : " Alleluia.
Jesus going into heaven, * O come let us worship.
Alleluia." This is rather an amusing example of
the determination of the Gallican compilers to keep
close to Scripture; "Christ ascending into heaven"
being, for this reason alone, transformed into " Jesus
going into heaven." In the Octave of the Ascen-
sion, the Amiens rite differs, and very nobly, from
all the others, by substituting : " Jesus, the Great
High Priest, Who for us hath entered into the hea-
vens, "^ O come let us worship. Alleluia/' On Whit-
sun Day, all agree in : "Alleluia. The Spirit of the
Lord hath filled the world : * O come let us worship.
Alleluia ;" except the Amiens, which has : " Alleluia.
The Spirit of Truth, Which proceedeth from the Fa-
ther, "^ O come let us worship. Alleluia."
50. We will now proceed to the Common of Saints.
That of Apostles is very differently given. Thus the
Amiens and the Blois : " The Master and Lord of
Apostles "^ O come let us worship." The Coutances,
S. Omer, and Paris : " The Lord, the Head of the
Church, His Body, * O come let us worship." The
Rouen : " Jesus, the Apostle of our Confession, "^ O
Common of
Saiiits.
46 THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
come let us worship/' In the Common of Martyrs,
the Amiens : " Christ, Who giveth to him that
overcometh the hidden manna, * O come let us
worship/' The Blois and Rouen : " The God of pa-
tience and consolation ^ O come let us worship/'
The others : " The Lord, Who crowneth those that
strive lawfully, "^ O come let us worship/' For
Bishops, they all agree in: ^^ Christ, the Chief
Shepherd, ^ O come let us worship/' For Doctors,
all have : ^' The Lord, the Fountain of wisdom, ^ O
come let us worship ;'' except the Amiens, which
gives it : " The Fountain of wisdom, the Word of
God, "^ O come let us worship/' For Abbats and
Monks, all have : " God, Who is the rewarder of
them that diligently seek Him, "^ O come let us wor-
ship ;" except the Rouen, which has : " Jesus, Who
was led into the wilderness, ^ O come let us worship/'
For a righteous man, all agree in : '' The Lord That
loveth the righteous ^ O come let us worship/' For
a virgin, all again are agreed : ^' The Lamb Whom
the virgins follow * O come let us worship/' For a
holy woman, S. Peter supplies the Invitatory to all :
" The God in Whom holy women have trusted "^ O
come let us worship/'
This may serve as an example of the manner in
which those Reformers dealt with their In\4tatories.
I have examined more than eighty different French
uses ; but to enter into further details would be use-
lessly to swell an essay already too long.
Examples of 51 . We will uow take some examples of the method
^d'deve-^' ^^ which the different meanings of the same Psalm
Joperaent^of ^rc cduccd by its different Antiphons. The 1st
by their Psalm is Said in the ordinary Sunday service, in the
Common of one Martyr, in the Common of many
Martyrs, in the Common of a Confessor and Bishop,
Psalm 1. on Easter Day, and on Whitsim Day. In the first we
have this ordinary, every-day duty of a Christian:
" Serve the Lord in fear, and rejoice unto Him with
Ferial use. Tcverence ;" eliciting no peculiar sense from the
Psalm, but leaving it appropriate to the duties of com-
mon life. In the Common of a Martyr : " His delight
was in the law of the Lord, day and night ;" that is.
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 47
according to the mediaeval interpretation^, not only in common of
the day of prosperity, but in the night of adversity, ^ ^^^y^-
even such adversity as the pains of martyrdom ; and
then immediately, " the way of the ungodly,''^ " the
seat of the scornful,^^ " the unrighteous who shall not
be able to stand in the judgment :" all speak of the un-
righteous tribunal at which the martyr stood. Or in
a still higher sense, take that Psalm as recited on the
day on which I now write — Passion Sunday : how p^^^^^^
magnificently it then sets forth to us the Man That Sunday.
walked not in the counsel of the ungodly, when " the
chief Priests and the Pharisees gathered a council, and
from that day forth they took counsel for to put Him
to death /^ nor stood in the luay of sinners, of Caiaphas
and his crew ; nor sat in the seat of the scornful, of
Pilate, who asked. What is truth ? and went out with-
out waiting for the answer. The tree planted by the
rivers of water is Christ Himself on the Cross, Whom
every sufferer for the truth is in some sort like ; and
the fruit in due season sets forth how the blood of the
martyrs became the seed of the Church. The Com- common of
mon of many Martyrs gives us the Antiphon, *' By many Mar-
the rivers of water he planted the vineyard of the just,
and in the law of the Lord was his delight." Here,
with the same general bearing, their sowing in tears,
that they might reap in joy, is more prominently
brought forth. The Common of Confessor and Bishop
directs us to another verse : " Blessed is the man cCSSsor?
who doth exercise himself in the law of the Lord.
His will remaineth day and night, and all things
whatsoever he doeth shall prosper," — thus referring
the Psalm to the study and doctrine of the saint
whom the Church commemorates. At Easter : " I
am That I am : and My counsel is not with the
wicked ; but in the law of the Lord is My delight.
Alleluia." Here the whole is boldly taken, no longer
of the Martyrs and Confessors of the Lord, but of
the Lord of the Martyrs and Confessors. He is the
Man That is blessed ; That exercised Himself in the
law of the Lord, when with the threefold answer He
overcame the threefold temptation ; Whose leaf shall
not wither J because the leaves of that tree are for the
48 THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
healing of the nations ; and look, whatsoever He doeth
— whatsoever, even though it be the laying down His
For Whit- life in shame and agony — shall prosper. On Whit-
*^* sun Day, in ordinary Breviaries, the Antiphon is :
" Suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a
rushing mighty wind. Alleluia. Alleluia.^' But in
some German provincial uses (with, to my mind, far
greater beauty,) it is '^ Whatsoever He doeth shall
prosper :" thus applying the Psalm no longer either
to our Lord or His followers, but to the Holy Ghost
Himself. S. Thomas's Antiphon for Corpus Christi
is, '' The Lord gave His salutary fruit to be tasted in
the time of His death :" thus riveting the sequence of
thought to the institution of the new Sacrament.
Psalm 51. 52. The 51st Psalm, again, is one that requires,
more than any other, the emphasis of an Antiphon.
Remember that, according to Gregorian use, retained
in the Sarum, though dropped in the Roman Bre-
viary, it was said in an ordinary week forty-two
times. In the ordinary ferial service at Lauds, the
Antiphons run on in sequence, according to the fa-
vourite practice of the Church : —
Ferial An- Monday. Miserere mei Deus. (Ver. 1.)
tiphons. Tuesday. Dele ini^uitatem meam. (Ver. 1.)
"Wednesday. Amplius lava me ab injustitia mea. (Ver. 2.)*
Thursday. Tibi soU peccavi. (Ver. 4.)
Friday. Spiritu Principali confirma me. (Ver. 12.)
Saturday. Bene fac Domine in bona voluntate tua Sion.
(Ver. 18.)
offlceforthe But in this Psalm, as recited in the Office for the
Dead, the one leading idea is, " That the bones which
Thou hast broken^' — or, as the Vulgate more appro-
priately gives it, " humbled^' — may rejoice : thus
magnificently bringing out the " Sown in corruption,
raised in incorruption ; sown in dishonour, raised in
glory ; sown in weakness, raised in power," of the
Apostle. On theW^ednesday in Holy Week, "Deliver
Holy Week. ^^ ^^om blood-guiltiness," — or, as it is in the Vulgate,
" from the bloodthirsty man,"—" O God, and my
' A good example of what we the Gallican Tersion : the latter
shall presently have to notice, has iniquitate.
the use of the Italic instead of
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 49
tongue shall sing of Thy righteousness/' refers the Hoiy week.
Psalm to Him against Whom bloodthirsty men did in-
deed rise up^ and Who did truly sing of the righteous-
ness of the Father, when He said, " As the Father
hath sent Me, even so send I you/' On Maundy
Thursday we have, " That Thou mightest be justified
in Thy saying," — He Who had so often prophesied
that He should be delivered to the Gentiles, and spite-
fully entreated, and spitted on, and put to death, and
that He should rise again the third day, — " and clear
when Thou art judged ;" according to Pilate's con-
fession, '^ I find no fault in this man." On Good
Friday, the ordinary Antiphon is simply borrowed
from the New Testament : '^ God spared not His own
Son, but delivered Him up for us all." But I have
seen a Dutch Breviary which, with the wonderful
devotion to the Passion that characterised the good
men of that Church in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, gives a far finer one in the Psalm itself:
'' Then shalt Thou be pleased with the Sacrifice of
righteousness." The same Breviary employs for this
Psalm on Easter Eve, instead of the usual " O death,
I will be thy death ; O grave, I will be thy destruc-
tion," the Antiphon of the Office for the Dead ; and,
to my taste, with very fine efibct.
53. The last three Psalms, the Laudes of S. Gre- V\l,
gory, have, of course, a vast variety of Antiphons.
In the ferial use, the same rule obtains as that men-
tioned under the 51st Psalm : —
Sunday. AUeluia. Alleluia. Alleluia. (Ps. 148, ver. 1.)
Monday. Laudate Dominum de Coelis. (Ps. 148, ver. 1.)
Tuesday. Omnes Angeli ejus, laudate Dominum de Ccelis.
[Ps. 148, ver. 2.)
Wednesday. Coeli Coelorum, laudate Dominum. (Ps. 148,
[ver. 4.)
Thursday. In Sanctis ejus, laudate Deum. (Ps. 150,
[ver. 1.)
Friday. In tympano et chore, in cordis et organo laudate
jDeum. (Ps. 150, ver. 4.)
Saturday. In cymbalis bene sonantibus, laudate Deum.
[(Ps. 150, ver. 5.)
That on Wednesday in Holy Week, is singularly
jhappy; "To bind their kings in chains, and their
' Laudes.
50 THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
nobles with links of iron ;" the reference being to the
" Let ns break their bonds asunder^ and cast away
their cords from us/^ of the 2nd Psalm. Again, in
the OflSce for the Dead, the very exact verse to har-
monize the solemnity of the service with the joy-
ousness of the Psalm, is the last : " Let every thing
that hath breath" — or as the Vulgate has it, '' Let
every spirit"*^ — "praise the Lord.'^
Benedicite. 54. Let US uow tum to the Benedicite, which, from
the fact that the Sunday Laudal Psalms are those of
all Festivals, is repeated again and again. That of
a common Sunday is as colourless as any Antiphon
cau well be : it is thoroughly Greek, as we shall pre-
sently see; "The three children were cast at the
command of the king, into the burning fiery fur-
nace, fearing not the flame of fire, but saying. Blessed
be God." On the Epiphany the Antiphon is : " O
ye seas and floods, bless ye the Lord : O ye foun-
tains, sing a hymn to the Lord," with reference to
our LoRD^s Baptism. On Septuagesima, "Blessed
art Thou in the firmament of heaven, and laudable
for ever, O our God ;" where the allusion is to the
work of Creation, the subject of that day^s lessons.
On Christmas Day, as if in developement of that verse
in the Benedicite, " O ye angels of the Lord," &c.,
the Antiphon is, " And suddenly there was with the
Angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising
God and saying," &c. On Whitsun Day : " O ye
fountains and all that move in the waters, sing a
hymn to God, Alleluia:" a beautiful reference to
— " The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters," and to our own reception of spiritual life at
Baptism.
Office of the 55. As wc liavc had occasion to refer so often to
the Office for the Dead, it may be worth while to
point out the magnificent manner in which, the key-
note having been once pitched, the Psalms fall into
their proper place. Take for example the 65th. The
Antiphon is, "Thou that hearest the prayer, unto
Thee sliall all flesh come :" come, that is, when " all
that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son
of God, and they that hear shall live." The first
Fsalm fii
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 51
verse shows us the praise of God commenced in the
earthly Sion, and the vow completed in the heavenly
Jerusalem. Next the Psalm tells of the blessedness
of them that die in the Lord : " Blessed is the man
whom Thou choosest and receivest unto Thee; he
shall dwell in Thy courts^ and shall be satisfied with
the pleasures of Thy house^ even of Thy holy temple/^
Then, looking forward to the greatest of all wonders,
the general Resurrection, and the promise of God,
engaged to bring it to pass, " Thou slialt show us
wonderful things in Thy righteousness, O God of our
salvation : Thou that art the hope of all the ends of
the earth" — of the countless corpses, scattered, as it
were, over the four quarters of the globe — " and of
them that remain in the broad sea," — " looking for
the resurrection of the body when the sea shall give
up her dead." And still with reference to the same
hope, " Thou visitest the earth" — at that great visi-
tation in the Last Day, — " and blessest it ;" (" Come,
ye blessed children of My Father:") "Thou mak-
est it veiy plenteous" — when every churchyard shall
bring forth its abundant crop of life. " Thy clouds"
— "when the Son of Man shall come in the clouds
of heaven," — " drop fatness : they shall drop upon
the dwellings of the wilderness,'^ — the unknown and
lonely resting-places of so many of God's Saints :
"and the little hills" — the graves of the earth —
" shall rejoice on every side."
56. Or again, take the 63rd Psalm. The Anti- Psaimes.
phon is : " Thy Right Hand hath upholden me :"
the protecting and providential care which, through
the lapse of ages, and amidst all the organic changes
of matter, nevertheless preserves, and will bring to-
gether again, the bodies which having been sown in
corruption shall be raised in incorruption. And in
this sense how beautiful is the " Early will I seek
Thee," taken in connection with " Blessed and holy
is he that hath part in the first Resurrection !" "My
flesh also longeth after Thee" — while waiting its re-
union with the soul. Once more : " Have I not
remembered Thee in my bed, and thought upon Thee
when I was waking ?" (Compare " When I awake
D 2
52 THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
Office of the up after Thy likeness, I shall be satisfied with it/')
^^^" '' Those also that seek the hurt of my soul, they
shall go under the earth." So in Zechariah : "The
Lord rebuke thee, O Satan is not this a
brand plucked out of the fire ?" " But the King
shall rejoice in God/'
Manus mites dum expandit,
Eex coelorum coelos pandit ;
Et cum multis illic scandit
Unde solus venerat.
Psalm 67. 57. The 67th Psalm, as we have seen, follows
without a Requiem eternam. And still the same idea
is carried on : " That Thy way may be known upon
earth" — the way by which our Lord, having con-
quered death, ascended to the Father, and by which
He will come to bring His people with Him : " Thy
saving health" (for " He is the Saviour of the body")
" among all nations.-" So again in its full sense :
"■ Then shall the earth bring forth her increase,'' as
in those noble lines of Prudentius :
Now take him, O earth, to thy keeping,
And give him soft rest in thy bosom ;
I entrust thee the generous fragments
And lend thee the frame of a Christian.
Thou holily guard the deposit;
He will well, He will surely require it,
Who forming it, made its creation
The type of His Image and Likeness.
Psalm 63 and 58. Taken in this sense, it would seem as if these two
?.h'.'u.y Antu" Psalms wcrc written for, and could apply to nothing
piions : except, a funeral Office ; let us now take them with
other Antiphons, and examine what meaning they
may then bear. On the Epiphany the Antiphon is,
" When they had opened their gifts they presented
unto Him gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Alleluia."
Then the " Early will I seek Thee" will apply to the
general expectation of the King That was to be born,
and Whom the star in the east heralded. " The
barren and dry land where no water is," to the hea-
thendom of those distant countries from whence the
ii
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 53
wise men came. '' Have I not remembered Thee in
my bed, and thought upon Thee when I was waking ?"
will well set forth those watches of the night in which
the astronomer-kings must have beheld the new star.
"Those that seek the hurt of my soul," to whom
should that refer, but to Herod and his court?
" The King shall rejoice in God/' will tell of the new
kingdom set up on earth, of which the following
Psalm speaks more fully. " God be merciful unto
us and bless us, and show us the light of His coun-
tenance," well expresses His manifestation to the
Gentiles. "That Thy way may be known upon
earth, Thy saving health among all nations ;" tells
the end and aim of His Epiphany, that the earth
may be "full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the
waters cover the sea." So even more remarkably the
doubly repeated prayer, " Let the people praise Thee,
O God," — the people, hitherto the Lord's only peo-
ple— but now from this day forward, that shall not
be enough — " yea, let all the people praise Thee :"
in other words, " A light to lighten the Gentiles, and
the glory of Thy people Israel." " Then shall the
earth bring forth her increase;" the true increase,
the harvest with which the fields were white, even in
the time of our Lord. And the Psalm ends well
with a prophecy of that day when the kingdoms of
this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord
and of His Christ, " all the ends of the world shall
fear Him."
59. Again: let us completely change the Anti- g^J Good
phon, and observe how the signification will be phons :
altered. I never thus notice the way in which the
Psalm, so to speak, obeys its Antiphon, without call-
ing to mind that verse, " Behold also the ships, which
though they be so great, yet are they turned about
with a very small helm whithersoever the governor
listeth." On Good Friday, the Antiphon is, " Saith
the thief to the thief, We indeed justly, for we re-
ceive the due reward of our deeds, but this Man
hath done nothing amiss. Lord, remember me when
Thou comest into Thy kingdom." Then " the barren
and dry land^ where no water is," becomes the Cross
54 THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
with its agony of thirst. "Thy power and glory/'
the manifestation of both when, from the sixth hour
there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth
hour. " As long as I live/' tells firstly of the few
brief hours which still remained for suffering ; and
secondly, of that better life when the promise should
be fulfilled, " To-day shalt thou be with Me in para-
dise." "And lift up mine hands" — stretched out
as they were on the Cross, — " in Thy Name/' the
Name set over the Lord's Head, " Jesus of Naza-
reth, the King of the Jews." " Have I not remem-
bered Thee in my bed," — the hard bed of that tree.
"These also that seek the hurt of my soul," — the
soldiers and Chief Priests, who through their im-
patience that the bodies should be removed from
the Cross, brake the legs of the first, and of the
other that was crucified with Him. And then the
67th Psalm tells of that conversion of the Gentiles
which began from the Cross on Calvary, and of
that judgment, — "Thou shalt judge the folk right-
eously/'— which was prefigured when the penitent
thief was set on the right hand, and the impenitent
on the left,
with Ferial 60. The rulc for the ferial Antiphons of these two
p ons. pgj^ij^g -g ^j^g same that we have noticed before.
Thus we have on
Monday. Deus, Deus meus, ad te de luce vigilo. (Yer. 1.)
Tuesday. Ad te de luce vigilo. (Ver. 1.)
Wednesday. Labia mea laudabunt te in vita me^, Deus
meus. (Ver. 4, 5.)
Thursday. In matutinis meditabor in te. (Ver. 7.)
Friday. lUumina, Domine, vultum tuum super nos. (Ps.
67, 1.)
Saturday. Metuant Dominum omnes fines terrse. (Ps.
67, 7.)
61. But in no instance is the power and beauty of
the Antiphon so clearly shown as in the case of
Benedictus and Magnificat. These have a distinct
Antiphon, not only on every Sunday and Festival,
but in the Feriai of Lent and Advent ; I will now
give some examples of the method in which these
two evangelical hymns are thus emphasized.
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 55
The theory of the Antiphons is this. Those of the
first Vespers of Sunday are usually from some verse
of the Old Testament lections for the succeeding
week ; that of second Vespers and Lauds, from the
Gospel for the day.
Let us take some of those which are appropriated Antiphons
to more ordinary Festivals. As for example : on the rfic^w* and to
Third Sunday after Trinity, the Antiphon to Bene- ^''smficat
dictus is, " Jesus went up into the ship, and there He
taught the multitude. Alleluia.'^ See how beauti-
fully this applies to the " He hath visited and re-
deemed His people :" visited them even by the Lake
of Gennesareth ; redeemed them not only by His
precious Death and Passion, but also when He made
the fisherman of that sea a " fisher of men." " As
He spake by the mouth of His holy Prophets," that
Galilee of the nations, the people that walked in
darkness should see a great light. That to Magnificat
on the same day is, " Master, we have toiled all the
night and have taken nothing : nevertheless at Thy
word I will let down the net :" and here compare the
^' Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord,"
of S. Peter, with the " For He hath regarded the
lowliness of His handmaiden," of S. Mary : and
again, the miraculous draught of fishes with that
saying, " He hath filled the hungry with good things."
Or take again the Seventh Sunday after Trinity, where
the Antiphon to Benedictus is : " Saith the Lord to ^Z^^'^l
the steward. What is this that I hear of thee? Give
an account of thy stewardship. Alleluia." Where
first notice that these words are so turned as now to
be applicable not less to a blessed than to an unhappy
rendering in that account. And in the former sense,
when the warfare of any faithful soul is accomplished
and the iniquity pardoned, see how nobly those clauses
apply, *' He hath visited and redeemed His people.
He hath raised up a mighty salvation for us ; that we
being delivered out of the hands of our enemies,
might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righte-
ousness before Him all the days of our life.'' Or take
again the Ninth Sunday after Trinity, and its Anti-
phon to Magnificat : " This man went down to his
50 THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
house justified rather than the other : for every one
that exalteth himself shall be abased,, and he that
humbleth himself shall be exalted," and compare it
■with the rich sent empty away, and the hungry filled
with good things. Or once more : the Antiphon to
Benedictus on the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity is,
" When Jesus passed through a certain village, ten
men that were lepers met Him, who lifted up their
voices and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy upon us :"
refer it to the mighty salvation raised up, the light
given to them that sat in darkness and in the shadow
of death. It would be perfectly endless to go through
all such allusions and adaptations^ by which the
Gospel or Epistle of the day is so ingeniously bound
into its ordinary hymn of praise. It happens, how-
ever, sometimes, that these Antiphons are original :
as, for example, that to Benedictus on Thursday after
Low Sunday : " My heart is on fire ; I desire to see
my Lord ; I seek and find not where they have put
Him. Alleluia. Alleluia." And sometimes they are
f?<?Sn^ other ^^ verse : as for example, the Antiphon to Magnificat
sources. OD Monday after Low Sunday :
Crucem sanctam subiit
Qui infernum confregit ;
Accinctus est potentia ;
Surrexit die tertia.
62. It will not be uninteresting to compare the
Antiphons for one week — let it be Passion Week —
both in the older and in the Galilean form :
Comparison BENEDICTINE,
between the o j
older and Sunday.
fIThSs'"*'*'' Jesus said unto the Jews
"""^' and to the Chief Priests : he
that is of God heareth God's
words ; ye therefore hear
them not, because ye are not
of God.
M^onday.
In that great day of the
feast Jesus stood and cried,
saying, If any man thirst, let
him come unto Me and drink.
Gallic AN.
Sunday.
Jesus said, I seek not Mine
own glory : there is One That
seeketh and judgeth.
Monday.
If any man thirst, let him
come unto Me and drink.
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH.
57
Benedictine.
Tuesday.
My time is not yet come ;
but your time is alway ready.
Wednesday.
My sheep hear My voice :
and I the Loed know theirs.
Thursday.
The Master saith, My hour
is at hand : I will keep the
Passover in thy house with
My disciples.
Friday.
Now the feast of the Jews
drew nigh, and the Chief
Priests sought how they
might slay Jesus, but they
feared the people.
Gallican.
Tuesday.
Go ye up to this feast : I
go not up to this feast, for
My time is not yet full come.
Wednesday.
My sheep hear My voice :
and I give unto them eternal
life, and no man shall pluck
them out of My hand.
TJiursday.
Her sins, which are many,
are forgiven : for she loved
much.
Friday.
[The Compassion of S.
Mary.'] To what shall I
liken thee, daughter of Jeru-
salem ? To whom shall I com-
pare thee, O virgin daughter
of Sion ? Thy breach is great
as of the sea, who can heal
thee?
63. The Greek Aiitiphons, which at first sight Antiphonsof
might indeed be easily overlooked, hold a very in- clfuStf "^
ferior position to that which they occupy in the Latin
Church. They are said only at the end, and not at
the beginning, of each Psalra, and are prefaced by
the words : And again. Thus, at Prime, at the end
of the 3rd Psalm, we have, " And again : I laid me
down and slept and rose up again, for the Lord
sustained me.'' At the end of the 38th Psalm :
"And again : Forsake me not, O Lord my God ; be
not Thou far from me ; haste Thee to help me, O Lord
God of my salvation.'' After the 63rd : "And again :
Early will I seek Thee : because Thou hast been my
help, therefore imder the shadow of Thy wings will of less im-
I rejoice. My soul hangeth upon Thee : Thy Right po^tance.
Hand hath upholden me." After the 88th : "And
again : O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried
day and night before Thee : O let my prayer enter
d3
58
THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
Employ-
ment of
Psalms In
the Liturgy.
Four me-
thods of
singing.
Cantus Di-
rectus :
Antipho-
nalis :
Responso-
riuB:
Tractus.
into Thy Presence : incline Thine ear unto my
calling."
This may serve as an example of the Eastern use
of Antiphons. I may remark that they are always
taken from the Psalm which precedes ; never, as in
the Western Church, from other sources.
64. We now turn to another branch of our sub-
ject : the employment of the Psalms in the various
compositions, let them be called by what name they
may, Introits, Tracts, Graduals, Communions, Psal-
melli, Sonos, Matutinaria, which form a part of the
Missal or the Breviary. And it will not be amiss to
say something of each of these, taking them in order,
and beginning with the Roman Church.
65. There are four methods in which the Psalms
have been ecclesiastically sung. The first, when the
whole Psalm is sung by the whole choir without any
response or variation. This was called the Cantus
Directus, or Directaneus: and hence one Psalm at
Lauds in the Ambrosian Breviary is, as we have
seen, called the Psalmus Directus. Beroldus, who
composed the ritual of the Church of Milan about
the year 1130, thus gives one of his rubrics : "The
Collect being ended, the choir sings in a low voice_,
and almost to themselves, the Psalm Qui habitat as a
Psalmus Directus." In this way in the most ancient
times, the Gloria in Excelsis used to be sung, the
Agnus Dei, the Domine ad adjuvandum, &c.
The second method of singing is the Antiphonal :
when the choir, divided into two sides, sings alter-
nately.
The third method is where the Psalm is sung
alternately between the precentor and the choir;
and this is the Responsory method.
Lastly, the fourth way is when the whole Psalm
or Anthem is sung by a single voice; and this is
called the Tract. It is needless to observe that the
present Tract of the Roman Missal has retained
the name only, but not the character of its prede-
cessor.
66. I have spoken largely of Antiphons : it now
remains to speak of Responsories. " Responsories/^
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 59
says S. Isidore,^ " because, when one sings, the chorus
responds in unison." And this may be practised in
two ways : the precentor may sing a verse, which
same verse is immediately repeated by the choir ; riesfwhat'
may then go on to another, which is in like manner,
to use the technical expression, succented by them ;
and so on : or the precentor may sing his verse, and
the choir repeat it ; the precentor then go on to a
second verse, and the third, and so forth, the choir
always repeating the first, and none other, after each.
The former method was more in use in primitive
times ; the latter in after ages. To the Psalmus Re-
sponsorius, or Psalmi Responsorium, — for it was
called by both names, — we have many references in
the Fathers. One of the sermons of S. Peter Chry-
sologus begins : " Responsorium quod hodie Propheta
supplicante cantavimus.^' And Alcuin, in one of his
poems, thus writes : —
" Hymnos ac Psalm os, et Responsoria festis
Congrua, promerauB subter testudine templi."
67. The ancient method, as it obtained in the fourth psaimus Re-
century, was this. The reader in the first place gave o^J^SmT'
out the title, a Psalm of David; and in Africa, at ^^sponso-
least, as appears from many passages of S. Augus-
tine's sermons, read the title of the Psalm. He then
precented the first verse ; the whole congregation,
together with the Bishop and Clergy, succented what-
ever had to be succented, whether it were that first
verse, by way of Antiphon, or any other Antiphon,
or whether they repeated each verse as the reader
precented it. A very curious example of this method
is given in S. Augustine's Exposition (the second) on
the 22nd Psalm. He is reasoning against the Dona-
tists; and speaking on the 27th verse, as we have it
now, he says, " Do they give ear to this, think ye,
when their reader says, * All the ends of the earth shall
remember themselves, and be turned unto the Lord T
Well, perchance it was but one verse : thy thoughts
were elsewhere ; thou wast talking idly with thy bro-
ther when he spoke thus. Mark how the reader re-
1 De Eccles. Offic. i. 8.
60
THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
gustine ;
peats it, and knocks at deaf men's ears : ^ And all the
kindreds of the nations shall worship before Him/
He is still deaf; he does not hear ; let the knocking
be repeated : ' For the kingdom is the Lord's, and
M gathered Hc is the Govemor among the people/ Remember
froms^Au- tjigse three verses, brethren; to-day they have been
sung even among them/' From this very curious
passage two other points are clear : the one that the
earlier division into shorter verses than our own was
in vogue as late as the time of S. Augustine ; the
other, that the same Psalms were appropriated to the
same Festivals by the Donatists as by the Catholic
Church. It is manifest, from other passages in S.
Augustine, that the Responsory Psalm was gone right
through to the end : thus, in treating of the 26th
Psalm, which has twelve verses, he alludes to the
ninth as having been sung ; and in his second ex-
position of the 19th, which has fifteen verses, he
quotes the thirteenth. It would appear that the
ecclesiastic who precented the Responsory Psalm was
generally of the order of readers ; though we do find
instances where a deacon undertook that office.
Thus S. Gregory of Tours, in his Lives of the Fa-
thers : " One morning, when S. Nicasius had risen to
Matins, he went into the sacristy ; and while sitting
there, the deacon began to chant the Responsory
Psalm.^' The place whence it was sung was at first
the middle of the choir ; afterwards, when ambones
were introduced, it was probably recited from their
steps. Hence by degrees it acquired the name of Re-
sponsorium Graduale, or Gradale, from those very
steps. And they would also appear to have occupied
the same position in the service that the Gradual
now holds in the Missal. Thus S. Augustine, in one
of his sermons : " We heard the first lesson from the
Apostle, ' This is a faithful saying,' &c. ; then we
sang the Psalm ; after this, the Evangelical lection
set forth to us the cleansing of the ten lepers." I
may add, that an ancient, but anonymous author,
quoted by Cassander, says : " The Responsory which
is said in Mass is, for the sake of distinction from
other Responsories, called the Gradale, as being sung
called also
Responso-
rium Gra-
duale.
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH.
61
on the steps/' But Beleth, who wrote in the twelfth because
century, tells us that in his time it was only so sung thnSb^
on the principal Festivals. " The second book," says
he, " is the Graduarius, so called from the steps ;
because on Festivals the reader ascends the steps of
the ambo to chant it. For on ordinary days it is
sung before the steps of the altar, in the middle of
the choir.^'
68. The original Roman Introit has become so The Roman
much shortened, that it will be better to give both it ad introu*
and the modern method of recitation. The example frSus'- ^"'
shall be from the First Sunday in Advent :
Antiphona ad Introitum :
Unto Thee, O Lobd, do I
lift up my soul : my God, I
have put my trust in Thee :
O let me not be confounded ;
neither let mine enemies tri-
umph over me.
Unto Thee, O Lobd, do I
lift up my soul : my God, I
have put my trust in Thee :
O let me not be confounded ;
neither let mine enemies tri-
umph over me.
Psalm :
Show me Thy ways, O
Loed, teach me Thy paths.
Unto Thee, O Loed, do I
Hft up my soul : my God, I
have put my trust in Thee :
O let me not be confounded ;
neither let mine enemies tri-
umph over me.
Glory be to the Fathee,
and to the Son : and to the
Holy Ghost ;
As it was in the beginning,
18 now, and ever shall be :
world without end. Amen.
Unto Thee, O Loed, do I
lift up my soul : my God, I
have put my trust in Thee :
O let me not be confounded ;
Modeen Roman.
Ad Missam Introitus :
Unto Thee, O Loed, do I
lift up my soul : my God, I
have put my trust in Thee :
O let me not be confounded ;
neither let mine enemies tri-
umph over me.
Psalm : Show me Thy
ways, O Loed, teach me Thy
paths.
Glory be to the Fathee,
and to the Son : and to the
Holy Ghost ;
As it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be :
world without end. Amen.
Unto Thee, O Lobd, do I
lift up my soul : my God, I
have put my trust m Thee :
O let me not be confounded ;
neither let mine enemies tri-
umph over me.
62 THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
neitlier let mine enemies tri-
umph over me.
Versus ad repetendum :
Lead me forth in Thy truth,
and learn me : for Thou art
the God of my salvation ; in
Thee hath been my hope all
the day long.
Unto Thee, O Loed, do I
lift up my soul : my God, I
have put my trust in Thee :
0 let me not be confounded ;
neither let mine enemies tri-
umph over me.
The Versus ad repetendum, in other MSS., both
here and throughout the year, is of a totally different
character, and, to my mind, presents far greater
beauty. For example, here : —
/. Thou That wiliest not the death of a sinner, but rather
that he should be converted, and live, hear my prayer : for
Unto Thee, O Loed, &c.
f. We know that the Fathee hath not left Him, because
He cried and said,
Unto Thee, O Loed, &c.
introduced The Antiphoua ad Introitum, or Introitus, was un-
tuie.'^^^^^" known till the time of S. Celestine, who borrowed
it from the Church of Milan. It was less properly,
in one Roman Ordo, edited by Mabillon, called the
Invitatory,
The Ambro. 69. Wc now tum to thc Ingressa of the Ambrosian
^^Ja' ^^^^* This, so far as appears from the Missal itself,
or from the Rubrics, is said entirely by the Priest,
and without repetition : otherwise in form it does
not seem to differ from the Roman. For example,
the Ingressa for the Second Sunday in Advent is : —
Remember us, O Loed, with the favour that Thou bearest
unto Thy people. O visit us with Thy salvation : that we
may see the felicity of Thy chosen, and rejoice in the glad-
ness of Thine inheritance.
So, again, on the Circumcision: —
In the sight of the Gentiles fear ye not, but worship and
fear the Loed in your hearts : for His Angel is with you j
gresaa.
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 63
a compilation from the Second Book of Kings, and
from Baruch.
70. The Ad Missam Officium, which is the Moza- Ad Missam
rabic name for the Introit, is more complicated, and offlcium.
resembles the original Roman Introit which I have
lately quoted. Take, for example, that on the First
Sunday in Advent : —
Behold upon the mountains the feet of Him that evan-
geliseth peace, Alleluia, and announceth good things, Alleluia.
Keep thy solemn feasts, O Judah, Alleluia : and pay unto
the LoED thy vows. Alleluia.
^. The LoED gave the Word : great was the company of
the preachers.
Psalm : And pay unto the Lobd thy vows. Alleluia.
/. Glory and honour be to the Fathee, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost, for ever and ever. Amen.
Psalm : And pay unto the Lord thy vows. Alleluia.
Priest : To all ages of ages.
'R^. Amen.
This is the general norm of all the Mozarabic In-
troits. Thus, again, on the First Sunday in Lent : —
Behold, now is the accepted time, Alleluia : behold, now is
the day of salvation, Alleluia.
/. The LoED is King, and hath put on glorious apparel :
the LoED hath put on His apparel, and girded Himself with
strength.
Psalm : Behold, now is the day of salvation. Alleluia.
f. Glory and honour be to the Fathee, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost, for ever and ever. Amen.
Psalm : Behold, now is the day of salvation. Alleluia.
Priest : Through aU ages of ages.
I\?. Amen.
71. The next Anthem, or by whatever other name TheAmbro.
it may be called, is the Psalmellus in the Ambrosian, ^*J}^*"''
the Psallendo in the Mozarabic, rite. This imme-
diately follows the Prophecy, and therefore bears the
same reference to that, which the Gradual does to
the Epistle.
The Psalmellus consists of a Verse and Response ;
the latter often taken from a clause of the Psalm
preceding that of which the former consists. Thus,
for example, that for the First Sunday in Advent
is: —
64 THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
/. God shall manifestly come, our God, and shall not
keep silence.
IV. The LoKD, even the most mighty God hath spoken, and
called the world.
Or, again, on the Sixth Sunday in Advent :
f. Look down from heaven, and behold : show Thy face,
and we shall be saved.
I\j. Give ear, O Thou Shepherd of Israel, Thou that leadest
Joseph like a sheep : show Thyself also. Thou that sittest be-
tween the cherubims.
The Psallendo of the Mozarabic rite has another
clause. Thus, for example, the First Sunday in Ad-
vent : —
Psallendo : He giveth snow like wool, and scattereth the
hoar frost like ashes : He casteth forth His ice like morsels :
who is able to abide His frost ?
f. He sendeth forth His Word, and melteth them : He
bloweth with His Wind, and the waters flow.
Psalm : Who is able to abide His frost ?
Or, to take another example, the Psallendo on
Christmas Day is :
Psallendo : The Loed said unto Me, Thou art My Son :
this day have I begotten Thee.
f. Desire of Me, and I shall give Thee the heathen for
Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for
Thy possession.
Psalm : This day have I begotten Thee.
Responso- 72. We ucxt come to the Responsorium Graduale,
j^^^Gra- of which I have already spoken. Its form is gene-
rally of this kind. I take that for S. John the
Evangelist : —
Grradual : Then went this saying abroad among the bre-
thren, that that disciple should not die : yet Jesus said not
unto him, He shall not die.
^. If I will that he tarry till I come, follow thou Me.
^. Alleluia. Alleluia.
^. This is the disciple that testifieth of these things, and
we know that his testimony is true.
Or, again, take this example for the Twenty-second
Sunday after Trinity : —
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 65
Gradual : Behold, how good and joyful a thing it is, bre-
thren, to dwell together in unity.
/. Like as the ointment upon the head that ran down unto
the beard : even unto Aaron's beard.
ly. Alleluia. Alleluia.
f'. Ye that fear the Loed, put your trust in the Loed :
He is their Helper and Defender. Alleluia.
There is nothing in the Mozarabic Missal which
answers to this ; but in the Ambrosian its place is
occupied by the Alleluia or Cantando^ which is always
of this form. The example is for Christmas Day : —
Alleluia.
jt. A Child is born to us to-day in Bethlehem, and His
xN'ame is just and terrible. Alleluia.
In Lent, when it is called the Cantus, it is some-
times of this form : —
Cantus. If the Loed Himself had not been on our side,
now may Israel say : if the Loed Himself had not been on
our side.
f. 1. Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the
fowler : the snare is broken, and we are delivered.
^. 2. Our help is in the Name of the Loed : Who hath
made heaven and earth.
73. The next Antiphon which we have to consider Antiphona
is the Antiphona ad Offerenda, or, as it is now usually endaf""
called, the Ofifertorium. Here, again, we find the
original form very much abbreviated. Take an ex-
ample for the Third Sunday in Advent. Here, in
the Gregorian Antiphonary, the Offerenda stands
thus : —
Loed, Thou art become gracious unto Thy land, Thou
hast turned away the captivity of Jacob : Thou hast forgiven
the offence of Thy people.
Loed, Thou art become gracious unto Thy land, Thou
hast turned away the captivity of Jacob : Thou hast forgiven
the offence of Thy people.
f. 1. Thou hast covered all their sins : Thou hast taken
awav all Thy displeasure.
Thou hast forgiven the offence of Thy people.
f". 2. Show us Thy mercy, O Loed, and grant us Thy sal-
vation.
Thou hast forgiven the offence of Thy people.
66 THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
or Offer- In the present Roman form, the verse stands as it
torium. stands in the Psalter :-—
LoBD, Thou art become gracious unto Thy land : Thou
LoBD, Thou art become gracious v
hast forgiven the offence of Thy people
TheMozara. 74. The Same position in the Mozarabic Office is
bic Lauda. q^^^^^q^ by two anthems. The first is the Lauda,
The general form is always this. The example is
from the Third Sunday after the Epiphany : —
Alleluia.
f. I will praise the Name of my God with a song, and
magnify it with thanksgiving.
Priest : Alleluia.
But the fuller example seems to be, as we have it
on the First Sunday in Lent, this : —
Alleluia.
I win praise the Name of G-od with a song, and magnify it
with thanksgiving.
f. Let heaven and earth praise Him : the sea, and all that
therein is.
Priest: Alleluia.
and sacri. The Other is the Sacrificium, which indeed, cor-
ficmm. rectly speaking, alone answers to the Roman Offer-
torium. Take, as an example, that for the Second
Sunday after Epiphany : —
And Noah builded an altar unto the Loed ; and took of
every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt
offerings on the altar.
f. And God spake unto Noah, saying : Go forth of the
ark, thou and thy wife, and thy sons and thy sons' wives with
thee. Bring forth with thee every hving thing that is with
thee, of all flesh, both of fowl and of cattle, and of every
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, that they may
breed abundantly and multiply upon the earth. And Noah
went forth.
Priest : And offered burnt-offerings on the altar.
Antiphona 75. In the Ambrosian rite we have in this place
geUum. the Antiphona post Evangelium, which, for the most
part, is not taken from the Psalms. Its form is per-
fectly simple. Thus, on the Feast of the Christo-
phory : —
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 67
. O praise tlie Loed, all ye Angels of His ; praise Him, all
ye virtues of His ; praise Him, O ye sun and moon ; praise
Him, all ye stars and liglit.
So, again, on the First Sunday in Lent : —
Behold, now is the accepted time ; behold, now is the day
of salvation. Let us commend ourselves in much patience,
in much fasting, by the armour of the righteousness of the
virtue of God.
76. Next, in the Roman rite, we have the Anti- fj c^Jj"^*.
phona ad Communionem, now generally called the nionem, or
Communio. This, in its full form, was as follows. I °™"""'°'
again take the First Sunday in Advent : —
The LoED shall show lovingkindness : and our land shall
yield her increase.
The LoED sliall show lovingkindness : and our land shall
yield her increase.
Psalm : Loed, Thou art become gracious unto Thy land :
Thou hast turned away the captivity of Jacob.
The Loed shall show, &c.
Glory be, &c.
Versus ad repetendum : Show us Thy mercy, O Loed :
and grant us Thy salvation.
The Loed shall show, &c.
This, in the present Roman books, is simply given :
"The Lord shall show lovingkindness, and our land
shall yield her increase."
77. In the Mozarabic Rite, in like manner, there is ''^PpP^*
an Antiphona ad Confr actionem Panis, in some of the tionem.
more important missse ; but by no means universally :
this on Maundy Thursday may serve as an example :
The Loed Jesus sent His Disciples and said unto them,
Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat: for
with desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you be-
fore I suffer.
11. And while they were at supper, Jesus took bread and
, blessed, and gave to His Disciples, and said. Take, eat, for
with desire I have desired to eat this Passover before I suffer.
And also, He took the Chalice after supper, and gave to
His Disciples and said, Take ye all of it : for this is My Blood
of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remis-
sion of sins : I will not drink it henceforth till I shall drink it
new with you in My Fathee's kingdom.
Priest. For with desire I have desired, &c.
68 THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
"*d A^^^d^i ^^ ^^^^ manner, on some Festivals, there is an An-
tes, tiphona ad Accedentes. Let this be an example ; it
is also for Maundy Thursday :
/. Be mindful of us, O Christ, in Thy kingdom, and make
us worthy of Thy resurrection.
JE^. With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with
you before I suffer.
^. Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat.
Bl. Before I suffer.
y. Behold, as ye enter into the city, there shall meet you
a man bearing a pitcher of water : him follow into the house
whereinto ye shall enter ; and say ye to the good-man of the
house, —
I\?. With desire I have desired.
'f. The Master saith. My time is at hand : where is the
guest-chamber, that I may keep the Passover with My dis-
ciples P
I\?. Before I suffer.
/. And he shall show you a large upper-room, furnished :
there make ready.
R?. Before I suffer.
J. And the disciples went into the city, and found as Jesus
had told them, and they made ready the Passover.
I^. With desire I have desired.
"f. And when even was come, Jesus sat down and the
twelve with Him, and He saith unto them : —
I\?. With desire I have desired.
■^. For I say unto you, that I will not eat it henceforth,
until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.
I^. With desire I have desired.
T^eAmbro- 78. In the Ambrosian OflBce, we have the Confrac-
fractorium, toHum and the Transit or turn : let these be examples ;
The Confractorium, on the Octave of the Epiphany : The
LoED hath made known His salvation. Alleluia.
On Septuagesima : O Loed my God, in Thee have I put
my trust, save me from all them that persecute me and de-
liver me.
and Transi. The Transitorium, on the Third Sunday in Advent. The
tonum. kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent taketh
it by force.
On the Fourth Sunday in Lent. The Loed made clay of]
His spittle and anointed my eyes, and I departed and washed,
and saw and believed God.
These may suffice as an example of the short anti-
phons, composed for the most part from the Psalms,
and employed in the various Liturgies of the Western
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 69
Church. It would be easy to swell the examples
almost indefinitely; but enough has, perhaps, been
said, to give the reader a general idea of the subject;
fi|tt<l I must remember that I am writing not on the
^^tssal, but on the Psalter.
^■79. Before concluding this Dissertation, a few p°^^y^*®
^Brds remain to be said on another subject. There
"are but few examples of what may be called composite
Psalms : by which I mean, Psalms pieced together
with different verses, selected from various parts of
the Psalter. Yet it is too sweeping an assertion to
say, as it has been said, that such compositions as
those which replace the Venite in the State services
of our Church are altogether unknown. There are
several such in the Mozarabic Office book : take the
following from Matins, in the Office of the Dead :
Unto Thee lift I up mine eyes : O Thou that dwellest in
the heavens.
Unto Thee will I cry, O Lord, and get me to my Lobd
right humbly : what profit is there in my blood when I go
down into the pit ?
Shall the dust give thanks unto Thee : or shall it declare
Thy truth ?
Unto Thee will I cry, O Lobd my strength, think no scorn
of me : lest if Thou make as though Thou hearest not, I
become like them that go down into the pit.
Our fathers trusted in Thee : they hoped in Thee and
Thou didst deliver them.
I will call upon Thee, when my heart is in heaviness ; O
set me up upon the rock that is higher than I : for Thou hast
been my hope, and a strong tower for me against the enemy.
Unto Thee will I cry, O Lord, and early shall my prayer
come before Thee : early in the morning will I direct my
prayer unto Thee and will look up, for Thou art the God
that hast no pleasure in wickedness.
Unto Thee, O Loed, will I lift up my soul ; my God, I
have put my trust in Thee ; O let not mine enemies triumph
over me : for all they that hope in Thee shall not be ashamed.
I flee unto Thee to hide me : teach me to do the thing
that pleaseth Thee, for Thou art my God.
Unto Thee, O Loed, will I lift up my soul : deliver me
from my enemies.
The Loed give thee eternal rest : and light perpetual shine
upon thee for ever.
It must be confessed that this is rather a poor
composition, though I see no reason to doubt its
70 THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
Psaims"^^ being coeval with the original book, and the work of
S. Isidore or S. Leander. Here is another, from the
same Office, and curious^ from the way in which each
verse commences :
Thou, O LoED, art gracious and pitiful : and of great mercy
to all that call upon Thee.
Thou, O LoED, art full of compassion and mercy : long-
suffering, plenteous in goodness and truth.
Thou, O LoED, hast holpen me : and comforted me.
Thou, O LoED, art my defender : Thou art my worship,
and the lifter up of my head.
Thou, O LoED, shalt keep us : and preserve us from this
generation for ever.
Thou, O LoED, be not far from me : let Thy lovingkind-
ness and Thy truth alway preserve me.
Thou, O LoED, shalt give : Thy blessing unto the righteous.
Thou, O LoED, hast brought my soul out of hell : Thou
hast cast all my sins behind Thy back.
Thou, O LoED, shalt destroy the wicked : and shalt laugh
all the heathen to scorn.
Eternal rest, &c.
Canticles. gQ^ j^ ^j]^ }^gj.g ]^q proper to Say something of the
Canticles, which, together with the Psalms, have been
employed in the Ritual of the Church. The largest
and most complete collection of these is to be found
in the Mozarabic Breviary.
1. The Song of Deuteronomy. Antiphon. The Loed hath
appeared from Mount Paran, and ten thousand Saints with
Him. Deut. xxxiii. 2—4, 17.
2. Song of Isaiah. Antiphon. The Mighty God shall sit
upon the throne of David, that He may confirm it for ever.
Isaiah viii. 16 — ix. 7.
3. Song of Isaiah. Antiphon. The Eoot of Jesse, Which
shall stand for a sign to the people, unto Him shall the Gen-
tiles seek. Isaiah x. 32 — xi. 10.
4. Song of Isaiah. Isaiah xxx. 18 — 33.
5. Song of Isaiah. Antiphon. Behold, our God shall come
and save us. Isaiah xxxv. 3 — 10.
6. Song of Isaiah. Antiphon. Prepare ye the way of the
LoBD, make straight the paths of our God. Isaiah xl. 1 — 9.
7. Song of Isaiah. Behold, the Loed shall come with a
strong hand, and His arm shall rule for Him. Isaiah xl.
10—17.
8. Song of Isaiah. Isaiah xlii. 10 — 16.
9. Song of Isaiah. Antiphon. The Loed hath comforted
His people, and will have mercy upon the poor. Isaiah xlix.
7—13.
10. Song of Isaiah. Antiphon. My salvation shaU be for
IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH. 71
ever, saith the Lord, and My rigliteousness from generation Canticles,
to generation. Isaiah li. 4 — 12.
11. Song of Isaiah. Antiphon. How beautiful upon the
mountains are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of
peace ; that publish salvation ; that say, Thy God reigneth.
Isaiah lii. 1 — 8.
12. Song of Isaiah. Antiphon. My salvation is near to
come, and My righteousness to be revealed. Isaiah Ivi. 1 — 7.
13. Song of Isaiah. Antiphon. Say ye to the daughter of
Sion, Behold, thy salvation cometh. Isaiah Ixii. 8 — 12.
14. Canticle from the Gospel according to S. Luke. An-
tiphon. He that is mighty hath magnified me, and holy is
His Name ; and His mercy is to all generations. Magnificat.
15. Song of Isaiah. Antiphon. Let the earth be opened,
and bud forth the Savioue, and let righteousness rise to-
gether. Isaiah xlv. 8 — 25.
16. Canticle from the Gospel according to S. Luke. Anti-
phon. But I will glory in the Loed. I will rejoice in Jesus
my God. Nunc Dimittis.
17. Song of Isaiah. Antiphon. Shine, O Jerusalem, for
thy Light is come. Isaiah Ix.
18. Song of Jeremiah. Jer. xxxi. 15 — 23.
Here begin the Canticles to be said in Lent.
19. Song of Isaiah. Isaiah Iviii. 1 — 9.
20. Song of Jeremiah. Lamentations v. 1 — 18.
21. Prayer of Nehemiah. Antiphon. Have mercy, O God,
great and terrible, Who keepest the covenant and mercy to
them that love Thee and keep Thy commandments. Nehe-
miah i. 5 — 11.
22. Prayer of Manasseh the King.
23. Song of Tobit. Tobit xiii. 1—6.
24. Prayer of Jesus the Son of Sirach. Ecclus.xxxvi.l — 17.
25. Song of Azarias. Antiphon. Whatsoever, Loed, Thou
hast done unto us, Thou hast done with true judgment, and
all on account of our sins. Song, 3 — 22.
Here begin the Canticles on the betrayal of the Loed.
26. Song of the Maccabees. Antiphon. Loed, Loed God,
Creator of all things, terrible and mighty, just and merciful,
gather together them that are dispersed ; set free them that
are slaves to the Gentiles. 2 Mace. i. 24 — 29.
27. Song of Jeremiah. Antiphon. Like a meek lamb I was
led to the slaughter. Jer. xi. 18 — 20, and xii. 1 — 3.
28. Song of Jeremiah. Jer. xv. 15 — 21.
29. Song of Jeremiah. Jer. xviii, 19—23.
30. Song of Jeremiah. ^w^/pAow. Let them that persecute
me, O Loed, be overthrown and become weak. Isaiah xx.
7—12.
31. Song of Jeremiah. Jer. xxiii. 9 — 12.
72 THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED
Canticles. 32. Song of Micah. Antiphon. Trust ye not in a friend,
put ye not confidence in a guide. Micali vii. 5—10.
33. Song of Ezekiel. Antiphon. I will pour upon you
clean water, saith the Lord, and ye shall be cleansed from all
your filthiness. Ezek. xxxvi. 24 — 28.
Here begin the Canticles on the Resurrection of the Loed.
34. Song of Genesis. Antiphon. To the prey, O Loed,
Thou art gone up. Thou didst stoop down, Thou didst couch
as a lion, and in Thy virtue Thou didst rise up. Gen. xlix.
8—12, and 24—26.
35. Song of Isaiah. Antiphon. Consider ye not the things
of old : behold, I will do a new thing, saith the Loed. Isaiah
xliii. 10—20.
36. Song of Isaiah. Antiphon. My Eight Hand saved Me,
and My Righteousness it upheld Me. Isaiah Ixiii. 1 — 6.
37. Song of Jeremiah. Antiphon. Upon this I awaked
and beheld, and lo. My sleep was sweet unto Me. Jer. xxxi.
23—28.
38. Song of Hosea. Antiphon. After two days will the
Loed revive us, and the third day He will raise us up and we
shall live. Hosea vi. 1 — 6.
39. Song of Zephaniah. Antiphon. Wait ye upon Me,
saith the Loed,. until the day of My Resurrection, for My
determination is, to gather the nations, that I may assemble
the kingdoms. Zephaniah iii. 8 — 11.
Here begin the Canticles concerning the Saints.
40. Song of Jesus the Son of Sirach.
41. Song of Judges. Antifhon. Let them that love Thee
be as the sun when it goeth forth in its strength. Judges v.
A selection from.
42. Song of Isaiah. Antiphon. Everlasting joy shall be
to My elect when I repay their works in truth. Isaiah Ixi,
6—9.
Here begin the Canticles for one righteous man.
43. Song of Jeremiah. Jer. xvii. 7 — 18.
44. Song of Jesus the Son of Sirach. Ecclus. li. 13 — 30.
45. Song of Isaiah. Isa. xlii. 1 — 4.
46. Song of Zacharias. Antiphon. Thou, Child, shalt be
called the Prophet of the Highest : for thou shalt go before
the Face of the Loed to prepare His ways, to give knowledge
of salvation unto His people. Benedictus.
Here begin the Canticles for Virgins.
47. The Song of Jesus tlie Son of Sirach. Ecclus. xxxix.
13—16.
48. Song of Isaiah. Isa. Ixi. 10 ; Ixii. 6.
49. Song of Zephaniah. Zeph. iii. 14 — 20.
60. Song of Zechariah the Prophet. Zech. ii. 10—13.
IN THE OFFICES OP THE CHURCH. 73
51. Canticle for the Dedication of a Church. Antiphon.
Let Thine eyes be opened upon this house. 2 Chron. vi.
-21.
)2. Canticle for the Eestoration of a Church. Tobit xiii.
-18.
[53. The Song of Balaam. Numbers xxiii. 7 — 10, and
-24.
)4. Canticle for an Apostle. 1 Tim. vi. 12, and iv. 12 —
Here begin the daily Canticles.
55. Song of Moses. Exod. xv. 1 — 19.
56. Song of Isaiah. Isa. v. 1 — 7.
57. Song of Isaiah. Antiphon. My soul desireth Thee in
the night : from the morning, O Loed, I will watch unto
Thee. Isa. xxvi. 1—10.
58. Song of Isaiah. Preceptum.^ Antiphon. Thy dead
men shall live ; together with My dead body they shall arise.
Isa. xxvi. 12—20.
59. Song of Isaiah. Isa. xxxiii. 1.3 — 22.
60. Song of Jonah. In two Antiphons. I will pay that I
have vowed to Thee, O Loed, my Savioub.
Another. Thy waves passed over me. Then I said, I am
cast out of the sight of Thine eyes : dost Thou think I shall
behold Thy holy Temple ? Jonah ii.
61. Antiphon. Have mercy on those, O Loed, who have
not the riches of good works. 2 Esdras viii. 20 — 36.
62. Song of Moses. Exaltabo. Deut. xxxii. 1 — 12.
63. Song of Hannah. In deserto. 1 Sam. ii. 1 — 10.
64. Song of David. Exitus. Antiphon. In Thine Hand,
O Loed, is power and might, and in Thine Hand it is to make
great, and to give strength unto all. 1 Chron. xxix. 10 — 18.
65. Song of Isaiah. Illuminet. Antiphon. Thine anger
is turned away, and Thou comfortedst me. Isa. xii.
66. Song of Isaiah. Illuminans. Isa. xxxiii. 2 — 10.
67. The Prayer of Mardocheus. Antiphon. Have mercy,
O Loed, upon Thy people, and despise not Thine heritage
which Thou hast redeemed. Esther xiii. 9 — 11, 15—17.
68. Song of Jeremiah. Et ego. Antiphon. Give us not to
confusion, for Thy Name's sake, O Loed. Jer. xiv. 17 — 22.
69. Song of Deuteronomy. Sit splendor. Deut. ix. 26 — 29.
70. Song of Jehoshaphat. Bonum est. 2 Chron. xx. 6 — 12.
71. Song of Isaiah. In matutinis. Isa. xxv. 1 — 9.
72. Song of Isaiah. Exurgam. Isa. xxxvii. 16 — 21.
* I do not know what is the ; directions. All the Canticles
meaning of these key-words, so ! that have them are also distin-
to speak, whicli occur in several
of these Canticles ; unless they
are, like tlie headings of the
Greek Troparia, or the titles of
the Notkerian Sequences, musical
guished by this mark
%
74 THE PSALMS IN THE OFFICES OF THE CHURCH.
73. Song of Isaiah. Deus Dominus. Antiphon. Thou
shalt chasten Me, O Loed, and Thou shalt quicken Me.
Isa. xxxviii. 10 — 20.
, 74. Sorig of Jeremiah. Prevenerunt. Antiphon. He that
made all things is God Himself, and Israel is His inheritance,
and the Loed of Hosts is His Name. Jer. li. 14—19.
75. Song of Ecclesiastes. A vigilia. Eccles. xi. 9 ; xii. 7.
76. Song of Job. A.uditum. Job xix. 25 — 27.
77. The Song of the Angels at the Nativity of Cheist.
Gloria in Excelsis.
Conclusion g| \ l^avc tlius ciideavoured to sketcli out, as
of the Dis- ' n 1 ^ • • /> i
sertation. brieny as the subject permits, an account of the man-
ner in which the Psalter, while it has been employed
in, has itself modified, the Services of the Church.
Those who study it as Churchmen, can hardly enter
into it as they should do, until they have been taught
to consider it in the light in which it has been the
aim of this essay to set it before them. I heartily
wish that it were more perfect, and less unworthy
of the subject; but I have been all along fearful of
entering too deeply into minutiae, — interesting, in-
deed, to Ecclesiastical students, but not necessary in
and by themselves to the study of the Psalms. I
shall hereafter have occasion to direct the reader's
attention to a subject which will, perhaps, be more
widely interesting — the general question of mystical
interpretation : which I leave for the Third Disserta-
tion in this work. I can only hope that the blessing
of God may have been bestowed on what has already
been said, and may still accompany that which we
yet have to observe.
DISSERTATION II.
PRIMITIVE AND MEDIEVAL COMMENTATORS ON
THE PSALMS.
I NOW proceed to give a brief notice of the principal
Comraentators on the Psalms, both those who have
"written in Primitive and in Mediaeval times. I have
already said tliat scarcely any portion of the follow-
ing Commentary is my own. The works which I
am about to enumerate have formed a principal part
of my study for many years : and the more remark-
able among these writers have never left my side
during the compilation of that exposition which the
reader is about to peruse. Before, however, I pro-
ceed to commentators, I must say a word, in the first
place, of the different versions of the Psalms which
the Church has employed. The two put forth by S. xhetwover-
Jerome, both from the LXX., claim the only especial romer'^''^'
notice. Of these the one was prepared at Rome at
the instigation of S. Damasus : the other, in Pales-
tine, at the solicitation of S. Paula and her daughter
S. Eustochium. The former, known as the i?omfl/i italic and
or Italic, was at first employed all over Europe. But ^*^^'^^^-
S. Gregory of Tours, having introduced a copy of
the second, or corrected version, into Gaul, led by
the weight of his authority to its introduction there. The latter
whence it obtained the name of the Gallican, Thence it the fo^er,
found its way into Germany, where it was struggling
for mastery as early as the time of Walafrid Strabo :
in Spain it intruded when the Roman Ritual sup-
planted the Mozarabic, in that of S. Gregory VII.
It shortly invaded Italy itself; for we find S. Francis
enjoining on his order the use of the Roman Office,
£ 2
76 PRIMITIVE AND MEDIEVAL
except the Psalter. Under Sixtus IV. the Italic use
survived only in the city of Rome itself, and the
suburban district, marked out by a radius of forty
miles from the capital. By the Council of Trent it
was abrogated; but the Canons of S. John Lateran
except in s. fought SO strcnuously for its retention, that Pius Y.,
ran aiuTthe probably not unwilling to dispense with a decree of
ch°urch?^*^ the Council, sanctioned their wish ; and by them it
is used to this day. Those Spanish Churches which
have retained the Mozarabic use have also retained
this version. The modern Roman Breviary employs
it in many versicles and responses, and from it the
95th Psalm is always recited, except on the Epiphany.
Hence that Psalm exhibits some marked differences
from the Vulgate, as when it gives, " Forty years long
was I near this generation," instead of '' was I grieved
with this generation." And where it introduces the
curious addition : " For the Lord is a great God, and
a great King above all gods ; for the Lord will not
cast out His people, because in His hands are all the
corners," &c. In this version the famous text is still
retained : "Tell it out among the heathen, that the
Lord hath reigned from the treeT In this, also, oc-
curs the passage which was received as a token of pro-
vidential interference in approval of the election of
S. Martin to the Episcopate, — "That Thou mightest
destroy the enemy and the defender ;" Defensor hav-
ing been the name of the prelate who chiefly opposed
the consecration of that great saint.
So again: in Psalm xvii. 15, instead of "They
have children at their desire," the Italic version gives
us, strangely enough, "They have swine's flesh at
their desire."
Both these versions are printed in parallel columns,
and with the various readings of the principal MSS.,
in the second volume of the collected works of Car-
dinal Thomasius : a book almost indispensable to the
student of the Psalter.
I will first mention those authors who have written
on the whole Psalter, and then the most valuable
among such as have treated on particular Psalms,
fine."^'' (1 •) '^^^^ expositions of S. Augustine on the Psalms
COMMENTATORS ON THE PSALMS. it
form one of the most valuable works of that great
Doctor (+ 430.) Second onl}^ to his Commentary
on S. John, they are, with that one exception, un-
rivalled. At the same time they must be acknow-
ledged to be extremely unequal and dissimilar. They
are sometimes, it is evident, mere extempore expo-
sitions, taken down by some zealous and affectionate
auditor, and perhaps corrected subsequently by the
great master himself. At other times they are
laborious and well reasoned treatises against some
particular heresy or schism, more especially Donatism :
in essence, a controversial essay : an exposition of
the Psalm merely in outward appearance. Frequently
we have two different commentaries, — the one sim-
pler, the other more elaborate. Notwithstanding the
imperfections arising from the composition of a book
at such different times and with such varied objects,
it is indeed an everlasting heritage to the Church.
No commentator ever sin-passed S. Augustine_ 'm_ -V-
seeing Christ everywhere;
" Him first, Him last, Him midst and without end."
It has been well said that where we, after con-
siderable study, are able to discover some distant
reference to our Blessed Lord, S. Augustine begins
boldly; " This Psalm breathes altogether of Christ."
Let any one, for example, study for himself the intro-
duction to Psalm xxxiv., written when David feigned
himself mad before Achish, and trace his likeness in
that action to Christ, — and then let him turn to S.
Augustine, and admire the wonderful richness and
force which he throws into his exposition. The
English Church is deeply indebted to the Oxford
translators of this invaluable work ; and I have de-
lighted rather to quote from them when referring to
this Commentary, than to give an inferior translation
of my own for the sake of being original.
(2.) The next commentator is Cassiodorus ( + 560.) cassiodo-
Far inferior to S. Augustine, he is yet deeply indebted ^'^^'
to him. His work has the advantage of being all of
one texture : each separate exposition written with
the same object, and of the same comparative length.
78
PRIMITIVE AND MEDIEVAL
Ven. Bede.
Remigius.
B. Bruno of
Wurzburg.
S. Bruno of
Aste.
Bibliotheca
Max., vol.
XX. p. 1433 c.
The most striking of the observations of Cassiodorus
are given by B. Bruno of Wurzburg (+ circ. 1053)
in his commentary on the Psalms; and an ordinary
reader may be satisfied with this compilation.
(3.) Venerable Bede (+ 735.) Under his name
we have a diffuse commentary on the Psalter, which
however is principally taken from Cassiodorus. His
exposition of the Titles is reprinted by Thomasius,
and I have made great use of it in the following
pages.
(4.) Remigius, of the Abbey of S. Germanus,
(+ 900) has left a commentary on the whole of the
Psalter, which has been of great use to me. Having
perused the larger part of it in 1843, I found my
opinion of it greatly exalted by a second perusal in
the autumn of last year. Deeply indebted to his
predecessors, and above all to S. Augustine, the good
monk frequently strikes out a path of singular beauty
for himself; and many a scattered hint which he has
dropped has been expanded by me in the following-
pages. His commentary is printed in the Lyons
Bibliotheca Maxima, Vol. xvi., pp. 1045 — 1800.
(5.) B.Bruno of Wurzburg (+ circ. 1053) has left
a compilation from the works of S. Augustine, Ven.
Bede, Cassiodorus, S. Gregory, S. Jerome. I have
constantly consulted it, but have not often found
new light thrown on any difficult verse by it. It
is given in the Bibliotheca Maxima, Vol. xviii. 26
—330.
(6.) S. Bruno of Aste (+ 1120) has left an expo-
sition of considerable ability on the Psalms, given in
the twentieth volume of the Bibliotheca Maxima. It
has this peculiarity, that the text is the Roman, not
the Gallican. In his Preface, he says : '^ When I was
yet a youth, I expounded the Psalter according to an-
other translation, which in many passages differs so
widely from the present translation used by the Roman
Church, that the aforesaid exposition is of no use in
explaining this version. That translation (i.e. the Gal-
lican) has found many commentators : I know not of
any who have expounded this. Asked therefore by my
friends, and more especially by the venerable Abbat
COMMENTATORS OX THE PSALMS. 79
PeregrinuSj I have taken pains that this version, as
well as the other, should have its own exposition.
He that will read it through, will not judge it super-
fluous, and will easily see what a distance there is
between my first and second commentary. For I am
not ashamed to say that which blessed Paul the
Apostle and master of the Gentiles was not ashamed
to say, ' When I ivas a child, I spake as a child, I
thought as a child, I understood as a child ; but when
I became a man, I put aivay childish things.^ " It is
this peculiarity which gives his especial value to S.
Bruno : but there is a freshness and naivete in his ex- »
positipii, which renders it extremely interesting — more
interesting perhaps to read than valuable to quote.
(7.) Euthymius Zigabenus (+ 1125.) This Monk Euthymiu
of Constantinople, who was a court favourite, and '^* *^""'
appears to have been an able man, has left a longish
Exposition on the Psalms, the more valuable to us,
as getting out of the beaten track of Western expo-
sition, and reflecting the teaching of the great Doctors
of the East. I know not that the original has ever
been published : I use the Latin translation in the
nineteenth volume of the Bibliotheca Maxima, and
have derived great advantage from it.
(8.) The " Golden Commentary" of Gerhohus the Oerhohus,
Great (1093 — 1169) is of unspeakable value. Prior
of Reichersperg, its author was the most celebrated
German theologian of that latter age ; and he flings
himself on its horrible corruptions with a vigour and
force which render him a worthy follower of S. Gre-
gory VII., and S. Peter Damiani. Like S. Au-
gustine against the Donatists, he turns the Psalms
against the flagrant vices, and especially the Simony,
of his own age, in a way which imparts great no-
velty, as well as great earnestness, to his words. His
Commentary, a folio volume of 1100 pages in double
columns, was first printed by the indefatigable Pez,
the same whose life was sacrificed to the intensity of
his study. His exposition of Psalms 46 — 51 has
been lost by the partial destruction of the MS.
When we come to Psalm 79, we read the following :
" Having finished the 78th Psalm, we ought to
80 PRIMITIVE AND MEDIiEVAL
begin the exposition of the 79th, were it not that
' the night cometh, when no man can work.' We
must therefore leave a gap from hence till the llQth,
which we have heretofore expounded, as God gave
us the power, and carried on that Commentary to
the end of the Psalter. But now, by the powers of
darkness, we are compelled to intermit that work.'*
He alludes to the tremendous struggle between the
See of Rome and the German Empire, in which he
played a distinguished part. These gaps are, by Fez,
filled up with the unpublished exposition of Honorius
of Autun, (+ circ. 1140,) the celebrated author of the
Gemma Animae: a Commentary, the beauty of which,
in the extracts presented to us, makes us wish for
the whole work.
The first written part of the actual Commentary
of Gerhohus (Psalms 119 — 150) is inferior in quality
to, as well as shorter than, the latter portion (Psalms
1 — 78.) This last is eminently beautiful and original :
not so much a compilation from earlier authors, as
the composition of Gerhohus himself. This is the
consequence of his frequent application of his text to
the circumstances of the times ; and is nowhere more
conspicuous than in his Commentary on Psalm 65,
a complete theologico-political treatise, addressed to
Eugenius III.^ the substance of which is comprised
in the lines, quoted by the author :
" Eomam vexat adhuc amor immoderatus habendi,
Quern non extinguet, nisi Judicis ira tremendi."
The twelfth century saw the old battle between
Nestorianism and Eutychianism fought out in Ger-
many : Gerhohus distinguished himself among the
assailants of the former heresy : he did not always
so entirely escape the charge of the latter. His com-
ments on Psalm 8, ver. 2 ; and 13, ver. 1 ; and 56,
ver. 4 ; require to be read in a judgment of charity.
Take for example the following passages on Psalm 56 :
theimd."'' " Nou ita potcst a Christi humanitate separari ejus
Divinitas, quia et humanitas ejus diviuita, et divinitas
humanata est : factumque est unum electrum de dua»
bus ct in duabus existens Naturis, unius tamen ful-
P. 1046 at
COMMENTATORS ON THE PSALMS. 81
goris aurei : quia humanitas assumpta conglorificata
et conclarificata est assumendo se clarissimse Divi-
nitati."
I am bound to point out the singular beauty of.tlie
application of the GloriaPatri at the end qfjeach PsalnQj ^
to its circumstances, and to its teaching. All this
part of my own work is drawn entirely from Gerhohus.
(9.) S. Albertus Magnus (4-1280.) His com- s. Aibertus
mentary on the Psalms forms the seventh volume in ^*^""'^-
Jammy's edition of his works. In this, as in all the
Saint's writings, hjs perpetual reference to^ and grasp
over Scripture — in which he was not excelled by any
doctor of the Church with the exception of S. An-
thony of Padua, — render his exposition extremely
valuable. It is almost,, entirely Biblical, and very
little indebted to any of its predecessors. It is right
to say that I did not begin to use this work regu-
larly, till I had completed the 21st Psalm; and the
reader may observe that the longer I have been ac-
quainted witli it, the more I have drawn from it.
(10.) From Ludolph the Carthusian (+ circ. 1350) Ludoiph.
we have a Commentary on the Psalms, which I cannot
but think unworthy of the celebrated and pious author
of the " Life of Christ." It seems chiefly compiled
from S. Jerome, S. Augustine, and Cassiodorus : the
sentences are broken : and there is but little of warmth
and life in the exposition. I employ the Spires edition
of 1491: a black-letter folio, double columns, pp. 464.
(11.) To my own mind the Commentary of Michael Ayguan.
Ayguan (+ 1416) is on the whole, the best of those
that have been contributed to the treasury of the
Church ; though wanting the unction of Gerhohus
and Dionysius, and the marvellous Scriptural know-
ledge of S. Augustine. To me it has been, as it
were, a dear companion for the last fifteen years :
during that period I have read it through three
times, and each time with a higher admiration of
its marvellous depth, richness, and beauty. While
he draws unsparingly on the treasures of those who
preceded him, more especially on S. Augustine, S.
Jerome, Cassiodorus, S. Gregory, and Venerable
Bede, he has much that is original, — surprisingly
E 3
82 PRIMITIVE AND MEDIAEVAL
much, considering how many authors have devoted
themselves to the same task. I employ the Lyons
edition of 1673, a noble folio, of more than 1100
pages in closely printed double columns. The work
long went under the title of that of the Author
Incognitus : its writer being unknown. Michael
Ayguan, a native of Bologna, was born about 1340,
and entered at an early age into the Carmelite Order,
of which he subsequently became General. In the
Great Schism he was a strenuous supporter of the
party of Urban VI., and, after a long and laborious
life, died in the place of his birth, Dec. 1, 1416.
Fully two-ninths of the following pages are derived,
directly and indirectly, from this great work.
Dionysius. (12.) Dionysius the Carthusian (+ 1471.) This
exquisitely beautiful writer excels himself in his com-
mentary on the Psalms. It is wonderful that so
voluminous an author should have been, in this ex-
position, so little indebted to other commentators ;
but he is one of the most original, vying even, in
this respect, with Gerhohus himself. Of each Psalm
he__giyes^ Jwo^ expQsiiii?Bs j^_that which he, .calls the
literal, referring it to our Lord ; and the tropological,
which understands it of the faithful soul. In the
latter explanation I have borrowed largely from him :
though I only began to use his work at the sixth
verse of the 22nd Psalm. I use the Cologne edition
of 1558, folio, double columns, pp. 780. I owe this
book to the kindness of my publisher.
parez. (13.) Jacobus Parcz deValentia, Bishop of Christo-
polis. His expositions on the Psalms are heavy ; and
have but little either of novelty or of grasp over former
commentators. They must have been popular however,
for I employ the third edition, that of Jehan Petit,
Paris 1518. It is a folio of 616 pages. This work I
did not begin to employ till the end of the 22nd Psalm.
These are the primitive and mediaeval writers on
the Psalter whom I have used. Of those who have
written since the revival of letters, the two following
have been of the greatest assistance to me.
Lorinus. (14.) John Lorinus, who lived from 1569 to 1634,
a Jesuit Priest, left a Commentary on the Psalms
COMMENTATORS ON THE PSALMS. 83
whicli has been more than once reprinted. I quote
from the Cologne edition of 1619, in three folio
volumes, double columns, with an average of 900
pages in each. He treats very fully on the literal
and grammatical sense of the Psalms: the mystical
interpretation^ though by no means ..foXS^t,ten^ is__
given in such a manner as to be far less Yaluable.
He would appear to have studied most laboriously
the writers of*-later centuries ; and it is in this point
of view that he is especially useful. On the whole,
this is the best of the learned commentaries on the
Psalms ; and I owe very much to it.
(15.) Balthazar Corderius (he lived from 1592 to corderius.
1650,) also a Jesuit Priest, has given us, in three
volumes, an Expositio Patrum Grcecorum in Psalmos.
He discovered in the library of the Elector of Ba-
varia a Greek Commentary on the Psalms, which he
afterwards learnt, from a Roman MS., to be the com-
position of Theodorus of Heraclea. This Theodorus,
who died in a.d. 355, was a leading Bishop among
the better sort of Semi-Arians, and one of those who,
afterwards, when the final choice had to be made,
returned to the Church. His work on the Psalms
has been much and deservedly praised by S. Jerome,
and other ecclesiastical writers. Besides this, Cor-
derius availed himself of one or two other Greek
MSS., containing Catenae on the Psalms from various
Fathers. His work is thus arranged : each Psalm has
first the LXX. Version, with a paraphrase of Theo-
dorus; then a commentary of the same writer; then
a valuable Catena, in which Theodoret, Eusebius,
Didymus, Origen, and Ammonius, are the authors
principally cited ; and lastly, a commentary of Cor-
derius himself, very excellent, and especially useful
from its quotation of detailed passages from Primi-
tive and Mediaeval writers, bearing on particular
verses, but not included in distinct commentaries on
the Psalter. The life and unction of these notes are
very edifying.
These, then, are the commentators on the whole
Psalter whose works I have, in the following work,
•employed. Those from whom I have made the most
84
PRIMITIVE AND MEDIAEVAL
The above
commenta-
tors how re-
ferred to in
the side-
notes.
frequent quotations are referred to in the side-notes
by the following initials : —
A. S. Augustine.
Ay. Michael Ayguan.
B. S. Bruno of Aste.
C. Cassiodorus.
Cd. Balthazar Corderius.
D. C. Dionysius the Carthusian.*
G. Gerhohus.
H. S. Hilary.
L. Lorinus.
Lu, Ludolphus.
P. Parez.
R. Bemigius of S. Germanus.
Z. Euthymius Zigabenus.
Expositors
on part of
the Psalter.
Of those commentators who have written on select
Psalms only, these have been my chief guides : —
(1.) S. Hilary (+ 368) has left a commentary on
Psalms 1, 2, 10, 14, 15, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58,
59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 92, 119,
120, 121, &c., to the end. These expositions are
well worthy the reputation of that great Father. The
fault which S. Jerome imputes to him, of sentences
too long and involved, and a style too florid and in-
tricate, is more noticeable here than perhaps in any
other of his works : nevertheless, the exposition is
truly valuable ; and its frequent allusions to the Di-
vinity of our Lord, so natural in one of the pillars of
orthodoxy against the Arians, add greatly to its im-
portance. If fewer references will be found to it in
the following pages than its intrinsic merit would
seem to demand, the reason is that subsequent writers
have, in copying from S. Hilary, developed and im-
proved upon his meaning ; and I have thus alluded
to them rather than to him.
(2.) S. Cyril of Alexandria (+ 444.) Mr. Philip
Pusey, who is engaged on that desideratum, an edi-
tion of the whole works of this saint, sent me, with
the greatest kindness, the proofs of yet unpublished
fragments on the Psalms. The commentary em-
COMMENTATORS ON THE PSALMS. 85
braces Psalm 85, 87, 89, 91 to 106 inclusive, and a
few further fragments.
(3.) S. Prosper (+ 463) has left a commentary on
the last fifty Psalms. The_hyper-Auo[ustinianism of
this author agrees but ill with the overflowing and
superabounding grace of the Psalms ; and T do not
think that any commentator will derive much advan-
tage from the study of this.
(4.) S. Gregory the Great (-f 606.) His exposi-
tion of the seven penitential Psalms is most beautiful
and touching. Would that he had thus treated the
whole Psalter !
(5.) S. Alcuin (+ 804,) on the Penitential and
Gradual Psalms. Not of very much value.
(6.) Walafrid Strabo (+ 849.) Though chiefly a
compilation, yet his exposition on the first twenty
Psalms is well put together, and well repays study.
(7.) Erchempertus (+ 890.) His commentary on
some few of the Psalms combines so much pathos and
earnestness, as to make one wish that this good
monk had extended his labours in the same field.
(8.) Oddo of Aste (+ 1120.) This pious monk
has left a commentary on Psalms 1 to 44, and 86 to
110, written at the instigation of, and dedicated to,
S. Bruno of Aste. It is to be found in the Biblio-
theca Patrum, vol. xx., p. 1816 to 1871. Though it
has constantly lain at my side, I cannot say that it
has aff'orded me more assistance than one or two
pithy remarks, acknowledged in their place.
(9.) Hugh of S. Victor (+ 1130.) He has only
left an exposition of the most obscure verses of the
Psalter ; but that is so truly valuable, as to make one
regret that he did not extend his labours to the whole
book. Perhaps, in proportion to its size, no com-
mentary has yielded so much to the following pages
as that of this great light of the Abbey of S. Victor.
(10.) S. Bernard (+ 1157.) His exquisite com-
mentary on the 90th Psalm leads one to wish that
this great Father had laboured on the whole Psalter.
(11.) S. Thomas Aquinas (+ 1274.) The com-
mentary on the Psalms of this great doctor of the
Church does not extend beyond the 50th : it was
86 PRIMITIVE AND MEDI.^VAL
perhaps interrupted by his premature death. I have
frequently consulted it ; and when I read it through
in the year 1843, was very much struck with the ad-
ditional proof it gives of what we know from other
sources to have been the case, — the exceeding popu-
larity of S. Thomas in preaching to the poor. This
exposition, thrown into modern language, and with a
modern turn to its illustrations, would, I doubt not,
be exceedingly relished by an earnest but illiterate
congregation. The depth of many of the observa-
tions, and the perspicuity and accuracy of the doc-
trine, is, as one should expect, fully worthy of the
Angelic Doctor.
(12.) Pierre D'Ailly (+ 1420,) and
(13.) John Gerson (+ 1429,) both wrote on the
Penitential Psalms ; and both with an unction and a
fervour which contrast strangely with their hard,
polemic, harassed lives. Many a beautiful thought
have they furnished for the following pages.
These, then, are the principal authors who have
professedly commented on the Psalms, to whom my
own pages are indebted; but it is needless to add
that I have availed myself in no small degree of the
detached remarks of Primitive and Mediseval writers,
generally quoting them in the margin when I have
done so.
Greater help, however, even than from these, has
been derived from the Office-books of those various
branches, both of the Eastern and Western Church,
to which the title-page refers. The various Anti-
phons. Responses, Hymns, Odes, — Anthems, under
whatever name, are so completely based upon, and so
thoroughly explanatory of, the Psalter, as to become
its most valuable commentators, and often to suggest,
in one brief touch, more than half a page of formal
Commentary might furnish of illustration. The books
on which I have most depended are, (the Roman it
is needless to particularise :)
In the Eastern Church : — The Pentecostarion,
(Venice, 1837,) the Triodion (Venice, 1839;) the
Menseon, (Venice, 1820,) and the Anthologion (Ve-
nice, 1838.)
COMMENTATORS ON THE PSALMS. 87
In the Syriac Church : — The offices^ as given in
Assemani^s Codex Liturgicus; and the hymus of S.
Ephraem, as translated in the '^ Library of the Fa-
tners/'
In the MozARABic : — The Breviary, as edited by
Archbishop Lorenzana, (Madrid, 1773 :) the Missal,
as edited by Arevalus, (Rome, 1804.)
In the Ambrosian : — The Breviary, (Milan, 1841 :)
the Missal, (Milan, 1780.)
In the Gallican Church : — Mabillon, De Liturgid
Gallicand, (Paris, 1675,) and the edition now in
course of publication by Mr. Forbes and myself,
(Burntisland, 1854.)
Of Modern Gallican Breviaries, — whence many
and many a beautiful idea is to be gleaned in their
parallelism of the Psalter with the New Testament :
principally that of Paris, (1758:) Bouen, (1728:)
Amiens, (1746 :) Saint Omer, (1785 :) Blois, (1737 :)
Coutances, (1741.)
In the Arguments, Arg. Thomas, means the col-
lection of arguments published by Thomasius, tom. ii.
p. xlvi., gathered from different MSS. by himself.
Many of them are of extreme antiquity and value ;
and I have preferred to give them entire, though
some few of the allusions I do not understand.
These may be considered the principal sources
whence the following pages are derived : may the
many happy hours spent over them by the writer be
not altogether without their profit to the Reader I
As the Collects subjoined to the Psalms have, for
the sake of brevity, their conclusions marked by
figures, it is proper here to give the correct termina-
tions : adding to each the numeral by which it is re-
ferred to subsequently.
If the Collect be addressed to God the Father, the
proper ending is : Through Jesus Christ our Lord,
Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy
Ghost, One God, world without end. Amen. (1.)
88 COMMENTATORS ON THE PSALMS.
If our Lord has previously been mentioned;
Through the same our Lord Jesus Christ^ Who
liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost_,
One God, world without end. Amen. (2.)
If the Holy Ghost has been previously mentioned :
like (1.) or (2.) as the case may be, only, Who liveth
and reigneth with Thee and the same Holy Ghost,
&c. (3.) (4.)
If the prayer be addressed to God the Son : Who
livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy
Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen. (5.)
If mention have been made of the Holy Ghost :
Who livest and reignest with the Father and the
same Spirit, &c. (6.)
A variation of (5.) when heaven is mentioned at
the end: Where with the Father and the Holy
Ghost, Thou livest and reignest, ever one God,
world without end. Amen. (7.)
A variation of (6.) : Where with the Father and
the same Spirit, &c. (8.)
When the prayer is addressed to the Blessed Tri-
nity : Who livest and reignest, one God, world
without end. Amen. (9.)
In exorcisms and benedictions (where the Son is
mentioned :) Who shall come to judge the quick and
dead, and the world by fire. Amen. (10.)
The Mozarabic ending is — at the conclusion of
the prayer, without any other termination : Amen.
Through Thy mercy, O our God, Who art ' blessed,
and livest and governest all things, to ages of ages.
Amen. (11.)
The Ambrosian : Through Jesus Christ, Thy Son,
our Lord :
Who liveth and reigneth with Thee
R. And the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world
without end. Amen. (12.)
A
COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS,
PSALM I.
Aegument.
Aeg. Thomas. That Cheist is the Tree of Life. This Psalm
treats generally of all the Saints, but more especially of Joseph, who
buried the Bodj' of the Loed, That the eye is to be used modestly.
Veneeable Bede. In the first part the prophet expounds the
virtue of the holy Incarnation. The second shows that the wicked-
ness of tlie ungodly shall receive its due recompense iu the day of
Judgment.
Aeabic Psaltee. The beauty of holiness and the hope of another
■world.
Vaeious Uses.
Oregorian. Ferial. Sunday : 1st Noctum. [Easter Day : Matins.
Invention and Exaltation of the Cross : 1st Nocturu. Corpus Christi:
Ist Nocturn. Common of One and of Many Martyrs : Ist Nocturn.
Common of Confessors : 1st Nocturn. Feasts of SS. Agnes and
Agatha : 1st Nocturn. Feasts of the Crown of Thorns and of the
Spear and Nails : 1st Nocturn. All Saints : 1st Nocturn.]
Monastic. Ferial. Monday : Prime. [ Whitsun Day : 1st Noc-
turn. Invention and Exaltation of the Cross : 1st Nocturn.
Common of One and of Many Martyrs : Ist Nocturn. Common of
Confessors : 1st Nocturn. Feaats of SS. Agnes and Agatha : 1st
Nocturn. All Saints : 1st Nocturn.]
Parisian. Sunday : 1st Nocturn.
Lyons. Sunday : 1st Nocturn.
Anibrosian. Monday of the First "Week : Matins.
Quignon. Sunday : Matins.
Antiphons.
Oregorian. Ferial. Serve the Loed * with fear, and rejoice
unto Him with reverence. [Common of a Confessor: Blessed is
the man whose meditation is in the law of the Loed ; his delight
shall remain day and night, and all things whatsoever he doeth shall
prosper. Common of One Martyr : In tlie law of the Loed * was
his delight day and night. Common of many Martyrs : By the
rivers of waters he planted the vine of the just, and in the law of
the Loed was their delight. Easter Day : I am that I am, * and
My counsel is not with the wicked, and in the law of the Loed is My
90
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
S. Peter
Chrysolo-
gus. Serm.
44.
Ay.
D. C.
S.Matt.iv.
3.
S. John vii.
4.
S. Mark xv.
32.
S. Matt. vii.
13.
Ay.
P.
S. James i.
12.
deliglit. Alleluia. Corpus Christi : The Loed gave the fruit of
salvation to the taste at the season of His death. All Saints : The
Lord knoweth the w^ay of the righteous * who meditate in His law
day and night.]
Monastic. [Whitsun Day : Suddenly there was a sound from
heaven as of a rushing mighty wind. Alleluia. Alleluia.]
Parisian. Blessed is the man * that hath not walked in the
counsel of the imgodly, but his meditation is in the law of the Loed
day and night.
Mozarabic. In the law of the Loed was his delight, day and
night : in His law shall he meditate.
This Psalm is the preface of the Psalter, the Psalm of
Psalms, the title of the whole book ; and as the key of a
palace, by opening the outer gate, gives access to innumer-
able chambers, so this gives admission to the mystery of all
Psalms. And it has no title, because Jesus Christ, our
Head, of Whom it altogether treats, " is before all things,
and by Him all things subsist."
1 Blessed is the man, that hath not walked in
the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of
sinners : and hath not sat in the seat of the scornful.
Blessed. As the prize is proclaimed before the conflict,
so this book, the companion of the Church to the end of
time in her great conflict, opens with the proclamation of her
great reward, — blessedness. Both David and the Son of
David begin their teaching with a blessing ; only whereas
here we have but one, the commencement of the Sermon on
the Mount gives us eight.
Blessed is the man. IS'amely, He Who is both God and
Man, Jesus Christ. The counsel of the ungodly was often-
times offered to Him. Satan said, " Command that these
stones be made bread :" His friends said, " If Thou do these
things, show Thyself to the world:" the Chief Priests said,
"Let Christ, the King of Israel, descend now from the
Cross, that we may see and believe." The way of sinners
was open before Him ; hut He warned against it when He
said, " Enter ye in at the strait gate ; for wide is the gate
and broad is the way that leadeth unto destruction." Before
the seat of the scornful He stood indeed, when He testified
of Himself that for this end came He into the world, that He
should bear witness of the truth. But when He sat, it was
in the seat of teaching, as when He instructed the multitude
in the Sermon on the Mount ; or in the seat of love, as when
He was known to the two disciples in breaking of bread ; and
finally He shall sit in the scat of Judgment, when He shall
come in the glory of the Father and of the holy Angels.
Thou, therefore, O Christian, if thou seekest the name of
blessed, roj)el these temptations as thy Master did ; for it is
written, " Blessed is the man that endureth temptation."
And when thou hast so repelled them, remember to return
PSALM I. 91
the blessing to Him from Whom it came, according to that
saying, "Blessed be the Name of His Majesty for ever." ^^- ^^^^^- '^•
Notice the gradual way in which a man grows hardened in s. Bonaven-
sin. First, he walks, or rather departs in the counsel of the t^^a, vUi.
ungodly ; departs from God, and goes to himself; leaves the *' ^'
Fountain of all wisdom, for the advice of him that is the
source of all iniquity. Secondly, he stands in the way of ^y,
sinners, as opposed to the Way of Life, which is Christ.
Where note : he saith not, who hath not been in the way of
sinners, for in that way all were born ; but, who hath not
stood in it, after being once removed from it by holy Baptism.
Lastly, which is more than walking or standing, tnere is the
sitting in the seat of the scornful ; the tlirowing in our lot
and portion with tliem here, because we choose it, whose lot
and portion will be ours hereafter, whether we choose it or
not. And, again ; there are three other steps of guilt : the
ungodly, namely, those that forget God; the sinners, ih-O^e p^
who commit open and grievous sins ; the scornful, those who
boast themselves in their wickedness, and ridicule that which
is good. Where observe, that the three miracles of raising
the dead which our Lord performed set forth to us His H.
power over all these three degrees of sin. Jairus' daughter
was just dead ; there is the state of the ungodly. The son of
the widow of Naiu was already carried out of the city ; where
we have the sinners, who are removed from the company of
the faithful, Lazarus had been dead four days, and was vieyra.
buried ; and he is a type of the scorners, who are dead and
buried in trespasses and sins. And further, notice, that of
these three, Lazarus is the only one that is mentioned by
name ; just as it has oftentimes pleased God to make the
greatest of sinners into the great lights of His Church.
^Blessed is the man. The word man does not here denote _
sex, but maturity of reason, wherefore the Church does not he- carthus.
sitate to use the Psalm of certain Virgin Martyrs. And as the
Psalmist tells us of the man Adam, who was wretched because
he walked in the counsel of the ungodly, and thereby drew
all men into condemnation, so he points to the coming Man,
Whose obedience shall be rewarded with blessedness above
human thought. 2'he way of sinners. This world is that
way, observes S. Augustine, the broad way which leadeth to A,
destruction. The seat of the scornful. The LXX. and Vul- Ric. Hamp.
gate read the seat of pestilence. Sitting, that is, as a teacher g Aibertus
of evil, corrupting by precept and example, in contrast with Magnus.
Christ, Whose words are healing to the soul. Pride is that
seat, remarks another, and he only sits not there who desires _ .
not the kingdom of this world. Or, better, it is heretical s. pTt."" ^^'
doctrine, whose " word will eat as doth a canker," especially Chrysoi.
the false philosophy of Gentile paganism.] ^^tm, xhv.
2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord : and
in his law will he exercise himself day and night.
92 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Ay. Sut Ms delight is in the law of the Lord. Here we have
three steps in holiness, which in some degree answer to the
p three stages of sin. And in the respective position of the
^' two verses we learn that the beginning of God's fear is to
depart from sin, — its progress, to do good ; as it is written,
isa. i. 16. " Cease to do evil, learn to do well." To delight in the law
of the LoED ; this is much : and yet this, after a sort, is done
by the wicked : " They take delight in drawing near to
Isa. iviii. 2. GrOD." To meditate on His law by day, — that is, in the day
of prosperity, is more ; and yet of this Satan may say, " Doth
Job i 0 Jo^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ nought ?" But most of all is it to do so in
A the night of adversity. So it was with the Man of Whose
^* blessedness the Psalm treats. He so meditated on the law
of His Fathee in the same night in which He was betrayed,
that whereas He might presently have called for more than
twelve legions of angels. He would not, saying, " How then
xxJi.^54. shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that^ thus it must be ?"
* Again, He so meditated on it in that night when " there was
x'xviL 45. darkness over all the earth from the sixth hour till the ninth
hour," that it is written of Him, " After this, Jesus, knowing
s^ John XIX. ^j^^^ ^ij ^j^i^gg y^Qxe now accomplished, that the Scriptures
might he fulfilled, saith, I thirst." And in these three steps
Tj to, or degrees of, holiness, we are reminded of that Blessed
•"• Trinity, to Whose Presence they lead.
^ IHis delight is in the laiv. Yet the Apostle saith that " the
1 Tim i 9 ^^^ ^^ ^^^ made for a righteous man." But it is one thing
to be in the law, another to be under the law. He who is i7i
the law, deals according to the law, he who is under the law
is dealt with by the law. The one is free, the other a bonds-
s. Alb. Mag. man. Day and night. This is, in its fulness, true of Chbist
only. Who kept God's law sleeping as well as waking, and of
Cant. V. 2. Whom it is therefore said, " I sleep, but my heart waketh."]
3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the water-
side : that will bring forth his fruit in due season.
And he shall he like a tree planted hy the loater-side. And
s. Peter here, leaving for a moment the Loed, David turns to the
^hrysoio- servant. He, the true follower of Cheist, shall be like
the tree planted by the water-side, which is Cheist Himself,
— the " green tree," on which His enemies did such things,
and which they hewed down, but which now flourishes in the
midst of the Paradise of God. Thus it is said that the true
servant of his Loed shall be transformed into the image of
S. Bernard. ^^^ LoED. Planted hy the water-side. For as rivers flow
Serm. de ' through valleys and low countries, so the root of all holy
Bened II. actious is nourished by humility. And here also the tears of
^ ' repentance are set forth to us, that water-side by which the
de vuia-^'' greatest of God's Saints have most loved to be planted.
nova, i. 7, Planted: and that by the Hand of God : as it is written,
*7. " ^^ivery tree which My heavenly Fatiiee hath not planted
grus, Serm.
44
PSALM I. 93
shall be plucked up." In due season : for it is not enough s. Matth.
that our works be good, unless they be also done at the right ^^'- '^•
time. As one says, " God loveth adverbs ; it raattereth less
to Him that a thing be good, than that it be well." And this
also was fulfilled in the Man of Whom we speak. Who Him-
self testified, " My time is not yet come, but your time is g'
alway ready."
[He, Cheist Jesus Himself, shall he like a tree, in His p^f- "*'""
Humanity, planted hy the water-side, because hypostatically
united to the Godhead of the Son, which flows from the Fa-
ther, that will bring forth His fruit, the Holy Ghost, Who
has mission from Him, in due season, after His own Resur-
rection and Ascension. The Monastic Breviary, prefixing,
on the Exaltation of the Cross, the words of Venantius Fortu-
natus as the Antiphon to this Psalm :
Sweetest wood, and sweetest iron, The Hymn,
Sweetest weight is huncj on thee, l^*''/'**
® ^ ' Regis.
teaches us that the Cross itself is the Tree which brought
forth its fruit in God's own season, as the same poet sings in
another hymn :
When at length the sacred fulness The Hymn,
Of the appointed time was come, Pange
This world's Maker left His Fathee, ^'"^"•
Sent the heavenly mansion from.
And the verse will then tell us of conformity to the Passion
as the true mark of a Saint.
Others again, while referring the Tree to Cheist, find in A.
the waterside a reference to the Church, intended for all
nations, according to that saying, " The waters are peoples, Rev.xvii.is.
and multitudes, and nations, and tongues," and i\i(i fruit then
denotes the local Churches founded in many lands by the
Apostles., They who take the Tree to represent a Saint, ex- §; Bonaven-
plain the water as the gifts of the Holy Ghost, free, cooling, tiira.
satisfying.]
4 His leaf also shall not wither : and look, what-
soever he doeth, it shall prosper.
His leaf also shall not withei\ As the fruit signifies Ay.
works, so the leaves set forth words. The leaves of the tree,
the words of Him that spake as never man spake, " are for
the healing of the nations." His leaf, not leaves ; for all the
words of Cheist are comprehended in this one, namely, —
Love. Shall not icither. Wherefore, O servant of God,
knowing that for every idle word men speak they shall give p
account, take heed, lest thou off'end with thy tongue, and re-
member that thy Master said, " Heaven and earth shall pass g, Matth.
away,butJ/^worc?« shall not pass away." Whatsoever he doeth is.
Rev. xxii. 2,
94
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Rev. vi. 2.
Ay.
Jer. xlvi.
27
S. Thomas
de Villa-
nova, ii.
653 C.
G.
Rupert.
S. John
xviii. 6.
S. Greg. M.
Ezek. i. 4.
Ric. Hamp.
Haymo.
Eph. iv. 14.
it shall prosper. It shall indeed. " He went forth conquering
and to conquer." " The help that is done upon eartli, He
doeth it Himself." Shall prosper. There are three kinds of
prosperity : that of fools, which destroys them ; that of the
godly, which may be a snare to them ; and that of the
blessed, the only true prosperity, when, as the Prophet
writes, " Jacob shall return, and be at rest and at ease, and
, none shall make him afraid." And thus David lays down
six conditions necessary for the righteous man, and which
were fulfilled by Him, Who died at the sixth hour of the
sixth day. He must depart from sin {hath not walked in
the counsel of the ungodly^ must love the commandments of
God {his delight is in the law of the Lord ;) be conversant in
them {in His law doth he meditate,) fulfil them {he hringeth
forth his fruit,) teach them {his leaf also shall not ivi-
ther,) persevere unto the end {whatsoever he doeth it shall
prosper.)
5 As for the ungodly, it is not so with them : but
they are like the chaff, which the wind scattereth
away from the face of the earth.
Now follows the wretched estate of Christ's enemies. It
is not so loith them. They reviled ; the Man Whose blessed-
ness is set forth, reviled not again ; they gave Him vinegar
and gall ; He feeds the sons of men with His own Body and
Blood. They set on Him a crown of thorns ; He prepares
for them a crown of glory. " I fed thee with manna in the
wilderness, and thou gavest Me to drink of vinegar and gall,"
say the Eeproaches on Good Friday. They are like the
chaff which the wind scattereth aivay. " As soon, then, as He
had said unto them, I am He, they went backward and fell
to the ground." The wind. Like that great and strong wind
of old time, which rent the mountains and brake in pieces the
rocks before the Lord, so this shall at the Last Day utterly
destroy those whose hearts were as hard as rocks. This is
that whirlwind which Ezekiel saw coming " out of the north,
with a great cloud and a fire enfolding itself." Scattereth
away from the face of the earth. As it is written in another
Psalm, " Let them be as the dust before the wind, and the
angel of the Lord scattering them." And it is also written in
the Book of Revelation how the ungodly shall desire the
mountains to fall on them and the hills to cover them from
the wrath of the Lamb.
IChaff. The Vulgate reads dust, which the wicked are like,
because unwatered by the grace of the Holy Spirit, not
united by any bond of charity, " carried about with every
wind of doctrine," and by every temptation of the devil, they
are scattered away from the face of the earth, that is, from
the Church, the solid ground of the truth, which bears fruit
for God.]
de
PSALM I. 95
6 Therefore the ungodly shall not be able to stand
in the judgment : neither the sinners in the congre-
gation of the righteous.
Therefore the ungodly shall not he able to stand in the
judgment. The Godly did stand in the judgment of that uu- Rupert,
righteous governor ; and by so standing for a vrhile there,
was exalted to sit down at the right hand of glory for ever.
Shall not he able to stand in the judgment. In one sense they
certainly shall stand in it, as it is written, " We must all ap- |- ^^•^.
pear before the judgment-seat of God." But either they shall 57 ™e.^''
not stand in it, as being already judged, as it is written, *' He s. John iii.
that believeth not is condemned already ;" or they shall not so ^^•
stand in it as to abide it, so as to be justified in it, so as to be j g p^^ .^,
delivered from it. "If the righteous scarcely be saved, is,'
where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear ?" Neither
the sinners in the congregation of the righteous. In this world Moral.^xxvi.
they do stand in that congregation. The wheat and the 24.
tares grow together till the harvest. The net that is cast into
the sea gathers bad fish as well as good. The man without
the wedding-garment comes into the palace of the king as
well as he that is arrayed in it. But then it shall not be so.
The sheep on the right hand, the goats on the left ; the good
fish gathered into vessels, the bad fish cast away ; the wheat
housed in the barn, the chaff burnt up with fire unquenchable ;
the other guests sitting down at the marriage supper of the
Lamb, he without the wedding garment cast into outer dark-
ness. The congregation of the righteous. Gathered together,
that is, by the merits and by the strength of Him Who is Rupert,
only righteous, and therefore truly His congregation.
7 But the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous :
and the way of the ungodly shall perish.
Jiut the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous. God is ^y,
said to know things in two ways : in the way, as the school-
men speak, of cognition, and in the way of complacence. By
the one He knows all things, bad as well as good : as it is
written, " Thou only knowest the hearts of the children of ' ^^"^^ v'*'-
men;" and again, "He knew what was in man." By the l^john ii.
other. He knows so as to approve : and in this sense it is said 25.
to the fooHsh virgins, " Verily I say unto you, I know you xkJ^*?***
not." Knoweth the way of the righteous : and that will end
in their knowing Him as He is. The way of the ungodly shall ^•
j>erish : not the ungodly, lest it should seem that no place
were left for repentance.
[Wherefore :
^ Glory be to the Father, Who knoweth the Way of the
righteous ; glory be to the Son, Who is the Way of the
righteous, the Man Who is blessed, and prosperous in what-
96
A. COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
MSS. Tho-
mas.
Mozarabic
Collect for
the 5th Sun-
day in Ad-
vent.
Mozarabic
Collect for
S. Martin.
D. C.
soever He doeth ; glory be to the Holy Ghost, Who is the
Wind that scattereth the ungodly.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be : world
without end. Amen,]
Collects.
Make us, O Loed, like a most fruitful tree, planted in Thy
garden ; and vouchsafe that we, being watered by the showers
of Thy grace, may bring forth to Thee plenteousness of fruit
in due season. Through (1.)
O Loed God, with Whom is the fulness of salvation and
the perfection of blessedness ; Grant that we may pass our
time both by day and by night in the meditation of Thy law,
so that, like a fruitful tree planted by the rivers of Thy grace,
we may bring forth fruit here, and may be crowned with
glory hereafter. (11.)
Grant, O Loed, that we, meditating on Thy law with our
whole hearts, may bring forth that fruit which Thy saints
and Confessors bore in their several generations : so that we,
following their example here, may be partakers of their glory
hereafter. (11.)
[O God, the author of all good things, replenish us, we be-
seech Thee, with Thy grace, that our will may ever be directed
in Thy law, that, by Thine inspiration, we may so meditate in it
day and night, as to attain the fruit of everlasting joy. (1.)]
PSALM II.
Aegument.
Aeg. Thomas. That Cheist shall receive all the nations as His
heritage from the Fathee. Of the gathering together of the wicked
in the Passion of the Loed. The voice of Cheist in His Passion and
concerning His Nativity : and against him who blasphemes the Pro-
vidence of God, and in accusation of the wicked. This Psalm is to
be read with the Gospel of Luke. The voice of the Fathee and of
the Apostles and of Cheist. At the head should be written :
Cheist saith concerning His Passion and His Power : —
Ven. Bede. David is by interpretation, Mighty in hand, or
Desirable, which can be said of none more fitly, than of the omni-
potent Cheist, Who is verily most Mighty, and exceedingly to
be desired by His people. The Prophet here speaks of His Pas-
sion, and the Loed Himself is about to speak. In the Hebrew,
this Psalm hath no title, but is joined to that which precedes, and
makes with it one Psalm : which begins in blessedness and ends
also in blessedness. It is divided into four portions. In the first,
the Prophet addresses the Jews on the Passion of Cheist : " Why
do the heathen," &c. Next, concerning the madness of His judges,
" Let us break," &c. In the third, the Savioue speaks of His Al-
mighty kingdom and ineffable generation : as far as human nothing-
PSALM II. 97
ness can comprehend : The Lord said unto Me. Fourthly, the Pro-
phet speaks and warns the people that, acknowledging the Majesty
of the LoED, they should embrace the Christian faith : Be loise
notOf Sfc.
EusEBirs OF C^SAEEA. A prophecy of Cheist, and of the call-
ing of the nations.
Aeabic Psaltee. a prophecy of David concerning Cheist the
LoED, and the calling of the nations.
Vaeious Uses.
Gregorian. Ferial. Sunday : I. Noctum. [Q-ood Friday : I.
Nocturn. Easter Day : I. ]S'octurn. Invention and Exaltation of
the Cross : I. Nocturn. Feast of Spear and Nails : I. Nocturn.
Feasts of SS. Agnes and Agatlia : I. Nocturn. Common of One and
Many Martyrs : I. Nocturn. Common of Confessors : I. Nocturn.]
Monastic. Monday : Prime. [As Gregorian, except on Easter
Day.]
Parisian. Sunday : I. Nocturn.
Lyons. Sunday : I. Nocturn.
Amhrosian. Monday of the First Week : Matins.
Quignon. Friday : Prime.
Antiphons.
Oregorian. Ferial : Serve the Loed * with fear, and rejoice unto
Him with reverence. [Good Friday : The kings of the earth stood
up, and the rulers took counsel together, against the Loed, and
against His Anointed. Easter Day : I desired of My Fathee,
Alleluia. He gave Me the Gentiles, Alleluia, for an inheritance,
Alleluia. Common of Many Martyrs : The Loed proved the elect
as gold in the furnace, and received them as burnt offerings for ever-
more. Common of Confessors : Blessed is this saint, who trusted
in the Lobd, preached the law of the Loed, was set upon His holy
hill.]
Parisian. Serve the Loed * and rejoice before Him : take hold
of instruction.
Mozarabic. Be wise, now, therefore, O ye kings ; be learned, ye
that are judges of the earth : serve the Loed with fear.
According to some, this and the first Psalm form but one ;
which thus begins alike and ends in blessedness ; begins with
the blessedness of the Head, — blessed is the Man, — ends with
the blessedness of the members, — blessed are all they that put
their trust in Him. S. Paul, indeed, in his sermon at Antioch
in Pisidia, says : "as it is also written in the Second Psalm, ^^^ ^jjj 33
Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee." But the
better MSS. have, " in i\ie first Psalm :" and, according to a
capital rule of criticism, were the MS. authorities only equal,
this, as being the stranger and more difficult reading, ought
to be preferred. The probability, therefore, seems that, in
Apostolic times, these two were really reckoned as one. It
has been well said, that it is almost presumptuous to com-
ment on this Psalm after an Apostle.
F
98 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
1 Why do the heathen so furiously rage together :
and why do the people imagine a vain thing?
Why do the heathen so furiously rage together ? In the
literal sense, the Philistines, who before David was established
in his kingdom, came up again and again to attack him : but
^Y, spiritually, Herod, Pontius Pilate, and the Roman soldiers,
who indeed furiously raged against our Loed, both in the
judgment seat and on Mount Calvary. And the people, that
is, Uie Jews, imagined a vain thing, when they took counsel
s. Matth. how they " might entangle Him," Who spake as never man
xxii. 15. spake, " in His talk ;" how they might kill the Prince of Life ;
how they might secure the Mighty GrOD by a few soldiers
and a little wax. Notice, that there is no distinct mention
here made of the Jews : Why do the heathen, — why do the
people ? !For verily they deserved to lose all distinct and ex-
press recognition as a peculiar nation, when they had thus
G-, sunk below the wickedness of the heathen in crucifying the
LoED of Glory. Imagine a vain thing : as God's enemies
always, when taking counsel against God's people. "Ye
Gen. xiv. 20. thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good to bring
to pass as it is this day, to save much people alive."
Arnobius. [^ ^^*^ thing, turning still to the beggarly elements of
the vanished Law, its ceremonies and sacrifices, after the
types had been fulfilled, and the kingdom of Cheist set up.]
3 The kings of the earth stand up, and the rulers
take counsel together : against the Lord, and against
his Anointed.
The Icings of the earth, Pontius Pilate and Herod, stand
tip, and the Bulers, the chief Priests and the Pharisees,
s^Ath^*' ^^' ^^ counsel together. So in another Psalm : " Princes also
959, c. <lid sit and speak against me." Again, Kings ^of the earth
may well signify the Prince of the powers of the air : who, of
^* a surety, now lords it over the children of men. Against His
Anointed. Where notice, that David was anointed King three
times. 1. Secretly, in his father's house, by Samuel. 2. In
Hebron, by the men of Judah over that tribe only. 3. In
Ay. the same city, over all Israel. In like manner, Cheist may
be said to have been anointed three times. In the first place,
secretly and in His Fathee's house ; namely, by that secret
foreknowledge of God, before all worlds, that He should be
the lledeemer of man. Next, when He was sent into the
world, and declared to be the Son of God with power ; but
still over the house of Judah only, that is, over His true ser-
Heb. ji. 8. vants : because, as the Apostle says, " we see not yet all
things put under Him." But thirdly. He shall have all things
subdued unto Him at the end of the world, as Israel, no less
than Judah, finally submitted to David, according to that
PSALM II. 99
sapng ; " He must reign till He hath put all enemies under j cor. xv.
His feet." 25. *
3 Let us break their bonds asunder : and cast
away their cords from us.
Let us break their bonds asunder. This we may under- ^j.
stand in more ways than one. It may be spoken by the
enemies of Christ exhorting each other to cast off His light
yoke and His easy burden. Again, it may be spoken by
Cheist Himself, Who burst the bands of death, because it
was not possible that He should be holden of them. Again,
in another sense, there may be a reference to the ceremonial
yoke of the Jews, which the Apostles cast away, saying,
Now, therefore, why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon our Acts xv. 10.
necks, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? Theodoret.
And we may also use the words as an exhortation : Let us *• '*•>*•
break the bands of sin, the heavy yoke wherewith the wicked,
though thinking themselves free, are in reality bound. By g Ambros
bonds we are restrained from doing what we would ; by cords in Ps. cxviii.
we are made to do that which we would not.
{^Their bonds. Who are thei/ ? Some will have it that the j) q
words, uttered by the Jews, denote the Father and the Son,
since the Jews in dishonouring Christ, dishonoured His Fa- dus.^^"^"
THEE also. Others see in t^e plural word a reference to p
Christ and the Apostles. If we take the verse as the utter-
ance of the Saints, it may well refer not only to their accept-
ance of the law of liberty, but to their overthrow of Pagan Z.
idolatry. A Greek Father, most singularly of all, puts the g ^^j
words in the mouth of the Angels who were spectators of the HieS. '
Passion, expressing their eagerness to deliver their King from
His enemies.]
4 He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to
scorn : the Lord shall have them in derision.
JBTe that dwelleth in heaven. Where notice, that it is said
of our Lord, while engaged in His work on earth. He that H.
dwelleth — not that dwelt — in heaven. And so S. Thomas
teaches us in his Eucharistic hymn :
" The "Word of God, proceeding forth, The Hymn,
Yet leaving not the Father's side, Verbum ««!
And going to His work on earth, diemV'^^'
Had reached at length life's eventide." '*^' ^'^'
Shall laugh them to ^eorw, by turning all their devices to their
own confusion. " Out of the eater came forth meat, and out judges xiv
of the strong came forth sweetness." They thought to put u.
Christ to death, and by His death He destroyed death. ^
They thought to root out His Name from under heaven, and "^' *
F 2
100 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
it had dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the
world's end. They thought to bind Him in the grave, and
they did but make the truth of His Eesurrection more mani-
fest. The Lord shall have them in derision. Thou there-
fore, O Christian, take courage when thou art had in derision
of men ; remembering that the triumph of the wicked is but
short, and that the shame and contempt of which David
writes are everlasting.
5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath : and
vex them in his sore displeasure.
This verse sets forth the present and future state of the
wicked. He shall speak unto them by His Prophets, His
Apostles, His Saints ; He shall threaten them in His lorath,
D' C. yet so as to leave them time and space for repentance. But
if all this fails, — if the fig-tree, though dug about and tended,
bears no fruit, then He shall vex them in Sis sore displea-
sure, when the smoke of their torments shall go up for ever
and ever. And the Jews in the last siege of Jerusalem were
p thus vexed, when wrath came upon them to the uttermost.
Then shall Se speak unto them in His wrath : then, when the
isa. liii. 7. due time was come, and not before. For at first, " as a sheep
before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth."
6 Yet have I set my King : upon my holy hill of
Sion.
Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill. Thus He was
s. Luke owned by the wise men : thus by the thief, " Hemember me
xxiii. 42. when Thou comest into Thy kingdom :" thus in the title of
Ay. His Cross, " The King of the Jews." Of Sion. I shall have
occasion, in the Third Dissertation, to enter at great length
into the mystical distinction of Sion and Jerusalem ; and to
that section the reader is referred.
j^ [Yet have I set my King, Sfc. The LXX., Ytilgate, and
uJEthiopic, read here, putting the words into the mouth of
J .. Cheist, Yet I have been set as King by Him, Sfc. Even here,
2. '"•^^"' while proud men refused My j^oke, I was King in Adullam,
Ric. Hamp. over every one that was in distress, but now, made Head of
the Church, I am set upon the throne of Sion, over the Jewish
people first, and then over Gentiles too. Set. As David
s. Alb. Mag. made Solomon king, but not taking the honour to Himself
Heb. V. 4. before being called of God.]
7 I will preach the law, whereof the Lord hath
said unto me : Thou art my Son, this day have I be-
gotten thee.
Ay. I will preach the laio. But why one law ? Because the
end and sum of all the commandments is one, namely, love —
PSALM II. 101
the leaf, as we saw, that shall not wither : the new command- s. August.
ment given unto us, that we love one another. This day : ^i"^^^"*^' ^''
that is, from all eternity ; for in eternity there is neither ^cts xUi. 33.
past nor future. Again, on the authority of S. Paul, it alludes s. Hilar, de
more especially to the Resurrection. Nor is it wrong to refer ss. Trinit.
the words to the Baptism of the Loed, seeing that then there s^Matt.ui.
came " a Voice from heaven, saying, This is My beloved 17.
Son."
IThis day. The words apply not only to the eternal gene- vieyra.
ration of the Consubstantial Word, but to that especial day A.
when the tidings were brought by the Archangel to the
Maiden at Nazareth. Again, it may be fitly taken of the s. Luke i. 78.
Nativity itself. And, once more, this day denotes the time s. Aibertus
of grace, in which the "Dayspring from on high" was sent ^^S'l^J^-
to drive away the night of the world.]
8 Desire of me, and I shall give thee the heathen
for thine inheritance : and the utmost parts of the
earth for thy possession.
Desire of Me. And how did He desire it, but by His
death P By that sacrifice, of so infinite value that nothing is Rupert, de
too great for it to obtain. He intercedes for us in three ways. |f^o-q^^""'
Byword, — as when He said, " Father, forgive them, for they g' ^^^^
know not what they do." By deed, — as when He shows for xxUi. 34.
us the wounds in His Hands and His Feet ; and by influence,
as when He causes His people to intercede one for the other.
And this prophecy was in part fulfilled when He said, " Nei- s. John xvii.
ther pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall be- '^^'
Have on Me through their word." I shall give thee. In that s. Greg.
Christ is God, with the Father He gives all things ; in that ^°^- »xx"i'
He is Man, from the Father He receives all thmgs. The
heathen for Thine inheritance. No mention is here made of
the Jews, because, as the Apostle speaks, they counted them- ^(.^3 xiii. 46.
selves unworthy of the grace of God. And note how com- Rupert, in
pletely the Psalms and the Gospel accord. After " This day Jo»a™'
nave I begotten Thee," follows, " I shall give Thee the hea-
then for Thine inheritance." And after the Resurrection, the
Lord commanded, " Go ye, and teach all nations." xxym^g.
9 Thou shalt bruise them with a rod of iron : and
break them in pieces like a potter's vessel.
With a rod of iron. This may refer to the punishment of
the wicked in this life, when God is often pleased to bruise
them, if perchance their hearts may be softened. But in the
next, they shall he dashed in pieces like a potter s vessel, which L.
cannot be mended, because there is no place for repentance
in the grave. Or, again, if we refer the verse to the Jews, the
rod of iron is the Eoman empire, the fourth kingdom, which,
as Daniel speaks, shall be strong as iron. This was the sceptre Dan. ii. 40.
102
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Ay.
Theodoret. of iron with which they were punished, who put into the hand
i. 407. of God a reed for a sceptre.
Ric. Hamp. \IAke a potter s vessel. By taking all earthly desires and
affections away from the soul, leaving it pure and clear, as
judg.vu,20. the lamps which shone out when Gideon broke the pitchers.]
10 Be wise now therefore, O ye kings : be learned,
ye that are judges of the earth.
Be ivise now therefore, O ye hings : because He that is the
King of kings reveals Himself as the Eternal Wisdom. Be
learned, ye that are judges of the earth, by the example of
him who may be called Satan's Judge, and who killed the
Prince of Life.
[They are kings, who rule over whatever is servile and
base, and animal in their own natures ; they 2lTq judges of the
earth, who look down on earthly things, and rate them at
s. Aibertus their true worth, taught by the example of Cheist, and thus
Magnus. \^q IAavq. true pastors and rulers of the Church. And observe,
that as three qualities go to make up a good king, valour
against foes, wisdom in choosing the better part, and steadfast
intention in fulfilling an appointed end, so these qualities are
typified by the gifts which the three wise kings brought to
Cheist at His Epiphany.]
11 Serve the Lord in fear : and rejoice unto him
with reverence.
In fear. The difference between the fear of God and the
fear of the world is to be noted. The one shrinks from sin,
the other from punishment ; the one influences our thoughts,
the other only our actions. And thus the schoolmen have
distinguished four kinds of fear : the fear of man, by which
we are led rather to do wrong than to suffer evil ; servile
fear, through which we are induced to avoid sin only from
the dread of hell— and this fear, taken by itself, was, till later
and laxer times, always held to be sinful ;^ thirdly, initial
fear, in which we avoid sin partly from the fear of hell, but
partly also from the love of God, which is the fear of ordi-
nary Christians ; and filial fear, when we are afraid to dis-
obey God only and altogether from the love we bear Him,
which is the fear of Saints. Rejoice, because of the reward
laid up for God's servants ; and yet with reverence, because
we may come short of it.
12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and so ye perish
from the right way : if his wrath be kindled, (yea,
Ay.
P.
' The correction which Ay-
guan's words have undergone,
on this point, from their later
editors, is worth notice. Com-
pare the editions of 1524 and
1673.
PSALM II. 103
but a little^) blessed are all they that put their trust
in him.
Kiss : expressing thereby, as to a monarch, both love and
awe. Ye perish from the right way. Here, again, the Psalms
and the New Testament give the same warning, " Ye did ^^- ^' ''•
run well; who did hinder you?" So David and S. Paul
teach, that, after for awhile running our race with patience, P.
we may nevertheless finally be lost. And we may do this, if
His wrath he kindled, yea, but a little : therefore we are
warned against little beginnings of sin. Blessed are all they
that put their trust in Him : because, " in a little wrath I hid isa. liv. 8.
My face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting kind-
ness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Loed, thy Re-
deemer."
\_Kis^ the Son. So the Syriac alone of ancient versions,
nearest to which is Aquila, who reads, /coTo^tA^traTe ^k\€/ct«s.
The Targum, LXX., Vulgate, and ^thiopic, with but slight
variations, turn the words "III 1pt^5 ^^^^ ^^^^^ of instruction^
(LXX. Spdiaadc irotSefoj, Vulg. appreheudite disciplinam,)
and S. Jerome, following Symmachus, reads. Worship purely.
Modern critics are divided, but the Prayer Book rendering
is maintained by such scholars as De Wette, Gesenius, and ^^
Delitzsch. Take hold, as of a protection and shield in battle. ^
Take hold, as of a thing which flies from you, and must be q*
seized in the instant, though that thing be the discipline of Qfj^gn'
a chastising God, which the Christian is to take patiently, as » _
from a loving Fathee's hand.] ^*
[Wherefore :
Glory be to the Fathee, Who hath begotten the Son to-
day, that is, eternally, and hath set Him as King, and heard
His desire as that of a Priest ; Glory be to the Son, Who
desireth the Fathee for us, and possesseth the nations for an
inheritance unto the utmost parts of the earth ; Glory to the
Holy Ghost, Who is the Blessedness wherewith blessed are
all they that put their trust in Him.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be :
world without end. Amen.]
Collects.
Break in sunder, O Loed, we beseech Thee, the chains of mss. iiio-
our sins ; that, taking upon us Thy light yoke and easy bur- ™^-
den, we may serve Thee, with fear and reverence, all the days
of our life. Through (1.)
O Cheist, the WoED of the Fathee, against Whom the Mozarabic,
kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers took counsel to- Collect for
gether ; give unto Thy Church to obtain the victory which J|?y'^j^tlV
she desires over all her enemies, that the sword of her perse- vent.
' Probably reading "Q «?5.
104 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
cutors may be sheathed, and the faith of them that believe in
Thee may be established. (11.)
Mozarabic, O GoD, the FATHER of the Only -begotten Son, Who
Collect in J^ellest in heaven, and Who turnest to derision those that
° ^ ^^ ' rise up against Thy Christ, give us this special grace, that
we may never yield to adversities, to the end that the un-
belief of them that know Thee not may be confounded, and
the faith of them that cling to Thee may be crowned. (11.)
[Hear us out of Thy holy hill, O Lord our God, as we call
j\ Q unto Thee with our voice in prayer, arise to help us, that by
Thine aid we may attain salvation and everlasting blessed-
ness. Through (1.)]
PSALM III.
Title. A Psalm of David when he fled from Absalom his son.
Argument.
Aeg. Thomas. That Christ for us slept in the sleep of Death
and rose again. The voice of Christ in His Passion to the Father
concerning the Jews, Of the guile of heretics.
Ven. Bede. By David understand Christ : by Absalom Judas
Iscariot ; from whose face Christ fled either literally when He de-
parted to Mount Olivet, or spiritually when He hid from him the
light of His knowledge and love. It was meet, on account of the
correspondence between type and antitype, that both persecutors
should die in the same way, namely by hanging. Note that this
Psalm was composed after the 50th, and many others which refer to
the plots of Saul ; but is placed before them for a mystical reason :
namely, that this, which speaks of the resurrection on the third day,
should come third in order, and that which tells of remission and
the fruits of repentance, should be the 50th.^ It pertains altogether
to the Person of Christ. First, He speaks to the Father, rebuk-
ing the persecutors who spake blasphemously against Him : Lord,
hoio are they increased, Sfc. Next, His faithful people are instructed
by His example not to fear death, since they also, like their Head,
are consoled by the hope of a most certain resurrection.
Stbiao Psalter. Written by David concerning good things to
come.
Various Uses.
Gregorian. Sunday : I. Noctum. [Easter Day : I. Noctum.
Invention and Exaltation of the Cross : I. Nocturn. SS. Agnes
and Agatha : I. Noctum. Common of One and of Many Martyrs :
I. Nocturn. Common of Confessors : I. Nocturn.]
' Fiftieth, on account of the I known type of restoration and
year of jubilee being the well- | forgiveness.
PSALM III. 105
Monastic. Before Psalm xcv, : Daily.
JParisian. Sunday : I. Ifocturn.
Lyons. Sunday : I. ^N'octurn.
Amhrosian. Monday of First Week : Matins.
Quignon. Friday : Terce.
JEastern Church. Prime : Daily.
Antiphons.
Q-regorian. Serve the Loed, &e. [Easter Day : I laid me down
and slept, and rose up again, for the Loed sustained me. Alleluia.
Alleluia. Common of One Martyr : I did cry unto the Loed with
my voice, and He heard me out of His holy hill. Many Martyrs :
If they have suflered torments before men, the life of the elect is im-
mortal for evermore. Common of Confessors : Thou art my glory,
Thou art my defence, O Loed : Thou art He that liftest up my
head : Thou hast heard me from Thy holy mountain.]
Parisian. They say * to my soul, there is no help for him in his
God. But Thou, O Loed, art my defender.
This Psalm in its literal sense applies to the flight of David
from Absalom, but mystically to the Son of David ; and it is
one of the six which relate to His Passion and Resurrection.
In commenting on this Psalm I have followed almost exactly
S. Bruno of Aste. The others are the 22ud, 43rd, 64th, 83rd,
and 108th.
1 Lord, how are they increased that trouble me :
many are they which rise against me.
Literally this refers to the multitude of those that troubled
David. In his youth Saul, then the Philistines, now Absa-
lom, Ahithophel, and Shimei. But principally it relates to Ay.
C HEIST. Hoio are they increased. Herod, when he slew the
Holy Innocents, the Chief Priests and Scribes, the tempters
that feigned themselves just men : Judas, Herod, Pontius
Pilate, the band of soldiers ; the thief that railed on Him ;
the standers-by at the Cross ; yes, and the Apostles that for-
sook Him, and S. Peter that denied Him. Or we may under-
stand the word of things as well as of persons. Our Loed was
troubled in His Head, by the crown of thorns ; in His hands,
by the nails ; in His side, by the spear ; in His whole body,
by the scourge ; in His face, by the blows of the soldiers ; in
His sight, when He was blindfolded ; in His hearing, when
He was blasphemed; in Hia taste, when they gave Him
vinegar to drink. And by this multiplication of suffering ^•
was brought to pass a multiplication of Cheist's elect, even
as it is written, " Lift up Thine eyes round about and see, isa. ix. 4.
all they gather themselves together, they come to Thee;"
and a multiplication of the abodes of the blessed, for it is s. John
said, " In My Fathee's house are many mansions." Many ^^^' ^•
that rise up. As the many false witnesses that rose up
against Jesus to put Him to death.
f3
106 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
A. [Sow. So as to include even one of My chosen disciples,
without whose aid they could not have succeeded.]
2 Many one there be that say of my soul : There
is no help for him in his God.
s.Matt. S^ ^^^^ *^® Chief Priests : " He trusted in God ; let Him
xxvii. 43. deliver Him now if He will have Him ;" " let Him save Him-
xxiu^as ^^^^' -^^ ^® Christ the chosen of God." And with refer-
ence to ourselves, the craft of the devil is often displayed in
Eiias of representing a sin to which we are tempted as trifling ; after
Crete, 37, A, ^g have committed it, as so great that there is no help for us
Ay. in our God. ISoie the various helps which there are for the
Christian : the help of redemption, against the deceit of sin ;
of illumination, against ignorance; of peace which passeth
all understanding, against discord : of the hope of glory,
against present trouble.
[No help for Him in Sis God. They said it, not merely
s L^^k^^^* ^^^^ -^^ hung on the Cross, but when they rejected His
j6. ^ ^ ^^' miracles, saying, " He casteth out devils through Beelzebub."]
3 But thou J O Lord, art my defender : thou art
my worship, and the lifter up of my head.
Here we have the patience of Cheist under the revilings
of His enemies. And we, like Him, may thus look to our
Father in tribulation, as our defender, for all things work
Rom. V. 3. together for good to them that love Him : as our glory, for
C " we glory in tribulations also ;" as the lifter up of our head,
for He that lifted up our great Head from the grave will raise
Gen. xi. 20. ■^g likewise, hke the butler of Pharaoh, by His Resurrection
Rupert. on ^he third day, the true birthday of the true Pharaoh.
[Observe that the Father was the lifter up of the Son in
G. two ways. First, by exalting Him on the Cross, that He
s. John xii. might draw all men unto Him ; and then, by giving Him a
^^- Name which is above every name, so that the stone rejected
Ps.cxvm.22. of the builders was exalted to be the head of the corner.
Haymo. ^^^ ^^f^^ '^P ^^^^ head of His Saints, when He raises their
thoughts above all earthly desires to heavenly things.]
4 I did call upon the Lord with my voice : and he
heard me out of his holy hill.
Ay. Thus is the efficacy of our Lord's intercession set forth : I
8. Lukexxii. did call ; as when He said, " I have prayed for thee that thy
s'^Johnxvii ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^* '" ^^^ ^Saiii' " Neither pray I for these alone ;"
so, 24. ' a?d again, " Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast
given Me, may be with Me where I am." Holy hill; even
heaven, the hiU to which we lift our eyes, and whence our
help cometh.
1.' ° "^^ • [7 did call, saying, "Father, the hour is come; glorify
PSALM III. 107
Thy Son," and " glorify Thy Name," and He heard Jfe, an- ^ j^Yamn
swering, " I have both glorified it, and wiU glorify it again." 28.
And every Saint who caUs on God is heard out of His holy C.
hill, that is, through Chbist, Who, born of no human father, s. Alb. Mag.
is the " stone cut out without hands, which became a great ^^' "• ^'
mountain."]
5 I laid me down and slept, and rose up again :
for the Lord sustained me.
Still our blessed Loed is speaking : He laid Him down in ^ Bo„aven.
the new sepulchre. He slept His sleep of three days ; He tiira, viii.
rose up again, the third day from the dead. It was sleep in i79.
three senses ; as being voluntary, for He said, " I have power s. John x.
to lay it down, and I have power to take it again ;" as being ^^•
short, for " His soul was not left in HeU j" as being harmless, Ps. xvi. 11.
for the " Holy One saw no corruption."
[/ laid me down, is said of man, when he takes pleasure in
the thought of sin, and slept, indulging in sinful act, and for- ^" ^^^' ^*^'
getting God's commands, and rose up again, in repentance,
not of my own might, but of God's grace, for He, the Lord,
sustained me.^
6 I will not be afraid for ten thousands of the
people : that have set themselves against me round
about.
If her dear Lobd showed His love for the Church by lying
down and sleeping, and His might by rising again, surely she Q-.
needs not to be afraid of ten thousands of enemies. And
herein she further imitates that Savioue, Who, when they
cried, " Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him," ** for Heb. xii. 2.
the joy that was set before Him endured the Cross." That
have set themselves against me round about. Before, by al- s. Max,
luring into sin ; behind, by exciting memories of evil things ; Quest. 41,1.
on our right, by prosperity ; on our left, by misfortimes. ^®''
[Ten thousands of the people. This Psalm is fitly used hj
the Church in commemoration of the Martyrs, in whom this
verse was fulfilled again and again to the letter, even by
maidens and children, as they stood in the amphitheatre,
alone, unpitied, the mark for the cruel stare of myriads of
spectators, crying, Christianos ad leones.
Thus in the arena he stood by himself, one minute, not longer : J- M. Neale,
Here on this side a child ; on the other ten myriad pagans. f/s"©/ ^EpTe-
Then did the Christians in peace send up one deep supplication, sua.
God would again show His praise in the mouth of babes and of
sucklings :
Trembling nor fear none now ; but Philemon came forward a little
Nearer the mouth of the den, where the creaking winch told was
the lion.
108 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Back flew the gate : black-maned, the beast, with the roar of his
fury,
Sprang in one bound on the child, — and the child was in Abraham's
bosom.]
7 Up, Lord, and help me, O my God : for thou
smitest all miue enemies upon the cheek-bone ; thou
hast broken the teeth of the ungodly.
The Church continues to cry to God for help, drawing
from past deliverances present comfort. Note, both here and
all through the Psalms, the repetition of that holy argument,
Ps. ixiii. 8. « Because Thou hast been my helper, therefore under the
shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice."
[The teeth of the ungodly, are the evil speeches of envious
•°" and slanderous men, of whom the Apostle saith : " If ye bite
C. and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed
one of another." Or, again, the words may denote those who
cut men away from the fellowship of the just, and incorporate
them into the body of the evil, as the teeth do with food.
Opposed to these are the teeth of the righteous preachers of
the Church, who bring men into the body of Cheist, teeth
c .,1- _x which should not decay through luxury, but be white with in-
S. Albertus • • j • u -^ &..•[.' ^ . ,
Magnus. nocence, joined m chanty, even m justice, nrm m constancy,
bony in vigour, biting into sin with doctrine and truth. Of
Cant. iv. 2. ^^^^ ^^ written, " Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are
even shorn, which came up from the washing."]
8 Salvation belongeth unto the Lord : and thy
blessing is upon thy people.
Here our Loed teaches us what we are to believe ; and
what, if we believe, will be our reward. Salvation belongeth
unto the Lord ; there is the doctrine : Thy blessing is ujoon
Thy people ; there is the prayer.
[Wherefore :
Glory be to the Fathee, Who, lifting up my Head, which
is Cheist, is glorified in Him ; glory be to the Son, Who
laid Him down, and slept, and rose up again ; glory be to
the Holy Ghost, Who is the Salvation and Blessing of which
is said. Salvation is of the Loed, and Thy blessing is upon
Thy people.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be :
world without end. Amen.]
Collects.
Mss. Tho- I^o^r forth, O Loed, Thy blessing upon Thy people, that
mas. being fortified by Thy Resurrection, we may not be afraid
for ten thousands of the adversaries that set themselves
against us round ahout. Who. (5.)
PSALM IV. 109
Albeit, O LoBD, that there are many who say, that there Mozarabic,
is no help for us in our God; yet Thou art our defender, Jj^g^;"^
and the lifter up of our head : vouchsafe, therefore, to give
us the increase of hope, and to surround us with Thy per-
petual mercy. (11.)
O LoED, those are increased that trouble us ; let Thy Mozarabic,
mercy be increased above them : for then we shall fear no ^^^^'
evil, when we are defended by Thy grace. (11.)
Hear us, O Lobd, from Thy holy hill, when we cry unto Mozarabic,
Thee from the deep of our sin ; be Thou our rock and our ^*'^'^-
defence, that no kind of tempest may overthrow us, and no
violence of adversaries may destroy us. (11.)
Hear, O Loed, the confession of our sin, and vouchsafe to Mozarabic,
accept it, that as our resurrection had its beginning in Thee, ^^^^'
so from Thee our life may have its reward : that our frailty
may be so strengthened by Thy ready succour, as that our
foes may be scattered by Thy just judgment : that Thy peo-
51e, created by Thee, redeemed by Thee, regenerated by
'hee, may here set forth Thy praise and may do aU such
good works as Thou hast prepared for them to walk in. (11.)
Loed Jesu Cheist, Who didst for us undergo the sleep Mozarabic,
of death, to the end that we might never sleep in death, grant ^*'^^-
that we, who have been born again by Thy dying, may rise
from the bed of sins by Thy quickening, and may no longer
be overwhelmed by the penalty of sin, who have been re-
deemed by the price of Thy most precious Blood. (11.)
PSALM IV.
Title. English Version : To the Cliief Musician on Neginoth j
a Psahn of David. Vulgate : To the end, in the Songs, a Psalm of
David. Or according to modem critics : To the Supreme, for the
stringed instruments : a Psalm of David.
Argument.
Ae&. Thomas. That Cheist after His Passion was glorified by
God the Fathee. The prophet blameth the Jews. Of admonish-
ing our neighbour.
Ven. Bede. Cheist is the Und of the law for righteousness
unto every one that beheveth, the glorious perfection of all good ;
or as others will have it, it is said of us, " Upon whom the ends of
the world are come." Through the whole Psalm holy Mother
Church speaks. In the first part, she makes supplication that her
prayers may be heard, and blames unbeUevers, who, adoring false
G-ods, neglected the worship of the true Loed. In the second, she
admonishes the Gentile world to forsake their false superstition, and
to offer the Sacrifice of Righteousness j and in order that she may
110 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
convert them by holding forth a promise, she commemorates the
blessings which the Loed hath bestowed on Christians.
Aenobius. That the God of justice heard His Son on the Cross,
against Whom the Jews in their rage sin even to this very day.
Vaeious Uses.
Qregorian. Daily : Compline. [Corpus Christi : I. Nocturn.
Common of Confessors : II. Nocturn. Invention and Exaltation of
the Cross : II. Noctum. Feasts of Nails and Spear, Crown of
Thorns, and Shroud : II. Nocturn. All Saints : I. Nocturn.
Common of one Martyr : I. Nocturn.]
Monastic. Daily : Compline. [Corpus Christi : I. Noctum,
All Saints : I. Nocturn. Common of one Martyr : I. Nocturn.
Common of Confessors : I. Nocturn.]
Pa/risian. Sunday : Compline.
Lyons. Sunday : Compline.
Ambrosian. Daily : Compline.
Quignon. Sunday : Compline.
Eastern Church. Lauds, and Great Compline.
Antiphons.
Oregorian. Have mercy * upon me, and hearken unto my
prayer.
Gregorian and Monastic. [Corpus Christi : The faithful, in-
creased by the fruit of corn and wine, take their rest in the peace of
Cheist. All Saints : The Loed hath dealt wondrously with His
Saints, and heard them when they called upon Him. Common of
one Martyr : O ye sons of men, know this also, that the Loed hath
dealt wondrously with His Saint. Common of a Confessor : The
Loed heard His Saint when he called upon Him, the Loed heard
him, and made him to dwell in peace.]
Parisian. His faithfulness shall be thy shield,* thou shalt not
be afraid for any terror by night.
Mozarahic. When I called upon Thee, Thou heardest me : O
God of Righteousness, Thou hast set me free.
We must use this Psalm as David did. It would seem to
1^ am. xxui. Y^^yQ i^ggjj written when he had been concealed from the pur-
suit of Saul in a rock in the wilderness of Maon. And we,
Maurus^"^^ if we would say it aright, must take refuge from our spiritual
enemies in the true Rock, which is Cheist : according to
Prov. XXX. that saying, " The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they
their houses in the rocks." This is a Compline Psalm all
through the Western Church.
1 Hear me when I call^ O God of my righteous-
ness : Thou hast set me at liberty when I Avas in
trouble ; have mercy upon me, and hearken unto my
prayer.
God of my righteousness. For " this is His Name whereby
He shall be called ;" else it will be said to us, as it was
PSALM IV. Ill
to the Jews, " Wlien ye make many prayers, I will not hear." isaiah i. is.
Save mercy upon me, by removing evil, and hearken unto my
prayer, by bestowing good. Have mercy, and therefore we ^^
must have mercy. In trouble. God therefore allows His
people to fall into distress, that the trial of faith may be theirs,
and the glory of their deliverance His ; even as it is written, ^^^2!°'^**'
** My strength is made perfect in weakness."
\_Set me at liberty. More exactly, with LXX. and Vulg., ^
&c. Thou hast enlarged me. It is the Church which speaks, ^'
dwelling on the goodness of God in giving her the greatest
increase of converts exactly in the time of trouble, when Mar-
tyrs and Confessors had to strive for their crowns.]
2 O ye sous of men, how long will ye blaspheme
mine honour : and have such pleasure in vanity, and
seek after leasing ?
Still the Church cries to God in the time of her trouble.
Sons of men, as distinguished from sons of God. Mine honour,
that is. Him Who condescends to all shame for us, that we B.
might obtain all glorv through Him. In vanity : in the
things of this world, wnich are " vanity of vanities,' or in the
devices of your own hearts: for "the Loed knoweth the Ps. xciv. n.
thoughts of man, that they are but vain."
\^Blaspheme mine honour. Literally, as A. V., turn my
f lory into shame. And so, very nearly, the Syriac. But the Haymo.
iXX., Vulgate, and iEthiopic, read. How long will ye be Ric Harap.
heavy of heart ? That is, tliey note, how long will ye be
weighed down with mere temporal cares, instead of rismg to D. C.
divine contemplation P Following the Hebrew, we may re-
member how the idolatrous Jews, " turned their glory into ps. cvI. 20.
the similitude of a calf that eateth hay ;" how too, later, they
mocked and reviled the Fathee's Splendour, and lastly, how
evil Christians " blaspheme that worthy Name by the which s. James u.
ye are called."] 7.
3 Know this also, that the Lord hath chosen to
himself the man that is godly : when I call upon the
Lord, he will hear me.
The man that is godly : even that Man Who did no sin,
neither was guile found in His mouth. And it is because Gr,
He is chosen to be our Intercessor, that, therefore, when we
eaU upon the Loed, He will hear us. Know this. And how?
By prophecies and types in the Old Testament : in the New,
by the miracles of " Him that went about doing good," and
the victories of the " Lion of the tribe of Judali."
{^Chosen to Himself. The LXX. and Vulgate have. He
hath made His saint wonderful. His Saint, or Holy One, is ^' ^^- ^^&;
Cheist the Son, Whose Name shall be called Wonderful, isaiah ix. 6.
Whom the Fathee made wonderful in His Conception, Na-
112
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
D.C.
Ay.
S. Bernard,
Rhythtnus
Jubilus.
Isa. Ivii. 20.
Eph. iv. 26.
A.
Pet. Lomb.
L.
Burgensis.
Mai. m. 8.
Vieyra.
tivity, Transfiguration, Passion, Eesurrection, and Ascension.
And therefore, because He, My Advocate, is throned on high,
His Fathee will hear me when I call upon Him.]
4 Stand in awe, and sin not : commune with your
own heart,, and in your chamber, and be still.
It is, therefore, only by standing in atve, that we can be
free from sin. Commune with your own heart on the sins of
the past day, following the disease with a remedy ; and in
your chamber i for —
" I seek for Jesus in repose,
When round my heart its chambers close,"
and he still : for " the wicked are like the troubled sea, when
it cannot rest."
[Stand in awe. The Hebrew is, Tremble (denoting agi-
tation from whatever cause.) But the ancient versions,
with one voice, turn it, JBe ye angry. And so the Apostle
read the words, for he cites them exactly : " Be ye angry,
and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath."
Angry, with your past sins, determining not to repeat
them ; angry with the first motions of sin, and resisting them
steadily. Angry with the zeal which is jealous for God's
honour, but not for your own wrongs. The verse runs on in
the LXX. and Vulgate : Sin not ; for that ivhich ye say in
your hearts, be smitten with compunction, (kotoj'u7tjt6, compun-
gimini) upon your beds. That is to say, that impunity from
earthly tribunals and public shame does not acquit us in the
sight of GrOD, and we must therefore try and judge ourselves
in secret at the bar of conscience even when men count ua
innocent. Or it may be directed against lip-worship, and
mean. What ye say outwardly, say again in the hidden re-
cesses of your hearts, and that with piercing eagerness of
prayer. And lastly, whereas the literal sense applies to secret
cabals and treason against David, so the mystical sense warns
against false teachers in the Church, who, rebels at heart
against David's Son, have not the courage to express their
unbelief openly, but are not the less guilty on that account.]
5 Offer the sacrifice of righteousness : and put your
trust in the Lord.
Offer the sacrifice of righteousness. And in the first sense
by restoring to God that of which we have defrauded Him :
for we have robbed Him of many things. As it is written :
" Will a man rob God ? yet ye have robbed Me." We have
robbed Him of the glory that is His due ; of the love we
should bear Him, of the obedience we should pay Him, of the
fear we should render to Him. And we must offer all these
as just sacrifices before we can put our trust in the Lord.
Note, sacrifice, not sacrifices, because they aU spring from
PSALM IV. 113
one root, which is, love, a sacrifice needing no altar, fire, nor
victim but the heart alone. But in the higher sense, offer the
sacrifice of righteousness, by setting forth the Loed's Death s. Chrysos-
till His coming again ; the sacrifice of Him Who is our Eigh- ^™' ^^- ^^'
teousness, the sacrifice by which holiness is increased : and
put your trust in the Lord, Whose death you thus set forth,
according to His own commandment.
6 There be many that say : Who will show us any
good ?
This may be taken in two senses. There he many that say^
despising God's promises of eternal blessedness, Who loill
show us any earthly good ? Again, there be many in heathen D. C.
lands who long for some knowledge of future and eternal
good, and yet, because none go forth to evangelise them,
are compelled again and again to ask. Who will show us any
good, who will shoto us any good ? And the question is an-
swered in another Psalm, " No good thing shall He withhold
from them that walk uprightly." ff ; ^'^'''^•
7 Lord, lift thou up : the light of thy countenance
upon us.
In opposition to such vain inquiries after good, in this and
the two following verses, we have the three sources whence
the servants of God obtain it. In this verse, light, in the 8th, g ^^ijan i
gladness, in the 9th, peace. The light of Thy countenance, so; D.
which is the true light ; the Light of light ; the pillar of fire
to guide us through the wilderness of this world, which can-
not mislead, and cannot fail : a light to show us the recesses
of our own hearts, their sinfulness and vileness ; the enemies
that beset us, their malice and watchfulness ; the defenders
that fight for us, their love and power : the light of grace,
which shineth more and more unto the perfect day, the light
of glory.
[_Lift Thou up. As a banner in the day of battle. But the
LXX. and Vulgate read, The light of Thy countenance hath
been signed upon us, 0 Lord. Signed, as the image of a king Jj^^
upon a coin, as his signet upon wax, because we have been
stamped anew with the Image of God, formerly marred and
worn by sin, and that through His mercy Who is the Light
of God's countenance. The word signed causes many of the
commentators to look to the Cross, the especial badge of
Cheist's victory, and type of His Passion, the seal which the
servants of God receive in their foreheads at baptism. Seal or q.
banner, we have it alike in the hymn :
Ave, signum nov8B legis, -I-j^g Sg,
Et vexillum summi Eegis, quence,
In te culpas sui gregis -^p^. «^«*
Bonus Pastor abatuht : ^^^' ''^-
114
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Ipsum habeamus ducem
Ad ccBlestis regni lucem,
Qui cruore suo crucem
Consecrare voluit.]
8 Thou hast put gladness in my heart : since the
time that their corn and wine and oil increased.
Isa. XXXV.
10.
Ay.
E.
Ric. Hamp.
S. Thomas
Aquin. The
Rhythm,
Adoro te
devote.
S. Hilar, in
Psalm 131,
Since the time that our Lord left us His blessed Sacra-
ments ; the corn, namely, the Body which He took for ua
men, and which was born at Bethlehem, which is by inter-
pretation the " house of bread ;" the wine, His precious Blood,
which indeed " maketh glad the heart of man," and the oil,
the graces of the Holy Ghost ; gladness is truly put into the
heart of His servants, which shall lead on to that time, when
they shall " obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing
shall iiee away." The Vulgate translation is entirely different :
" From the fruit of their corn, wine, and oil, they have been
multiplied." And they explain it, of course, of the multipli-
cation of the Church's graces in the multiplication of her
Sacraments ; all which Sacraments had their rise, as it were,
in the Passion of our Lord, to which the next verse so beau-
tifully leads us.
[^Corti and wine, and oil. The wicked have their fruits as
weU as the Saints, the corn of earthly riches, the toine of in-
toxicating pleasures, the oil of flattery and ease, with which,
as the LXX. bas it, they have been filled. With these they
are busily engaged, but the Church, turning from such
thoughts, looks to her rest in Christ alone. The true
meaning of the passage is that given in the A. V. Thou hast
put gladness in my heart more than in the time that their corn
and wine tvere increased. That is, joyful and gladdening as
is the Holy Eucharist upon earth, there is yet something
better, a still more perfect union, awaiting us, when the Sa-
cramental veils shall be withdrawn, and we shaU see face to
face.
Jesu, Whom thus veiled I must see below,
When shall that be granted, which I long for so,
That at last beholding Thy uncovered Face,
Thou wouldst satisfy me with Thy fullest grace ?]
9 I will lay me down in peace, and take my rest :
for it is thou, Lord, only that makest me dwell in
safety.
And they who have all their life long been fed with the
Body and Blood of their Lord, and been one with Him, as
He 18 with them, may well say, when its evening is drawing
on, / will lay me down in peace in the grave where He Who
is our Peace also lay, and, after the trials and temptations of
PSALM IV. 115
this life, talce my rest. It is a beautiful motto for tlie resting-
place of a line of kings, " I sleep, but my heart waketh." To Cant. v. 2.
dwell in safety. In safety, amidst temptation while on earth ;
in safety, as respects the body from final dissolution in the
grave ; in perfect safety, — in heaven.
[In peace. The LXX. and Vulgate here add the phrase
€irl rh avTo, in idipsum, that is, as they say, the same, unchang-
able, eternal. So the Cluniac :
The peace of all the faithful, ^^^ ^^^^^
The calm of all the blest, Rhytiimus.'
Inviolate, unvaried,
Diviiiest, sweetest, be^.
But far lovelier than this is the ^thiopic, which reads, In
peace, in Him, / will lay me down :
Pillow where, lying,
Love rests its head,
Peace of the dying.
Life of the dead :
Path of the lowly,
Prize at the end.
Breath of the holy,
Savioue and Friend.]
Note : These first four Psalms contain in brief the whole
Gospel. The first, the Life of Chbist : '* Blessed is the Man
that hath not wallc ed in the counsel of the ungodly." the Rupert.de
second, His Passion : " The rulers take counsel together Trim^fhiso.
against the Loed and against His Anointed ;" the fourth,
His Precious Death and Burial : " I will lay me down in
peace and take my rest ;" the third, His Resurrection : " I
laid me down and slept, and rose up again."
[Wherefore :
Glory be to the Fatheb, Who is the Lobd ; glory to the
Son, Who is His Countenance ; glory to the Holy Ghost,
Who is the Light of that Countenance.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be :
world without end. Amen.]
Collects.
Hear us, we beseech Thee, O Loed, and have mercy upon ^^s. Tho-
us in our tribulations ; and, as Thou alone art glorious over ""^*
the people, give spiritual joy to us, who look for the hope of
Thine eternal rewards. Through (1.)
Almighty God, although our iniquities have ojQTended Thee, Mozarabic,
grant that our prayers and our confession may obtain Thy ^^"*^-
mercy ; that through Thy loving-kindness, no tribulation of
this world may cause us to despair, no harmful persuasion
may allure us to evil ; but that the Light of Thy countenance
may shine upon us ; and that from Thy Light in this world,
we may advance to the light of Thine everlasting vision. (11.)
116 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Mozarabic, Hear US when we call, O Loed Jesu Cheist, Who art
Passiontide. ^^^ righteousness ; that as Thou didst for the wicked undergo
all miseries, so Thou wouldest on the penitent bestow all
mercies. (11.)
D. C. [Grant us, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, the gladness
of Thy Spieit in our hearts, that we, ojQPering the sacrifice of
righteousness, and alway putting our trust in Thee, may,
when the end of our life is at hand, lay us down in the peace
of Cheist, and take our rest for ever in His kingdom.
Through the same. (2.)]
PSALM V.
Title. English Version : To the chief Musician upon Nehiloth,
A Psalm of David. LXX. : To the end : for the heiress, a Psalm of
David. Vulgate : In finem, pro ea quae hsereditatem consequitur ;
Psalmus David. Or, as modern critics : To the Supreme ; on the
wind instruments ; a Psalm of David.
Argument.
Aeg. Thomas. That Cheist is the inhabiter of Saints, the
hearer of the Church. The voice of the Church. Cheist speaketh
to the Fathee concerning the Jews, and to the Church which hath
received the heritage of Paradise, not of the old Testament, as the
title of the Psalm proves.
Ven. Bede. To the end : for her that obtaineth the inheritance.
That is for the Church, who, by the Kesurrection of Cheist, has
received the gift of spiritual good ; and who herself is sometimes
called the heritage of the Loed, since by His precious Blood she
hath been redeemed. Whence it is written in the 2nd Psalm :
" Desire of Me, and I shall give thee the Gentiles for thine herit-
age." All this Psalm is spoken in the person of the Church. In
the first section she desireth that her prayer may be heard, and
showeth how heretics and schismatics are shut out from the gifts of
the Loed. In the second, she maketh request that, through the
understanding of Holy Scripture, she may be led in a right path to
that happy country, from whence she knoweth that they who are
treacherous will be for ever shut out. In the last she setteth forth
the rewards of the blessed, that in one and the same discourse she
may convert the wicked by the prediction of their punishment, and
excite the good by the promise of their reward.
Syeiac Psaltee. a prayer of David in the person of the Church
when in the morning he went up to the temple of the Loed.
Vaeious Uses.
Gregorian. Monday : Lauds. [Feasts of Invention and Exal-
tation of the Cross : II. Nocturn. Feasts of Crown of Thorns, and
PSALM V. 117
of Nails and Spear : II. Nocturia. Feasts of SS. Agnes and Aga-
tha: II. Nocturn. Common of One Martyr : II. Nocturn. Com-
mon of Confessors : II. N octui-n. Office of the Dead : Lauds.]
Monastic. Ferial ; Monday : Lauds. [Common of One Martyr
and of Confessors : I. Nocturn.]
Parisian. Wednesday : Lauds.
Lyons. Monday : Lauds.
Amhrosian. Monday of the First Week : Matins.
Quignon. Tuesday : Prime.
Eastern Church. Prime.
Antiphons.
Gregorian. Ponder * my words, O LoED. Office for the Dead.
Make Thy way plain, * 0 Loed, my God, before Thy face. [Com-
mon of One Martyr : Thou hast crowned him with the shield of
Thy good will, O Loed. Common of Confessors : Let all them that
put their trust in Thee, O Loed, rejoice, for Thou hast blessed the
righteous, and crowned him with the shield of Thy good will.]
Parisian. All they tliat hope in Thee * shall ever be giving of
thanks, and Thou shalt dwell in them.
Lyons. Consider * my crying, O Loed.
Mozarahic. My voice shalt Thou hear betimes, O Loed. Early
in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Tliee, and will look up.
1 Ponder my words, O Lord : consider my medi-
tation.
Here we distinguish two kinds of prayer : words and ^^
meditations. Words may refer both to that form of prayer
which our blessed Lord has left us, and to those prayers
which, by His teaching, His Church has provided for her
children. Meditations, to the thoughts and desires of our
heart, whether put into, or ascending without, words. We
caU upon God to 'ponder the first, to weigh their full mean-
ing, oftentimes more than we are aware of, and to give us
according to that : to consider the second, bestowing on us
what He sees to be good among the things which we ask, and
regarding our meaning rather than our expressions.
2 O hearken thou unto the voice of my calling,
my king and my God : for unto thee will I make my
prayer.
Note ; there are three things which make prayer accept-
able to God ; faithfulness, humility, and assiduity ; and we
have them aU here. Faithfulness : my King, showing that
we are subjects to none other. Humility : I will look up. s. Hrabanus
Assiduity : Early in the mortiing. My King and my God. ^**^"»-
By King, we understand the oon, by God, the Fatheb.
And the reason of this order of the words may be, that by
118
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
S. John
xiv. 6.
A.
S. Cyprian,
de Or. Dom,
2)7.
B.
1 Chron.
xxiii, 30.
D. C.
Lu.
Ric. Hamp.
De Muis.
Jer. xxi. 12.
S. Albertus
Magnus.
P.
A.
C.
S. Chrysost.
Cheist we draw near to the Father, as He saith, " No man
cometh unto the Father but by Me."
[All Three Persons of the Holy Trinity are marked in the
opening of this Psalm, in the three titles, Lord, King, and
God, but the verb is singular, denoting the indivisible Unity.]
3 My voice shalt thou hear betimes, O Lord :
early in the morning will I direct my prayer unto
thee, and will look up.
In the morning. This may be expounded in several
senses : first, of diligence in seeking G-od, not only in the
morning, but early in the morning. Again, of purity ; the
morning being the clearest and purest time of the day.
Again, the night may be taken of the darkness of original sin :
then the illumination of Baptism is signified by the morning.
And literally, David appointed the Levites to stand every
morning, to thank and praise the Lord. Look up, because
looking down to the earth we can obtain no real help.
[JEarly in the morning, that is, as soon as Christ, Who is
the bright and morning Star, arises on my darkened heart, I
will begin to pray. Early in the Kesurrection morning, which
has no night, I will stand hy Thee ( Vulg.) at Thy right hand,
and will behold (Vulg.) Thy righteous judgments. Early,
because Divine grace is like the manna, which had to be
gathered before the sun arose to melt it. Early in the morn-
ing, says Eabbi Easi, because we are guilty sinners, and that
is the time of judgment and execution, according to that say-
ing of the Prophet, " Execute judgment in the morning."
Observe further, that the seven stages of true prayer are all
set before us in these verses, and in the seventh. First, right
intention. My voice shalt Thou hear : secondly, eagerness,
betimes; thirdly, constancy, Early in the morning will I
direct ony prayer unto Thee ; fourthly, a pure conscience, and
will look up. The three other stages are, — union with God, /
will come into Thy house ; confidence, in the multitude of Thy
mercies ; and reverence, I will worship. Look up, in this
life, for help, and yet more to ponder on the Divine mysteries
of the New Law. Look up, in the life to come, on the ineff-
able glory and the Beatific Vision. Some Greek texts, and
the Arabic version, read here. Thou shalt see me : and the
Syriac and JEthiopic are nearly the same, I shall appear
unto Thee. It is David, observes a Saint, calling on God in
trouble, and saying. Thou hast seen me a shepherd, Thou wilt
see me a king. Thou hast seen me harping. Thou wilt see
me prophesying.]
4 For thou art the God that hast no pleasure in
wickedness : neither shall any evil dwell with thee.
The God. Not like the gods many and lords many of the
heathen, which were so often served by, and took pleasure in,
PSALM V. 119
wickedness. He saith not, Come unto Thee, but dwell with ^^
Thee ; for it was in order that, being made clean, they might
dwell with Him for ever that the publicans and sinners came
into the presence of the Loed.
' 5 Such as be foolish shall not stand in thy sight :
for thou hatest all them that work vanity.
In this and the next verse are set forth three kinds of sin-
ners who are not to stand in the presence of God ; the foolish,
that is, sinners in thought (for "The fool hath said in his"^^-^^^^'^'
heart, There is no God :") them that work wickedness, that
is, sinners in deed : and them that speah leasing, that is, sin- ^ Albertus
ners in words. Shall not stand in Thy sight. They shall ^ *^"^"
not in this world, even in His holy temple, because they will
not ; and they will not stand in His sight before His Judg-
ment seat, because they shall not. That work vanity. Not
that have worked it, or where could any hope to appear P
6 Thou slialt destroy them that speak leasing : the
Lord will abhor both the blood-thirsty and deceitful
man.
Will abhor. That is, though He now abhors them, He
will in the last day manifest His abhorrence by condemning
them to everlasting destruction. Note : the sins of the heart Ay.
are visited as if they were sins of action. Blood-thirsty, not
bloody: deceitful, not an open liar.
7 But as for me, I will come into thine house,
even upon the multitude of thy mercy : and in thy
fear will I worship toward thy holy temple.
And yet, nevertheless, we who have so often and so griev-
ously offended both in thought, word, and deed, will come
into the House of God ; and can only do so upon the mul- g^
titude of His mercy. Or if prevented from actually going
up thither, like Daniel, wlio when he made his prayer looked
towards Jerusalem, we will worship toward Sis holy temple.
Again, the words may be taken of that heavenly house into
which we one day hope to enter, and of the Lamb Who is
the Temple thereof.
[Into Thine house. As a stone let into the very substance A.
of the building, never more to go out, toivards, not in, Thy
holy temple, doing reverence to the human Body of Cheist q
Jesus, the true sanctuary of God, in which dwelt all His
fulness, the temple destroyed by the Jews, and raised up
again in three days.]
8 Lead me, O Lord, in thy righteousness, because
120
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
H.
Gal. V. 7.
Didjrmus.
Vieyra.
S. Matt. xu.
34.
Ay.
of mine enemies
face.
make thy way plain before my
And because in attaining to tliis celestial dwelling, we
are surrounded by many enemies, we tiierefore call upon
God to lead us in Sis righteousness, even Cheist Who is
the Way. Because of mine enemies. In a twofold sense ;
that they may be preserved from hurting us, or that we may
be enabled to do them good. Before my face. That there
may be no turning back from it ; no " ye did run well."
Or again, that the true Way, our blessed Loed, may be more
and more plainly manifested to us ; and that we may more
and more trustfully look to Him.
[^MaTce Thy way plain. There is an especial pathos in
selecting this verse as the Antiphon for that Office of the
Dead which takes its name Dirge from the Vulgate Dirigey
here found. It is the cry of the parting soul, about to begin
its mystic journey to another world, by a road beset with
ghostly enemies, and calling on God for help against them
and for light and guidance by the way.
Through death's valley, dim and dark,
Jesus guide thee in the gloom,
Show thee where His footprints mark
Tracks of glory through the tomb.
Grant him, Loed, eternal rest,
With the spirits of the blest.
It is Thy way before my face in the Hebrew and in the Eng-
lish versions. The LXX. and Vulgate, and JEthiopic read
it conversely, my way before Thy face. God's Way is before
our face when we are following Cheist, Who is that Way ;
our way is before God's Face, when, having gone in that
Way from strength to strength, we appear at the last unto
the God of gods in Sion.]
9 For there is no faithfulness in his mouth : their
inward parts are very wickedness.
For there is no faithfulness. And therefore, since there
are so many that would lead us into error, we the more re-
quire that God's way may be made plain to us
In his
out of the abundance of 'the heart the mouth
that
mouth, and
speaketh."
10 Their throat is an open sepulchre : they flatter
with their tongue.
An open sepulchre. Dangerous and noisome, and as silent
in the praises of God, as the tomb. The two clauses set
forth the open and secret endeavours of her enemies to de-
stroy or injure the Church, and they thus also doubly at^
PSALM V. 121
tacked our Loed. Openly, as when they said, "He hath a s.JohnvUi.
devil;" as when "they took up stones to stone Him;" as ^^'^9- .
when they "led Him to the brow of the hill." Secretly, as 29. "
when tempting Him, they said, " We know that Thou art s. Matt.
true;" and as when Judas betrayed Him with a kiss. ^'^"^ '^
[An open sepulchre. And so more dangerous even than ^ Aibertus
hypocrites, who are like sepulchres closed and whited out- s.^Matt.
wardly. Open, because they are gaping to swallow up the xxiii. 2;.
labours of others, as the grave gapes for bodies. Open, be- Ra^^J^^asi.
cause their soul is not only dead in sins, but emits its noisome jjaymo
savour in evil words of heresy, which bring others down into
the same tomb of unrighteousness. They would do less harm
were they silent.]
11 Destroy thou them, O God ; let them perish
through their own imaginations : cast them out in
the multitude of their ungodliness; for they have
rebelled against thee.
Let them perish. This is the first instance of that praying
for evil on others which has so much perplexed some with
the Psalms, and which, as clearly as anything else, shows
that they are to be taken in a sense above that of the letter. a
(This subject is referred to in the Third Dissertation.) But
if we always apply such expressions to our spiritual enemies,
the difficulty will disappear. Through their own imaqina-
tions. Like Gehazi, who thought to obtain the gold, and was
visited with the leprosy, of Naaman.
[Destroy them. The LXX. and Vulgate read. Judge them :
modem critics, far better, Make them repent. Let them De Wette.
perish through their own imaginations. The LXX. and Vul- ""if/|sci',
Sate are somewhat nearer to the Hebrew, reading, as they
0, Let them fall away from their thoughts, that is, let them
abandon, or be baflSed in, their evil plans, or, let their own q.
consciences accuse and condemn them. Cast them out. So
long as the sinner hides his guilt, he is within the grave. But ^"?° Vic-
when the voice of the Loed calls on any Lazarus to come °""*
forth, then, by moving him to confession. He casts him out
of darkness into light in this life, that he may not be cast out
of light into outer darkness in the world to come. Rebelled. ^_
The LXX. and Vulgate read, embittered Thee. By their
own sin, making that Bread of Life which is sweet to the taste « „.
of the righteous, a bitter poison to them. " ^^^^^'
Hie est panis, sumptus digne, The Se-
A gehennse servans igne, quence, Re-
Qui, si sumptus sit indiffne, colnmun sn-
Mortem dat perpetuam.J
12 And let all them that put their trust in thee
rejoice : they shall ever be giving of thanks, because
122
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Bellarmine.
S. Matt,
xxiii. 37.
Ay.
The Hymn,
A Patre
Unigenitus.
MSS. Tho-
Mozarabic,
Eastertide .
Mozarabic,
ibid.
thou clefendest them ; they that love thy name shall
be joyful in thee.
\_TJiou defendest them. LXX., Syriac, and Vulgate, Tho^i
sJialt dwell in them. The ^thiopie, yet better, Thou shall
dwell over them. As a sheltering tent, notes Cardinal Bellar-
mine, but we may better take the Loed's own simile, as a bird
gathering her young under her wings.]
13 For thou, Lord,, wilt give thy blessing unto
the righteous : and with thy favourable kindness wilt
thou defend him as with a shield.
In these verses we have the help of God promised to His
Church. Where note three things. 1. It is eternal: they
shall EVEE he giving of thanks. 2. Divine : Thou defendest
them. 3. Free : Thou wilt give Thy blessing. And what
then matters it who scorns or injures us ? If God be for
us, who can be against us ? The Vulgate translation some-
what differs from ours. jPor Thou shalt give Thy bless-
ing to the righteous : O Lord, Thou hast crowned us as toith
the shield of Thy good-ivill. " In the life of this world,"
says S. Jerome, " a shield is one thing, and a crown another :
God Himself is both Crown and Shield. As a shield, He
defends ; as a crown. He rewards." Well, then, may the
Church pray in one of her sweetest hymns :
Septrum tu tuum inclytum
Tuo defencle clypeo.
[Wherefore :
Glory be to the Fathee, unto Whom is said, Ponder my
words, 0 LoED ; glory be to the Son, unto Whom is said,
Consider my meditation ; glory be to the Holy Ghost, unto
Whom is said, Searhen Thou unto the voice of my calling.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be:
world without end. Amen.]
Collects.
O merciful Loed, Who understandest the groaning of the
contrite heart before it is expressed, make us, we pray Thee,
the Temple of the Paeaclete, to the end that we may merit to
be crowned with the shield of celestial mercy. Through. (1.)
Our King and our God, repel from our hearts the night of
error and ignorance, so that renewing us into a new man,
Thou mayest in the morning hear our voice. Grant that we
mav very early by good works present ourselves to Thee,
and vouchsafe that we may contemplate Thee in the Sacra-
ment of Thy Eesurrection. (11.)
O God, Who hatest all that work iniquity, fill us with the
strength of Thy love ; that they may at some time turn to
PSALM VI.
123
Tliee and bitterly lament their sin, who now speak falsely
against Tliee. (11.)
O LoED, the expectation of our salvation, receive the Mozarabic,
prayers of them that call upon Thee : Thou that art the dis- ^"*'
coverer of hidden things, give ear to the hidden cry of the
heart ; that those things which we tremble to have committed
and blush to confess. Thou, our King, mayest forgive of Thy
clemency, and blot out of Thy goodness ; so that our sup-
plication may arise to Thee in the morning, and the good
gifts of Thy mercy may descend on us right early. (11.)
[O our King and God, lead us in Thy righteousness be- J). C.
cause of our enemies, and direct my way in Thy sight, that
Thou mayest ever rejoice and dwell in us, who are crowned
with the shield of Thy goodwill. Through. (1.)]
PSALM VI.
Title. English Version : To the chief Musician on Neginoth
upon Sheminith, A Psalm of David. Vulgate : To the end, in ttie
Songs, A Psalm of David for the Eiglith. Modem writers : To the
Supreme, for the stringed instruments, in concert with the chorus.
Aequment.
Aeg. Thomas. That Christ is the Conqueror of our enemies.
The voice of Cheist to the Fathee. That the creature may praise
the Creator, and it has to do with penitence. Bead it with the
resurrection of Lazarus.
Ven. Bede. For the eighth^ signifies the coming of the Loed,
^ The old creation having been
accomphshed in seven days, the
number 8 is taken by mediffival
writers sometimes of the new
creation of Baptism, sometimes of
that new heaven and new earth,
wherein dwelleth righteousness.
So Venerable Bede in one of his
hymns :
" Octava prffistat ceteris
-Sltatibus subUmiof,
Cum mortui de pristino
Terrse resurgent aggere."
In the Sheminith of the Psalms
(and compare also that verse in
1 Chron. xv. 21, " With harps
upon the Sheminith to excel,")
whatever maybe the hteral mean-
ing, no wonder that they shoxild
have loved to find a prophecy of
that eighth age of perpetual bliss.
S. Hilary dwells at length on the
subjectinhisprefacetothePsalms
(12 — 14;) and S. Athanasius on
this very Psalm says : " In the
sixtli age, the world shall come
to an end ; in the seventh, the
Loed shall judge the universe ;
in the eighth, the one shall go
away into everlasting punish-
ment, and the other into life
eternal." On this same passage
and in this sense, GerhohuswTites
at great length and with much
beauty. [The Cabbalists, look-
ing, as usual, for mysteries in
numbers, have noted that the
Name of the Loed occurs exactly
eiffht times in this Psalm, five
2
124
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
when the work of the world being finished, He shall come to judge
the earth, whence this Psalm begins with the greatest trembling.
He that composed this Psalm prays in a fourfold manner. In the
beginning he excites the good-will of the Judge, speaking of His
power of judgment, of His wont to spare, and of his own infirmity.
In the second division he relates his own miseries. In the third he
separates himself from evil men, which separation he knows to be
likely to win the favour of the good Judge. Lastly, he repudiates
all the wicked, with whom he refuses to have any portion.
EusEBius OF Cjesaeea. A pattern of confession.
Vaeious Uses.
Gregorian. Sunday : I. Nocturn. [Office for the Dead : I.
Noctum.]
Parisian. Monday : Compline.
Lyons. Monday : Compline.
Amhrosian. Monday of the First Week : Matins.
Quignon. Wednesday : Prime.
Eastern Church. Great Compline.
Antiphons.
Gregorian. Serve the Loud, &c. [Office for the Dead : Turn
Tfhee, * O Loeb, and deliver my soul, for in death no man remem-
bereth Thee.]
Parisian. My just help is from the Loed, * Who preserveth
those that are true of heart.
Mozarabic. Rebuke me not in Thine anger.
This is the first of the seven Penitential Psalms : the seven
vreapons wherewith to oppose the seven deadly sins : the
seven prayers inspired by the sevenfold Spieit to the re-
penting sinner : the seven guardians for the seven days of the
week : the seven companions for the seven Canonical Hours
of the day.
1 O Lord, rebuke me not in thine indignation
neither chasten me in thy displeasure.
I
Rebuke me not in this life ; neither chasten me in the next.
Where note : he saith not absolutely, RehuJce me not, but
Heb. xii. 8. adds, in Thine indignation : " For if we be without chastise-
ment, whereof all are partakers, then are we bastards and
not sons." And so David himself testifies in another place :
" Blessed is the man whom Thou chastenest, O Loed. ' As
if he said, Eebuke me as a Father, chasten me as a Master.
{Rebuke me not. This is the first step of the seven in the
ladder of repentance, denoted by the seven Penitential Psalms,
Theodoret
i. 418.
Pb. xciv. 12.
Bakius.
times in the first five verses, ex-
actly as in the first half of the
Decalogue, and three times in
the last three, as in the Levitical
benediction.]
PSALM VI. 125
and marks fear of punishment. Next is sorrow for sin, " I
will confess my sins unto the Lord." Thirdly; the hope Ps.xxxu. 6;
of pardon, "Thou shalt answer for me, O Loed my God." xxxvUi. 15 ;
Fourthly ; the love of a cleansed soul, " Thou shalt purge
me with hyssop, and I shall be clean." Fifthly ; longing for ^•7;
the heavenly Jerusalem, " When the Loed shall build up p^ jg.
Sion, and when His glory shall appear." Sixthly ; distrust
of self, " My soul fleeth unto the Loed." Seventhly ; prayer cxxx. 6 ;
against final doom, " Enter not into judgment with Thy cxiui. 2.
servant."]
2 Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak :
O Lord, heal me, for my bones are vexed.
Save mercy. God has mercy in many ways. By waiting,
as it is written : " And therefore will the Loed wait, that he isa. xxx. 18.
may be gracious unto you." By long-sufiering, as He saith :
"It is of the Loed's mercies that we are not consumed, be- Lam.iii. 22.
cause His compassions fail not." By calling : " I am not s. Matt. ix.
come to call tne righteous, but sinners to repentance." By ^^•
helping : " He, remembering His mercy, hath holpen His ser- ^^ ^"^^ *•
vant Israel." By upholding : " When I said, My foot hath ps, xciv. is.
slipped, Thy mercy, O Loed, held me up." I am loeak : q
there is nothing like a confession of weakness to move the
Heavenly Physician to compassion. Weak, from the sin of
Adam ; so that " of myself I cannot do the things that I
would." Weak, from actual transgression : for no soul can
fall into sin without losing some of the strength that it Theophy-
received at Baptism. Weak : for if even the intellect were i*^*^- ^^- *»
not enfeebled, how could it be so easily overcome by pas-
sions? Yes: weakness is indeed the first and best argu-
ment for God's mercy. Whence S. Gregory, writing on
this very Psalm: "Adest miseria: adsit et misericordia."
** What," asks S. Ambrose, " is David weak, and dost thou s. Ambros.
profess to be strong? Did Solomon fall, and dost thou Apo^og.ii. 3.
stand firm ?" Note : bodily weakness is sometimes spiritual
strength ; yet even against that also we may cry to Him
Who "healeth all our infirmities." But here, spiritual
weakness is also included, and we cry for grace that " when
we are weak, then we may be strong." My bones are vexed :
therefore we pray, heal me, remembering the promise, " He ^^- ^cxxiv.
keepeth all His bones, not one of them is broken." Well,
therefore, asks S. Peter Chrysologus : " What is weaker than Serm. 45.
man, whom sense beguiles, ignorance deceives, judgment sur-
rounds, pomp injures, time deserts, age changes, infancy
softens, youth precipitates, old age destroys ?"
\^Real me. The Psalmist calls on the Great Physician for s. Aicuin.
help, but does not presume to tell Him how He is to heal.
Use Thy sharpest remedies, fire and steel, on me in this life, Gerson.
so that Thou spare me in that which is to come. My bones, g B^uno
It is not merely the weaker part of my nature which fails me, carthus.
126 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Ger=on. ^^* ^^^ ^^^ strongest, my understanding, will, and firmness,
j\ n my spiritual might, all tliat is, or may be, virtue, is enfeebled
by my sin.]
3 My soul also is sore troubled : but, Lord, how
long wilt tbou punish me ?
Troubled. iNot with passion, nor anger, nor with temporal
fears only : nor with tlie afflictions of this world only, but
with sorrow for sin. For of the former it is written, that
Ps. xxxix. 7. " man disquieteth himself in vain." Sow long ? If God
delays to be gracious, it is not without love to incite us to
A. & G. inore fervent prayer, to make us more vigilant against sin ;
for that which is easOy cured, we take little care to prevent :
to try our faith, and to make us feel, if the penitent suffers
much, how far more grievous is the lot of the impenitent.
Note : God hears, though He answers not. The verb is in
the present, to show the readiness with which God gives :
s. Matt, vu. "XJntohim that knocketh, it shall be opened." Here it is
in the future, to teach us that the visible effects of God's
gifts do not always at once appear.
4 Turn thee, O Lord, and deliver my soul : O
save me for thy mercy's sake.
Turn Thee. For the Loed turned and looked upon Peter,
before he went out and wej)t bitterly. He that has turned
from us for our sins, must turn to us that we may repent.
For it is written : " Turn ye unto Me, and I will turn unto
Serm. 45. you." " How long," cries S. Peter Chrysologus, " wilt Thou
endure, how long wijt Thou not assist, where is Thy Cheist
so often promised ? Let Him come, let Him come, before
the world shall have perished altogether, and nothing be
found in it that He can preserve." Turn Thee, O Lord,
. From what ? From God into man, from the Loed into the
servant, from the Judge into the Father.
5 For in death no man remembereth thee : and
who will give thee thanks in the pit ?
In death. It may be understood either of temporal or
eternal death. For how can we remember Him to Whom
saivian. ^^ ^^^ dead in trespasses and sins ? They are solemn words
Ad Eccies. of Salviau's, in which he describes — commenting on the Vul-
Cathoi.Lib. gate, "And who shall confess to Thee in the grave?"— the
utter uselessness of a too late repentance ; the hmit beyond
which the keys of Absolution have no power.
6 I am weary of my groaning ; every night wash
I my bed : and water my couch with my tears.
Every night. For repentance is not a thing to be done
onco and then left alone ; but to be practised day by day as
I
PSALM VI. 127
long as vre live, more especially in the dark night of affliction.
Conch, may be understood mystically of those sins which ^J-
have plunged the soul in security, and have withdrawn from
it the light of God's presence. Of which couch the Bride
speaks in the Canticles, saying: "By night on my bed I Cant, iii i.
sought Him Whom my soul loveth ; I sought Him, but I
found Him not." Wash, lamenting past sins : water, so as
to bring forth good fruits for the future.
\_My bed. The bed on which the soul lies sick, is the flesh,
weakened and wounded by Adam's fall. That bed the great P-
Physician touched, by taking flesh Himself and suffering
therein, and when He touched it, the sick man was healed.
"Wherefore is said to the repentant sinner, "Arise, take up s, ^ .^ •
thy bed, and go unto thine house," that soul and body may be g."
together in the heavenly mansions. My tears. This is the s. Aibertus
second of the seven liquors which God gives us to wash the ^^s^^^-
soul. First come the waters of Baptism: "I will sprinkle Ezek.xxxvi.
clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean." Secondly ; ^^'
tears, as here. Thirdly; the milk of pure doctrine: " His Cant. v. 12.
eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed
with milk." Fourthly ; the precious Blood of Christ, Who
"loved us and washed us from our sins with His own Blood." Rev. i. 6.
Fifthly ; the wine of compunction : " He washed his gar-
ments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of the grape." ^^^' ^^'
Sixthly ; the butter of rich devotion : " I washed my steps ' .
in butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil."
Seventhly ; the oil of spiritual gladness : " Bring me oil, that Hist. Sus.
I may wash me."] '''•
7 My beauty is gone for very trouble : and worn
away because of all mine enemies.
My beauty. That is the beauty wherewith we were arrayed
in Hx)ly Baptism, when, as Ezekiel speaks. We were girded ^^^^- ^^''■
about with fine linen and covered with silk, when there was
neither spot, nor wrinkle nor any such thing in us. Worn
away : lost, little by little, through the assaults of our ghostly
enemies. The Vulgate gives it rather diflTerently : " I have L.
grown old among all mine enemies." Where Lorinus ob-
serves that Holy Scripture mentions eight kinds of age.
1. That of natural condition : " They all shall wax old as ps. cii. 26.
doth a garment." 2. Of human corruption: "Put off" the Eph. iv. 22.
old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts." jsa. xxvi. 3,
3. Of ignorance : " Ancient error hath departed." 4. Of Vuigate.
character and disposition : " Neither do men put new wine s^ Matt. ix.
into old bottles." 5. Of sin : " O thou that art waxen old {[/g^. gyg 52.
in wickedness." 6. Of friendship : " Forsake not an old eccIus. ix.
friend." 7. Of the law: " That we should serve in newness ^^•
of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." 8. Of eter- °™" ^"' '
nity : " I beheld till the thrones were cast down and the ^^"- '^'"- ^•
Ancient of Days did sit."
128
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
B.
S.Matt.vi.
22.
Pet. Lomb.
S. Albertus
Magnus.
D. C.
Eph. iv. 22.
Baruch iii.
lO.
Hom.Odyss.
xix. 360.
[Ml/ heauty. The A.V. correctly, witli all the old versions,
mine eye. This is the eye whereof the Lord saith in the
Gospel, " If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full
of light ; but if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be
full of darkness." This eye is the Catholic understanding of
the Church, which is troubled because of wrath (Vulg.) against
heretics, oppressors, and evil spirits. It is also the reasoning
power of each man, confused by the attacks of his ghostly
foes. Worn away. The A. V., rightly, waa-e^A oZc?. Because
it has not " put off the old man ;" because " Israel, thou art
in thine enemies' land, thou art waxen old in a strange
country." And so, even a heathen poet has truly said :
or^/o 7ap Iv KaK6TT]Ti ^poTol KarayTtpdffKOvai.']
8 Away from me, all ye that work vanity : for the
Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping.
After declaring his repentance, he proceeds to speak of its
effects. Away from me. " For what part hath he that be-
lieveth with an infidel ?" In the Canticles : " I have washed
my feet, how shall I defile them ?" That work. Not that
have worked, lest he should seem to exclude penitents like
himself. Note : all the Psalms which treat of penitence, one
only excepted, the 88th, end with the expression of joyful
hope.
[They that work vanity always are the evil spirits, who are
most readily driven away by penitential weeping, for as has
been well said, Satan can better endure his own fire than
our tears, and he is more racked by the weeping of a contrite
heart than by the flame of the burning of hell. That flame
can absorb all rivers, but cannot dry up the waters of tears.
Nay, rather, observes a Saint, writing on this very Psalm,
s. chrysost. tears can extinguish the fire which is not quenched.]
Cant. V,
Ay.
Kic. Hamp.
Petrus
C ellens. de
Pass. 12.
.Jer. xxxviii.
26.
Philip, iv, 4.
In Fs.
xxxvii.
s. Kniiodius,
1- |)ist. Lib.
IV. -.^4.
9 The Lord hath heard my petition : the Lord
will receive my prayer.
My petition. Like Jeremiah's, That I should not be
caused to go into the pit to die there. My prayer : for
grace for the future. It is not enough to a truly joyful heart
to express its gladness once ; whence S. Paul also says, " Ee-
joice in the Loed alway, and again I say, rejoice :" hence its
repetition here. S. Hilary prettily enough represents peni-
tential tears as going on an embassy to the throne of grace :
S. Ambrose works out the idea at greater length, and says
that such an embassy can never fail of its aim. " The most
honourable embassy," writes another Saint, " which can be
sent to God, is the shower of tears which fell from a peni-
tent eye." "The prayers of tears are more useful," says
S. Maximus of Turin, "than those of words. Words of
S.Matt.v.
PSALM VI. 129
prayer often deceive : tears of prayer deceive not. A word
is often unable to express its own meaning : a tear can al-
ways say that it would." S. Anselm of Laon says neatly Homii. des.
enough, " Oratio Deum lenit, lacryma cogit ; haec pungit, Petri pceni-
illa ungit." *«"'^*-
10 All mine enemies shall be confounded, and sore
vexed : they shall be turned back, and put to shame
suddenly.
This is not so much a prayer against, as an intercession Ay.
for, his enemies. Confounded at their past folly ; sore vexed
by true repentance ; put to salutary shame in this world, that j^^
they may escape everlasting contempt in the next. Suddenly.
For though the day of the Lord tarry long, yet that which
is not expected at the time, comes suddenly after all. And ^•
note : it is fit that after crying for mercy himself, he should
ask it for others : according to that saying, " Blessed are the
merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."
[Confounded. This is the very same word Iti'Il"] which is
rendered put to shame, in the last clause of the verse, and
much of the force is lost by diversity of translation. Let
them be ashamed, after my example, for their past sins, sore D. C.
vexed by the fear of judgment to come, turned backward
from their sins, and to God, and ashamed, not of their sins t
alone, but of all in which they once boasted, and that sud-
denly, that they may not delay repentance till it is too late.
And note that shame is twice mentioned, the shame before
conversion which leads to repentance, the shame from the
memory of past sins, which guards against relapse.]
[Wherefore :
Glory be to the Father, the Lord Who hath heard the
voice of my weeping ; glory be to the Son, the Lord Who
hath heard my petition ; glory be to the Holy Ghost, the
Lord Who will receive my prayer.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be:
world without end. Amen.]
Collects.
O Christ, Son of the Living God, Whose beauty in Thy Mozarabic,
Passion departed for very heavmess and was worn away be- Passiontide.
cause of all Thine enemies, heal the wounds of our hearts,
that Thy grace being confirmed in us, we may so put oar
trust in Thy Passion as to find our glory in Thy Resurrec-
tion. (11.)
We know, O Lord Jesu Christ, that whilst Thou wast Mozarabic,
on earth. Thou didst every night water Thy couch with tears '^'^*
for us men : grant us so to repent for our iniquities, that we
may hereafter attain to that place where aU tears are wiped
from all eyes. (11.)
G 3
130 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Mozarabic, Regard, we beseech Thee, O Loed, the supplications of
* ^ ' Thy people ; and, as Thou inflictest on us the severity of just
correction, give us also the assistance of merciful consola-
tion. (11.)
[Almighty God, we humbly intreat for Thy most loving
^ p mercy, that Thou mayest not rebuke in Thine indignation,
^' ^' nor chasten in Thy displeasure us who have oflfended Thee
by our many transgressions, but turn Thee and deliver our
souls from everlasting damnation, and save us for Thy mercy's
sake. Through. (1.)]
PSALM VII.
Title. English Version : Shiggaion of David, which he sang
unto the Loed, concerning the words of Cush the Benjamite.
Yulgate : Psalm of David, which he sang to the Loed for the words
of Cush the Benjamite.
Shiggaion might perhaps be translated "descant," or "rhapsody ;"
but in the other part of the title the critics find considerable diffi-
culty. Some will have Cush to signify Saul, and imagine him to
have been caUed Cush or an Ethiopian from the blackness of his
character. Among the Fathers, S. Jerome and Yen. Bede are of
this opinion : among the moderns, Jansenius. Others will have the
name to be that of Cushi or Hushai, by whose wiliness the good
counsel of Ahithophel was overruled : and this is held by the greater
part of the Fathers. Arias will have Cush to be the same as Kish,
the father or uncle of Saul ; an opinion which has found no fol-
lowers. Others would translate, " Concerning the words of the
traitorous Benjamite," and would refer them to Shimei, when he said
to the flying and exUed king, " Come out, come out, thou bloody
man, and thou man of Behal :" and if this interpretation may be
thought admissible, it certainly adds great point and beauty to the
literal meaning of the Psalm.
Aegument.
Aeg. Thomas. That Cheist is the searcher out of all con-
sciences. The Prophet speaketh to Cheist of His enemies the Jews
and of the devU. Yet it appeareth to pertain to Cheist and to the
synagogue. For Cheist is exalted even to the heavens, but the
synagogue had fallen into the pit which it digged for Him.
Yen. Bede. ^The Prophet, therefore, turning his own circum-
stances into the future mysteries of the Loed the Savioue, in the
first division prays to God in His person that he may be delivered
from all his persecutors. In the second he prays to be assisted by
the manifested glory of His Eesurrection : Arise, O Lord. In the
third he introduces Him speaking, on account of His humiHty, and
* Yen. Bede first enters into the reasons why Hushai cannot be meant.
PSALM VII. 131
demanding to be judged according to His justice and truth : terri-
fying the evil by the prospect of vengeance, promising to the good
gratuitous rewards : Judge me, 0 Lord, according to my righteous-
ness. In the fourth part, the Prophet speaketh again, and admon-
isheth the Jews that through fear of the coming Judgment, they
depart from the evil they have proposed : God is a righteous Judge,
&c. This Psalm also may be understood in the Person of the GrOD-
Man, if only the things which are there spoken humbly are referred
to our humility which He bare.
EusEBirs OF C^SAEEA. A confession of David, and prophecy
of the calUng of nations.
Stbiac Psaltee. The conversion of the Gentiles to the fiiith,
and to the confession of the Trinity.
Vaeiofs Uses.
Gregorian. Sunday: I. Noctum. [OfBce for the Dead: I.
Noctum.]
Monastic. Tuesday : Prime.
Parisian. Monday : Compline.
Lyons. Monday: Prime.
Ambrosian. Monday of the First Week : Matins.
Quignon. Monday : Compline.
Antiphons.
Gregorian. God is a righteous Judge, * strong and patient:
shall God be provoked every day ? [Office for the Dead : Lest * he
devour my soul like a lion, and tear it in pieces wliile there is none
to help.]
Mozarabic. My help cometh of GoD, Who preserveth them that
are true of heart.
1 O Lord my God, in thee have I put my trust :
save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver
me;
The first three verses refer to the life of our Loed on .
earth, when there were indeed manj that desired to persecute ^'
Him, and like lions to tear Him in pieces. Lord im God.
LoED of all by right, God by creation, my God by Thy In-
carnation. In Thee. " For I will not trust in my bow : it Ps. xUv. 7.
is not my sword that shall help me." And from the literal
sense : though the craft of Husnai has given me time to raise
an army, yet in Thee, not in it, have I put my trust. For
Thou hast said, " Cursed be the man that trusteth in man." Jer. xvii. 5.
"Wherefore I confide not in my counsel, nor in its prudence,
but in Thee.
2 Lest he devour my soul, like a lion, and tear it
in pieces : while there is none to help.
132 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Lest he. He first mentions all them that persecute him,
and then proceeds, lest he. But how none to help, when
David had an army, and chiefs, and knowledge of war?
G. Because the whole world can be no help to him whom GtOD
assists not. Mystically, it is the cry of the Church before
the Incarnation : while there is none to help me : while the
fulness of time is not yet come. For only by that great
mystery are we delivered from the spiritual lion who sought
to destroy our souls : and that by the Lion of the tribe of
Judah, Who hath prevailed.
[This verse is the Antiphon in the Office for the Dead,
wherein the Church prays for help against the assaults of
him who " walketh about, as a roaring lion, seeking whom
grapii
8. " * ' he may devour," thinking vainly that there is none to help, for
s. Joseph The lamb is in the fold,
^^™""- In perfect safety penned ;
The lion once had hold,
And thought to make an end :
But One came by with wounded side.
And for the sheep the Shepherd died.]
3 O Lord my God, if I have done any sucli thing :
or if there be any wickedness in my hands ;
Our blessed Lord Himself speaks ; setting forth in this
verse His innocency, in the next His patience. Ani/ such
thing : as all the false accusations the Jews laid to His
charge. If there he any wickedness, for He " did no sin,
neither was guile found in His mouth."
L. \_Any such thing. They differ as to the especial thing here
s. Basil. implied. The Targum seems to take it. If I have made this
s. chrysost. Psalm with evil intent. The Grreek ^Fathers, If I have dealt
j^ with my parents as Absalom has done with me. Many of
s Thorn *^^ Latins hold that pride is meant, and S. Thomas, in par-
Aquiii. ' ticular, points out that the words denote a denial of any act
Ric. Hamp. which has brought on the misfortune as its punishment. In
s. John *^.y hands. What then is in His hands ? The print of the
XX. '>5. ^ nails which we put there, the writing of our sins, our names
^ " " graven there by Himself, the writing of His pardoning love.]
1 S. Pet. ii.
2'2
Isa. xlix. 16.
4 If I have rewarded evil unto him that dealt
friendly with me : yea, I have delivered him that
without any cause is mine enemy ;
Four manners of rewardings are mentioned in Scripture ;
Ay. evil for good : evil for evil : good for good : good for evil.
Here we have the last. Delivered : by all the good that He
did, by all the evil that He suffered : from bodily disease, b^
healing the sick ; from bodily hunger, by feeding the multi-
tude ; from spiritual famine, by His own Body and Blood ;
I
PSALM VII. 133
from spiritual sickness, for Himself took our infirmities isa. liii. 4.
and bare our sicknesses ; from the prince of the power of
this world, and from everlasting death. That without any
cause is mine enemy. " Because the carnal mind is enmity
against God : for it is not subject to the law of God, neither ^°™- ^"^- 7*
indeed can be."
{Have delivered him, &c. The LXX. and Vulgate read
this clause very diflferently. May I {deservedly Vulg.)/aZZ Haymo.
away empty from mine enemies, i.e. may I be ingloriously J). C.
worsted in my encounter with my earthly or spiritual foes, Beilarmine.
losing life on the one hand, grace on the other. The Syriac,
Targum, and S. Jerome, again, agree in explaining the words.
If I have despoiled, or oppressed, even mine enemies. And it
is literally taken of David allowing Saul to go free out of the
cave ; mystically of Cheist's prayer on the Cross, *' Fathee, g. Luke
forgive them, for they know not what they do."] xxUi. 34.
5 Then let mine enemy persecute my soul, and
take me : yea, let him tread my life down upon the
earth, and lay mine honour in the dust.
He shows here all the bitterness of His Passion : in that
though He had delivered us, who without any cause were
His enemies, — us, who were rebels against Him, — us, that G.
He might reconcile us to God, the enemy, nevertheless, did
persecute Sis soul and take it. Mine honour : for being a
K^ing, He had a Crown of thorns ; being a Conqueror, no
seemlier a triumphal chariot than the Cross ; scornful revil-
ings, instead of applauses ; a reed for a sceptre. And all
this to the intent that our enemy, the devil, might not per-
secute our souls in this world, and take them in the next ; nor
lay our honour, our hopes, and strength, and confidence in
the dust.
6 Stand up, O Lord, in thy wrath, and lift up
thyself, because of the indignation of mine enemies ;
arise up for me in the judgment that thou hast com-
manded.
From the Passion he forthwith turns to the Eesurrection.
In Thy wrath. And so it is written in Isaiah : " My fury
it upheld Me." Because of the indignation of mine enemies.
And so again it is written: "According to their deeds, ac- isa.iix. is.
cordingly He shall repay ; fury to His adversaries, recom- q.
pense to His enemies." Arise up for me. Where notice how
he lays hold of and applies to himself the merits of the g j^^^ ^^
Loed's Eesurrection : saying with Thomas, " My Loed and 28.
TD.J God ;" with S. Paul, " I know whom I have believed ;" 2 Tim. i. 12,
with the Bride, " My Beloved is mine, and I am His." In cant. u. 16.
the judgment that Thou hast commanded. Because He thus
134
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
S. Alb. Mag.
P.
Eusebius.
S. Chrysost.
S. Basil.
Theodoret.
z.
S. Thom.
Aquin.
Burgen.
L.
A.
Beda.
Ric. Hamp.
D. C.
P.
A.
S. John vii.
39.
S. John
xvi. 7.
arose for our sakes from the heart of the earth in His Eesur-
rection, He will arise to deliver us in our own : because He
was unjustly condemned in the judgment which the Jews
demanded, He will rise up to acquit us in the judgment
which He has commanded.
[Stand up. The suffering Church calls on her Loed at
four times to arise. Under the Law she implores Him to
show Himself Incarnate ; when she feels the need of a sacri-
fice for sin, she asks Him to be exalted in His Passion, and
to reign from the Tree; then to return, arising from the
grave, to comfort His Bride ; and last, that He may stand up
in the preaching of His Saints, so that His Name may be
adored in the hounds of mine enemies, in Judaea which rejected
Him, and in all those Gentile lands which once knew not
God. The Syriac reads, £e Thou lifted up upon the necks of
mine enemies, that they may bow under Thine easy yoke.
The judgment. LXX. and Vulgate read, the precept. Many
Greek Fathers, expounding literally, take it of God's ven-
geance on Absalom's breach of filial duty. Others refer it to
David's claiming the fulfilment of God's promise of a sure
kingdom to him. Mystically, there are several views. First
comes the Eastern, that it is a prayer to Cheist to bestow
the promised gifts of the Spieit, for the forgiveness of sins
and fulfilment of the New Law. The Latin Fathers are di-
vided. Some take it of the precept of humility, others of
the new commandment of brotherly love ; others again of the
overthrow of the Jewish nation and polity, and the conver-
sion of the Gentiles.]
7 And so shall the congregation of the people
come about thee : for their sakes therefore lift up
thyself again.
And so : not as once when the congregation came about
the LoED in the judgment hall of Pilate to accuse Him, or
in the pavement to crown Him with thorns, or on the hill of
Calvary to mock Him. But shall so come about Him as to
be His congregation. His Church, purchased b^ the Blood,
cleansed by the water that flowed from His side : shall so
come about Him as to look to Him and live : " it is good for
me to draw near to God :" shall so hereafter come about Him
as to hear that most joyful voice, " Come, ye blessed children
of My Fathee." And this Church could not extend itself
and prosper until the coming of the Holy Ghost ; neither
could the Holy Ghost descend till Cheist had gone up, as
it is written, " The Holy Ghost was not yet given, because
that Jesus was not yet glorified :" and again, "If I go not
away, the Comforter will not come unto vou." For their
sakes therefore, on account of that Church, lift up Thyself
again : as Thou didst once lift up Thyself from the darkness
of the tomb to the light of this world, so now lift up Thyself
PSALM VII. 135
again from earth to Thj heavenly kingdom. Or it may be
taken in another sense : the congregation of the people shall
rise against Thee to oppose Thee ; for their sakes, there- ^^^^jo'an.
fore, and to plead the cause of Thy Church, ascend into 5. '
heaven.
\^Come about Thee, S. Albert briefly sums up the various g. Alb. Mag.
motives which made the Jewish multitudes throng around
Cheist, thus :
Morbus, signa, cibus, blasphemia, dogma, fuere
Causae, cur Dominum turba secuta fuit.
Lift up Thyself again. The ancient versions, closer to the
Hebrew, and more distinctly foretelling the Ascension, read
Return upon high, and that not raevelj for Thy congregation,
but over it, (Heb.) supreme in power, as well as prevalent by
intercession.]
8 The Lord shall judge the people ; give sentence
with me^ O Lord : according to thy righteousness,
and according to the innocency that is in me.
As in the Creed, after the clause, " He ascended into hea-
ven," follows, " from thence He shall come to ^'udge the quick
and the dead," so here, after " Lift up Thyselt again," comes, -^J*
The Lord shall judge the people. The Lord. What Loed
save Jesus Cheist ? " For the Fathee judgeth no man, s. John v.
but hath committed all judgment into the hand of the Son." ^^^'
The innocency. David speaks not as boasting of it, but as J'on^Bre^'in
returning thanks for it ; the Son of David speaks of it as loc.
pleading its merits, and so assuring our pardon.
\_Give sentence ivith me. The A. V., more exactly. Judge
me. It is not spoken only of the Head, Who in His perfect
holiness can alone abide the sentence of God, but it is the
cry of the righteous man not yet made perfect, asking for the Haymo.
chastisement which is to purify him as fine gold, according
to his righteousness and innocence, that is, active and passive carth!"°
holiness, precisely because there is precious metal needing to
be cleansed from dross, and that it may be so completely
purged that the wickedness of the ungodly may come to an end
m the soul.]
9 O let the wickedness of the ungodly come to an
end : but guide thou the just.
And yet this very wickedness is allowed by God to the
end that He may thereby prove the virtue and increase the -^y*
merit of His martyr servants, even as the fury of the heathen
was the glory of the martyrs. Come to an end : virtually C.
indeed, in the Crucifixion ; but not actually till all the righ-
teous shall have been gathered into that place, whereinto
nothing can in any wise enter that defileth.
136 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
10 For the righteous God : trieth the very hearts
and reins.
That js, the business and pleasures of this life : whether
it be the business of one who would gain the whole world,
and lose his own soul ; whether it be the pleasure of one
that would rather enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season
than suffer affliction with the people of God.
[Hearts and reins. The good and evil desires of men, the
^' higher thoughts and lower appetites, or else the first move-
ments of the will, and the final accomplishment of action,
whence pleasure comes.]
11 My help cometh from God : who preserveth
them that are true of heart.
Where note : every one needs some help. They who seek
•^7' it from God, need it not from the world, nor from the devil ;
they who seek it from the world or the devil, need it not the
less, it is true, but assuredly will not have it, from God. Mi/
heljp cometh from God. My help in temptation from Him Who
was thrice tempted in the wilderness : my help in weariness
from Him who being taken even as He was, fell asleep in the
Q. storm : my help in poverty from Him Who, though He was
rich, yet for our sakes He became poor : my help in distress,
from Him Who being in agony, prayed more earnestly : my
help in death, from Him Who Himself bowed His head and
gave up the ghost. Who preserveth them that are true of
heart. And this is the first time that a blessing is pronounced
on the true of heart in the Psalms : on them who receive
such innumerable benedictions throughout the whole Psalter,
and because they turn neither to the right hand nor to the
left in following their Lord here, receive from Him the gift
of final perseverance, to the end they may never be separated
from Him hereafter.
12 God is a righteous judge, strong, and patient :
and God is provoked every day.
. And hereby are we stirred up both to hope and to fear,
y* Patient, or who could hope to escape ? and yet righteous, to
execute justice on the impenitent: and 5^ro^^_9', for " mighty
Wisd. vi. 6. men shall be mightily tormented."
\_God is provoked. The Vulgate puts it as a question. Is
God provoked ? with a word {numquid) which looks for a
negative answer. The Syriac, LXX., and ^thiopic insert
J) Q the negative itself. And they point out that God did not
show His anger upon the Jews each day that they insulted
His Son, nay, that He spared them for a full generation after
Ezek. xvul. the Passion, and that as for us. He desireth not the death of
'23. a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live.]
S. James i
PSALM VII. 137
13 If a man will not turn^ he will whet his sword :
he hath bent his bow, and made it ready.
[Be will whet Sis sword. That is the Sword which He s. Alb. Mag.
sent to us first sheathed in the scabbard of human flesh, that
" Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God," which the Fa- Eph. vi. 17.
THEE will whet, and polish (LXX.), and brandish (Vulg.) in
terror and glory on the day of doom. And so the Prophet :
" A sword, a sword is sharpened, and also furbished ; it is
sharpened to make a sore slaughter ; it is furbished that it
may glitter : shall we then make mirth ? it is the rod of My
Son, it despiseth every tree." Se hath hent His how, the
bow of Holy Writ, wherein the stern and rigid precepts of the ^•
Old Testament are bent by the cord of love of the New.]
14 He hath prepared for him the instruments of
death : he^ ordaineth his arrows against the perse-
cutors.
Here we find two different kinds of arrows. The first,
instruments of death, when at last His vengeance sleeps no
longer, but His threatenings are put into force, and " sin,
when it is finished, bringeth forth death." But He also or- Ts.'
daineth another kind of arroics against the persecutors,
arrows, namely, of love. Such an one was ordained against
Saul, the persecutor, when he became Paul the Apostle.
[The instruments of death may also be taken of holy preach-
ers, who threaten death to the unrepentant, as it is written,
" We are unto God a sweet savour in Christ, in them that are
saved, and in them that perish ; to the one we are the savour 2 Cor. ii.i6.
of death unto death, and to the other the savour of life unto
life." The arrows are the piercing words and counsels drawn
from thence, which He makes burtiing, (Heb.) with the fire
of charity, faith, and devotion. The LXX. and Vulgate, g ^^^^^
reading arroiosfor them which hum, point to the same mean- carth.
ing. In a bad sense, the instruments of death or vessels
(Vulg.) of death, are heretics, who draw poison from the §. Alb. Mag.
waters of salvation, and " wrest the Scriptures unto their own ...
destruction." Others interpret this whole passage of God's \q' ^*' "^"
secret vengeance on sinners who burn in their lusts, for
whom He prepares, not only swift and sudden arrows, but -p. ^
vessels of everlasting death. And a tamer exposition sees in
the sword and bow, the vessels and arrows, Vespasian and
Titus with their fearful visitation of the Jews.] P.
15 Behold, he travaileth with mischief : he hath
conceived sorrow, and brought forth ungodliness.
" That which is conceived and that which is born, are al-
ways of the same kind. If a man was born, a man was con-
ceived : if a Hon was born, a lion was conceived ; if a monster
138 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
was born, — and all sin is a monster, — a monster was con-
ceived. Then, wlien David asserts, he brought forth ungod-
liness, why does he not speak consistently, he hath conceived
ungodliness ? Because this is the method of reasoning by
which a man who has any faith persuades himself to sin.
He first conceives sorrow, he then brings forth ungodliness ;
he first determines on future repentance, and then, as upon
a letter of licence and immunity from punishment, he sins
boldly and without fear. The Christian, who is a sinner,
knows well that sin destroys the soul, and condemns it to
hell : but flattered and conquered by his own lusts, as if he
were excusing himself to his soul, and so making all safe, he
speaks thus within himself: My soul, I know well that I am
destroying and condemning thee, but if I destroy and con-
demn thee with sin now, I will raise thee up and deliver thee
with repentance hereafter."^
Ric. Hamp. [jffe conceiveth sorrow, by longing after temporal goods,
which can bring no true godliness, but only care and trouble,
and thus gives birth to ungodliness, to the deceit, injustice,
and fraud, exhibited in the struggle for riches and power.
And the Jews conceived sorrow when they, stung with
C. Cheist's reproaches, plotted against His life. They brought
forth ungodliness, crying, " Crucify Him."]
16 He liath graven and digged up a pit : and is
fallen himself into the destruction that he made for
other.
Ric Hamp. \_Grraven and digged up. The words mark two things, the
toil of the tempter in his evil work, and the depth to which
bad counsel, if not promptly rejected, sinks into the heart.
But note, that as a pit can only be dug where there is earth,
■^ so it is only base and earthly desires which give the enemy
ground to work upon for our destruction. It holds of here-
tics, who dig deeply into Holy Writ, not for edification, but
C. for evil ends, and it may be taken also of Judas and of the
Chief Priests, all of whom perished by their plots against the
innocent.]
17 For his travail shall come upon his own head :
and his wickedness shall fall on his own pate.
Venantius For the work of our salvation
Fortuiiatus. Needs would have his order so,
V'alg/"''' ^^ t^® multiform deceiver's
lingua. Art by art would overthrow ; '
And from thence would bring the medicine,
Whence the insult of the foe.
^ These sentences are from the I on the text " Sin no more." Yol.
noble Sermon of Antonio Vieyra, | iv. p. 1.
i
PSALM VII. 139
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, by which man
fell, changed into the tree of life by which Satan perished ;
the fruit of disobedience, becoming the fruit of the tree that
is in the midst of paradise : the garden whence the first
Adam was driven forth replaced by the garden where the ^^^^ ^^
second Adam arose from the dead. " O sin of Adam, cer- Easter Eve.
tainly necessary, which was destroyed by the death of
Cheist ! O happy fall, which merited such and so great a
Iledeemer!"
18 1 will give thanks unto the Lord, according to
his righteousness : and I will praise the Name of the
Lord most High.
He has spoken of the Passion and Eesurrection of the
LoED, now he speaks of the final beatification of His ser- ^
vants. For it is only in our Country that we can praise the
LoED according to His righteousness, seeing that, while we
are in the world, the half of His goodness is not declared to
us. It is they, as Deborah speaks, " that have been delivered judg. v. 1 1.
from the noise of archers," which we in this world cannot be,
— " who shall declare the righteous acts of the Loed, even
His righteous acts to the inhabitants of His villages in
Israel : ' to those who dwell dispersed and scattered in the
earth, far from each other, and far from the city of their
King, but who shall then be gathered together in one great
congregation before the throne of God, and of the Lamb.
[Wherefore :
Glory be to the Fathee, the Loed my God, in Whom I
have put my trust ; glory be to the Son, the Loed Who shall
judge the people ; glory be to the Holy Ghost, the righteous
God, Who preserveth them that are true of heart.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be : world
without end. Amen.]
Collects.
God, That searchest the heart and triest the reins, deUver mss. Tho-
us from them that persecute us : and grant us, through the ^^'
expectation of Thy judgment, such firm trust of heart that
we may never recompense to our enemies evil for evil.
Through. (1.)
O Loed God, deliver Thy Church, which trusteth in Thee, Mozarabjc,
from her persecutors : that as, by the might of Thy Passion, Passiontide
Thou didst set her free from the slavery of the devil, so by
the virtue of Thy intercession Thou mayest redeem her from
eternal punishment. (11.)
O God, great, powerful, and merciful, deliver us from the Mozarabic,
roaring lion, who goeth about seeking whom he may devour, "bid.
that through the victory of the Lion of the tribe of Judah,
the hosts of all our enemies may be put to flight. (11.)
140 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
-p^ p O LoED our God, in Whom we put our trust, deliver Thy
^' ^' faithful from all their visible enemies that persecute them,
that obtaining safety under Thy protection, we may evermore
fearlessly praise Thy blessed Name. Through. (1.)
PSALM VIII.
Tedle. English Version : To the Chief Musician upon G-ittith ;
a "Psalm of David. Yulgate : To the end ; for the winepresses ; a
Psalm of David. Modern interpreters : To the Supreme; at vvine-
press-tide. Targum : To be sung to the harp which David brought
from G-ath ; a Psalm of David.
Aegument.
Aeg-. Thomas. That Cheist, the Son of Man, was made in His
Passion a little lower than the angels. The voice of the ancient
Church speaketh of Cheist and of faith. Also of the Ascension of
the Savioue, and of the infants that glorified Him and that said,
" Hosanna in the Highest." The voice of the Church giveth praise
to Cheist for the faith of all creatures. Eead it with the Gospel
of S. Mark.
Yen. Bede. For the winepresses : that is, for the members of
the Church ; because, as in the winepress, when the grapes are
bruised, and the hardest pips crushed, the sweetest wine pours forth,
so, when obstinacy and pride are crushed in the Church, the sweet
tears of penitence are beautifully expressed. The Church, then, of
former times, true winepress indeed of the body, and salutary fruit
of the soul, at the commencement of the Psalm sings the praises of
her LoED Cheist, setting forth His Majesty and the greatness of
His operations : " O Lord, our Governor,'^ &c. Then she speaketh
more plainly of the nature of man, which, from the low and de
praved condition whereto Adam's fall had reduced it, He raised toj
the height of glory; and the One Person of Cheist in its two
distinct and inconfused natures is unhesitatingly acknowledged
** What is man^'* &c.
Steiac Psaltee. a prophecy that the infants and children
would sing praise in Hosannas to the Loed.
Yaeious Uses.
Gregorian. Ferial. Sunday : I. Nocturn. [Ascension Day ;
I. Nocturn. Trinity Sunday : I. Nocturn. Transfiguration : I.
Nocturn. Feast of the Holy Name : I, Nocturn. Invention of
the Cross : II. Nocturn. Feasts of the Crown of Thorns and of
the Nails and Spear : II. Nocturn. Feasts of tlie Blessed Yirgin ;
I. Nocturn, Michaelmas Day : I. Nocturn. All Saints : I. Noc- ;
turn. Common of One Martyr and of Confessors : II. Nocturn.
Common of Virgins : I. Nocturn.]
Monastic, Ferial. Tuesday : Prime. (Festivals : as Gregorian.)
I
PSALM VIII. 141
Parisian. Monday : Prime.
Lyons. Sunday : II. Noctum.
Ambrosian. Monday of the First Week : Matins.
Quignon. Thursday : Prime.
Aktiphons.
Gregorian. God is a righteous Judge, &c. [Ascension : Thy
glory is set up above the heavens, O God, Alleluia. Trinity Sun-
day : Be present, One God Almighty, Fathee, Son, and Holt
Ghost. Transfiguration : Made a Httle lower than the Angels, He
was crovraed with glory and worship, and set over the works of the
hands of God. Holy Name : First verse. All Saints : How excel-
lent is Thy Name, O Loed, for Thou hast crowned Thy Saints
with glory and worship, and hast set them over the works of Thy
hands. For one Martyr : Thou hast crowned him with glory and
honour in all the earth. Common of Virgins : O how fair is the
chaste generation with glory.]
Lyons. First verse.
Mozarabic. How excellent is Thy Name, O Loed, in all the
earth.
1 O Lord our Governor, how excellent is thy
Name in all the world : thou that hast set thy glory
above the heavens !
The former Psalm concludes with a promise, " I will praise s. chrysos-
the Name of the Loed Most High." Here we have its ful- *°™- '*'• "7.
filment. O Lord, our Governor. God's Name is twice re-
peated : for He is twice our Loed, in that He made us and
in that He redeemed us. The Loed of the heathen, as having
created them ; but ours doubly, in that He is known to us.
In that He is our Loed, we are His servants : in that we are
His servants, in all that He possesses we have a special in-
terest. In all the earth : and not in Judea alone, seeing G.
that, in the fulness of the time, the Gentiles also ware to be
added to the Church. And that Name, when first set up as
a title over the Cross, was written in three languages, as a
sign that hereafter it should be preached and should be wor-
shipped by every tongue and nation.
[jP% Name. It is that Name Jesus, the joy of the faithful, s. Aibertus
and the true revelation of the Fathee, which is meant. ^.*^'}?^-
Ric. Hamp.
Jesu Nomen omne bonum Miss.Sarisb.
Tenet, dulcem facit sonum, ' The Se-
Promeretur regni thronum, jlllfdulcis
Auditum Iffitificat : Nazarenus.
In hoc lucet splendor Pateis,
In hoc patet decor Matris,
In hoc fulget honor fratris,
Hoc fratres magnificat.]
\_Above the heavens. They take it, for the most part, lite- s. Athana-
rally of the Ascension. Others, and especially the Angelic sios.
142
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
A. Doctor, see here implied the infinite distance between Christ
s. Hieron. and the very highest of His Saints ; not only the Apostles
^' or the Angels, but even her who bore Him, whom Christian
Aq'S'n "^ singers delight in styling the " new heaven."
S. Petr.
Damiani,
The Hymn
Gaudium
mundi.
L.
Ay.
1 Cor. iii. 2.
S. Chrysos-
tom, u. s.
lS.Pet.ii.2.
Isa. viii. 18.
S. John xxi.
6.
S. Bruno
earth.
S. John ix.
16.
S. John
xix. 7.
P.
Aula coelestis speciosa Regis,
Fulta septenis sopliise columnis,
Quern nequit totus cohibere mundus
Claudis in alvo.
Above the Scriptures also, and all Sacraments, because their
only value is as ways to Him.]
2 Out of the moutli of very babes and sucklings
hast thou ordained strength^ because of thine ene-
mies : that thou mightest still the enemy, and the
avenger.
Literally the Holy Innocents, who thus glorified Christ
by their deaths, and they who cried Hosanna by their accla-
mations, as He Himself has taught us. Spiritually, the
weaker members of the Church, of whom the Apostle writes,
" I have fed you with milk, and not with strong meat." And
again, those who had the innocence and simplicity of babes,
as the holy Apostles, because of Thine enemies : for their
conversion; or, if they wiU not turn, for their destruction.
As it is written, " The arrows of the little ones are made their
wounds." That Thou mightest still the enemy : for God hath
chosen the weak things of this world to confound the wise.
Note ; He chooses this sign rather than any other, for the
more confusion of the Jews. For Christ's other miracles
had been performed under the Old Covenant ; not so this.
[Babes and sucklings. The words are mystically taken of
the Apostles, as the first-born of the Church, as taught by
their Lord to speak, as fed by Him like new-born babes
with the sincere milk of the Word, and as called by Him
His " children." Avenger. S. Bruno the Carthusian, fol-
lowing here the Italic version, defender, interprets the word
of the Jews, professing zeal for the defence of the Law as
their motive for persecuting their Lord, saying, " This Man
is not of God, because He keepeth not the Sabbath Day ;"
and again, " We have a law, and by our law He ought to die,
because He made Himself the Son of God." Avenger. Not
only tyrants and unbelieving nations, w^hom God has at
various times raised up to chastise a backsliding Church, but
the evil spirit himself, who is only an instrument in his Crea-
tor's hand, and who wiU finally be stilled in the great doom.]
3 For I will consider thy heavens, even the works
of thy fingers : the moon and the stars, which thou
hast ordained.
PSALM VIII. 143
The heavens. The whole course and disposition of events
under God's Providence : the works of His fingers, Who has
declared that all things shall work together for good to them
that love Him. Sis fingers, not His hands, because this is s. Chrysos-
but a small thing for God's omnipotence. The moon, that is, *°™' "' ^'
the Church, dark in itself, — constantly as it were, in danger
to shine no more, — as constantly renewed, and deriving all s. Ambros.
her light from the true Sun. The stars. The Saints of God, ^^gut."*"
as it is written, "They that turn many to righteousness shall
shine as the stars for ever and ever." Note ; he mentions Dan. xii. 3.
not the sun, because the Sun of Eighteousness was begotten,
not made. And again, in another sense, the Son of David s. Greg,
might have taken these words on His own lips, when He ^°'?' )?
continued all night on the mountain in prayer to God, and ^^^ " "* * *
was then so mindful of the sons of men, as, at the fourth
watch of the night, to appear to them walking upon the sea.
\^For I will consider. The A. V. more exactly, when I con-
sider, then, seeing God's majesty, I marvel at His condescen-
sion, and am, besides, kindled with eager longing after the
Heavenly country.
Cuando contemplo el cielo Luis de
De innumerabiles luces adomado, Leon, Noche
Y miro hacii el suelo serena.
De noche rodeado,
El amor y la pena
Despiertau en mi pecho una ansia ardiente,
Despiden larga vena
Los ojos hechos fuente,
La lengua dice al fin con voz doliente :
Morada de grandeza,
Templo de claridad y hermosura,
Mi alma quo a tu alteza
Naci6, ^ que desventura
La tiene en esta carcel baja oscura ?
The moon and the stars. The use of this Psalm in the
Common of Virgins points to yet another meaning of this
clause. The moon, observes the confessor of Edward I., de- Jorgius
notes Mary, the Mother of God, and that for various reasons. ^^^'
As the moon draws all her brightness from the sun, and yet
is the most luminous object next to him, so Mary, made
"full of grace" by Him whose countenance is " as the sun
shineth in his strength," is brightest of all the Saints. And ^^'^^ ^- ^^•
}ret, as the moon is nearest to the earth, so Our Lady is the
owliest of all in her humility. As the moon rules the tides,
so Mary, (according to S. Jerome, " Star of the Sea,") by her
prayer helps those who are tossed on the bitter surges of the
■world. And as Easter, the festival of the Eesurrection,
follows the course of the moon, so the spiritual arising of man
by the Incarnation followed the consent of Mary's will to the
144
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Ps. xlv. 15.
The Se-
quence,
0 vernantea
Christi
rosa.
message of the Angel. The choirs of Virgins which be her
fellows, and bear her company, then are fitly compared to
the stars, less than the moon alone in glory and beauty.
O puellse, O agnellse,
Cheisti carse columbellse,
Sine dolo, sine felle,
Coeli stellsB, Dei cellse,
Jubilate purpuratse,
Coronatse, congregatse
Cum Agno innocentise.
# # # #
Ipsa est dilecta mea,
Vos praecedens in chorea,
Cujus nomen et persona
Sua lucet in corona,
Quam inscripsit Detts Patee,
Hsec est ilia Jesu mater
Maria Yirgo virginum.]
A.
Ps. xzxix.
12.
Ps. cxvi. 10.
S. Petr.
Damiani,
Serm. 68.
S. Luke i. 68
Ps. Ixv. 9.
Brev.
Rotomag.
The Se-
quence,
Jubilemus
Salvatori.
Bern.
Cluniac.
Rhjthmua.
4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him :
and the son of man, that thou visitest him ?
When, therefore, the prophet considers all these things,
tending to man's salvation, the providence whereby all events
work together for his good, — the Church to be his mother,
the Saints to be his examples and his friends, — his thoughts
are naturally carried back to the one source of all, which is
the Incarnation. What is man ? The Psalmist answers in
another place, "Every man is but vanity ;" and again, "All
men are liars." Man, taken absolutely as a sinner : the son
of man, those that are endeavouring to keep the law of God.
Visitest. As it is written: "Blessed be the Loed God of
Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His people." And
again, " Thou visitest the earth, and blessest it."
[The Houen Breviary, employing by a peculiar use the
eighth Psalm for the matins of Christmas Day, fitly selects
this verse as the Antiphon, in the spirit of that hymn of
Adam of S. Victor.
Ut ascendat homo reus
Condescendit Homo-Deus
Hominis miserise.
Quis non laudet et Isetetur ?
Quis non gaudens admiretur
Opus novse gratise ?
And there is yet another thought which thev bring before
us, that these glorious starry heavens are the destined home
of feeble and smful men :
Quid datur et quibus eether ? egentibus et oruce dignis,
Sidera vermibus, optima sontibus, astra malignis.]
PSALM VIII. 145
5 Thou madest Mm lower than the angels : to
crown him with glory and worship.
Forasmuch as Cheist went not up into joy, but first He
suffered pain, so here we see Him in His low estate first, and
then in His glory ; for the humiUty of His Passion was the Ay.
merit of His exaltation. Lower than the angels. In that He
condescended to become mortal and passible. A little lower.
And what marvel, then, if, speaking in respect of His hu-
manity. He saith, *' My Father is greater than I ?" With g, Basil.
glory, as respects Himself; with worship, in reference to Epist. vUi.
others.
l^Lower. The A. V., and the old versions all have a little
lower. A little, for it was but for a short time, a little, be- ~.
cause He was mortal and passible of His own free-will, and ^'
not, like us, of necessity. Glory, in the victory of the Re- _
surrection ; honour, in the throne of the Ascension. And carth.
note that Cheist is said to have many crowns, of which the
chief are mercy, wherewith He was crowned in His Incarna- g Aibertus
tion and Nativity ; sorrow, when the thorny diadem of the Magnus.
Passion was given Him ; glory, in His Resurrection and As-
cension ; dominion, which He will receive when the court
of the redeemed gathers round Him.]
6 Thou makest him to have dominion of the works
of thy hands : and thou hast put all things in subjec-
tion under his feet ;
Over the works of Thy hands ; and therefore over those
angels than whom for a season He was made a little lower.
Thou hast put all things in subjection. Let the Apostle in-
terpret : " In that He put all in subjection under Him, He Heb. li. s.
left nothing that is not put under Him." " But when he
saith. All things are put under Him, it is manifest that He 27. °'^' *^'
is excepted Which did put all things under Him." Note ;
in these three verses we have the four living creatures of the R„pert in
Revelation ; for these may denote the four parts of Christ's Apocaiyp*.
worlc of mercy, as well as the four Evangelists. What is *o™- "• ^'^7,
man 1 There we have the face of a man. Thou madest Him *®^*
lower than the angels: there the ox, the animal fitted for
sacrifice. To crown Him toith glory and honour : there the
victorious lion. Thou hast put all things in subjection: there
the eagle that soars above everything else.
{Under His feet. As the Head of Cheist is His Divinity, s. Aibertus
80 His/eeiJ are His Manhood, and it is as Man that the em- Magnus.
pire is given Him which was always His very own as God.]
7 All sheep and oxen : yea, and the beasts of the
field;
All sheep. By sheep we understand those whose business
in CjEfiiST's Church is not to teach, but to learn. "My C.
H
12
146 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
s.Johnx. sheep," saith He, " hear My voice." By oxen, those who
^'' labour in His Word and doctrine; according to that saying
1 Cor. ix. 9. of S. Paul, " Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that
treadeth out the corn." For by these great profit is ob-
Prov. xiv. 4. tained in His Church ; as it is written, " Much increase is
B. by the strength of the ox." Yea : the word shows that a
cnange of subject is made ; namely, from the good to the
wicked. The beasts of the field : those who own no master,
2^s. Pet. ii. Ij^^ follow their own hearts' lusts, like " brute beasts," as S.
Peter teaches, " made to be taken and destroyed." For the
wicked as well as the good are made subject to Cheist.
p^ [JSTot only are the sheep, the lowly and docile, who hear
the voice of the Shepherd, put under Him, but even the oxen,
the powerful rulers of the earth, and the beasts of the field, the
wandering and barbarous tribes which knew no law before.]
8 The fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea :
and whatsoever walketh through the paths of the
seas.
C. The fowls of the air are the Saints, who rise above the
world, but only by means of the sign of the Cross. The fishes,
ordinary Christians, regenerate of water and of the Holy
Ghost ; and whatsoever, bad as well as good, unholy no less
than holy, walketh through the paths of the seas, is exposed
to the waves and storms of this troublesome world.
A. \_The fowls of the air, S. Augustine will have to be the
proud and ambitious, the fishes, those who are restless and
acquisitive. Others see in the winged fowls, the angels ; in
the fishes, the evil spirits of the abyss; or again, in a good
sense, the dwellers in the isles afar, and mariners in them
•P* who tvalk through the paths of the seas. The literal inter-
pretation of these verses, as referring to the dominion of man
over the lower creation, bestowed on Adam and confirmed to
Noah, has led to the use of this Psalm in the Office in time of]
cattle-plague.]
9 O Lord our Governor : how excellent is thy
Name in all the world !
Excellent, therefore, as well for that He is very God, as
set forth in the first verses, as because He is very Man, as
taught in the succeeding verses, of the Psalm. And its be-
ginning and ending are the same, as being in His praise Who
is the first and last, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.
[ Wherefore :
Glory be to the Father, Who hath put all things under i
the feet of the Son of Man ; glory be to the Son, Who, ■
though Son of God, vouchsafed to become Son of Man, and
to be made lower than the Angels, and now is crowned with
glory and honour as Priest and King ; glory be to the HoLX
Rit. August
I
PSALM IX. 147
Ghost, the Finger of God, by Whom the heavens were
made.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be :
world without end. Amen.]
Collects.
We beseech Thy Name, O Loed, which is great, wonder- mss. Tho-
ful, and holy, that as Thou didst create the beasts of the field ™*®*
for the service of man, so Thou wouldst cause man to delight
in the service of Thee. Through (1.)
O Loed, our Governor, Whose Name is excellent through Mozarabic,
all the world, grant that we may despise the excellency of Second sun-
the same world, and Thy praise may be perfected in our Peutecost.
mouths, and Thy faith made manifest by our good works. (11.)
[Loed Jesxj, Whose wonderful Name the angel foretold, Mozarabic,
Thy Mother bestowed, Simeon acknowledged, Anna praised ; Purification,
save Thy people in all the world, Thou Whose Name is
majestic in heaven, that Thou Who only art glorious in
power, mayest also be gentle in Thy merciful pardon to the
lost. (11.)]
[O Loed Jesu Chbist, by Thine excellent Name, spread D. C.
through all the world by the Apostles, perfect the praise of
Thy victory in us who are the work of Thy fingers, that our
enemy may be stilled, and we crowned with the perpetual
triumph of glory and worship. (5.)]
PSALM IX.
This and the following Psalm are, in the LXX. and the Vulgate,
reckoned as one ; though the numbering of the verses breaks oflf and
begins again. Th6 Antiphons, therefore, Arguments, and the like,
must be taken to apply to one, as well as to the other.
Title. English Version : To the Chief Musician upon Muth-
labben. Vulgate : To the end ; for the hidden things of the Son ;
a Psalm of David. Targum : To sing upon the death of a man who
had gone out from between the camps. A Psalm of David.*
No title has given modern Commentators more trouble than this.
Some, as Bishop Horsley, follow the Vulgate, and adopt the myste-
rious interpretation of Venerable Bede. Others will have the Muth-
labben to be a musical instrument. Others, as Dr. Good, dissatisfied
with all these, propose, by a different division of the word, to elicit
the meaning, On the death-blow : that is, One of the decisive vic-
* Kimchi understands this of
Goliath, who is called Er2an '^
" the man of the middle places,"
h2
in 1 Sam. xvii. 4, as standing
between the Philistine and He-
brew armies. — L.
148 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
tories obtained by David over the Great Confederation that attacked
hiro immediately after his accession to the throne.
Aequment.
Aeg. Thomas. That Cheist, by His holy Advent, will crush
Antichrist. The prophet speaketh thfe praises of Cheist, and
prayeth to Cheist concerning the Jews. The Church rendereth
thanks to Cheist, and speaketh of the Jews and of the prince of
the devils, and of the perdition of idols, whose name is put out for
ever and ever, and of the Advent of Cheist, Who came that the
man of the earth might no more he exalted : for dead men were wor-
shipped as Gods.
Ven. Bede. For the hidden things of the Son. The name of the
Son, signifies the Person of the Loed the Saviotje. He saitli Ijid-
den things, in the plural, because he denoteth not one Advent only,
but both. It ought to be known that in the Hebrew, the expression
is. For the death of the Son : but the LXX. interjjreters preferred,
in referring to the Passion and Eesurrection of Cheist, to use the
expression, the hidden things of the Son, lest they should set forth
to the Gentiles that which before they were unacquainted with . . .
All this Psalm is spoken in the person of the Prophet. He begins
by expressing his joy in the Loed, for that He hath put the Devil
to confusion ; whose worship was destroyed by His Advent ; I will
give thanks unto Thee, 0 Lord, &c. Next, he exhorts the faithful
to sing Psalms to God, Who avengeth the blood of the poor, and
lifteth them up from the gates of death : O praise the Lord, Which
dwelleth, &c. Next, He telleth of the end, which will come upon
sinners together with Antichrist : the wicked shall he turned into
hell. Then, vehemently grieved at such overwhelming misery, he
tumeth himself to the Loed, as if God had withdrawn from the
defence of the poor, and given the wicked licence to work out their
own will : Why standest Thou so far off, 0 Lord ? And fifthly. He
prays that the time of that tremendous judgment may draw nigh,
and that all these evils may be ended, and the wickedness of no man
longer prevail. Arise, O Lord, &c.
EiTSEBius of C^saeea. The death and Eesurrection of Cheist j
His Eeception of the kingdom, and destruction of all His enemies.
Steiag Psaltee. Of Cheist receiving the Crown and the Throne,
and putting His enemies to flight. Also concerning the attacks of
the enemy on Adam and all his posterity, and how Cheist put an
end to his arrogance.
Aeabio Psaltee. Of the hidden things of the Son, as respects
the glory of Cheist and of His Eesurrection and Kingdom, and
the destruction of all the disobedient.
Vaeiotjs Uses.
Gregorian. Sunday : I. Nocturn.
Monastic. First portion. Tuesday: Prime. Second portion.
Wednesday : Prime.
Parisian. Wednesday : Matins.
Lyons. Monday : I. Nocturn.
Ambrosian. Monday of the First Week : II. Nocturn.
Quignon. Smiday : Matins.
PSALM IX. 149
Antiphons.
Gregorian. God is a Eighteous Judge, &c.
Monastic. First portion : as Gregorian. Second portion : Up,
LOED, and let not man have the upper hand.
Parisian. And they that fear Thy Name shall put their trust in
Thee, for Thou, Loed, hast never failed them that seek Thee.
Lyons. I will be glad and rejoice in Thee, O Loed.
Mozardbic. I will be glad and rejoice in Thee ; yea, my songs
will I make in Thy Name, O Thou Most Highest.
1 I will give thanks unto thee, 0 Lord, with my
whole heart : I will speak of all thy marvellous
works.
2 I will be glad and rejoice in thee : yea, my songs
will I make of thy Name, O thou most Highest.
This is the first of the many Psalms which may be applied ^y^
to both the Head of the Church, and to the Church herself.
It is the voice of Cheist, say a* great crowd of commentators.
It is the voice of the Church, say an equal number. But in
truth it is both one and the other : for how shall that which
is said by the Head, not also be capable of being said by the
members ? With my whole heart. For as with His whole
heart He entered on His Passion, according to that saying,
" How am I straitened till it be accomplished," — so also with s. Luke xii.
His whole heart, when the good fight had been fought, the ^''•
course finished, and the faith kept, He said, " Fathee, I s. John xi.
thank Thee that Thou hast heard Me !" Or, if you will take *'•
it as the words of the Church, it is a Psalm for every season
of the Christian year. All Thy marvellous works : the Incar-
nation, no less than the Passion ; the Ascension, equally with
the Resurrection. My songs will I make of Thy Name. For
which of the hymns of the Church is not directly or indirectly
made of the Name which is above every Name ? And it is
well said, 0 Thou Most Highest, when it was that Name
which was once set up as the title of His accusation, and is,
therefore, now exalted, to the end that, on hearing it, every
knee should bow.
3 While mine enemies are driven back : they shall
fall and perish at thy presence.
And notice how it follows : My songs will I make of Thy
Name, while mine enemies are driven back. Even so, when
the multitude that went forth with swords and staves had de-
manded Jesus of Nazareth, and the Loed answered them, I
am He, " As soon as He had said unto them, I am He, they s. John
went backward and fell to the ground." And if it is the ''^"^" ^'
Church that speaks, how many righteous souls have departed
out of this hfe, with that moat sweet Name on their lips !
150 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Q^ How many martyrs have pronounced It the last of all earthly
words ! In how many sudden accidents has there been time
for that one blessed word, and for no more ! And in all these
cases, their enemies were driven back for ever, according to
Ex. xiv. 13. that saying, " The Egyptians whom ye have seen to-day, ye
shall see them again no more for ever." They shall fall and
perish at Thy Presence. Even as the band and officers in
the Garden of Gethsemane, and the guards that watched the
tomb. At Thy Presence, here in this world, under the form
of Bread and Wine ; hereafter, when they shall hear those
words, " Depart, ye cursed, from the Throne of God."
[^Mine enemies. The LXX. and Vulgate read in the sin-
Ric. Ham- gular, mine enemy. And they take it then especially of Satan,
pol. compelled to get him behind the servant of God, as he was
forced to do before in the Temptation. The reading in the
second clause is plural, referring, say they, to the ministers
and snares which the evil one employs for his bad ends.]
4 For thou hast maintained my right and my
cause : thou art set in the throne that judgest right.
It is still the Eternal Son that speaks. Thou hast main-
tained My right to reassume that life which I voluntarily
j^y^ laid down, and My cause, the cause of them that are Mine ;
the cause of once fallen, but now ransomed, mankind. Thou
art set in the throne that judgest right. Annas and Caiaphas
in their tribunal, Herod in his palace, Pilate in the prsetormm,
pronounced their unrighteous judgment on Good Friday, and
the morning of Easter Day reversed it for ever. And much
more may the Church thus speak to her only Savioue. Thou
hast maintained My right, the right which was Mine by Thine
own promise, and My cause against the adversary of Thy
people. Thou art set in the throne, the triumphal throne of
the Cross, that judgest right, even then dividing between the
good and the bad, and setting the penitent thief on Thy right
hand : in the throne at the right hand of the Fathee, still to
maintain the right won by Thy Passion : and Thou shalt sit
on Thy throne of judgment at the end of the world, to sepa-
Ay. rate for ever between the unrighteous and the just.
5 Thou hast rebuked the heathen, and destroyed
the ungodly : thou hast put out their name for ever
and ever.
And notice the difference. By that Cross and Passion, the
heathen were rebuked, that so they might be brought to the
knowledge of salvation : even as the Centurion, when he had
seen the earthquake and the darkness, glorified God, saying,
S. Luke " Certainly this was a righteous man." But the ungodly y
xxUi.47. namely the Prince and soui'ce of all ungodliness, was de-
PSALM IX. 151
stroyed : the strong man was bound, and his goods spoiled :
the death of the Prince of Life made the destruction of the
Prince of death. Thou hast put out their name. And notice
the contrast. As soon as the Name of Jesus of Nazareth
was exalted on the Cross, it was proclaimed throughout the
world, " Neither is there salvation in any other : for there is Acts iv. 12.
none other Name under heaven given among men, whereby
we may be saved, but only the Name of our Lord Jesus
Cheist."
[Put out their name. As regards the Gentiles, by taking
away that title of reproach, and calling them Christians in- "'
stead ; as regards the Jews, by destroying their kingdom,
temple, sacrifices and ceremonial law.]
6 O thou enemy, destructions are come to a per-
petual end : even as the cities which thou hast de-
stroyed ; their memorial is perished with them.
The Church, calling Satan by his true name, speaks of his
destructions, because from the beginning they were twofold ;
death of the body and death of the soul. Both now come to
an end : for the Blood that was shed on the Cross was the
(quickening of the soul ; and the rising again on Easter morn-
ing, the pledge of the general Resurrection. Both come to a ^•
perpetual end : for by one offering He hath perfected for ever
them that are sanctified, ^ven as the cities which Thou hast G.
destroyed. Literally, the five cities of the plain, " which, s. Jude 7.
giving themselves over unto fornication, are set forth for an
example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." Mystically,
these cities are the same as those which our Lord calls houses
of the strong man, namely, human souls : their memorial pe-
rishing with them, in the multitudes of those whom before the
coming of our Lord, Satan destroyed at his will. "Hast s. Athan.in
thou never read," asks Satan of S. Antony, " ' O thou enemy, vita,
destructions are come to a perpetual end, and thou hast de-
stroyed their cities ?' See, I have now no territory ; I now
possess no city ; I have no longer any arms : the Name of
Christ echoes through every nation, through all provinces :
the very solitudes are filled with the choirs of the monks."
So truly could the father of lies apply this verse to his over-
thrown kingdom.
[0 thou enemy. This does not reproduce either the He-
brew or the old versions. The real sense is. The enemies
are gone, in ruins for ever, the cities Thou hast destroyed, the
memory of them has perished. The LXX. and Vulgate read :
The swords of the enemy have failed for ever, and Thou hast
destroyed their cities, their memory hath perished with a sound.
They tell us that the swords are the torments employed by s. Bruno
earthly foes against the bodies of the Saints, and the temp- ^^^v
tations of ghostly ones against their souls. With a sound, as poi,'
the devils cried out when expelled from the possessed. With Z.
152 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
p the noise of arms and trumpets, as befell the Jews before
Titus, remarks another. Best of all, that the walls of those
citadels which were raised up against holiness, fell, like those
Lyranus. ^^ Jericho, at the sound of the Gospel proclaimed by the
Apostles. And so the Paris Breviary :
T?ie*ilymn Cheistum sonant : versse ruunt
Supreme ' Arces superbse dsemonum :
quales arbi- Circum tubis clangentibus
Sic versa quondam moenia.]
ter.
7 But the Lord shall endure for ever : he hath
also prepared his seat for judgment.
Having set forth the work of our Loed on the Cross, he
proceeds to set forth His abiding work in heaven. He en-
dured the suffering of the Cross but for a few hours ; His in-
tercession at the Bight Hand of the Fathee, shall last until
He prepares His seat for judgment, at the end of all things.
For thus the Psalmist proceeds :
8 For he shall judge the world in righteousness :
and minister true judgment unto the people.
Where notice, that the Loed obtained the power of judg-
•Ay* ment by the patience of His humility : so that He Who was
judged upon the Cross should judge on the Throne. He shall
judge the world : namely, the sinners : in righteousness : and
minister true judgment, namely, that judgment mixed with
mercy, in which He delights, to the people. His own peculiar
Ps. c. 2. people : according to that saying, " We are His people, and
the sheep of His Pasture." And observe, that the judgment
of the wicked is here put before that of the righteous, even
s. Matt. as it is in that parable, " Gather ye together Jirst the tares :
xm. 30. jj^^ gather the wheat into my barn."
9 The Lord also will be a defence for the op-
pressed, even a refuge in due time of trouble.
s. John vii. In due time, but not before. " My time is not yet come,
^' but jour time is alway ready." For, "Loed, wilt Thou at
this time P" is as natural a question to us, as ever it was to the
Joshua lil. -A-postles. The due time, when, but not till, the feet of the
13. Priests are dipped in the edge of the water : the due time,
2 Sam. V. 24. when, but not till, the sound of a going in the tops of the mul-
Judgea vU. berrv trees is heard : the due time, when, but not till, Gideon
»»• shall break his own pitcher, and the light it contains shall
flash confusion on the hosts of the Midianites. It is for Saul
to offer his sacrifice before the due time shall have arrived,
I Sam. xui. and Samuel shall come ; and his sentence is, " Thou hast
13. done foolishly : now thy kingdom shall not continue."
I
PSALM IX. 153
10 And they that know thy Name^ will put their
trust in thee : for thou, Lord, hast never failed them
that seek thee.
That Name Which is above every Name, which is exalted
to give salvation to Israel and remission of sins. That
seek Thee. But how, says S. Chrysostom, can He be sought s. Cbrysost.
Who is everywhere present ? Present though He be, worldly
thoughts will so blind us that we find Him not. Even as
the men of Sodom sought for the door of Lot, and through
their miraculous blindness could not discover it, so shall
the worldly man grope for the true Door, but in vain.
Sast never failed. " 0 most sweet promise !" says one who q.
had been in afflictions and perils times without number,
*' worthy to be all our salvation and all our desire ! Never,
not even when the snares of death compass me about, and the
pains of hell got hold upon us. Never, though there be ' the Eccius. li. 4.
choking of fire on every side, from the midst of the flame
which we kindled not :' never but once, and that once to the
intent that one single failure might for ever make such failure
impossible; when the Only-begotten Son cried from the
Cross,- ' My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ?*
that His faithful people might seek Him from their own
crosses, with the assured certainty that He will be their
'Hope and Strength, a very present Help in trouble.' " P*- *l^^' ^•
11 O praise the Lord which dwelleth in Sion :
show the people of his doings.
It well follows when the Prophet has been speaking of help
required, that he should forthwith mention Sion, whence that
help comes. And so it is written in another place, " Strengthen Ps. xx. 2.
Thee out of Sion." Help, of what marvellous power, the
deeds of the Martyrs and Confessors may speak ; help, no less
wonderful in its variety than admirable in its might; adapt-
ing itself to each several need as the manna to every different
taste : like a true Tree of Life, bearing its twelve fruits, one Hkron.'in
for every month of man's sorrows. And with such help, loc.
what ought to be the praise ! The Prophet not only exhorts
us to praise the Lord, Which dwelleth in Sion, but himself
has assisted every generation of faithful souls to fulfil his
own exhortation, Shotv the people of Sis doings. For notice,
as Gerlach Petersen says, how love desires to speak of that
which it loves ; the leper that was cleansed, to spread abroad
the Lord's doing throughout aU that country ; the man out
of whom the devils were cast, to make known that beloved
Name to his kinsfolk and acquaintance. " Come hither and pg. ]xvi. u.
hearken, ye that fear God, and I will tell you what He hath
done for my soul." This it is that has sent out many and
many a missionaj:y to die for the Name of Cheist. "If
H 3
154 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Christ Himself," the great missionary, Gaspar Barzeo, used
to say, " had not established a mission in a heart then worse
than any Mahometan land, I should never have been preach-
ing the Gospel in Persia."
13 For when he maketh inquisition for blood, he
remembereth them : and forgetteth not the complaint
of the poor.
Remembereth them : but whom P The martyrs who poured
forth that blood: the righteous souls that continually cry
j^^ under the altar, " How long, O Loed, holy and true, dost
Rev. \i.'io. Thou not judge and avenge ?" He remembereth them,
making the blood of the martyrs the seed of the Church. If
Stephen is crushed to death with stones, Paul shall supply
his place in the armies of the Living God. And naturally,
from the martyrs, the Prophet ascends to the Martyr of mar-
tyrs. He forgetteth not the complaint of the poor. That
complaint or petition, " Father, forgive them," uttered on
the Good Friday, which in the week of Pentecost brought in
eight thousand souls to the Church. Woeful inquisition for
s Matt blood, which fulfilled the Jewish prayer, " His blood be on us
xxvii. 25. and on our children :" Blessed inquisition, which, when the
Destroymg Angel is passing by, shall find that Blood con-
secrating and protecting the habitations of our hearts ! They
are beholding that blood in which we place all our confidence,
they are acknowledging the scarlet line which is the pledge
Ps. cvi. 4. of our deliverance : " Remember us, O Lord, with the favour
that Thou bearest unto Thy people."
13 Have mercy upon me, O Lord, consider the
trouble which I sufifer of them that hate me : thou
that liftest me up from the gates of death.
Q Thus spoke the Eternal Son of God in the days of His hu-
miliation. For what trouble was there which He did not
suffer from them that hated Him ? The trouble of treacherous
"■• lips and a false tongue ; of their assaults when they took up
stones to stone Him, and led Him to the brow of the preci-
pice ; lastly, the trouble, the like to which the world never
saw, of the Pavement and Calvary. But not less may the
words be put into the mouth of our glorified Lord. Though
in Himself He can suffer no more, yet as regards His mem-
bers it is, " Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me P" In that
beloved Bride Whom He purchased by the effusion of His
own Blood, still He suffers trouble from them that hate Him
and that hate her : in every faithful soul He is troubled by
the temptation of Satan and the attacks of an evil world.
Yet as, in His own person, He was once for all lifted up
from the gates of death, so in that dear Church " which is
Acts ix. 4
PSALM IX. 155
His Body," so in that soul which so fondly clings to Him,
He is again and again lifted np, in every fresh deliverance,
assistance, triumph which is given to her. Or, if you like to
take the verse as the prayer not of the Head, but of the A.
members, then the gates of death may well be, as S. Augus-
tine says, " All depraved desires, for that through them is
the road to death."
14 That I may show all thy praises within the
ports of the daughter of Sion : I will rejoice in thy
salvation.
We had the deliverance in the last verse; we have the
reason of that deliverance in the present : That I may show
all Thy praises within the ports of the daughter of Sion.
From the gates of death to the gates of Sion, O glorious p
change ! From the broad portal that leadeth to destruction,
to the strait and narrow entrance whereby we go into hfe.
For like those of her prototype, Jerusalem, the gates of the
earthly Sion shall not be shut at all ; ever ready to receive
him that would enter in, ever joyful to welcome the poor
wanderer. I will rejoice in Thy salvation; as Simeon, when
he took the Desire of all nations in his arms, and prayed to
depart in peace. Will rejoice with that joy which may begin
indeed on earth, but which, like that good old man's, can
only have its full completion in the temple of the heavenly
Jerusalem.
[The ports of the daughter of Sion. They are three : faith, Ric Hamp.
hope, and charity. In the ports, that outer vestibule of the
Church Militant, wherein we must abide for a time, before D. c.
we pass into the secret chambers of the King's palace.]
15 The heathen are sunk down in the pit that
they made : in the same net which they hid privily,
is their foot taken.
16 The Lord is known to execute judgment :
the ungodly is trapped in the work of his own hands.
So from the very beginning, the works of Satan and of all
his servants have, by the deep counsel of God, been turned
against himself : from that very first victory when by death
Death was destroyed. Hear how joyouslv Cosmas, the sweet
poet of the Eastern Church, exults over that antithetical jus-
tice by which the ungodly was trapped iii the work of his
own hands. " O thrice blessed wood," says he, " on which
Chbist, the LoED and King was stretched ; by which he was
overthrown that had deceived by the tree ; on which he was s. Greg, in
taken as it were with a hook, by the God Who assumed our Job. xu.' 2.
flesh ! In Paradise, of old time, the Enemy by the fruit of
the tree stripped us of immortality ; by the Tree, was man
156 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
invested again, tlirough the Giver of Life, with the garb of
incorruption. Hither, O ye people, approach and behold
this great wonder ! The tree that in Paradise brought forth
death ; the tree that on Calvary blossomed into immortality !
Here was that sinless Lord nailed, from Whom every na-
tion, as from a glorious wine-press, rejoices itself with the
wine of everlasting Life."^ And as with the Chief, so also
Ex xviii 11 '^^^^ liis followers. " In the thing wherein they dealt
' proudly, He was above them," said Moses. " Wherewithal
Wisd.xi. 16. a jjjj^Q sinneth, by the same also shall he be punished," says
the Wise Man: and again, "Whereas men had lived disso-
wisd.xii.23. ]utely and unrighteously. Thou hast tormented them with
their own abominations." So the Egyptians that had cast
the Israelite children into the river, found the waters of that
river changed into blood: so Haman, that had raised the
gallows fifty cubits high, was hanged on those very gallows ;
so Holofernes, that sought the ruin of Judith, by the hand
of Judith was cut off in the midst of his sin ; so the Egyp-
tian, the goodly man (and no ill type of him, the Lord of that
land which is signified by Egypt, once the goodliest of
Archangels,) that thought to have slain Benaiah with his
spear, was by that very spear himself destroyed : so they
that had laid the false accusation against Daniel, were them-
Dan. vi. 24. selves cast into the den of lions, " and the lions had the
mastery over them, and brake all their bones in pieces, or
ever they came at the bottom of the den :" so, in later times,
G-alerius and Maximian, inventors of unheard-of and fearful
tortures, perished by diseases unknown to physicians, and
horrible beyond the power of words to describe : so JEgeas,
that sentenced S. Andrew to the Cross ; so Quintian, that
inflicted on S. Agatha such extremity of torture, were them-
selves, almost in the very act of unrighteous judgment, sum-
moned to appear before the righteous bar of God. He that
should desire an extended commentary on these two verses,
let him read the work of Lactantius concerning the " Deaths
of the Persecutors." Then indeed, he may well exclaim, The
Lord is known to execute judgment.
17 The wicked shall be turned into hell : and all
the people that forget God.
Oh words, first and easiest among those taught to a child,
last and most dreadful that shall be pronounced before the
good and bad are finally and for ever separated ! Actual
sin, the wicked : negative guilt, all the people that forget.
s."victore. " H^^^'" says a mediaeval commentator, " I would ratner
tremble than comment. From that wrath to come, Good
Lord, deliver me."
' Tliese passages are taken from I for the Exaltation of the Holy
the Ode of Cosmas of Maiuma Cross.
PSALM IX. 157
18 For the poor shall not alway be forgotten :
the patient abiding of the meek shall not perish for
ever.
Not always. It seemed as though He was forgotten by ^y.
the Father, when He uttered that great and exceeding bitter
cry on the Cross; by His disciples, when they all forsook
Him and fled ; by all the Jews when He was laid in the se-
pulchre, when He was counted as one of them that go down
to the pit, reckoned among the men that have been long
dead. " We fools counted His life madness, and His end to ^'^*^' ^' "*•
be without honour :" but because of that brief forgetfiilness,
therefore it is that He now bears the Name that is above
every name, and the remembrance that is dearer than all
other remembrance. O Lord Jesu, so poor in Bethlehem,
where there was no room for Thee in the inn, so poor on the
Cross that they parted Thy garments and cast lots for Thy
vesture, if Thou art forgotten by the world still, if Thou art G.
put out of sight by those who will not give Thee one mo-
ment, though Thou didst give them all that Thou hadst, —
grant that we, at leasts may remember Thee, may hold Thy
remembrance as sweeter than the life itself, may remember
Thee as the chief among ten thousand and the altogether
lovely, may so remember Thee here, that hereafter Thou
mayest remember us in Thy kingdom ! Where notice, as
Hugh of S. Victor says, it is not the poverty of the meek, or Hugo de
the labour of the meek, or the afflictions of the meek ; but s- Victore.
the pat ie7it abiding. This is the grace which is dearest of all
in God's sight. This is the grace which is emphatically said
to crown and to be crowned. And as He said Himself, so
we also, altering but one word, may say of the Lord : There
is none meek, save one, that is God. This is the true Moses,
who was indeed meek above all the men that were on the
face of the earth. And His patient abiding, — the long months
during which He did not abhor the Virgin's womb^ — the
patient years before He entered on His public ministry, —
before He began to be about thirty years old, — the patient
abiding of all misery, all insult, the most cruel death, did not
perish for ever, though it might seem to perish on the night
of that first Good Friday. We have seen how the sapless
wood of the Cross has blossomed, how the glory of Lebanon
has been added to it : we can appreciate the force of that
wherefore in S. Paul's argument, — "Wherefore God also p**'^p- ^'- 9-
hath highly exalted Him."
19 Up, Lord, and let not man have the upper
hand : let the heathen be judged in thy sight.
^ See, with reference to this I the second of the Labours of Je-
especial humiliation of our Lord, | bus by Frey Thomas de Jesus.
S. Luke xix
14.
158 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
B-. [Let not the outer mant the old Adam, 7iave the upper hand
over the inner, spiritual man, nor let mere earthly thoughts
^^^' lead us down from higher things.]
20 Put them in fear, O Lord : that the heathen
may know themselves to be but men.
Here again, the Yulgate differs widely from our transla-
tion : Thou shalt appoint a legislator over them, 0 Lord. And
if we follow that interpretation, it is an easy step from the
" patient abiding of the meek" in His Passion, to the glory
of the Legislator in His exaltation. Or, if you will, you
may take the legislator in S. Augustine's sense, as referring
■A.. to Antichrist ; that since man has so far forsaken God and
80 resolutely persisted in his " We will not have this man to
reign over us," such continued rejection of the King of Peace
shall be followed by the tyranny of Antichrist. But if we
are to follow our own version, still it applies naturally to our
LoED. At the conclusion of the last verse, we left Him in
the grave, when His patient abiding seemed to have perished :
rightly and meetly it proceeds. Up, Lord ; up, and burst the
bars of death ; up, and become the first fruits of them that
j^^ sleep ; up, and let not man have the upper hand : let not
the guard, and the seal, and the great stone prevail against
Thine own Word. And then again. Put them in fear, 0
Lord : as indeed it follows, four times in the Acts of the
Acts ii. 43; Apostles : '* Fear came upon every soul ;" " Great fear came
on all them that heard these things;" "Great fear came
upon all the Church ;" " Pear fell on them all, and the !N"ame
of the LoED Jesus was magnified." That the heathen may
know themselves to be hut men. As the Prophet said of old :
Isa. xxxi,3. *' Now the Egyptians are men and not gods, and their horses
flesh and not spirit:" that all the devices, all the efforts, of
the heathen, the laws of their emperors, the eloquence of
their philosophers, the violence of their rabble, may be but
the feeble endeavours of mortal men, against the omnipotence
of a wise and ascended God.
85 V. u
xix. 17.
PSALM X.
This Psalm forms in the Yulgate one with the preceding ; the
Introduction and Antiphons of that apply, therefore, to this.
1 Why standest thou so far off, O Lord : and
hidest thy face in the needful time of trouble?
But He does not really stand far off,— He, * the friend that
PSALM X. 159
sticketh closer than a brother," — He, the very present help pj-ov. xviu.
in time of trouble. We, indeed, complain of His absence, if 24,
He leave us but for a single moment : He endured to be for-
saken of the Fathee during the whole of His long agony.
Let Saul, if he will, say, " The Philistines make war against
me, and God is departed from me;" but not God's servants, Ay.
from whom He never can depart, though He may seem to ^ ^'''•^■,5
hide His Face for a moment. If, being sent for. He abides ^""*
two days still in the same place where He was, it is, to the
end that, " if we will believe, we may see the glory of God." s^Jo^xi.6,
We may, if we will, follow Augustine and take the latter
clause of the verse as the answer to the former. Why g j^^^^
standest Thou so far off? Because it is the needful time of xvi. 7.
trouble, — because " it is expedient for you that I go away," ^^'^- ^^^
because thus departing for a season it may be to remain with f-'
us for ever. But in the fullest and most bitter sense, our i^^ghim"^'
dear Lord might take the whole question on His own lips, Ruffinus, s.
as indeed He did in His paraphrase on the Cross, Why ^^^■^' ^'
standest Thou so far off 0 Lord ? " My God, My God, why Hugo de s.
hast Thou forsaken Me ?" victore.
2 The ungodly for his own lust doth persecute the
poor : let them be taken in the crafty wiliness that
they have imagined.
Or as the Vulgate has it : While the proud is arrogant, the
poor is inflamed : that is, while Satan and evil men are per-
mitted to persecute, the love of God's true servant does but
wax warm. When, says Tertullian, we are consumed by the De fuga in
flames of persecution, then trial is made of the tenour of our ^^^^' *^*P" ^'
faith. These are the fiery darts of the devil, by means of
which our faith burns clearer and brighter. So o. Gregory ; ^^ Job. Ub.
" Gold," says he, " grows to perfect purity in the furnace, ^^' *^*^' '
whilst it loses its dross. As gold, then, by passing through
the fire, so the souls of the righteous by suffering the furnace
of tribulation : holiness is increased, vices are purged away.
Whence David : While the proud is arrogant, the poor is
inflamed." And to this same purpose we may understand
the text in Isaiah, " Behold, I have created the smith that
bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an in- isa. Uv. 16.
strument for his work." Let them he taken — as Satan him-
self was caught in his own guile ; just as we have already so
often had occasion- to notice, and shall in the course of the
Psalter again and again : and as, from that time to this, many
a poor servant of Cheist has but obtained the greater glory
because his enemies exhibited the greater malice.
3 For the ungodly hath made boast of his own
hearths desire : and speaketh good of the covetous,
whom God abhorreth.
160 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
And now they look past the lesser temptations of individual
Christians, the feebler manifestations of his malice who goeth
about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, and
see, as ih a glass, the frightful persecution of Antichrist,
which will precede the end of all things. Hath made hoast
of his own heart's desire : so that " he as God sitteth in the
2 Thess. u. temple of God, showing himself that he is God." For just
*• as comforting as are the types and prophecies of the Old
Testament which point out the Captain of our salvation,
just so awful are the symbols, whether in history or in pro-
phecy, of that Antichrist who must be revealed before the
end of all things : types, such as those of Pharaoh, Antiochus
Epiphanes, and that fourth empire of iron which Daniel be-
held, or such fearful verses as that, — (and God have mercy
on those who shall understand its full meaning !) — *' He doth
ravish the poor when he getteth him into his net." They
Ay. take occasion then to point out five characteristics of the
empire of Antichrist. 1. It will be an empire of guile, " the
2 Thess. ii. crafty wiliness" of David, the " deceivableness of unrigh-
^^' teousness," of S. Paul. 2. Of direct opposition to God, " He
Rev.xUi. 6. careth not for God," " He opened his mouth in blasphemy
against God, to blaspheme His JSTame and His tabernacle,
and them that dwell in heaven." 3. That it will defy every
principle of right and of holiness. " Thy judgments are far
above out of his sight, and therefore defieth he all his ene-
Rev. xiii. 4. mies :" " Who is like unto the beast, who is able to make war
with him?" 4. That it will have a certain appearance of
goodness, "He falleth down and humbleth himself :" "He
Rev. xiii. 13. doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from
heaven on the earth in the sight of men," and deceiveth them
that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles. 5.
That it will be an empire of flattery : Se speaketh good of
Rev. xiii. 11. the covetous, whom God ahhorreth : " He hath two horns like
a lamb and causeth the earth and them that dwell
therein to worship the first beast." Thus thev elicit from
this more particularly, but from other Psalms also, the great
features of Antichrist ; features which we must constantly
keep in mind if we would understand the Psalms of tempta-
tion, such as this, and such as those coming between the
fiftieth and the sixtieth. Having thus the general idea, let
us go on to the details.
4 The ungodly is so proud, that he careth not for
God : neither is God in all his thoughts.
Here again the Vulgate diff*ers widely from our transla-
tion : The wicked hath provoked the Lord to anger : ac-
cording to the multitude of his indignation, he shall not
seek. That is, his sins shall be left unpunished in this
world, that they may be doubly visited in the world to come.
So the man of God that came from Judah was slain by a lion,
I
PSALM X. 161
whereas the old prophet, the cause of his destruction, was
buried in the sepulchre of his forefathers. So also that ter-
rible threatening in Hosea, " Therefore, behold, I will not Hos. iv. 14.
punish your wives and your daughters when they commit
fornication." And notice why it is that he caretli not for
God. Satan at first, Antichrist at last, the sin was the same,
the ungodly is so proud: " for thou hast said in thine heart, j
I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the
stars of God ; yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the
sides of the pit."
5 His ways are alway grievous : thy judgments
are far above out of his sight, and therefore defieth
he all his enemies.
Few Psalms are more difficult to explain from the Fathers
and from mediaeval writers than that on which we are now
engaged, on account of the discrepancy between the Vulgate
and our own translation. His ways are alway grievous : as
we have it, it may either mean the ways of God to the sinner,
or the ways of the sinner to God. Grievous, indeed, to the
sinner, is that strait gate and narrow way ; heavy to him, is
that light yoke and easy burden. But in the Vulgate we
have it. His ways are always polluted : then the reason,
Thy judgments are far above out of his sight. The pleasures R
of sin here, enjoyed, because the wages of sin there, for-
gotten ; the light affliction which is but for a moment, found
grievous and intolerable, because the exceeding and eternal
weight of glory is kept out of sight. And therefore defieth
he all his enemies : or, as the Vulgate has it. He shall have
the dominion over all his enemies. Not a true victory, nor
yet true foes ; but that miserable triumph where to conquer
IS to perish. " My Spieit shall not alway strive with man :" Gen. vi. 3.
the Holy Spirit may at last be conquered ; every evil man
shall do that in the battle-field of his own heart which Anti-
christ shall do in the great and final conflict between good
and evil. He shall have the dominion over all his enemies,
when "as God, he shall sit in the temple of God, showing 2Thess.ii.4.
himself that he is God ;" " When they that dwell upon the Rev.xi. 10.
earth shall rejoice over the two witnesses," *' and make
merry, and shall send gifts one to another, because those two
prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth."
6 For he hath said in his heart, Tush, I shall never
be cast down : there shall no harm happen unto me.
And notice how, in the song of triumph over the mystic
Babylon, this same self-confidence is prominently brought
forward. " How much she hath glorified herself, and lived Rev.xviii.7.
deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her : for she
saith in her heart, I sit a queen and am no widow, and shall
19
162 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
see no sorrow." In like manner Isaiali, to the literal Baby-
isa. xivii. 7. Ion : " Thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever, so that thou
didst not lay these things to thine heart, neither didst re-
member the latter end of it." And what is this in Antichrist,
but the words of the parable in the mouth of an every-day
s^ Luke xu. ginner, " Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years :
take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry .P"
7 His mouth is full of cursing, deceit, and fraud :
under his tongue is ungodliness and vanity.
8 He sitteth lurking in the thievish corners of the
streets : and privily in his lurking dens doth he
murder the innocent ; his eyes are set against the
poor.
9 For he lieth waiting secretly, even as a lion
lurketh he in his den : that he may ravish the poor.
10 He doth ravish the poor : when he getteth him
into his net.
11 He falleth down and humbleth himself : that
the congregation of the poor may fall into the hands
of his captains.
12 He hath said in his heart, Tush, God hath for-
gotten : he hideth away his face, and he will never
see it.
A sad, dreary prophecy of a most perilous and fearful time.
No wonder that the saints have somewhat hurried over these
warnings of that great tribulation which shall be upon all
the earth. But rather look back, if you will, and see how
this prophecy of David will apply to that hour in which the
Son of David was betrayed. Think how then the Pharisees
Ay. and elders were found stirring up the very dregs of the peo-
ple in the thievish corners of the streets ; how in their lurk-
Q ing dens, the Innocent, — He that " did no guile, neither was
deceit found in His mouth," — was indeed murdered when the
thirty pieces of silver were paid for His delivery : how not
then only, but all through the course of His public life, their
eyes were indeed set against the Poor ; and then, at last,
how that prophecy was completed. He doth ravish the Poor
when he getteth Sim into his net, — when they stripped our
true Joseph of His coat, the coat woven without seam that
was upon Him ; stripped Him of His liberty, of His honour,
and lastly of His Life itself. When he getteth Him into his
net. The net of false witnesses, which yet even so did not
agree ; the net of the various temptations which Pharisees,
Sadducees, and Herodians, feigning themselves to be just
men, had spread in His path. And then, how true the con-
clusion ! Hefalleth down and humbleth himself: they, burn-
B.
I
15.
PSALM X. 163
ing with the desire of a temporal kingdom — with the dream
of a Jewish Empire, which should extend itself over the face
of all the earth, — they, the Chief Priests, answered and said,
"We have no king but Caesar." Or again, when the Prince s.Johnxix.
of Life had risen from the dead, and they condescended to ""
devise with the soldiers an impossible lie, gave large money
to them for repeating it, and promised them indemnity with
the governor, should the tale reach his ears. And all where-
fore ? That the congregation of the poor may fall into the
hands of his captains : that not only " that Deceiver," but
the eleven also that still owned Him their King, might be
crushed in the very outset of their mission, and might tkence-
forth forbear to speak to any man in the Name of their Loed.
13 Arise, O Lord God, and lift up thine hand :
forget not the poor.
I know no part of the Psalter where mediaeval commenta-
tors seem to shrink from exposition, so much as here. That
fearful persecution of Antichrist, when, if it were possible,
the very elect should fall away, — that terrible trial of faith
when, as S. Anselm says, the persecutor shall glitter with
miracles, and the Martyr shall perform none, — of all this
they seem loth to speak, except distantly and generally. Lift
up Thine hand. Taken in this sense, of that last lifting up
of God's Right Hand which shall accompany the Depart, ye
cursed. But we may also take it of His lifting it up and
stretching it forth on the Cross : that Right Hand which even
then became glorious in power, which even then was dashing
in pieces the enemy. Forget not the poor. Forget not even
in the midst of that great affliction Him, Who though He
was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor ; forget not His
e»verty, when He went about not having where to lay His
ead, when He was a guest with publicans and sinners ;
lastly, when He was so poor, after they parted His raiment
among them, and cast lots for His vesture, as to be beholden
to the love of His disciples for the clothes of the grave.
14 W^herefore should the wicked blaspheme God :
while he doth say in his heart, Tush, thou God
carest not for it ?
Ex. V. 2.
Serm. on
Blaspheme God ; as Pharaoh, the earliest type of Anti- k
Christ, when he said, " Who is the Lord, that I should let - ^'
Israel go ? I know not the Loed, neither will I let Israel
go." And thus to decry God's providence is, according to
S. Bernard, one of the greatest of sins ; an iniquitas ad odium, Ecce'nos re-
as he calls it. Thou, God, carest not for it. As if it were Hfmmusotn-
possible that He should not care for those whom He bought ""*"
at no less a price than the effusion of His own blood, — those
whom He has graven on the palms of His Hands, — those for
164
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Lucret. ii.
648.
G.
whom His side was opened with a spear, that they might
have the readier entrance to His heart, — those whom He
fuards " as the apple of an eye." Well, therefore, may the
'salmist continue —
15 Surely thou hast seen it : for thou beholdest
ungodliness and wrong.
Thoti hast seen it. Thou writest it in Thy book of remem-
brance,— Thou shalt proclaim it before men and angels at
the end of the world, — the ungodliness that was met by the
patieiit endurance of the Martyrs, — the wrong that was borne
Jby the long-suffering of the Confessors, or baffled by the
purity of the Virgins ! S. Augustine understands this passage
m a very singular sense, — a sense in which he has not been
followed.' He takes the verse to be spoken by Antichrist,
and in this sense : " Surely Thou hast seen it ; I know that
Thou art acquainted with my evil doings, and my persecutions
of Thy saints ; but (not foe) Thou beholdest the labour, (for
80 he would rather ivoM^ldJte ungodliness) and torong, or rather,
trouble, — and therefore because of this labour and trouble
which it would cause Thee to put an end to my transgres-
sions, therefore Thou wilt not interfere with me." In fact,
he would interpret it in the sense of the poet of atheism,
speaking of the Gods and their nature —
Nam privata dolore omni, privata periclis,
Ipsa suis pollens opibus, nihil indiga nostri,
Nee bene pro mentis capitur nee tangitur ira.
But this, notwithstanding the great authority of S. Augustine,
seems an unnatural and forced interpretation. And it is far
better so to apply the words, that every faithful soul faithfully
suffering this or that for her Lord, bearing this or that cross,
enduring this or that temptation, assailed by this or that hard
word or unkind deed, should be able to say. Surely Thou hast
seen it. Thou Who didst suffer such contradiction of sinners
against Thyself ; Thou That wast called a man gluttonous and
a wine-bibber ; Thou Whose mighty works were ascribed to
Beelzebub, the Prince of the devils ; surely Thou hast seen it,
for Thou Who once didst suffer in Thyself, now beholdest
exerted against us, ungodliness and wrong,
16 That thou mayest take the matter into thine
hand : the poor committeth himself unto thee ; for
thou art the helper of the friendless.
' Lorinus says that he has not
been followed by a single com-
mentator. This is not Uterally
true J for Q-erhohus, whose ex-
position was not published till
after the Jesuit commentator's
time, not only follows, but am-
plifies it.
PSALM X. 165
How are we to take our own version? Are we to join, ^^
" Surely Thou hast seen it," with, " That Thou mayest take
the matter into Thine hand," as if this were the end of God's
seeing that He might act? Or are we to join. That Thou
mayest take the matter, with the next clause. The poor com-
mitteth himself unto Thee, as if the sense were " The poor
trusts, because that very trust will make Thee act on his be-
half?" Both senses are full of truth and comfort : though
the Vulgate favours the former. Thou art the Helper of the
friendless. Or fatherless, or orphan, as the Vulgate and Sep-
tuagint have it. The Commentators find a singular meaning
in the promises. Originally, every one who is afterwards
brought to Cheist belongs to the devil as his father ; and Jjxdi,
when he forsakes Satan, is in this sense fatherless. Or, as
they take it who prefer the translation " orphan," the Psalmist
would speak of those who have lost the world as their father,
and concupiscence as their mother.
•
1 7 Break thou the power of the ungodly and ma-
licious : take away his ungodliness, and thou shalt
find none.
Break Thou the power of the ungodly Not the ungodly s. Cyril,
himself; his power is taken away that he himself may be
saved. Or if we still refer the whole to Antichrist, then the
{)rayer is like the prophecy in Job, " From the wicked their Jo^ xxxviU.
ight is withholden, and the high arm shall be broken." And ***
notice this by way of comfort : Take away his ungodliness and
it shall not he found, for so the Vulgate reads : " I, even I, ^sa-^i"^-^^-
am He that blotteth out your transgressions for Mine own
sake, and will not think upon your sins:" and how? The ^^j j. ^^
A-postle shall tell us : " Blotting out the handwriting of or-
dinances that was against us, nailing it to His Cross." S.
Augustine takes it in a more terrible sense : He shall not be ^'
found, because he shall so utterly perish : as Pharaoh and his
host were not found : '* The Egyptians whom ye have seen ^*- ''*^- ^^•
to-day, ye shall see them again no more for ever :" as Jezebel q.^
was not found when " they went to bury her, but they found g Kings ix.
no more of her than the skull, and the feet, and the palms of 36.
her hands." Or finally, still continue the sense of Antichrist :
Thou shalt take away his ungodliness, and it shall not he
found ; because then, when he is destroyed, all iniquity will
have come to an end; Satan will be crushed for ever; the
kingdom of righteousness will begin : so that the Psalmist
may well continue —
18 The Lord is King for ever and ever : and the
heathen are perished out of the land.
- Which is only what the Apostle says, in different words,
** When all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the iCor.xv.28,
166 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
^y Son also Himself be subject unto Him Whicb did put all
^* things under Him, that God may be all in all." Out of the
land. What land, save the new heavens and the new earth,
wherein dwelleth righteousness, into which nothing can in
any wise enter that defileth ? as the seven accursed nations
were rooted out of the old land of Canaan ; as every evil pas-
sion and worldly desire is rooted out of each faithful soul,
when it enters into its heavenly rest. And then the Psalm
sums up the whole of its prayers and petitions, saying —
19 LoRDj thou hast heard the desire of the poor :
thou preparest their heart, and thine ear hearkeneth
thereto ;
20 To help the fatherless and poor unto their
right : that the man of the earth be no more exalted
against them.
p The desire of the poor. As we have seen before, all those
many supplications which the Poor King of Heaven and
Earth offered up for us during the days of His humility : His
desire that we should be preserved while in the flesh from
s. Johnxvii. harm, " I pray not that Thou wouldest take them out of the
^^' world, but that Thou wouldest keep them from the evil :" His
desire that day by day we should grow in holiness : " sanc-
s. Johnxvii. tify them through Thy truth. Thy word is truth:" His de-
^7- sire, finally, that we should go and dwell in that land out of
s.Johnxvu. which the heathen shall perish: "Father, I will that they
24. also whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am, that
they may behold My glory." Thou hast heard the desire of J
isa. liii. 11. the poor : for so it is written : " He shall see of the travail of ■
His soul, and shall be satisfied." Thou preparest their heart, |
namely, from the beginning, before the world was, to under-
take the work of man's redemption, and before His entrance
s. uke xii. on its final struggle, to cry out, " I have a baptism to be bap-
^^- tized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished."
^ Then the Poor shall indeed be helped to His right, — to the J
■"• possession of the countless souls who are the lawful purchase ■
of His blood ; to the Name which is above every Name ; to |
the Throne on the Eight Hand of the Father, and the con-
fession of all the company of heaven that the Kingdoms of
this world are become the Kingdoms of our Lord and of His
Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever. That the man
of the earth may he no more exalted against them. No more
proud monarchs, as Pharaoh and Antiochus ; no more fierce
chiefs, as Sisera and Eabshakeh ; no more false prophets, as
Balaam ; no more treacherous priests, as Annas and Caiaphas ;
no more insidious workers of righteousness, as the Scribes
and the Pharisees. This is the desire of the Poor, both for
Himself and for us ; and we have but to pray in accordance
with it, in the words of S. Peter Damiani :
PSALM XI. 167
Christ, Thy soldiers' palm of honour !
To Thy city, bright and free.
Lead me, when my warfare's girdle
I shall cast away from me ;
A partaker in Thy glory,
With Thy blessed ones to be.
IBA.nd therefore :
n^lory be to the Fathee, Who lifteth up His Hand and
brgetteth not the Poor ; and to the Son, the Poor King Who
shall one day be helped to His Kight : and to the Holt
Ghost, the desire of the Poor, Who is always heard ;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be :
world without end. Amen,
Collects.
Open, O merciful Lokd, Thy ears to our prayers. Thou Ludoiph.
Who never failest them that trust in Thee : so that we, being
lifted up from the gates of perpetual death, may be able
safely to escape the snares of the Tempter. Through. (1.)
Of Thy merciful goodness, O Loed, attend to the desire of Mozarabic.
the Poor, and bestow on us the abundance of Thy celestial
gifts : remove from us the love of the passing things of this
world, and since Thou defendest the humble and the orphan,
give us the joy of Thy fatherly mercy : bestowing for the
humiliation of this world, the joys of the kingdom of heaven.
Amen. Through Thy mercy, &c. (11.)
Have mercy on us, O IjOED, and behold how we are in- Mozarabic.
suited by our enemies : and do Thou Who couldest not be
held by the bars of the grave, raise us up by Thy power from
thegates of death. (11.)
We pray Thee, O Loed, to preserve us unhurt from the s. Jerome,
works of Antichrist ; to the end that we, deserting him and
acknowledging Chbist the Loed as our Father, may follow
Thee by our faith, may retain Thee by our love, may glorify
Thee by our good works. Through. (2.)
[O God, the Defence of Thy poor. Who forgettest not D. C.
them that seek Thee in their need, neglect us not when we
cry to Thee in trouble, but lift us up from the gates of death,
that now and evermore we may rejoice in Thy praises. (1.)]
PSALM XI.
Aequment.
Abg. Thomas. That Chbist judges every one according to jus-
tice and equity. The voice of Cheist to the Fathee. Tlae voice
of Cheist and His members : and of a fixed faith against heretics
and hypocrites. Read in Genesis the destruction of Sodom.
168 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
EusEBius. A triumphal hymn for him who fights on God's side.
Steiac Psaltee. Of David, when the people was sorrowful
because lie was led away captive with his sons. But to us it now
denotes triumph over an adversary.
Aeabio Psaltee. Of the victory of him who fights.
Vaeioijs Uses.
Gregorian. Sunday. Matins : I. Nocturn. [Ascension Day :
I. Nocturn. Exaltation of the Cross, Feasts of Crown of Thorns,
and Five Wounds : II. Nocturn. Michaelmas Day : I. Noctum.
Common of one Martyr : II. Nocturn.J
Monastic. Wednesday: Prime.
Parisian. Wednesday : Compline.
Lyons. Monday : Compline,
Ambrosian. Monday of the First Week : II. Nocturn.
Quignon. Tuesday: Compline.
Antiphons.
Gregorian. Thou shalt keep * us, O Loed, Thou shalt pre-
serve us. [Ascension Day : The Loed is in His holy temple, *
the Loed's seat is in heaven. Alleluia. Common of One Martyr :
The righteous Loed loveth righteousness, His countenance will be-
hold the thing that is just.]
Parisian. Preserve me, * O Loed, for in Thee have I put my
trust.
Mozarabic. The righteous Loed loveth righteousness ; His coun-
tenance beholds the thing that is just.
1 In the Lord put I my trust : how say ye then
to my soul, that she should flee as a bird unto the
hill?
C. Notice first how remarkably the whole Psalm corresponds
with the deliverance of Lot from Sodom. This verse with
Gen.xix. 17, the Angel's exhortation, "Escape to the mountains, lest thou
*^' be consumed," and Lot's reply, " I cannot escape to the
mountains, lest some evil take me and I die ;" and again,
The Lord's seat is in heaven, and upon the ungodly He shall
rain snares, fire and brimstone, storm and tempest, with
Gen. xix. 24. " Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brim-
stone and fire out of heaven :" and again, His countenance
2 s. Pet. U. ^iii lehold the thing that is just, with " Delivered just Lot
.... for that righteous man vexed his righteous soul with
their ungodly deeds."
But it is rather the voice of our Loed before His Passion.
8. Matt. How say ye then to my soul. " Be it far from Thee, Lord,
this shall not happen unto Thee." Unto the hill. For
G. though for a while, before His time was fully come, He
walked in the hill country near the wilderness, yet as soon as
the day of His Passion had arrived, the only hill which He
sought, was the hill of Calvary. Or if we take it of our-
selves, we indeed, like birds which can only fly by making
PSALM XI. 169
the sign of the Cross with their wings, must flee to Him "Who
is the true mountain of His people, and "hide ourselves isa.xxvi. 20.
there for a little moment till the indignation be overpast,"
before we can take to ourselves the wings of a dove and flee
unto " God's hill, in the which it pleaseth Him to dwell." Ps.ixvm. 16.
\_Unto the hill. The hill is Cheist, and the words may be
taken of the enticing words of heretics, urging men to flee s. Alb. Mag.
out of the unity of the Church into the sects, alleging that
Cheist is with them. Another sees here the call made by j) q
the Jews to Christians, to flee away to the old Law, given on
Mount Sinai, God's hill, and thus return to carnal cere-
monies, abandoning the Gospel of grace. Yet again, there ^*y™°'
are those who flee from the plain of lowly reverence for Holy
Writ to the hill of free-thought and human intellect.]
2 For loj the ungodly bend their bow, and make
ready their arrows within the quiver : that they may
privily shoot at them which are true of heart.
The plottings of the Chief Priests and Pharisees that they j^y
might take Jesus by subtlety and kill Him. They bent their
bow, when they hired Judas Iscariot for the betrayal of his
Master; they made ready their arrows within the quiver,
when they " sought false witnesses against Jesus to put Him s. Matt.
to death." Them which are Unie of heart. Not alone the ^■''^''- ^^■
LoBD Himself, the only true and righteous, but His Apostles,
and the long line of those who should faithfully cleave to
Him from that time to this. And as with the Master, so
with the servants : witness the calumnies and the revilings
that from the time of Joseph's accusation by his mistress
till the present day, have been the lot of God's people.
[The ungodly heretics heyid the hmo of Holy Scripture by s. Hieron.
wresting it from its true meaning, and make ready the arrows C.
of apt texts and subtle arguments in the quiver of their heart -p
and tongue. Privily, or, more exactly, with the old versions '
and margin of A. V. : in darkness, that is, choosing the hard * ' ^'
and dark sayings of the Bible as their ground. And, as a D. C.
Saint acutely observes, they defeat their own end by shoot- s. Asterias.
ing in darkness, because they can neither aim with certainty
nor avoid wounding themselves and their friends.]
3 For the foundations will be cast down : and what
hatli the righteous done?
" We trusted that it had been He which should have re- s. Luke
deemed Israel." The foundations of all faith and hope will ^"^^•2'-
— so said the unbelief of the disciples — be cast down, if the
Prince of Life shall die, if the Lord of Glory shall suffer as
a malefactor, if the Resurrection shall be committed to the
prave. And what hath the righteous done? "We, indeed, S.Luke
stly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds, but this ^^"'" ^^'
an hath done nothing amiss."
I
170 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Q [The first clause runs differently in LXX., Vulgate, Syriac,
and ^thiopic. The]/ have destroyed what Thou hast accom-
Carth""° plished. The whole meaning and bent of Scripture, which
-p they utterly pervert, say nearly all the commentators. They
■^' have destroyed Him Who is especially Thy handiwork, in
P. crucifying Thy Son, observes one of them. And, once more,
we may take it of the fall of once flourishing Churches, Persia,
Egypt, Libya, and Japan, before the attacks of the infidel.]
4 The Lord is in his holy temple : the Lord's
seat is in heaven.
L. Either the Eternal Father, Who, however He may seem
for a time to forsake the Only-begotten Son, shall in due
season highly exalt Him, and give Him the Name which is
above every name, raising Him up to the right hand of that
very seat in heaven : or the Lord Himself, the Lord that
suffered on the Cross in His Mauhood, was at that very mo-
« ment, according to His Godhead, on His throne in heaven :
The Word of GrOD proceeding forth,
Yet leaving not the Father's side,
as S. Thomas says. Or we may take it of the virtue derived
from this Passion to all those who, having been redeemed by
p , it, are also endeavouring to be conformed to it. The Lord is
^ in Sis holy temple, when the Holy Ghost takes up His
abode in a pure heart : even as He will be hereafter in that
temple which shall be built up in heaven of His faithful
people, when He removes them from their work on earth.
[Again, the Lord is in Sis holy temple of the Church Mi-
s. Alb. Mag. Yii^iTit here on earth, present where two or three are gathered
together in His Name, present in the Sacrament of His Body
and Blood, while His seat is in heaven, where He is throned
at the right hand of the Father.]
5 His eyes consider the poor : and his eyelids try
the children of men.
For thus the eyes of the Father considered Him, Who
although He was rich, yet became poor : considered Him as
the sacrifice and propitiation of the whole world : considered
p Him, as by that very act of humility winning for Himself,
^' according to His humanity, the everlasting diadem. Sis eye-
lids try the children of men. They take it to mean that those
hidden and mysterious counsels, the secret things which be-
long to the Lord our God, of which His servants sometimes
catch as it were a glimpse, and then all is dark again, are
His appointed trial for our faith, His touchstone whether we
attain to the blessedness of those that have not seen and yet
have believed.
Haymo. \_Sis eyes consider the poor, because He watches un-
I
PSALM XI. 171
weariedly over them in His love, and allows no want of p
theirs to escape Him. His eyelids are sufficient to judge
sinners, because His briefest glance sees even the most
en sins. Again, they take the eyelids, opening and s. Greg.
ing like a book, to denote Holy Writ, the standard M^gii.
ireby man is to be tried. Others see here the sudden
flashes of inspiration whereby men's intellects or consciences
are often roused to the true knowledge of divine things.] ^^^^' ^^'^^
6 The Lord alioweth the righteous : but the un-
godly, and him that delighteth in wickedness doth
his soul abhor.
Vulgate : The Lord questioneth the just and the wicked :
lit he that loveth hiiquity hateth his own soul.
In our translation we must take the allowance of the
rigliteous in the same sense as that saying of S. Peter, the i s. Pet. iv.
righteous shall scarcely be saved. But in the other version, ^^'
1'rom the Cross of suffering we come to the Throne of judg-
ment, prefigured indeed by the separation of the penitent
rnd impenitent thieves on Calvary. " Then shall ye return Mai, iii, is.
;iid discern between the righteous and the wicked, between
liim that serveth God, and him that serveth Him not;" and
shall discern also that however much the ungodly may have
seemed to say to his own soul, "Take thine ease, eat, drink, s. Lukexii.
lid be merry," in the last day he will be found to have been '^*
1 1 s most cruel enemy.
7 Upon the ungodly he shall rain snares, fire and
brimstone, storm and tempest : this shall be their
portion to drink.
After the judgment follows the condemnation : prefigured C,
^ we have seen, by the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah.
•^iiares : because the allurements of Satan in this life, will
le their worst punishments in the next, the fire of anger;
the brimstone of impurity ; the tempest of pride : the lust
of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of Ufe. This
shall he their portion : compare it with the Psalmist's own
saying, " The Loed Himself is the portion of my inheritance Ps. xvl.
and of my cup."
[Tlie fiery storm ; the frozen blast ; Dionys.
The darkness thickly spread ; Sh'^'L" "^^^
The shrieks of anguish rolhng past ; So ™ ei
The stencil, as of the dead ; creatura.
The pressure close, the stilling breath ;
The sense of everlasting death ;
The hellish crew ; the spectres dim j
The fear, the thirst unquenchable j
All these with bitter torments fill
Their chalice to the brim.]
I 2
172
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
8 For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness :
his countenance will behold the thing that is just.
[Hiffhteousness. The word in the Hebrew is plural, illplVj
j^^ and is so turned by LXX. and Yulgate, righteousnesses. And
they point out that whereas God's righteousness is one, and
perfect, and infinite, man's righteousnesses are various in
degree and kind, yet all recognized and allowed by God,
Who heholdeth the thing ichich is just. And that, because
all our righteousnesses are but rays from the glory of that
Uncreated Light, the Just One, the Holy Thing Who is the
beloved Son of God, ever looking on Him.]
And therefore ;
Glory be to the Fatheb, the Loed Who is in His holy
temple ; and to the Son, the Righteous Lord, Who loveth
righteousness : and to the Holt Ghost, the Countenance by
Whom all the just and the saints are illuminated ;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be :
world without end. Amen.
Ludolph.
Mozarabic.
D.C.
Collects.
Let Thy merciful eyes, O Lord, vouchsafe to look upon
our low estate : and protect us with the armour of faith, that
we being preserved from the arrows of the wicked, may be
able to keep truth and righteousness. Through (1.)
O God, Whose eyes regard Him that for our sakes was
poor, be the succourer of the heart that putteth her trust in
Thee : and like as we do desire to be healed by the wounds
of His Passion, grant that we may be delivered in all the
dangers of our own. Through the same (2.)
[Thou Who art God everlasting, be gracious unto us who
put our trust in Thee ; grant us, by Thy gift, to be unlike
the birds, cause us by Thy might to quench the arrows of
the evil one, and to live in the righteousness of Thy grace,
whereby vouchsafe unto us to please Thee for evermore. (1.)]
PSALM XII.
Title. To the chief musician upon Sheminitli : a Psalm of David.
Argument.
Aeg. Thomas. That CnEisx rose for our miseries and necessi-
ties. Spoken by Christ concerning the Passion of His Saints.
EusEBius. The insurrection of the ungodly, and the expectation
of Christ.
Ven. Bede : To the end : for the eighth. The eighth pertains to
PSALM XII. 173
eternal rest ; for there is no eighth day in the week of this world, but
when the seventh is over, the first comes round again. The pro-
phet, therefore, asks that the iniquity of this world may be destroyed,
and that the reality of good things to come may be made manifest.
Eightly, therefore, is this Psalm appropriated to the eighth day,
since it speaks of leaving the evil customs of this, and of aspiring to
the innocence of the next, world. In the first part, the Prophet
makes supplication that he may be delivered from the perversity of
this world, since the crafty and the proud denied the power of the
LOED by their wicked speeches. In the second, he foretells that the
promise of the Fathee is to be accompUshed by the Omnipotent
Son, briefly praising the words of God, as he had before rebuked the
words of the wicked.
Efsebius of Cesaeea. An accusation of the wicked, and a
prophecy concerning the Advent of Cheist.
Aeabic Psaltee. Concerning the end of the world, which wiU
happen in the Eighth Age, and a prophecy of the Advent of Cheist.
S. Jebome. This Psalm is sung concerning the Passion of
Cebisi.
Various Uses.
Qregorian. Sunday: I. Noctum.
Monastic. Wednesday : Prime.
Parisian. Thursday : Compline.
Lyons. Tuesday : Prime.
Amhrosian. Monday in the First "Week : II. Noctum.
Quignon. Friday : Prime.
Antiphons.
Gregorian. Thou shalt keep * us, O Loed, Thou shalt pre-
serve us.
Parisian. Help me, Loed, * for the faithful are minished from
among the children of men,
Mozarahic. For the comfortless troubles of the needy, and be-
cause of the deep sighing of the poor, I will up, saith the Loed.
1 Help me, Lord, for there is not one godly man
left : for the faithful are minished from among the
children of men.
There is not one godly man left. Rather, TJie righteous hath
failed. He, the only Kighteous, hath failed, — not in making
good His promises, not in loving His own to the end, not in
humbling Himself for us unto death, even the death of the
Cross ; but hath failed in the weakness of death ; those blessed
Hands, nailed to the Cross, and no more able to cast out G.
devils, to heal the sick, to raise the dead : those dear Feet, in
like manner fastened to the same tree, now no more able to
50 forth on their missions of love. The faithful are minished.
'hey are indeed. Of the twelve that had so vehemently
said, " Though I should die with Thee, yet will I not deny s. Matt.
Thee," but one only, and he at a distance, TemsLm^ faithful : **^^- ^s.
one betrays, and one denies with an oath. And well may the
174 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
s. Luke Church, therefore, pray, Helj), Lord. " We trusted, that it
xxiv. 21. Jiad been He which should have redeemed Israel." The
Prince of Life dying the death of a malefactor : the King of
Ages suffering the punishment of a slave : the One Star of a
dark night, as S. Chrysostom beautifully says, blotted out by
the wintry clouds. Help, Lord : for human help is here in-
2 Kings vi. deed vain. " If the Loed do not help thee, whence shall I
^7' help thee ? Out of the barn floor, or out of the wine-press ?"
{The faithful. The LXX. and Vulgate render the Hebrew
literally, truths. The Uncreated Truth is One, but created
s. Alb. Mag. truth is threefold, that of life, of doctrine, and of righteous-
ness, and may be minished by error, which makes light dark-
ness, and sweet to be bitter. It is true also of heretics,
explaining away one Christian tenet after another, and thus
minishing the truths of the Creed.]
2 They talk of vanity every one with his neigh-
bour : they do but flatter with their lips, and dis-
semble in their double heart.
s. Matt. So they talked on that first Easter Eve. " Sir, we remem-
xxvii. 63, 65. i^er that that deceiver said. After three days will I rise again."
" Ye have a watch : go your way, make it as sure as ye can."
Miserable flattery indeed, whereby they brought themselves
to think that the Omnipotent God could be " made sure" by
Ay. a little wax ; that the four soldiers could avail against the
mission, if need were, of more than twelve legions of Angels !
And dissemble in their double heart. And well they fulfilled
this prophecy, when they gave large money to the soldiers,
and sent them forth with the tale that that precious Body had
been stolen while they slept. And the wise man may well
Eccius. ii. say, "Woe be to the sinner that goeth two ways:" the Apostle
12. may well teach us, "A double-minded man is unstable in aU
S.James i. 8. j^ig ways." For it follows,
3 The Lord shall root out all deceitful lips : and
the tongue that speaketh proud things.
All deceitful lips. And oh, how many they were! that
s. Matt. spake concerning the Passion, " I am innocent of the blood of
xxvii. 24. this Just Person ;" and the Catholic Creed replies, from one
"^y • end of the world to the other, — replies by the baptismal font,
in the village school, in the assemb^ of the faithful, by the
s. Matt. bed of the dying, " Suffered under Pontius Pilate :" " Him-
Rev""i^?8 ^^^^ ^^ cannot save :" " I am He that liveth and was dead,
and behold, I am alive for evermore, and have the keys of
death and hell." Yes: Pilate, Herod, Pharisees, Elders,
Scribes, people, deceitful lips have they all ; and of all of
Judges V. 31. them long since has it been said, " So let all Thine enemies
perish, O Lord." " Let the Jews say," exclaims the exulting
oilice of the Oriental Easter, "let the Jews say how the
PSALM XII. 175
soldiers lost the King Whom they were appointed to guard.
Either let them exhibit the Body that was interred, or wor-
ship the Monarch that has arisen."^ And the tongue that
speaketh proud things. For -what prouder saying than that
spoken in the hall of most unrighteous judgment, " Knowest ^- John xix.
Thou not that I have power to crucify Thee, and have power
to release Thee?" What more arrogant decree than that,
the dogmatic decree of the whole Jewish Sanhedrim, "Give s. Johnix.
God the praise, we know that this man is a sinner!" Truly ^^'
they have been rooted out. Dlsperdet : that is, as Cardinal
Hugo, with a mediaeval play upon words, observes. Bis per-
det : with the double destruction of body and soul.
4 Which have said, With our tongue will we pre-
vail : we are they that ought to speak ; who is lord
over us?
So it was : twelve poor and unlearned men on the one side,
all the eloquence of Greece and Rome arrayed on the other.
From the time of Tertullus to that of Julian the Apostate,
every species of oratory, learning, wit, lavished against the
Church of God : and the result like the well-known story of
that dispute between the Christian peasant and the heathen
philosopher, when the latter, having challenged the assembled
Fathers of a synod to silence him, was put to shame by the
simple faith of the former, " In the Name of our Lord tTESUs
Cheist, I command thee to be dumb." Who is lord over
us ? " Who is the Lobd, that I should obey His voice to let Exod. v. a.
Israel go ?" " What is the Almightv, that we should serve Jo^xxi. is.
Him P" " Who is that God that shall deliver you ?" Dan. iii, 15.
5 Now for the comfortless troubles' sake of the
needy : and because of the deep sighing of the poor,
6 I will up, saith the Lord : and will help every
one from him that swelleth against him, and will set
him at rest.
Comfortless ! Yes, they were indeed comfortless, those
poor trembling ones, when they were waiting for the depar-
ture of that long, weary Sabbath j when their one poor long-
ing was to anoint for its burial the Body that they had fondly-
hoped to see exalted upon the throne of Israel. Comfortless
indeed, when Peter was despairing of pardon ; when James .
had bound himself by a great oath that he would neither eat ^'
nor drink till he had seen the Lobd ; when, go which way they
might, everywhere was there the exultation of the Pharisees
over their fallen enemy, everywhere taunts and jeers at " that
Deceiver!" Deep sighing: for they dared not openly to
lament ; the doors were shut where the disciples were assem*
^ Stichos of the Monday of Eenewal Week.
176 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
bled, for fear of the Jews. And poor tkey were, if ever any
one could be called poor. They had lost Him That was alto-
Gr. gether lovely : they had lost that one Pearl of countless value ;
and what had they left but the faint remembrance of His
Words, and the shaken and shattered faith, that was yet not
wholly destroyed?
And therefore, I will up, saith the Lord. " Heaviness may
Ps. XXX. 5. endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." Easter
has come at last : " destruction," as the Eastern Church joy-
fully exclaims, " has been exiled, immortality has blossomed
forth: the long galling chain has been broken in sunder:
let the heavens rejoice : let the earth and the things under
the earth be glad : for Cheist hath arisen, and death is
spoiled."^ From him that swelleth against him. For as the
serpent had no sooner triumphed over the woman than the
promise of salvation was given to the human race ; so Satan
C. no sooner seemed to have completed his victory, on the Cross,
than his power was crushed for ever, and they over whom he
had tyrannized set at rest, by the sure and certain support of
a Risen Loed in this world, and the hope of a perfect and
unending rest in the next. Notice that the reading of the
Vulgate gives quite a different sense : I will place him in My
salvation, I will act faithfully (or as the Septuagint has it,
7ra^^T]ai(i(T0fiai) in him. And set in God's salvation we are,
when, as doves, we take refuge in the " Great Eock :" faith-
fully He has dealt with us in accomplishing all the promises,
S.Lukei.70. ^11 *^6 types, all the sayings "that He spake by the mouth
of His holy prophets, which have been since the world
began."
7 The words of the Lord are pure words : even as
the silver, which from the earth is tried, and purified
seven times in the fire.
Pure. They fail not to remind us that they are pure in
T three ways : as cleansing us from impurity, properly so
called, from pride, from avarice. And no sooner had the
Loed risen from the tomb, than His words were spoken and
written by His servants for the support of the Church to the
end of time : no sooner had this true Naphtali, this stricken
and persecuted Hind, been "let loose" from the chains of
death, than He gave goodly words to His Apostles and
Evangelists. And notice how in this very first sermon. His
words were emphatically pure words, when He proclaimed
the blessedness of the pure in heart, and restored marriage
8. Ambros. to its first and original purity. Well says S. Ambrose, " Let
in Ps. cxix. ug beware not to mingle anything earthly, anything secular,
anything corporeal, anything light and mutable, in these ce-
lestial sentences. For the words of the Loed are chaste
• Sticberon of the Stichos, Friday in S. Thomas' Week.
PSALM XI r. 177
words : that in tliese, the immaculate and modest sincerity of
celestial mysteries may shine forth by a spiritual interpreta-
tion. Let us not mingle earthly with Divine things, and in-
jure that inviolable Sacrament of the prophetic vision, or the
everlasting oracles by the false estimation of our nature.
Therefore he adds. Even as silver, Sfc, to the end that we,
like good money-changers, may examine the coin of prophetic
writings, separating the LoED s money, and purging it from
every earthly pollution." Seven times. As infusing in us
the sevenfold graces of the Spirit ; set forth both in the
loords of Isaiah, and in those of the Sermon on the Mount.
[From the earth. Because all the prophecies and types of p
the Old Testament are now purged from the earthly and
carnal surroundings of the ceremonial Law, and set in their
true light and beauty. Modern critics agree in turning the De Wette.
words thus, in the earth ; that is, in a crucible or furnace of DeUtzsch.
clay ; not very dissimilarly from S. Chrysostom, who explains s. Chrysos.
it of running the molten ore into clay moulds. And then we Ageilius.
are reminded, taking the words still of Holy Writ, of that pass-
age, " Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, Take Jer. xxxii.
these evidences, this evidence of the purchase, both which is '■*•
sealed, and this evidence which is open ; and put them in
an earthen vessel, that they may contmue many days." The
oracles of God, prophecy fulfilled and unfulfilled, evidence of
our ransom, that we may be our Master's "purchased pos- Eph. i. 14.
session," confided first to the Jews and then to the Church
]\Iilitant, were indeed in a vessel of earth. And as regards
each of us, the Apostle warns us that " we have this treasure ^ Cor. iv. 7.
in earthen vessels," so that we must undergo stern probation
that "the Word of God may have free course" within our axhess. m.
hearts, which it cannot till the fire of Divine love frees it *"
from all dross. Seven times in the fire. So, in the Beati-
tudes, after seven blessings have been pronounced on the
poor, the mournful, the meek, the righteous, the merciful, the
pure, and the peacemakers, the eighth, summing up all these
into one, pronounces a blessing on those who are persecuted,
and have thus reached the final stage of purification from A.
things of the earth, because the eighth Beatitude, as the octave
of eternal life, does but repeat the first note in a higher
interval.]
8 Thou shalt keep them, O Lord : thou shalt pre-
serve him from this generation for ever.
Keep them : that is, not as the passage is generally taken, ^y^
Keep or guard Thy people, but Thou shalt keep, or make good,
Thi/ words : and by so doing, shalt preserve him — him, the
needy, him, the •poor— from this generation. Thou shalt keep
Thy word, — " Cast Thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall Ps. iv. 23
nourish thee ;" Thy word, — " I will inform thee, and teach Ps. xxxii. 9.
thee in the way wherein thou shalt go ;" Thy word, — " Fear
I 3
178
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
S. Matt. X
16.
s. Luke xii. not, little flock ; it is My Father's good pleasure to give you
^^' the kingdom;" and so, preserving him from this generation,
shall hereafter give him a portion with that happier genera-
tion, the generd assembly of the First-born which are written
in heaven.
9 The ungodly walk on every side : when they are
exalted, the children of men are put to rebuke.
And we are reminded of the Loed's own words, "I send
you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves ;" and of the Apos-
Phil. u. 15. tie's warning, " That ye may be blameless and harmless in
the midst of a crooked and perverse generation." But starting
from the literal sense of the Vulgate, The ungodly walh in
a circuit, it is a favourite idea of S. Bernard's to contrast
their crooked ways with the straight-going path of the ser-
vant of God ; their turning aside from the right straight
isa. 1. 7. road, with the " I have set my face like a flint, and I know
that I shall not be ashamed" of the follower of Cheist.^
Walk on every side. Compare it with S. Peter's warning,
1 s. Pet.v. 8. •' Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a
roaring lion, goeth about, seeking whom he may devour ;"
and say with S. Cyril, in his extreme peril before the Council
of Ephesus, " That wicked one, the sleepless beast, walketh
about, plotting against the glory of Cheist ; from whom He
only can deliver us, from whom we know that He will deliver
US. ' When they are exalted. The ten persecutions may
witness to the truth of this saying. When the children of
men, fearing man rather than God ; dreading them that killed
the body, rather than Him that hath power to destroy the
soul ; fell away from the faith, and denied the Loed that bought
them : while the children of God, standing firm against se-
ductions and threats, obtained the glory of martyrs as theii?
reward. Notice that here again the Vulgate widely differs
from our translation, — According to Thy loftiness, Thou hast
multiplied the sons of men : or as it is better in the LXX., —
Thou hcLst made much of the children of men. And they re-
mind us how the human race has been indeed made much of
in that it has been exalted in the Person of our Loed, to a
height far above all height, and to a participation in the very
Throne of God.
Arnobius. [The sons of men were minished, observes Arnobius,
when the Loed descended to the grave, for His disciples for-
sook Him and fled, but they were multiplied by His Ascen-
sion, because He sent down the Holy Spieit, through Whom
three thousand souls were in a moment added to the Church.]
And therefore :
Glory be to the Fatheb, Who is our help when godly men
* See how he dwells on this
passage in his book, De diligendo
Deo, and again in his Sermon on
the text, " Behold, we have for-
saken all things."
PSALM XIII. 179
fail ; and to the Son, of Whom it is written, " I will up, saith
the LoBD ;" and to the Holy Ghost, Whose words are pure
words.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be:
world without end. Amen.
Collects.
Have mercy, most holy Fathee, on our infirmity, and Ludoiph.
grant to us to receive and to hold fast Thy words in a pure
heart, that we may be able to turn away from the guileful
speeches of Thine enemies. Through (1.)
Deliver us, O Loed, from lying lips and from a deceitful Mozarabic,
tongue. Thou, Who wast Thyself weighed on the balance of P^s^^"^'^^-
the Cross ; and grant that neither the accuser may have any
ijilet to our accusation, nor Thy people acquiesce in the deceit
of his words. Overthrow him tnat lies in ambush against us
by Thine Almighty spear, and rise up for the comfortless
troubles' sake of the needy, aud because of the deep sighing
of the poor. (11.)
. [O Loed, Keeper of the faithful, ever preserve and keep us j) n
from the generation of the ungodly, and unite us to the gene- ' *
ration of the righteous who keep Thy pure words, that we
may alway abide in Thy love, and by the help of Thine aid,
rejoice in everlasting salvation. Through (l.)J
PSALM XIII.
Aeqfment.
Abg. Thomas. That Cheist always lightens our eyes that we
should not sleep in death. The voice of Cheist to the Patheb
concerning the devil, and his members. Tlie voice of the Church
expecting the Advent of Cheist. It has to do with Mark.
Ven. Bede. The whole Psalm speaketh of the love of the Loed
Jesus Cheist. The Prophet beholding nearly all the world given
up to idolatry, in the first part makes a request that its incredulity
ttiay be removed by the approach of the holy Incarnation ; that
Paganism even thus at length put to shame, might be able to recog-
nise its own Creator : Hoto long wilt Thou forget me, O Lord ? In
the second part he vehemently desires that liis soul may be enUght-
ened to put up his petitions in such a manner as to be heard, and
not to give way to any temptations to the enemy.
EusEBius OF CiESAEEA. The insuTTCction of our enemies and
the expectation of Cheist.
• SrElAC Psaltee. Exultation over the enemy and expectation
of the Loed and of His succour.
S, Jeeome. The thirteenth Psalm contains the voice of the
faithful soul that seeketh after God.
180 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Vaeious Uses.
Gregorian. Sunday : I. Noctum. [Feast of Seven Dolours
I. Nocturn.]
Monastic. Thursday: Prime.
Parisian. Tuesday : Compline.
Lyons. Tuesday : Prime.
Amhrosian. Monday of First Week : II. Noctum.
Quignon. Friday : Compline.
Eastern Chv/rch, Compline.
Antiphons.
Gregorian. Thou shalt keep * us, O Loed, Thou shalt pre-
serye us.
Parisian. Lighten * mine eyes, that I sleep not in death.
Monastic. I wiU sing unto the LoED * Who hath given me
good things.
Mozarabic. My heart shall rejoice in Thy salvation ; I will sing
of the Loed because He hath dealt so lovingly with me.
There have not been wanting holy men who have seen in
this Psalm a prophecy of the four monarchies by which the
Jewish nation has at different times been led captive : the
. Babylonian; the Assyrian; the Grseco- Syrian; and the Ho-
^' man : from which captivities they were delivered respectively
by Cyrus, by Darius, by the Maccabees ; while from the last
LyranuB. their deliverance is still future. To this also they refer that
verse in Amos (ii. 4,) " Thus saith the Loed, For three trans-
gressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away the
punishment thereof." That is, that though the iniquities
which were punished by the first three captivities, were for-
L. given, the fourth, namely, the death of our Lobd, which led
to the last, has not yet been pardoned. Of this last they
take the first verse, Sow long wilt Thou forget me, O Lord,
■ for ever ? Of the Babylonian captivity. How long wilt Thou
hide Thy face from me r Of the Assyrian, How long shall I
take counsel in my soul, and he so vexed in my heart ? Of the
Grseco-Sj^rian, How long shall mine enemies trium'ph over me 1
But leavmg this, let us rather see in the question,
1 How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord, for
ever : how long wilt thou hide thy face from me ?
the complaint of the heathen world before the Advent of
Rom. I. 29. Cheist ; when it was, as S. Paul says, " filled with all un-
righteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, mali-
ciousness ; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity :"
isa. viu. 22. when, as Isaiah tells us, to " Look unto the earth" was to
" behold trouble, and darkness, and dimness of anguish."
^y^ How long wilt Thou forget me, when the promise was once ~
given that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's
PSALM XIII. 181
head, — that out of Sion should come a Deliverer, — that the
earth should be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the
Lord, as the waters cover the sea? How long lo'ilt Thou hide
Thy face from me ? Where notice that by the Face of GoD
here as so often, reference is made to the Incarnation. As
the face is that by which we principallv know a man, so by
our Lobd's taking our nature, and by that alone, we attain to
the knowledge of God. " Ye saw no manner of similitude," oeut. iv. 15.
says Moses. "We beheld His glory, the glory as of the s. John i. 14.
Only-begotten of the Fatheb," writes S. John. But it is
also the voice of every faithful soul, walking in darkness and Q-.
having no light, yet endeavouring after the Prophet's injunc-
tion to rest on the Name of the Loed, and stay herself upon
her God. For such an absence does indeed seem for ever.
Thy face. That Face, which for us was buffeted, for us blind-
folded, for us spit upon ; the model of that patience which
the very question here asked renders necessary. And yet
the asking it is in itself a proof of God's favour. " It is no
small advantage," says S. Chrysostom, " to have any feeling
that God is forgetting us. Many suffer this desertion and
neither know it nor lament it. Holy David not only knew
it, but reckoned the time of its endurance."
2 How long shall I seek counsel in my soul, and
be so vexed in my heart : how long shall mine ene-
mies triumph over me ?
Seek counsel: that is, when, as S. Paul says, the world was
" feeling after" the Loed, so blindly and so hopelessly ; every-
where, in real truth, erecting altars to the Unknown God :
alive to the misery of sin, but knowing of no deliverer ; trem- B.
bling under its guilt, but unable to conceive of any Savioub.
And he so vexed in my heart ; — by the various schemes of
philosophers, each contradicting the other, and all contradict-
mg the truth, with their different teachings as to the chief
good, the existence or non-existence of the gods, and of a
future state, and the like. Sow long shall mine enemies
triumph over me ? O question, never to be answered by the
wisdom of this world, but only by the doctrine of the Cross !
When Adam, says the legend, had fallen sick of the sickness
of which he died, he sent Seth to the place where he was
wont to pray, and desired healing from God. An Angel
gave three seeds into the hand of the son ; and " Place them,"
he said, "in your father's mouth ; when they bear fruit, he
shall recover of his disease." From these seeds grew the
tree whereof the Cross was made : and thus the prophecy
was fulfilled : thus, too, the answer is given here to the poor
world's Sow long 1
\Seeh counsel, by earnest meditation in the Law, trying s. ffieron.
through its circumcision, prayers, sacrifices, and other rites,
to be delivered from the bondage of sin. Sow long shall
182
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
D.C.
mine enemies triumph ? It is the cry of the righteous souls
detained in Hades, observes one commentator, wearying for
the Deliverer Who was to bring them into Paradise. It is
the cry of the Jewish Church, remarks another, seeing the
worship of devils and idols prevailing throughout the world,
in despite of her testimony to the Unity of God.]
3 Consider, and hear me, O Lord my
lighten mine eyes that I sleep not in death.
God
Ps, xi. 5.
Ay.
S.Lukeii.
32.
Isa. Ix. 1.
Hugo Card.
Le Blanc.
The voice of the world still : but yet more strikingly the
voice of the faithful soul in the season of her distress and
desertion. Consider : for the promise is, " His eyes consider
the poor." Thus they considered Peter that he slept not in
the death of his denial : thus have they considered every
faithful penitent from that time to this, giving him the desire
of crying for mercy, without which there can be no answer
of peace. It is well said, therefore, Consider first, and then,
hear. O Lord, my God. Where once more notice the ap-
propriation to himself of Him That is the God of all. Lighten
mine eyes: by the Incarnation ; as it is written, "To be a
light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of Thy people
Israel;" and again, "Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and
the glory of the Loed is risen upon thee."
[^Lighten mine eyes. Where note that the eyes of the inner
man are his understanding and his affections, which both
need to be enlightened by the wisdom and love of Cheist.
He who makes any compact with the prince of this world,
does it only on the terms offered by Nahash " the serpent,"
1 Sam. xi. 2. that his right eye, the organ of charity, may be thrust out.
Ps. xxxiv. 8. But he who tastes and sees how gracious the Loed is, fares
1 Sam. xiv. h^e Jonathan, whose eyes were enlightened by his tasting
27. the honey on the rod, typifying the sweetness of the Cross.]
4 Lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against
him : for if I be cast down, they that trouble me
will rejoice at it.
The old argument from the time of Moses downwards, for
God's mercy — " Wherefore should the Egyptians speak and
say. For mischief did He bring them out?" — "Then the
Egyptians shall hear it, and they will tell it to the inhabit-
ants of this land." "Wherefore should the heathen say,
Where is now their God ?" " Were it not that I feared the
wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave
themselves strangely, and lest they should say. Our hand is
high and the Loed hath not done all this." And so Judith;
" Lest the Gentiles should say, Where is their God ?"
\_Cast down. The A. V. rightly, as the ancient versions,
when I am moved. It is not in completed success that they
l*ejoice, but in their assurance of future victory if I quit my
Exod. xxxii,
12.
Numb. xiv.
13.
Ps.lxxix.io,
Deut. xxxii.
27.
z.
PSALM XIIT. 183
post of vantage, if I leave my strong castle for the unde-
fended plain, if I venture out of the sure haven into the
perilous sea. There is no apter comment on these two verses
than the Greek Vesper Hymn :
Lighten mine eyes, O Saviotje, S.Anatolius.
Or sleep in death shall I ; Th« "3^°'
And he, my wakeful tempter, T^*; _T'''°*'
Triumphantly shall cry : SieKOwy.
" He could not make their darkness light,
Nor guard them through the hour of night !"]
5 But my trust is in thy mercy : and my heart is
joyful in thy salvation.
Where notice that he asks the two things which all need ;
and he asks them in the order in which they are required :
to be spared and to be helped. JS^otwithstanding all past
falls, notwithstanding his present dereliction by God, m^
trust is in Thy mercy : and the mercy that spares shall en- ^a^^nus!"^
large itself into the grace that crowns : " He which hath ^YiW. i. 6.
begun a good work in you, will perform it." My heart is
joyful in Thy salvation. The mercv that spared on Good
Friday : the salvation that triumphed on Easter Day.
6 I will sing of the Lord, because he hath dealt
so lovingly with me : yea, I will praise the Name of
the Lord most Highest.
Sath dealt. Are we to take it as the language of a strong
faith which looks on the triumph, though yet future, with
the same certainty as if it were already vouchsafed? or of the
thankfulness which in the very trial and affliction can see the c.
Lord's dealing so lovingly 1 I will praise the Name of the
Lord. As if, — which is so often the case, — the Prophet fore-
saw that in that very Name would lie all strength, all victory :
that the title set up over the Cross would be the banner of
every follower of the Crucified : that
Hujus regis sub vexillo Missale
Statu degis in tranquillo ; Sarisb.
Hostes tui fugiunt : quince'
Nomen Jesu meditatum Jesit*? i
Jesus dulcis
Belli fugat apparatum : Nazarenua.
Hostes victi rugiunt.
And therefore :
Glory be to the Fathee, Who wlQ not forget His servants
for ever ; and to the Son, the Angel of the Great Counsel
(ver. 2 :) and to the Holy Ghost, Who lighteneth our eyes
that we sleep not in death ;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be : world
without end. Amen.
184
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
[.udolph.
Collects.
Turn not away, O Almighty God, Thy face from us, lest
our adversaries should be exalted against us : but so kindle
our souls into the joy of Thy salvation that we may escape
the sleep of the second death. Through (1.)
Mozarabic. Consider and hear us, O Loed our God ; assist our timid
efforts ; give the end of the act, Thou Who didst give the
beginning of the will ; grant that we may be able to ac-
complish the thing, which Thou hast already granted that
we should desire to commence. Amen. Through Thy
mercy (11.)
Lighten our eyes, O Loed, that our faith may fix her sight
upon Thee, and our soul may take counsel in the sweetness
of Thy Love, and Thy fear implant true penitence in our
heart. Amen. Through Thy mercy (11.)
[Almighty, Everlasting God, lighten our eyes with the
light of Thy Spieit, that we sleep not in evil deeds, but with
the help of Thy grace, may ever watch in Thy command-
ments, and, when Cheist cometh, may pass to the reward of
our high calling. Through the same (2.)]
Mozarabic.
D. C.
PSALM XIV.
Aegument.
Aeg. Thomas. That Cheist turns away the captivity of His
people. The words of Cheist to the rich man that asked Him what
he should do to be saved.^ Of the Jewish people and also of the
Q-entiles who say concerning the Savioue, He is not Q-od.
Ven. Bede. The Church of Cheist condemns the madness of
the Jews. That face of the Loed which was sought in the last
Psalm, is now spoken of as made manifest. And therefore in the
first place, the Church blames the Jews who, though they saw
Cheist, would not beheve. Next, the Prophet shows that they are
confounded with vain dread who will not receive into their hearts
the salutary fear of the Loed. And lastly, their conversion at the
end of the world is predicted.
Syeiao Psaltee. The expectation of Cheist.
EusEBius OF Cesaeea. An accusation of the wicked, and a
prophecy of the Advent of Cheist.
* The allusion, which is suffi-
ciently far-fetched, is this. The
fool, ba3 Nabal, as Abigail says
— " Nabal is his name, and folly
lain him." Hence that which is
said by David to the fool, is ap-
plied by Origen in the person of
Nabal, to the rich : and thus he is
reminded of our Loed's answer
to him that yet lacked one thing.
PSALM XIV. 185
Vaeiotjs Uses.
Gregorian. Sunday : I. Noctum.
Monastic. Thursday : Prime.
Parisian. Wednesday : Compline.
Lyons. Monday : Prime.
Ambrosian. Monday of the First Week : III. Noctum.
Quignon. Friday : CompHne.
Antiphons.
Gregorian, Thou shalt keep * us, O Loed, Thou shalt pre-
serve us.
Monastic. As preceding Psalm.
Ambrosian. From heaven, O God,* look down upon the children
of men.
Mozardbic. The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God :
Art Thou our God ?
1 The fool hath said in his heart : There is no
God.
Tlie title of the Psalm ascribes it to David : but many of j^^
the commentators see in its commencement a marvellous ap-
plication to the blasphemies of Rabshakeh. The question :
"Who are they among all the gods of the countries that have ^^*- »xxvi.
delivered their country out of my hand, that the Lobd should
deliver Jerusalem out of my hand ?" The answer : The fool
hath said in his heart. There is no God, compared to Heze-
kiah's " Hear the words of Sennacherib which hath sent him isa. xxxvii.
to reproach the Living God;" and Isaiah's "Whom hast i7i23.
thou reproached and blasphemed ?" But take it rather of the
Jews, who, though they were instructed by the prophecies ;
though they might have understood the types ; though they
saw done among them such works as none other did, yet re-
fused to acknowledge in the Son of Mary the God of all
things. The devils confessed: "I know Thee Who Thou s. Luke iv.
art, the Holy One of God :" the Jews, when He said, " I and 34.
My Fathee are One," took up stones again to stone Him. f^^ " " ''•
" The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib, but isa. i. 3.
Israel doth not know. My people doth not consider." Notice,
that from the very beginning, tne Jewish people were resolved
to reject their Messiah. For when Herod had diligently in- q.^
quired of the wise men where Cheist should be born, thev
quoted, indeed, the first part of the prophecy, that which
named Bethlehem as the place of His birtn, but omitted the
latter, " whose goings forth have been from of old, from ever- Mic. v. 2.
lasting." Or we may take the verse, as S. Chrysostom does, of
Satan. He, says that Father, was the first fool : he was the
first that preached a multitude of Gods, — " In the day ye Gen. iii. 5.
eat thereof, ye shall be as gods," — and by consequence, denied
the One God. But mindful of the curse which then fell on
him, it is no longer. The fool hath said, but Tliefool hath said
186 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
in his heart : he no longer saith this by himself, immediately,
Exod. V. 2. 1^^^ ^y those whom he inspires. He said in Pharaoh ; " I
sKingsxviii. ^j^^^ j^q^ the LoED :" he said by Sennacherib, " The Loed
Dan. iii. 15. ^^^^^ ^^^ deliver Jerusalem out of my hand ;" he said by Ne-
buchadnezzar, " Who is that God Which shall deliver you
out of my hands ?"
2 They are corrupt^ and become abominable in their
doings : there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
" Men," says S. Bernard, " because they are corrupt in
their minds, become abominable in their doings : corrupt be-
fore God, abominable before men. There are three sorts of
men of which none doeth good. There are those who neither
understand nor seek God, and they are the dead : there are
others who understand Him but seek Him not, and they are
the wicked. There are others that seek Him but understand
Him not, and they are the fools." " O God !" cries a writer
of the Middle Ages, " how many are there at this day who,
under the name of Christianity, worship idols, and are abomi-
nable both to Thee and to men ! For every man worships
that which he most loves. The proud man bows down before
the idol of worldly power ; the covetous man before the idol
of money ; the adulterer before the idol of beauty, and so of
Tit. i. 16. the rest." And of such saith the Apostle, " They profess that
they know God, but in works deny Him, being abominable
and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate."
There is none that doeth good, no, not one. The last clause is
not in the Hebrew. Notice how S. Paul avails himself of this
testimony of the Psalmist, amongst those which he heaps to-
gether in the third chapter of the Epistle to the Romans,
Rom. 111. 9. n^here he is proving concerning " both Jews and Gentiles,
that they are all under sin."
3 The Lord looked down from heaven upon the
children of men : to see if there were any that would
understand, and seek after God.
D. C. \_The Lord Jesus Cheist looked down from the heaven of His
assumed Humanity, wherein the Godhead dwelt, upon the
Haymo. children of men, by coming Himself on eai*th to seek for the
lost sheep of the house of Israel.]
4 But they are all gone out of the way, they are
altogether become abominable : there is none that
doeth good, no, not one.
Gen. vl. 12, -^^ looked down " upon the earth, and behold, it was cor-
j3. rupt, for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth ;"
and then His saying was, " the end of all flesh is come before
Me, and behold, I will destroy them with the earth." Again
He looked down " to see the city and the tower, which the
PSALM XIV. 187
cMdren of men builded," and these were His words : "Let Gen.xi. 5,7.
Us go down and there confound their language, that they may
not understand one another's speech." Once more, when the
fuhiess of the time was come, He looked down, and then "God
so loved the world, that He gave His Only -begotten Son, s. John m.
that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have ^^•
everlasting life."
5 Their throat is an open sepulchre, with their
tongues have they deceived : the poison of asps is
under their lips.
6 Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness :
their feet are swift to shed blood.
7 Destruction and unhappiness is in their way ;
and the way of peace have they not known : there is
no fear of God before their eyes.
On these three verses I shall say nothing, as they are
neither to be found in the Hebrew nor in the LXX.,^ and
therefore are also absent from the Bible Version. They are
clearly requoted from the third chapter of the Epistle to
the E-omans, where the Apostle is giving a kind of abstract of
the characteristics of the wicked from various Psalms. Their L.
throat is an open sepulchre, is from Ps. v. 10 ; the poison
of asps, &c., is from Ps. cxl. 3 ; Their mouth is full of
cursing, &c., from Ps. x. 7. Again, Their feet are swift to
shed blood, &c., is from Isa. lix. 7 ; or perhaps from Prov. i.
16 ; and the last clause, There is no fear of God before their
eyes, is from Ps. xxxvi. 1. S. Jerome and Venerable Bede
give this account of the insertion. Cassiodorus seems doubt-
mi whether they are not original. John Azor, and some
other late writers, agree with lum.
8 Have they no knowledge, that they are all such
workers of mischief: eating up my people as it were
bread, and call not upon the Lord.
Save they no hioivledge? It is the same thing that is
written in Isaiah ; " therefore is My people gone into capti- isa, v. 13.
vity, because they have no knowledge." " If," says S. Basil,
" they would not gain knowledge by being taught, they
shall gain it by being afflicted." And notice how S. Paul, ^^^
in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Eomans, shows
that they might have had knowledge if they would : that
*' the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world, Rom. i. 20.
are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are
made, so that they are without excuse." Eating up my
' [The passage is given in
many editions of the LXX. and
in translations which follow the
Greek, as the Vulgate, ^thiopic,
Coptic, Arabic, and also is found
in one Hebrew MS., but it is re-
jected by the best authorities as
an insertion.]
188 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
people as if they would eat hread. And in like manner, Eli-
Jobxv. 16. phaz speaks of man, "which drinketh iniquity like water."
And so the Apostle warns, " If ye bite and devour one another,
Gal. V. 15. ^ake heed that ye be not consumed one of another." Where
S. Chrysostom very well observes the gradual augmentation
of the sin and punishment, Bite, devour, he consumed. And
yet that very saying of the Jews which so fully expressed
their malignity against the Prophet, " Who shall give us of
his flesh, that we may be satisfied .P" is so beautifully turned
by the Church to her own purposes when she speaks of the
Flesh that is Meat indeed, and the Blood that is drink in-
S.Chrysost. deed. And call not upon God. That is, as S. Chrysostom
well teaches. They may indeed call upon Him with their
mouths ; they may give Him honour with their lips, but thus
persecuting His people, that shall be fulfilled in them which
is written by Isaiah, " Your brethren that hated you and cast
isa. ix'va. 5. you out for My Name's sake, said. Let the Lord be glorified ;
but He shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed."
\_Eating up my people. The Greek Fathers take it literally
2- of the miseries inflicted by Sennacherib's army, and it is then
■Q Q transferred to the sufi'erings of the Church during her perse-
cutions at the hands of the Jews first and then of the Homans,
s. Alb. Mag. j^g j^jjgj. Qf -y^iiom knew the Way of Peace, the Eedeemer of
the world, wherefore is added, and call not upon the Lord.
Rom. X. 14. For, as the Apostle asks, " how shall they call on Him in
Whom they have not believed?" And therefore judgment
Jer. X. 25. came upon them, according to that saying, " Pour out Thy
fury upon the heathen that know Thee not, and upon the
families that call not upon Thy Name : for they have eaten
up Jacob, and devoured him, and consumed him, and have
made his habitation desolate." And another warns us that
Ric. Hamp. evil priests, who make a gain of their flock, and are not zealous
for the glory of God and the salvation of souls, are here
threatened.]
9 There were they brought in great fear, even
where no fear was : for God is in the generation of
the righteous.
Prov. xxviii. " The wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous
*• is bold as a lion," that is, as the Lion of the tribe of Judah,
That hath conquered. So it was with the Jews, when in the
s. John xj. Council of the Pharisees Caiaphas said, " The Romans shall
Aug.' there, come and take away both our place and nation ;" and by the
means of the very wickedness they committed to prevent it,
their destruction by the Romans was brought to pass. I
need not quote, as Corderius does, a vast number of sentences
from Aristotle and other heathen philosophers to the same
effect. We may sum up the whole in the saying of the wise
wi»d. xvii. map, '* Fear is nothing else than a betraying gf the succours
which reason offereth ;" or better still is that of S. Basil of
Orat. 22. Seleucia, " Fear is only an argument of unbelief."
I
PSALM XIV. 189
[Where no fear was. Tiiat is, fearing the persons of men, j)^ Q, i
and fearing the loss of mere temporal blessings, but not fear-
ing God, nor the loss of eternal joys.] ■ * *^*
10 As for you_, ye have made a mock at the coun-
sel of the poor : because he putteth his trust in the
Lord.
Ye have made a mock at the counsel of the poor. So they
did when they said, " Forty and six years was this temple in 20^°^" "'
building, and wilt Thou rear it up in three days ?" So they
did when they exhorted Him, " If Thou do these things, show s. John vU.
Thyself to the world :" when they cried out, " Let Cheist, g -^^^^^ ^v.
the King of Israel, come down now from the Cross, that we 32.
may see and believe." And because he putteth his trust in
the Lord. It is precisely the same thing as in that other
verse, " All they that see Me, laugh Me to scorn ; they shoot ps- xxii.7,8.
out their lips and shake their heads, saying, He trusted in
God." So, long before, Rabshakeh had made a mock at the t
counsel of the poor, the Jews shut up within Jerusalem, and
besieged by the enormous hosts of Assyria : " Let not Heze- isa. xxxvi.
kiah make you trust in the Loed, saying. The Loed will '*•
surely deliver us : this city shall not be delivered into the
hand of the King of Assyria." And in contrast with this, we
have that sad warning, " Lo, this is the man that took not ps, m. 8.
God for his strength." And here, then, is our comfort : the
counsel of the Poor may be made a mock of, but cannot be
overthrown : " The counsel of the Lobd, that shall stand." p^o^- *i^-
That counsel which is to guide and guard us in the days of ^^'
our pilgrimage here : that counsel which proceeds from the
Wonderful Counsellor ; as it is written, " My Fathee Which s, Johnx.
gave them Me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck 29.
them out of My Fathee's hand."
11 Who shall give salvation unto Israel out of
Sion ? When the Lord turneth the captivity of his
people : then shall Jacob rejoice, and Israel shall be
glad.
Notice that by Israel we are to understand those other
sheep which the Loed has that are not of this fold, but which G.
He must also bring, that they may hear His voice. For it is
Israel, not Judah ; Sion, not Jerusalem. Who shall give ?
Firstly, and as the cause of all the rest, those tongues of fire
which, to quote S. James' Liturgy, " descended in that upper
room of the holy and glorious Sion," and from thence scat-
tered the illumination of the Gospel over the dark places of
the earth : that rushing, mighty wind, which first " filled all
the house, where they were sitting," but afterwards breathed
like a summer gale over the face of the whole earth, making
the wilderness and solitary place glad for it, and the desert
19Q
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
,
Ay.
Giles
Fletcher :
" Christ's
Triumph
overDeath.'
to rejoice and blossom as the rose. But in a subordinate
sense, who shall give may be answered by the names of the
Apostles and other valiant heroes of Cheist, by whose la-
bours the earth was filled with the knowledge of the Loed,
as the waters cover the sea. When the Lord turneth the cap-
tivity of Sis people. Then, as it is in the parallel passage,
were we like unto them that dream. A glorious dream indeed,
in which, fancy what we may, the half of the beauty, the half
of the splendour, will not be reached by our imagination.
The captivity — of our souls to the law of concupiscence, of
our bodies to the law of death ; the captivity of our senses to
fear ; the captivity, the conclusion of which is so beautifully
expressed by one of our greatest poets :
" No sorrow now hangs clouding on their brow ;
No bloodless malady impales their face ;
No age drops on their hairs his silver snow j
No nakedness their bodies doth embase ;
No poverty themselves and theirs disgrace j
No fear of death the joy of life devours ;
No unchaste sleep their precious time deflowers ;
No loss, no grief, no change, wait on their winged hours."
And therefore :
Glory be to the Fathee, Who looked down from heaven
•upon the children of men ; and to the Son, Who is in the
generation of the righteous : and to the Holy Ghost, from
Whom and by Whom that generation receives its righteous-
ness ;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be ; world
without end. Amen.
Collects.
Ludolph,
Mozarabic,
Vouchsafe, O Loed, to look down from Thy holy heaven
upon the children of men, and give us to know the way of
peace ; that we, being set free from the hard captivity of vice,
may enjoy the habitations of the heavenly Jerusalem. (1.)
O Jesu, ineffable Wobd of the Almighty Fathee, Whom
for the Jews, the hearts of men therefore believe not to be very God, be-
cause in their own souls they are altogether become abom-
inable ; we pray and beseech Thee that they also may know
Thee like as we know Thee ; that they may so be joined to
Thy faithful people by the profession of a true faith, as en-
tirely to rejoice that they have their portion and inheritance
among the redeemed. Amen. Through Thy mercy (11.)
The Loed grant to each of us that, being made a Jacob by
supplanting all vice, and turned into a true Israel, he may
merit to embrace the Loed with his whole heart : to Whom,
with the Fathee and the Holy Ghost, is honour and glory
to ages of ages. Amen.
[O Loed, make us ever believe and call upon Thy Name,
that we may not think with the heart of the fools, who cry
S. Hieron
Mozarabic,
lor the
iVriaos.
le, i
PSALM XV. 191
with unbelieving voice, There is no God. Turn the corrup-
tion of their mind unto the truth of the faithful, that their
wickedness may not overcome those faithful, but that the
feithful may win them by the doctrine of love, that they may
eschew their abominable heresy, and together with the faith-
ftil may in a pure heart believe and confess the essence of the
Trinity, so as to be numbered with the generation of the
righteous, and with Thy Saints enjoy the glory of blessedness.
Through Thy mercy (11.)
[O God the Fatheb, turn everlasting captivity away from D. C.
Thy people, and, we pray Thee, grant us peace in Him Who
maketh both one, peace wherein our mortal Jacob may rejoice
in the flesh, until, becoming Israel, we shall attain to behold
Thee, 0 God. (1.)]
PSALM XV.
Title. A Psahn of David.
Aequment.
Abg. Thomas. That Christ is the mountain on which the souls
of the righteous may rest. The voice of Christ speaking to the
Fatheb concerning His faithful people. Of the example and do-
minion of the same. Of His Apostles and Saints. The Prophet
inquireth : God replieth. Of righteousness.
Ven. Bede. The Loed repHeth to the question of the Prophet
after the pattern of the decalogue, that the way to the courts of His
blessedness, lies by ten virtues. The whole Psalm consists of a
question and reply : but the question is contained in one verse, the
reply in six.
Efsebius of C^sabea. Restitution to our first state, and a
representation of Him Who is perfect according to God.
^ Anonymous. The words of the people in the Babylonish cap-
lavily, desiring to return to their own country, and enumerating the
merits by which a man may go up thither.
Stbiac Psaltee. Perfect conversion to God.
Vabioits Uses.
Chregorian. Sunday : II. Nocturn. [Easter Eve : Matins. Feasts
of Five Wounds, Crown of Thorns, and Shroud : II. Nocturn. Mi-
chaelmas Day: I. Nocturn. All Saints: II. Nocturn. Common
of One Martyr : III. Nocturn. Common of Many Martyrs : II.
Nocturn. Common of Confessors : III. Nocturn.]
Monastic. Thursday : Prime.
Parisian. Tuesday : Matins.
Lyons. Monday : Terce.
Amhrosian. Monday of the First Week : m. Nocturn.
Quignon. Monday : Compline.
192
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Antiphons.
Gregorian. [Easter Eve : He shall dwell in Thy tabernacle,*
He shall rest upon Thy holy hill. All Saints : Loed, they who
have done the thing which is right, shall dwell in Thy tabernacle,
and rest upon Thy holy hill. Common of a Martyr : He shall
dwell in Thy tabernacle, he shall rest upon Thy holy hill. Many
Martyrs : I will give to My Saints the promised place in the King-
dom of My Father, saith the Loed.]
Parisian. Who shall rest upon Thy holy hill, O Loed P He
that worketh righteousness and hath done no harm to his neighbour.
Mozarabic. Loed, who shall dwell in Thy tabernacle ? or who
shall rest upon Thy holy hill ?
The question has been asked why this is only called A Psalm
of David : not, as so often, A Psalm of David to the end. S.
Chrysostom answers that this Psalm has reference, not to the
end, but to the very beginning, of the Christian life. Ruffinus
sees a mystery in the very number of the Psalm : the Paschal
Lamb was slain on the fourteenth day of the month at even :
the number fifteen, as the day of the full moon, implies the
fulness of light which followed the completion of the sa-
crifice, that fulness of light which will be the portion of the
citizen of Sion, described in this Psalm,
s. Basil. The Psalmist in the last Psalm had declared : " They are
s. Asterius. ^ gQj^g Q^^ Qf ^]^g wdij, there is none that doeth good ;"
and so, as if in despair, he turns to God that he may put the
disciples' question, "Who then can be saved?" Standing
then as a Priest before the Holy of Holies, and waiting for
the words of the Living Oracle Christ, the whole world
lying in wickedness behind him, the House of God in all its
blessedness before him, he thus begins :^
1 LoRD^ who shall dwell in thy tabernacle : or who
shall rest upon thy holy hill ?
We must understand the tahernacle of the Church mili-
tant ; the holy hill of the Church triumphant.^ And in this
B. sense it is well said, the tahernacle or tent, because tents are the
habitation of them that are engaged in war, not of those who
are at rest. By the mountains, as the Gloss beautifully says,
eternal beatitude is represented, where is the vision of peace,
G.
* Remigius also joins on this
Psalm to the last, but he makes
it depend on the last verse,
"Then shall Jacob rejoice, and
Israel shall be right glad ;" as
if, remembering with the Apos-
tle that " they are not all Israel
which are of Israel," he pro-
ceeded to ask, Which of all these
who seem to enter into God'
tabernacle shall really dwell there
and belong to it ?
2 Jansenius and Lorinus, but
few other commentators of note,
will have both the tabernacle and
the holy hill to mean the same
thing, namely, the kingdom ol
heaven.
PSALM XV. 193
and the perfection of love, where none contends in the vehe-
mence of the conflict, — but every one rests in eternity of
peace : the mountain in which it pleased the Lord to dwell,
yea, the Lord will abide in it for ever. He asks not, Who Q.^
shall rest in Thy tabernacle ? because he well knows that rest
here is impossible : "without are fightings, within are fears :" ^ ^°'"- '^'"- ^•
" if Joshua had given them rest, then would He not after- Heb. iv. 8.
wards have spoken of another day." Who shall dwell or
abide : for he well knew how difficult it is to abide in grace.
Adam had two sons, and one was a murderer: only eight
persons were preserved in the ark, and one was a blaspnemer :
Abraham had two sons, and one was rejected : Isaac had two
sons, and one was reprobate : Jacob had twelve, and ten ^y^
banded together to sell their brother for a slave. We may
find a reference here to the ark, which for centuries dwelt in
the tabernacle, being carried hither and thither, but never
found any rest till removed to the holy hill of Sion. S. Basil
takes the tabernacle of our flesh, laying the emphasis on the
word Thy : who shall dwell in this body of infirmity and sin,
so as to make it Thy tabernacle ?
[This whole Psalm sets before us the perfect Manhood of Haymo.
Christ, and describes the holiness and obedience whereby
He merited, even as the Son of Man, the throne of Heaven.
And as He rested in more than one place during His pil-
grimage on earth, so the tabernacle is variously explained.
And first, it is taken of His Virgin Mother :
Sic quievit in Maria, The Se-
Dum ipsiu8 in hac via quence,
Virgo fit hospitium. Aac d'"!"* '""
Or, with the Vulgate reading of Ecclus. xxiv. 8 : " He that s. Alb. Mag.
made me rested in my tabernacle." Then the grave which
held Him for a time is so called, in accordance with that say-
ing, " His rest (Vulg. grave) shall be glorious." Wherefore isa. xi. lo.
this Psalm is recited on Easter Eve. And, thirdly. His abode
in Paradise before His Resurrection is referred to, as He was
the first of mankind to enter there. Finally, He, coming to
His people in the Blessed Sacrament, dwells in that true
tabernacle of God, a cleansed heart.
O dulcis Jestj, veni The Hymn,
In cordis lectulum, Sl'LHl" ^"'^
In quo nil sit obscceni ;
Fac tibi ferculura
Virtutibus ornatum,
Et caritate stratum,
Me tibi praeparatum
Fac tabernaculum.]
2 Even he, that leadeth an uncorrupt life : and
doeth the thing which is right, and speaketh the
truth from his heart.
amore.
194 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
As ten commandments were given from Mount Sinai,
-A.y. which they who would enter into eternal life must keep : so
here we have ten marks or characteristics of those that shall
enter into the same life. The first is, He that leadeth an un-
corrupt life ; or as it is in the Yulgate, He that walketh with-
out blemish. Walketh, that is, in the same state in which he
has been placed by holy Baptism ; leading " the rest of his life
according to this beginning." But this keeping himself un-
spotted from the world, this passive service of God, is not
enough, unless he bring forth the fruits of actual righteous-
G. ness : and therefore it follows in the second place, and doeth
the thing which is right. They observe that of the four car-
dinal virtues. Justice, Prudence, Temperance, and Fortitude,
David only mentions Justice, because this of necessity must
include all the others. And then there follows thirdly, speak-
eth the truth from his heart. Where notice that truth is here
mentioned as the first-fruit of working righteousness, just as
it is put first in the catalogue of Christian graces by S. Paul :
Philip, iv. 8. " finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever
things are honest," &c.
3 He that hath used no deceit in his tongue, nor
done evil to his neighbour ; and hath not slandered
his neighbour.
^y. They notice well that there are three kinds of truth ; truth
in heart, truth in word, truth in deed. Truth in heart, of
Heb. X. 22. which the Apostle says, " Let us draw near with a true heart,
'in full assurance of faith." Truth in word, of which the
Zech. viii. Prophet writes, " These are the things which ye shall do ;
'^* speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour." Truth in
2^Kings deed; of which Hezekiah pleads, "Eemember now how I
have walked before Thee in truth and with a perfect heart."
And we have them all here. Truth in heart : speaTceth the
truth from his heart. Truth in word : he that hath used no
deceit in his tongue. Truth in deed : nor done evil to his
neighbour. And these are the third, fourth and fifth marks
of the citizen of Sion. S. Augustine, the Doctor of Truth,
who so strenuously teaches that a falsehood can never be jus-
tified by any necessity, even of life or death, dwells at great
length from this Psalm in his treatise De Mendacio, on the
subject of truth.
And notice the examples of truth spoken with the lips but
J not from the heart; because either spoken unwillingly or
guilefully. Caiaphas spoke the truth concerning Cheist :
"It is expedient that one man should die for the people ;"
but, — " this spake he notof himself ;" and therefore not from
his heart. Tne priests of the Philistines spake truth con-
cerning the ark ; Balaam concerning the people of God ; the
devils concerning Cheist; but again not from the heart.
The sixth note : and hath not slatidered his neighbour. S.
XX. 3.
S. John xi
50.
PSALM XV. 195
Augustine's practical commentary on tliis clause is well
known; how over the table at whicli lie entertained liis
friends, he caused these two verses to be written :
Quisquis amat dictis absentum rodere vitam
Hanc mensam vetitatn noverit esse sibi.
He that is wont to slander absent men,
May never at this table sit again :
And in his Confessions, he takes occasion to celebrate the
abhorrence which S. Monica always felt and expressed for
everything like slander. The seventh characteristic follows :
4 He that setteth not by himself, but is lowly in
his own eyes : and maketh much of them that fear
the Lord.
Here the Vulgate is entirely different from our own trans-
lation : The malicious one hath been hrovght to nought in his
sight : or as it is in our Bible translation, In whose eyes a vile
person is contemned. If we take that translation, the Psalmist
only tells us what the Apostle also commands : ** Be strong
in the Lord, and in the power of His might :" thus being
able to contemn him that is indeed the vile person, him that
is indeed the malicious, namely, Satan. Hence came the
courage of the martyrs ; hence they could despise the bribes
and seductions of the devil on the one side, for the " far Ay.
more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" offered them
on the other. And not only the devil, but his instruments :
witness the words of brave Mattathias : *' Thus consider ye i Mace. ii.
throughout all ages, that none that put their trust in Him 6i.
shall be overcome. Fear not thou the words of a sinful man,
for his glory shall be dung and worms. To-day he shall be
lifted up, and to-morrow he shall not be found, because he is
returned into his dust, and his thought is come to nothing."
Yes : and thus indeed Satan was contemned by Him Whose
abode is from everlasting to everlasting on the heavenly hill, G.
when the evil one showed Him all the kingdoms of the world
and the glory of them in a moment of time : and received
for his answer, " Get thee behind Me, Satan, for it is written,
Thou shalt worship the Lobd thy God, and Him only shalt
thou serve." And maketh much of them that fear the Lord.
Beautifully in the same spirit is it said by our own Bishop
Montague, " Those blessed ones with God, that have fought
the good fight, kept the faith, finished their course, as they a New Gag.
are now regnant in glory with their Eedeemer, so are they
honourable amongst the righteous upon earth for ever. They
have left a name behind them so that their praise shall be
remembered for evermore. The Lobd hath gotten great
glory by them, and therefore with renown He will reward
them. No Christian will deny or envy them their due : and
k2
196
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Serm. 28.
De Verbis
Domini.
Ric. Hamp.
Prov. xviii.
24.
Deut. iv. 7.
Catull.
Carm. 76.
for myself, I say with Nazianzen, It doth me good at heart to
see them honoured : I admire, reverence, adore them in their
kind : their triumphs and trophies over death and hell, my
tongue and pen shall most willingly set forth to light with all
the poor skill and faculty I have."
5 He that sweareth unto his neighbour, and dis-
appointeth him not : though it were to his own
hindrance.
This is the eighth characteristic of the citizen of Sion.
Where notice that there was once a disposition on the part of
some of the greatest doctors of the Church, as S. Augustine
and S. Basil, to consider all swearing of whatever kind, for-
bidden by the law of Christianity. S. Basil says on this
very place : " What is this ? Here an oath is mentioned
among those virtues which belong to a perfect man ; while
in the Gospel it is entirely forbidden. What then are we to
say ? This : that the Lord has everywhere the same end, not
only to prevent the completed efforts of sin, but to cut up ini-
quity from its very first beginnings. For, as the old law says,
Thou shalt not commit adultery, but the Lord's command-
ment is, Thou shalt not desire : so here, the Prophet is satis-
fied if an oath be taken with truth ; but the Lord cuts up all
possibility of perjury by forbidding an oath." S. Augustine
says : " A false oath is destruction ; a true oath is perilous :
no oath is secure." And so S. Ambrose : " It is God's will
that thou shouldest not swear, lest thou shouldest commit
perjury." But the teaching of the Church is rather that of
S. Thomas : An oath is like medicine ; not to be taken every
day and on common occasions, nor without the advice of a
wise physician ; but with that advice necessary.
[And observe, that as the word Sacrament denotes the
military oath, so this verse holds of the Christian soldier who
keeps the pledge sworn to his Captain in Baptism, and con-
firmed in the Eucharist, disappointing Him not, Who is so
eager for our salvation, but abiding faithful even when con-
stancy seems to be to his oivn hindrance, loss of friends, spoil-
ing of goods, peril of life itself. And it is well said, his neigh-
lour, because the " Friend that sticketh closer than a brother,"
the Lord our God, is nigh unto us in all things that we call
upon Him for.]^
Nee sanctam violasse fidem, nee
foedere in ullo
Divum ad fallendos numine
abusum homines,
Multa peracta manent in longJi
ffitate, Catulle,
Ex hoc ingrato gaudia amore
tibi.]
^ [There is a noteworthy pa-
rallel to this picture of a righ-
teous man in a place where it
would hardly be looked for, the
poems of Catullus :
Siqua recordanti benefacta pri-
ora voluptas
Est homini, cum se cogitat
esse pium,
PSALM XV. 197
6 He that hath not given his money upon usury :
nor taken reward against the innocent.
The first clause of this verse contains no doubt the most s. Basil, hie.
intensely difficult subject in Christian morals. Whether the s. Hiero-
law against usury was one intended for the Jews alone, in ^^'"^"iq
the strictness of the letter, and the Early Church was mis- § r
taken in applying it to the new dispensation : or whether serm°6.
the later Church has mistaken in allowing it under certain, g cyprian.
and those very lax, rules, rules rather dictated by the civil ad Qnirin.
authority than self-evident, is a question which it would be *^*p- ^^•
the height of presumption to attempt to solve. Only this J"nocent,
must be remembered : that there has been great error on the Quam^emi-
one side or on the other ; either in the present practice of ciosum.
allowing, without a scruple, funds, debentures, and the like ;
or in the early prohibition to a priest to buy a field in which
the seed had just been sown, with the intention of selling the
crop, because in so doing he sold time, God's free gift to
every one. But let this law mean what it may ; let it be taken
in the literal sense, or like the fourth commandment be utterly
spiritualised, there can be no doubt as to the next clause, nor
taketh reicard against the innocent. And then we are carried
back at once to His trial. Who was indeed. Who was only,
innocent ; to His own words quoted against Him, " Destroy
this temple and in three days I will raise it again ;" to the Q._
confession of Judas, " I have sinned in that I have betrayed
the innocent blood." And this last characteristic of the per-
fect man, seems to fix the interpretation of the whole on Him
Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth ; on
Him Who shall indeed dwell in God's tabernacle and rest
upon His holy hill, when all enemies shall be subdued to
Him and He shall reign for ever and ever. And in this
sense, most fully, most completely, does the last verse apply ;
7 Whoso doeth these things : shall never fall.
And therefore :
Glory be to the Fathee, Whose is the holy hill ; and to
the Son, Who shall abide in it for ever : and to the Holy
Ghost, by Whom only we are to reach it.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be :
world without end. Amen.
Collects.
Grant to us, merciful God, to enter Thy Church without Ludoiph.
spot, and turn us awaj'- from deceiving our neighbours ; that
while we observe all things according to Thy precepts, we
may not be afflicted by Thy punishments for ever. (1.)
O Christ, the Son of God, have mercy on our humility, Mozarabic.
Thou, Who by the deceit of the traitor disciple, wast given
over to suffering and death : and as Thou wast in Thine in-
198 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
nocence sold for money, grant that we may never deceive our
neighbour by perjury, nor injure ourselves by evil habits ;
bat rather following the example of Thy patience, may pre-
vail both against our external and internal enemies. Amen.
Through Thy mercy (11.)
D. C [Visit us, O LoED, we pray Thee, as we wander in the body
away from Thee, and vouchsafe to strengthen us in Thy holy
service, that alway busied in doing that which is right, we
may be uncorrupt dwellers in Thine everlasting tabernacle.]
PSALM XVI.
Title. Michtam of David. Vulgate : The inscription of the
title : To David himself. Probably, A golden Psalm of David.
Aegttment.
Aeg. Thomas. That Cheist, when He had suffered for us, was
not left in hell. The voice of the Church. The voice of Cheist to
the Fathee, and of His members to their head. Through this whole
Psalm the Person of the Savioite is introduced. At its commence-
ment, He speaks according to His humanity to the Fathee, be-
seeching that He may be preserved, because He hath ever set His
hope on Him : He adds how His Saints are chosen, not by the de-
sires of the flesh, but by the virtues of the Spieit : He affirms that
everything that He endured was for the glory of His heritage. In
the second part, He returns thanks to the same Fathee, Who,
standing on His right hand, overcame the iniquity of this world by
the power of His omnipotence : whence He affirms that His soul
was set free from hell, and after the glory of His Eesurrection, had
its dwelling among the pleasures of God's right hand.
Ven. Bede. When all the headings of the Psalms may be called
Inscriptions of Titles, I know not with what peculiar mystical signi-
fication this Psalm has this especial title. But since a title was
written over our Loed when Crucified, " This is the King of the
Jews," not without reason in the Psalm in which that same King is
about to speak of His Passion and Resurrection, is commemoration
made of that inscription : for that which is added, to David himself,
is not to be applied to any other person than to the Loed, the Sa-
viouE to Whom it is sung.
EusEBius OF CjESaeea. The election of the Church and the
Eesurrection of Cheist.
^THiopic PsALTEE. The Covenant of David which he proposed
as peculiar to himself.
Vaeious Uses.
Gregorian. Sunday : II. Noctum. [Easter Eve : Matins. Cor-
pus Christi : I. Nocturn. Feasts of the Precious Blood and Shroud :
Matins. Common of Many Martyrs : II. Nocturn.]
PSALM xvr. 199
Monastic. Friday : Prime.
Parisian. Wednesday : Compline.
Lyons. Sunday : II. Noctum.
Ambrosian. Monday of the First Week : U. Nocturn.
Quignon. Tuesday : Compline.
Antiphons.
GregoAan. My goods * are nothing unto Tliee : in Thee have I
hoped ; save me, O God. [Easter Eve : My flesh also shall rest in
hope. Corpus Christi : With the Communion of the Cup, whereby
God Himself is received, not with the blood of bulls, the Lord hath
gathered us together. Common of Many Martyrs : In the Saints
which are in the earth, He hath magnified all my wills among them.]
Parisian. Preserve me, O God : for in Thee have I put my trust.
Mozarabic. I said unto the LofiD, Thou art my God.
1 Preserve me, O God : for in thee have I put my
trust.
Save I put My trust. And " they that trust in the Lobd," isa. xi. 31.
it is the promise of the prophet, " shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and
not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." But we may put
the text, so far as He is man, into our Lord's mouth : for He
was preserved by the Father, as well as preserved Himself.
Or when He says. Preserve Me, we may so interpret it, as if
He were praying for those that are His, and with Whom He
is one. Gerhohus beautifully paraphrases the prayer : " Pre-
serve in them. Me, the Way, that they may not err ; Me, the G.
Truth, that they may neither deceive, nor be deceived ; Me,
the Life, that although they be dead, they may live, — that
although they be sick through any sin, this sickness may not
be unto death ; but that every one that liveth and believeth
in Thee may not die everlastingly. Thus, O Father, pre-
serve Me, Who am the Eesurrection and the Life, so that if
even any one of Mine should die through sin, he may yet live
again through penitence : to the end that none of My own
may perish, preserve me, O God.'" But further notice that
this and the following verses teach us six mysteries concern-
ing Christ. The virtue of His prayer. Preserve Me, O God : Ay
the efficacy of His teaching, " All My delight is upon the
Saints," — or, as it is in the Vulgate, " In the Saints He hath
wonderfully declared My will :" the gathering together of
His Church, " Their drink-offerings of blood," &c. : the safe-
guard of His Passion, " Thou maintainest My lot :" the glory
of His Resurrection, " Thou shalt not leave My soul in heU :"
the blessedness of His Ascension, "At Thy Eight Hand
there is pleasure for evermore." On this verse the school-
men raise a question whether our Lord can be said, in so far
as He was man, to have possessed hope as a theological L.
virtue. And S. Thomas decides that He cannot : a decision
200 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
somewhat modified by Cardinal Hugo and others, who say-
that, although He possessed not hope in respect of the beatific
object, which was always His own, yet so far as hope imparts
an expectation of a certain, separate, future thing, as for ex-
ample, the incorruptibility of His own Body in the grave,
He may be said to have possessed it.
2 O my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord :
Thou art my God, my goods are nothing unto thee.
Or, as it is in the Vulgate, " Thou hast no need of my
goods." Others would more literally translate it, " My
Good, there is nothing beside Thee." They dispute whether
this verse may be put into the mouth of our Lord, Thou art
My God. No doubt it may be, as He Himself taught us on
the Cross. Hence also the whole question arises, How, and
how far, human works may be said to have merit: taken in
Job XXXV 7 connection with that speech of Elihu, " Thinkest thou this
' to be right that thou saidst, My righteousness is more than
God's? If thou sinnest, what doest thou against Him? or
if thy transgressions be multiplied, what doest thou unto
Him ? If thou be righteous, what givest thou Him, or what
receiveth He of thine hand? Thy wickedness may hurt a
man as thou art ; and thy righteousness may profit the son
of man." It is sufficient to notice the fact, without entering
into this, the most boundless controversy that has ever been
agitated, and in which the Church has always allowed so
B. great a latitude on either side. This only is to be observed :
if we can from our very hearts take the first clause of the
verse on our lips, then indeed we possess a blessing which no-
thing can destroy, and for which nothing could compensate.
[Modern critics translate the last clause, as practically do
the Syriac and Symmachus, I have no good except Thee. And
on this there is no better comment than that brief saying of
Co^m"?*' *^^ Doctor of Grace, " Thou hast made us for Thee, and our
heart is restless, until it rests in Thee." And they explain
the ordinary rendering as spoken in the person of Cheist,
and meaning that the Word took flesh not for Himself, but
for us, and therefore that the Divine Glory, essentially inca-
-pj p pable of increase, as already infinite, was not augmented by
^' ^' the Manhood of the Savioue.]
3 All my delight is upon the saints, that are in
the earth : and upon such as excel in virtue.
Or, as it is in the Vulgate, " In the Saints which are in His
earth He hath magnified all My wills among them." For He
Who, just before His Passion, said, " Nevertheless, not My
Will, but Thine be done," has, in so far as He was Man, had
His reward and His joy in this : that His will, and not their
own, is the pole-star which directs the course of His people
J
c.
PSALM XVI. 201
uross the stormy ocean of this world. Or, if we take the
verse according to our own translation : the greatest of -^J
heathen philosophers could say that there was no sight more
pleasing to the gods, than that of a good man suffering afflic-
tion wrongfully. And so we may not doubt that, among the
innumerable cloud of witnesses, He, the Martyr of martyrs,
< continually to be found. Or, if we put the words into our
' )\vn mouths, then we find an especial emphasis in the clause,
/hat are in the earth : as if it were natural to find more com-
fort from their struggles who are compassed about with the
same infirmity, and exposed to the same attacks as ourselves,
than from the peace of the blessed ones who have already en-
cred into their rest. But not only in this verse, but in the
I'xt also, is there a striking difference between the Vulgate
and our own version.
4 But they that run after another god : shall have
^reat trouble.
Or, as it is in the Vulgate, " Their infirmities are multi-
lied : after that they made haste." It is wonderful how the
! liferent versions vary in this place, till one could hardly
(iiink that it was the same passage of Scripture that was
'■ ranslated. Thus, for example, one would read : " Multiplied
'(' their sorrows who run headlong elsewhere." Another:
As for those profane earthly idols, and all the great who in
Iiem delight, multiplied be their sorrows." But, to take the
'rds of the Vulgate, there are two senses, both most true,
i Mjth most beautiful, in which they may be understood. The L.
first, of the wicked : Their infirmities, that is, the afflictions
which God sends, to bring them back to Himself, are multi-
2)lied in His love : because one is not enough. He sends an-
other : as the Prophet says, " Precept must be upon precept, jgg^ xxviii
precept upon precept ; line upon line, line upon line ; here a lo.'
little, and there a little." And yet, when thus afflicted, they
lade haste; they became impatient; they fretted at the
liastiseraent of the Lord. Or, quite in the opposite sense,
Llieir infirmities were multiplied : that is, the true servants
of God, the more they try to walk worthy of their vocation,
the more they endeavour to tread in the footsteps of their
Lord, the more Satan assaults them with his temptations,
the more their infirmities are multiplied. But in them is
that prophecy fulfilled, " Rejoice not against me, O mine
( nemy ; when I fall, I shall also arise." After that they C.
ude haste: they advanced in their spiritual course; they
i ilfiUed the homely proverb, "He that stumbles without
falling, goes on faster than before." After that they made
haste. As Saul the persecutor, who became Paul the Apostle,
laboured more abundantly than they all ; as the penitent
thief who, after grace had touched his heart, so confessed
Christ, as none other before nor since ; as S. Mary Magda-
K 3
202 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
lene, who, after having fallen so deeply into that sin, which,
more than any other, cuts us off from the grace of God, ne-
vertheless merited first to behold Him after He had risen
from the dead.
p. p [Again, their injirmities were multiplied when they learnt,
for the first time, the true number and nature of their sins
from holy preachers, and then, after that, they made haste to
be converted and baptized. Haste, like Peter and Andrew,
■p James and John, leaving their nets, and Matthew's quitting
his office.]
5 Their drink-offerings of blood will I not offer :
neither make mention of their names within my lips.
Or, as it is in the Vulgate, *' I will not enter into their con-
venticles of blood." And think first of those sacrifices of
blood which have been offered from the time of righteous
Abel to Zacharias the son of Barachias, whom they slew
Ay. between the temple and the altar : and then, beyond and
above all, of that sacrifice of blood which, so far as they
that offered it were concerned, has never yet been expiated,
" His blood be on us and on our children." Neither make
Q^ mention of their names. A reference to the Mosaic law, which
not only forbade the worship of the idols of the seven nations,
but the very mention of their names. And so is the prophecy
in Zechariah : " It shall come to pass in that day, saith the
Zech. xiii. 2. LoED of Hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols out
of the land, and they shall no more be remembered." It is
not, perhaps, necessary, with S. Paulinus, to put these words
into our Loed's mouth, and to understand the lips of the
Epist. 31. ^^Q Testaments, by both of which, and especially by their
coherence and contact. He reveals His Will ; and to which,
also, he would refer that verse in the Canticles, " Let Him
Cant. i. 2. kiss me with the kisses of His mouth." For it is remarkable
how the names of the wicked are, as it were, passed over and
kept silence about in Holy Scripture. The old prophet of |
Bethel, — we know his deeds ; of his name we are not in-
formed. So in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus;
the name of the beggar that was carried by Angels into Abra-
-D- C. ham's bosom is known to the whole world ; that of him who
in hell lift up his eyes, being in torment, is involved in ob-
scurity. So again of him who said, " Soul, thou hast much j
goods laid up for many years," and to whom God said,
" Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee."
In like manner the young man is not named who went
away sorrowful from our Loed, because he had great pos-
sessions.^
[Their drink-offerings of Mood tcill I not offer, because My
ofifering is My own Blood, the Cup of the New Testament ;
s. Alb. Mag:, neither make mention of their names, because the titles Jew
[} There is a very ancient tradition that he was S. Barnabas.]
ew J
PSALM XVI. 203
and Gentile have been done away by the new name of Chris- s. Bruno
tian, which I have given to My Saints. Nay, I will not call earth.
them by the names their old sins have deserved, thieves, har- *y"^°-
lots, murderers, and the like, but brethren.]
6 The Lord himself is the portion of mine in-
heritance, and of my cup : thou shalt maintain
my lot.
One can hardly explain the portion of mine inheritance
better than by the words of S. Augustine on another Psalm :
" What better than God can be given to me P God loveth
me, God loveth thee. Behold, He hath set it before thee :
ask what thou wilt. If the Emperor were to say to thee, .
Ask what thou wilt : what office of tribune or of count wilt ^'
thou receive ? then what wouldest thou demand both to be
received by thyself and to be given to others ? WeU, when
God saith, Ask what thou wilt; what wilt thou demand?
stir up thy mind, exercise thy avarice, stretch forward as far
as thou canst, dilate thy cupidity : it is no ordinary person,
but the Omnipotent God Who saith to thee. Ask what thou
wilt have. . . . Thou wilt find nothing dearer, thou wilt find
nothing better, than Him Who said, Ask what thou wilt.
Seek for Jesus, Who made all things : and in Him, and from .
Him thou wilt have all things which He made. . . . And He
desires to give thee nothing so much as Himself. If thou
canst find anything better, ask it. But if thou askest any-
thing else, thou wilt do Him dishonour, thou wilt do injury
to thyself, by preferring His works to Himself. . . . The
Lord is the ^portion of my inheritance. Let Him possess thee,
that thou mayest possess Him : He possesses thee that He
may benefit thee; He is possessed by thee, that He may
benefit thee." Thus S. Augustine speaks on the 40th Psalm,
but his words are at least equally applicable to this. Thou,
shalt maintain my lot. Or, as it is m the Vulgate, " Thou
art He that shall restore me mine inheritance." And one
cannot but notice the similar diflference between our trans-
lation and that of the Vulgate in the parable of the Prodigal
Son : where our translation has, *' Bring forth the hest robe,
and put it on him," it is in the Vulgate, " Bring forth the
first robe," that is, the robe of baptismal innocence, to be re-
stored in a certain degree by penitence. And thus in this
verse. Thou shalt restore my heritage manifestly refers to
our being made heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, in
our Baptism. Neither must we fail to see how the two great
Sacraments are set forth to us in this verse. The Lord is the
portion of mine inheritance, — namely, that Holy Ghost, L.
Whose temples at the baptismal font we became : and of my
cup, — namely, that dear Lord, Whose Blood in the Eucha-
ristic chalice we drink. Thus we have the Sacrament of
Life, and the Sacrament of Food, immediately followed by
204 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
that of medicine. Literally, these references to the cup, The
Lord is the portion of my cup, " I will receive the cup of sal-
vation,"." Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink
of?" are allusions to the Jewish custom of ratifying and con-
firming a covenant, such as the transfer of land, by drinking
from a common cup. But how unspeakably poor and mean
is that literal sense in the Psalms, compared with the mys-
tical signification which shall be in force till the end of the
world ! Or we may put the words into our Lord's mouth,
Thou shalt restore Mine inheritance. It is the same prayer
s. John as that, " And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine
xvii. 5. own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the
world was." Thou shalt restore. After My thirty and three
years of suffering, after My crown of thorns, after My reed
of mockery, after My Cross, Thou shalt restore My everlast-
ing years of glory, Thou shalt set a crown of pure gold upon
My Head, Thou shalt give Me the sceptre of everlasting do-
minion, and the throne that is at Thy Eight Hand for ever-
more.
The Hymn, O grande cunctis gaudium,
Optatusvotis Quod partus nostrse Virginis
Post sputa, flagra, post crucem,
Sedi Paternae jungitur.
omnium.
7 The lot is fallen unto me in a fair ground : yea,
I have a goodly heritage.
A. Had we not such authority for the application, I should
„ almost have shrunk from applying this verse to the Son of
^* God, as exulting over, and glorying in, His union of human
nature to the Eternal Word. This is the fair ground in
which He cast His lot at Bethlehem : this is the goodly heri-
tage, goodly only to the exceeding greatness of His love,
C. which He came into this world to vindicate to Himself. And
S. Peter Chrysologus carries out the allegory still further,
and shows how the lines, as the Vulgate and our own Bible
translation give the word, were meted out by the Holy
Ghost, when He came down on the Blessed Virgin, preparing
in her a habitation for the Son of God. And there is no
doubt a reference to the division of the inheritance of the
Josh.xiii.6. tribes by Him, as it is described in the book of Joshua.
The expression in the Vulgate, " The ropes are fallen unto
Me," is piously interpreted in more than one sense by the
Fathers. Euthymius will have them to be those material
ropes by which the Son of God was bound in the garden :
the/atV ground referring literally to the beauty of its flowers,
but Bjpiritually^ to the inheritance which that binding, as the
first-fruits ot, and entrance on. His Passion, procured for
Him. S. Augustine takes them of the bauds of love by which
Christ was drawn to His work on earth, and \^ ith reference
to which the Bride prays, "Draw Me, we will run after
PSALM XVI.
205
Thee."^ I have a goodly heritage. Or we may take it of the G.
Son of God thus consoling Himself amidst the toils and
afflictions of His earthly pilgrimage : " I suflfer these things,
because without them mankind cannot be restored to their
country : I endure the contempt, the insults, the rejection
of those that ought to be My own here, to the end they
may be in very deed My own there. Nevertheless, I am
not ashamed, for I know Whom I have believed, and am per-
suaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed
unto Him against that day. I have a goodly heritage. Mine
before the foundation of the world ; and Mine, but belonging
also to those that are Mine, when I shall have returned to
My country, and resumed My throne to all eternity." And
yet in one sense more : may not we, who have been led into
the green pastures of Scriptural interpretation by the primi-
tive and mediaeval Saints, whom, at however great a distance,
we are following, — may not we say. The lot is fallen unto me
in a fair ground : the fair, wide ground, which, taking us
away from the narrow construction of the literal sense, ena-
bles us to lift up our eyes to the everlasting hills ; yea, I have
a goodly heritage, in the application to things seen and eternal,
of words in tlieir literal sense, spoken of things seen and
temporal.
8 I will thank the Lord for giving me warning :
my reins also chasten me in the night-season.
Or, as it is in the Vulgate, Who hath given me understand-
ing. But to take it in the sense of our own version : see how
continually from the very beginning that Holy Spieit has
warned against sin and danger. The hundred and twenty
years given to the sinners of the old world ; the vision of
Abimelech ; the repeated messages to Pharaoh ; the continual
warnings given to Saul : the threatening pronounced by the
prophet sent against Bethel : all these show how mercifully
God would fence in both His servants and His enemies from
sin. Who hath given me understanding. They see a refer- G.
ence here to the first Adam : to him also the lines fell in
pleasant places ; he also had a goodly heritage : but because
" being in honour he had no understanding," he lost all, and
became like the beasts that perish. But if we take this sen-
tence as spoken by our Lord, the greater number of the Fa-
thers have taught us that the knowledge of Christ, in so far
as He was man, was not communicated to Him by degrees,
and in the course of years, but at once and from the very in-
^ It would take too long to
follow Hugh of S. Victor in his
allegory of the universe divided
between our Lord and Satan :
or Nicephorus Blemmidas, of
the ropes, in the sense of the
snares which were spread for
Christ. Michael Ayguan un-
derstands the passage, of the di-
vision of the world among the
twelve Apostles, as once of Ca-
naan between the twelve tribes.
206 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
stant of the Incarnation. It is true that the opposite opinion
has been held by S. Athanasius, S. Cyril of Alexandria, S.
Ambrose, S. Fulgentius, S. Epiphanius, and to a certain ex-
L. tent by S. Augustine ; but, notwithstanding, the other is the
more general belief, except in so far as that which is termed
experimental understanding, the wisdom and knowledge aris-
ing from experience, is concerned. My reins also chasten me
in the night-season, or as it is in the Vulgate, till the night.
Either version will give the same sense. He did indeed
suffer all the miseries and labours, all the hardness and wea-
riness in the night-season of this life : or till the night, the
deep, dark night of His Passion. And notice that this is one
j^^ of the blessings for which He returns thanks : He, the Cap-
tain of our salvation, for the pains and labours which pur-
chased for Him, in so far as He was Man, the Throne above
every throne, and the Name above every name : as we, the
soldiers of that Captain, ought to do for the pain which ren-
ders us like Him here, and which is intended to transform us
into His image there. As the German poet well says :
" Could I face the coining night,
If Thou wert not near ?
Nay, without Thy love and might,
I must sink with fear :
Eound me falls the evening gloom,
Sights and sounds all cease,
I But within this narrow room
\ Night will bring no peace.
" Then if I must wake and weep
All the long night through,
i Thou the watch with me wilt keep,
\ Friend and Guardian true ;
i In the darkness Thou wilt speak
I Lovingly with me,
\ Though my heart may vainly seek
Words to breathe to Thee."
[_My reins. Taking it of our Lord, these words denote
Carth""° *^^. J^^/s^ nation, from whose reins His Mother sprang,
which did indeed chasten Him by revilings and tortures until
D. C. *^^* night-season of the three hours' darkness, when they
, ' ' could do no more. And if we apply the passage to Christians,
Rom vu!23. ^* *^l^s of the temptations of the flesh, the law in the mem-
bers warring against the law of the mind, and that, even in
Saints, till the night of bodily death, but in sinners till the
night of voluntary spiritual darkness.]
9 I have set God always before me : for he is on
my right hand, therefore I shall not fall.
And again the verse may be said by our Lord with a depth
of meanmg in which it can be taken by none other. For,
PSALM XVI. 207
from the very instant of Hia conception hypostatically united s. Petr.
to the Father, how could it be that the Lord was not always g^^^^'
before Him ? And if we could but do that by grace which Act. ii. 24.
He did by nature, — if in all the goings out and comings in of
this life, it might be said of that dear Lord and of us, " So
they two went on together," — if, whether we be sent to 2 Kings u.
Bethel, or Jericho, or Jordan, our own resolution is, " As the
Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I Mill not leave thee," —
oh, with what a reality may we take the beginning of the
next verse on our lips, "Wherefore my heart was glad!"
But now, how is this ? If He is to be on our right hand,
then we are making for ourselves the same awful petition,
which the wife of Zebedee put up for one of her sons, and
should ourselves be found on His left hand. Are we to say,
with some of the commentators, that we are not to press the
text too closely ? or, with others, that first of all, at the be-
ginning of the manifestation of His love towards us, we were
indeed on His left hand, and He, stretching forth the right
hand of His Majesty, succoured us from this peril, and gave
us a good hope of being placed among the sheep at the last
day ? Or, once more, are we to imagine ourselves as looking
up to, standing face to face with Him, as He sits on His
Throne, — He thus on our right hand, so that we shall not be
moved ; we not the less on His right hand, the place and the
heritage of perpetual joy ? Take it which way you will, the
end of the verse will be fulfilled : therefore I shall not fall.
One indeed, but One only, could say, absolutely and fully,
I shall not fall : even as He said, " The Prince of this world
cometh, and hath nothing in Me." But we — " The righteous
man falleth seven times a day, and we, exceeding sinners,
seventy times seven." But we may so fall as to be able to
say with the Prophet, "Bejoice not against me, O mine
enemy; for when I fall, I shall also arise." We may so fall
as, after we have suffered for a while, to be more than con-
querors through Him That loved us.
» 10 Wherefore my heart was glad, and my glory
rejoiced : my flesh also shall rest in hope.
We can take these words in our own mouths, and see how
beautifully they set forth to us the love of our Lord. Be-
cause we have set God always before us, therefore He that is
indeed our heart, the heart of all our affection, trust, joy, our
Heart was glad, and our Glory, — for Who but He, That bare
all shame for us, is our Glory ? — rejoices. For if there be joy
in the presence of the Angels over one sinner that repenteth,
how much more in the sight of the Lord of the Angels,
Whose love is to theirs, as the ocean to the drop of a bucket ?
My flesh shall rest in hope. In hope indeed : for from that
one sepulchre in the garden of Joseph of Arimathea, life and
light and hope have gone forth into all the graves of the earth ;
208 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
have changed burial grounds into cemeteries, graves into beds,
s.Johnxi. death into sleep : " Loed, if he sleep he shall do well." My
^^' jlesh shall rest. And they take it as more especially apper-
roscX"cate! t^^iii^^S ^^ our LoRD, because He, the Martyr of Martyrs,
ches. 14. after the struggle was over, reposed in peace : as it is written ;
isa. xiv. 18. " ^^^ *^^ kings of the nations, even all of them lie in glory,
every one in his own house." Whereas the martyrs His fol-
lowers so often had no grave in which to repose : their dead
Jer. xxxvi. bodies were " cast out in the day to the heat, and in the
^^' night to the frost," Or tliey were burnt to ashes in the fur-
nace, or entombed in. the maws of wild beasts, or torn to
pieces on the rack. But our Lobd's Body, during those
solemn hours, rested in peace, rested as a king under a guard
of honour, in a garden, in the spring of the year. So well
Isa. xi. 10. was it foretold by the Prophet : " His rest shall be glorious."
11 For why? thou shalt not leave my soul in
hell : neither shalt thou suffer thy Holy One to see
corruption.
Let us first hear the Apostolic interpretation of David's
Acts xiii. 35. prophecy : " Wherefore he saith also in another Psalm, Thou
shalt not suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption. For David,
after he had served his own generation by the will of God,
fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corrup-
tion. But He Whom God raised again, saw no corruption."
Such was S. Paul's interpretation : now let us hear S. Peter's.
" For David speaketh concerning Him, I foresaw the Loed
always before My face, for He is on My right hand that I
should not be moved : therefore did My heart rejoice and My
tongue was glad. Moreover My flesh also shall rest in hope :
because Thou wilt not leave My soul in hell, neither wilt Thou
suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou hast made
known to Me the ways of life. Thou shalt make Me full of
joy with Thy countenance. Men and brethren, let me freely
speak to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and
buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. There-
fore being a Prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with
an oath to him that of the fruit of his loins according to the
flesh, He would raise up Cheist to sit on his throne : he see-
ing this before spake of the Resurrection of Cheist, that
His soul was not left in hell, neither His flesh did see cor-
ruption." Thus it is that the two great Apostles explained
this verse : and we can only tread in their steps. It is well
g^ said by Pseudo-Dionysius, in the famous book of the Eccle-
arch. cap. siastical Hierarchy, with reference to this verse : " When they
vii. approach to death who have led a holy life, looking to the
true promises of God, the verity of which they have seen
made manifest in the Resurrection of Cheist, with a firm
and a lively hope and a Divine joy, they advance to the goal
of death as to the end of their conflicts j because they know
Acts ii. 25.
PSALM XVI. 209
for certain that all they care for, because of their future
resurrection, will be safe in that perfect and eternal life and A.
blessedness." How many of God's saints these words have
consoled in death, who can tell us ? Who can say what part
of the earth is not hallowed by the body of a saint ? It is a
noble thought of the earliest of Christian poets, where he
represents the different cities presenting their various saints,
as so many offerings to the second Adam :
Wherefore this dwelling, full of mighty Angels, Peristepha-
Fears not the wide world's universal ruin, non, iv. 5.
While in her hands she bears a rich oblation
Unto her Saviour.
Thus, when the Lord shall shake His flaming right arm,
Coming, His throne a purple cloud, to judgment,
Weighing each nation in His ready balance
Strictly and justly,
Each of those cities, rising from her ruins.
Shall to her monarch emulously hasten,
Bearing those gifts, so precious and so loving,
Home in their casket.
12 Thou shalt show me the path of life; in thy
presence is the fulness of joy : and at thy right hand
there is pleasure for evermore.
And, in the first place Who is the Path of Life but the
Lord Himself? "I am," saith He, "the Way, and the S- -^ohnxiv.
Truth, and the Life." And so the Apostle speaks of Him as
" the Author and Finisher of our faith." The Fathers well Heb. xii. 2.
remind us that what He said to S. Thomas, He says to all of
us : that of us, as well as of that generation, the saying is
true, "No man cometh to tlie Father but by Me." S. s.Johnxiv.
Ambrose and S. Gregory apply tliese words to our Lord and 6-
dilate upon them with great emphasis ; but we may also take
them in another sense, and putting them in our own mouths,
address them to the Captain of our Salvation : Thou shalt
show me the Path of Life : for the Path of Life is that path
by which our Lord ascended from the Mount of Olives to
the Eight Hand of the Father. As He left us an example
by rising from the grave, how w^e ourselves should burst the
bands of death, so, by His Ascension into heaven, He taught
us how of us that saying should be fulfilled, "Then we which j Thess. iv.
are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them 17.
in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we
ever be with the Lord."
\_In Thy presence. The LXX. and Vulgate read. Thou
shalt fill me with joy with Thy countenance, and thus bring
out more vividly the thought of the Beatific Vision :
Sunt hi viventes, 7n dom^"'
Me vita fruentes, Patria.
210 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Pulchre lucentes,
Me lumen videntes,
Sunt et divini
Dii quoque igniti
Mihi uniti.]
And therefore :
Glory be to the Fathek, Who restores our lot to us ; and
to the Son, Who is the portion of our inheritance : and to
the Holy Ghost, Who is on our right hand that we should
not fall ;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be:
world without end. Amen.
Collects.
Ludoiph. Preserve, O Lord, them that put their trust in Thee, and
conform our will to Thine ; that we, enlightened by the joy
of Thy Resurrection, may merit to be made happy at Thy
Eight Hand withfall Thy saints. Who livest (5.)
Mozarabic. Preserve us, O Loed, in the fear which Thou lovest, and
separate us from the contagion of sin ; that since our goods
' are nothing unto Thee, we may receive Thine everlasting
gifts. Amen. Through Thy mercy (11.)
Ibid. Make known to us, O Loed, the paths of life, and fill us
with the pleasures that are at Thy Eight Hand ; and by the
governance of Thine arm, cause us to submit our necks to
Thy light yoke. Amen. Through Thy mercy (11.)
D. C. [O most merciful God, preserve under Thy protection us
who put our trust in Thee, show us the path of life, that we
walking steadfastly therein unto the end with Thee as our
Leader, may be filled with eternal joy, and be satisfied
with the pleasure of Thy countenance. Through (1.)]
PSALM XVII.
Title. A Prayer of David.
Ven. Bede. Since many of the Psalms consist of prayers, the
question may be asked why such an inscription more especially be-
longs to this. But though the others contain divers prayers mixed
with other matters, this is a supplication through its whole course.
Now David, as is known, signifies the Loed Cheist, in "Whose
Person this Psalm is uttered for the instruction of the human race.
Aegtjment.
Aeg. T^0MA8. That Cheist, cast out of the city, was sur-
rounded by the Jews. Cheist speaketh concerning the Jews to
3ur- ■
the ■
PSALM XVII.
211
Fathee, complaining that they received Him as a lion greedy of the
prey, and satiated with sins left tlie crime of their incredulity to
their babes, when they said, " His Blood be upon us, and upon our
children."
Ven. Bede. a threefold prayer is in this Psalm uttered by
Cheist according to His humanity. The first is where He makes
His supplication to be heard according to His righteousness : Hear
the right, O Lord. The second, that His innocence may be de-
livered from the snares of the Jews : I have called upon Thee, O
God, for Thou shall hear me. In the third, He suppHcates a speedy
resurrection, to the end that the perverse people of the Jews may no
longer insult over Him ; and that His faithful people may not doubt
concerning His Majesty, He declares that He shall remain in eternal
blessedness : Up, Lord, disappoint him, and cast him dotcn.
EusEBius OP C^SAEEA. A prayer of the perfect man, or of
Christ Himself, for them that are to be saved by Him.
S. Jeeome. This Psalm is sung in the Person of Cheist against
the Jews, and in the person of the Church against heretics.
Vaeious Uses.
Qregorian. Sunday: II. Noctum.
Monastic. Friday: Prime.
Parisian. Saturday : Lauds.
Lyons. Sunday : II. Nocturn.
Amhrosian. Monday of the First Week : III. Nocturn.
Quignon. Tuesday : Prime.
Eastern Church. Terce.
Antiphons.
Gregorian. Because of men's works * that are done against the
words of Thy hps, I have kept hard paths.
Parisian. O hold Thou up my goings in Thy paths, that my
footsteps slip not.
Mozarabic. Hear the right, O Loed, consider my complaint :
hearken with Thine ears to my prayer.
1 Hear the right, O Lord, consider ray complaint :
and hearken unto my prayer, that goeth not out of
feigned lips.
It is a very beautiful idea of Pseudo-Dionysius regarding De Divin.
the efficacy of prayer, that the case is as if we, standing on Nom. cap.
board a vessel, and holding in our hands a rope fastened to "'•
the shore, were to pull lustily at it. While endeavouring as
it were to bring the shore to ourselves, we should indeed be
bringing ourselves to it. And thus in prayer : while we seek
in appearance, to bend God's will to us, we are indeed bring-
ing our will to His. Here Cheist prays not for Himself
alone, but for the instruction of all : and the right which is
to be heard is that righteousness which He offers for us, that
full and complete sacrifice which He presents for our sins. And
212 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
DeOrat.Do- if we take the words into our moutlis, S. Grej^ory Nyssen
mini. v. ^gj|g ^g ^]^q^ ]^g y^\\i ^jgg [j^ [j^ y^in whose debtor is in prison :
the sound of his chains, says he, will be louder than the sound
Q of your words. Or attain applying the verse to the Son of
God, " While," says Gerhohus, " I hang in agony on the
Cross, whose cross beams represent as it were a balance, I
cry for justice in the sight of the Father and of the whole
company of heaven, to wit, whether My misery be not suffi-
ciently great to abolish the guilt of all that believe in Me.
I, the Son of God, suffer for slaves ; I, the Just, for the un-
just." Has not such a sacrifice a sweet-smelling savour by
which the evil odour of sin may be destroyed ? Has not
such a sacrifice a voice that must be heard, not only on the
part of mercy, but also of justice? That goeth not out of
feigned lips. As they pray, who say, Loed, Loed, and do
not the things which He commands.
2 Let my sentence come forth from thy presence :
and let thine eyes look upon the thing that is equal.
My sentence, it is as if He said, in this world was, " Let
Him be crucified ;" " Not this Man, but Barabbas :" but let
My true sentence come forth from Thy Presence, Thou Who
Ps. ii. 8. hast said, " I will give Thee the heathen for Thine inherit-
ance and the utmost parts of the earth for Thy possession."
Not the sentence of My accusation set up over My Cross,
(^ but the sentence pronounced before the world was, " Thou
art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee." Let Thine
eyes look upon the thing that is equal. It is equal or right,
that, since the innocent suffered, the guilty should go free,
that the innocent Lamb should atone for the wandering sheep;
that since the Prince of Life submitted to the law of death,
they that were all their life-time subject to his bondage should
attain to everlasting life,
s. Bruno [From Thy presence. That is, let men know of a surety
Carthus. that My condemnation to the Cross was not the work of the
s.Johnxix, Jews and Pilate, to whom I said, "Thou couldest have no
"• power at all against me, except it were given thee from
above ;" but that it was done of My free-will, and according
to Thy decree and foreknowledge, for the salvation of My
enemies.]
3 Thou hast proved and visited mine heart in the
night-season ; thou hast tried me, and shalt find no
wickedness in me : for I am utterly purposed that
my mouth shall not offend.
Proved, visited, tried : S. Thomas thus explains their dif-
ference. God proves when He puts a man to the test whether
he will keep His laws or not. He visits, when by the in-
dwelling of His HoT.Y Spieit, He would give him power to
PSALM XVII. 213
keep them. He tries, whether His servant will persevere to
the end, or whether, having run well, he will cease to run at
all. And that word try has the force of trial by fire which
indeed is expressed both in the LXX. and in the Vulgate, s. Thomas
And that story is well known of him who, inquiring of the Aquinas,
refiner of silver how he knew when the dross was sufficiently
separated, received for answer, " When I can see my own
image perfectly reflected in it." Li the night season. And
what is that but saying " In the multitude of the sorrows Ps, .xciv. 19.
that I have in my heart," for night is mystically the season
of aiHiction, " Thy comforts have refreshed my soul F" Thou
shalt find no loichedness in me. And then manifestly, He
That speaks is the Son of God. But take it in the other
sense : put those words into the mouth of one of the mem-
bers, which only the Head can really and truly say, and then
notice how the next clause follows : for lam utterly purposed
that my mouth shall not offend. What is this but S. James's
" If any man offend not in word, the same is also a perfect g. james iii,
man.P" And well might S. Pambo say when he had come to 2.'
one of the elder saints of the wilderness for instruction in the
ascetic life, and had heard from him that verse, " I said, I
will take heed to my ways that I offend not with my tongue," Ps. xxxix. 1.
That is enough for a whole life's practice ; let me go home
and attempt it.
4 Because of men's works, that are done against
the words of thy lips : I have kept me from the ways
of the destroyer.
The Vulgate is quite different : That my mouth may not
speak the icords of men : because of the words of Thy lips, I
have kept hard paths. And taking it in that sense He would
not speak the words of men Who denounced the doings and
the traditions of the Scribes and Pharisees ; WJio exposed
them for making clean the outside of the cup and the platter,
while their inward parts were full of iniquity. / have kept
hard paths. Hard indeed: hard, literally, in His manifold
journeys among the mountains of Judaea and the plains of
Galilee and the sea-coasts of Tyre and Sidon ; hard, mys-
tically, in that life which was but one sorrow from beginning
to end ; begun in the manger because there was no room for
Him in the inn : ended between the two thieves on the Cross.
And because of Thy words. Because—" Ought not Christ
to have suffered these things?" — Because of the prophecies
that He should be despised and rejected of men ; because of
the types, that He should be the Lamb sacrificed with fire,
and together with hyssop and bitter herbs. It is to be no- ^^'
ticed that some of the older translations give the passage
thus : / have kept the ways of the transgressor : which they
interpret to mean that He was numbered with them, reckoned
among them, called a man gluttonous and a wine-bibber while
214 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
He lived, and joined witli the wicked in His death. I have
hept liayd paths. This is the Antiphon which the Church
takes as the ordinary interpretation of the Psalm. And
well it may be : for what is the whole of the Christian course
but a succession of hard paths, — the strait gate and the nar-
row way which the martyrs and the confessors trod, and
which they trod for the same reason, namely, love. Lorinus
beautifully applies those words of the heathen poet :
Plautus. Nam ubi amor condimentum inerit, cuivis placiturum credo.
3 "^*'*"' "• Neque salsum neque suave esse potest quicquam, ubi amor non
admiscetur.
Pel quod amarum est, id mel faciet : hominem ex tristi lepidum et
lenem.
5 O hold thou up my goings in thy paths : that my
footsteps slip not.
Sold Thou up, or, as the Vulgate has it. Make perfect.
That is, says Gerhohus, in the paths of eternity : because of
Thy commandments, I have kept hard paths in this world ; let
their hardness and sorrow be turned into the joy and glory
p of the next. Sold Thou up my goings. And where were
^' they so truly held up as on the Cross ? There indeed stab-
lished; there indeed made perfect. Or, again, others will
have this expression of making perfect to refer to the example
that He left us, . that we should tread in His steps ; and in
this way a very beautiful meaning may be drawn forth.
Hold Thou up My goings, that I may leave a pattern to them
that shall come after Me to life everlasting, that My foot-
steps— that is, that their footsteps which are Mine, because
taken in My strength, and based upon My example — slip not,
notwithstanding all the infirmities of the flesh, and the as-
saults of the world and of Satan.
6 I have called upon thee, O God^ for thou shalt
hear me : incline thine ear to me, and hearken unto J
my words.
Cd. The Prophet, as Cajetan very well observes, sets us a me-
morable example in two respects. The one, his trust in God,
Thou shalt hear me : the other, his acknowledgment that he
Q has no merit of his own. Incline Thine ear to me, because my
words have in themselves no power or force to reach it. Or,
to apply these words to our Loed : I have called upon Thee,
when I said, " The hour is come : glorify Thy Son, that Thy
Son also may glorify Thee ;" when I prayed, " Fathee, glo-
rify Thy Name ;" when I said, " Fathee, I will that they
also whom Thou hast given Me may be with Me where i
am." But now, as the hour of My Passion approaches, as
the redemption or damnation of the human race depends upon
PSALM XVII. 215
My drinking or not drinking the cup, now in a different and
deeper sense than before, incline Thine ear unto Me, and
hearken unto My words, those seven words which I shall utter
on the Cross ; for others, " Fathee, forgive them ; for they
know not what they do:" for Myself, "Fathee, into Thy
hands I commend My Spirit."
7 Show thy marvellous loving-kindness, thou that
art the Saviour of them which put their trust in
thee:
First let us separate the last clause from its present awk-
ward junction, and refer it, as it ought to be referred, to the
next verse. And then we take the words on our own lips,
and having spoken of the Loed's Passion, pray for that mar- p
vellous loving-lcindness by which He said to the thief, " To-
day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise :" by which He made
good the very title of His Cross — Jesus, in that He showed
Himself to be the Savioue, the King : in that He accepted
the prayer, "Eemember me when Thou comest into Thy
kingdom." Thou That art the Saviour of them that put their
trust in Thee. Where notice the condition upon which only
He becomes our Savioue, — namely, that we trust in Him.
But yet observe how faint a degree of hope He sometimes
rewards. The disciples had already got into the past tense,
" We trusted that it had been He Which should have re- g Luj^p
deemed Israel," when He joined them in the way, and when xxiv. 21.
He taught them of Himself.
From such as resist thy right hand, 8 Keep me
as the apple of an eye : hide me under the shadow of
thy wings, 9 From the ungodly that trouble me.
And they expound it of our Loed looking, in the fulness G.
of His Omniscience, backwards and forwards, to the many
times in which He, in His own people, was kept as the apple
of an eye : the time when Pharaoh took counsel to oppress
the chosen race with heavy burdens : when Satan moved
them to murmur in the wilderness : when Saul pursued David
for so many long years : when Antiochus stood up against
the great and the holy people : when Herod sought to destroy
the infants at Bethlehem : when, in the ten great persecu-
tions, " the kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers took
counsel together," and at length in the fulness of their joy
struck the medal which declared the execrable superstition
to have been crushed : and finally, in the time of Antichrist,
when, if it were possible, the very elect should perish ; but
because they are elect they shall never perish, neither shall
any man pluck them out of His hand. Or, to take it in an-
other sense, we ourselves ask to be kept as the pupil of God's
216
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Hugo Vic-
torin.
Eye, — that is, as the very and eternal Son of God ; for the
pupil of the eye, as Hugh of S. Victor reminds us, has been
from all antiquity the type of a son. Anastasius IV. found
so great' consolation in this expression, that Custodi me ut pu-
pillum oculi was his motto. But, as mediaeval writers love
to tell us, the pupil of the eye, the true type of all God'8
servants, is more especially so of those that have entered on
the religious life. The eye lies, as it were, enshrined in its
own little temple : so they, shut out and shut off from the
cares and the allurements of this world. " The Savioub,"
says Salvian, " desirous to have followers of the purest and
holiest of all, commanded that by such the most trifling sins
should be avoided : that the life of a Christian should be un-
defiled, as is the pupil of our eye : to the end that, as the one
cannot abide the smallest particle of dust, so our life should
reject and abhor every spot of defilement." Under the shadow
of Thy wings. "All power is given unto Me in heaven and
in earth." There they see the two wings of which the Psalmist
speaks ; that which protects from temporal, and that which
shields from eternal, dangers. Others take it of the two
Testaments : the promises and consolations of each, S. Basil
sees in the type of wings the swiftness of God's protection ;
others, from that expression, the shadow, would remind us
that we are none the less safe in this world for a little tem-
porary darkness.
\Thy right Hand. The Eight Hand of the Pathee is the
Son, and the words therefore are spoken in His person
against the Jews, and in that of the Church against the Pagan
enemies of His Name. The apple of an eye. This type is
used of Cheist, because as the eye, itself very small, gives
light to the whole body, so Cheist, Who appeared most lowly
, and obscure, is the " Light of the world" and of His mystical
body, the Church.]
9 Mine enemies compass me round about to take
away my soul.
10 They are inclosed in their own fat : and their
mouth speaketh proud things.
Compass me about. They refer very appositely to that
verse, " Then came the Jews round about Him, and said unto
Him, How long dost Thou make us to doubt P" And notice
that the fat was that part of the sacrifice which belonged to
God only, and hence one of the sins of Hophni and Phinehas j
1 sam.u. 16. that, when any man said, " Let them not fail to burn the fat
presently, and then take as much as thy soul desireth," the
answer was, " Nay, but thou shalt give it me now." And
thus our Loed's enemies, instead of rendering to God the
things which were God's, inclosed themselves in, kept back
for their own, those very things. " They loved the praise of
men more than the praise of God." " How can ye believe
De Provid.
Lib. iii.
G.
S. Basil, in
loc.
S. Bruno
Garth,
D.C.
S. Bruno
Carth.
S. John viii
12.
G.
S. John X
24.
c.
B.
B.
PSALM XVII. 217
which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour s, John v.
which Cometh from God only ?" Others refer it to their 44.
sensuality, and being given over to the lusts of the flesh :
others, again, as Theodoret and Ludolph, to their having shut
themselves up from all compassion, and so they connect it
with the next verse. Or, lastly, the expression may but mean
such a delicate and luxurious life, as that of the rich man
who fared sumptuously every day, and of whom, and of whom
only, it is written, that " in hell he lifted up his eyes, being
in torments."
l^Their mouth speaJceth proud things, such as, " We will not Haymo.
liave this man to reign over us," and " We have no King but ^- C.
Caesar ;" and yet again, " He is guilty of death," " Cru- ^: ^"'^^ g
cify Him." It is said, their mouth, because the wicked john xix.
often condemn in their heart the very thing which they 'S; s. Matt.
•utter.] ^ ^^^'•^«^-
\j.
11 They lie waiting in our way on every side :
turning their eyes down to the ground ;
12 Like as a lion that is greedy of his prey : and
as it were a lion's whelp, lurking in secret places.
\_TJiey lie waiting, &c. The LXX. and Vulgate read here, p q
Casting me out, they compassed me. They cast Him out more
than once, as when at Nazareth they "rose up, and thrust p- Lvike iv.
Him out of the city," intending to throw Him down a pre- I^Bmno
cipice. They cast Him out of the city of Jerusalem, cruci- Carth.
iying Him " without the gate," and compassing Him upon Heb.xiii. 12.
the Cross. The Syriac and Symmachus read. They praised
Me, and now they have compassed Me. And this they did
twice, when they tempted Him, saying, " Master, we know s. Matt.
that Thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth ;" ^''"'* '''■
and again, when they mocked Him, saying, " Hail, King of ^^f'^oA
the Jews."]
Turning their eyes down to the ground : for where the trea- Ay.
sure is, there will the heart be also. Or, as others take it,
" Watching My steps, if perchance they might find any oc-
casion of stumbling in Me :" as when they sent out those
that feigned themselves just men, to entangle Him in His
talk. S. Thomas well reminds us how often Holy Scripture
bids us to lift up our eyes, — " I will lift up mine eyes unto ^^' '^^^^- '•
the hills:" "Lift up your eyes to the heavens :" "Lift up^^*"'^-
your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these ^^*" ^^' ^^'
things :" and again, " Lift up your eyes, and behold the |- ''°^^^ ^^•
fields :" because we are of our own nature so apt to forget our
country and our home, and to fix them on the place of our
exile. The lion — that roaring lion, who goeth about seeking
whom he may devour ; the lion's ivhelp, his followers and
ministers, of whom it is well said that he lurketh in secret
places, because it is written, " Every one that doeth good, ^[ ^°^^ *"•
Cometh unto the light."
218 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
13 Up, Lord, disappoint him, and cast him down :
deliver my soul from the ungodly, which is a sword
of thine ;
Here, again, the Vulgate entirely differs : Deliver my soul
from the ungodly ; Thy sword from the enemies of Thy Hand :
where they interpret the sword of the Lord Himself How
s. Bonaven- many a time, says S. Bonaventura, has the petition, Up,
ti\ra. Lord, been uttered by the true of heart ! How many a time
has it seemed for the present unheard, that it might be
answered the more gloriously hereafter ! Disappoint him,
or rather, be beforehand with him : and S. Jerome has an
epistle on the way in which God thus snatches His children
from the power of the enemy at the very moment when
human hope seems over. So, most wonderfully of all, they
G. were disappointed who remembered that that Deceiver had
said, while He was yet alive, " After three days, I will rise
again :" and themselves endeavouring to be beforehand with
Him, by the watch and the seal, only rendered more glorious
and more manifest the fulfilment of His own words, " I My-
self will awake right early." And if we are to take the last
clause in the sense of our own version, the ungodly, which is
a sword of Thine, then it can have no better commentary
isa. xxxvii. than God's own words to Sennacherib, " Now have I brought
^^' it to pass that thou shouldest be to lay waste defenced cities
into ruinous heaps : therefore their inhabitants were of small
power."
s. Alb. Mag. [Cheist is called the Sword of God, " sharper than any
Heb. iv. 12. two-edged sword," for He is two-edged in His twofold nature
of God and Man. His soul is the sword wherewith the Fa-
ther, drawing it out of the sheath of His Body, conquered
hell.]
14 From the men of thy hand, O Lord, from the
men, I say, and from the evil world : which have
their portion in this life, whose bellies thou fillest
with thy hid treasure.
{^From the men, I say, and from the evil world, &c. The
best texts of the LXX. with the Vulgate read, quite dif-
S. Bruno ferently, Divide them, O Lord, in their life from the few, off
^*T^ n ^^^ earth. Do not wait till the Judgment Day to part the
^- ^- sheep from the goats, but even now make the distinction
between Goshen and Egypt. Save the little Christian flock
when the guilty nation perishes in its own city, and is driven
off its own land. Divide evil Christians in this life by excom-
munication from the Church Militant, that they may repent
in time. S. Albert explains the words further of evil Bishops,
S. Alb. Mag. ""'ho are set apart by rank and wealth from the lowly and
obscure, who heap up riches, and are guilty of nepotism.]
PSALM XVII. 219
15 They have children at their desire : and leave
the rest of their substance for their babes.
It is not without reason that they see a terrible meaning j^y^
in these words. I'ke rest of their substance, that is, of the
possessions of the Jews, the chief enemies of Christ, who
mdeed had their portion in this life, though once filled with
the hidden treasure of His knowledge. The rest of the sub- L.
stance which they left to their descendants was none other
than that curse, " His Blood be on us and on our children."
It is not worth while to go through the twelve meanings,
partly literal, partly mystical, which the diligence of the com-
mentators has discovered for the very obscure Vulgate : "O
LoED, from the few of the land, divide them in their life :
with Thy hid treasure is their belly filled." That is, that
the great mass of the Jews, left to their deserved perdition,
should be separated from the few of the land who had heard
the Apostles' message, and had repented. But if we follow
our own version, the men of Thy hand must be only an am-
plification of that which went before, " The ungodly, which
is a sword of Thine :" the men who, while they seek to carry
out their own devices, and to injure Thee and Thine, are in-
deed but passive instruments in Thine hand. With reference
to God's thus ordering the imruly wills and affections of
sinful men, Vieyra says well : (he is speaking of the disciples
who went to Eraraaus :) " It was the Lord's intention to send
back those disciples with joy to Jerusalem. Why then, if He Serm. Vol.
purposed to send them to Jerusalem, did He go with them to ^^' ^' *^^"
Emmaus : Et ipse ihat cum illis ? The road to Emmaus and
the road to Jerusalem are precisely opposite : and does Christ
go with the disciples to Emmaus when He wishes to take
them to Jerusalem ? Yes : for these are the marvels of Di-
vine Providence, to conduct us to its own end by our own
ways. To accomplish the designs of God by the straight
ways of God, this might be anybody's providence; but to
accomplish the designs of God by the erring ways of men,
this is God's Providence. To go to Jerusalem by the road
to Jerusalem is the ordinary road ; to go to Jerusalem by the
way of Emmaus, that is God's road."
[They have children at their desire. The Italic version -q
reads here, very singularly, They are filled with stoine s flesh} s. Alb. Mag.
given up, as they are, to every uncleanness, and error for-
bidden by the Law, and leaving all their evU ways as a legacy
to their posterity.]
16 But as for me, I will behold thy presence in
righteousness : and when I awake up after thy like-
ness, I shall be satisfied with it.
* [This curious version arises
from a variant in Origen's Hex-
apla, now the common reading
of the LXX,, though doubtless
the error of a transcriber, v^iaiv
instead of viwr.]
L 2
220
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
S. John vii.
12.
S. Bonaven-
tura.
A.
Ay. With one consent all the mediaeval commentators take the
righteousness in this place to mean our Lord. I shall be-
hold Thy Presence ; but not for any merits of my own : I
shall Behold Thy Presence, because, as S. Paul says, I have
Gr. put on Christ. Or, if the words be spoken by our blessed
Lord Himself, then it is, I, "Whom they call the Seducer ; I,
of Whom they said, " Nay, but He deceiveth the people ;" I
shall behold Thy Presence in righteousness : righteousness
in fulfilling My promises, that where I am, there My faithful
people shall be also ; in putting down the mighty from their
seat, and exalting the humble and meek ; and in giving pos-
session to the meek-spirited of the heavenly land. O righ-
teous Pather, the world hath not known Thee, but I have
known Thee ; and therefore, all My sufferings over, all My
promises fulfilled, all My glory accomplished, / shall behold
Thy Presence in righteousness. And when I awake up after
Thy likeness, I shall be satisfied with it. "But when," says
S. Bonaventura, " O Lord Jesu, when shall that when be ?"
And S. Augustine dwells upon that word satisfied, knowing,
as he says, "that, without God, all is emptiness." "This is
that glorious satisfying which leaves nothing empty or hollow,
nothing which the soul can desire or pursue. Blessed satis-
faction without satiety, pleasure without weariness, the use
of everlasting delight without softness, continual felicity
without any labour. While we live, our eyes and ears are
unsatisfied with seeing and hearing ; the more they receive,
the more they desire. We may have pleasure, but we are
never filled : our merriment rises, at it were, to the summit ;
the depth below is all bitter. Well, therefore, said David,
Whom have I in heaven but Thee ? and there is none upon
earth that I desire in comparison of Thee." So writes Drex-
elius ; and I cannot better follow up his words, and end the
Psalm, than by the beautiful verses of Bernard of Cluny :
O bona patria, num tua gaudia teque videbo ?
O bona patria, num tua prsemia plena tenebo ?
Die mihi, flagito, verbaque reddito, dicque, Yidebis.
Spem solidam gero : remne tenens ero ? Die, Retinebis.
O sacer, O pius, O ter et amplius ille beatus,
Cui sua pars Deus : O miser, O reus, hac viduatus !
And therefore :
Glory be to the Father, Whose Presence we shall behold
in righteousness ; and to the Son, Who awoke up after His
likeness ; and to the Holy Ghost, Who is Himself that sa-
tisfaction, communicated in this world partly, that in heaven
He may be bestowed fully and everlastingly.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be : world
without end. Amen.
Collects.
Ludoiph. Turn, O Lord, the eyes of our heart to behold the verity
of Thy judgments, that while we are here proved by Thy
PSALM XVIII. 221
spiritual fire, we may hereafter be satisfied vdth the fruit of
righteousness by Tliy Presence for ever. Through.
Christ, the Son of God, Whose insatiable enemies, en- Mozarabic,
closed in their own fat, surrounded Thy soul, deliver our fi5e!'°"'
souls from the wicked; and let Thy Passion so extinguish
our passions, that we may never turn our eyes down to the
ground. Amen. Through Thy mercy.
Keep us, O Loed, as the apple of Thine eye, lest the whirl- Mozarabic.
wind of carnal concupiscence should injure the eyes of our
innocence : guard us under the shadow of Thy wings, that
we may not be seduced by the allurements of those pleasures
that lie in wait for us ; that we, who, up to this day, stand
firm by the help of Thy grace, may merit, when Thy glory
shall appear, to be satisfied with it. Amen. Through Thy
mercy.
[Show Thy marvellous loving-kindness, O God, hide us D. C.
under the shadow of Thy wings, keep us as the apple of an
eye, that our goings may be perfected in Thy paths, and we
may appear with Thee in righteousness and be satisfied when
Thy glory shall appear.]
PSALM XVIII.
Title. To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, the servant of
the Lord, who spake unto the Lord the words of this song in the
day that the Lord dehvered him from the hand of all his enemies,
and from the hand of Saul : And he said.
Targum : For singing concerning the marvels which abundantly
happened to David, the servant of the Lord, who sang in prophecy
before the Lord the words of this song for all the days wherein the
Lord dehvered him out of the hands of all his enemies, and from
the sword of Saul.
Argument.
Aeg. Thomas. That Christ is the Founder of the Church.
David, in the Person of Christ, speaketh to the Father concerning
His Passion, and concerning hell, and concerning His fixed faith in
God. For at the Baptism of Christ, when He entered into the
Jordan, the Voice of the Father thundered from heaven, and the
springs of waters were seen, and thence they that rose up against
Him, and would have overthrown Him, were cast out as the mire
in the streets. Read with John. Concerning hope in God.
Yen. Bede. Title : " To the end. To David, the child of the
Lord, who spake to the Lord the words of this song in the day
when the Lord delivered him from the hands of all his enemies, and
from the hand of Saul, and he said :" The Child of the Lord sig-
nifies Christ the Saviour ; and He is so named, because Unto us
a Child is born. The history relates how David was freed from the
snares of all his enemies j by which type the resurrection of the Lord,
222 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
and the deliverance of His members from the power of the devil, are
set forth. This Psalm cannot apply to a single person only. For
in the first place the Prophet speaketh, and returns thanks that the
Divine G-oodness vouclisafed to free him from so many dangers.
Secondly, the Chm'ch speaketh, which before the Advent of the
Lord had endured so many calamities ; until, having mercy on her,
He gave the medicine of the Holy Incarnation, and by the blessing
of Baptism, collected a Christian people from the whole world : The
sorrows of death compassed me, &c. After that, the Voice of Cheist
the Satiotjr gently descends, like the dew of mercy, and its virtue
and power is described by most beautiful types. Fourthly, the Ca-
tholic Church again speaks, and praises with great exultation the
gifts which God hath bestowed on her : The Lord liveth, &c. — Thus
far Bede.
It would seem that David published, so to speak, two editions of
this Psalm ; that which we have in the Psalter, and which may
therefore be considered more authentic ; the other, that in the 22nd
chapter of the second of Samuel, where also we have the date, which
serves as a title to the Psalm. The differences, however, are very
inconsiderable ; and indeed, in the last seven verses of each, where
the discrepancies are greatest, they are scarcely more than verbal.
EusEBius OF C^SAEEA. A thanksgiving of David, and a pro-
phecy of the Advent and Ascension of Cheist.
Syeiac Psaltee. a thanksgiving of David, and concerning the
Ascension of Cheist.
Yaeiotjs Uses.
Gregorian. Sunday : II. Nocturn.
Monastic. Y. 1 to 24, Friday : Prime. 25 to end, Saturday :
Prime.
Parisian. Sunday: II. Noctum.
Lyons. Sunday : III. Nocturn.
Amhrosian. Tuesday of the First Week : I, Nocturn.
Quiff non. Sunday : Matins.
Antiphons.
Gregorian. I will love Thee, * O Loed, my strength.
Parisian. 1st Section : I will love Thee, * O Loed, my strength.
2nd Section : I was also incorrupt before Him, * and eschewed
mine own wickedness. 3rd Section : Thy right hand shall hold me
up, * and Thy loving correction shall make me great.
Moza/rabic. My strength, I will love Thee, O Loed, my stony
rock.
1 I will love thee, O Lord, my strength; the
Lord is my stony rock, and my defence : my Sa-
viour, my God, and my might, in whom I will trust,
my buckler, the horn also of my salvation, and my
refuge.
In the mouth of two witnesses let every word be estab-
lished. David and S. Paul knew but of one cure for weak-
ness. I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength. " I can do all
PSALM XVIII.
223
things tlirougli Christ, Whicli strengthenetli me." O mar- P^"'- i^- '3.
vellous weakness of the Man of Sorrows, thus becoming the
strength of His followers : weakness that marked His whole
earthly life. His companion in the cradle, in His many jour- G.
neys, on the Cross, and there by that one sentence, " It is
finished," turned into everlasting life. So let us be content
to be weak with Thee here, O Lobd Jesu, that hereafter, in
that one moment of death, when our warfare is accomplished,
our infirmity may also be abolished for ever ! Well and
beautifully writes Hugh of S. Victor: "First, He is our
Savioue, because He saves us from the power of the devil ; hu^o de s.
then our Defence, because, since we distrust our own strength, Vict.
He undertakes the charge of us ; then our Stony Rock, to
support us when we stand ; then our Strength, to crown us
when we fight. Our Savioue in Baptism, our Defence in
repentance, our Stony Rock by patience, our Strength by
victory. The order of this first verse is the order of escaping
evil.' The next verse shows us by what order he attains
good.^ My God, because He illuminates by faith. My
Might, hecBMse He assists in good works. In Whom I tv? II
trust, because He inflames my heart with His love. My
Buckler, (Protector,) because He will not suffer us to be
tempted above that we are able to bear. The Horn of my
salvation, because He causes me to despise the assaults of
the devil. Lastly, my Refuge, because, when the course of
this world is passed, He will be my eternal Refuge in
heaven." No wonder that on these names holy men have
dwelt at great length, and with singular delight. Notice
that of all the characters in which God ishere represented,
that of hope is the only one in which the prophet speaks
actively of his own duty resulting from it ; ana this, they say, Cd.
because, since no man is lost till he despairs, hope is in one
sense the greatest and most important of Christian graces :
" We are saved by hope." Observe that our hope in God is
threefold : for His pardon, whence the remission of sins ; for
His grace, whence the possibility of good works ; for Hia
glory, whence the everlasting crown. Observe that a part of
this verse is quoted by S. Paul, Heb. ii. 13 : "I will put my
trust in Him."^
' The Vulgate ends the first
verse at " Saviouk :" the Italic
at " defence."
2 The contrast of this accu-
rate and scholastic arrangement
of Hugh of S. Victor, compared
with tlie loose, trivial method of
Theodore of Heraclea, in explain-
ing the same passage (Corderius,
i. 306,) is an admirable example
ofthe superior precision, as mys-
tical commentators, of Western
over Eastern writers.
2 But quoted in such a man-
ner as to make the Apostle's in-
tention rather obscure. " For
which cause," he is arguing, "He
is not ashamed to call them bre-
thren, saying, I will declare thy
name unto My brethren." His
second quotation is the present
passage, " I will put my trust in
Him," where there is no direct
allusion to the word or to the
relationship of brethren. But
the Apostle was probably think-
Rom. X. 13.
224 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
2 I will call upon the Lord, which is worthy to
be praised : so shall I be safe from mine enemies.
I will call upon the Zoi'd. David gives us the promise of
being heard : S. Paul, manifestly alluding to it, confirms it,
" Whosoever shall call on the Name of the Lord shall be
saved." Which is worthy to he praised. Notice here that
favourite argument of all God's servants : because past suc-
cour, therefore future help. Worthy to he praised for deliver-
ance in former times ; therefore, I will call upon Him still.
So shall I he safe from mine enemies. And oh, how happy is
he that has discovered the virtue of this so ! so, and no
otherwise: that has not to run hither and thither, to run
to other succour first, and then, as a last resort, turn to God ;
that does not in the first place send to Baalzebub, god of
Ekron, and then request the help of Elijah !
But now S. Paul gives us the clue to the higher meaning
of these verses, expressly putting them into our Loed's
Cj^ mouth. And thus, if I hear David say, " I will call upon the
Lord, so shall I be safe," I hear the Son of David say, " Fa-
s. John xi. THER, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard Me, and I knew
*'• that Thou heardest Me always." I hear David sslj, I will
call upon the Lord, Which is worthy to he praised : I see the
Son of David rise up a long while before day, go out, and
depart into a solitary place to pray. I hear David say, The
Lord is my might; I hear the Son of David say, " Thou hast
s. John xvii. given ]\j;e power over all flesh." Yes; they are His words
with which the Psalm begins, and they are His actions and
sufferings to which it will now lead us.
3 The sorrows of death compassed me : and the
overflowings of ungodliness made me afraid.
He leads us by the Via Dolorosa to the sorrows of Calvary ;
to those overflowings of ungodliness from the blaspheming
multitude that were yet so completely the fulfilment of ancient
Q prophecy. But we must take that expression in a deeper
sense, if we would see how it is that this made Him afraid.
The ungodliness of the whole world, — every single crime,
from the moment in which Eve stretched forth her hand to
the forbidden fruit, to the last sin that shall be accomplished
before the Sign of the Son of Man shall appear in heaven, —
these wickednesses indeed went over His head, and were like
a sore burden, too heavy for Him to bear. " By Thy un-
known sufferings," prays the Greek Ectene, " Jesf, deliver
ing of the innumerable passages
in which God's servants are said
to put their trust in Him, and
would thence argue that our
Loed's using precisely the same
expression proves Him to be in
all respects like His brethren, sin
only excepted. [S. Paul is not
quotingfrom this passage in Heb.
ii. 13, but from Isa. xii. 2, which
he cites exactly from the LXX.>
using the word irfiroidiDS, whereas
the term here is 4\iriw.^
PSALM XVIII. 225
us." " By the weigbt of ungodliness that pressed sore upon
Thee and overwhelmed Thee, set us free from our many ini-
quities," prays the Syriac Office. The overflotoings, or, as the Cd.
Vulgate has it, the torrents. " Well called torrents," says Car- Hugo Card,
dinal Hugo : " first, because of the impetuosity of a torrent.
Next, because, put an obstacle in its way, and it rushes all
the more vehemently, just as we long most for that which is
prohibited. ' The law entered, that the offence might abound.' Rom. v. 20.
Thirdly, because it is turbid ; thus sin also causes the mind
to become troubled. 'My soul also is sore troubled.'
Fourthly, because it is tumultuous. ' The wicked are like a isa. ivii. 20.
troubled sea, that cannot rest.' Next, because it hollows and
wears away the earth, as sin the body. ' The waters wear
the stones ; Thou washest away the things which grow out of
the dust of the earth, and Thou destroyest the hope of man.'
Sixthly, because it is sudden and accidental. Next, because
it sweeps away everything that is unstable, as sin. those
who are not rooted in charity. ' That ye, being rooted and Eph. iii. 17.
grounded in love.' ' The river of Kishon swept them away, Jud?. v. 21.
that ancient river, the river Kishon.' The next, that it
throws itself into the sea, as the sinner throws himself into
hell. Ninthly, it has its origin in melted snow : thus sin is
of the devil, who was once whiter than snow in heaven, and
then dissolved by the lust of pride."
4 The pains of hell came about me : the snares of
death overtook me.
Here it is well to remember the general rule laid down by v. Bede.
those who have treated the mystical sense of the Psalter.
" Such is the unity of the Church, that is to say of its Head
and its members, that, as if they were one body and person,
they used one language, although the words they employ
may sometimes be referred to different objects. For some
things are properly said by the Head only, some by the Head
and members. Again, among the latter, it is sometimes the
past, sometimes the present, sometimes those who are to come
that speak ; and yet, through the diversity of the circum-
stances. Scripture uses one form of expression, and speaks in
one person." Thus indeed the Head might speak, when the
pains of hell came about Him in the garden of Gethsemane ;
when the snares of death overtook Him, the band that came
with lanterns, and torches, and weapons, and bound Him,
and led Him to Annas. And what the Head said then, over
and over again the Church has had reason to cry out. Again
and again, in the savage persecutions of heathen powers,
when such forms of torture were devised as none but Satan q._
himself could have suggested, the pains of hell came about
her : again and again, in the subterfuges, and prevarications,
and artifices of heretics, — sufficient, if it had been possible, to
deceive the very elect, — the snares of death overtook her.
L 3
226 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
5 In my trouble I will call upon the Lord : and
complain unto my God.
Thus again did the Head : thus at all times must the mem-
bers do. In that His trouble. He indeed called upon the
LoHD, " Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me :"
not twice only, as the Psalmist here, but three times. Thus
G-' also, treading in His footsteps. His members have followed
Him, in His prayer as well as in His affliction. Peter is
Acts xii. 5. ^^P* ^^ prison ; but " prayer is made without ceasing of the
Church unto God for him." Paul and Silas are thrown into
Acts xvi. 25. the dungeon : at midnight they pray and sing praises unto
God, and the prisoners hear them. Stephen, in the midst of
the shower of stones, cried with a loud voice, " Loed, lay not
this sin to their charge."
6 So shall he hear my voice out of his holy temple :
and my complaint shall come before him^ it shall
enter even into his ears.
Heb. V. 7. So of our Head : " He was heard in that He feared." And
notice, as holy men have always remarked, the emphasis with
Cd. which this clause applies to Him : that voice was heard from
His holy temple in a different sense, as issuing from it, not
as received in it ; as issuing from that temple of His Body to
be destroyed by the Jews, and raised again in three days.
And to a certain degree thus also every faithful soul may
take the words to herself. The voice of distress which she
sends up to God pleads to be accepted by Him, for this very
reason, that it issues from that which was made His holy
temple at Baptism ; because the distress or temptation as-
saults that which is His ; because it would defile that which
is- holy ; because it would sacrilegiously profane a temple of
the Living God. And observe that so. Shall we say that the
first clause, " I will call upon the Lokd," is not the way to be
heard ; but that the change, " I will complain unto m^ God,"
IS answered immediately by the SO shall Ke hear? My
complaint shall come before Him. And a fearful thing it is
for those against whom the complaint comes. " Behold, the
hire of the labourers that have reaped down jonv fields,
which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth ; and the cries of
them that have reaped have entered into the ears of the
Loed of Sabaoth."
7 The earth trembled and quaked : the very foun-
dations also of the hills shook, and were removed,
because he was wroth.
8 There went a smoke out in his presence : and a
consuming fire out of his mouth, so that coals were
kindled at it.
S. James
V. 4.
I
PSALM XVIII. 227
It is almost curious to see how they who looked for Christ,
and for Him only, in the Psalms, were too intent on that
search to notice, — or, as compared with it, thought it vain to
point out, — the subliraest passage in the whole Psalter : a
strain of poetry to be matched, if anywhere, only where the
LoED answers Job out of the whirlwind. And when that
last complaint, " Fathee, into Thy hands I commend My
Spirit," had entered into the ears of God, then " the earth A.
did quake, and the rocks rent ;" then " the centurion and they
that were with him saw the earthquake :" thence very foun-
dations also of the hills, — of that nill of David on which the
temple was built, — so shook and were so removed, that " the
veil was rent in twain, from the top to the bottom," and an
access opened to the Holy of Holies. And yet, though He
was wroth. He remembered love ; for next we have the smoke
in Sis presence : the " much incense" of the fervent prayer ; G.
we have the consuming fire of love, that love which " is strong
as death," that "jealousy," which is "cruel as the grave,"
kindling the coals, the dark, foul, earthy substance of an un-
loving heart. These were the coals of the Apostles, which
afterwards burnt so clearly through the whole world ; those E.
" coals of fire which had a most vehement flame." And
not only then, but daily and hourly does that same grace, Z.
does that same love kindle the cold heart ; making an Augus-
tine, till then the slave of sin, in one moment the saint and
Doctor of Grace. That consuming fire shall burn till the
end of the world, melting all hardness, quickening all dead-
ness, kindling all coldness : " We love Him, because He first i s. John iv.
loved us." ^^"
[And then, tropologically, the whole passage may be read
of the penitent soul. At first earth, and carnal, it trembled
at the threats of judgment, shaking itself thus loose from its
attachment to sin. The very foundations of the hills ; all the ^^' °^^*
proud, self-suflScient thoughts of this world were disturbed,
and removed from pride and sin to humility and holiness, at
the thought of God's anger. The dark smoke of penitential
supplication then went up before Him, and at last i\ie fire of
love kindled the dark black hearts of sinners, turning the
coals into flame.]
9 He bowed the heavens also, and came down :
and it was dark under his feet.
From the Passion we turn to the Incsunation, which none
ever doubted to be here set forth. He bowed the heavens :
He humbled the Divine nature ; He emptied Himself of the Ay.
glory which He had before the world was, and came down at
the word of the Angel, — came down from the eternal palace
of the heaven into the little cottage at Nazareth, — came down
from the illimitable majesty of Him Who containeth all
things, into the womb of Mary. And it was dark under His
228 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
1 Kings viii. pcet. " The Lord said that He would dwell in the thick
^^' darkness." Here is that mystery into which the angels de-
sire to look ; that mystery which was hid from ages and from
generations ; that mystery b}-- which, as S. Leo says, *' the
s. Leo ad s. proprietj of each nature and substance being preserved, and
'^*^- both uniting so as to form one person, humility was assumed
by majesty, infirmity by power, mortality by eternity ; and
to pay the debt of our condition, inviolable was united to
passible nature: that one and the same Mediator of God
and man, the Man Christ Jesus, might be able to die from
the one, might not be able to die from the other." This was
the thick darkness in which the Lord came down.
li'comm""' [Ccelum Defs incHnavit,
B V.M. ' ^^' descendit et intravit m
Vas electum stirpe David ^
Quod ante promiserat.
Haymo. And despite this humility, nay, rather because of it. He put
the evil one, who is darkness, under His feet. They take it
also that He bows down the intellects of His great preachers,
s. Bruno making them condescend to men of low estate by simplicity
Carth, of teaching, that the ignorant, though darJc as respects mental
culture, may yet be obedient to His law, and under His feet.]
10 He rode upon the cherubims, aud did fly : he
came flying upon the wings of the wind.
Z. And first we remember those angek who in the night-
watches announced His Birth at Bethlehem ; but there is a
deeper sense than this. By the cherubim, whose name is
derived from their perfect knowledge, no doubt the Apostles
Ay. are meant. For they were indeed filled with the knowledge
of that mystery of the Incarnation which had been concealed
s. Greg. M. from other ages and generations ; and on their preaching the
Lord was borne out as it were to all the world, fi/inff upon
the wings of the wind, from the marvellous swiftness with
which the doctrine, once confined to a small corner of Judea,
filled, as the Chief Priests and Pharisees themselves con-
fessed, the whole world,
s. Alb. Mag. [As in the ninth verse we have the humiliation of Christ,
so in these comes His exaltation ; the descent of the Godhead
is followed by the Ascension of the Manhood.
Adam Vict. Postquam hostera et inferna
Aa'cens" Spoliavit, ad superna
Christus red it gaudia,
Angelorum ascendenti,
Sicut olim descendenti,
Parantur obsequia.]
11 He made darkness his secret place : his pavi-
lion round about him with dark water, and thick
clouds to cover him.
4
PSALM XVIII. 229
Here a^ain, we have the mystery of the Incarnation ; the
thick darkness in which the Loed said that He would dwell-
His pavilion : that is, the Body He took of Mary, flesh of Ay.
her flesh, and bone of her bone, with the dark waters of pro-
phecy and the thick clotids, the preaching of the Apostles.
Of old time the Jews had a type of this pavilion, when, as it
is written, " a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, j,^ ^-^ ^_^
and the glory of the Lobd filled the tabernacle : and Moses
was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, be-
cause the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the Lord
filled the tabernacle." That by the clouds Apostles and Cd.
other teachers are meant we have proof in Isaiah, where,
when the unfruitful vineyard is threatened with destruction,
the last and severest sentence pronounced upon it is this : " I
will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it." isa. v. 6.
And consider, the clouds are formed of water, and by the
heat of the sun ; and thus the Apostles themselves, basing j^y
all their doctrine on the water of Baptism, were drawn by
the heat of the Sun of Kighteousness to their work : dark
and colourless in themselves, but gloriously reflecting His
rays ; and like earthly clouds, never reflecting them so beau-
tifully as when in the sunset of their lives tinged with the
crimson of martyrdom. Further, the clouds can only move
as the wind impels them, — that wind which bloweth where it
listeth ; so the Apostles went but whither they were com- s.Johnm.
pelled by that Holy Ghost Who wrought in them. Do
they seek to preach the Word in Asia ? They are forbidden Acts xvi,
of the Holy Ghost. Do they assay to go into Bithynia? ^'7-
The Spirit sufiers them not. And presently the reason is
made clear by a vision, and they " assuredly gather that the
Lord hath called them to preach the Gospel" in Macedonia.
So that S. Gregory may well say, " By clouds it is certain
that the holy Apostles and preachers of the Divine Word are
designated, who, sent forth into all parts of the world, can
both raise with doctrine and lighten with miracles."^ He
made darkness His secret place. " But let us," as S. Bruno B.
well says, " who desire to find God, enter boldly into this
darkness, like Moses, when he drew near to the thick dark-
ness where God was ; and also like Moses we shall have our
reward in the Lord's promise, ' I will make all My goodness
pass before thee, and I will proclaim the Name of the Lord
before thee.' " Dark waters. What are they but these very
Psalms which we are considering dark, — not. from their ob-
scurity, but from their excess of brightness.^ " Were not,"
says one, " the waters dark, when Isaiah prophesied of the
1 Moral, xvii. 12. j immensa sua claritate creatam
2 It is curious to see Milton's omnem intelligentiam caligare
" Dark with excess of light" an- 1 facientis, provenire docet optime
ticipated in Corderius : '* Has ! S. Dionysius toto libro de Mys-
autein tenebras, non ex defectu tica Theologia ;" and it is not '
sed abundantia lucis Divinae, impossible that our poet, as an
230
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Ay.
Isa. xi. 1.
Jer. xi. 19,
Vulg.
Ezek. xliv.
Nativity, ' There shall go forth a Rod out of th.e stem of
Jesse ;' when Jeremiah foretold the Cross, * Come and let us
put wood into his bread ;' when Ezekiel spoke beforehand of
the perpetual virginity of S. Mary, * This gate shall be shut,
it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it, be-
cause the LoED, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it ;
therefore shall it be shut?' Or, once more, the dark waters
and thick clouds may be the Sacraments, in which, while in
this world militant, we see as through a glass darkly, waiting
for that blessed time when we all " with open face beholding
L. the glory of the Lord, shall be changed into the same image
2 Cor. iii. 18. from glory to glory."
12 At the brightness of his presence his clouds
removed : hailstones^ and coals of fire.
But at length types, and symbols, and prophecies were
lost in the truth : the darkness of their enigmas disappeared
in the full blaze of light. At the brightness of His presence.
Who is the dayspring from on high, Who is the Sun of
Righteousness, His clouds removed. And what was the
result ? Hailstones and coals of fire. The reference in the
first place is to that plague, when " the Lord sent thunder
and hail, and the fire ran along upon the ground ;" but in the
understanding the mystical form of the expressions, holy men
seem equally divided into two opposite explanations. The
hail, so clear, so hard, so overwhelming, is, every one is
agreed, the threatening of the Gospel : the savour of death
unto death ; the " it had been better for them not to have
known the way of truth." But the coals of fire, what are
they ? Are we to take them, as before, for the love of God,
which, when the promises were made clear, and types were
lost in the antitype, stood manifested to the world? Or, of
the " consuming fire," which the Lord is to His enemies,
" the day that shall burn as an oven, when all the proud, yea,
and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble ?" Let us under-
stand it, rather, if S. Bruno, and Euthymius, and their fol-
lowers will allow us, of God's love : so the sense will be ; —
Prophecies and shadows have come to an end, and, coming to
an end, reveal to us on the one side the " Depart from Me,
yc cursed ;" on the other, the " Come, ye blessed of My Fa.-
THEE, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foun-
dation of the world."
Ay.
L.
Ex. ix. 23,
S. Gregor.
M.
A.
Mai. iv. 1.
13 The Lord also thundered out of heaven, and
universal scliolar, might have
hiul tliis
very passage m
his
mind. Tom. i. 339, 2.
[Corderius is merely annotat-
ing the fifth epistle of the Pseudo-
Diony sius, to Dorotlieus, wherein
is said "The Divine darkness is
that liglit inaccessible, in which
Q-OD is said to dwell."]
PSALM XVIII. 231
the Highest gave his thunder : hailstones, and coals
of fire.
So it had been from the beginning. God had at sundry
times and in divers manners spoken unto the Fathers by the
Prophets : The Lord thundered out of heaven. But now,
beside these ancient words, The Highest gave His thundei^ :
He That had made Himself lowest for our sakes, and by Cd.
virtue of that humiliation was highly exalted, and obtained
the Name that is above every name ; He, the Highest, now
also spake, — spake of that which He had seen and heard with
the Father, — spake of that which He would still do for G.
those for whom He had once suffered, — spake of the many
mansions which He had prepared for them, — spake of His
will, that where He was, there they should be also. The
Highest gave His thunder. And still the threatenings of
vengeance, and still the fervency of love : hailstones and
coals of fire.
14 He sent out his arrows, and scattered them :
he cast forth lightnings, and destroyed them.
What are the arrows but those words of truth by which
the Apostles sought to pierce the hard hearts of the heathen, A.
and so to wound them here, that they might find everlasting
healing hereafter? Those arrows, like that of him at Ramoth
Gilead, often sent at a venture, were yet directed by the Master
of the Apostles in their aim. Whence notice that it says not,
They sent out their arrows, but He sent out His arroios. X.X.
Such arrows, such lightnings, were those of the two suruamed
by our Lord, Boanerges. And destroyed them. So destroyed
them, so caused them to die to sin, as to make them able to
say with the Apostle, " I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in cai. u. 2(j
me." " And when," cries S. Bruno, with a holy boldness,
"when shall we too thus be destroyed? When shall we, B.
crucifying the old man, and utterly aboHshing the whole
body of sin, be found worthy of the new and better life that
is from Christ, and in Christ?" The Eastern Cliurch, on
the contrary, would generally seem to have taken the words
in the opposite sense, and to have applied them to the enemies
of our Lord. " It is written, destroyed them" says Euthy-
mius, •' because the Holy Ghost would not so much as ^•
name, by the mouth of His Prophet, the evil spirits to whom
He refers." But surely, the more loving exposition of the
Western Fathers is better than this.
15 The springs of waters were seen, and the foun-
dations of the round world were discovered, at thy
chiding, O Lord : at the blasting of the hreath of
thy displeasure.
232 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
^y. By the waters we understand Holy Scripture : and the
springs of this fountain, — the deepest, truest, most real mean-
ing was seen of a truth, when the Incarnation unlocked the
enigmas of the Old Testament. The foundations of the round
world, that which is the base and substructure of the whole
A Church, was indeed revealed, when the hidden mysteries of
sacrifices, and types, and parables were laid open at that
moment when " the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among
us." Or you may take the foundations of the Church to
"• mean the Apostles and Prophets. Of these foundations
Micahvi. 2. Micah speaks, "Hear ye, O mountains, the Lord's contro-
versy, and ye strong foundations of the earth ;" and of their
beauty Isaiah testifies, when he thus consoles the Church :
Isa. liv. 11. "O thou afflicted, tossed with tempests, not comforted, be-
hold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and will lay thy
foundations with sapphires." The foundations of the round
world loere discovered at Thy chiding, O Lord : and so indeed
S.Luke they were, when He said, " O fools, and slow of heart to be-
XXIV. 25. lieve all that the Prophets have spoken ;" and then " opened
their understanding, that they should understand the Scrip-
tures." Therefore it was that, in mediaeval times, the altars
were stripped on Good Friday, to show that, by the Passion
of Christ, the mysteries of the Law and the Prophets were
L. revealed. Or, if we wish, vs'^e may understand the springs of
water of the Baptismal fountain, revealed by virtue of the
Lord's Incarnation, and owing all its efficiency to that. At
the blasting of the breath of Thy displeasure. For what was
the message which heralded in and which accompanied the
Lord's preaching ? " Eepent ye :" " O generation of vipers,
who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come. Bring
forth fruits meet for repentance."
16 He shall send down from on higli to fetch me :
and shall take me out of many waters.
Q It is the Church that speaks : Se shall send — but whom ?
None less than the Son. As it is written, " God so loved
the world, that He sent His Only-begotten Son" to take me
for His bride ; as He spake by the mouth of His holy Pro-
Hos. ii. 19. phets, " I will betroth thee unto Me for ever ; I will even
betroth thee unto Me in faithfulness." Out of many waters.
Oh, what marvellous richness of meaning is there in these
Psalms ! so that, whichever way you turn, new vistas of in-
Rupert. terpretation open upon you, each vying with the other in
beauty. Shall we take these waters as the waves of afflic-
PH.ixix. 1. ^^o^ '^ concerning which it is written, " Save me, O God, for
Ho8. V. 10. ^^'." ^'^t^r^ are come in, even to my soul." And again, "I
will pour My wrath upon them like water;" or again, "We
'■ "• went through fire and water." Truly, out of such afflictions
has the Church over and over again been taken ; over and
over again shall she be taken, till put into possession of her
PSALM XVIII. 233
future inheritance, the blessed Country where there shall be
no more sea. Or shall we rather see in these waters, a type
of the many peoples out of which our Church is formed :
which, indeed, is the Chaldee paraphrase, where we read, Cd.
Shall take me out of many peoples ? And if so, we have the
effects of that preaching of the Apostles whereof we were now
speaking, who by their labour and their blood, gathered the
Church out of every language, and people, and nation. Or
yet once more, Are we to find in these waters the type of
feaptism, out of, and by means of which the Church is taken ?
as it is written, " That He might sanctify and cleanse it with gpjj y^ ^
the washing of water by the word, that He might present
it to Himself a glorious Church."
17 He shall deliver me from my strongest enemy,
and from them which hate me : for they are too
mighty for me.
My strongest enemy. Little doubt of whom the Church
speaks. T/iem which hate me: The Jews, in the first be-
ginnings ; the Emperors and magistrates of this world in
their ten persecutions ; the various sects of heresy spring-
ing up like so many heads of a hydra from the Father G.
of all Lies; and last, but not least, that fearful enemy of
worldliness which, if others have slain their thousands, has of
a surety destroyed its ten thousands. Or hear in this verse
the words of our Lord instead of those of the Church. He
was delivered from His strongest enemy in the three tempta-
tions of the wilderness, and from them which hated Him ;
Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, Lawyers, Annas, Caiaphas, Ay.
Pontius Pilate ; delivered over and over again till His time
was come, and then finally and for ever delivered by those
most blessed of all words, " It is finished."
18 They prevented me in the day of my trouble :
but the Lord was my upholder.
That is, taking the word in its largest sense, they prevailed G.
against Me. But when ? Only in the times of My earthly
humiliation ; only when I Mas made a little lower than the
angels ; only in that day of My trouble when the prophecy
was fulfilled, " Thou shalt bruise His heel." For the time of
glory is to come, when there could be no more preventing, no
more prevailing, on the part of the enemy. And notice, as a p
good man observes, that expression. My trouble: trouble that,
as it were, belongs to me as a possession, as a privilege : My
trouble, out of and by means of which, sprang My glory.
Or it may be the voice of the Church ; and then by my trouble
she means the days of those persecutions when she could say
Ay.
with Job : " The days of affliction prevented me ; I went Job xxx. 27.
234 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Lam. i. 9. mourning without the sun." Or with Jeremiah : " O Loed,
behold my affliction ; for the enemy hath magnified himself."
Rupert. They prevented me, hut the Lord was my upholder. And what
trouble is not well borne — what difficulty is not happily en-
countered— if that may be its result ?
{They, my spiritual enemies, prevented me by attacking
D. C. me, an unconscious infant, with the weapon of original sin,
in the day of my trouble of being born into this weary world,
but the iiOED saved me from their chains, for]
19 He brought me forth, also into a place of li-
berty : he brought me forth, even because he had a
favour unto me.
If it be our Lord that speaks, then He tells how from the
narrowness of the grave He came forth to the possession of
Ps. xxiv. 1. the wide earth : " The earth is the Lord's, and all that therein
is :" nay, more, how He returned again into heaven, having
won for Himself, according to His Manliood, the utmost
bound of the everlasting hills. But if it be the Church that
speaks, she tells how from the cramped limits of Juda3a, she
Ay. was called forth " to have dominion from one sea to another,
Ps. ixxii, 8. ^^^ from the flood unto the world's end." Or in another
sense, how from the narrow laws concerning the blood of bulls
and goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean,
E.. she was led to see the length, and breadth, and depth, and
height of that love which they so faintly, and feebly, and im-
perfectly prefigured. Or yet once more : how she was in-
structed in the fullest and widest range of divine mysteries ;
mysteries utterly hidden from Jewish eyes, and then first re-
vealed when " the Woed was made flesh, and dwelt among
A. us." He had a favour unto me : not I to Him. All came
from Him first : and so it was the Apostle's prayer and labour
not that God should be reconciled to us, but that we should
be reconciled to God.
D. C. [He brought me, by Baptism, into the glorious liberty of
the children of God, rightly called, as by LXX. and Vulgate,
a wide place, because faith, hope, and charity, then infused
into the soul, enlarge its capacity and affections.]
20 The Lord shall reward me after my righteous
dealing : according to the cleanness of my hands shall
he recompense me.
Hugo Card. From this passage. Cardinal Hugo points out seven steps
to blessedness. The first, God's merciful election : because
He had a favour unto me. The second, faith in the redemp-
tion of Cheist ;^ I£e brought me forth. (It is, in the Vulgate,
" He saved me," and the reference is to our Loed's words,
•• TUy faith hath saved thee.") The third, Love : into a place
PSALM XVIII. 235
of liberty. The fourth, our free-will, which co-operates with
God's lore ; according to intiy righteous dealing. The fifth,
good works, according to the cleanness of my hands. The
sixth, perseverance : because I have kept. The seventh, eternal
retribution : The Lord shall reward me. According to my
righteous dealing. For one star differeth from anotlier star
in glory : or again, according to S. Mark's one only peculiar ^^
parable, " The earth bringing forth fruit, the blade, then the s. Mark iv.
ear, after that, the full corn in the ear." Or let them be the re-
words of our Lord : and what was the reward of His Righteous
dealing, but the multitude of souls for whose disobedience He
atoned by His perfect obedience, whose life He purchased by
His death ? According to the cleanness of my hands. For He
did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth. That clean-
ness which, touching the leper, imparted cleansing to him : j^
which, nailed to the Cross, poured forth those precious streams
which have been the purification of the whole world.
21 Because I have kept the ways of the Lord :
and have not forsaken my God, as the wicked doth.
22 For I have an eye unto all his laws : and will
not cast out his commandments from me.
Forsaken, alas ! too often : the just man falleth seven times ^^
a day. By reason of the frailty of our nature, we cannot
always stand upright. But not as the icicked doth. If the just
man falleth so often, he riseth again. " Bejoice not against Micah vii. s
me, O mine enemy, when I fall, I shall also arise." And no-
tice the pronoun. My God : the reason which prevents him
from thus forsaking ; the strength which enables him thus to
arise. The toays. For, says one, there are two ways : love of
God, and love of our neighbour. So much for the past. Then
comes the present. I have an eye ; and to what ? to all His
laws. For " whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet ^*
offend in one point, he is guilty of all." And then the future, s. James ii.
and will not cast out Sis commandments from me. But who
may say this truly and perfectly, save He Who was the law-
giver, as well as the law-keeper ; the framer, as well as the
observer of the commandments ?
23 I was also un corrupt before him : and eschewed
mine own wickedness.
Vncorrujpt, or, as it is in the Vulgate, immaculate. S. Au- s^^
gustine, in his work on the perfection of righteousness, ex-
plains how it is that good men may be called perfect, even in
this life : as where Moses says in the book of Deuteronomy,
" Thou shalt be perfect with the Loed thy God." " Not, Deut. xviii.
says he, that they contract no stains, but that they are eager '^'
and anxious to contract none ; and that they do contract none
of that mortal character that eats into and leaves marks on
236 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Acts xxiv the soul." " Herein do I exercise myself to liave a conscience
16. void of offence, both toward God and toward men." Here
notice, David says not simply uncorrupt, hut unco rrupt before
Him. Easy enough to be uncorrupt before men ; but the
thing is to be, as S. Paul again says, holy and without blame
Eph. 1. 4. })gfQfQ Hi/m in love. And eschewed mine own wickedness.
They take it literally of the murder and adultery, the one
deep stain of David's life. But spiritually, we may under-
stand it, as Jansenius does, of that concupiscence which,
tliough not sin in itself, is metaphorically called so, as so
easily leading into wickedness : the fuel which it only needs
temptation to kindle into an active flame : the " sin that
Rom. vh. dwelleth in me," of S. Paul. Eschewed, because it is the one
'' end and aim of a Christian life to keep this under, and bring
it into subjection.
24 Therefore shall the Lord reward me after my
righteous dealing : and according to the cleanness of
my hands in his eye-sight.
Notice again : according to the cleanness of my hands in
Sis sight ; not according to that of the world : *' not as pleas-
1 Thess. u. 4. -j^^ Tocien, but GoD, Which trieth the hearts," says the Apostle.
But put the verse into the mouth of our Loed, and what was
the reward of His righteous dealing ? What, but the redemp-
(^ tion of the whole human race potentially ; and actually, the
final beatification of those righteous and happy souls, whom,
having loved, He will love to the end ? And we need not be
afraid to apply even those words, eschewed mine own wicked-
ness, to the same blessed Loed. His own, as assumed and
1 s. Pet, ii. carried by Him " Who His own self bare our sins in His
own body on the tree." And this eschewing them, this being
E,. made responsible for, and brought into contact with that
which was His so infinite abomination ; this was one of those
unknown sufferings of which what finite mind can venture to
imagine the depth or the extent ? Hence, by mediaeval alle-
Hugo de s. gorists He is sometimes imagined as the ermine, that dies of
Vict. grief if its spotless fur be but in the least soiled.
25 With the holy thou shalt be holy : and with a
perfect man thou shalt be perfect.
26 With the clean thou shalt be clean : and with
the froward thou shalt learn frowardness.
They generally take these verses as the words of the Psalm-
Ay. ist to God ; setting forth that according to the measure of a
man's good works, will be the measure of God's grace given
him ; the talent bestowed on him that had already ten talents.
So, in one of his poems, S. Gregory Nazianzen :
** As the soul's measure through her earthly race,
So is the measiu-e of celestial grace."
24
PSALM XVIII. 237
To him that in the midst of darkness, and notwithstanding
the rough, steep ascent, like Moses still struggles onwards q
and upwards to draw nearer to God ; to him, also, as to
Moses, God's holiness shall be most fully revealed : and so
of the other clauses. Or, as others take it, David is speaking
to the true servant of God. With the holy thou shalt he holy : j^
as God the Father is the Source and Foundation of all ho-
liness, so in his own poor way, man, that is made after the
similitude of God, will also try after holiness. With a per-
fect man thou shalt be perfect : as the Son of God, Man as
well as God, took our nature upon Him, that all mankind
should follow His example. With the clean thou shalt be Ay.
clean : that is, shalt strive hard to preserve that purity which
the Holy Ghost, the Giver of all purity, implanted in Bap-
tism. With the froward thou shalt learn frowardness : that
is, thy whole life should be one long struggle against, one
continuous resistance to, him who is indeed froward, that
great enemy both of God and man, whose never-ending
temptations ought to teach us never-ending watchfulness :
thou shalt learn frowardness.
27 Thou shalt save the people that are in adver-
sity : and shalt bring down the high looks of the
proud.
It is the rule of Christ Himself. " Every one that ex- s. Matt,
alteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself ^^"*" '^'
shall be exalted." And this verse might be taken as a com-
pendium of all Church History ; open any page at random, Ay.
and you will find a commentary on it. And of our Lord
Himself, — how did He save the people that were in adversity
when on that first Easter night He manifested Himself, en-
tering in through the closed doors to the Apostles ; how again,
when as the three Maries were much distressed and perplexed,
who shall roll away the stone ? they found that the angel
had already rolled it away : " for" — and notice the beauty of
' the reason — " it was exceeding great." As much as to say,
that because the difficulty was so formidable, therefore God
must, as it were, remove it by a supernatural ministry. It
is a " for" which, like many another little w^ord in the Bible, vi"t.° ^ "
may cheer and comfort us when we are in distress. And see
how the high looks of the proud have been no less miraculously
brought down : how, when the people shouted, " It is the Acts xii. 23.
voice of a God, and not of a man," — " immediately, the angel
of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory :"
how, no sooner had Nebuchadnezzar uttered his " Is not
this great Babylon which I have builded?" than the voice ^^^^ j^ 3,^
fell from heaven, " O King Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is
spoken, thy kingdom is departed from thee." And how he
of whom every enemy of God's people is but the type, he C.
who said, " I will exalt my throne above the stars of God ; I isa. xiv. u.
238 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
s Luke X '^^■^^l ^^ 1^^^ *^^ ^^^^ High," he it M^as of whom the Loed
18. " said, •* I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven."
28 Thou also shalt light my candle : the Lord my
God shall make my darkness to be light.
My candle. It is beautifully said : for, like a candle, no
vieyra. true servant of God can shine without at the same time con-
suming. " He was a burning and a shining light :" but the
burning first and then the shining. Or take it of the faith
of the Church : a light kindled upon her, — a light that it
over and over again seems as if some blast of temptation
^y_ would extinguish, — a light, if small in itself, the faith as a
grain of mustard-seed, yet sending out its beams far and
near in the darkness of this world. Thou also shalt — when
none else can : and notice, too, how here, as so often, the
p Q Psalmist begins with speaking of God, and ends with speak-
ing to Him. So the Bride in the Canticles, " Let Him kiss
me with the kisses of His mouth, for Thy love is better than
wine." S?iall make my darkness to he light. So also the pro-
isa. 1. 10. mise : " Who is there among you that .... walketh in dark-
ness, and hath no light ? Let him trust in the Name of the
LoED, and stay himself upon his God." His God, as here the
LoED my God : for no colder, no more distant appropriation
of God's love will serve the turn in such times of distress.
My darkness to be light. Shall we take it of the darkness of
p that night and of that garden when they came to seek Him
with lanterns, and torches, and weapons F Or of that dark-
ness which was over all the earth from the sixth hour until
the ninth hour? Or rather of that darkness — a darkness
which might be felt — which came in even to our Loed's soul,
and attained its most fearful blackness when He uttered that
cry, " My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ?"
However we take it, if never such darkness to precede, never
such brightness to follow. " At the brightness of that light,"
says the Eastern Church, "let the heavens rejoice, let the
earth be glad ; because the Loed hath showed strength with
His arm, hath trampled down death by death, hath become
the First-begotten from the dead ; hath dispersed the dark-
ness of hell, and hath poured glorious brilliancy on the world. "^
And notice how beautifully the description in the text rises.
-r» In this world, after all, our faith, our knowledge of God, are
but as a candle ; it remains for the next world to do away
with these shadows for ever, to bring the light of happy
morning after the dark and sad night, The Lord my God shall
make my darkness to be light.
[The Targum expounds this verse of exiled Israel, whose
candle was indeed quenched in captivity, but to be kindled
again by Him Who is the Light of Israel, making His people
' Apolytikiou of the Sunday of the Paralytic.
PSALM XVIII. 239
see the consolations for the righteous in the world to come. s. Bruno
Many of the Western commentators see here the Apostles, s^^J^ertas
Martyrs, and early preachers of the Gospel, who are the Magnus.
light of the world, briglit with the knowledge, and warm with P.
the love of God, and dispersing the darkness of heathenism. Lu.
Others again will have it that man's heart or intellect is the s. CyrU.
lantern or candle, to be enlightened by grace ; and yet once ^•
more, a holy writer bids us look from the darkness of this ^^^' "^"^p-
world to the glory to be revealed in the Heavenly Country.
In te nunquam nubilata The Hymn,
Aeris temperies, Jerusalem
Sole soils illustrata lumino>^a.
Semper est meridies,
In te non nox fessis grata,
Nee labor nee inquies.]
29 For in thee I shall discomfit an host of men :
and with the help of my God I shall leap over the
wall.
It is the Lord, in the full view of His Passion, Who speaks. q
For He beholds the host of men that are drawn up to oppose
Him : the Jews, Pilate, Herod, the soldiers ; and over each
and all He prophesies His final victory. I shall leap over
the wall. That wall of which Isaiah speaks, " Your iniquities isa. lix. 2.
have separated between you and your God, and your sins
have hid His face from you." And again : " Therefore this isa. xxx. 13.
iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, and swelling
out in a high wall." And so for us. Every wall which would
intercept our course to God, every obstacle which Satan seta
up that he may sore let and hinder us, — if we cannot sweep
it away entirely, at least we must overcome it for ourselves
and leap over it.' And finally that last and most fearful
wall, which before immortality was brought to light seemed }^y^
the hindrance to any further advance, the wall of death, that
also, following the example of our Leader we shall pass in
safety. Of Him it is written, " The fortress of the high fort jg^. xxv. 12.
of thy walls shall He bring down :" and hy the help of our
God, we also, as the children of Israel over the fallen walls
of Jericho, shall go up to the city which we are seeking.
[One writer, with a quaint literalness, explains the wall to
be the material barrier of the grave and of the closed doors p q
of the upper chamber, through which Christ passed in His
risen Body without disturbing them. It is strange that none
of the commentators make any reference here to Christ as
destroying the distinction between Jew and Gentile, "Who Eph. li. 14.
hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall
of partition between us."]
' See this beautifully dilated I lius iu his little treatise called
on and worked out by Drexe- | Heliotropium. Lib. 2. cap. 6.
240 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
30 The way of God is an undefiled way : the word
of the Lord also is tried in the fire ; he is the De-
fender of all them that put their trust in him.
Rupert. And now notice the remarkable allusion to the Blessed
Trinity. The way of God, that law which He gave on
Mount Sinai when the Father manifested Himself as a God
^ afar off. The word of the Lord, the Incarnate Word, was
^' indeed tried in the fire when, through so many sufferings and
agonies, He was Himself according to His Manhood made
perfect, and according to His Godhead opened the kingdom
of heaven to all believers. And again : He — the Blessed
Spirit, He without Whom man would in vain strive against
his enemies, — He of Whom it is written, " Except the Lord
, keep the city," that is, the city of the heart, " the watchman,"
that is, conscience, " waketh but in vain," — Se is the De-
fender of all them that put their trust in Sim. Well for us
G. that, since that way is so undefiled, and we ourselves so pol-
luted, we have not an High Priest Wliich cannot be touched
with the feeling of our infirmities, having been Himself tried
in the fire 1 Well for us that, since that way is so beset with
enemies, banded together to resist our progress, we have a
Defender Who is no accepter of persons, but the safeguard
of all them that put their trust in Him 1
31 For who is God but the Lord : or who hath
any strength, except our God ?
32 It is God that girdeth me with strength of
war : and maketh my way perfect.
Maurus*""^ Here again we have the Blessed Trinity most clearly set
forth. Who is God, hut the Lord ? The question of Michael
the Archangel, when fighting with the dragon and his angels,
whence his very name, Mi-cha-el.^ Learn, says the Spanish
mat. Moza- jUation, on the Festival of that Archangel, what is the power
of preserving humility. While it ascribes everything that
it can perform to God, it is also honoured with the very
Name of God. For Michael by interpretation is. Who is as
God ? Or who hath any strength except our God ? " for
though He were crucified through weakness, yet He liveth
by the power of God." So from the weakness of the Cross,
Rupert. pj^^jg Q^^ strength ; from the anguish of the Cross, came our
; comfort ; from the death of the Cross, came our life. And
' then again : It is God that girdeth me with strength of war :
\ girdeth me at Baptism, giveth me power and strength to have
victory and to triumph against the devil, the world, and
' So the Mozarabic hymn : Portitorque rutilu8,
O coelorum alme princeps, Hagius nunciipatus Michael,
Michael fortissime, " Quis," ais, " ut Dominus ?"
yuinmi regis Cheisti summus
PSALM XVIII. 241
the flesh : girdetli me at Confirmation, which is the very Sa-
crament of strength : girdeth me by preparing for me by
His own sanctification of the material element " the Corn of
the mighty." And thus assisted by each Person of the ever
Blessed Trinity, well may the Psalmist cry, and maJceth my
way perfect. Perfect it ought to be even here : perfect it is
commanded to be ; " Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord Deut. xviii.
13.
thy God :" perfect it will be hereafter : " The path of the
just is as a shining light, that shineth more and more unto '^°^' ^^'
the perfect day." And they also see here a reference to the
battle with Goliath : a type of the great battle which decided ^•
the fate of the world. It is God, not Saul, that girdeth me
with strength of war. " Saul armed David with his armour, i Sam.xvii.
and he put an helmet of brass upon his head." .... "And ^^•
David said unto Saul, I cannot go with these, for I have not
proved them." And thus our David was girded viiih. strength
of war, which to human eyes seemed weakness ; armed with j
the staff of His Cross, and with the five smooth stones of His I
unconquerable wounds from the brook of affliction.
33 He maketh my feet like harts^ feet : and setteth
me up on high.
It may be taken in two senses. Our Lord's Feet were .
swift as the hart's, when He came from heaven to work out ;
our salvation. Or if we understand the hart to mean the ^'
ibex or some similar mountain goat, then the words will tell
us how there was no difficulty too great to be overcome, no Ay.
place too inaccessible to be scaled, when the Captain of our
Salvation assaulted the fortress of the strong man armed.
The Bride understands the word in the first sense, when she
calls to herself Him Whom she loves : " Haste, my Beloved, Cant. vui.
and be Thou like to a roe or a young hart upon the moun- ^^"
tains of spices." Habakkuk seems to take it in the second,
when he says : " The Lord God is my strength, and He will Hab. m. 19.
make my feet like hinds' feet, and He will make me to walk
in mine high places." It must be confessed that the prayer
of the Prophet shows even more faith than that of David.
Setteth me up on high, says the Psalm, — " Will make me to
walk upon my high places," says the Canticle. We younger -rx r^
brethren of that dear Elder Brother, — we co-heirs with Him
Who is the blessed and only heir, — we may use that word
my by right of adoption, which He can take into His mouth
by right of inheritance.
34 He teacheth mine hands to fight : and mine
arms shall break even a bow of steeL
Se teacheth : and not as man teacheth. Thus He taught Ay.
Gideon to fight with the innumerable host of Midian by
sending to their homes two-and-twenty thousand, and re-
M
242
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
A.
Ps. xi. 2.
Ps. xxxvii.
15.
taining but ten thousand of his soldiers ; and then again by
reducing that remnant to the little band of three hundred
who lapped when brought down to the water. Thus He
taught Samson by abstaining from strong drink, and by suf-
fering no razor to pass over his head. Thus He taught the
three kings in the wilderness to war against their enemies,
not by any strength of their armies, but by making ditches
in the desert. Thus He taught David himself by waiting
for the sound of the going in the tops of the mulberry trees.
And so He taught the arms of the True David to fight when
stretched on the Cross : nailed, to human sight, to the tree of
suffering, but in reality, winning for themselves the crown of
glory : helpless in the eyes of Scribes and Pharisees ; in those
of Archangels, laying hold of the two pillars, sin and death,
whereon the house of Satan rested, and heaving them up
from their foundation. And mine arm shall hreak^ even a how
of steel. Take it in the first sense; and the bow is that of
which it is written, " The ungodly bend their bow and make
ready their arrows within the quiver :" for, as it is written
in another place, " Their sword shall go through their own
heart, and their bow shall be broken." That is, every effort,
eveiy aim, every device of the enemy shall be " knapped in
sunder" by those victorious arms. Take it in the other sense,
and the how is that bow of prayer which sends the arrows of
ejaculation to the throne of God : that bow which is an-
swered by the heavenly bow of peace : that bow which, like
the king of old, our Loed drew three times with all His
might in the garden of Gethsemane. This is the bow con-
cerning which the True David, with respect to His own people,
would follow the example of the David of old, in his com-
2 Sam.i. 18. mand to his army : " Also he bade them teach the children
of Judah the use of the bow :" without the employment
of which any conflict with the spiritual Philistines must cer-
tainly be another defeat on Mount Gilboa.
35 Thou hast given me the defence of thy salva-
tion : thy right hand also shall hold me up, and thy
loving correction shall make me great.
g The defence of Thy salvation. That which is indeed our
wurzbujg. ^^® defence against the wear and tear of disease, and weak-
ness, and labour, the dissolution of death itself is the glory
of the Kesurrection. Or rather, they take Thy salvation to
G.
Z.
^ [The word hreaJc here and
in the A. V. is better turned
bend. Break comes from taking
npnj as the Niphal from nnn
fracius est, instead of from the
Aramaic root nnj, descendit^
(compare x^) implying the
lowering of the upper limb of
the bow. The LXX. and Vul-
gate, reading nra, translate Thou
hast set (postcisii) mine arms as
a brazen bow.J
PSALM XVI II. 243
he Him Who is indeed all our salvation and all our desire ;
Him Whose Name is Jesus, which is by interpretation a
Saviour. And even Rabbi Joden, and other Jewish expo- C.
sitors, take it of the Messiah. Thou hast given me : not I Xi.
myself: " for the battle is the Lord's, and He will give you j sam.xvii.
into our hands." Thy right hand : and there again we have 47.
tliat Lord Who, as the express image of the Father, is also ■'
the Right Hand of His Majesty. Hold me up, by having ;
taken my nature ; hold me up, by having atoned for my sins ^y^
oil the Cross; hold me up, by interceding for me at the
throne of the Father. Thy loving correction shall make me
(treat : for " whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth." " Thy
•od and Thy staff comfort me." It is, in the Vulgate, " Thy
liscipline has corrected me to the end." " There is," says
xEugh of S. Victor, " a good and a bad end. The bad end is Hugo vic-
the depth of sin : the good end the consummation of virtue. *°'^"^*
But the discipline of the Lord correcteth to the end, because
even they who have fallen into the abyss of iniquity are |
raised by it to the height of virtue. O good, O sweet disci-
pline of God ! O that we may know it ! O that we may re-
ceive it ! O that we may abide it ! But how can this be ?
It consists in three things : in precepts, in temptations, in
chastisements. In precepts God makes trial of your obe-
dience ; in temptations, of your constancy ; in chastisements,
of your patience. Obediently receive the precepts, constantly
resist the temptations, patiently endure the chastisements.
But these three things, — obedience, constancy, and patience,
— can never be separated from each other, because each
is necessary in all." The translation of Eusebius gives L.
a different sense still : " And my obedience, that shall in-
crease me," truly enough said of Him of Whom it is written,
that because " He became obedient unto death, even the PhU. ii. s.
death of the Cross, therefore God also hath highly exalted
Him."
36 Thou shalt make room enough under me for to
go : that my footsteps shall not slide.
Room enough : not like Balaam, against whom the Angel Numb. xxU.
of the Lord went forth, and stood in a narrow place, where ^^•
was no way to turn either to the right hand or to the left.
Room enough : not like the host of Holofernes, against whom
the High Priest wrote that the passages of the hill country
were to be kept ; because " it was easy to stop them that Jud. iv. 7.
would come up, for the passage was strait, for two men at the
most." Room enough : not like to the tribe of Dan, of whom j^^
it is written, " The Amorites forced the children of Dan into judg. i 34,
the mountain, for they would not suffer them to come down
into the valley." But according to the promise : " When Prov. iv. 12.
thou goest, thy steps shall not be straitened :" or again,
" Thou hast set my feet in a large room." And how is this Ps. xxxi. 9.
m2
244 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
p room to be made, except by charity, which expands all
things, — by the breadth of that love of Christ which passeth
knowledge ? That my footsteps shall not slide. That is, that
the example which our Loed left may not be thrown away
upon us ; that the pattern which He gave we may copy,
setting our feet in the prints of His. For His footsteps are
indeed, in a far higher sense than that of the poet,
" Footprints which perhaps some other,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
Some forlorn and shipwrecked brother
Seeing, may take heart again."
Qj " He," says Eusebius, " who follows Jesus, must needs tread
in His steps ; and, for the very reason that he travels on in
the road travelled by our Lord, he finds the road firm, and
that verse fulfilled. That my footsteps shall not slide." Well
says Gerhohus, speaking in the person of our Loed, " As I
p walked in heaven upon the lion and adder, and trod the
■ \ young lion and the dragon under foot, when I beheld Satan
« , as lightning fall thence, so also on earth My footsteps did not
slide through the infirmity of the flesh ; seeing that I crushed
, the head of the self-same tempter in the desert ; seeing that
; I crush him still in My members, in whom, though they are
i weak, I am strong ; and in My Sacraments, the effect of
i which is not weakened, though they be celebrated by unholy
and infirm ministers."
37 I will follow upon mine enemies, and overtake
them : neither will I turn again till I have destroyed
them.
Ay. Upon Mine enemies. Thus saith the Loed of His perse-
cutors : thus must we also say, not only of our besetting sins,
but of that concupiscence which remains in the regenerate,
and which, though not sin in itself, is the mother and source
of all sin : remembering our vow to crucify the old man, and ]
utterly abolish the whole body of sin. And of what this war
must be, take an example in the commands given to the
Deut. vii. 2. Jews : their seven nations are our seven deadly sins. " Thou
shalt smite them and utterly destroy them : thou shalt make
no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them ; for thou
art an holy people, saith the Loed thy God." "Happy,
B. happy soul," cries a good Bishop, " if only thou wilt put this
precept in practice ! if only thou wilt take possession of the
Josh. xvil. mountains of Canaan, and drive out the accursed tribes,
i«. though they have iron chariots, and though they be strong !"
Nor turn again. For the true Joshua, like him of old,
Josh. viii. •* drew not his hand back wherewith he stretched out the
^^ Bpear, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of
Jobvii. 1, Ai." And so of us also. Neither will I turn again. For
raarg. ♦' is not," as Job said, " my life a warfare upon earth ?"
PSALM XVIII. 245
38 I will smite them, that they shall not be able
to stand : but fall under my feet.
Fall. Still it is the LoED that speaks : He of Whom it is q^
written, " They that dwell in the wilderness" — namely, the p^ ^^J^
wilderness of this world — " shall kneel before Him ; His ene-
mies shall lick the dust :" fall, therefore, in adoration ; or, if
not, fall in absolute and perpetual ruin. Under Mv feet.
That is, under those that are sent forth by Me, to do My
work, and to preach My Word ; My apostles. My ambas-
sadors till the end of time. And of them that will not fall D. C.
in obedience it is written, " He shall tread down the wicked, j^^ j^ 3
for they shall be ashes under the soles of thy feet :" just as
Joshua, after the great victory by Gibeon, and the capture
of the five kings, "said unto the captains of the men ofjosh. x. 24.
war which went with him. Come near, put your feet upon
the necks of these kings." " Thine enemies," is the promise Deut. xxxm.
to Israel, " shall be found liars unto thee, and thou shalt
tread upon their high places."
39 Thou hast girded me with strength unto the
battle : thou shalt throw down mine enemies under
me.
But why again give thanks to God for His help against
enemies, when already (ver. 35) David has done so ? " Be- p ■•
cause," answers Hugh of S. Victor, " we have to gird on our
armour at the end as well as at the beginning of our Chris- Hugo vie-
tian warfare. When we have overthrown our enemies, then °"'^'
we are attacked by the most dangerous of all, — the pride of
our very victory." So the rhyme says, very well :
Cum bene pugnaris, cum cuncta subacta putaris,
Quae magis infestat vincenda superbia restat.
"Verily," says Arnobius of Chartres, " the desire of human
praise and glory is the ulcer of virtue, the moth of sanctity,
on which, as the last of all evils, our enemy depends for
victory." Or, if you desire another reason for the twofold Q-.
ascription of praise, others have made the first the thanks-
giving, so to speak, of our Lord for His own victory ; the
second for the triumphs, in and through Him, of His people.
40 Thou hast made mine enemies also to turn
their backs upon me : and I shall destroy them that
hate me.
They have little to say on this verse, beyond — what is so
easy to say and so difficult to act out — the happiness of such
a victory : but pass on to
41 They shall cry, but there shall be none to help
246
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
2 Mace. Ix.
17,18.
1 Sam.
xxviii. 6
E.
them : yea, even unto the Lord shall they cry, but
he shall not hear them.
Sad examples enough there are of the truth of this pro-
Heb. xii. 17- phecy. Of Esau it is written that he " found no place of re-
pentance, though he sought it carefully with tears." Of
Antiochus, though he vowed in his last illness " that also he
would become a Jew himself, and go through all' the world
that was inhabited and declare the power of God, yet," con-
tinues the historian, " for all this his pains would not cease,
for the just judgment of God was come upon him." But
most appropriately to this passage, it is written of Saul:
" When he inquired of the Loed, the Lord would answer
him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets."
Jer.xiii. 16. j^nd therefore the Prophet warns us : "Give glory to the
Lobd your God before He cause darkness, and before your
feet stumble on the dark mountains ;" as Saul's feet indeed
stumbled on the dark mountains of Gilboa. Even unto the
Lord shall they cry : but not, as it has been well remarked,
by a Mediator : and so, crying to Him in their own name,
and by their own merits, they cry in vain.^
42 I will beat them as small as the dust before the
wind : I will cast them out as the clay in the streets.
The dust before the wind : and nothing can more fitly ex-
press the miserable condition of the scattered Jews, — driven
m the times of their persecution from one country to another,
fugitives and exiles everywhere, branded by peculiar laws,
and forbidden to find a resting-place and a home. Dust in-
deed, as not having received the dew of God's grace. The
clay in the streets. The broad way of this world, says Ger-
honus, is full of this clay, and therefore of those luxurious and
impure souls who wallow in it. But this clay shall perish,
because " the world passeth away, and the lust thereof."
Nor shall there remain aught of that in which these worldly
swine now delight themselves, in that new heaven and new
earth wherein nothing can in any wise enter that defileth.
Yet nevertheless of this clay, as Didymus reminds us, the
* Gerhohus, like an earnest
reformer as he was, in an age of
the Church which abounded
with horrible corruptions, and
when, as it has been said, the
LoED seemed again asleep in the
bark of Peter, twists this text
by main force to bear witness
against the simony of the age ;
when, as ho says, princes and
other potentates cliose Barabbas
and rejected Jesus for the Epis-
A.
Ay.
G.
Didymus.
copate ; and then, when they
had elected the former, and were
in need of some spiritual assist-
ance, cried, and there was none
to help them. One can hardly
call this a commentary j but yet
one honours the zeal of the
writer, who, in whatever part
of the Scripture he was ex-
pounding, saw the abuses of the
Church in his own time, and
treated it.
iso i
PSALM XVIII. 247
Master of the house will sometimes make to Himself vessels
more precious in His eyes than of gold or silver : vessels of
honour, sanctified, " meet for the Master's use, and prepared L.
unto every good work."
[/» the streets, because as the dust of a city is far more s. Bruno
trodden under foot than that of the fields, so the punishment Carth.
of the rebellious Jews has been not once only, but again and
again at the hands of different oppressors through the ages
of their exile.]
43 Thou shalt deliver me from the strivings of the
people : and thou shalt make me the head of the
heathen.
Strivings indeed ; as that of Korah : " Ye take too much A.
■upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy." As that j^,
of the High Priest: "Whosoever maketh himself a king, Num. xvi. 3.
speaketh against Caesar." As that of the Jews, when " they ^^ ^^^^ ^'^^■
were filled with envy, and spoke against those things which ActsxiU. 45.
were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming." Or
again : " As concerning this sect, we know that it is every- Acts xxviii.
where spoken against." So it was that holy Simeon prophe- 22.
sied of tne " sign which should be spoken against :" this is the s. Luke u.
lesson that we are taught by the Apostle, " Consider Him ^*-
That endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself." ^^^- *"• ^•
Or take the word of the strivings of the Jews amongst them- ^^^^
selves: "There was much murmuring of the Jews among g j^^j^^ ^^
themselves ; for some said. He is a good man ; others said, 12.
Nay, but He deceiveth the people." Thou shalt make Me
the head of the heathen. And even the Jewish Babbis saw in
this a prophecy of the Messiah ; while Christian expositors
with one voice,— Tertullian, S. Cyprian, S. Augustine, Pro-
copius, Justin Martyr, S. Prosper, and S. Chrysostom, — all
with one consent apply it to Him, and to Him only.
" Reprobatus et abjectus, Victorin.
Lapis iste ; nunc electua The Se-
In tropseum stat erectuB, ^"^"*^?.'
-n,. .^ , T » Ecce dies
Et m caput anguh. Celebris.
44 A people whom I have not known : shall
serve me.
First we have the obedience of the Gentiles, before we hear Hiidebert.
of the disobedience of the Jews. All mediaeval writers ex- Rupert,
pound with reference to this verse, the sad story of Tamar :
a story where, more than anywhere else, we have to bear in
mind the grand rule of S. Augustine, " Let us abhor the sin,
hut let us not quench the prophecy." Here, too, we have
fulfilled the prediction, " Behold, Thou shalt call a nation isa. iv. 5.
whom Thou knowest not, and nations that knew not Thee
S. Bruno
Cartb.
248 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
isa ixv 1 shall run unto Thee." And again: "lam sought of them
that asked not for Me; I am found of them that sought
Me not."
45 As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey
me : but the strange cbildren shall dissemble with
me.
s. Alb. Mag. [As soon as they hear, ov more exactly, with the old ver-
sions, and the margin of A. V., At the hearing of the ear,
contrasting thus the ready obedience of the Gentiles, who had
only the preaching of missionaries to trust to, with the con-
tradictions or strivings of the Jews, who saw and heard
Cheist Himself, and had the Scriptures besides.]
46 The strange children shall fail : and be afraid
out of their prisons.
A. The strange children. That is, the Jews : children indeed,
as descended from faithful Abraham ; but strange by re-
jecting Him Whose day Abraham desired to see. It is thus
that almost all the Fathers interpret the passage, some few
only taking it of the Gentiles : it is Osorius who most warmly
Ay. supports this meaning. Shall dissemble with me. So they
s Matt ^^^ when they said, " Master, we know that Thou art true,
xxii'. le! and teachest the way of God in truth ; neither carest Thou
for any man, for Thou regardest not the person of men."
B. And they not only dissembled themselves, but were the cause
s. Matt. of deceit in others : as when " they gave large money unto
xxviu. 12. the soldiers, saying, Say ye. His disciples came by night, and
stole Him away while we slept." S. Augustine, in expound-
s. Matt. via. ing that passage, " Many shall come from the east and the
*'• west, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in
the kingdom of heaven ; but the children of the kingdom
shall be cast out," says with reference to this text : " Chil-
8. johnviii. dren, not my own, but strange children, as it is written, * Ye
*^' are of your father, the devil.' " The next clause is given
differently in the Vulgate : " The strange children are inve-
terate, and halted from their paths." Halted, they all say,
A. from S. Augustine downwards, as receiving the Old, but re-
Gen, xxxii. lecting the New Testament ; as was typified of old by Jacob's
*'• halting upon his thigh. But even of these that thus halt it '
Zeph. iii. 19. is written, as S. Jerome reminds us, " I will save her that
halteth, and gather her that is driven out." And in the
mean time, the exhortation to the Jews is, as it was of old,
1 Kings " How long halt ye between two opinions ?" But our own
XVI 1. 21. translation is not without its force. They shall be afraid in
those prisons of sin whence they would not allow the Ee-
Zech. ix. 12. deemer to say to them, " Turn ye to the stronghold, ye pri-
soners of hope :" prisons which nevertheless one day He
shall destroy, when Jew as well as Gentile shall join in that
PSALM XVIII. 249
verse, " He hath broken the gates of brass, and smitten the
bars of iron in sunder."
47 The Lord liveth, and blessed be my strong
helper : and praised be the God of my salvation.
Notice the admirable sequence of these two verses. First,
-we have the Jews dissembling, and buying the perjury of the
Roman soldiers : then, being indeed afraid when they found
that Deceiver to have risen, and " when they heard these s. Hieron.
things, they doubted of them whereunto this would grow :" s. BasU.
and lastly, as in the beginning of this verse, the reason. The
Lord liveth. Liveth, after His three days' slumber in the
sepulchre ; liveth, to burst the gaol and to scatter the guards ;
liveth, and was dead, and is alive for evermore. And it is
well said. The Lord liveth : the slave died, but the Loed, the
LoED of Life, the Loed of Glory, liveth again. And notice s. Gregor.
the reference to the Blessed Trinity : The Lord liveth : — Nyss.
and blessed be my Strong Helper : — and praised be the God giyg^^*"*"
of my salvation. Pra/^erf, or, as it is in the Vulgate, ea-aZ^ec?. '
" Exalted," says Gerhohus, very prettily, " be the God of my ""•
salvation, exalted be the Sun of Righteousness to the very
height of His zodiac, that He may evoke throughout the
whole world summer days, — days long and bright, in which
we may say, The winter is past, the rain is over and gone,
the flowers appear. Whence, when He came into this world
to endure the wintry miseries of mortality, it was in winter
that to us a Child was born, unto us a Son was given. But
rising as the First-born from the dead. He dedicated the
season of spring to His Resurrection and Ascension, and so
enter into that eternal summer where He has done with the
miseries of winter for ever."
48 Even the God that seeth that I be avenged :
and subdueth the people unto me.
49 It is he that delivereth me from my cruel ene-
mies, and setteth me up above mine adversaries :
thou shalt rid me from the wicked man.
Avenger ! But how ? If it is Cheist that speaks, then
He says, " Fathee, forgive them, for they know not what
they do." If it be His Bride, then she says, " The blood of Ay.
the martyrs is the seed of the Church." O, most sweet re-
venge, that fulfils the saying of Job, " He putteth forth His Job xxviii.
Hand upon the rock :" the Hand pierced for our sakes, on ^•
the hard rock of the heart ; that accomplishes the saying of
the Psalmist, " Touch the mountains, and they shall smoke :" Ps, cxiiv. 5,
the cold, dark mountains of human pride and self-will, which
will one day be set on fire with the love of God : when the
prediction of Isaiah shall come to pass, " The sons also of isa. ix. i4.
M 3
250 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee, and all
they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the
soles of thy feet." Or, if we take it literally, this vengeance
is a prophecy of that most terrible siege of Jerusalem, when
the prayer was fulfilled, " His blood be on us, and on our
xxviL35. children." And now notice — as so often — the Trinity of
evil : My cruel enemies — Mine adversaries — the wicked man.
G. "These," says Gerhohus, "are the three bands which the
Chaldseans made out ;" and he interprets them of the Jews,
the Pagans, and the heretics. And he well observes that
this verse forms the Introit for the Wednesday in Passion-
week. " It may well do so," says he ; " for the true Palm
Sunday will never be celebrated by the Church till these at-
tacks of her enemies shall have passed away for ever." He
sees a further type of the same thing in the Gospel for that
Sunday : the Jews, when they said unto our Loed, " How
long dost Thou make us to doubt?'* played the part of His
adversaries : when they said, " For a good work we stone
Thee not, but for blasphemy," of the wicked man ; when they
took up stones to stone Him, of His cruel enemies.
50 For this cause will I give thanks unto thee, O
Lord, among the Gentiles : and sing praises unto
thy name.
Ay. And now comes the summing up of the whole. I will give
thanks : I, in- My Apostles ; I, in My ambassadors tUl the
end of time ; I, in My Church, which shall have the heathen
for her inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for
her possession ; I will give thanks among the Gentiles. Or,
to apply this in a sense in which David could never have in-
tended it, to the sweet Psalmist of Israel himself, then see
D. C. how, from one end of the earth to the other, in every kin-
dred and nation, and people and tongue, he still gives thanks;
unto the Loed ; how, commented on by a thousand saints,
with words interpreted into a thousand holy meanings, he I
still sings praises to that Name which is exalted above every]
name, — that Name, than which there is none other given]
under heaven whereby we must be saved.
51 Great prosperity giveth he unto his King : and
showeth loving-kindness unto David his Anointed,
and unto his seed for evermore.
G. Unto his King : unto the King once crowned with thorns,
— the King to Whom they once bowed the knee in mockery,
— the King, Whose title as monarch was once the very title of
His accusation : but now it is David His Anointed : anointed
1 B.^Johnli. with the oil of gladness above his fellows. " The anointing
♦ • which ye have received of Him abideth in you ; and as it
Lath taught you, ye shall abide in Him. And now, little
PSALM XIX. 251
children, abide in Him." I cannot end the commentary on so
long a Psalm better.
And therefore :
Glory be to the Fathee, Who showeth loving-kindness
unto David His Anointed, and to His seed ; and to the Son,
Chbist the King, the true David, Who goeth forth to sow
His seed: and to the Holy Ghost, Who is that loving-
kindness itself;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be :
world without end. Amen.
Collects.
O most merciful God, Foundation of our hope, and Hefuge Ludoiph,
in our affliction, preserve us from our enemies, and from the
snares of death, that we, being delivered from the multitude
of our afflictions, may most devoutly give thanks to Thy holy
Name, with the purity of innocence. Through (1.)
O Christ our God, Who wast set at nought by the con- Mozarabic,
tradictions of a wicked people, and therefore raised to be the Passion-
Head of the Gentiles, suffer us not, whose Head Thou didst
vouchsafe to become by Thy Passion and Resurrection, to be
cut off from Thee; that Thou being our Guide, we may
triumph over the powers that are opposed to us. Whom, for
our sakes, we know to have been exalted on the tree of the
Cross. Amen. Through (11.)
O our LoED and Liberator, give us the desire of loving niid.
Thee, that we may praise and call upon Thee, and that Thou
mayest send forth Thine arrows, and disperse our enemies,
and deliver us from those that hate us ; and so they may be
converted, and we may rejoice and be saved by Thy pro-
tection. Amen. Through (11.)
Hear, O Lord, from Thy holy Temple, the voice of Thy ibid-
Church ; and as Thou in Thy Passion didst pour forth streams
of blood, so look upon and console us surrounded by the
pangs of death, that the torrents of iniquity may in no wise
nurt us, when Thy grace shall cause us to endure them un-
moved. Amen. Through Thy mercy (11.)
[Take from us the darkness of our sins, and lighten our D. C.
hearts with the lantern of Thy Con substantial Woed, gird
ns, we pray Thee, with His strength, and show us the un-
deliled way in Him. (2.)]
PSALM XIX.
Ae&ument.
Arg. Thomas. That Christ entered the Virginal shrine, and
proceeded from it, in order that He might make known the secrets
of men. Concerning the preaching of the Apostles, and the Advent
252
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
of Chbist. Concerning the Advent of Christ and His Ascension,
by which we may unlock the 119th Psalm, where the Old and New
Testament are joined. Kead it with S. Matthew.
Ven. Bede. (Title : To the end ; a Psalm of David.) This in-
scription is well known, referring what is said in the Psalm to
Christ the Loed, of Whose First Advent the Prophet is about to
speak : and this is the first Psalm on that subject. The others are
four in number ; that is, the 80th, the 85th, the 97th, and the 98th.
Through the whole Psalm they are the words of the Prophet. In
the first place, he praises the preachers of the Lord ; he then uses
the loveliest comparisons concerning His Incarnation. Secondly, he
lauds the precepts of the Old and New Testament. Thirdly, he
prays that he may be purged from his secret faults, and may be
made a worthy Psalmist.
Syeiac Psalter. The hberation of the people from Egypt, and
to us a theological instruction.
Various Uses.
Gregorian. Sunday : III. Noctum. [Christmas Day : I. Noc
turn. Circumcision : I. Nocturn. Ascension Day : I. Nocturn
Trinity Sunday : I. Nocturn. Feast of the Holy Name : I. Noc
turn. Common of the Blessed "Virgin Mary : I. Nocturn. Mich
aelmas Day : II. Nocturn. Common of Apostles : I. Nocturn
Common of Virgins : I. Nocturn.]
Monastic. Saturday : Prime.
Parisian. Tuesday : I. Nocturn.
Lyons. Monday : II. Nocturn.
Ambrosian. Tuesday of First Week : I. Nocturn.
Quignon. Monday: Terce.
Antiphons.
Gregorian. There is neither speech nor language * but their
voices are heard. [Christmas Day : The Lord coming forth as a
Bridegroom from His chamber. Circumcision : In the sun He
hath set His tabernacle, and Himself is as a bridegroom coming
forth from his chamber. Ascension : His going forth is from the
highest heaven, and His return is unto its highest place, Alleluia.
Trinity Sunday : We acknowledge Thee, One in Substance, Trinity
in Persons. Holy Name : At the Name of Jesus every knee shall
bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the
earth, Comm. of Apostles : Their sound is gone out * into all lands,
and their words into the ends of the world.]
Lyons. O Lord, * my strength, and my Redeemer.^
Mozarahic. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.
This Psalm has been so universally applied to the Apostles,
that it will be well, before we proceed to its consideration, to
^ [There is a peculiar Sarum
Use of this Psalm, followed by
York and Aberdeen, at the first
Nocturn of All Saints' Day, with
the Antiphon, "Let us praise
the Lord, Whom the Angels
praise * Whom Cherubim and
Seraphim proclaim Holy, Holy,
Holy."]
PSALM XIX. 253
give one of the most beautiful applications tlius made of it,
the Sequence of Gotteschalkus. It was written for the Di-
vision of the Apostles ; a favourite feast in Germany on the
15th of July.
The Heavens declare the glory of the Son of God, the
Incarnate Word, made Heavens from earth.
For this glory befitteth that Loed alone,
Whose Name is the Angel of the Great Counsel.
This Counsel, the assistance of fallen man, is ancient, and
profound, and true, made known to the Saints alone.
When this Angel, made Man of a woman, made an immortal
out of a mortal ; out of men, angels ; out of earth, heaven.
This is the Lokd God of Hosts, Whose angels sent into
the earth are the Apostles.
To whom He exhibited Himself alive after His Resurrec-
tion by many arguments, announcing peace as the victor of
death.
Peace be unto you, saith He ; I am He ; fear ye not ;
preach the word of Christ to every creature, before kings
and princes.
As the Father hath sent Me, even so send I you into the
world ; be ye therefore prudent as serpents, be ye harmless
as doves.
Hence Peter, Prince of Apostles, visited E-ome; Paul,
Greece, preaching grace everywhere : hence these twelve
chiefs in the four quarters of the world, preached as Evan-
gelists the Threefold and the One.
Andrew, either James, Philip, Bartholomew, Simon, Thad-
deus, John, Thomas, and Matthew, twelve Judges, not di-
vided from unity, but for unity, collected unto one those that
were divided through the eartn :
Their sound is gone out into all lands.
And their words into the ends of the world.
How beautiful are the feet of them that proclaim good
things, — that preach peace ;
That speak thus to them that are redeemed by the Blood
of Christ : Sion, thy God shall reign.
Who made the worlds bv the Word ; Which Word was for
us, in the end of the world, made Flesh.
This Word Which we preach, Christ crucified. Who liveth
and reigneth, God in heaven.
These are the Heavens in which, O Christ, Thou inhabit-
est ; in whose words Thou thunderest ; in whose deeds Thou
lightenest ; in whose grace Thou sendest Thy dew :
To these Thou hast said : Drop down, O ye heavens, from
above, and let the clouds rain the Just One ; let the earth be
opened and bud.
Raise up a Righteous Branch, Thou Who causest our earth
to bring forth, sowing it with the seed of Apostolic words :
through whose words grant, O Lord, that we, holding the
Word of the Father, may bring forth fruit to Thee, O Lord,
in patience.
254 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
These are the Heavens which Thou, Angel of the great
Connsel, inhabitest, Whom Thou callest not servants, but
friends ; to whom Thou tellest all things that Thou hast heard
from the Father.
By whose Division raayest Thou preserve Thy flock, col-
lected and undivided, and in the bond of peace ; that in Thee
we may be one, as with the Father Thou art One.
Have mercy on us, Thou that dwellest in the heavens.
1 The heavens declare the glory of God : and the
firmament showeth his handy- work.
Ps. xxxiii. 6. " By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made ; and
s.Greg.M. all the host of them by the Breath of His Mouth." What
heavens are these, says S. Gregory, except the holy Apostles ?
And this is the key-note by which all the Fathers interpret
this Psalm. That as the visible heavens set forth the glory
of the Creator, so these spiritual heavens should declare the
praise of the Redeemer. Therefore in every Festival of the
Apostles, this Psalm has borne its part ; and every clause and
paragraph has been interpreted, with a holy ingenuity, in this
sense. The Firmament, from S. Augustine downwards, they
take to be that firmness in speaking the Apostolic message
s. Luke even before kings, and not bemg ashamed, that fearing not
^"- *• them which kill the body, and after that have no more which
they could do, which the Apostles, weak enough till then, —
they who had all forsaken their Master and fled, — received
on the descent of the Holy Ghost at the Day of Pentecost.
■A.. "By it they showed His handy- work ; the work by which in
His great humility He wrought out our salvation, — His In-
carnation, His earthly life. His Passion. Truly as, accord-
ing to that beautiful idea in the decoration of Egyptian pyra-
mids, the cornices are embellished with the blue wings of
the sky, keeping watch over and guarding all inferior ob-
jects,— so the Apostles separated once to meet no more on
earth, kept watch over all its regions, from the labours of
S. Thomas in China, to those of S. Matthew in Ethiopia, and
S. Paul in Spain.
2 One day telleth another : and one night certifieth
another.
^ Bay unto day. That is, Saint to Saint, Prophet to Pro-
phet, Apostle to Apostle: Christ Himself, the King of
Apostles, the Inspirer of the Prophets, the Saint of Saints, to
■j^ each and to all. And night unto night. The trials and afflic-
tions of the Martyrs and Confessors ; the struggles and self-
denial of every righteous soul, till the night of our own afflic-
tion and distress. But the loving-kindness that delivered
Isa. lijt. I. them can deliver us still : " the Lord's arm is not shortened
that it cannot save, neither His ear heavy that it cannot hear."
PSALM XIX. 255
That night speaks to us m no unintelligible voice, " Look at
the generations of old and see : did ever any trust in the Eoed eccIus.
and was confounded ?" Or again, take it, if you will, of the "• lo-
work of the six days and the rest of the seventh, so sedulously Ay.
parallelised with the seven gifts of the Spibit. Or, (as S.
Augustine truly saj^s, " Some words in Scripture have, from
their obscurity, this advantage, that they give rise to many
interpretations : had this been plain, you would have heard
some one thing, but as it is, observe, you will hear many,")
it cannot be more beautifully taken than of the seasons of the
Church's year : Festival speaking to Festival, Fast to Fast ;
the faithful soul by Advent prepared for Christmas ; by Lent
for Easter ; by the Great Forty Days of Joy, for the Descent
of the Holy Ghost : and by all these days of transitory ho-
liness, made ready for that Eternal day, the festival which
shall never be concluded.
The Church on earth, with answering love, Adam.
Echoes her mother's joys above : y?*^'^""'
These yearly feast-days she may keep, quence,
And yet for endless festals weep. Supemee
matris
That succession of doctrine and comfort, day speaking to «'««'^»««
day ; what a beautiful type it finds in the midnight of a Scan-
dinavian summer ! The north-western and north-eastern sky,
aglow respectively with evening and morning twilight, and
the space between them filled with the lines of purple or
crimson, the links which unite the departing to the coming
day !
[The A. V. is here nearer to the Syriac, LXX., and Vul- s. Aib. Mag.
gate, all which read Day breaiheth out a Word unto day, and
niqht declareth knowledge unto night. The days, the Saints
filled with the wisdom and glory of God, declare the Divinity
of the Incarnate Word to men ; the nights, less illuminated,
can yet speak of the Manhood of the Great Teacher, and lead
their hearers on to love Him.]
3 There is neither speech nor language : but their
voices are heard among them.
And we may take the verse in two senses : either, no speech
nor language among the nations of the earth to which these
voices did not go forth ; which must be the sense if we refer
the clause to the Apostles : or, no real speech in the preaching
of the stars, and yet their language is intelligible to all na-
tions. The great JPortuguese theologian, Vieyra, referring to
this verse, says, " The most ancient preacher in the world is vieyra.
the sky. If the sky be a preacher, it must have sermons, and ^°'"' *' ^" '^^'
it must have words. So it has, says David. And what are
these sermons and words of the sky ? The words are the stars :
the sermons, their composition, order, harmony, and cause.
The stars are very distinct and very clear ; so must
256 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
the style of preaching be. And have no fear that on this ac-
couilt it should appear low : what loftier than the sermons of
the heavens P The style may be clear enough, and yet lofty
' enough too : so clear, that the illiterate may understand it ;
' 80 deep, that the philosopher may learn from it. In the stars,
the countryman finds instruction for his labour, the seaman
,' for his navigation, the mathematician for his observation. So
f that the husbandman and sailor, who cannot read, can yet
' understand the stars ; and the philosopher who has read every
book that ever was written, cannot fathom their meaning."
4 Their sound is gone out into all lands : and their
words into the ends of the world.
Rom. X. 18. The quotation of this text by S. Paul, " But I say. Have
they not heard ? Yes, verily. Their sound went into all the
j^^ earth, and their words to the end of the world," is, as is well
noticed by Jansenius,^ a sufficient warrant for the explanation
which would understand the Apostles by the heavens. And
how did their sound then go fbrth ? Let Cardinal Hugo
Hugo Card, answer. " The preacher," says he, *' is raised from the earth
by contemplation ; has the breadth of charity ; the splendour
of wisdom ; the serenity of a tranquil mind ; the swift motion
of obedience : he rains by instruction ; thunders when he re-
bukes ; lightens by miracles ; is the seat of God by grace
and humility."
5 In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun :
which Cometh forth as a bridegroom out of his cham-
ber, and rejoiceth as a giant to run his course.
6 It goeth forth from the uttermost part of the
heaven, and runneth about unto the end of it again :
and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.
In these verses, the Church has from the beginning seen a
marvellous type of the Incarnation. So S. Ambrose, in one
of his most noble hymns :
Veni Re. Forth from His Chamber goeth He,
demptor The Royal Hall of Chastity ;
Oentium. In nature two, in Person One,
His glad course, giant-like, to run.
From God the Father He proceeds ;
To God the Fathee back He speeds :
* The reader will observe that
in this, and the other quotations
from Jansenius, I am not re-
ferring to the more celebrated
Bishop of Ypres, from whom
the flo-caUed Jansenists derive
their name, but to the Bishop
of Ghent, whose Harmony of the
Gospels and Exposition of the
Psalms rank him high among
the tlieologians of the sixteenth
century.
J
PSALM XIX. 257
Proceeds — as far as very hell,
Speeds back — to light ineffable.
They first see the beauty of the literal sense, read according
to the Vulgate : In the Sun He hath set His tabernacle : ^'
that is, that of all natural objects, the Sun is the best and
clearest representative of the Creator. So the wise man in
Ecclesiasticus : " The sun when it appeareth declareth at his Eccius.
rising a marvellous instrument, the works of the Most High:" ^'"* ^'
and in which so many nations of the world have seen the God
whom they considered worthy of adoration. But for us,
knowing that it shall pass away, and the elements shall melt 2 s. Pet. in.
with fervent heat, it is but God's tabernacle : the true Sun is ^^'
that which " shall no more go down, when the Lokd shall be ^z
our everlasting Light, and the days of our mourning shall be ^** ^' ^^*
ended." Then in the mystical sense, the sun and the taber-
nacle are the Lord's abiding in the womb of Mary : and they
fail not to quote from Ecclesiasticus that text, " As the sun eccIus.
when it ariseth in the high Heaven, so is the beauty of a good ^xvi. 16.
wife in ordering her house." " The tabernacle," says Cos-
mas, " is the flesh of the Loed, which was united for ever to
His Divinity." Or retaining our own translation, with a
slight change of metaphor, In them hath He set His tabernacle
for the sun ; in the preaching of the Apostles He hath taught
that the Eternal Word, the God Who is a consuming fire,
the Sun of Righteousness, has tabernacled in human flesh.
And as they who go out to war dwell not in houses, but in
tabernacles or tents, so our Lord, going forth to His war
with Satan, dwelt in the tabernacle of His flesh while He en-
tered into the conflict with, and when He overcame, His Z.
enemy. Which cometh forth as a Bridegroom out of his
chamber. And here none ever failed to see the Lord's en-
trance into the world from the womb of Mary. The Bride-
groom, hereafter to be betrothed to the Church on the Cross,
came forth, as it were, in the morning of that day of which
the sufferings of Calvary were the evening. " That Eternal
Light," says S. John Damascene, " which, proceeding from the
Co-Eternal Light, had His existence before all worlds, came s. Joan.
forth corporeally from the Virgin Mary, as it were a Bride- H^IJ^^^i^in
groom from His chamber." And rejoiceth as a giant. They Nativ. *
go back far for the full solution of this mystery. It was B. v. M.
from the union of the sons of God with the daughters of
men that those ancient giants sprang : who may thus properly sem^^de
be called of "twofold substance." Like them, it was the Adv.'
twofold nature of our Lord which enabled Him to accom-
plish the work of our redemption : and thus this word " giant"
in itself sets forth to us the whole scheme of salvation. "I ,
see," says S. Proclus, " His miracles, and I proclaim His mon hf the
Deity : I behold His sufferings, and I deny not His huma- Great
nity. Emmanuel opened the gates of nature as man, but burst cJnstantu
not the bars of Virginity as God. So came He forth from nopie,March \
the womb of Mary as by a word He entered : so was He born 25th, 429.
258 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
as He was conceived : without human passion He entered :
without human corruption He came forth." S. Ambrose
Son? D^- explains more fully the type of the giant. " Him holy David
ni, cap. V. / the Prophet describes as a giant, because He, being One, is
' yet double, and of twofold nature : partaker both of the Di-
! vinity and of a body : Who, like a Bridegroom proceeding
out of his chamber, rejoiced as a giant to run his course. The
Bridegroom of the soul as the Woed : the Giant of the earth,
because performing all the offices of our nature. Being
eternal God, He undertook the Sacrament of the Incarna-
tion." So in another hymn :
G-enus superni numinis,
Processit aula Virginis,
Sponsus, redemptor, conditor,
Suse gigas Ecclesise.
s. John xvi. " I came forth from the Father, and am come into the
28- world : again I leave the world and go unto the Father."
S.Greg. M. Would you know, asks S. Gregory, the steps by which He
thus came ? From heaven into the womb ; from the womb
to the cradle : from the cradle to the Cross ; from the Cross
to the sepulchre ; from the sepulchre He returned to heaven.
Behold, that He might cause us to follow Him, He took
these steps, that we might be able to say from our very
Cant. i. 4. hearts, " Draw me, we will run after Thee." And see the
depth of the mystery in the sign that was given to Hezekiah.
2^Kmgs XX. rpjjg shadow wcnt backward ten degrees, by which degrees it
had gone on ; thus the Lord humbled Himself below the nine
s. vui. 5. orders of angels, being " made a little lower than the angels,"
Rupert. to the tenth degree, namely, man, before His glorified hu-
manity took its place on the Right Hand of the Father.
And see how beautifully those two are joined : He mnneth
about unto the end of it again, and there is nothing hid from
the heat thereof. Because He Whom we love has now as-
G. cended into heaven, therefore it is that our hearts burn
within us, while we think of the glory which is His, and
which is to be ours. Nothing hid from the heat thereof.
For that Ascension — for that land — pertain no less to our-
selves than to the angels.
The Hymn, j O common joy, O common boast,
S^i:lu':: ( To us and that celestial host !
\ lo them, that He regams the sky :
f To us, that He to us is nigh.
7 The law of the Lord is an undefiled law, con-
verting the soul : the testimony of the Lord is sure,
and giveth wisdom unto the simple.
G. He is gone there in His own dear form, but He has left
His law behind Him, the guide and rule of His Church to the
PSALM XIX. 259
end. This is the mantle which fell from our ascending Elijah,
and which, if we hold it steadfastly, will divide for us any Rupert.
Jordan of temptation. " A certain simple-minded and honest
man," says S. Peter Damiani, " one that feared God, had
been hearing Matins, and was returning from church. His i
disciples asked him. What did you hear at church, father ? s. Petrus (
He answered, ' I heard four things, and observed six.' A ^^™- sermy
XXXI.
very subtle reply, and one which showed his faith. He had
heard four verses of the nineteenth Psalm. The law of the
Lord is an undejiled law, &c., and the three following verses,
in which six things are noted : which are law, testimony,
righteousness, commandments, fear, judgments."
8 The statutes of the Lord are right, and rejoice
the heart : the commandment of the Lord is pure,
and giveth light unto the eyes.
9 The fear of the Lord is clean, and endureth for
ever : the judgments of the Lord are true, and right-
eous altogether.
And notice, that the first character of Christ's law is, that B.
it is undefiled : purity being set foremost, as the foundation
of all the service of God, just as impurity occupies the first „
place in almost every Scriptural list of sin ; because, as the
greatest Saints have always taught, more will be condemned
at the end of the world for more or less direct breaches of
the seventh commandment, than of all the other command-
ments put together. Next observe, the sixfold division of Vieyra.
these excellencies. As our Blessed Lobd taught us in the
wilderness. Holy Scripture is to be our magazine of defensive
armour against temptation. But six is alwavs the type of
temptation. On the sixth hour of the sixth day, the first
temptation came into the world : the sixth petition of the
Lord's Prayer is, " Lead us not into temptation :" the sixth
blessing pronounced to the seven Churches is, " Because thou
hast kept the word of My patience, I will also keep thee Rev. m. lo,
from the hour of temptation:" and the whole culminates
in the 666, the mark of the Beast, the most fearful of the Rupert,
many tempters that shall ever rise up against the Church.
After purity, as so continually in Scriptural lists of virtues,
comes truth : the testimony of the Lord is sure. And forthwith
that which the Lord Himself made the chief character of His A.
mission, — that to the poor the Gospel was preached, — that is
also recorded here : wisdom unto the simple. Notice further
the connection between purity of heart and illumination : the
commandment of the Lord is pure, and giveth light unto the
eyes : exactly as in the beatitude, " Blessed are the pure in
heart, for they shall see God." Yet it must be confessed to
be rather marvellous that holy writers on this Psalm seem
unable to trace the especial connection between these six
260
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
S. Joan.
Chrysos.
Cd.
Levit. ii. 11.
Prov. XXV,
27.
Rev. X. 9.
characteristics of the Word of God, and content themselves
with dwelling on it, without any attempt to behold in them a
ladder set upon the earth, but reaching to heaven.
10 More to be desired are they than gold, yea,
than much fine gold : sweeter also than honey and
the honey-comb.
The much fine gold of our version is, in the Vulgate, much
precious stone, and then they see in these three things the
chief allurements of the world ; riches in the gold ; power in
the precious stones ; pleasure in the honey. " The flowers
that produce this honey," says Chrysostom, " were fed by no
earthly dew : the gentle distillations of the Holy Ghost gave
them not only their beauty, but their sweetness." And here
notice how David constantly, but David and Solomon almost
alone, use honey in a good sense, or as a type of holy things.
" Ye shall burn no leaven nor any honey," is the command in
the Law. " It is not good to eat much honey," say the men
of Hezekiah. " It shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be
in thy mouth sweet as honey," is the command to S. John.
Is it to pursue the type too minutely to see in the special re-
ference to the honey-comb a connection between the six-
sided cell, and the sixfold characteristics, ^ust mentioned, of
the Word of God ?
G.
Isa. lii. 13.
Read Ru-
pert, de
Gloria F. H,
Lib. iii. in
S. Matt. iv.
L.
S. Matt.
XXV. 21.
S. Luke
xlx. 17.
Guarric.
11 Moreover, by them is thy servant taught : and
in keeping of them there is great reward.
And we naturally remember how the Lord's Servant, when
tempted in the wilderness, was taught by this same word,
and by a threefold quotation obtained a threefold victory.
Compare this saying of the Psalmist with that prophecy of
Isaiah : " Behold, My servant shall deal prudently ; He shall
be exalted and extolled, and shall be very high." " Deal pru-
dently." He did, indeed, when with the very passage that re-
plied most aptly He repulsed the assaults of the tempter :
" exalted" He was, above the desires of the flesh, in refusing to
make the stones bread : "extolled," when raised to the pinnacle
of the temple, and yet refusing the vain-glory of casting Him-
self down : " very high," when carried to the summit of an ex-
ceeding high mountain, He refused the kingdoms of the world
and the glory of them. Thy servant. And holy men have
not feared thus to interpret the "Well done, good and
faithful servant," of the parable. " Thou hast truly served,"
says Guarric of Igniac, "Thou hast served in all faith and
truth, Thou hast served in all patience and long-suffering.
Not after a lukewarm sort, Who didst rejoice as a giant to
run the course of obedience ; not in a feigned manner. Who,
after so many and so great labours, didst spend Thy life once
and above all; not unknowingly, Who, when Thou wast
I
PSALM XIX. 261
scourged, though innocent, didst not even open Thy mouth.
For it is written, and it is just. That servant who knew his g ^ui^e
Loed's will and did it not, shall be beaten with many stripes, xii. 47.
And this Servant, I pray you, what did He not that was
wanting ? What ought He to have done that He did not ?"
In keeping of them. Not for keeping of them, though that
also ; but he speaks here of the promise of the life that now Cd.
is, rather than of that which is to come.
But we may, perhaps, rather take all these sayings regard-
ing the Word of God as applicable to the true and eternal
WoED. It is to content ourselves with too low a view, if we
restrict them to anything short of Him, See with respect to
this what is said in the Third Dissertation.
12 Who can tell how oft he offendeth : O cleanse
thou me from my secret faults.
Who indeed ? And the question carries us at once to the H"&o Vic-
greatest of all sins, and the prayer concerning it : " Fathee, s^'^Luke
forgive them, for they know not what they do." " Do thou xxiii. 34.
still," says one, " O gentle and patient Lamb of God, so plead
for us when we fall into any sin of ignorance ; when we for-
get Thee, do not forget us ; when we are in error, send out Marbodus
Thy light and Thy truth ; when we are in doubt, let us hear ^6'^°"-
a voice behind us : This is the way, walk ye in it." My se- isa. xxx. 21.
cret faults. And here they dwell on the tribunal of penitence,
when we ourselves are the accusers and ourselves the cul- Q.
Erits ; when we proclaim the most hidden thoughts of our
earts, in order that hereafter the Eternal Judge may not
say : " Thou didst it secretly, but I will proclaim it before 2 Sam. xii.
all Israel, and before this Sun." Cleanse Thou me, however 12.
bitter the medicine ; cleanse Thou me, however full of shame
the confession. Heal me, O Loed, and I shall be healed ;
save me, and I shall be saved ; for Thou art my praise. ^^^' ^^"" ^*"
13 Keep thy servant also from presumptuous sins,
lest they get the dominion over me : so shall I be
undefiled, and innocent from the great offence.
Here, again, the Vulgate widely diflfers from our transla-
tion. Cleanse Thou me from my secret faults, and preserve
Thy servant from the power of aliens. If they get not the
dominion over me, then shall I he undefiled. But if — to follow
our version — we cannot understand the countless faults into
which we daily fall, against this, at least, we can be on our
guard : against presumptuous sins : and more especially
against that habit of presumptuous sin, which has so fearful ^. Petr.
a tendency to terminate in the great offence. The great of- *"^'*^"*
fence : the sin against the Holt Ghost ; the sin unto death :
not any one particular offence, however mortal or enormous ;
not even wilful and deliberate apostasy, which some have
262
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Vieyra. Vol. imagined it, but, to use the terrible words of Vieyra, " that
iv. Serm. 1. most miserable estate of final impenitence, consummated in
the next life, but commenced in this. Oh, how many con-
demned souls," he continues, " are still living — are still
walking among us : not because, absolutely speaking, they
cannot, but because they will not be converted. They are
bound to the sins of which they have already filled up the
measure. Woe to them, says God, when I shall depart from
them. To this woe, infinite woes will respond through all
eternity : but woes of grief without repentance ; woes of tor-
ment without alleviation ; woes of despair without remedy."
And this is the great offence.
[They distinguish here, for the most part, between the
secret faults, which arise within man from original sin, and
the promptings of his lower nature, and the sins of others, the
suggestions of evil spirits or bad companions, external to the
soul, understanding delictis after the word alienis here in the
Vulgate. But in truth, hominibus is the lacking idea, and
modern critics, following Aben-Ezra, agree in translating
'^'^^'Ofrom the proud.~\
Hos. ix. 12.
S. Bruno
Carth.
S. Matt. xii.
33.
S. Luke vi.
44.
L.
G.
Z.
D.C.
14 Let the words of my mouth, and the medita-
tion of ray heart : be always acceptable in thy sight,
15 O Lord : my strength and my redeemer.
He begins with the fruit, the words of my mouth, and de-
scends to the root, the meditation of my heart. For it is
written, " Either make the tree good and his fruit good, or
else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt." And it is
singular that, as this connection between the words and the
thoughts follows in the Psalm the mention of the *' great
ofience," so that of the tree and its fruit immediately succeeds
in the Gospel to that saying concerning blasphemy against
the Holy Ghost. And thus the Psalm may well end : it
began by setting forth how " the heavens declare the glory
of God ;" it concludes by telling how we should make mani-
fest the same glory. It began by the perpetual succession of
nights and days, with their uninterrupted Benedicite ; it ends
with the supplication that our prayer may be always accept-
able : acceptable to Him Who is our Strength, now that He
has made us His own ; as He was our Redeemer, when we
were far ofi" from Him ; our Strength, to enable us to reach
the land that flowed with milk and honey, as our Redeemer
from the country of Egypt and the house of bondage.
[O, with what a thankful and devout mind ought every
Christian to chant this Psalm, wherein the foundations of the
Cliristian Faith are recorded, the preaching of the Apostles,
the Incarnation of the Wobd, the praise- of the Gospel Law,
the acknowledgment of our own frailty, and the cry tor divine
mercy, are wondrously contained !J
I
PSALM XX. 263
And therefore:
Gloiy be to the Fatheb, from Whom was the going forth
of the Sun ; and to the Son, Which cometh forth as a Bride-
groom out of His chamber : and to the Holy Ghost, the
spiritual heat, from which not anything is hid ;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be :
world without end. Amen.
Collects.
Most gracious God, TVTio didst proceed from the Virginal Ludoiph.
shrine to liberate us, and didst thus at length ascend to the
Bight Hand of the Fathee ; we beseech Thy boundless
mercy, that we, being converted to Thy law, illuminated by
Thy precepts, instructed by Thy testimonies, may be cleansed
from our secret faults, and delivered from our enemies.
Wholivest (5.)
Cleanse us, O Lord, from our secret faults, by purifying Mozarabic.
our conscience, which is stained with its own defilements ;
set free Thy servants also from the dominion of their ene-
mies, and forgive us those things which we have learnt by
the example of the wicked, or have done through the per-
suasion of evil counsellors ; that we, who confess Thee to be
our own Loed, may never again experience the domination
of sin. Amen. Through Thy mercy (11.)
O Thou Helper in tribulation and necessity ; O Thou, my Ambrosian.
Hedeemer, for that Thou hast redeemed me with Thy pre-
cious Blood ; Thou art the Helper of the human race, when
Thou causest us to draw near to Thee; Thou art our Ee-
deemer, for that, by Thy Passion and Resurrection, Thou
hast redeemed us from destruction. Grant that we, perpe-
tually walking in Thy law, may be guarded by Thee, for to
Thee, with the Fathee and the Holy Ghost, is the honour
and glory for ever, and to ages and ages. Amen.
[O LoBD, our Strength and our Redeemer, let Thy right I^- C.
statutes rejoice our hearts, cleanse our secret faults with the
grace of Thy Word, whereby we being purified from the
great offence, the meditation of our heart and the words of
our mouth may be acceptable in Thy sight. Through (1.)]
PSALM XX.
Argument.
Aeg. Thomas. That by the gift of Christ we rise and rejoice.
The Prophet exhorts him that worketh, and tells how we are set
free by the Passion. The Church applies it to Christ going to the
Cross.
264 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Ven. Bede. The Propliet, filled with the knowledge of the
future, prays that those prosperous events may happen to the Holy
Church, wliich he knows will be bestowed upon her by the Advent
of the LoED. At the opening he prays that the Church, wearied
with the storms of this world, may receive Christ the Lord. Next,
that the Lord may, of His love, confirm all her designs and her
true faith, and promises that the people shall be magnified, not by
worldly power, but by the Divine Arm.
Syeiac Psalter. Of David, when he prayed that he might
come safe out of the war with the Ammonites. To us now it is a
useful prayer.
Vaeiotjs Uses.
Ghregorian. Sunday : IIL Nocturn. [Corpus Christi : II. Noc-
tum.]
Monastic. Saturday : Prime.
Parisian. Thursday : Nocturns.
Lyons. Monday : Terce.
Ambrosian. Tuesday of the First Week : I. Nocturn.
I Quignon. Monday : Terce.
Eastern Church. Lauds : Daily.
Antiphons.
Gregorian. The Lord hear thee * in the day of trouble. [Cor-
pus Christi : The Lord remember our offering, and let our burnt-
sacrifice be fat.]
Mozarabic. The Name of the God of Jacob protect thee : send
thee help from the Sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Sion.
1 The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble : the
Name of the God of Jacob defend thee ;
Ay. The Church speaks to her Loed, going forth to His final
war, in the day of His trouble, — the day when the moon was
confounded and the sun ashamed, — the day of the Cross.
Where note : Christ, in the time of His Passion, offered a
threefold prayer : for Himself, for His disciples, and for His
S. Johnxvii. enemies ; and He was heard in all. For Himself: " Father,
*• the hour is come: glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may
Ps ii 8 8l<>^ify Thee :" and He was heard when the heathen began to
be given Him for an inheritance, and the uttermost parts of
the earth for His possession. For His disciples, when He
21", ° "^^' • said, •' That they all may be one :" and He was heard when
Acts iv. 32. " the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and
s. Lake one soul." For His enemies, when He said, " Father, for-
xxm. 34. give them, for they know not what they do:" and He was
Ps. ixviii. 18, heard, when " He received gifts for men, yea, even for His
enemies." The Name of God defend Thee : " for He said, I
am the Son of God." The Name of the God of Jacob : for
G. as Jacob prevailed over his brother by guile, and was right-
PSALM XX. 265
fully named a supplanter, so tlie Loed, by the depth of His
eternal counsel, confounded Satan,
And the multiform deceiver's Jh" Hymn?'
Art by art would overthrow. Pange
. lingua.
With such a prayer, with such a yearning, ardent wish, go
forth, O "Man of war," to Thy last battle! go forth, O
" Man of sorrows," to Thy last agony ! Never can conflict
be sorer ; never can necessity be more overwhelming : The
Lord hear Thee in the day of trouble : the Name of the God
of Jacob defend Thee !
2 Send thee help from the sanctuary : and
strengthen thee out of Sion j
Easy enough to take it in the sense in which they usually
understand it : that the Lord's help in that hour of darkness
still came from the Father, from Whom, not even in the
depth of His humiliation, was He severed. But then we
must go counter to the whole rule of the Psalms, by under-
standing Sion of the Heavenly Jerusalem. Therefore, best, L.
with other holy men, to take this help of the foreknowledge
which the Lord had that, by His bitter Death and Passion,
the foundation of that spiritual temple would be laid ; that,
not till the second Adam slept in death, could that dear Bride
be formed out of His wounded Side. Help, indeed, //-ow the A.
sanctuary : from the foresight of the innumerable souls to be
sanctified in that future Church, all then hanging on His vic-
tory ; all to be elect or reprobate, according as He won or
lost. Strength, indeed, out of Sion, when for no less a pur-
pose than this was that fearful battle waged : all His saints, ^^•
all His redeemed, His martyrs, His confessors, His virgins,
hanging on the result of that day.
3 Remember all thy offerings : and accept thy
burnt-sacrifice ;
All Thy offerings : the humiliation that brought Him from
heaven to earth ; the patient tabernacling in the womb of D. C.
the ever-Virgin ; the poor Nativity : the hard manger : ox
and ass for courtiers ; the weary flight into Egypt ; the poor
cottage in Nazareth ; the doing all good, and bearing all evil ;
the miracles, the sermons, the teachings; thejeerings; the
being called a man gluttonous and a wine-bibber, the friend
of publicans and sinners ; the attribution of His wondrous
deeds to Beelzebub. And accept Thy burnt sacrifice. As
every part of the victim was consumed in a burnt sacrifice, s. Petr.
so what limb, what sense of our dear Lord did not agonise Damiani.
in His Passion ? The thorny crown on His head ; the nails
in His hands and feet ; the reproaches that filled His ears ;
the gloating multitude on whom His dying gaze rested j the
N
266
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
G.
Isa. V. 4.
S. Bonaven-
tiira.
B.C.
S. Thom.
Aquin. De
Sac. Altar.
S. Alb. Mag.
S. Thomas
de Villa-
Nnva.
S. Luke xii.
50.
vinegar and the gall ; tlie evil odours of the hill of death and
corruption. The ploughers ploughed upon His back, and
made long furrows ; His most sacred Face was smitten, with
the palm of the hand, His Head with the reed. What could
have been done more for the vineyard that He did not do in
it ? So, what more could have been borne by the Vine, that
this dear Vine did not bear? Remember them now, O Fa-
ther ; call to mind, for us sinners, for us miserable sinners,
and for our salvation, all these offerings ; accept, instead of
our eternal punishment, who are guilty, Hia hur^it sacrifice.
Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth !
[And taking these words as spoken to the Church, as well
as to her Head, they remind us of that Holy Oblation of the
Eucharist, wherein the Passion is represented and pleaded,
acceptable to God, reverenced by Angels, adored by men,
because therein are the Soul of the Righteous, the Flesh of
the Most Pure, the Godhead of the Most High. This i&fat,
for it burns with the clear flame of love, warming our chill
souls ; it is moist, softening our dry hearts, and melting them
into tears, and joyful, making our faces to shine.]
4 Grant thee thy heart's desire
mind.
and fulfil all thy
The desire of that heart, the well of all pity and all love ;
the desire of that heart which for us was pierced with the
spear ; the desire, of which He said, " How am I straitened
till it be accomplished ?" Thy heart's desire. Not the cruel
malice of the Jews ; not the counsel of the Scribes and Pha-
risees ; but the eternal purpose, purposed before the world
began ; but the mystery hid from ages and from generations,
and only revealed on Calvary. And that not barely ; — as if
the desire granted, but that all ; the wish accomplished, but
that the outside. Fulfil all Thy mind. O Lord Jesu,
fulfil Thou all Thy mind in us ! Grant that we may stay for
nothing, fear nothing, shrink from nothing, be seduced by
nothing, be deceived by nothing, till we are both almost and
altogether such as Thou art, — especially in the bonds of Thy
love!
R. Petr. Da-
niiani :
Scrm.
Ixxxix.
Cant. 11. a.
5 ^Ve will rejoice in thy salvation, aud triumph in
the Name of the Lord our God : the Lord perform
all thy petitions.
Still the Church sits "under His shadow with great de-
light." And it is well said, " We will rejoice." She watches
by that agonised Form ; she sees the eyes filming over, and
the Face growing grey, and the Head bowed in death, and
for the present it is agony such as the world never knew
before, nor can know again ; but for all that, loe will rejoice :
wo see the joy ineffable of the ransomed souls, — we behold
PSALM XX. 267
the exceeding great multitude, which no man can number,
— we see the Church a glorious kingdom, and we will rejoice.
And triumph in the Name of the Lord our God. That Name
which was set up over the Cross : that Name which in the
hour of deepest humiliation asserted the title of a King ; of Ay.
uttermost dereliction, claimed the prerogatives of a Saviour
(for so is Jesus by interpretation ;) of being reckoned among
the transgressors, made mention of separation from sinners ;
of reproach and blasphemy, yet boasted of them that should
praise Him (" King of the Jews," " For he is not a Jew which
18 one outwardly," &c.) The Lord perform all Thy petitions.
That petition, "Father, forgive them !" that petition, " That l;Jff^^
where I am, there they may be also;" that petition, "That s. John'
they all may be one !" x^ii. 24,21.
[^Triumph. The A. V. here gives us the true meaning. In
the Name of our God we will set up our banners. What that
means we may learn from the old Crusading march :
Liffnum Crucis, Xl*®.,.
cs- T\ • Rhythm,
SignumDucis jj^„
Sequitur exercitus ; threnos
Quod non cessit, Jeremia.
Sed preecessit
In vi Sancti Spieitus.]
6 Now know I, that the Lord helpeth his Anointed,
and will hear him from his holy heaven : even with
the wholesome strength of his right hand.
It is said of the Resurrection, but said of the Ascension Cd.
also. The bursting of the bars of death has changed the title
that was on the Cross : now it is not only " the Saviour,"
but the " Anointed,"— anointed to be a triumphant King, as
well as an eternal Priest. Hitherto He has been heard from
earth ; henceforth He shall be heard from heaven, from His
heaven ; and because His, therefore ours. Hitherto He has
been heard from the mountain, from the sea shore, from the
Cross; henceforth He shall be heard from the Eight Hand
of the Father. Now the sufferings and humiliation of that
Ilight Hand have ended in its wholesome strength. " They Ps. xxii. 17.
pierced My hands and My feet" is now lost in the hymn of
triumph : " Thy Right Hand, O Lord, is become glorious in Ps. cxviii.
power : Thy Right Hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the ]^^; g^^"^-
enemy."
[Christ is called the Right Hand of the Father, because
the right hand is given as a pledge of peace, for it is stronger Auct. incert.
than the left, and he who gives it deprives himself thereby of
power to hurt. So when the Father gave us the Son, He
put away His chastisements from us, nay, for our greater
safety. He suffered that Right Hand of His to be nailed to
the Cross, so that It could not strike us sinners. When we
fear the anger of God, let us then seize hold of Christ, His
N JJ
268 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Eight Hand, and not let Him go. For then, if God should
strike us, it will be only with the left hand of temporal punish-
ments and deprivations, for in His left hand are riches and
Prov.iii. 16. iionour, but in His right hand length of days.]
7 Some put their trust in chariots^ and some in
horses : but we will remember the Name of the Lord
our God.
L. His Name, Who entering into Jerusalem, entered not with
the pomp of chariot and horse, but " on an ass, and a colt the
foal of an ass :" His Name, of Whom it is written, " The horse
Ex. XV. 21. and his rider hath He thrown into the sea." "Pharaoh's
Origen. chariots are cast into the E-ed Sea." " We," says Origen,
" who would rightly fight under the Loed Jesus, must ex-
tirpate all vices in ourselves ; and seizing the spiritual sword,
must hough (compare 2 Sam. viii. 4) that evil cavalry of
wickedness, and burn all the chariots, — that is, abolish all
pride and elation of soul, — so that, no longer trusting in
chariots and horses, we may invoke the Name of the Loed
our God." Rememher the Name : how it was set up over
the Head of the dying Son as the title of accusation : how it
is exalted to the Eight Hand of the Fathee as the title of all
glory.
8 They are brought down and fallen : but we are
risen, and stand upright.
L. Brought down, or bound :^ for what binds and fetters a man
more than sin ? Take it of the Jews, hound indeed in the
fetters of their own unbelief : brought down in that most ter-
Ay. rible of all terrible sins : brought down by their dispersion
through all the kingdoms of the earth ; brought down in being
the proverb of reproach, and the offscouring of all men to
this day. We, who are " sinners of the Gentiles," — we, once
Eph. ii. 12. "without Cheist, being aliens from the commonwealth of
Israel, and strangers to the covenant of promise, having no
hope," are risen : risen from hopelessness, risen from misery,
risen to Him Who, being lifted up on the Cross, was to draw
all men to Him ; and rising by His most dear and precious
Passion, by His continual and prevailing intercession stand
upright.
9 Save, Lord, and hear us, O King of heaven :
when we call upon thee.
The chariots and horses reminded us of the lowly entrance
Q into Jerusalem : here we call to mind the Sosanna of the
exulting crowd that attended it. But we call not on the
A. King of the Jews, but on the King of Heaven : we fall down,
' Ohligatif Vulgate ; ffweirodlaOria-ayj LXX.
PSALM XXI. 269
not before Him That was mounted on the ass, but before
"Him that rideth upon the Heavens." As S. Theodulph's Ps.ixviii.4.
hymn says :
Thou wast hastening to Thy Passion The Hymn,
When they poured their hymn of praise : Gloria, luus,
Thou art reigning in Thy glory, ^^ *"»'»••
When our melody we raise.
And therefore :
Glory be to the Father, Wbo hears us in the day of
trouble ; and to the Son, Whose Name defends us : and to
the Holy Ghost, in Whose salvation we will rejoice.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be :
world without end. Amen.
Collects.
Fulfil, O LoHD, our petitions, and accept us as a burnt- mdoiph.
offering well pleasing to Thee : that we, having overthrown
the chariots of our enemies, may rejoice in the protection of
Thy salvation. Through (5.)
Turn, we beseech Thee, O Loed, the sorrows of our hearts, Mozarabic.
which through fear of Thy judgments we make known unto
Thee, into joy and gladness : send us help from the sanc-
tuary, and accept our afflictions aa a sacrifice to Thee ; that
Thou mayest both breathe into our hearts such counsels as
shall please Thee, and fill our hands with the work which
Thou wilt reward. So grant our petitions, as to do away our
sins ; and give us entrance into that blessed place, where is
life without end. Amen. Through Thy mercy (11.)
[Hear us, O Lord, we beseech Thee, in the day of trouble, D. C.
and defend us from all evils, that risen, and standing up-
right, when our enemies are fallen, we may ever rejoice m
Thee, our Loed and God (1.)]
PSALM XXI.
Title. To the end : a Psalm of David. [To the Supreme : a
Psalm of David.]
Argument.
Aeg. Thomas. That Christ will cast the wicked to be consumed
in everlasting fire. The Prophet speaks to the Father concerning
Christ the King ; and of the kingdom of Christ, and the rejection
of the Jews.
Ven. Bede. This Psalm relates first to the Incarnation of the
Saviour, then to the deeds of His Godhead, that thou mayest openly
270
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
confess one and the same Christ to be the Son of the Virgin Mother
and of God the Father. In the first place the Prophet speaks to
the Father of the Lord's Incarnation ; in the next he describes
His divers virtues and glories ; and how, by His Passion, He hath
attained to the height of all honour. Then, turning to the Lord,
he asks, after the manner of a petitioner, that those things may take
place in the judgment vk^hich he knows will come to pass.
Syriac Ps alter, a petition for those things which may help
the just man.
VAEiors Uses.
Gregorian. Sunday : III. Nocturn. [Ascension Day : II. Noc-
turn. Exaltation of the Cross : II. Nocturn. Feast of Crown of
Thorns : II. Nocturn. Common of one Martyr : III. Nocturn.
Common of Confessors : III. Nocturn.]
Parisian. Wednesday : Sexts.
Lyons. Monday : II. Nocturn.
Ambrosian. Tuesday of the First Week : I. Nocturn.
Quignon. Tuesday : Tierce.
Eastern Church. Daily : Lauds.
Ay.
Ps, civ. 23.
z.
Sunday
of the
Ointment-
bearers :
Stlchera of
the Rcsur-
rectiuii.
Antiphons.
Gregorian. The King * shall rejoice in Thy strength, O Lord.
[Ascension Day : Be Thou exalted, Lord, in Thine own strength,
•we will sing and praise. Alleluia. Holy Cross : The King is ex-
alted on high, when the noble trophy of the Cross is adored by all
Christiars through the ages. Common of One Martyr : Thou hast
set, O Lord, upon his head a crown of precious stone. Common
of Confessors : He asked life of Thee, and Thou gavest it him, O
Lord. Glory and great worship hast Thou laid upon him. Thou
hast set upon his head a crown of precious stone.]
Mozarahic. Be Thou exalted, Lord, in Thine own strength.
1 The Kin^ shall rejoice in thy strength, O Lord :
exceeding glad shall he be of thy salvation.
Who is King but Christ, according to His Manhood?
The Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief shall not
always travel through the vale of Baca : shall not always be
despised and rejected of men : shall not always go on His
way weeping, and bearing forth good seed. This " Man"
also *' goeth forth to His work and to His labour until the
evening ;" but not beyond. Then shall come the time of joy ;
the exceeding gladness of that bursting the bars of the grave,
and by death crushing death. Of Thy salvation. " For Him
hath God raised up the third day ;" raised by Himself in so
far as He was God ; raised by the Father, in so far as He
was Man. Shall rejoice : shall he exceeding glad. " Re-
joice," exclaims the Eastern Church, " rejoice, O ye peoples,
and leap for joy ! The Angel hath rolled away the stone of
the cave ; he hath given us the glad tidings and hath said,—
Cheist hath arisen from the dead, the Savioub of the world,
PSALM XXI. 271
and hath filled all things with sweetness. Rejoice, O ye
peoples, and leap for joy !"
[Again, you may take it of the human nature of Cheist, s. Aib-Mag.
rejoicing in its hypostatic union with the Eternal Word, and ^- Bruno
glad at being the bringer of salvation to His brethren.] *^'^' •
2 Thou hast given him his heart's desire : and
hast not denied him the request of his lips.
That desire which led Him down from the songs of the B.
Angels to the blasphemies of Calvary : that heart's desire
which led to the piercing of His heart, the source of all love,
by the Centurion's spear : to which, and not to the earthly
anguish of mortal fever, holy men have not dreaded to refer
the words, " I thirst."
Jesu, wondrous to the last ! What was Thine intention ? The Hymn,
Thou wast silent of the Cross, but of thirst mad'st mention : Ccennm cum
Not that this Thou feltest more than Thy bitter tension ; duscipulis.
But that thirst Thou wouldst express for lost man's invention.
Request of His lips. The "Father, I will that they also s.Johnxvu.
whom Thou hast given Me may be with Me where I am, 24.
that they may behold My glory :" or, if we carry on our Ay.
thoughts from the Cross to the Throne, then the continual
request that those lips, " full of grace," and " blessed for Ps. xiv. 2,
ever," offer to the Father for us : Given to Him, indeed,
however much it seemed as if " all these things were against"
Him, as if the Prince of Life were subdued by the King of
Death, vet in and by all these sufferings, the desire of the
heart, the prayer of the lips, were being won. " Lord," ex- Saturday of
claims the Eastern Church, " though Thou wast presented *^^ Pascha:
before the tribunal, and judged by Pilate, yet wast Thou not the^Resur-
separated from the Throne, sitting there together with the rection.
Father; and arising from the dead. Thou didst free the
world from the slavery of an alien, gracious and merciful.
Lord, though the Jews laid Thee as dead in the sepulchre,
yet the soldiers guarded Thee as a sleeping monarch, and
sealed Thee as a treasure of Life with a seal."
[His heart's desire. For Himself, that petition which He s. Alb. Mag.
twice made, "Father, glorify Thy Name," "And now, Os. Johnxii.
Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self." For us, that '^^' ''''"• **•
He might not leave us even by His Ascension, but remain ^jjg doss,
with us sacramentally under the veils of Bread and Wine.
" With desire have I desired to eat this Passover with you," xiu"^
because, as is elsewhere written of Him, the Eternal Wis- prov.viii.
dom, " My delights are with the sons of men."] si.
3 For thou shalt prevent him with the blessings
of goodness : and shalt set a crown of pure gold upon
his head.
272
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
S. Bern.
Serm. 39.
Thou shalt prevent Him. S. Jerome takes this in the sense
s. Hieron. o^ those hlessings given by Cheist, and given to Cheist
before His Incarnation. " That is," says he, " long before,
when Melchisedec blessed Abraham ; and in all the other
benedictions which were in the times of the Patriarchs, and
until the Advent of Cheist, Cheist was blessed in them
before. Thou hast prevented Him with the hlessings of sweet-
ness. (Yulg.) The Jews offered Him vinegar and gall;
and when He had tasted thereof, He would not drink. He
tasted, because He underwent our death ; He would not
drink, because He remained not in the state of death." We
may also take these words of the servant as well as of the
Master, and understand them of prevenient grace. " For,"
says S, Bernard, " grace prevents, not only them that had no
merits, but them that had evil merits ; so that, while we are
yet children of wrath, and are working the works of death,
the thoughts that our Loed thinks towards us are thoughts
of peace, and not of bitterness ; and to us who do not even
pray to Him, but who are impenitent, — to us who do not in-
voke, but provoke, — to us who do not intercede, but recede,
He giveth the good Spirit, the Spirit of Life, the Spirit of
^y^ adoption." And hast set a crown of pure gold upon His head.
They fail not to remind us how often Cheist was crowned.
First, with a crown of flesh, at His Incarnation ; and of this
Cant, iii, 11. i* is ^^^^ Bernard understands that, " Go forth, O ye daughters
of Sion, and behold King Solomon with the crown wherewith
his mother crowned him." By His step-mother, the Syna-
gogue, He was crowned with a crown of thorns ; by His own
faithful people He is crowned with a crown of righteousness ;
and finally by His Fathee at the Ascension, He was crowned
with a crown of glory.
Signum prsefert victorise
Corona triumphalis :
Simul et excellentiae
Dignitatis regalis :
Sub umbra legis veteris
PrsBsignata per cidaris
Typum sacerdotalis.
Of pure gold : or, as the Vulgate has it, of precious stones.
That is, the multitude of the redeemed, each a gem more or
less bright, according to his greater or fewer merits, and,
Ay. brilliant above and iDcyond the rest, the twelve precious
stones of the Apostolic band, — not only the foundation stones
of New Jerusalem, but jewels in the diadem of its King.
And they also take it of the crown of righteousness laid up
for every one who shall have fought the good fight, finished
his course, kept the faith. Innocent III. will have it to con-
sist of seven precious stones : four corporeal gifts of the trans-
figured body, — agility, subtilty, impassibility, immortality, —
and three of the glorified spirit, — love, knowledge, happiness.
Vet. Brev.
Paris.
The Hymn,
Adest nova
solemnitaa.
PSALM XXI. 273
Others reckon up twelve ; explaining in this sense tlie twelve
stones of the breastplate, and those which S. John beheld in
the Apocalypse. Thus this crown, taken from the King of
the Children of Ammon (for no doubt the Psalm was com-
posed on that occasion,) and set upon David's head, is the de- 2 sam. xU.
light and teaching of the Church of God to all ages, — nay, ^^^
rather, beyond all ages.
4 He asked life of thee, and thou gavest him a long
life : even for ever and ever.
Literally, He asked life of Thee, for the child whom " the 2 Sam. xii.
LoED struck, that it was very sick :" and though not heard ^^'
with respect to that infant, he was heard with regard to him-
self : " the Lord also hath put away thy sin : thou shalt not 2^sam. xu.
die." But the literal sense is lost in the beauty of the mys-
tical signification. Se asked life of Thee, when He said, Ay.
" Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me." And s. Matt.
this is what S. Paul also tells us when it is written that " He ^^^'y^y
was heard in that He feared." And Thou gavest Sim a long
life : not only in Himself, according to His Manhood, as it is
written, " As the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He S.John v.
given to the Son, to have life in Himself;" but life also in ^^'
His followers : to whom, when their bodies were killed, the
enemy had nothing more that he could do : life, the true life,
after this valley of the shadow of death : life, the perfection
of life, even the Beatific Vision.
5 His honour is great in thy salvation : glory and
great worship shalt thou lay upon him.
We must understand it of the glory of the Ascension. ^y_
For though the Incarnation was glorious, and though the
glory of the conqueror was still further manifested in the Re-
surrection, yet not till that day when He had done with this
world for ever, and a cloud received Him out of sight of the
Apostles, did they understand fully what was that glory, —
the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father. Didymus oidymus.
well observes that the double repetition, Sis honour is great
— glory shalt Thou lay, answers exactly to that voice of the
Father, " I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again."
Shalt Thou lay upon Sim, as upon an immoveable founda-
tion ; causing Him to bear up, as it were, all the glory of His
Martyrs and His other servants, from S. Stephen to the end
of all things.
6 For thou shalt give him everlasting felicity : and
make him glad with the joy of thy countenance.
Or rather, as it is in the Vulgate, Thou shalt give Sim to q
he an everlasting benediction. And they compare very in-
geniously the blessing pronounced by God upon the first
N 3
274
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS,
Gen. ii. 28.
Adam, "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth
and subdue it." For though, while our Lord still dwelt in
this world, His time was not yet come, that the multitude
of the Gentiles should be converted to Him, and though
after His Ascension the number of the names together at
Jerusalem was but about a hundred and twenty, yet no
sooner had the Holy Ghost descended at the Day of Pente-
cost, than the preaching of the Gospel was indeed fruitful, and
the number of the faithful did indeed multiply ; than the Apos-
tles, by their labour and their blood, did subdue the earth.
Hugo Card, -p^^ jj^ indeed is the true Abraham, of whom it is written,
Gen. xii. 3. " In Thcc shall all families of the earth be blessed." Cardinal
Hugo understands it of the blessing that shall be pronounced,
— " Come, ye blessed of My Father :" and of this he sees a
type in the blessing pronounced by Isaac over Jacob, with
its twelve particulars : " particulars," says he, " which every
true blessing, more especially the great and final one, must
contain." I mark them for the reader's study : " See, the
smell of my son, is as (1) the smell of a field (2) which the
Lord hath blessed : therefore God give thee (3) of the dew
of heaven (4) and the fatness of the earth : (5) and plenty of
corn (6) and wine : (7) let people serve thee (8) and nations
bow down to thee : (9) be lord over thy brethren, (10) and let
thy mother's sons bow down to thee : (11) cursed is every one
that curseth thee, (12) and blessed is he that blesseth thee."
And make Him glad with the joy of Thy countenance. And
here, as the key-stone and essence of that everlasting felicity,
he speaks of the Beatific Vision. And so one of our poets
well writes :
S. Matt,
XXV. 34.
Gen. xxvii
27-
GUes
Fletcher :
Christ's
Triumph
after Death.
o.
In the midst of this city celestial,
Where the eternal temple should have rose,
Lightened the idea beatifical :
End and beginning of each thing that grows,
Whose self no end nor yet beginning knows :
That hath no eyes to see, nor ears to hear,
Yet sees and hears, and is all eye, all ear :
That nowhere is contained, and yet is everywhere.
7 And why? because the King putteth his trust
in the Lord : and in the mercy of the Most Highest
lie shall not miscarry.
The first Adam, placed in Paradise by the mercy of God,
lost it, almost as soon as he obtained it. The second Adam,
having won for Himself and for us, with His own Right Hand
and with His holy arm, a better Paradise, shall not miscarry.
Even as they, who shall once have been counted worthy to
enter into that place, shall no more be cast out. The King,
even when He held the reed for His sceptre, even when He
was invested with the purple robe for His royal garment,
even when He hung on the Cross, beneath the title of His ac-
PSALM XXI. 275
cusation, " the Kingf of the Jews," nevertheless put His trust
in the Loed ; nevertheless knew that the affliction which was
but for a moment, was working out for Him and for His a ^^°^-^^-^7-
far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Of the Most
Highest. This word is not. used here without a deep sense :
for the same expression, ]1 /Jt/ was first used by Melchisedec, L.
when he was blessing Abraham : and by him twice : " Blessed Gen.xiv.ig.
be Abraham of the Most High God ; and blessed be the Most
High God :" and therefore it was fit, that He Who on the
Cross was made a Priest after the order of Melchisedec,
should use the same phrase regarding His victory over that.
8 All thine enemies shall feel thy hand : thy right
hand shall find out them that hate thee.
" By the Hand of God," says S. Ambrose, " we understand s. Ambros,
His power of punishment. This Hand scourged the King of *" ^^*^™- ^7.
the Egyptians, by reason of his detention of Sarah. This
Hand overwhelmed the chariots and people of the Egyptians
in tlie deep of the Red Sea. This Hand phrensied the mind
of King Saul, so that he hated the grace of Him That would
have preserved him, so that he fell on his own sword, and
could not endure to survive his sons and his kingdom." As
before, we have the effect of our Lord's victory as regarded
His followers, so here we have its consequences as respects
His enemies. But others take the former part of the verse
in a happier sense, and say with Gerhohus, " O Lord Jesu,
let me, who going down from Jerusalem to Jericho have
fallen among thieves, — who from Thy son have become Thine G.
enemy, feel Thy hand of mercy and love : Thy hand, that
will pour in tiie wine of comfort, and the oil of pardon." Thy
Right Hand shall find out them that hate Thee. And why? J^nsenius.
Because they would never find Him out first : " I am found ^^^- ^^^' ^•
of them," says He, " that sought Me not." " I like it well,"
says Bishop Andrewes, " that it is written, * Then said Jesus ^j •^o^o*'^-
again. Peace be unto you :' for if we had had to wait till it
could have been said, * Then answered Jesus,' we might
have waited for ever, and never obtained His peace at all."
9 Thou shalt make them like a fiery oven in time
of thy wrath : the Lord shall destroy them in his
displeasure, and the fire shall consume them.
For when, in its fullest and most terrible meaning, His Ay.
Eight Hand shall have found out them that hate Him, then
shall be brought to pass that which is written, " Depart from s. Matt.
Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil *^^' '***
and his angels." But S. Jerome will take it in another sense,
and understands this fiery oven of the earnestness of true s. Hieron.
penitence : the oven presupposes the fire and the wood, and
they look back to the Lamb offered on Mount Calvary for a
276
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
The Rhythm
Homo Dki
ereatura.
burnt offering. But generally speaking, mediaeval writers
understand it of tlie pains of hell : which they here enumerate
and detail with a fulness of description that reminds one of
the paintings of those on the left hand, in the Great Doom
of medieval churches. But take it in the words of Dionysius
the Carthusian :
Ignis, frigus procellarum,
Sulphur, fetor tenebrarum,
Jugis luctus animarum,
Pars earum calicis.
Sempiterna mors, dracones,
Fames, demones, bufones,
Amarissimos agones
Superaddunt miseris.
Tot sunt loca tenebrosa,
Tot tormenta monstruosa,
Quot hsec terra spatiosa,
Atque visibilia.
Quamvis parum sint miranda ;
Nee ad ilia comparanda ;
Ista quippe enarranda,
Hsec indicibiha.
Ps. il. 2.
G.
S.Lukeiv.
29.
8. John X.
39 ; xi. 47.
S. Luke
xxiil. 24.
10 Their fruit shalt thou root out of the earth :
and their seed from among the children of men.
Their fruit. All their counsels, all their acts against the
righteous : all those times of which the wise man writes, " The
ungodly said, reasoning with themselves, but not aright ;" —
all their temporary victories, shalt Thou root out of the earth :
out of this earth, because even here, " the poor shall not al-
way be forgotten, — the patient abiding of the meek shall not
perish for ever," and much more out of that " new heavens
and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." From
among the children of men. They take it of the saints, be-
cause they have been renewed from that first nature which
they had as men, by that second and better principle infused
into them by Him who was truly the Son of Man.
11 For they intended mischief against thee : and
imagined such a device as they are not able to per-
form.
They intended mischief against Thee : when " the Kings
of the earth stood up, and the rulers took counsel together
against the Lobd and against His Anointed:" when they led
Him to the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, and
would have cast Him down headlong : when they took up
stones again to stone Him : when they took counsel against
Jesus to put Him to death : finally, when Pilate gave sen-
tence that it should be as they required. But we may take
PSALM XXI. 277
it in even a more comforting sense : that not against the
Saints in their several generations, — that not against us now,
does Satan intend mischief: but against the Saint of Saints,
the Author and Finisher of our salvation. " Saul, Saul, why Acts ix. 4.
persecutest thou Me ?" The Vulgate translates it, " They
declined their sins upon Thee ;" that is, they said, as the here-
tics of old, — " Why doth He yet find fault, for who hath re- Rom. ix. 19.
sisted His will ?" Or as Adam in the garden, " The woman Qg^. iii. 12.
whom Thou gavest to he with me, she gave me of the tree, and
I did eat." The same wicked reasoning which we have heard
far nearer our own days :
Can that oflFend great Nature's God
Which Nature's self inspires ?
12 Therefore shalt thou put them to flight : and
the strings of thy bow shalt thou make ready against
the face of them.
Nothing can be more different than the Vulgate rendering
of this verse : "Therefore Thou shalt turn them bach : in their
remnants Thou shalt make ready Thy countenance." It must
be confessed that the commentators seem hardly able to
make any sense out of that obscure translation. Thou shalt
put them to flight, or as others take it, " shall bow down their
backs to receive the yoke." The strings of Thy bote. Not
like the certain man who drew a bow at a venture, and smote 1 Kings xxii.
the King of Israel between the joints of his harness, but that 3^.
unerring aim which cannot be turned aside, and cannot miss :
TfAfiat yhp iraKal(paTOi dpoi iflschylus,
fiape7ai KaraWayai, Sept cont.
TCI 5' d\oa ir€\6(ifv^ oi) irapepxerai. ^ '
If there be any sense in the other reading, it is this : that ^y.
on the remnant, those who should turn to God out of the
mass of the Jewish nation and should be saved, on them He
should lift up the light of His Countenance ; them He should
prepare to receive His likeness here, and to be transfigured
to His glory hereafter.
IThou shalt turn them back from Thyself, to gaze instead A.
on those mere earthly things which they prefer, Thou shalt
make ready their countenance by suffering them to be so „ ... ^
blinded with their thought of the mere temporal kingdom of " ' ^^'
Israel, that kingdom which was but the leavings of Christ,
Who refused to be made a King, that they will become the
ready instruments of the Passion. His leavings in another C.
sense, as the mystery of salvation kept until the last time.
Yet again, the Jews not only suffered once, but their dis- Genebrar-
tant posterity, the leavings of God's vengeance, continued to dus.
feel His wrath. Origen sees here a promise of final restora-
tion. The sinners are turned back for a time, that they may
be corrected, but their countenance shall be prepared for that
278 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
origen. which remains, namely, to return to God. The true meaning
of the Hebrew ia, however, Thou shalt put them to flight,
but, even as they fly, Thine arrows shall not merely wound
their backs, but meet them in their faces also.]
13 Be thou exalted, Lord, in thine own strength :
so will we sing, and praise thy power.
G. For Thou art the Sun of [Righteousness, Who knowest Thy
time for rising as well as setting : Who when by Thy death
on the Cross Thou madest darkness that it was night, — then
all the beasts of the forest, — those evil spirits that sought the
destruction of man, — went abroad : the young lions, Satan
and his followers, strong as in renewed youth, roaring after
their prey, sought their meat from God : that is, by tearing
away His people from God's protection. These are the beasts
Dan. vii. 2, of which Daniel wrote : " I saw in my vision by night, and
behold the four winds of the heavens strove upon the great
sea, and four great beasts came up from the sea." But now
is the time, O Light, O Sun of our souls, to be exalted in
•^J' Thine own strength, that these may get them away together,
and lay them down in their dens. So will we sing and praise
Thy jpower, the power exerted around us to protect us from
our enemies, — the power exerted within us to guard us
against ourselves. Gerhohus concludes his comment with
some verses, which, though rude enough, are so beautiful
that I quote them here :
Redde tuam faciem, videant ut secula lumen,
Redde diem qui nos te moriente fugit.
Legibus inferni oppressis super astra meantem
Laudent rite Deum lux polus arva fretum.
Fiat festa dies toto venerabilis sevo :
Sedant letitise nubila tristitise.
Sitque dies pura, sit nunquam lux noeitura :
Noxia nox pereat : lumine cuncta cluant.
D. C. [And the Carthusian bids us note the fulfilment of this pro-
phecy in the fact that Christian hymnody and psalms begin
immediately after the Ascension of Christ, and the descent
of the Paraclete, never ceasing since throughout the ages.]
And therefore :
Glory be to the Father, Who preventeth the Son with
the blessings of goodness ; and to the Son, on Whose Head a
crown of pure gold is set; and to the Holy Ghost, the joy
of the Countenance of God.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be :
world without end. Amen.
Collects.
Ludoiph. Prevent us, O Lord, with the blessings of sweetness, and
fulfil our desires according to Thy will : that while we sing
PSALM XXII. 279
and praise Thy povrer, we may obtain a long life, even for
ever and ever. Through (1.)
Destroy the fruit of Thine enemies, O Lord, from the earth, Mozarabic.
and their seed from among the children of men, because they
will not confess Thee, the one Christ, Son of God and Son
of Man ; to the end that Thy Cross, which is to the Jews a
stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness, may direct
both those peoples to the rule of faith, and may join them
to Thee, to be crowned by Thine Hand for ever. Amen.
Through Thy mercy (11.)
O Lord, W ho dost vouchsafe to prevent us with the bless- Mozarabic.
ings of goodness, prevent us also with the blessings of sweet-
ness ; and as Thou givest temporal existence to all mortals,
so be Thou pleased to bestow on us eternal life. Amen.
Through Thy mercy (11.)
[Exalt us, O Lord, by the merits of strength, whereby we D. C.
may devoutly sing and praise Thy power, grant us to attain
everlasting felicit}', and to be made glad for evermore with
the joy of Thy countenance. Through (l.)J
PSALM XXII.
Having finished the first twenty Psalms, most of my feUow-com-
mentators take the opportunity of reviewing what they have already
done, and of asking wisdom and power to continue their work to the
end. None more beautifully than Gerhohus, who, in his dedication
here inserted to Everard, Arciibishop of Salzburg, and Gotteschalk,
Bishop of Frisingen, well expresses the feelings with which every
one should approach such a task as that which I have taken in hand ;
that he may not hj hia own fault explain ill, or do injustice to, those
words which have been daily, and daily will be to the end of time,
the especial delight and comfort of the Church militant.
Title. To the Chief Musician upon Aijeleth Shahar : a Psalm
of David.
In the Vulgate : To the end, for the morning undertaking : a
Psalm of David.
Most mediaeval writers : To the end, for the morning hind : a
Psalm of David.
Others : To the Supreme, in the midst of gloom.
In this variety of translations, it is better simply to give the mean-
hag proposed to each. The morning undertaking is explained of the
capture of our Lord in the morning by the Jews ; the commence-
ment of that Passion of which the Psalm treats. To this explana-
tion S. Ambrose and Cassiodorus refer. But the majority of the
Fathers understood it of the Resurrection, as having taken place
very early in the morning ; and to the Resurrection the end of the
Psalm certainly alludes. Those who translate,/br the morning hind,
naturally see in this huid the type of our Lord, hunted by His ene-
280 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
mies, driven into the snares, and so slain. The mediaeval catalogue
of the characteristics of the hind naturally led the authors of that
time to prefer this meaning. The last translation, if it may be al-
lowed, explains itself. The Chaldee paraphrase, varying from all
the others, interprets it, " Concerning the powerful oblation of the
perpetual morning :" which, at all events, affords a very beautiful
mystical interpretation : the powerful oblation being the never-failing
intercession of Him Who is indeed the everlasting Morning of His
people.
Abqtjment.
Aeg. Thomas. That Christ was pierced with nails, and that
over His garments they cast lots. The Voice of Christ when He
was suflPering in His Passion.
Ven. Bede. Through this whole Psalm the Lord Christ speak-
eth. But in its opening. He complaineth that He was forsaken by
the Father ; to the end, namely, that He might undertake His
Passion, according to the dispensation of God ; commending His
most powerful humility, brought to pass by the rejection of men,
My God, My God, look upon Me. Next, He prophesieth His Pas-
sion under divers types, beseeching that He may be delivered from
His raging enemies : Many bulls are come about Me. Thirdly, He
exhorteth Christians to praise the Lord, "Who in His Resurrection
looked upon the Catholic Church, lest if they heard of His Passion
only, the hearts of men should tremble.
EusEBius OF Cesarea. A prophecy of the Passion of Christ,
and of the vocation of the G-en tiles.
L. S. Jerome. The context of the whole Psalm sets forth Christ.
It is worthy of notice, that Theodore of Mopsuestia was con-
demned in the fifth CEcumenical Council, and in the Provincial
Synod of Rome under Vigilius, for asserting that tliis Psalm was to
be understood of David only, and had no direct reference to our
Lord : one of the few instances in which the Church has condemned
or asserted a particular explanation of a particular text of Scripture.
The most ancient explanations of the Jews themselves refer it to
Christ : and Rabbi Solomon says that the Messiah in the midst
of His sufferings would sing this Psalm aloud.
Various Uses.
Gregorian. Prime : originally on Sunday, now on Friday. [Good
Friday : I. Nocturn.]
Parisian. Friday : Nones. [Good Friday : I. Nocturn.]
Lyons. Friday : Sext. [Good Friday : I. Nocturn.]
Ambrosian. Tuesday of the First Week : II. Nocturn.
Quignon. Friday : Matins : I. Nocturn.
Eastern Church. Prime : Good Friday.
Benedictine. Sunday : Matins : I. Nocturn.
Antiphons.
Gregorian. Good Friday: They parted My garments among
them, and' for My vesture did they cast lots.
Parisian. Good Friday : They gaped upon Me with their
PSALM XXII. 281
mouths, as it were a ramping and a roaring lion : the council of the
wicked layeth siege against Me.
Mozarabic. My GoD, My God, look upon Me : why hast Thou
forsaken Me ?
1 My GoD^ my God, look upon me; why hast
thou forsaken me : and art so far from my health
and from the words of my complaint ?
There is a tradition that our Loed, hanging on the Cross,
began — as we know from the Gospels — this Psalm : and re-
peating it and those that follow, gave up His most blessed
Spirit when He came to the sixth verse of the 31st Psalm.
However that may be, by taking these first words on His
lips. He stamped the Psalm as belonging to Himself. We
may notice that the words, Looh upon Me, though in the
"Vulgate and in the Septuagint, are not in the Hebrew, and
are not quoted by our Lord. Why hast Thou forsaken Me ? j^^
Here we enter on one of the most difficult questions of Theo-
logy, how far, and in what sense, our Lord was forsaken by
the Father ; and how far, and in what sense, the Human
Nature was forsaken by, or separated from, the Word. The
doctors of the Church have laboured to explain what is per-
haps incomprehensible by the human understanding. S. Am-
brose—and he is followed by the Master of the Sentences —
explains these words in a sense which, if taken literally,
would lead on to the most dangerous errors : " The Man
Christ," says he, " thus exclaims when about to die by the
separation of the Divinity." On the contrary, the whole
Church agrees with the explanation of the Coptic Church,
towards the end of the Liturgy, " I believe, I believe, I be- Litnrg. s.
heve and confess to the last breath of my life, that His Di- Basil,
vinity was never separated from His Humanity, not even for
one hour, or for the twinkling of an eye." Others, as Vene-
rable Bede, will have it that our Lord spoke these words to
prove Himself true man, and to manifest that, as true man,
He had all the natural revulsion of man from death ; and that
He complains of being forsaken thus far, that the Divinity
did not exert itself to prevent the Humanity from dying.
Others, again, in a very forced sense, and among these is
Theophylact, suppose our Lord to have spoken in the person
of the Jews as being Himself one of that nation : forsaken,
indeed, by God as soon as they were guilty of the murder of
the Only -begotten Son. The Master of the Sentences, again,
proposes the explanation that our Lord merely spoke in a
general way, as being so forsaken by the Father as to be
delivered up into the hands of His enemies. But S. Jerome,
and after him Dionysius the Carthusian, seems to give the
truer meaning : that in the time of our Lord's Passion there
was no influx of consolation, either from His Father, nor on
the part of the Word, to the Human Nature of Christ. For,
282 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
as he savs, Christ suffered, the Word being quiescent;
which Word, however, was not idle, but was present to His
suffering- Human Nature, 80 consenting to the Passion, and
hypostatically supporting that nature. Scribanius beauti-
Scribanius ^^^V writes on this verse : " Who could believe it, unless the
Lord Himself said it? Who could believe that the Hea-
venly Father could forsake His Son, and so to speak, for-
sake Himself in His Son ? that this could have been endured
by that great love wherewith the Father loveth the Son?
or that for our sakes the Father could have forgotten the
Son, His only Son, God of God ? So that He seems to
have embraced us with greater love than His Son ; us His
sworn enemies, than the Son of the same Substance, and the
same Divinity with Himself. What can we repay for this
love ? Nay, rather, the Son willed to be forsaken by the Fa-
ther for our love : both that by this very forsakenness He
might merit that the Father should never forsake us, and
that He might make atonement for all the forsaking by which
we, prone to every kind of wickedness, have left the Father,
and have adhered to His most bitter enemy, the devil ; have
forsaken God our Maker, and enrolled ourselves among the
ranks with the foe of our salvation ; have forsaken the Lord
that would reward us, and joined ourselves to him that would
torment us body and soul for ever." And art so far from My
Tiealth and from the words of My complaint. Or, as it is in
the Vula^ate : Far off from My salvation are the words of My
s. John i. 29. sins. Eusebius says very well : '* As John said, * Behold the
2 Cor. V. 21. Lamb of God, Which taketh away the sins of the world ;' and
Gal. iii. 13. Paul, ' He made Him to be sin for us ;' and again, ' Christ
hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a
curse for us.' Therefore in like manner as, though He was
the fountain of righteousness. He took our sins upon Him-
self; and though He was the ocean of blessing, He endured
the malediction pronounced upon us, and bare the Cross, de-
spising the shame ; so likewise for us He speaks here. For
if He of His own accord endured the punishment destined
isa. liii. 5. to US, (for ' the chastisement of our peace was upon Him,' as
the Prophet speaks.) much more doth He here speak in our
person, and cry out, Far off from My salvation are the toords
of My sins. Look not, saith He, at the sins of man's nature,
Q.^ but give salvation on account of My sufferings." And Ger-
hohus speaks with equal beauty : " I, being a Man, owing
nothing to death, yet obedient to Thee Who art My God,
humbled Myself to death, even the death of the Cross. I,
twice humbled, — firstly, by being born and living in the
flesh ; secondly, by dying in the flesh,— say twice, My God,
My God, that Thou, in respect of two reasons, may est look
upon Me. Once, that Thou mayest raise Me up in the morn-
ing from simple death, that is, of the flesh alone ; secondly,
that Thou mayest raise up My members from the death of
their souls and bodies ; first destroying the death of their
J
PSALM XXII. 283
souls by the death of My Body, then restoring the life of
their bodies by My resurrection : so that, as soon as I shall
have died on this Cross, and the water and the Blood flowing
from My side shall exist as the material whence My Bride
shall be formed, immediately the faithful souls, whether in
this world or in Hades, may perceive that the door of life is
opened to them. And as a proof of this very thing, the soul
of the thief that confesses Me shall to-day be with Me in Pa-
radise ; and when I shall rise in the body, the First-begotten
of the dead, the door of the resurrection of the dead shall be
opened ; in proof whereof, many bodies of the Saints shall
rise with Me."
One thing more is to be observed. From these words
Calvin and other heretics have drawn an argument that there
was a moment when our Loed, hanging on the Cross, de-
spaired. Whereas S. Chrysostom very well shows that these
words, though words of agony, are also words of hope ; and
to this, he says, S. Paul might have referred, when he writes
that our LoBD made prayers and supplication with strong Heb, v. 7.
crying and tears to Him That was able to save Him from
death, and was heard in that He feared.
2 O my God, I cry iu the day-time, but thou hear-
est not : and in the night-season also I take no rest.
Or, as it is in the Vulgate, And in the night, and not to My
folly : that is, Though I seem not to be heard, yet am I not,
therefore, unreasonable in making My supplication. Lite-
rally, I cry in the day-time, when He uttered those words on
the Cross ; and in the night-season also He took no rest, in
the night of His Agony, in the night of His Betrayal, in the
night when He was set before Annas and Caiaphas. But
how could the Only-begotten Son cry, and the I^athee not
hear ? And they answer that the prayer of Chbist was two- ^y.
fold. The one kind proceeding from deliberate will and fore-
knowledge, and that was always heard ; as He saith Himself,
" And I knew that Thou hearest Me always :" the other pro- s. John xi.
ceeding from the affections and sensitive part of His human ^^'
nature, and that was not always heard, as when He prayed
that the chalice might pass from Him. The Master of the
Sentences will have it that Chbist is here speaking in the
person of His Church, who is not always heard in the sense
of her words, but is always heard in the sense of her mean- Lib. m. Dis-
ing. And not to My folly. S. Augustine explains this by ^'^^^^- ^7-
another example from Holy Scripture. " Paul," says he, Epist. 130,
"prayed that the thorn in his flesn might be removed, and fjjjy„^"°'
was not heard : but it was said to him, ' My grace is suflBcient
for thee, that My strength may be perfect in weakness.'
Heard, therefore, he was not, but it was not to his folly, but
to his wisdom : that man may understand that God is the
great Physician, and that tribulation is His medicine to sal-
284 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
vation, not His punishment to damnation. Under medical
treatment thou art burnt, thou art cut, thou criest out ; the
phjsiciap. hears not, so far as thy words are concerned, but
he does hear so far as thy health is concerned." One cannot
Cont. Marc, but wonder at the audacity of Tertullian, who, after laying
iv. 13. down the general truth that Christ is always heard by the
Fathee, proceeds to demonstrate it by this text amongst
others, reading it thus : " I cry in the day-time, aud Thou
hearest." S. Thomas Aquinas understands it to mean that
Cheist was heard for the predestiiiate, for whom He prayed
with that deliberate will which is always granted ; but not in
the same sense for those who are not predestinate, though
willing also, with a true and real will to save them, if they
would have accepted of His salvation. Bellarmine has hit
on a singular method of explanation : " I cry in the day-time
of life, that I may escape death, and Thou hearest not, because
that cup may not pass from Me : I cry in the night-time of
death, namely, that I may rise again, and that prayer is not
to My folly, because Thou wilt hear it." S. Gregory sums
Moral. Lib. up the lesson of the text very well. " Let no one, when he
xxvi.cap.19. js not instantly heard, believe that he is neglected by the
Divine care. For it often happens that our desires are heard
on this very account, because they are not granted at once ;
and that which we wish to be fulfilled instantly, sometimes
prospers the better for its very tardiness. Our cry is often
granted by means of its being delayed ; and when our peti-
tion seems on the surface neglected, it is fulfilled in the deep
root of our thought; just as the grain is compressed and
hardened by frost, and the longer it is in sprouting above the
earth, the larger is the crop which it brings forth. The labour
of the battle is protracted, that the crown of the victory may
be enriched. The Loed, when He hears not His own at
once, while He seems to repel them, attracts them. He cuts
off the diseased flesh with the knife of tribulation, and by the
very means of being deaf to the cries of the sick man, He is
bringing about the end of the sickness. Hence it is that the
prophet saith, I cry in the day-time, and Thou hearest not.
and in the night-season, and it is not to my folly."
3 And thou continuest lioly : O thou worship of
Israel.
Ay. The Prophet teaches that whether God seems, or seems
not, to hear. He is nevertheless always kind. Whether He
hears not Saints when they cry to Him, like Paul, He is in-
creasing their sanctity. Whether He hears the petition of
the Devil, as in the case of Job, He is adding to Job's reward.
O Thou worship of Israel. For Israel is by interpretation,
'* He that sees God." That is, the worship of those who see
His love, as well in His apparent neglect, as in His manifested
G. care. In the Vulgate it is, And Thou dtvellest in the holy
PSALM XXII. 285
place. Tliat is, chiefly and principally, in that holy temple
which the Jews destroyed, but which after three days was to
be raised again. And they draw a comparison between the
first and the Second Adam. The first Adam, in the Paradise
of pleasure, in the cool of the day, being called by God, was
silent : the Second Adam, on the Tree of Agony, in the heat
of the conflict, being forsaken by God, was not silent, but
praised Him. Eusebius also explains the Thou divellest in Eusebius.
the holy place, of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the
bodies of His servants. Justin Martyr, taking it as I just
now did, of our Loed Himself, understands the appellation
Israel of the same Loed, as if He said, " O Thou Whom I,
beyond all others, worship, because I, beyond all others,
know."
[O Thou toorship of Israel. The A. V. is better, Thou that De Muis.
inhahitest the praises of Israel, or, with modern critics, that
art throned amidst Israel's songs of praise. Uabbi Ezra
takes it of the Presence over the Ark of the Covenant. E.
Kimchi, far better, as an appeal to Him Who is faithful and
true. Whom Israel has so often before praised and blessed
for His help in need, to hearken yet again to the same hymns
and petitions.]
4 Our fathers hoped in thee : they trusted in thee,
and thou didst deliver them.
5 They called upon thee, and were holpen : they
put their trust in thee, and were not confounded.
It is the consolation which the Church stores up for the Preces
dying beds of her children. " Deliver, O Loed, the soul of Agoniz.
Thy servant, as Thou didst deliver Abraham from Ur of the
Chaldees : as Thou didst deliver Enoch and Elijah from the
common death of this world : as Thou didst deliver David
out of the hand of Goliath ; as Thou didst deliver the Three
Children from the burning fiery furnace ; as Thou didst de-
liver Susanna from a false accusation ; as Thou didst deliver
Thecla from the midst of her enemies." And it may well
comfort the death-bed of the servant since — as here — it com-
forted the death-bed of the Master. Thou didst deliver them, q.
but Thou wilt not deliver Me : nay rather. Thou didst de-
liver them because Thou wilt not deliver Me. And if others
of them were tortured, not accepting deliverance, it was
to this end, that they might obtain a better Resurrection: Heb. xi.35.
namely, Me Myself, Who am the Eesurrection and the Life ;
and Who now thus sufler, that I may open the way to My t
own and to their Eesurrection. In one sense, it has been
most truly observed, this Psalm speaks more clearly of our
Loed's human nature than do the Gospels themselves. In
the latter, our Loed never speaks of our Fathers, but of the
Fathers, or your Fathers : here, as not being ashamed to call
dion.
Serm. IV.
286 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
lis brethren, and to testify to His true humanity, it is, " Our
Fathers."
6 Biit as for me, I am a worm, and no man : a
very scorn of men, and the outcast of the people.
lam a worm. The metaphor has opened the door to all
the luxuriance of mediaeval symbolism.
The Hyron, The festal purple of the Lord, —
^vZ*-^''* It is no garment stately :
A vest, by very slaves abhorred,
The worm hath tinged it lately ;
" I am a worm," — of old said He ;
And what its toils have tinged, ye see.
Again, they see a type of our Lord in the worms which were
generated by the manna. So S. Ambrose : so, even more
boldly, llupert of Deutz. And so, in another sense, — a sense
ss.Statis ^^^^* ^° ^* ^^^^ length by S. Gregory in his Morals : The
in Exod. i6. humanity of our Lord was the bait which the spiritual Le-
viathan, Satan, swallowed, not seeing the hook of His Di-
vinity. And so Hildebert of Tours, in one of his epigrams,
says :
Turon**^^' Fisher the Father is : the world the sea,
His flesh the bait, the hook His Deity :
The line His Resurrection. Satan took
The proffered bait, and perished by the hook.
And still in another sense they apply that verse of Ha-
Hab. ii. 11. bakkuk, " The stone shall cry out of the wall, and the worm
out of the timber shall answer it :" the stone out of the wall,
L. being the Church ; the worm in the timber, Christ the
Lord : so S. Jerome. Some Commentators have abused this
passage, as well as the text in Isaiah, " He hath no form nor
comeliness," to prove that our Lord's human Body was des-
titute of all beauty : and accordingly, some medisBval paint-
ings so represent Him. But the almost unanimous voice of
the Church declares that the other text, " Thou art fairer than
Ps. xiv. 3. the children of men," is to be taken literally : and the earliest
representations of our Lord, (showing, at all events, a very
strong tradition,) and the letter of Lentulus (let whatever
D. C. weight be attached to it,) speak to the same point. A very
scorn of men. " See," exclaims Dionysius the Carthusian,
" see what was His contempt ; see what the Lord of Glory
bore, that His confusion, so painful to Himself, should be-
come our glory and celestial beatitude. For was He not the
s. John reproach of the people, when the Jews said to Pilate, ' Write
not the King of the Jews, but that He said, I am the King
of the Jews ?* Behold, O Christian, and consider in a faith-
ful heart what Christ the King of Glory endured for thee !
Unceasingly impress this thought on thy soul, as Christ
xk. 21.
PSALM xxir. 287
Himself exhorts thee in the Canticles, ' Set Me as a seal upon Cant. viii. 6.
thine heart.' "
7 All they that see me, laugh me to scorn : they
shoot out their lips, and shake their heads, saying,
8 He trusted in God, that he would deliver him :
let him deliver him, if he will have him.
It is marvellous that, with this Scripture before them, the
Jews could use the very same words which the Psalmist had
put into their mouths : an infatuation unparalleled, unless it
be by those in the present day, who railing, if not against
Chbist, at least against one of the greatest gifts of Cheist,
use the very words of His enemies, rebuked and disproved by
Himself, " Who can forgive sins but God only ?" But from s. Luke v.
the fact that the Jews did, in their blindness, thus fulfil this ^^"
prophecy, the Doctors of the Church gather, that no prophecy *
will be intelligible till the fact to which It refers is become
matter of history : that the Church will never be able to say,
^ow, at this moment, such a prediction is being fulfilled. In
fact that, in this sense also, " the Kingdom of God cometh s. Lukexvii.
not with observation." All they that see Me, for so it has ^o.
always been, with the reproach of the Cross : so, from the G.
time of S. Paul till now, the question has been asked : " If I ^^ ^ jj
preach Circumcision" — or whatever for the time being may
be the fashionable doctrine of the world — " why do I yet
Bufier persecution P then is the offence of the Cross ceased."
He trusted in God. He did indeed. *' I knew that Thou s. John xi.
hearest Me always :" " Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray s^^att
to My Fatheb, and He shall presently give Me more than xxvi. 53'.
twelve legions of angels ?" " I have a baptism to be baptized g* ^"''^ ^^•
with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplisned !"
But these new Chaldeans could find no fault against this true
Daniel, unless they found it concerning the law of His God. ^"' ^'" ^'
Let Him deliver Him, if He will have Him. And so from D. C.
that time to this, have persecutors defied the Saints of God,
or rather, the God of Saints : not knowing that a time will
come when He will deliver them out of the bondage of cor- Rom. vUi.
ruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God, will 21 .
have them in His own country, and His own city, in His own
Presence; will have them, as it is written; "My Fathee s. Johnx,
Which gave them Me is greater than all, and no man is ^^•
able to pluck them out of My Fathee's Hand :" will have
them so that the prophecy shall be fulfilled, " Then shall ^.^^ ^ ^
the righteous man stand in great boldness before the face
of such as have afflicted him, and made no account of his
labours."
9 But thou art he that took me out of my mother's
womb : thou wast my hope when I hanged yet upon
my mother's breasts.
288 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
10 I have been left unto thee ever since I was
born : thou art my God_, even from my mother's
womb.
Evangelic. There is a noble passage in Eusebius, in which he shows
Demonstrat. |]^g connection between our Lord's Incarnation and His Pas-
fin.' ' sion : that He might well comfort Himself while hanging on
the Cross by the remembrance that the very same body then
isa. Hi. 14. "marred more than any man, and His Form more than the
sons of men," was that which had been glorified by the Fa-
ther with such singular honour, when the Holt Ghost
came upon Mary, and the power of the Highest overshadowed
her : that this Body, therefore, though now so torn and so
mangled, as it had once been the wonder, so it would for ever
be the joy, of the Angels ; and having put on immortality,
would be the support of His faithful people to the end of
Epist. ad time. So also, though at less length, S. Augustine. I have
Honorat. j^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ Thee. S. Cyprian beautifully represents S.
. ypnan. j^^^y. ^^ offering our LoED, so to speak, on the Altar of the
Manger, (when, as it is written. She brought forth her first-
born Son, and laid Him in the manger,) both to the Father
and to men : to men, to work their will upon, — to reject,
scourge, crown with thorns, and crucify : to the Father, to
guard, console, and finally to make Him more than Conqueror.
Ay. And the Doctors of the Church find in these verses an argu-
A. ment both for the hypostatical union of the Word with the
Epist. 120, flesh, and also for the perpetual virginity of S. Mary. But
cap. 12. Thou. The Vulgate has. Because Thou : which they explain
to be our Lord's taking up, so to speak, the words of the
Jews, " He trusted in God," as if He said, " It is so, and it is
meet and right that it should be so, because," &c. With re-
ference to this passage, the Fathers dispute at great length,
and more especially Origen, S. Epiphanius, S. Chrysostom,
and S. Ambrose, as to the manner of Christ's birth : which,
however, cannot be better expressed than in those words of
S. Proclus : " Emmanuel opened the gates of nature as man,
but burst not the bars of Virginity as God. So was He born
The^'toc*"^ as He was conceived : without human passion He entered,
Horn. * without human corruption He came forth." Thou art my
God : or, as it is in the Vulgate, My Hope : which can only
be understood in an inferior and limited sense, and according
to our Lord's Manhood.
11 O go not from me, for trouble is hard at hand :
and there is none to help me.
j^j^ Trouble is hard at hand : that is, the last and secret part
of My Passion, My departure out of this world. And there
is none to help me. But why ? Because for the exceeding
s. Matt. great love He had to us, He refused their help. To Peter it
jcjtvi.52. was, "Put up again thy sword into its place." Of the
PSALM XXII. 289
angels ready to come to His assistance, He said, " How then s. Matt.
shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?" Or, xxvi. 54.
if we put these words into the mouth of the sinner : " I have
been left unto Thee ever since I was born," namely, born
again in Baptism, " Thou art My God, even from my mother's
womb," — that spiritual womb of the Church, namely, the
Font. O go not from me. " While," says Dionysius, " thou D. C.
sayest or hearest this, O sinner, lament in the bitterness of
thine heart that thou hast lost thy robe of innocence, that
thou hast returned from the laver of Baptism to thy wallow-
ing in the mire ; and pray that at last God would not go far
from thee, though thou hast gone so far from Him ; that thy
Fathek would bring forth tor thee. His prodigal son, the
first robe, and put it on thee." Trouble is hard at hand.
While we are beset with such enemies, the world, the flesh. Ay.
and the devil, there cannot be a moment in which we may
not so speak. And if, for a while it seems as though there
were none to helj), we have but to call to mind Him Who
thus speaks here, and Who says in another place, " I looked, j^^ jj^^^j ^
and there was none to help, and I wondered that there was
none to uphold ; therefore Mine own arm brought salvation
unto Me."
12 Many oxen are come about me : fat bulls of
Basan close me in on every side.
13 They gape upon me with their mouths : as it
were a ramping and roaring lion.
Here the Champion of the human race, like one of His own L.
martyrs in after years, is brought out on to the arena of His
sufferings. They understand the fat hulls, of Satan and his
hosts : the lions, in the next verse, of his ministers, the Jews,
and the Eoman soldiers, with their exclamations of " Crucify s. John xix.
Him ! Crucify Him ! If thou let this man go, thou art not 6. 12, 15.
Caesar's friend : we have no king but Csesar."
14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones
are out of joint : my heart also in the midst of my
body is even like melting wax.
I am poured out like unter. For water cleanses, and it is Ay.
written, " In that day," — namely, on that first Good Friday,
— "there shall be a Fountain opened," — as it was on the zech. xiu. 1.
Cross — " to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of
Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness." / am poured out Rup^r*^-
like water. For water fructifies ; and this is that river of Gen. u. 10.
which it is written, that it went out of Eden to water the
garden, the whole garden of Christ's Church. And in this
sense also we may understand that prophecy, " There," namely ]^^^- *'^^"''
upon the Cross, " the glorious Loed will be unto me a place
o
S.John xix.
34.
290 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
of broad rivers and streams." Where He names them twice,
rivers and streams, as if to signify their double virtue of
cleansing and fructifying. I am jpoured out like water. So
it was in the garden, when His sweat was as it were great
drops of blood falling down to the ground. So it was in the
Prsetorium, when the ploughers ploughed upon His back and
made long furrows. So it was on the Cross, when the soldier
with a spear pierced His side, and forthwith came thereout
blood and water. Wherefore, as the mediaeval hymn says :
The Hymn, Wherefore, sinner, haste to this Fountain of salvation :
dhci^uHs!"^ Life thou mayest draw therefrom, and illumination :
Cure thou mayest find for sin, — strength to meet temptation ;
Eefuge mayest thou gain against Satan's condemnation.
Rupert. Or we may take it in another sense, — ^that of the wise
2 Sam. xiv. woman of Tekoa : " I am poured out like water " that is, in
'^- the thought of my enemies I am utterly destroyed. " For
I^- we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground,
which cannot be gathered up again." " What marvel," asks
Serm. xv. in S. Bernard, " that the name of the Bridegroom should be as
Cant. ointment poured forth, when He Himself, for the greatness
of His love, was poured forth like water. " And in responding
to that love, they warn us not to be like David, who, when
the three mighties brought him the water of the well of Beth-
lehem, which was by the gate, poured it out upon the ground,
A. figuring thereby the wickedness of the Jews, who accounted
the Blood of the Covenant wherewith they were sprinkled, as
an unclean thing : but rather, if we are not privileged to re-
Heb. xii. 4. sist " unto blood, striving against sin," at all events to say
Jer. ix. 1. with Jeremiah, " O that my head were waters, and mine eyes
a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the
slain of the daughter of my people :" Slain, by their malice,
but slain to be our Atonement. And all my hones are out of
joint. Besides the literal sense of the tension and dislocation
A. of our Loed's members, when hanging on the Cross, they
Epist. 120, interpret it of the flight and dispersion of the Apostles, who
cap. 14. j^^y |.j.^jjy. |jg called the bones or chief supports of our Lord's
Body, the Church. In the literal meaning, these words have
given rise to some of those long and patient disquisitions
which have inquired into the component parts of the Cross,
and the nature of our Lord's suffering there. The Eastern
Church, as well as some particular Doctors of the West, has
always held that, besides the Cross and the nails, our
Lord was supported by a smaller transverse bar be-
Sec iRnatius ^^.^^^ His Feet ; and that in the convulsion of death,
of Veronej. this became slightly displaced, so as to present the
form which surmounts all Oriental churches.
. My heart also in the midst of My Body. And here, again,
passing by our Lord's own sufferings, they find a beautiful
mystical interpretation. The Body is Holy Scripture : the
heart signifies all things in Moses and the Prophets concern-
PSALM XXII. 291
ing Himself. And as wax, when melting, burns and gives
light, so by the Loed's Passion the obscurities of Holy Scrip-
ture were lighted up, and henceforth illuminated the Church.
"And if thus," says S. Bernard, " the heart of the Bridegroom s. Bernard.
was melted with the love of the Bride, what ought to be the ^^ ^*"^- '•
earnestness of her affection — what the fervour of her grati-
tude to Him ? If such be the cry of His sufferings, speaking Heb. xU. 24.
better things than that of Abel, how ought 'she to cry to Him
that she may not be deserted in her own passions, — that she
may be so counted worthy to abide with Him on the Cross,
that hereafter she may merit to claim the crown." Is even
like melting wax. Justin Martyr understands it of the Bloody
Sweat by which our Loed was bedewed as with water : Eu-
sebius, of the water and the blood that followed the Centu-
rion's spear : while S. Thomas refers more generally to the
saying of the wise woman, " We must needs die, and are 2 sam. xiv.
as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up 14.
again."
15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my
tongue cleaveth to my gums : and thou shalt bring
me into the dust of death.
S. Gregory, after S. Jerome and S. Augustine, understands s. Greg.
the verse singularly enough. " As," says he, " clay, when ^°'^*^-
exposed to the fire, is at first soft and yielding, but by the
heat of the furnace becomes hard and imperishable ; so our
Loed's human nature, from His birth, — in that He was very
man, — subject to corruption, became, by the virtue of His
Passion, incorruptible and impassible." Gerhohus finds a
similitude between our Loed in His Passion and Job, when (j
in the misery of his sickness, he took a potsherd to scrape
himself withal. " The furnace," says the wise man, " proveth eccIus.
the potter's vessel ; so is the trial of man." " In the lantern xxvii. s.
made of this potsherd," says S. Gregory, "is it that the Horn. 22, in
Church lights her candle, and cleansing her house, seeks dili- Evang.
gently for her lost children." My tongue cleaveth to My
gums : on account of His thirst on the Cross, says S. Atha-
nasius. That tongue might well be silent, cries Didymus,
when all the hearers had forsaken their Master and fled. L.
But let us rather take it of that silence at the Judgment-seat,
at which Pilate marvelled greatly ; that silence so long ago ^^^ ^...
foretold by the Prophet, when, as a sheep before her shearers
is dumb, so this Immaculate Lamb opened not His mouth.
And so the follower of Cheist must, though for a very dif- j. ^
ferent reason, imitate his Loed. " My tongue cleaveth to
my mouth," because from the barrenness of my soul and my
lack of grace, I have not a single word of consolation or doc-
trine, by which I may profit others. Wherefore the Loed
saith to Ezekiel, " I will make thy tongue cleave to the roof of Ezek. iii. 26.
thy mouth, that thou shalt be dumb, and shall not be to them
o 2
292 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
a reproval." O that He would rather cause me to say with
Isaiah, " The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the
learned, .that I should know how to speak a word in season
to him that is weary !" And Thou shalt bring me into the
dust of death. It is surprising how, not content with the
?lain meaning of our Loed's words, the same as in that other
._. 'salm, " I am counted as one of them who go down into the
■^- pit," they introduce so much besides of the circumstances
C. of our Loed's Passion. " Not death," says Cassiodorus, " but
the dust of death, — that is, the outward appearance of it, be-
cause His soul was not left in hell, neither did His flesh see
corruption." The dust of death : " that is," says S. Thomas,
L. " the vilest and most disgraceful death." The dust of death .-
" that is," explains Cajetan, " the multitude of the Jews, the
seed of Abraham, made like the dust of the earth, and cla-
mouring for His death." The dust of death. " He knoweth
whereof we are made ; He remembereth that we are but dust."
And this dust also He will remember on the third day ; will
Ps. xvj. 11. remember the many promises of the Old Testament, — " Thou
shalt not leave my soul in hell," — " After three days He will
revive us," and the like : will remember the many types,
Abraham lifting up his eyes on the third day, and seeing the
place of his deliverance ; Jonah, three days and three nights
m the whale's belly. Shalt bring me into the dust of death,
but shalt bring me forth again and exalt me to the Eight
Ay. Hand of the Fathee for ever and ever.
16 For many dogs are come about me : and the
council of the wicked layeth siege against me.
Not very long ago, we found these same enemies likened
j^„ to bees : " they came about me like bees :" bees that make
Ps. cxviii. honey, indeed, but not for themselves. Now, they are com-
12. pared to dogs, — dogs who keep watch, indeed, but not for
themselves. Just as the Jews kept strict watch over the
prophecies, that every tittle of them should be fulfilled ; when
unconscious of what they were doing, they uttered the very
words as they surrounded the Cross, which the Spieit of God
G. so many centuries before had put into their mouths. For this
Hind, — not as yet, according to the title of the Psalm, the
morning Hind, but rather the evening Hind, worn out and
exhausted by the fatigues of the day, was now surrounded by
Is. xhi. 1. these dogs. "The hart desireth the water-brooks," and so
this Hart said, " I thirst." Long before, He was weary when
He sat by the well, and said, " Give Me to drink :" now. He
was weary, even to death, but still athirst for that well of
water which should spring up to everlasting life. " It is not
meet to take the children's bread and to cast it to the dogs."
S. Matt. XV
26
Mark vii. And SO our Loed,-
Verus panis filiorum,
Factus cibus viatorum,
PSALM XXII. 293
became, as S. Peter Chrysologus well says, " A stone to them s. Pet.
instead of bread : a stone of stumbling, and a rock of oflPence." Chrysoiog.
The council of the wicked layeth siege against me. Literally ^^^^- ^^•
so, wlien in tbe morning the Chief Priests gathered a council g j^j^j^ ^^
together against Jesus. But another Council had been ga- 47.
thered before that, — those evil spirits who had in their infer-
nal conclave resolved on His death, not knowing that His
death was their own destruction. The wicked : with an em-
E basis beyond all others ; in like manner as we daily pray,
)eliver us from the evil*.
17 They pierced my hands and my feet, I may
tell all my bones : they stand staring and looking
upon me.
They pierced: the Latin is, they dug. And there seems a G.
peculiar propriety in this word when spoken of the true Vine :
" I am the True Vine, and My Father is the Husbandman." s. John
That Father Who first surrendered the well-beloved Son to ^^* *•
death, or else His enemies would have had no power to hurt
Him. Of that Body thus tilled, the Loed might well say,
" I gave a sweet smell like cinnamon, and as the fume of q^
frankincense in the tabernacle : as the vine brought I forth Ecciusixxiv.
pleasant savour, and my flowers are the fruit of honour and 15, 17.
riches." Of honour, when to the thief dying in misery and
shame there budded forth from those branches the promise, « r j^
" To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise." Of riches, xkiii. 43.
when to every human soul, wretched, and miserable, and
poor, and blind, and naked, that glorious declaration was
made once for all, " It is finished." And why does He only
mention His Hands and His Feet, and not His Side ? Be-
cause, says one. He suffered to leave us an example of pa- G.
tience. And patience is not exercised in a dead, but only in
a living body. My Rands and My Feet. And this double Ay.
wound was long ago, say the Doctors of the Church, pre-
figured by Moses when he smote the rock twice. Whence
the verses :
Bis silicem virga Dux percutit atque Propheta :
Ictio bina ducis sunt duo ligna crucis.
Pons est de petra populo datus absque metreta ;
Larga salus homini corpore de Domini.
Or Moses may stand as a type of the Father Himself, by
Whose permission it was that the Son thus suffered. " And
the rivers of the flood," that flowed from that double stroke, Ps. xlvi. 4.
" make glad the city of God," that city which has its double
wall of Jews and Gentiles. For before the Hands, and Feet, q^
and Side of Christ were opened. He was as it were " a spring cant.iv. 12.
shut up, a fountain sealed." This was the book sealed with
seven seals, which no man nor angel was found worthy to
open till thus opened by the spear : this is the Eock, the sa-
294
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Ludolph.
1 S. Pet. ii.
21.
Judges i. 15.
Rupert.
See Gretser.
lutary streams of which still follow the Loed's people, though
divided into seven rivers in the wilderness of this world, the
seven graces of the Holy Ghost. But as it has well been
said, not only did those wicked soldiers pierce the Loed's
Hands and Feet ; but at this time His own valiant soldiers
do the same thing, when they seek to investigate His actions
and His goings forth. Whence one of the most valiant of
them, by name Peter, says, " Cheist also suffered for us,
leaving an example that ye should follow His steps." They
pierce them still, when they endeatour to draw forth the
graces which flow thence : when like Achsah, the daughter of
Caleb, they ask for the nether springs and the upper springs :
the nether springs of sorrow for sin ; the upper springs of
tears of longing for the celestial country. This is to pierce
His Heart : when we utter those ejaculations. By Thy Na-
tivity, Good LoED, deliver us : By Thy Fasting and Temp-
tation, by Thine Agony and Bloody Sweat, Good Loed,
deliver us.
This clause has given occasion to the commentators to dis-
cuss all those questions connected with our Loed's Cruci-
fixion, which it has been the comfort and delight of those
who investigated His Passion to dwell upon. Thus, that He
was indeed nailed, and not merely tied to the Cross, as some
heretics have taught. For though it be true that the Jewish
custom was to fasten the malefactor with ropes, and not with
nails, yet our Loed was tried and condemned after the man-
ner of the Homans and not of the Jews. Catholic painters
have usually represented the thieves as tied ; but this is also
contrary to the fact that, in the invention of the Cross, no
difference was to be discovered between the three in this re-
spect. Again : by what law it was that our Loed suffered,
when the punishment of blasphemy of which He was accused,
was stoning, and not crucifixion. But here again, Pilate pro-
ceeded on the incidental charge of sedition: "Whosoever
maketh himself a king, speaketh against Caesar :" and for
this, by the E.oman law, the Cross was the punishment. —
Another, and that a more difficult question is : whether our
Loed was first nailed to the Cross, while it lay on the ground,
and then together with it erected : or whether it were first
set up, and our Savioue then fastened to it. The former
method has been usually received by the Church : and is
more especially defended by S. Jerome and S. Anselm. The
latter receives a certain degree of confirmation from the mys-
Cant. vii, 8. tical text, " I will go up to the Palm tree :" is expressly main-
tained by S. Hilary, by S. Gregory Nazianzen, and S. Bona-
ventura ; and it is clearly proved by Lipsius, that this was
the more ordinary Koman use. The point can never be cer-
tainly settled : though Gretser's authority, who is in favour
of the common opinion, ought to carry great weight ; and as
S. Bonaventura observes, it is easier and more convenient for
pious meditation to imagine that it was so. I put the revela-
S. John xix
12.
L.
PSALM XXII. 295
tion of S. Bridget, which represents the Cross as first erected,
out of the question : because Catholic doctors are all agreed
that, however beautiful and edifying such revelations are,
they are not to be adduced in support of, or against, any
historical fact : the so-called revelations of different Saints
sometimes contradicting each other. Another question is,
whether our Loed's Hands or Feet were first nailed to the
Cross : the Roman use was, to begin with the hands. Again,
another question which has been much debated, is, — whe-
ther three or four nails were employed. The weight of evi-
dence is in favour of three : though more than one learned
book has been written in defence of the other opinion. It is
a very ancient tradition that the nail which fastened our
Loed's Feet was driven in with thirty-six strokes of the ham-
mer. Though we are not immediately concerned with another
question on the words of the text, it may be well to observe,
that the title is usually held to have been also nailed on to
the Cross, and that the Cross itself was pierced with the
holes intended afterwards to receive the nails, before the
Crucifixion of the malefactor. We have already observed
that the Wound in our Loed's Side is not here mentioned :
nevertheless, let it be remembered, that all but universal tra-
dition represents it as inflicted on the right side. And these
are some few of the many considerations which holy men
have presented to us from : They pierced My Hands and My
Feet.
I may tell all My bones. For, as the First Adam by his q.^
fall, lost the robe of innocence, and thenceforth needed other
garments, so the Second Adam vouchsafed to be stripped of
His earthly vestments, to the end it might hereafter be said
to us, " Bring forth the first robe, and put it on him." They s. Luke xv.
counted all My hones, it ie in the Vulgate : in which there ^^•
seems a particular emphasis, as if to signify that not one of
all those bones was broken : as set forth so long before by
the Paschal Lamb, and foretold in another place by David :
" He keepeth all His bones, so that not one of them is broken." Ps. xxxiv,
Origeu relates that it was the custom among the Eomans to ^-^^^j. 35 j^^
strike the malefactors under the arm-pits, in order, by the s. Matt,
more violent dislocation of the shoulders, to hasten death : a
cruel mercy, which was denied to the greatest criminals : —
that Pilate, in compliance with the express request of the
Jews, forbad such a procedure in our Loed's case ; Who, in
order to show that He had power to lay down His life, as well
as to take it again, was notwithstanding pleased that His
most blessed soul should depart from the body long before
the usual time. The Chaldaic version reads. They beheld and
despised Me : and S. Matthew expressly relates that, " Sit- § -^^^^^
ting down, they watched Him there :" watched Him, no xxvu. 36.
doubt, for the purpose of reviling and insulting : but watched
Him also, lest, as He had so often miraculously escaped
from their power, He might do so once more, even from the
296 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Cross. I cannot better conclude this verse, than with the
-^- ^- beautiful words of Dionysius the Carthusian. " Thus speaks
Jer. XIV. 8. Jeremiah : ' O the Hope of Israel, the Saviour thereof in time
of trouble, why shouldest Thou be as a stranger in the land,
and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a
night.' O how notable and beautiful are these words of
blessed Jeremiah ! For in them it is most clearly manifested
that Chkist is true God and Man. For that He speaks of
God, Who by His Incarnation came into the world as a poor
wayfaring man, that which goes before clearly proves. ' O
the Hope of Israel, the Savioue thereof in time of tribula-
s. Matt. vUi. tion !' As a wayfaring man. For Cheist testifieth of Him-
s^Luke ix. ^^^^' ' The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have
5s. nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head.'
And the blessed Apostle, speaking concerning Cheist, ' For
our sakes,' says he, ' He was made poor, that we through
2 Cor. viii.9. His poverty might be rich.' Let us then, brethren, impress
firmly on our hearts the image of Jesus Crucified : let us fix
all His Passions indelibly in our minds, so that we may each
be able to say with the Apostle : ' I am crucified with Cheist ;
Gal. ii. 20. nevertheless, I live ; yet not I, but Cheist liveth in me/
There is no more efficacious method of conquering all temp-
tations— there is no more compendious way of gaining ail
virtues — than perpetually to contemplate, affectionately to
consider, diligently to wait upon, Cheist- hanging on the
Cross. For how can anything carnal delight him who ceaseth
not to meditate on the most bitter pains of Cheist That suf-
fered for him ? And how can he fail to love God, or to be
thankful to Cheist, who remembers that for his sins' sake
the Fathee spared not His own Son ; that for his sake the
Son was obedient to the Fathee, even unto death ?"
[And as the sufferings of the Head were continued in the
sorrows of His mystical Body, they take occasion to remind
us how the Apostles, His feet, beautiful upon the mountains,
carrying Him into many lands as they preached the gospel of
Ric Ham P^^^^' were pierced : Peter, Andrew, and Philip, like Him-
self, with the nails of the Cross, Thomas with a spear, and all
of them with one pang or another of martyrdom. Theii/ num-
bered all My hones (Vulg.) when they made out lists of
Christians in every city of the Empire, that they might drag
Eph. V. 30. before the tribunals them who were " members of His flesh
and His bones."]
18 They part my garments among them : and cast
lots upon my vesture.
And what those soldiers did then, the enemies of our Loed
do still. Instead of dividing His garments, they divide the
Scriptures : as when the Manicheans receive the JN^ew Testa-
ment and reject the Old ; or the Jews receive the Old, and
reject the New. Nay, worse than the quaternion who stood
PSALM XXII. 297
by the Cross, and who at least said of the seamless robe, " Let s. John xix.
us not rend it :" heretics and schismatics now tear that un- 24.
divided garment of Christ which is the Church. And it has G.
been ingeniously observed, that each of the Evangelists
speaks of our Lobd's vestment in diflferent terms, and in
those precise ones which represent the character of his own
Gospel. S. Matthew says, " They put on Him a scarlet s. Matt,
robe." Scarlet is the colour of love : that love which led our xxvii. 28.
Lord from heaven to earth by the long ladder of generation
which S. Matthew gives in his first chapter. S. Mark writes, ^ j^^rk xv.
" They clothed Him with purple." Purple is the royal 17.
colour : and the regal character of Christ is that which this
Evangelist principally keeps in view ; as the lion, his symbol,
is king among the beasts. S. Luke says, " They arrayed s. Luke
Him in a white robe:" white is the sacerdotal colour ; and xxiu. 11.
S. Luke principally sets before us our Lord's priestly cha-
racter ; whence also he is signified by the ox, the creature ap-
pointed for sacrifice. S. John once more speaks of purple: s. John xix.
as he also tells of our Lord's heavenly kingdom, as the eagle ^^
is king among the birds. It is worth while to observe, that
this verse shows the minuteness of meaning which the Psalms
possess. Did we not see by the fulfilment that each clause
has its own separate signification, we should be apt to ima-
gine that the two were merely a poetical parallelism to sig-
nify one and the same thing. The story is well known, that
when Arius, afterwards the celebrated heresiarch, had been
separated from the Church for some fault, and was refused
readmission — it then seemed harshly — by Peter, the Patri-
arch of Alexandria, he assigned as his reason for the severity,
that he had beheld our Lord, seated in majesty, but with
His garment torn ; and on inquiring, " Lord, who hath thus
rent Thy robe?" he received tor answer, " Arius." The text
is quoted by S. Matthew : though in some MSS. that verse ^x^f^as
is omitted. S. Peter Chrysologus well compares this casting ^ p^j.
of lots with that, in consequence of which the Lord's great chrysoiog.
type, Jonah, was cast into the sea. There is a strange tale Ay.
regarding the seamless coat, that it afterwards was purchased
by Pilate ; and that, in process of time, when tried before
the Emperor Tiberius for malpractices, he twice appeared in
it, and was acquitted : and the third time, appearing without
it, was condemned.^ Parez says very prettily, that this tunic parez.
fell to the lot of a Gentile soldier, to show that the faith of
Christ was henceforth to belong to the Gentile world. S.
Bernard says, that, as Adam lost the four garments of mercy, ^^^^^ j j^
truth, justice, and peace, so our Lord atoned for that loss Annunt.
by His own loss : but that the seamless vest represented that
image of God which was not destroyed even by the fall, but
still remains implanted in, and impressed on human nature,
even unregenerate. The word Mi/, — Mi/ garments, My ves-
^ " Non facile credo," says Lo- j and the writer would say the
rinus, referring to the tradition, | same thing.
o3
298 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
iure, — was once prominently brought forward in that long
and weary theological discussion on the poverty of Christ,
when, from the disputes among the Franciscans, the question
was agitated, whether our Lord had anything that He could
call His own. His garments having been thus parted, the
question has been discussed, even from the time of Justin
Martyr, what robes our Lord wore, after His resurrection.
The general opinion is, that they were then created.
jj 19 But be not thou far from me, O Lord : thou
art my succour, haste thee to help me.
The force is on the word me : for we now come to speak of
the Eesurrection. That resurrection which, in all the fol-
^ lowers of Christ, was to be deferred for so long and uncer-
""• tain a time ; but in Him was to be brought to pass on the
third day. Haste Thee to help Me ; and the prayer was in-
deed accomplished : for the three days and three nights were
so shortened, as scarcely to embrace half the time that the
words usually signify. Assume, as the tradition of the Church
teaches, that our Lord rose about one on the morning of the
Sunday, He lay in the grave but thirty-four hours. And
notice this : His prayer on the Cross, Haste Thee to help Me,
has been His Church's daily and hourly prayer from then till
now. O God, make speed to save us : O Lord, make haste
to help us.
The Hymn Surgit Christus e sepulchre,
Cedantjusk Solo Deitatis fiilcro
signa luctus. Nixus, dum humanitas
Superat miserias :
Ut nos surgeremus rei,
In humilitate Dei
Nobis est victoria. Alleluia.
20 Deliver my soul from the sword : my darling
from the power of the dog.
21 Save me from the lion^s mouth : thou hast
heard me also from among the horns of the unicorns.
L. He prays for the Head and the Body : the Head,— Him-
A. self, — Ml/ Soul : the Church, Mi/ darling. And how truly He
calls her by that name, unicam meam, My only one, as it is
in the Vulgate, let the whole Book of Canticles speak. " There
are threescore queens and fourscore concubines, and virgins
without number. My dove, my undefiled, is but one." One :
Je Uiiitat. for although, as S. Cyprian well says, she may be multiplied
in her branches, she remains one in her stem : though she
may be diversified in her rays, she continues one in her light.
And notice how here, as so often, that old argument is re-
peated : from past mercies to future deliverance : Save me
from the lion's mouth, because 2'hou hast heated me from among
Eccles.
PSALM XXII. 299
the unicorns. And from the less to the greater danger. It
is God's way of leading on His people. First, to run with
the footmen : then to contend with the chariots. Notice Jer. xii. 5.
also, that the same animals are made the types both of our
Lord and of His great adversary. There is the Lion of the
Tribe of Judah, as well as the lion that walketh about seeking
whom he may devour : there is the unicorn, like whom each
Christian is to be exalted, as well as the unicorn from whose
horn we are to be delivered. Save me from the lions mouth.
" O my God !" exclaims the Eastern Church ; " O Woed of Tnodion for
God ! O my only joy ! How can I endure to see Thee given *he Great
up to those lions of the Jews, to the perverse and crooked ^*^^**^-
nation, to the impure stream, out of a most holy source !
How can I endure, O Martyr of martyrs, to behold Thee
rent to pieces by their bloodthirsty jaws ; Thee, Who didst
choose them for Thy peculiar people, set at nought and re-
viled by them beyond all malefactors!" Others will take
the unicorn more especially to mean the Jews ; because its g g .
one horn signifies the one law given by Moses, its glory and Aste'!^'"*' °
its pride.
22 I will declare thy Name unto my brethren :
in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.
/ wiU declare Thy Name : as He did to S. Mary Magda- ^y^
lene in the garden of Joseph, to S. James, and again to S.
Peter, we know not where : to S. Luke and S. Cleophas, as
they went to Emmaus : to the ten, as they were gathered in
the large upper room : and finally, most gloriously of all, to
S. Thomas. And notice the force in the brethren. They
had denied Him, they had fled from Him, they had dis-
believed His resurrection, but they were His brethren still.
In the midst of the Church. This is one of the j)assages that
S. Augustine pursues with irresistible force against the Do- ^'
natists : according to whom, the words of David ought to
have been, *' in a corner of the Church :" as if the Bride of
the Lord was to be found in a few provinces of Africa
alone, instead of having dominion from sea to sea, and from
the flood unto the world's end. Dionysius, according to his
custom, applies that which is said of Christ to the followers
of Christ. In the midst of the congregation will I praise
Thee. I will not, says he, be ashamea of Thy Name be- j) q
fore men, lest Thou shouldest be ashamed of me before Thy
Father Which is in heaven. Some declare God's Name
with their lips, but not in their deeds, because they do not
that which they teach, and by the very fact of their thus
teaching, they are guilty of mortal sin, because, as far as in
them lies, they make void the intention of Holy Scripture,
and of its Author, the Holy Ghost. Others teach by their
good life and good reputation only, as monks : and those do
well and sufficiently, provided they are not bound to preach
300 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
with their lips : for if they are, then coines in that saying of
isa. ivi, 10. Isaiah, " They are dumb dogs, they cannot bark." And
others teach, both by word and by action : of whom God
saith to Daniel, " They that turn many to righteousness, shall
shine as the stars for ever and ever." In the midst of the
Church. Here we still have the Tree of Life in the midst of
the garden, — teaching them now by His Words, as before
He taught by His sufferings : the Tree of Life on either side
Rupert. of the river, the river of death ; healing the nations on this
side the river by His life-giving Wounds ; on the further and
immortal side of the stream, by His life-giving words.
23 O praise the Lord, ye that fear him : magnify
him, all ye of the seed of Jacobs and fear him^ all ye
seed of IsraeL
He speaks of the Church as a whole, in the first place j of
the Church in its two great component parts, in the second.
jj All ye that fear Him, whether Jews or Gentiles ; the seed of
Jacob, the Church of the Circumcision ; the seed of Israel,
the Church of the Gentiles. Or we may take it in a more
glorious sense ; the seed of Jacob ; the Church militant : for
-'^y- Jacob is by interpretation, " a supplanter ;" and her children
have to supplant the world, the flesh, and the devil. But
S.Bruno of Israel is by interpretation, "He that sees God:" and thup
Aste. ^|-jg happy estate of the Beatific Vision is expressed. Or we
maj'^ take both Jacob and Israel to set forth our Loed Him-
self: the one in His suffering, the other in His glorified life.
Fear Him. And here, again, the older Commentators are
full of denunciation of that servile fear which the laxity of
later ages has considered sufficient, when joined with absolu-
I^u_ tion, for the sinner's justification. "Not," says Ludolph,
" with servile fear, lest they should be punished : but with
the chaste fear of sons ; — that they may not be forsaken."
24< For he hath not despised nor abhorred the low-
estate of the poor : he hath not hid his face from
him, but when he called unto him_, he heard him.
Q^ ]N[^ot even when He was hanging on the Cross, so poor that
His last earthly possessions — His garments — had been taken
from Him ; so poor that He was soon about to be beholden
to the charity of Joseph of Arimathea for a place of burial.
And notice how, though at the beginning of the Psalm He
had complained that the poor was forgotten and despised,
My God, My God, why hast Thou for salcen Me? now, He seems
to correct Himself, and to confess that that forgetfulness was
Lu. only in appearance — only for a little moment. And what the
LoiJD here says, is but what is said over and over again by
EcciuB. < Jit' Holy Ghost. " The prayer of the humble pierceth the
*-N.vv. 17. clouds ; until it come nigh, he will not be comforted." " The
PSALM XXII. 301
poor crieth, and the Lord liearetli Mm." " Tlie Lord heareth ps. xxxiv. 6,
the poor." TJie low estate, or, as it is in the Vulgate, the Ps. ixix. 34.
prayer ; and the same Hebrew word may signify both, and
that very rightly ; as if we were never so likely to be heard,
as when in a loiv estate. It is a singular sense, in which S.
Albertus explains that verse in Tobit, " Turn not away thy
face from the poor man, and then the face of the Loed will
not be turned from thee," — that, if we would be heard by the ^ ^be^us
Father, we must keep our eyes steadfastly fixed on That
Poor Man, Who hung upon the Cross for our sakes.
25 My praise is of thee in the great congregation :
my vows will I perform in the sight of them that
fear him.
Where observe that, though after His resurrection the B.
number of the names together was only a hundred and
twenty, yet even already he speaks of the Great Congrega-
tion. My praise, and yet it shall be of Thee : hereby mar-
vellously illustrating His own words, " I and the Father are
one." My vows. The promise made before the world was,
that He would be incarnate for the sake of man : that He
would not only take our nature upon Himself, but would die
in it ; and on the Cross, in the sight of them that feared Him, Arnobius.
that Httle band amidst the multitude of revilers and bias- A.
phemers, those vows were accomplished. Here they take
occasion to argue whether our Lord took upon Himself the
three vows of the religious life. About poverty and chastity,
there is no question : the only discussion arises on the point,
whether He took the vow of obedience. And S. Thomas g|p[JJjJ*
teaches that He did not: because the vow of obedience. Quaes. *
properly speaking, has for its object a human creature : ixxxviu,
whereas our Lord neither owed nor could pay obedience to ^^' '^'
such an one. Others, again, urging that He was subject to
His parents, and obedient to the law, affirm that He also
took this vow. And notice the plural votes : the full mean-
ing of which we do not reach till the next verse. And to
that S. Augustine more especially refers it. " What are his
vows ? The sacrifice wliich he ofiered to God. Do you know A.
what sacrifice ? The faithful know what are His vows in the
sight of them that fear Him." Wherein He plainly hints at
the Blessed Eucharist, though in such a manner as not to ex-
plain it to the catechumens. And Ludolph does not forget Lu.
to remind us that what He did we must do likewise. " Better,"
says the Wise Man, " is it not to vow, than to vow, and not
to pay." But the baptismal vows by which all are bound,
must be not only in the sight of them that fear Sim, but in
the sight of, and notwithstanding, them that fear Him not :
as it is written, "Whosoever shall confess Me before men, s LukexU.
Him also shall the Son of Man confess before the Angels of ^
God."
303 A COMMENTARY ON THfi PSALMS.
26 The poor shall eat and be satisfied : they that
seek after the Lord shall praise him; your heart
shall live for ever.
And here we have the final and most glorious way in which
these vows were performed: for none ever commented on
this verse without referring it to the Holy Eucharist. Where
notice, it is not the rich, but the poor, that shalt so eat as to
be satisfied. " He hath filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich He hath sent empty away." Shall be satisfied,
partly and imperfectly here, for there is but one full satisfac-
tion ; and that not with our Loed under the form of bread
"• and wine. But, — " When I awake up after Thy likeness, I
shall be satisfied with it." And therefore it well follows : They
that seek after the Lord shall praise Sim. They that seek
after the Loed here, feeling after Him, as it were, in this Sa-
crament, shall praise Him : not interruptedly — not brokenly,
as here, — but with the fuU power of their heart, and of their
love, where it is written that " His servants shall serve Him."
^' Your heart. Or, as it is in the Vulgate, Their heart. He
Who is indeed the Heart of His people, dearer to them than
life itself, shall indeed live for ever when He has once burst
^- the bars of death. And then, as it is written, " Because I
live, ye shall live also." And again : if we take the words in
their more natural sense, there is no doubt a reference to the
connection between the reception of the Blessed Eucharist
and the Eesurrection. Hence, the Second Council of Nicsea
L. calls that Sacrament the symbol of the Resurrection : S. Ig-
Lib. iv. 34. natius, the remedy of immortality. And Irenseus argues at
length, against those who denied the Eesurrection, that the
body nourished by our Loed's Elesh and Blood, cannot finally
perish. Hence, holy men have discussed at great length the
method in which the Holy Eucharist can be said to be the
cause of the Eesurrection, when it is certain that they who
have never received it wiU equally rise. One pious opinion
is, that for them who have received it worthily, it will occa-
sion an additional aureole, as it were, of beauty and happiness
to the glorified body. None has written on this subject better
than Claude de Saintes.
27 All the ends of the world shall remember them-
selves, and be turned unto the Lord : and all the
kindreds of the nations shall worship before him.
. And why do they remember? Because the Loed turns
J* and looks upon them. They must remember Him before
tiiey can remember themselves : it must be His love that
draws them to look to Him. Whence it is well said : Not
shall turn, but shall he turned unto the Lord. Ltememher.
Because, indeed, they had forgotten Him ; how widely they
B. had wandered from Him, S. Paul sets forth to us in that
J
PSALM XXII. 303
awful chapter where he tells us that even the Gentiles are Rom. i. 20.
without excuse. It is the same prophecy that we read in
Zechariah : " They shall remember Me from afar, and shall be Zech. x. 9.
turned unto Me !" The same exhortation which is given by
Jeremiah : " Eemember the Lobd afar off, and let Jerusalem jer, u. 50,
come into your mind." Whence Euthymius very justly ar- ^
gues, that the knowledge of God, though hidden from, and
clouded over, amongst the Gentiles, yet nevertheless exists,
even among them : it is a thing which has to be recovered,
not to be recreated. " The Gentiles," says S. Augustine, " had p^ Trinitat.
not so forgotten God, as not to be able, by an effort of re- xiv. 13.
collection, to remember Him. In forgetting God, they for-
gat, as it were, their own life, and turned themselves towards
death : When they shall remember God, it will be a return
to the remembrance of life, yea, rather, to life itself." The
same Father pushes the Donatists hard with this text ; that
it is all the ends of the earth, not Africa alone, that is to be-
long to God. S. Jerome has a singular mystical interpreta- in isa. cap.
tion : " The ends of the earth," says he, " are its highest ^^•
parts, as the circumference of a wheel may be said to be higher
than its centre." Of these high ones — these proud hearts — it
was once written, " As for the proud. He beholdeth them afar Ps. cxxxviu.
off:" but now, even they, too, shall remember themselves. ^•
All the kindreds of the nations: because henceforth there
shall be neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female, but
Christ shall be all and in all : because in that eternal mar-
riage supper, the banquet will not be set on for our true
Joseph by Himself, and for His brethren by themselves, and Gen. xiui.
for them that did eat with them by themselves, but the whole ^^"
family of heaven and earth shall sit down together at the
celestial table. Shall remember themselves. S. Albertus in-
geniously connects this with the prophecy in the preceding S- Albertus
verse, of the Blessed Eucharist, by reminding us of our Lord's ^'
injunction, " This do in remembrance of Me." Shall worship
before Him. Where ? In the true Galilee, where He has
appointed His disciples hereafter to meet Him.
Jesus amantibus afferet omnibus alta trophsea : Bernard.
Jesus amabitur, atque videbitur in Galileea.
Clou.
The ends of the earth. Once more ; Hugh of S. Victor would » ^°^-
refer this to the Blessed Eucharist, because to those who re-
ceive it worthily, all earthly things have an end, and heaven
is already begun.
28 For the kingdom is the Lord's : and he is tlie
governor among the people.
Where notice : he saith not. Shall be the Lord's : though
that also : as it is written : " The earth shall be full of the isa. xi.
knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea ;" but
**, — is at this moment,— w, though Satan may be called
304 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
the Prince of the Power of the Air : is, though His citizens
hate Him and say, We will not have this man to reign
s. Albert. M. over US. And so our Lord Himself says, "Now is," not,
s. Johnxii. Now shall be, "the judgment of this world." Thou there-
^** fore, O Christian, though that banner of the Cross seem
for a while overthrown, though that golden sceptre be for a
time disregarded, take comfort in this, that, notwithstanding
all, the kingdom is the Lord's ; that every suffering He calls
thee to endure, is winning it for, and confirming it to, Him :
and that, as the kingdom of the earth belongs now to the
-pv p Head, so shall the kingdom of heaven ere long belong to the
* ' members. And He is the Governor among the people. Yes.
Although they may say, as once of old, " We have no king
(^ but Cffisar," it is to David that the Lokd sware and will not
Ps. cxxxii. repent, " Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne."
12. Observe further, by the Kingdom, we may understand that
■^J' of the Jews ; by the People, the Church of the Gentiles.
29 All such as be fat upon earth : have eaten and
worshipped.
Thus it must be when " the Kingdom is the Lord's :" that
not only His real servants, those who are poor in spirit, and
p_ heirs not of this world, but of heaven, but all such as are fat
upon earth also, shall eat of that blessed Sacrament, and shall
pay external worship. Before, it was said that " the poor
^' shall eat and be satisfied :" here, it is said that the rich shall
^- eat, but not that " they shall be satisfied." In this sense,
^' the meaning would be the same with that saying, " Behold,
isa. ixv. 13. My servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry : behold. My
So the Greek servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty." Others take it
Coramenta- to mean, that they who were once poor, shall, by feeding on
raiiyf^"^ tliis Blessed Sacrament, become /a^ upon earth : that is, have
an antepast of heaven, even here. From the former, which
is probably the true signification, the Gloss collects that sin-
ners are not to be repelled from the Sacrament, if they choose
to present themselves to receive it : though S. Thomas warns
us that public s-inners do not come under this rule. Notice
further the argument to be drawn from this verse for the
adoration of the Sacrament : have eaten and worshipped.
30 All they that go down into the dust shall kneel
before him : and no man hath quickened his own soul.
Here the Vulgate translation is entirely different. In his
Presence shall all fall that descend into the earth, and my
soul shall live to Him. Here, they say, is the punishment of
those who have worshipped with this external worship : when
they stand before His Presence at the Last Day, they sliall
80 fall as to descend into the earth : that is, shall receive the
L. portion of those that are at the left hand. Contrasted with
PSALM XXII. 305
this, IMy soul, says David, speaking in the person of God's
true servants, liveth (Vulg. shall live) to Him. Tlii8 meaning,
however, is merely elicited by_ a supposed reading of the LXX.
iT.n^ T} ^lL*^y\_ for n;n ^h ^^^'l\ The Prayer Book
Version, No man hath quickened his own soul, is without
ancient authority of any kind. Of the Bible translation, that
None can keep alive his own soul, the same thing may be said.
A meaning which may be got out of the Hebrew, And shall
revive without strength, agrees sufficiently well with the ge-
neral idea presented by the Yulgate. These, the " fat upon
earth," who have worshipped with their lips and outward
gestures, while their hearts were far from Him, shall revive
indeed, because the bad, as well as the good, shall awake at
the general resurrection : but it shall be without strength^
that is, without the strength and beauty, and glory of eternal
life. Or you may take it: Shall awake, not by their own
strength, but by the Almighty Power of God, and at the voice
of the Archangel. [The true sense of this difficult passage
seems to be. And he tcho cannot prolong his own life, i.e. who
is at the point of death, shall serve Thee, as well as the rich,
who diVefat, and the poor, brought by misery into the dust,
and thus all classes of men are included.]
31 My seed shall serve him : they shall be counted
unto the Lord for a generation.
32 They shall come^ and the heavens sliall declare
his righteousness : unto a people that shall be born,
"whom the Lord hath made.
Here again, the Vulgate differs widely : My seed shall
serve Him : the generation that is to come shall be announced
to the Lord. But notwithstanding this false worship. My
seed, the children who sprang from My sufferings on the ^J-
Cross shall serve Him ; and as one after another, forsaking
his old superstitions, joins himself to the Lord's people, they
hall be announced to tlie Loud for a generation. It is the
•ame thing that is elsewhere prophesied : " Of Sion it shall be
reported that he," that is, that this and that man, " was Ps.lxxxvU.
born in her." And the heavens shall declare His righteous-
ness. Firstly and literally, by the glorious appearance and
order of the stars ; then, at the end of the world, when the
heavens being on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements
shall melt with fervent heat, and the Lord's promises of j^^
coming again shall be made good, and thus His righteousness
declared. Or, to take it in the mystical sense : The heavens,
that is, as we saw when considering the 19th Psalm, the
Apostles, shall declare His righteousness (and notice that it
is exactly the same expression' that S. Paul uses, " to declare, j^^^ ^ 26.
I say, at this time. His righteousness,") to a people that shall
he horn, that is, to the Church, not yet in existence : but,—
306
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
and the change of tense is well worthy of observation, which
the Lord Hath made. Not yet in actual existence, but written
Acts XV. 18. in that book of Predestination, of which it is said, " Known
unto God are all His works, from the beginning of the
world."
And thus we finish this marvellous Psalm : the clearest
prophecy ever delivered: the first open Revelation of the
And therefore :
Glory be to the Father, to whom all the ends of the woi^ld,
when they remember themselves, shall turn ; and to the Son,
^ho hath made the people that shall be born; and to the
Holt Ghost, the Governor among the people.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be :
world without end. Amen.
Ludolph.
MSS. Tho-
mas.
Mozarabic,
Passiontide.
Mozarabic,
Passiontide,
Mozarabic,
for unbe-
lievers.
Collects.
God, That art the Source of mercy, Who for us didst de-
scend into the womb of the Virgin ; wast nailed to the Cross ;
didst behold Thy garments divided ; didst rise Victor from
Hell; we beseech Thee that Thou, remembering this Thy
conversation amongst us, wouldst free Thy people from the
mouth of the lion, as Thou didst once deliver their fathers
that hoped in Thee. Who livest.
O Lord God, Who, when our fathers cried unto Thee,
didst set them free, when they trusted in Thee didst save
them ; we pray and beseech Thee not to be far from us, but
to haste to our defence, and to save us from the mouth of the
lion. Through (1.)
O Christ, Who didst exclaim from the Cross to the Fa-
ther, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?
Who by Thy Cross didst redeem lost man, and didst give
Satan to be bound in eternal chains : we beseech Thy mercy
that us, who believe in Thee, Thou wouldst never forsake ; us,
who confide in Thee, Thou wouldst never repel ; but that
when we cry in the day time Thou wouldst hear, and in the
night-season also Thou wouldst receive our prayer. (11.)
O Shepherd of souls. Lord Jesu Christ, look graciously
to the defence of Thy Church ; deliver us of Thy mercy from
the mouth of the lion. Thou Whose own soul was delivered
from the power of the dog. (11.)
O Christ, Who didst leave the synagogue on account of
its incredulity, and didst gather together Thy Church out of
an innumerable company of all nations, thus accomplishing
the prophecy that all the ends of the world shall remember
themselves and be turned to the Lord, and all the kindreds
of the nations shall worship before Him : raise up children
of belief from the circumcision, that they who come may be
received to the kingdom of faith, and that they who have
been received, may not, through any sin, be deprived of Thine
heritage. (11.)
PSALM XXI II.
307
[O God the Father Almighty, Who didst will to send Thy
Son our Lord Jesus Christ into the world for His Passion,
and to call back man to the kingdom of heaven, who had
been tempted by the fruit of the forbidden tree, and cast out of
the bliss of Paradise, look upon us who cry unto Thee, deliver
us from words of sin, and save us who trust in Thee for ever-
more. Through the same (2.)]
D. C,
PSALM XXIII,
Title. A Psalm of David.
Argument.
Aeg. Thomas. That Christ prepares for His Church eternal
pastures. Before Baptism. The voice of the Church after Bap-
tism. To be read with Esther.'
Ven. Bede, Through the whole Psalm the Christian regenerate
in Baptism speaks, and renders thanks that he has been brought
from the barrenness of sin into a green pasture and the still waters.
And notice that, as before, in Psalm xv., he had received the Deca-
logue of the Law, thus he here rejoices in ten blessings.
Eusebius of C^saeea. The doctrine and the first institution
of the new people.
S. Athanasius. a Psalm of boasting in the Lord.
Various Uses.
Oregorian. Ferial : formerly Sunday, now Thursday : Prime.
[Corpus Christi : II. Noctum. Office of the Dead : II. Nocturn.]
Monastic. Thursday : Sunday : I. Nocturn.
Parisian. Thursday : Sexts.
Lyons. Wednesday : Sexts.
Ambrosian. Tuesday of the First Week : II. Nocturn.
Quignon. Monday : Prime.
Antiphons.
Gregorian. [Corpus Christi : The table of the Lord is prepared
for us against all them that trouble us. Office of the Dead : He
shall feed me in a green pasture.]
Monastic. The Lord governs me, and nought shall be lacking
to me : He set me there in a place of pasture.
Ambrosian. My God, My God, look upon me. K. K. K,
Mozarabic. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death, I will fear no evil : for Thou God art with me.
' Compare Esther iii. 13, with
viii. 17 ; and both with " Thou
shalt prepare a table before Me
against them that trouble Me."
Or it may be taken of Haman's
banquet.
308 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
1 The Lord is my shepherd : therefore can I lack
nothing.
s. Alb. Mag. In the last Psalm we heard of the Passion of Cheist : now
we hear of the effects of that Passion. It was because He
stood in need of everything, that we lack nothing. And take
it either way, both are beautiful : The Lord is my Shepherd^
so our version ; The Lord governs me, so the Vulgate. And
think of the Psalm first of all as uttered by David long before
his combat with Goliath, " as he was following the ewes great
with young ones." What he then said in the ignorance and
simplicity of his pastoral life, that he found true through his
persecutions, through his wars, through all his troubles to
the very end. These are nearly the first words of David : and
among the last words of David are, " Yet hath He made with
me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure."
-p. p But it is in two different ways that those two different fami-
^' ^' lies — the " travellers," to use the mediseval expression, and
" they that have comprehended," — are to use this verse.
Our Shepherd — we, the travellers — our Shepherd putteth
forth His own sheep into all kinds of dangers, by the lions'
dens, by the mountains of the leopards ; and though wherever
He putteth them forth. He Himself, according to His own
most sweet promise, has been before them, yet they have to
wander in wastes and wilds, far away from the comfort and
safeguard of any visible fold. But with them the more beau-
tiful flocks that feed upon the celestial mountains, the Lord
is their Shepherd too : He has brought them home from the
isa. XXXV. 9. danger of wild beasts, as it is written, " No lion shall be
there, neither shall any ravenous beast go up thereon :" He
has brought them out of the very sound of their voices ; He
Isa. xxxiii. ]2as brought them into that fold, not one of the stakes whereof
shall ever be removed. And yet both they and we may say,
L. The I^ord is my Shepherd. The Shepherd delivers us con-
tinually from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the
bear ; the Shepherd King feeds them for evermore in pas-
tures, of which the human heart cannot conceive the beauty.
Therefore can I lack nothing. Because that Shepherd lacked
everything ; because He had not where to lay His head ; be-
cause there was no room for Him in the inn ; because He
sat thirsty on the well ; because He was taken even as He
was in the ship ; because He was an hungered in the wilder-
ness ; therefore^ shall we lacJc nothing, — His need supping
Serin. Tom.
_)piy]
Vieyra, our wants, as His righteousness atones for our guilt. " What
vi. p. '269. * can God deny us, when He has given us His own Son ?
asks S. Paul : and what can the Son of God de_ny us, when
He gives us Himself? He gives us His Body, BLe gives us
His Soul, He gives us His Divinity, and will He deny us
bread ? Oh, fear and cowardice, uuM^orthy of faith ! God
had not as yet given Himself to be our food, and had only
revealed this mystery to the same David, who had so often
PSALM XXIII.
suffered from poverty, and at once He scoffs at it, and says
for us that which we knew not how to say for ourselves.
And what is that? The Lord is my Shepherd : therefore can
I lack nothing. One thing follows the other. The rich shall
fall into want, they who put their confidence in inconstant
possessions, to-day possessed, to-morrow lost ; but the poor
who betakes himself to that Lord, Who is Lord of all things,
shall have enough and to spare, as saith the same Prophet,
• The rich men do lack and suffer hunger, but they that seek
the Lord shall not want anything that is good.' "
2 He shall feed me in a green pasture : and lead
me forth beside the waters of comfort.
" Come unto Me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, ^^^^^ ^^^^_
and I will refresh you." And with what refreshment? The liast. in s.'
green pasture : the waters of comfort. In its widest and Gregor. Na-
broadest sense, the green pasture is the Church. Green, as ^'*"^^"-
constantly refreshed with the dew of the Holy Ghost :
green, as shaded from the burning sun of temptation. And
notice how it follows, " There was much green grass in the s. Mark vi.
place : so the men sat down." There we have the freshness ^9-
and verdure of — there also we have the rest to be found in — jq. ^ ^^'
the Church. But the greater number of the Fathers refer
this Psalm altogether to the Sacraments. The waters of
comfort, therefore, are the waters of Baptism ; just as pre-
sently we shall find the oil to be Confirmation, and the cup
to be the Blessed Eucharist. But Rupert takes these toaters ^^ ^^ ^^
of comfort to be the rivers of pleasure which are at God's s."Matt."\
right hand ; of comfort imperishable, unchangeable, eternal.
Lysimachus deplored that for a draught of water he had lost
a kingdom : whoso drinketh of this water, which proceedeth " ^^^ '
from the throne of God and of the Lamb, shall reign for ever j^
and ever. And these loaters of comfort were purchased for
us by that bitter cry of our Lord on the Cross, " I thirst."
Therefore, because of that thirst, ye shall draw water with isa. xii. 3.
joy out of the wells of salvation. And these wells or foun-
tains, S. Bernard says, are five in number : four belonging to ggr^^ j p^
the earthly paradise, the four wounds of our Lord while yet Nativitate.
living in the flesh : the fifth, which pertains to the celestial
land, the wound inflicted on His side. And they beautifully
interpret, of these fountains, that which is said in Genesis of
the four rivers of Eden. The first " compasseth the whole
land of Havilah, where there is gold, and the gold of that
land is good." Havilah is by interpretation, " He that suf- Rupert,
fers pain ;" and by means of the MOund in our Lord's right
hand, the gold produced by the region of pain will be good
indeed. The second encompassed the whole land of Ethiopia ;
that land which originally lay under a curse ; as the wound
of our Lord's left hand may be said to have turned the curse
arising from the sin of man — the left hand being the type of
310 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
sin — into a blessing : and so of the rest. Mediaeval writers
rejoiced to lieap together all the characteristics, real or
feigned, of various rivers : of the Cephissus, which makes
the fleece of black sheep white : of the Xanthus, which turns
them red ; and so on. There are not wanting those who un-
j)^ Q^ derstand the waters of comfort of Holy Scripture : and quote
appositely that saying of S. Paul's, " Whatsoever things were
Rom. XV. 4. written aforetime, were written for our consolation."
3 He shall convert my soul : and bring me forth in
the paths of righteousness^ for His Name's sake.
G. And now notice how admirably the miracle of the passage
of Jordan figures the effect of Baptism ; its savour of life
unto life, and of death unto death. That part which remained
nearest to the fountain head " rose up on an heap," — that is,
those who remain true to their Lord in Baptism are drawn up
towards heaven : that part which ran into the Dead Sea "failed
and was cut off," having no more connection with the ori-
Gr. ginal source of the stream, but utterly lost in those dark and
noisome waters. And notice also how admirably the usual
course of God's dealing with a Christian soul is here set
forth. In the last verse we have Baptism : we are to under-
stand the usual sad falls after Baptism. And then it follows,
JECe shall convert my soul. Never let us be afraid, because
the word has been so sadly misused and misapplied, to dwell
boldly on this truth, and to enjoin it with all our might, —
that in most instances a second grace is necessary after that
of Baptism has been given and has been abused. And then,
when this grace of conversion has been given, and has been
L. received and acted upon, then He shall lead us forth in the
paths of righteousness. Others see in this verse an admirable
declaration of the blessings of the New Covenant. When
the waters of comfort had once been opened, then the ser-
vants of God should be led forth in the paths of righteous-
ness : for before the institution of that blessed Sacrament,
the greatest Saints were only led forth in the paths of the
ceremonial law. I cannot do better than quote the admirable
words of Lorinus on the subject: " They," says he, " were
Heb. vii. 19. led forth in the paths of ceremonies, carnal commandments,
Jer.^xxiii ^6 ^^^ works of the law ; which could not justify, and made no-
isa.' xii. 2. ' thing perfect. ' But in His days,' says David, ' shall righ-
iT' '''^'30 ^^ousness flourish :' He, namely. Who is the Loed our Righ-
Hos!^x."i2.' teousness; the Righteous Man Who is raised up from the
s. M^tt. iii. east; the E/ighteous Man Whom the 'clouds rain down;'
''■ Who is made righteousness tons; Who came to teach us
righteousness ; Who Himself fulfiUeth all righteousness ;
Who goeth in the way of righteousness ; Who, finally, alone
justifies and leads to blessedness them who walk according
to the laws that He has prescribed to them, and teaches the
Divine knowledge of the things which have to be believed as
PSALM XXTII. 311
well as done. These are the 'ways of wisdom,' of which So- prov. iv. n.
lomon speaks ; these are the ' right paths' to which he in-
vites." For His Names sake. And here once more is the
Name that is above every name ; the Name, " great, wonder-
ful, and holy," which is to be the strength of God's people
here, and the everlasting subject of their praise hereafter.
4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil : for thou art
with me ; thy rod and thy staff comfort me.
Here we have the reason why this Psalm is one of those
employed in the Office for the Dead. And see how beauti-
fully the whole corresponds to it. The grave, the fold, in
which the Lord's sheep are penned safely till the morning of
the Resurrection. And the Shepherd Himself had tasted of
the same trials which He permits His sheep to know. The
green pasture will be, as ancient Liturgies so often make it,
the state of blessed souls, that have departed out of this
world, but have not yet been admitted to the Beatific Vision. Rgnaudot
" They have departed," says James of Edessa, in his Liturgy, Lit. Or. ii!
" with true hope, and the confidence of the faith which is in ^^^'
Thee, from this world of straits, from this life of misery, to
Thee. Kemember them and receive them, and cause them
to rest in the bosom of Abraham, in tabernacles of light and
rest, in shining dwelling-places, in a world of pleasures, in
the city Jerusalem, where there is no place for sorrow or
for war." " They have been set free," says Ignatius Bar- Renaudot,
Maadn, of Antioch, " they have been set free from this tern- L'*- O"*- "•
poral life, according to the sentence constituted by their ini-
quity, and have returned to Thee, O God, as to the first
Almighty cause. Spare them by Thy mercy ; reckon them
in the number of Thine elect ; cover them with the bright
cloud of Thy saints ; cause them to dwell in the blessed habi-
tations of Thy kingdom ; to be invited to Thy banquet in
the region of exultation and joy, where there is no place of
sorrow or misery." Then the " convert my soul " must be
taken of that final conversion, when sin shall be destroyed
for ever, as it is written, " He that is dead is freed from Rom. vi. 7.
sin." " The paths of righteousness," what are they but those
streets of gold, of which it is written, " The nations of them Rev. xxi.24.
which are saved shall walk in it?" The table will be at the
eternal wedding feast ; and then how does the " All the days
of my life," and " I will dwell in the house of the Loed for
ever," rivet the Psalm as it were to this, as its natural mean-
ing ! But to return to our verse. Why the valley of the
shadow of death ? What Eusebius taught long ago, let Laud in s. Johan.
on the scaffold explain at greater length : " Lord, I am coming "' ^^'
as fast as I can. I know I must pass through the shadow of
death before I can come to see Thee. But it is but umbra
mortis, a shadow of death, a little darkness upon nature ; but
312
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
A.
E.
B.
Lu.
S. Isidore,
i. 301.
Tlieodoret.
S. Justin.
M artyr in
Try ph.
z.
S. Zeno,
Serm. de
Jud.
1 Cor. ii. 2.
Isa. xi. 1.
S. Petr.
Damiani.
Serm. de
Assumpt.
D. C.
Isa. Ixv. i6,
17.
S. Thomas.
Thou, LoED, by Thy goodness, hast broken the jaws and
the power of death." Yes : our Lord passed through the
valley of death ; we through the valley of the shadotv of death.
He tasted of death, that we might never taste of it ; He died,
that we might fall asleep. Thy rod and Thy stajf comfort me.
Holy men have discussed at length what is the diflference be-
tween these two. Some will have it that the rod denotes
God's punishments for lighter oflfences ; the staff", His chas-
tisements for heavier sins. But it is better to take the one
of His punishment when we go wrong, the other of His sup-
port when we go right. Thus they will answer to the wine
and the oil in the parable of the Good Samaritan ; the wine
the salutary chastisement, the oil the no less salutary comfort.
But there is yet a deeper meaning in it than this : the rod
and the staff* together make the blessed Cross ; just as the
two sticks that the widow was gathering have always been
considered typical of the same tree of salvation. And it may
well be said that, in our valley of the shadow of death, that
Cross is to be our comfort on which our Loed passed through
His own valley of misery. For notice how the two join to-
gether : For Thou art with me — " I determined to know no-
thing among you save Jesus Cheist" — Thy rod and Thy staff
comfort me — " and Him crucified." There are other beautiful
significations for these words. Some will have the rod to
signify the Incarnation : (" There shall come forth a rod out
of the stem of Jesse :") and by the staff" the Passion : as if, in
our passage through death, we require both the one and the
other to console us ; according to that saying, " Thou makest
the outgoings of the morning and evening to praise Thee."
And yet once more : still taking the staff" for the Cross, we
may understand the rod of the Virgin Mother, here joined
with the Cross itself, because it is written, " Now there stood
by the Cross of Jesus His mother." Once more : Dionysius
regards the verse as the thanksgiving of the blessed for the
loving kindness which has led them through all the dangers
and miseries of this world ; and thus beautifully writes :
" The rod and the staff" with which in the "Way Thou didst
visit me, have brought me to this celestial consolation. For
corrections inflicted for sin, here spoken of under the name
of the rod, so purify the soul, as to unite it to the Divine
light. And the glorious consolations, bestowed by God upon
earth, enkindle the soul to desire the perfect sweetness of
their country. But it might seem that this verse cannot
apply to the blessed, because it implies their remembering in
Paradise what they suffered on earth ; whereas it is written
in Isaiah, * The former troubles shall be forgotten, shall not
be remembered, nor come into mind.' We answer that the
Saints in their country do remember the ills which they suf-
fered in their journey, in so far as such a remembrance is to
them a matter of joy. For Cheist in His most glorious
Body has retained the marks of His Five Wounds, not only
PSALM XXIII. 313
that in the Day of Judgment He may manifest to the un-
^ateful that which He suflfered for them, but that the Saints
in their country may for ever behold that which He endured
for their salvation, and by this means may be inflamed with
inestimable praise and giving of thanks."
5 Thou shalt prepare a table before me against
them that trouble me : thou hast anointed my head
with oil, and my cup shall be full.
By far the greater number of commentators take it — and Z.
how could it be otherwise?— of the Blessed Eucharist. "This C.
is the table," says S. Cyril, in his Catechetical Lectures, B.
"prepared by God, in opposition to the table prepared before |" a^'k^^sc'
him by Satan ;" clearly meaning that, before the Advent of
Christ, the enticements and allurements of Satan to sin
were, so to speak, a table of poisonous delicacies, to which
there was then no such remedy as the table of the Lord.
S. Cyprian and the Bishops assembled with him at one of the
Councils of Carthage, exhort all those who were likely to be
called to suffer martyrdom to prepare themselves for it by
the reception of the Holy Eucharist. " Those whom we ex- Epist. 54.
cite," says the Synodal letter, " and exhort to the battle, let
us not leave weak and unarmed, but let us fortify with the
protection of the Body and Blood of Christ. And since the
Eucharist is celebrated to this end, that it may be a safeguard
to them who receive it, let us arm with the defence of the
Lord's banquet those whom we desire to make safe against
the adversary." Then the sense oi against them that trouble
me may be threefold. Either in opposition to their wishes,
and in defiance of their endeavours ; or that we by receiving
it may be strengthened in opposition to them ; or that they,
beholding the delicacies God provides for us, may be the
more enraged and thrown into despair. They give multi-
tudes of instances in which the reception of the Blessed Sa-
crament has at once set free from some particular temptation ;
Hke the story related of S. Macarius, who delivered one who
was possessed by a devil, and told her that the reason of the op^u.^272.
demon acquiring that power over her was her having ab-
stained for so long a time from receiving.
Nevertheless, there are not wanting those who understand
this table of Holy Scripture : as Bede, S. Jerome, and Peter inEzek°cap.
of Blois. Others, again, take it of the remembrance of the xiv.
Lord's Passion ; but the most singular interpretation is that
of S. Eemigius, who takes the table to refer to the rod
and the staff mentioned just before, as if David said. What-
ever other consolation I might have looked for. Thou hast
prepared this ; the chastisement that for the present seem-
eth not joyous, but grievous, but afterwards yieldeth the
peaceable fruit of righteousness, which fruit is here called
the table. Gerhohus, after dwelling on the blessedness of
P
314 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
the Holy Eucharist, well concludes by quoting the prayer
ascribed to S. Ambrose : '* I pray Thee, O Lord, by that
holy and quickening mystery of Thy Body and Blood, by
which we are daily fed in Thy Church, of which we are daily
given to drink, by which we are cleansed and sanctified, and
made partakers of Thy Divinity, give me Thy holy virtues,
filled with which I may approach to Thine altar, so that these
celestial Sacraments may be to me salvation and life. For
s. John vi. Thou hast said, by Thy holy and blessed mouth, * The bread
61, 54. which I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of
the world. I am the Living Bread that came down from
heaven : if any man eat of this Bread, he shall live for
ever.' O most sweet Bread, heal the taste of my heart, that
I may perceive the sweetness of Thy love ; cleanse it from
all languor, that I may be conscious of no sweetness but
Thine. O most pure Bread, having all delight in Thyself,
which always refreshest us and never failest, let my heart
feed upon Thee, and let the very innermost parts of my soul
be filled with Thy sweetness." And then he tells us how the
Job 1. J 7. Chaldseans still make out three bands against us : the lust of
the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life ; and how
each and all of these are to be repulsed by the Sacrament.
Thou hast anointed my head with oil. And here again the
commentators devise all sorts of explanations, as indeed Holy
Scripture itself invites them to do. But the best and truest
seems to be that which sees in this oil both royal and priestly
Rev i 6 unction : according to that saying, " Thou hast made us unto
Pet •• Q ^^^ ^^^ kings and priests ;" and again, " ye are a royal
'" priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people." Others again,
„ not unfitly, understand it of Confirmation : which indeed suits
well with the mention of Baptism in the second verse, and
Amobius. also that of the Blessed Eucharist in this. Or mystically : it
is the boast of every Christian, — " Thou anointest my head
with oil." For so S. Bernard understands that command, —
Thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head. For what is our
Serm. in s. Head but our Blessed Lord and Savioue ? and what is oil
Matt. vi. but the graces of the Holy Ghost, That Spirit not given
by measure unto Him .P And there may also be a reference
to the unction of our Lord by the hands of S. Mary Mag-
dalene.
And my cup shall he full. Or, as it is in the Vulgate : And
L. my inebriating chalice, how excellent it is ! And here again
s. Cyril. ^g gee that glorious and excellent chalice, filled, not with
Catech.Mys- *^^ blood of buUs and goats, but with the precious Blood of
tagog. 4. Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot.
And S. Cyprian even uses this verse as an argument against
the Aquarii, who used water in the oblation : "for how can
Epist. 63. water, ' says he, " inebriate ?" " With this cup," cries Au-
gustine, *' were the martyrs inebriated, when, going forth to
their passion, they recognised not those that belonged to
them, — not their weeping wife, not their children, not their
PSALM XXIII. 315
relations : while they gave thanks and said, I will take the A.
Cup of salvation !"
Ave, sacer Cheisti Sanguis ! The Hymn,
Iter nobis rectum pandis c" r/^"*^^
Ad coeli sedilia ! cara
* # # #
Ave, potus salutaris !
Nullus unquam fuit talis
Bonitatis copia !
6 But thy loving-kindness and mercy shall follow
me all the days of my life : and I will dwell in the
house of the Lord for ever.
And here, as the conclusion of this Psalm of graces, comes Ay.
the last and highest of all graces, that of final perseverance :
the end and result of all the Sacraments. I will dwell in the P.
house of the Lord. It may be taken in two senses : the re-
ligious as opposed to the secular life here ; or the true life,
the life that is life indeed, in the true house of the Lord
hereafter. Butwhyis.it sa.id, shall folloiv we, rather than, Z.
shall go before me ? For certainly we need that preventing
grace of God, for which the Cliurch prays, to remove ob-
stacles, to face dangers, to overthrow difficulties. Because,
say the Greek Fathers, the idea is that, though we of our
own will and nature would forsake and forget God, He sends L-
out after us, follows us, chases us, as it were, till He overtake
us, and seizes us for Himself. We need not here enter into
the disputes of the schools about prevenient, subsequent, co-
operating, concomitant, grace. It suffices us to know what
David so often declares, and the celebrated Council of Orange
teaches from his words, that we need grace on every side,
grace before and behind, grace on the right hand and on the
left, if we ever hope to enter the kingdom of God at aU.
Prevenient and subsequent grace are beautifully set forth in
the Canticles : when the Bride first says, " My Beloved is
mine, and I am His," and then, " I am my Beloved's, and my
Beloved is mine." The former being signified by the first jy q
verse, the latter by the second. That I may dwell : there
we have the heavenly home-sickness ; S. Paul's desire to de-
part and to be with Cheist, which is far better; the change
of the light of grace, here often clouded and obscure, for the
Hght of glory that can never be darkened, that can never fade
away, that grows brighter and more perfect to ages of ages.
Nos ad sanctorum gloriam Adam. Vic-
Per ipsorum suffragia leq^enc^'
Post prsesentem misenam Supemee
Cheisti perducat gratia ! matris
gaudia.
And therefore :
Glory be to the Fatheb, Who anoints our head with oil ;
p2
316
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
and to the Son, the Shepherd of His people: and to the
Holy Ghost, Who provides for us that inebriating chalice
which is so excellent.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be : world
without end. Amen.
Collects.
Ludoiph. Govern us, O Loed, with the sweet yoke of Thy command-
ments, that we may obtain a place in Thine eternal habita-
tion, and be satiated with the plenitude of the celestial ban-
quet. (1.)
Mozarabic. Grant, O LoED, that we may sing a new hymn to Thy
praise, to the end that Thou mayest bring us into the pas-
tures of life, and lead us by the still waters of comfort ; that
we may never hunger nor thirst again, when our feet shall
stand within the gates of Jerusalem. (11.)
Mozaiabic. Lead forth, O Loed, Thy people by the waters of comfort
which Thou hast formed by the baptismal streams ; that
they, inspired by the teaching of Thy law, may have their
desire set on that place where Thou promisest Thyself to be
their eternal reward. (11.)
D. C. [For Thy Name's sake, O Loed, lead us in the paths of
righteousness, let Thy mercy follow us, that we may dwell in
Thy house for ever. Through (1.)]
PSALM XXIV.
Title. A Psalm of David. The title in the Vulgate is, The first
of the Sabbath, a Psalm of David.
Aegfment.
Abg. Thomas. That Chbist sets the Chvirch, redeemed by His
Blood, above the waves of the world. The voice of the Church
after Baptism. Concerning the beginning of the Church in which
the princes of idols are excluded, and the King of the same Church
enters therein, and of the confirmation of the believing people.
The gates of which he speaks are sins, or the gates of hell. Also
the voice of Cheist concerning the Gentiles and concerning the
Church.
Yen. Bede. The first of the Sabbath signifies the Loed's Day,
which is the first day after the Sabbath ; on which day the Loed
arose from the dead. And because the whole Psalm is sung after
the Resurrection, therefore this title is well fitted to admonish the
hearts of the faithful. After the Resurrection of the Loed, the
Prophet, becoming more joyful, addresses the human race, then
labouring with various superstitions : defining in the first part that
the universal orb of the world was the Loed's, and as no one was
excepted from His empire, so none should beheve anything opposed
PSALM XXIV. 317
to His laith, The earth is the Lord's. In the second place determin-
ing with what virtues they are endued who are set in His Church :
Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord 1 Thirdly, he speaks
most kindly to the superstitious that, turning to the service of the
true God, they would depart from their harmful perversity : lAJt
up your gates, O ye Princes, &c.
EusEBius OF C^SAKEA. A prophecy of the vocation of the Q-en-
tiles, and the perfection of them who are saved.
Steiac Psalter. Concerning the first day in which the Lobd
began to form creation.
Arabic Psalter. A prophecy of the vocation of the Gentiles
and the Eesurrection.
Various Uses.
Gregorian. Originally Sunday, now Monday : Prime. [Circum-
cision : I. Noctum. Easter Eve : II. Nocturn. Trinity Sunday :
I. Noctum. Feasts of the Five Wounds and the Shroud : Matins.
Common of B. V. M. : I. Nocturn. Michaelmas Day : II. Noctum.
Feast of Guardian Angels : II. Noctum. All Saints : II. Noctum.
Common of Many Martyrs : II. Nocturn. Common of Confessors :
II. Nocturn. Common of Virgins : L Nocturn. Dedication of a
Church : I. Nocturn.]
Monastic. Sunday : I. Noctum.
Parisian. Tuesday : Lauds.
Lyons. Monday : Prime.
Ambrosian. Tuesday of the First Week : II. Noctum.
Quignon. Monday : Prime.
Antiphons.
Gregorian. [Circumcision and Easter Eve : Be ye lift up, ye
everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in. All Saints :
This is the generation of them that seek the Lord, that seek the
face of the God of Jacob. Many Martyrs : The Saints that wait
on the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with
wings as eagles, they shall fly, and not faint. Confessors : He shall
receive righteousness from the Lord, and mercy from the God of
his salvation, for this is the generation of them that seek the Lord.
Dedication : Lift up your gates, ye princes, and be ye lift up, ye
everlasting doors.]
Parisian. He that hath not lift up his mind to vanity, nor sworn
to deceive his neighbour, he sliaU ascend into the hill of the Lord.
Ambrosian. My God, my God, look upon me. K. K. K.
Mozarahic. He hath founded it upon the seas and prepared it
upon the floods.
1 The earth is the Lord's, and all that therein is :
the compass of the worlds and they that dwell therein.
Whether or not this Psalm were composed, as is probable,
for the feast of bringing up the Ark from the house of Obed-
Edom to Mount Sion, at all events it was appropriated by
the Jews to the first day of the week, and for many centuries
318 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
continued by the Church for Sunday. At the very time
when the whole earth was awaking into beauty ; when
Prudentius. CaHgo terrse scinditur,
The Hymn, Percussa soils spiculo,
Nox, et tene- Rebusque jam color redit a
Jr^J "' ""- Vultu nitentis sideris. 4
And nothing can be finer than the vindication of God's do-
minion at the beginning of each new day, the earth is the
Lord's. Nor must we forget the grand effect which these
words possess, when set up over the place of meeting of the
merchant princes of the earth. S. Paul uses this verse to
1 Cor. X. 26. settle the controversy regarding meat offered to idols ; how
that, like everything else, belongs to God, and could not really
be affected by its pretended dedication to those idols that are
nothing in the world. It is used in a very glorious sense by
the Eastern Church in her Funeral Service, when at the
moment in which the coffin is let down into the grave, the
Priest exclaims, " The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness
thereof:" that is, the multitude of the bodies of the faithful
who there are awaiting His Second Coming. And again :
Innocent III. uses it as an argument for the payment of
De Decimis. tithes ; as if it were not much for man to return the tenth to
c. God, of that which belongs to God entirely. And all that
therein is. Notice the difference between the blessing of
Jacob and Esau, which at first sight seems precisely the same.
Gen. xxvii. " GoD," says Isaac to Jacob, " give thee of the dew of heaven
28, 39. and of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine ;"
" Behold," is the benediction of Esau, " thy dwelling shall
Vieyra. -^^ ^j^^ fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from
above." The difference consists in this : that, in the one
case, heaven is put first, as imparting a true benediction to
earth : in the other it is mentioned last, as having no real lot
or portion in the matter. Origen well observes that till the
time of our Loed's Advent, the earth's fulness was not as
s. Johni. 16. J^t : as it is written, " Of His fulness have all we received."
The compass of the world, or " the round world," as it is called
s. Alb. Mag. in another Psalm ; to show that the Church is not now, as of
Ven. Bede. old, confined to one land and to one nation, but spread abroad
over the whole face of the earth. The earth is the Lord's.
Q And therefore was this Psalm well said on the Sunday, since
it is His because He made it, and He began to make it on
that day, and His because He redeemed it, and He finished
its redemption on that sacred day. The earth is the Lord's.
And yet the devil, the father of lies, ventured to say to its
s. Luke iv. rightml owner, " All this will I give Thee, and the glory of
it, for that is delivered unto me, and unto whomsoever I wiU,
I give it." Be then, says Gerhohus, like Him, Who did not
say in return. The earth is Mine, and the fulness of it ; and
Ezek. xxix. not like the " great dragon," which said, " My river is mine
3* own, and I have made it for myself." And notice the dif-
Lyranus.
PSALM XXIV. 319
ferent way in whick our Loed met two false claims of pos-
session, Satan's and Pilate's. Satan's boast, " This is mine,"
was only answered by a dismissal, "Get tkee hence, Satan:"
Pilate's speech, " Knowest Thou not that I have power ?"
was met with an argument, " Thou couldest have no power Gr.
at all against Me, except it were given thee." Satan, to
whom no place was left for repentance, was not thought
worthy of a reply : Pilate, who might yet have been saved,
was. " The earth is the Lord's ;" and therefore, it was well
and wisely ordered, just before her Lord and possessor came
to visit her, that " there went out a decree from Caesar Au-
gustus that aU the world should be taxed."
2 For he hatli founded it upon the seas : and pre-
pared it upon the floods.
The literal sense of this verse is much disputed ; but two
explanations stand prominent above the rest. The one, which .
is that of S. Augustine, that, since by the Lord's command
the waters were gathered together into one place in order
that the dry land might appear, so in a certain sense, the C.
earth may be said to be formed by, or founded upon, this
gathering together of the waters. The other explanation,
which the Greek Fathers adopt is, that of the earth's being
founded on or fashioned by the admixture of water, without
which, say they, it would become dust and crumble away ; Z.
a somewhat violent and forced interpretation, but giving the s. Chrysost.
same sense as that verse of the hymn ;
Firmans locum coelestibus. The Hymn,
Simulque terrae rivulis, Immense
Ut unda flamraas temperet, J^^" ^^ndi-
Terrae solum ne dissipent.
But in the mystical sense, the seas may be taken for troubles
and temptations on which the earth, that is, the Church dis-
persed through the earth, is founded ; while the floods signify
the eflusion of God's graces by which also she is established.
The bitter water and the sweet water, says S. Albertus s^^b.Mag.
Magnus, are both equally necessary for her ; the waves of
the sea that " are mighty and rage horribly" on the one side ; ^^- ^^'^- 5-
the rivers of the flood that make glad the city of God on the
other. S. Ambrose, but less happily, understands both the s. Ambrose,
seas and floods of one and the same thing, namely, tribula- ^^^ q
tion : In tribulation, says he, the Church is founded, in tem-
pests and storms, in anxieties and griefs ; and it is prepared
in the floods of adversities.
3 Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord : or
who shall rise up in his holy place ?
It is as if we, yet tossed about by the waves and storms of Gr.
320 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
this troublesome world, those waves in which the Church is
founded, were asking the way to that mountain of heavenly
peace, whither our Loed has already ascended as of old time,
isa. ii. 3. to pray for us. It is the same thing that is written in Isaiah :
Come ye and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to
the House of the God of Jacob. Many will say. Let us go
up : but here the prophet asks, Who of all that number shall
ascend ? seeing that " many are called, but few chosen." And
having gone up. Who shall stand, for so it is that the Vulgate
translates arise, in that holy place ? But the interpretations
of this hill, are endless : and may well afford matter to S.
s. Bernard. Bernard for a whole sermon. Some will have it to be the
mioc. Church Militant; some the Church triumphant; some un-
derstand it of Cheist Himself; in which they are authorised
Dan. ii. 35. by that prophecy of Daniel, when Nebuchadnezzar beheld
the " stone that was cut out without hands, and became a
great mountain and filled the whole earth." Others, strangely
enough, explain it of Satan ; some of the state of perfection ;
and some of the Cross. But the explanation which sees
in it the heavenly mountain, the mountain " in which the
LoED of Hosts shall make a feast of fat things," " Mount
Sion, the city of the Living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,"
as S. Paul writes, is by far the best and the truest. And no
doubt there is an allusion to those mountains to which Moses,
L. Lot, Aaron, Abraham, and Elijah were commanded by God
to go up.
4 Even he that hath clean hands, and a pure
heart : and that hath not lift up his mind unto
vanity^ nor sworn to deceive his neighbour.
Now we come to the four conditions requisite to render
such an ascent possible. 1. Abstinence from evil doing:
He that hath clean hands. 2. Abstinence from evil thought :
and a pure heart. 3. Who does that duty which he is
sent into the world to do : That hath not lift up his mind unto
vanity ; or, as it is in the Vulgate, Who hath not received, his
soul in vain. And 4. Remembers the vows by which he is
bound to God : nor sworn to deceive. And in the fullest
sense there was but One in Whom all these things were ful-
L. filled ; so that in reply to the question, " Who shall ascend
s. John iii. "^*^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^® LoED ?" He might well answer, " No man
13 * hath ascended up into heaven, save He that came down from
heaven, even the Son of Man Which is in heaven." " There-
fore it is well written," says S. Bernard, " that such an High
Priest became us, because He knows the difficulty of that
ascent to the celestial mountain, He knows the weakness
of us that have to ascend." It is like the ladder of S. Per-
petua which she saw set upon the earth, and reaching to
heaven, our Loed as a Shepherd at the summit ; a fearful
dragon guarding the access to it. He that hath clean hands :
PSALM XXIV. 321
SO clean that they cleansed the leprosy, — so clean that they
not only healed all manner of sickness and all manner of q.^
disease, but were stretched out to pardon sin ; so clean, that
the streams which poured from them on the Cross, are to be
the cleansing of all evil deeds till the world's end. And a
pii7'e heart. "Who," says S. Bernard, "can conceive, much
more express, the purity of that shrine — that heart — where s. Bernard,
purity strove with love, which should have the pre-eminence, i» loc.
in a most sweet and tender contest, never to be decided ;
that heart, which, being opened by the spear, gave access to
all guilty, all polluted creatures ; oflPered a hiding place in
tlie rock from the anger that consumed a corrupted world."
IViat hath not lift np his mind unto vanity. No, for being in
lie form of God, and thinking it not robbery to be equal
\ ith God, He yet made Himself of no reputation. If or
i:-07'n to deceive his neighbour. That promise to redeem
Mian, that declaration that the seed of the woman should
bruise the serpent's head, was, as S. Paul savs, a faithful
■aying, and worthy of all acceptation. And therefore, well
ays the same S. Paul, that "by two immutable things in Heb.vi.i8.
A iiich it was impossible that God should lie, we may have
Irong consolation."
5 He shall receive the blessing from the Lord :
and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
He, whether like rich Abraham he entertained Angels un-
awares, or, like miserable Lazarus, was carried by the same Cr.
angels into Abraham's bosom, he shall receive the blessing
from the Lord. And 7nghteousness : that is, love and mercy,
80 called, because faithfully promised, and therefore righ- j^^
teously bestowed. Of his salvation. And notice here, again,
the appropriating pronoun : the God of the salvation of all
men spoken of as the God of his salvation only, who is thus ^
blessed. A mediaeval author says, " This Bishop, the She]^- "^•
herd and Bishop of our souls, is recorded to have given His
blessing, over and over again, to foes as well as friends, to
evil-doers, as well as to them that work righteousness ; but
very rarely do we read of His pronouncing a curse. Would
that the Bishops of our own day would follow His example !
Would that for injuries inflicted on them they would learn
not to anathematize, and to cover themselves with cursing
as with a raiment !" Righteousness. And yet S. Augustine,
commenting on such passages as this and those others, " which 2 Tim. iv. s.
the LoBD the righteous Judge shall give me in that day," " that Rev.xxii. i4.
they may have right unto the Tree of Life," and the like, says
beautifully, " He, O Lord, that enumerates to Thee his true confess,
merits, wliat else doth he count up but Thy gifts .P" And in Lib. ix. cap
another place : " When God crowns our merits. He crowns '^'
nothing else but His own gifts." Yet it is better to see, in Epist. los,
this and in the following verse, the connection of the Head ^ Suctum.
with the members, of the Captain with His soldiers, of the
p 3
322 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
King witli His people. [And a most pathetic application of
the same idea is found in the use of this Psalm, in the
Western Office for the Burial of Children.] He, that is, our
LoED and Saviour, shall receive the blessing ; and not He
only, but all His faithful people together with Him ; for it
is written :
6 This is the generation of them that seek him :
even of them that seek thy face, O Jacob.
s. Alb, Mag. Because this mountain is so difficult to clim*b, because this
law of God is so hard to keep, therefore it might well be
thought that only two or three in an age, nay, perhaps only
He Who alone is righteous, had been able to ascend it. This
verse shows how mistaken is the idea : This is the generation.
S. Bernard has a sermon addressed to the Cistercian brothers
on this text. He distinguishes these generations : the first,
those who remain yet unbaptized, who neither seek nor are
sought by God ; the second, those who are sought by God
in Baptismal regeneration, but who seek Him not, because
not crucifying, and utterly abolishing, the whole body of
sin ; the third, those who both seek and are sought, having
been found by Him in Baptism, and finding Him every day
in earnest prayer and in holy life ; the fourth, those who
seek Him in a more especial sense, as having given them-
selves up to Him entirely in the religious life ; and these
last he exhorts with all his own fervour from that text in
Isa. xxi. 12. Isaiah, " If ye will seek, seek ye." That seeJc thy face, O
Jacob. Or, as it is written in the Vulgate, That seeJc the
face of the God of Jacob. If we take our own translation,
we may explain it, with some of the Fathers, of our Lord
spoken of under the title of Jacob ; to show that it is by
means of His Incarnation, His becoming like us and being
called as we are, that only we venture to approach Him.
But Bredenbach explains it in a more ingenious manner.
That seek thy face, 0 Jacob, means according to him, " That
seek the Face which thou, O Jacob, didst behold when thou
didst wrestle in that night-struggle." And then, in allusion
Gen. xxxii. to this, we may very well take Jacob's own exclamation, *' I
^ * have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved." That
is, we for this reason seek the face that Jacob saw, that our life
may also be preserved. But, if we take the more usual trans-
lation, then He Whom we seek is called the God of Jacob,
2. to signify that we also must struggle and wrestle, if we would
s. Alb. Mag. attain to Him : which lesson of earnestness in prayer is also
taught us by the double repetition. Them that seek Hiniy
even of them that seek Thy face. " That seek Thy face !" ex-
Betla. claims Venerable Bede: "but what shall it be when the
seeking shall have passed, and the finding shall have begun I
when we not only behold the goodly pearl, but, having sold
all that we had, merit to purchase it ! when the time of prayer
is over, and that of praise shall have commenced!"
PSALM XXIV. 323
" Jesit, the Hope of souls forlorn, S, Bernard.
How good to them for sin that mourn !
To them that seek Thee, O how kind,
But what art Thou to them that find ?"
7 Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift
up, ye everlasting doors : and the King of glory shall
come in.
Notice, in the first place, the difference of our version
from the Vulgate : Lift up, ye princes, your gates. Yet the
sense is the same in both : whether the gates are called on to
lift up themselves, or those who have the charge of them to
throw them open. Now there are five principal meanings -p
which have been attached to this verse : we will take them
in turn.
The first would apply to Cheist's triumphal entry into Je-
rusalem on the first Palm Sunday. There is uq doubt that,
originally referring to the ark, the Psalmist had an eye to its
many wanderings through the forty years' desert to Gilgal, pa^^g
to Shiloh, in the land of the Philistines, to Kirjathjearim, Borgensis.
to the house of Obed-Edom, and now finally to its appointed
resting-place i^ the hill of Sion. In like manner, after so
many journey ings from Nazareth to the house of S. Eliza-
beth, back to Nazareth, to Bethlehem, into Egypt, to Naza-
reth again, and thenceforward through Judaea, and Samaria,
and Galilee, our Loed now came up to His final earthly
abode in Jerusalem. This interpretation, however, has re-
ceived but very small support; and indeed is very mean
compared with the others.
The second, which is received by very great authorities, in this sense
would refer it to our Loed's descent into Hell, His bursting s. Gregory,
the gates of brass, and smiting the bars of iron in sunder. e°™"^!'"^
To this the Latin Church would seem to appropriate it, by s. Athaiias.
appointing this Psalm as one of those for the Second Nocturn ojat. 4, in
for Easter Eve, with the antiphon from this verse. S. Epi- Peier chry.
phanius has a magnificent passage, in which he represents soiog.serm.
our LoED attended by an army of angels, Michael and Ga- ^^•
briel in the fore-ranks, demanding admission at hell-gate ; ^^^ ^^
bursting open the unwilling doors, tearing them from the sepuitura
hinges, casting them forth into the abyss, commanding that Christi.
they shall never be raised any more. " Cheist," he exclaims,
** Cheist, the Door, is present : unto God the Loed belong
the issues of death." In the same sense, Lsevinus Torrentius,
in one of his poems for Easter Eve, writes :
Ferali linquens pendentia stipite membra, De Descensu
Spiritus infernas Victor adibit aquas : Elegia.
Debellanda illic ssevi fera numina Ditis,
Magnaque de magna praeda petenda domo.
Ite Duel comites ! Nondum via trita : sed ipse,
Ipse per insuetum vos bene ducet iter.
324 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
idiomeia for To the same effect the Eastern Church, on the great Sab-
s^bb^th*^ bath, exclaims : ** To-day, Hades groans and cries out, It had
been profitable for me if I had never received Him That was
born of Mary ; for, coming upon me. He hath dissolved my
strength. He hath broken the gates of brass : He, as God,
hath raised up the souls which I before held. Glory, O
LoED, to Thy Cross, and to Thy Resurrection ! To-day,
Hades groans and cries out, My might is dissolved : 1 receive
to myself a mortal, as one of the dead ; Him I can in no way
have strength to hold, but I lose with Him those over whom
I rule : I detain the dead for all ages, but behold, He raiseth
up all. Glory, O Lord, to Thy Cross, and to Thy Resurrec-
tion ! Of this day Moses beforehand spoke mystically as in a
type : ' And God blessed the seventh day.' For this is that
blessed Sabbath, this is that day of rest, in which the Only-
begotten Son of God rested from all His works, keeping
Sabbath in the flesh, on account of His device which He had
devised concerning death ; and returning back again to that
which He was by His Resurrection, He hath bestowed on us
the life which is eternal, as only good, and the Lover of men."
Q. *' Therefore," exclaims Gerhohus, " O infernal princes, at
whose persuasion the Innocent suffered unjustly, now ye
must lose even them whom ye appeared to possess by a kind
of justice. Away, then, with your gates ! speak no more of the
cause which ye seem to have of justly detaining them ! keep
silence when He is at hand in Whom your prince, when he
came, found nothing. Be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and
the King of Glory shall come in. It is a reiteration of the
command : Let Pharaoh hear whose princes ye are. For our
true Joseph, though sold, is yet alive, and hath dominion
over all the land of Egypt, not only in the world, but also in
hell. On His part we command you, be ye lift up, ye gates,
that were subject to the hard bondage of the Egyptians ; for
they that were retained by them shall no longer groan under
that domination, but, baptized in the Red Sea of the Blood
of Christ, shall enter into the land of promise."
s^Basif^'^^^ ^^^ third signification would see in this verse the ex-
TJieodoret, clamation of the angels attending our ascended Lord. None
S.Cyril of g^n express this meaning more beautifully than our own
Alexandria, y-t •■> -1-71 . i
Tertuiiian, Giles Fletcher :
S, Cyprian.
G. Fletcher : " Lift up your heads, ye everlasting gates,
Christ's And let the Prince of Glory enter in !
after Death -^^ Whose brave volley of sidereal states,
The sun to blush, and stars grow pale, were seen ;
When leaping first from earth He did begin
» To climb His angel flight ; then open hang
Your crystal doors : so all the chorus sang
Of heavenly birds, as to the stars they nimbly sprang.
" Out leap the antique patriarchs all in haste,
To see the powers of heU in triumph led j
PSALM XXIV. 325
And with small stars a garland interchased
Of olive leaves tliey bore to crown His head,
That was before with thorns degloried :
After them flew the Prophets, brightly stoled
In shining lawn, and wimpled manifold,
Striking their ivory harps strung all in chords of gold.
" Nor can the Martyrs' wounds them stay behind ;
But out they rush among the heavenly crowd,
Seeking their heaven out of their heaven to find ;
Sounding tlieir silver trumpets out so loud
That the shrill noise brake through the starry cloud j
And all the virgin souls, in pure array.
Came dancing forth, and making joyous play :
So Him they led along into the courts of day.
" So Him they led into the courts of day,
Where never war nor wounds abide Him more;
But in that house eternal peace doth play,
Acquieting the souls that, new besore.
Their way to heaven through their own blood did score :
But now, estranged from all misery,
As far as heaven and earth discoasted lie,
They bathe in quiet waves of immortality."
The King of Glory shall come in. "O Faith!" exclaims
Gerhohus, " O eternal gate, by whose present vision thou art G.
perfected and exalted ! And Thou, O Hope of the elect,
which, fixed on eternal blessings, canst never disappoint, now
exult, now rejoice ; for lo ! the King of Glory is about to
enter in, to disappoint His servants of no part of the bless-
ings which have been promised by Thee." And so the
Eastern Church : " To-day the heavenly powers beholding j ,. , .
our nature exalted to heaven, and marvelling at the strange the Ascen-
ascent, doubted and said one to' the other, Who is this that sion.
is at hand ? And beholding their own Loed, they exhorted
each other to lift up the celestial gates. In company with
whom we praise Thee ceaselessly, Thee Who wilt in the flesh
come again from that place as Judge of all, and Almighty
God."
The fourth meaning is that of S. Augustine, but followed A.
by few, though Venerable Bede accepts it. According to
him, the princes are the kings of the world, now called, by
accepting the Gospel, to permit the King of Glory to enter
into their several territories. A very poor and unworthy-
sense.
The fifth meaning sees in the verse a prophecy of the In-
carnation ; and on this account it is, that, in the Mass of the
Vigil of the Nativity, it forms the offertory. This sense is
adopted by S. Jerome ; though here also he would find a spi-
ritual reference to the virtual opening of the gates of heaven
by the fact of our Lord's taking flesh upon Himself.
In all the services for the dedication of a Church, this
326 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
verse has been prominently used ; the entrance of the Lord
into His new temple being regarded as symbolical of His
2Cor. V. 1. entrance. into the "house not made with hands, eternal in
the heavens."
[There is yet a sixth meaning attached to this verse. Ye
Origen. who once were the slaves of sin, but are now not only free,
S.Bruno hut princes, as God's kings and priests, lift up your gates,
Ric^Hamp. removing the barriers which sin puts between you and God,
and those once gone, he ye lift up, ye everlasting doors of
virtue and holiness, which cannot pass away, and then the
King of Glory will enter His palace of the believing soul.
Miss. The Mozarabic Missal employs the words in a further sense,
Mozaxab. ^^ ^^^ course of a collect said just before the consecration of
the elements into the Body and Blood of Christ.]
8 Who is the King of glory : it is the Lord strong
and mighty, even the Lord mighty in battle.
The explanation of this must of course depend on the
meaning we have attached to the demand. If that demand
s. Pet. were addressed to the spirits of darkness, then the attendant
Chrysoiog. angels may well speak of the victories won by the Lord in
s^f"* h former days : won for His people Israel, when He overthrew
niusforatio Pharaoli and his host in the Red Sea, — when the walls of Je-
de Sepui- richo fell down at the blast of the trumpet, — when the seven
Christi nations were cast out before the chosen tribes : the victories
over all their enemies, from the possession of Canaan till the
overthrow of Antiochus. If we see in the demand the voice
of the triumphant angels at the Ascension, well may they
speak of the Lord mighty in battle, when Satan and all his
hosts, when sin, and death, and heU have just been utterly
vanquished. The words of Vieyra are well worth notice:
serm. das " When Christ ascended in triumph to heaven, the angels
Francisco ^' ^^^ accompanied Him said to them that kept the guard,
Tom. xii. p. Lift up, O ye princes, your gates, and the King of Glory shall
240. come in. They think the term strange ; and before opening
the portal, they inquire, Quis est iste Rex Olorice? This
Whom you call the King of Glory, Who is He? To the
one, and for the other band, of angels, S. Augustine replies
with these noble words : ' The heavenly spirits beheld Christ
all-glorious with His wounds ; and bursting into admiration
at those glittering standards of Divine virtue, they poured
forth the hymn, Quis est iste Rex Glorice V Wonderful say-
ing ! Christ our Lord, in the day of His Ascension, went
arrayed with glorious gifts, like the Blessed One that He
was ; but the angels called Him not King of Glory because
they saw Him glorious, but because they saw Him wounded.
Far greater glory they were for Christ and for the angels,
those marks of His Passion, than the endowments of His
blessedness."
Then, if we refer the former verse to the Annunciation,
PSALM XXIV. ^ 327
the question here is only that of S. Mary, Who is this King
of Glory ? And herein is the greatness of His love, that
the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle, did
not abhor the Virgin's womb, and vouchsafed to tabernacle
there the appointed time. /6»— and lay great stress on that
adverb —
Ibi regem de Sion The Hymn,
Expavescit rex Ammon ; Quando
Ibi tremit Babylon, ""Zm""'
Quia noster Solomon
Coronatur in Gihon.
9 Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift
up, ye everlasting doors : and the King of glory shall
come in.
10 Who is the King of glory : even the Lord of
hosts, lie is the King of glory.
There remains but one observation to be made on the re- Hugo vic-
peated demand and reply. In the first the Loed, victorious ^°^^-
over the grave, was ascending into heaven, alone, so far as ^
human nature was concerned, — alone, so far as regards His
faithful servants, yet bearing the burden and heat of the
day, while He was entering into rest. But now we look for-
ward to the end of the world. And behold, He reascends,
not now by Himself, but with all the multitude of the re-
deemed, with all His saints, from the beginning of the world
to the last that was written in the Book of Life. Well,
therefore, was the reply to the first question, — " The Loed,
strong and mighty ;" for what greater proof of might than
the overthrow of death and hell ? And with equal force the
second reply is. The Lord of hosts. He is the King of glory : ^y_
when it is not a single warrior returning in triumph, but a
mighty Chief, followed by the multitude of His victorious § p |^^ ^
soldiers. "And may the Lord of Hosts," so a mediaeval
preacher concludes his sermon on this verse, " the true David,
the Victor over the spiritual Goliath, the Founder of the
everlasting city on Mount Sion, be to us the pacific Solomon,
the Lord, yet in another sense, of Hosts, and introduce us
one day into that land where Judah and Israel shall be as
many as the sand which is by the sea in multitude, eating i Kings iv.
and drinking, and making merry !" ^ '
And therefore :
Glory be to the Fathee, Whose is the earth and aU that
therein is ; and to the Son, the King of Glory ; and to the
Holy Ghost, the Eighteousness of the God of our salva-
tion.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be : world
without end. Amen.
328
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Ludolph.
Mozarabic.
Mozarabic,
for Ascen-
sion-tide.
D.C.
Collects.
O God, the establislier of the world, to Whom all the
plenitude of the earth is obedient : restore us to the inno-
cency of life, that Thou going before us, we may ascend to
the mountain of sanctification. Through (1.)
Lord, strong and mighty, Loed, mighty in battle, cleanse
our hearts from all sin, and keep our hands without guilt,
and purify our souls from vanity, that we may merit to stand
in Thy holy place, and to receive the blessing from the Loed
our God. Through Thy mercy (11.)
O Loed, the King of Glory, Who, by the completion and
opening of the prophetic oracles, didst, as it were, lift up the
eternal gates, and didst return to Thy Fathee's seat, — be-
cause, while Thy Godhead, which had never departed thence,
is again there, access is open to the human race, — grant that
thither our desires may arise, where our E-edeemer has al-
ready preceded, and that we may never be detained by the
captivity of our lusts on earth, when the Head of our body
is already rejoicing with Thee in heaven. Through Thy
mercy (11.)
[O Lord of Hosts and King of Glory, purify our con-
science, that alway being clean in hands and pure in heart,
we may receive blessing and everlasting mercy from Thee.
Through (1.)]
PSALM XXV.
Title. A Psalm of David.
Aeottment.
Aeg. Thomas. That Christ, when the temple of His Body was
destroyed, should raise it again after three days. He hath sent a
song to His elect. The song of the elect. Concerning the doctrine
of Confession. The voice of the Church repenting with her whole
soul. The voice of the Church against her enemies. By fasting.
A song for the catechumens and elect.
Ven. Bede. Through the whole Psalm the Church prays that
she may not, before the Presence of the Lord, appear contemptible
to her enemies. In the first part she makes supplication that she
may be taught the commandments of the Lord, and His ways :
Unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. Secondly, she asks for
the favours which He hath bestowed on the Holy Fathers from the
beginning : Call to remembrance, O Lord, Thy tender mercies, &c.
Thirdly, she showeth how they that keep the commandments of the
Lord merit eternal rewards, and protesteth that she will constantly
remain in the will of the same Lord. The first portion, therefore,
consists of five letters j the second of six j the third of nine.
PSALM XXV. 329
S. Jeeome. The 25th Psahn contains the prayer of the Mediator
I offered to the Fathee : it may also be the clamour of the Church
faaking her requests to God.
Yaeious Uses.
Grefforian. Tuesday ; originally Sunday : Prime. [Office for
ie Dead : 11. Nocturn.]
Parisian. Monday : Tieroe.
Lyons. Wednesday : Prime.
Amhrosian. Tuesday of the First Week : II. Nocturn.
Quignon. Monday : Prime.
Eastern Church. Ferial : Terce. In Lent : Compline.
Benedictine. Sunday : I. Nocturn.
Antiphons.
Gregorian. [Office of the Dead : The sins * of my youth and
my ignorances, remember not, O Loed.]
Amhrosian. My GoD, my GoD, look upon me. K. K. K.
Mozarabic. My GoD, I have put my trust in Thee : O let me
not be confounded.
Benedictine. Mine eyes * are ever looking unto the Loed.
This is the first of the Alphabetic Psalms : that is, of those in
which each verse, or each clause, commences consecutively wdth a
letter of the Hebrew alpliabet. The others are the 34th, the 37th,
the 111th, the 112th, the 119th, and the 145th. Besides these, the
Lamentations of Jeremiah are written on the same system, and the
31st chapter of the Book of Proverbs. Some of the Psalms, of
which this is one, are not absolutely perfect in this acrostic arrange-
ment. It is a more ingenious than likely suggestion of Cassiodorus,
that those in which tlie acrostic is maintained without a flaw are
intended to describe the state of the perfect ; the Psalms in which
it is not unbroken, of those who are only striving after perfection.
Probably from these Psalms arose the ABCdarian hymns of the
Latin, and Canons of the Eastern Church. The former are by no
means uncommon : as, for example, that of Sedulius, A soils ortus
cardine : that beginning, JEterna coeli gloria : the A Patre Uni-^
genitus : that of Ethelwald, Alma lucerna micat : the AUissimi
verbum Patris : the Agni Oenitor Domine. In the Greek Canons
many might be quoted : it will suffice to mention those in the Oc-
toechus, and one on the Metastasis of S. John (Sept. 27) anti-
Btrophic : (i.e., beginning at the end.)
1 Unto thee, O Lord, will I lift up my soul; my ^
God, I have put my trust in thee : O let me not be 2
confounded, neither let mine enemies triumph over
me.
The Apostle commands us, " Cast not away, therefore, Heb. x. 35.
your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward."
Acting in agreement with that command, the Psalmist begins
with the expression of his own confidence : M^ God, I have
330
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Ay.
S. John xi.
42.
Serm.
De Fide,
cap. 23.
put my trust in Thee. And if we take tlie words as spoken
by our Loed, they merely assert that which He said on the
Saturday before His Passion : "I knew that Thou hearest
Me always." He says Himself, / have put My trust in Thee.
s. John xiv. He commands it to us : " Ye believe, or rather ye have con-
^' fidence in GrOD ; have confidence also in Me."^ Do I lift
s. HUdebert. up my soul. It is well and wisely commanded by Isaiah,
" Shake thyself from the dust ; arise, and sit down, O Je-
rusalem :" because by nature our soul *' cleaveth unto the
dust." In the very beginning of this his prayer, David com-
mences by raising his mind. It is the Sursum corda which
has commenced the Christian sacrifice from the veiy begin-
ning. Well says S. John Damascene : " Prayer is the ele-
vation or ascent of the soul to God." O let me not he con-
Gen, iii. 10. founded. It is the Second Adam that speaks. The first had
G. said, " I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself."
2 Cor, V. 4. Of the second it is written, " Not that we would be un-
clothed, but clothed upon." Let not mine enemies triumph.
You may take it of Satan and his hosts, as S. Athanasius
does : or, as S. Jerome, of temporal enemies ; as Gentiles
against the Jews, or heretics against the Church. Let them
not triumph, when we are beginning some holy work, as To-
biah against Nehemiah : "Even that which they build, if a
fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall :" or as
the Jews at the day of Pentecost, " These men are full of new
wine." Unto Thee, O Lord. Erchembert says, beautifully
£'"342 ^^"' ^^ough : " It is the voice of the Church to Christ : that
Church, which lay low in the valley of tears, before Cheist
came into the world ; but by His Advent, He hath raised
her in faith, in hope, and in love. It is just the same thing
as corn, which, if it lies low in the ground, rots : if it sprouts
up, it shall be preserved. Thus the soul which perseveres in
its sins goes to decay, and perishes ; if it is raised up, and
amends itself, and stands in faith, hope, and love, it is guarded
by the Loed."
L.
Neh. iv. 3.
Card. Mai.
Ecclus. ii.
10.
J 2 For all they that hope in thee shall not be
ashamed : but such as transgress without a cause
shall be put to confusion.
The wise man is the best Commentator. "Look at the
generations of old, and see : did ever any trust in the Loed,
and was confounded ? or did any abide in His fear, and was
^ It is a curious example of
the way in which Gerliohus
presses the verse on which he is
commenting to apply to the re-
ligious state of the time, when
we find him thus writing on this
first verse : " My God, I have put
my trust in Thee : I trust not in
the traditions of the Pharisee ; I
trust not in idols ; I trust not
in the sects of heresies ; / trust
not in tJie interdicted masses of
Simoniacs."
PSALM XXV. 331
forsaken? or whom did He ever despise that called upon
Him ?" Tlie multitudes, as the Fathers remind us, hoped in
Christ for three days, and were rewarded by being fed with
five loaves and two small fishes. S. Albertus Magnus well s. Albert, m.
says : They that hope in Thee ; but it must be with courage,
as it is written, "O tarry thou the Loed's leisure: be Ps.xxvii.i6.
strong, and He shall comfort thine heart ; and put thy trust
in the Lord." It must be even under correction ; according
to that saying, " Yea, in the way of Thy judgments, O Lord, isa- xxvi. s.
have we waited for Thee." It must be, although He seem to
procrastinate, giving us that for which we hope ; according
to that saying, " Keward them that wait for Thee." And the
end of this waiting the wise man tells us : " The patient man eccIus. i.23.
will bear for a time, and afterward joy shall spring up unto
him." And again : " Yea, I am with him in trouble : I will ps. xci. 15.
deliver him and bring him to honour." Deliver him, that is,
liberating him from the punishment he has deserved by na-
ture ; bring him to honour, bestowing on him the glory that
he has merited by Christ. And notice that this verse begins
with the letter (ximel. Now Gimel, by interpretation, is per- s. Albert, m.
fection ; because patience is the perfection and crown of all
virtues. As S. James saith, "Let patience have her perfect s.Jamesi.4.
work." And again it is written in the Epistle to the He-
brews, " Through patience the promises are inherited." Shall Heb. vi. 12.
he put to confusion. Thus He turns back the shame on His
enemies which they have poured upon Him. And so the
Church applies in Passiontide those words of Jeremiah, "Let jer, xvU. is.
them be confounded that persecute me, but let not me be
confounded ; let them be dismayed, but let not me be dis-
mayed ; bring upon them the aay of evil, and destroy them
with double destruction." The translation of the Vulgate is
somewhat different. Confounded he all they that do loicTced-
ness vainly. S. Augustine understands it of those who so A.
vainly toil to acquire those earthly riches which make them-
selves wings and fly away. Euffinus takes it to show how
vain is every work of the wicked, seeing that it cannot be
carried on in the next world ; that there its contriver may
say with Job, " My days are past, my purposes are broken jobxvU. 11.
off, even the thoughts of my heart."
3 Show me thy ways, O Lord : and teach me thy ^
paths.
Notice the difference between ways and paths. By ways. Ay.
we understand God's laws, that are common to all men ; by
paths, which are straighter and narrower than ways, those
evangelical counsels, such as poverty, chastity, and obedience,
of which it is written, "All men cannot receive this saying, g.Matt.xix.
save they to whom it is given." Observe also the difference 11.
of the verbs to show and to teach : as, if once shown, the
ways were comparatively easy, but the paths must be taught
333 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
with difficulty and perseverance. Or, as Gerhohus puts it
p neatly, Show me Thy ways by the most shining example of
Thy conyersation among men in the active life : and teach
me Thy paths, in the contemplative life, by which the saints
Ven. Bede. desire to behold Thy divine face in heaven. Thy ways, not
any of which lead to destruction, but all are ways of life. S.
serm. 58 in Bernard teaches that the soul desirous of God is said in the
Cant. Psalms to be continually searching out these things, namely,
justice, judgment, and the place of the dwelling of God's glory,
as the way in which she is to walk, the rule by which she is
to journey, and the goal to which she is to tend. S. Augus-
tine, the Doctor of Grace, who never misses one clause that
tells of grace, takes occasion to deduce its necessity from this
verse. Show me, because I cannot show myself : teach we,
for without Thee I can never learn. Thy ways : and princi-
pally Him Who said, " I am the Way ;" and Whom Solomon
Prov. viii. calls the Beginning of God's ways. Show me Thy ivays ; ac-
22, Vuig. cording as it is written, " The Loed directeth the steps ;" and
s. Ai ert. M. ^g^p^ ^Q r£j^y paths, according to that saying, " Master, we
know that Thou art true, and teachest the way of God in
truth :" the motive, as S. Albertus speaks, thus coming before
the apprehension. Teach me. Corderius well observes that
we are not here to understand the word teaching in the way
in which Scripture or any external authority is said to teach ;
for in that sense the prophet had already been taught the
ways of the Lord : but of the inward teaching of the Spieit
Cd. of God, and that twofold. The first, that by which He per-
suades men to embrace His ways as really desirable, and to
be followed for the sake of happiness ; the other, that by
which He takes advantage of every little external circum-
stance or accident to draw His own lessons therefrom. After
all, I know not but that I prefer the brief comment of Lu-
Lu. dolph to any other, who, after quoting the text, merely says,
" O LoED, let me not err."
n 4 Lead me forth in thy truth, and learn rae : for
^ thou art the God of my salvation ; in thee hath been
my hope all the day long.
And here we have what we always must have in the ser-
Pseudo- ^^^ o^ ^0^ — progress : Lead me forth. There is among the
Chrys. works of S. Chrysostom a homily on this verse ; which, how-
ever, is not Chrysostom's, but some Latin author's. He
dwells on the principal means by which God does learn us,
namely, by that Church which cannot err. Learn me, that I
8. Albert. M. may understand what I believe: for faith precedes, under-
isa. vii. 9. standing follows : as it is written, " If ye will not believe,
surely ye shall not be established." Learn me ; not in the
book of nature, as the philosophers, for so it is written, " The
invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are
Rom. i. 20. clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made :"
PSALM XXV.
333
C.
Z.
nor yet in the book of Scripture, in which Thou teachest
theologians ; as it is written, " The vision of all is become Ji*' ^^'
unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men
deliver to one that is learned, saying, Eead this, I pray thee,
and he saith, I cannot, for it is sealed :" but in Thy very
truth, which is the book of life. For Thou art the God of
nvy salvation. " There are two things," says Cassiodorus,
" which make good Christians : the first, that we should be-
lieve God to be the God of our salvation ; the other, that we
constantly set His final retribution before our eyes." In
Thee hath been my hope. It is the voice of the saints before
the Advent waiting and expecting the Coming of the Loed.
And in this sense it may well be said. For Thou art the God
of my salvation. For who is the God of our salvation but
Jesus? All the day long. S. Chrysostom takes it as op- in s. Johan.
posed to night, of our Lobd Himself, the true Day. As if xiv. 31.
the Prophet said. In Thee hath been my hope, on account of
that Saviouk Who is to come.* For Thou art the God.
Notice the twofold pleading in this petition for help : the one s. Albert. M.
on the part of God, the otlier on the part of ourselves. On
the part of God, love ; on the part of ourselves, patience.
And these both taken together, make good the initial letter
of the verse, He, which is life.^
^ Notice that this way of un-
derstanding "all the day long"
is precisely similar to the Eng-
lish vulgarism, " all along of a
person ;" meaning to say, " for
the sake" or *' because of that
person."
^ It is worth while noticing,
both as a piece of ecclesiastical
history, and also as a specimen
of the manner in which Gerho-
hus applies the Psalm to him-
self, the extraordinary insertion
which he here makes in his com-
mentary. After speaking on the
clause, In Thee hath been my
hope all the day long, he dwells
at great length on the example of
S. Peter waiting for our Loed's
pardon after his threefold denial.
And he then proceeds : — " But
that I, the writer of this work,
may speak of my own especial
needs, did not the cock crow
well to me" — he is referring to
the cock that crew for S. Peter's
warning — "when they were in-
creased that trouble me, and
many one there was that said of
my soul, There is no help for
him in his God ; when by their
prejudices I was condemned as
a heretic and schismatic," — he
alludes to the Council of Baden-
berg, in which his teaching with
regard to the Hypostatic Union
was called in question, — " and in
living with them I felt as it were
the cold that Peter felt in the
hall of Caiaphas, when the mini-
sters of Antichrist stood around
me, and my friends retreated afar
oflP. When the night was cold,
and the coals of my enemies
were suspected by me, in the
midst of the sorrows of that dark
night, the cook crew ; for the
Roman Pontiff, having heard of
my persecution, and the causes
of that persecution, wrote me
consolatory letters in this fash-
ion." He then quotes a brief of
Celestine II., who sat from Sep-
tember 25, 1143, to March 8,
1144. " By these letters I was
evoked to the Apostolic See, and
came thither, and found Pope
Celestine already dead, to whom
334
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
It would seem, as Dr. Good very well observes, that from
the latter clause of this verse has been separated the clause
which now forms the end of the sixth. According to most
mediaeval commentators, the Vau verse has accidentally been
lost. He would arrange the Psalm so that it should take its
proper place, and the fourth verse be relieved of its third
member thus :
" Se. Lead me forth in Thy truth, and learn me : for Thou
art the God of my salvation.
" Vau. In Thee hath been my hope all the day long : for
Thy goodness, O Loed."
The sixth verse (according to our numbering) will then
stand : " O remember not the sins of my youth : but ac-
cording to Thy mercy think Thou upon me."
^ 5 CaU to remembrance, O Lord, thy tender mer-
cies : and thy lovingkindnesses, which have been
ever of old.
And here we may notice the manner in which the Psalmist
carries on his supplication. For this Psalm is the pattern of
s Gree ^ prayer. 1. He calls on the mercy of God to pity him.
Morai.xxxu. 2. He exposes his own infirmity that it may be helped, in
5- verse 6. 3. He tells how He has been heard, that others may
be comforted, in verse 7. Call to remembrance, 0 Lord, Thy
isa. xiix. 16. tender mercies ; and God makes answer, " Can a woman for-
get her sucking child, that she should not have compassion
on the son of her womb ? Yea, they may forget, yet will I
not forget thee." Why does He say lovingkindnesses in the
plural, rather than lovingkindness ? And they give the
S. Albert. M. answer, Because it is written, *' How multiplied" (our version
Ps. xxxvi.7, reads excellent) "is Thy mercy, O God!" And it has been
well said that this very verse, in its method of addressing
God, is another proof of His mercy : that He allows Himself
to be asked to call to remembrance ; as if He, the omniscient,
ever could forget. Think Thou upon me. We cannot read
such words without remembering the most marvellous as
well as the most touching time that they ever were uttered,
"Loed, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom !"
n 6 0 remember not the sins and offences of my
succeeded Pope Lucius, who by
his consolations was again my
morning cock, as may be seen in
his brief:" he quotes one to Con-
rad, Archbishop of Salzburg, in
which that Pontiff highly com-
mends the doctrine of Gerho-
huB : and the whole ends with a
thanksgiving to GoD. "For,"
says the writer, "unless I had
been defended by the Pontiffs of
the Apostolic See, or by some
other intelligent cocks, I should
have been long ago prescribed
by the Simoniacs and Nicolai-
taus."
PSALM XXV. 335
youth : but according to thy mercy think thou upon
me, O LoRD_, for thy goodness.
Notice the difference of sins and offences : as the Yulgate
has it, delicta et ignorantice : following the LXX., afiapriai koI
&yvoiou. The greater part of the commentators take the sins,
in the full force of the Latin word, to mean sins of omission :
hut Cassiodorus, though not employing the word, understands C.
them to be venial sins. So early a passage on that subject is
curious, and worth quoting : " They will have delictum to be
something that is of less moment than a sin, and is so called
because it leaves the way of strict justice, but yet is not con-
versant in any deep depravity of crime. For it is a delictum
to take one's food too greedily ; to give way to immoderate
laughter ; to waste time in idle words, and other matters of
the same sort, which do not appear to be very heavy sins, but
which nevertheless are manifestly prohibited." Dionysius
observes that all sins may be divided into three classes, — the
three bands of the Chaldaeans again, — the three companies of D. C.
spoilers that came out from the camp of the Philistines : sins
of ignorance, sins of infirmity, and sins of presumption. Sins
of ignorance, he says, are especially directed against the Son,
as the personification of wisdom ; sins of infirmity against
the Father, as that of power ; sins of presumption against
the Holy Ghost, as that of goodness. Hence the expositors s. Aibertus
take occasion to discuss the question, how far ignorance ex- Magnus,
empts from or palliates sin. *' I obtained mercy, because I i Tim. i. is.
did it ignorantly in unbelief." Those are noble words of the
Second Council of Utrecht, directed against the miserable
laxity of later times, that ignorance exempts from sin, pro-
perly so called. " The eternal law, naturally implanted in all,
can only be matter of ignorance, from the blindness and cor-
ruptions of the heart ; therefore this ignorance can never, in
the case of adults, who have the use of their reason, be pro-
perly, fully, and entirely invincible, nor can it excuse from
sin. Wherefore the Psalmist saith with tears, O remember op^s im-
not the sins of my youth and my ignorances. ' Which class perfect, i.
of offences,' says S. Augustine, 'unless they were imputed ch^^rSfoJ®'^
by a just God, would not need the ]Drayers of a faithful man utrecht,
for forgiveness.' " Euthymius ingeniously asks why he prays 3i6.
especially for forgiveness of ignorances ? And replies, Be- 2.
cause sins of malice are not to be removed by prayer alone.
Of my youth. Many do not take it of the literal season of ^
youth, but of those passions which are most common to that ^'
season ; and so regard it as a prayer for the remission of the q
sins of concupiscence. Youth. Gerhohus sees in this, as in
the preceding verses, a reference to S. Peter, and refers to g. johnxxi.
that text, " When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, is.
and walkedst whither thou wouldst ;" which he ingeniously
compares with Ahab's reprimand of the Syrian's boast, " Let 1 Kings xx.
not nim that girdeth on liis harness, boast himself as he that !!•
336
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
P.
Cd.
De Civitat.
Dei, 16.
Serm. Tom.
iu. 137.
CO
putteth it off." This accidental resemblance is worked out
by him at very great length, and with more ingenuity than
probability. Parez sees a reference to the sin of Adam,
which was indeed the sin of the youth of the world : Theo-
dorus of Heraclea, to the sins of the people in Egypt, the
youth of the Israelitish Church. S. Augustine has a noble
passage on the blessedness of those whose youth has passed
without any special outbreak of mortal sin ; and bitterly la-
ments in his Confessions his own crimes at that age, when he
was tantillus puer, sed tantus jpeccator. I will end with a
fine passage (though containing a different view of the text)
from Vieyra with reference to this verse. He is preaching
on S. Augustine's day, and telling of the confessions of that
saint.
" David, when he is asking Gtod's pardon for the offences
of his youth, (such as those of Augustine also were,) makes
bis prayer after this fashion : O remember not the offences of
my youth, nor my ignorances. These, which in the first place
be calls offences, in the second he names ignorances : and the
reason ofhis calling sins ignorances, is because he desired to
palliate and excuse them under that name. But it seems
that it neither ought so to have been, nor ought he so to have
spoken. Ignorances are defects of the understanding : sins
are defects of the will : and having to excuse one defect by
another defect, it seems as if he ought to have charged it on
the less noble power, which is the understanding ; and not
on the more noble, which is the will. And so David would
have done, had he spoken and meant like a man ; but he
spoke and meant like a saint. The saints, as they know the
weight and nature of sin, and how much more ugly are the
defects of the will than those of the understanding, are more
ashamed of being wicked than of being foolish ; and had ra-
ther seem ignorant than sinners. Wherefore David, confess-
ing his sins, alleges his ignorances as their excuse. Delicta
juventutis mece et ignorantias meas."
7 Gracious and righteous is the Lord : therefore
will he teach sinners in the way.
Ay.
Gracious and righteous. Gracious, says one, in respect of
the mercy whereby He forgiveth sin ; righteous in respect of
the justice whereby He will by no means clear the guilty :
gracious, in respect of His saying, " Behold, thou art made
whole ;" righteous, in respect of His adding, " Go, and sin
s. Alb, Mag. no more :" gracious, when we look back to His first Advent,
in great humility ; righteous, when we look forward to His
second Advent, in great justice. Gracious. It is in the Vul-
gate, sweet. But yet the wise man advises us well : " Say
not, I have sinned, and what harm hath happened unto me ?
for the Lord is long-suffering ; He will in no wise let thee
go. And say not, His mercy is great. He will be pacified for
S. John V.
14.
Ecclus
4,0.
PSALM XXV. 337
the nmltihide of my sins : for mercy and wrath come from
Him, and His indignation resteth against sinners." Will He
teach : or, as it is in the Vulgate, Will He give the Imv to.
" God," says Dionysius, " hath given a threefold law to man : J), C.
the law of nature, the ceremonial law, and the evangelical
law ; and every one of these comes of His sweetness and of
His love." Sinners in the way. They understand this ex-
pression in many diflferent senses. Some take it to mean.
He will teach sinners, who, though they are constantly offend-
ing, falling seven times a day, turning to the right hand or
to the left hand, nevertheless, and on the whole, are keeping
His commandments ; and in this sense the Western Church
prays by the side of the dying, " For although he hath sinned, Prec. Ago-
yet he hath not denied the Father, the Son, or the Holy ^'^'^'
Ghost, but hath believed ; and had a zeal for God, and hath
faithfully adored God, Who made all things." Others, again, G.
take the way to mean our Loed Jesus Christ, the true Way ;
so that the sense should be. Therefore will He teach sinners
in, or because of, the Way, namely, our Lord. And yet
again they take the way, after its common ecclesiastical mean- P.
ing, to signify this life, so as to make the signification. There- Lu.
fore will He teach sinners, while yet there is time and space C.
for repentance, according to that saying, " He is able to save Heb. vii. 25.
unto the uttermost all that come unto God by Him."
8 Them that are meek shall he guide in judg- ^
meut : and such as are gentle, them shall he learn
his way.
Meeh. And who are they ? Those who do not resist the Ay.
leading grace of God. As it is written : " So then it is not Rom. ix. 16.
of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God
that showeth mercy." And again : " A man's heart deviseth Prov^xvi. 9.
his way, but the Lord directeth his steps." It is the same Cd.
command that is given by S. James, " Receive with meekness s. James i.
the engrafted word." In judgment. It may be understood in ^i-
two different ways : either He will direct them hj judgment,
or prudence, so that they shall not turn to the right hand nor cresoUus.
to the left, which is the usual interpretation of the later com-
mentators ; or He shall so direct them, that in the last judg- -^^
ment they shall stand unblamed before Him. We may apply
to the Psalmist's declaration, that the meek shall be guided
in judgment, the explanation which S. Augustine gives of a,
similar passage. When he had written in his book, De Vera cap. x.
Meligione, the following sentence : " Attend therefore to that
which follows as diligently and piously as thou canst ; for it
is such that God helps," he explained it in his Retractations Retractat.
thus : " I do not wish to be understood as if God only helps cap. 3.
those that give all their attention with the greatest diligence ;
for He sometimes so assists those that do not, that they may
become among the number of those who do." So here God
Q
338 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
does not only guide the meek, but sometimes also He so
directs the unmeek and ungentle, as that they may become
meek ; as S. John, who once demanded, "Wilt Thou that we
call down fire from heaven?" was afterwards guided and
taught, till he became the Apostle of love. Such as are
De serm. gentle : or, as S. Augustine will have it, humble. In his
Dora, in commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, he tells us, in
Monte, c. 4. jj^j^a^^JQjQ of ^lie famous saying of Demosthenes about action,
that for those who would learn God's ways, humility is the
Z« first thing, humility is the second, humility is the third. And
s.Matt.xi. therefore our Lokd Himself says, "Learn of Me, for I am
-9- meek and lowly of heart." Shall Se learn His way. Well
s. Greg. says S. Gregory : " The preacher can pronounce words which
Moral, xxvi. sJjall enter into the ears, but he cannot open the heart ; and
unless by internal grace God, only omnipotent, invisibly
causes the spirits of the hearers to receive the words of the
preacher, the latter labours in vain." Them shall He learn
Sis way. Wherefore David proceeds to show us what are
God's ways : saying,
3 9 All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth :
unto such as keep his covenant^ and his testimonies.
^y^ This, then, explains the conclusion of the last verse. The
Gloss says, " Although the ways of the Loed, are, as it were,
infinite, yet all are included in these two: whereof He ex-
"■1* hibits the one by forgiving sin, the other by rewarding ac-
cording to merit." All the paths of the Lord. " Those ways,"
says S. Bernard, "which are everlasting, and under which,
s. Bernard, as Habakkuk says, the perpetual hills did bow : the hills
Habak. being understood of those evil spirits who are to be cast down
at the Coming of the Loed." Mercy and truth. They are
here joined by God Himself; and those whom God hath
joined together, let not man put asunder. S. Thomas, treat-
ing on this subject with a depth worthy of himself, explains
mercy of the free, unmerited forgiveness of sins bestowed on
us in Baptism ; truth, of the reward given us according to our
works, when the grace to do those works has once been put
Prosoiogion. i^^to our power. S. Anselm beautifully savs : " Thy mercy
cap. 11. springs from Thy justice, because it is just that Thou should-
est so be good as to manifest Thy goodness by sparing. But
if we consider justice, how it awards prizes and punishments
according to our merits, mercy comes first : for God is moved
by Himself and by the primary act of His will ; in giving
a reward or a punishment. He takes the occasion from our-
selves. And that is a secondary and consequent act of His
will." Kupert understands the two columns that stood be-
in III. Reg. ^^^'^ *^^^ temple to mean the same thing. " There are," says
cap. 7. he, "but two paths of the Lord ; the whole house leans on
two pillars ; the whole edifice of Holy Scripture is supported
by these two attributes. For whatever we have heard of all
PSALM XXV. 339
the ways of the Lord may be referred either to mercy or to
truth." Again, as in a preceding verse, we may understand
mercy and truth of the first and second Advent. And with
this verse we may compare the expostulation in Ezekiel, ^^^^ j^jy
" Yet ye say, The way of the Loed is not equal. Hear now, 25.
O house of Israel : is not My way equal ? are not your ways
unequal ?" TJnto such as. Not to all ; for as the house of p
Israel in that text, there are those who will persist in calling
them harsh and unjust. Sis covenant and Sis testimonies.
Here, again, the commentators differ as to the meaning of
these two phrases. Some, as Venerable Bede, will have them
to signify the Old and New Testaments : others, as S. Jerome
and S. Albertus, by covenant understand the writings, by
testimonies the human authors of Holy Scripture. On the D. C.
whole, this chiefly, as Dionysius the Carthusian tells us, are
we to learn from this verse, to pray that we may be kept
from presumption, because all the paths of the Lord are
truth ; to pray that we may be kept away from despair, be-
cause all the paths of the Lord are mercy. " But why God
chooses justly to have mercy on one evil man rather than on
another, cannot be discovered by us : nay," S. Augustine
saith, " do not thou investigate this matter, if thou wouldst ■^•
not err."
10 For thy Name's sake^ O Lord : be merciful ^
unto my sin, for it is great.
I cannot do better than quote one of those beautiful pas-
sages of the great Yieyra, which gave him the character of
the first preacher of his age. "I confess, my God, that it Serm.Tom.
is so ; that we all are sinners in the highest degree." He is "^- ■'^°-
preaching on a fast on occasion of the threatened destruction
of the Portuguese dominion in Brazil by the Dutch. " But so
far am I from considering this any reason why I should cease
from my petition, that I behold in it a new and convincing
argument which may influence Thy goodness. All that I
have said before is based on no other foundation than the
glory and honour of Thy most holy Name. Propter Nomen
Tuum. And what motive can I offer more glorious to that
same Name, than that our sins are many and great? For
Thy Name's sake, 0 Lord, he merciful unto my sin, for it is
great. I ask Thee, saith David, to pardon, not every-day
sins, but numerous sins, but great sins : multum est enim.
O motive worthy of the breast of God! O consequence which
can have force only when it bears on Supreme Goodness ! So
that, in order to obtain remission of his sins, the sinner al-
leges to God that they are many and great. Yerily so ; and
that not for love of the sinner, nor for the love of sin, but for
the love of the honour and glory of God ; which glory, by
how much the sins He forgives are greater and more nume-
rous, by 80 much the more ennobles and exalts itself. The
Q 2
340
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
vieyra. same David distinguishes in tlie mercy of God greatness
and multitude : greatness, secundum magnam misericordiam
ttiam ; multitude, et secundum muUitudinem miserationum
tuarum. And as the greatness of the Divine mercy is im-
mense, and the multitude of His loving-kindnesses infinite ;
and forasmuch as the immense cannot be measured, nor the
infinite counted, in order that the one and the other may in
a certain manner have a proportionate material of glory, it is
necessary to the very greatness of mercy that the sins to be
pardoned should be great, and necessary to the very multi-
tude of loving-kindnesses that they should be many. Multum,
est enim. Reason have I, then, O Loed, not to be dismayed
because our sins are many and great. Reason have I also to
demand the reason from Thee, why Thou dost not make haste
to pardon them ?"
j^ 11 What man is he, that feareth the Lord
shall he teach in the way that he shall choose.
him
Ay.
Ecclus. i.:
Ecclus.
xxxiv. 14.
z.
S. Hiero.
That feareth the Lord. There are three principal effects of
the fear of God. It purifies, according to that saying, " The
fear of the Loed driveth away sin." It fortifies, as it is
written, "Whoso feareth the Loed shall not fear nor be
afraid." Thirdly, it sanctifies, as Cassiodorus says : " The
law of God begins in fear, and ends in love." What man is
he ? " Is there such a man !" exclaims one of the Fathers, " if
there be, — ^but I much fear whether any hearers will be found,
— let him attend." In the way that Se shall choose. And
here they dispute to whom the pronoun belongs : whether to
God, or to him that feareth the Loed. The greater number
of interpreters, headed by S. Jerome, understand it in the
latter sense. Thus, for example, when the soldiers demanded
of John Baptist, What shall we do ? the publicans, What
shall we do ? and the common people also, he gave them an
answer applicable to the way of life which each of them had
chosen. Thus, also, there must be special rules for those
that have chosen the secular and the religious life. And
this affords a very good meaning, and may well teach priests
how, in giving their advice, they follow the example of the
great High Priest, and teach each man who comes to them
in the way that he shall choose. But surely it is better to
understand the verse in the other sense : in the way, namely,
which God shall choose. Thus Gerhohus and Jansenius
expound the clause.
3 12 His soul shall dwell at ease : and his seed shall
inherit the land.
G.
Shall tarry in good things, as it is in the Yulgate. Unlike
the soul of Adam, who, being put into possession of the de-
PSALM XXV. 341
lights of Paradise, tarried tliere but a few days or hours.
His soul must indeed at first sojourn in Mesech, and dwell
among the tents of Kedar ; but it shall tarry for ever in
those good things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard.
S. Ambrose takes it in the sense that the righteous man, De Bono
however surrounded by affliction, — nay, however oppressed "^o"^^^' ^-9 •
and encircled by the wicked, — does even at that very moment
tarry among good things ; because " all things shall work to-
gether for good to them that love God." Cassiodorus, re-
jecting every idea of a purgatory, applies it to the state of
the righteous immediately after death : surrounded, indeed,
with good things, but yet tarrying for the completion of hap-
piness, the Beatific Vision. To the same purpose speaks the
Eastern Liturgy, when it asks a place for the departed " in in Liturgia
tabernacles of light and gladness, in habitations of shade sySXcob!
and quiet, amidst the treasures of happiness, whence all sor- iUca.
row is banished afar, where the souls of the righteous expect
without labour the guerdon of life, and the spirits of the just
wait for the end of the promised reward, in that country
where the workers and the weary look on to Paradise, and
they that are invited to the wedding long for the Celestial
Bridegroom, and ardently desire to receive that new state of
glory." Others explain it of the possession of heaven itself, s. Alb. Mag.
and its three principal blessednesses — vision, love, fruition.
But, taking it in the sense which would see in it a promise on
earth, Hugh of S. Victor says admirably, " He expresses with Hugode
great sweetness spiritual delectation, where He says. Sis ^' Victore.
soul shall tarry in good things. For whatever is carnally
sweet yields without doubt a delectation for the time to such
as enjoy it, but cannot tarry long with them ; because, while
by its taste it provokes appetite, by its transit it cheats desire.
But spiritual delights, which neither pass away as they are
tasted, nor decrease while they refresh, nor cloy while they
satiate, can tarry for ever with their possessors." And his
seed shall inherit the land. Almost all the commentators take q^^ j^ ^
his seed to signify his good works ; and S, Albertus collects, wis'd. iii.'is.
in illustration of this sense, the texts which I append in the ^o^. xiv.
margin. And with this may be compared the verse, " That 2 cor. iv. 17.
when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habita- s. johnxu.
tions," if by the they we are to understand the good works Micahvi.i6.
we have sent afore.
Et virtute meritorum IJL^S'
Illic introducitur Hierusalem.
Omnis, qui ob Chkisti Nomen
Hoc in mimdo premitur.
Others, again, will have the earth to mean the body of him D. C.
of whom the Psalmist speaks ; and the sense to be, that his
seed, his higher self, his new nature, shall keep that body
under subjection, and rule over it with an absolute sway.
Others, again, see in the earth a figurative expression for our ^-
342
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Loed's Body, which, the righteous possess in the Blessed Sa-
crament here, and shall more gloriously and entirely possess
G. there. And if we apply the whole text to our Loed, His
blessed soul, now no more " troubled," now no more " ex-
ceeding sorrowful," dwells in everlasting ease in the kingdom
which His might has won for Him ; and His seed— for " now
are we the sons of God," — shall one day possess the earth, the
new earth, the avrix^ova., as the Pythagoreans express it, which
He Himself has purchased for them.
p 13 The secret of the Lord is among them that
fear him : and he will show them his covenant.
E.
Moral, iii.
13.
G.
S. Matt,
xiii. 11.
L.
S. John XV.
15.
Amos iii. 7.
Gen. xviii.
17.
Jadg. xiii.
18.
SeduliuB.
The Hymn,
A »olig ortuM
cardine.
Here again the Vulgate differs : The Lord is a strong foun-
dation^ to them that fear Sim. For the fear of men weakens,
says one ; but the fear of the Loed strengthens. " In
the way of God," says S. Gregory, " we begin in fear, and
we end in fortitude." Gerhohus takes the firmamentum of
the Vulgate, and sees in it a reference to the separation of
the waters from the waters, and of the firmament which was
called heaven. But, if we take our own translation, we shall
find it authorized by the secretum Domini of S. Jerome, the
h.'i(6^p't}Tov of Aquila, and the fiva-T^piov of Theodotion. And
they quote the " Because it is given to you to know the mys-
teries of the kingdom of heaven," of our Loed : and again.
His " Henceforth I call you not servants ; for the servant
knoweth not what things his Loed doeth ; but I have called
you friends : for all things that I have heard of My Fathee,
I have made known unto you." Think again, too, of the
declaration in Amos : " Surely the Loed God will do no-
thing, but He revealeth His secret to His servants the Pro-
phets ;" and the equally loving question in Genesis, " Shall I
hide from Abraham that thing which I do, seeing that Abra-
ham shall surely become a great and mighty nation P" We
may take it, if we will, as spoken of Him Who once said,
" Why askest thou thus after My Name, seeing it is secret ?"
and then, in the next clause, He, He Whose Name is thus
wonderful, shall show them His covenant ; His Cross, which
is to be their crown ; His imprisonment in the tomb of Jo-
seph of Arimathea, which is to be their everlasting peace.
[Yet a^ain, the secret of the Loed dwelt within her who
feared Him, His lowly handmaiden, to whom He showed His
covenant by the voice of the Archangel.
CastsB parentis viscera
Coelestis intrat gratia ;
Venter puellee bajulat
Secreta quae non noverat.
' Firmamentum : the LXX., Kparaiufia^ which does not seem to
come very well from *iiD.
PSALM XXV. 343
His secret, the mystery of the Sacrament of the Altar, " latens s. Thomas
Deltas," as the hymn says, abides amongst His faithful ones, Aquinas,
to whom He discloses Himself in that bond of the New Co- JJoJ^oYe^"'
veriant, when they feed on Him in faith. demte.
Mary's womb the folded bloom of Sharon's Rose contained, w. c. DLx,
And I may share the load she bare, though not like her unstained : ^^^ Songrs.
Joy such as hers my spirit stirs, the hungry Thou hast fed,
My God, my King, to Thee I sing, Who art the Living Bread.]
14 Mine eyes are ever looking unto the Lord : for ])
he shall pluck my feet out of the net.
And this is the same thing which is written in Ecclesiastes : Gr.
" The wise man's eyes are in his head :" that is, in our True Eccles, ii.
Head, our Loed Jesus Chkist. Out of the net,vf\i\ch. Satan, i4.
that diligent fisher of souls, spreads in the troublesome waters
of this world, " wherein," as they remind us, " are things Ps. civ. 25.
creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts," all man-
ner of temptation, both in its tremendous and in its meanest
forms. "The eye," says Hugh of S. Victor, "is the active HugoVic-
intention : he therefore hath his eyes ever to the Lokd, who toxin.
directs, by intention to the Law of God, all that he does.
And his feet are set loose from the net, because that cannot
be an evil action which is set on foot by the law of GrOD."
S. Chrysostom remarks, " Birds, while they cleave the air at
a height, are not easily taken. Thus thou, if thou wilt only Horn, ad
fix thine eyes on the things that are above, wilt not easily be Pop. xv.
taken with any snares. Birds have wings given to them to
this end, — that they may avoid snares : men have reason," —
but he should rather have said the power of prayer — " that
they may avoid the temptations of the devil."
T5 Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me : ^
for I am desolate and in misery.
Thou, Who causest mine eyes to turn to Thee, turn Thine
also to me. Thou once, when Thou didst create Adam, Gr.
didst only see a noble creature, formed after Thine own
Image, in Thine own likeness, endued with every glorious
power of soul, when man was very good. Now Thou be-
holdest one of whom Thy Prophet saith well, " From the isa. 1. 6.
sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness m
it, but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores." Never-
theless, turn Thee unto me ! If Thou turnest from me, who
will turn to me ?
The Priest beheld, and passed Triodion,
The way he had to go : the Great
A careless eye the Levite cast Son?^'*^
And left me to my woe :
But Thou, O Good, O Loving One, draw nigh ;
Have pity on me ! say, Thou shalt not die !
344 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
s. Luke If Thou turn to me, TMne own love will compel Thee to
^"'" ''■ have mercy on me, as on the woman that had had a spirit of
infirmity eighteen years : as on the impotent man that had
none to put him into the pool when it had been stirred
up by the Angel : have mercy on me as Thou didst on her
Ezek. xvi. 6. of old, of whom it is written, " I said unto thee when thou
Ven. Bed. in wast in thy blood. Live." Yen. Bede well says, " For God
s. Matt. to IoqIc upon us is to have mercy upon us : for He looks
^^'^^' not only on us when we turn to Him, but looks on us also
that we may turn to Him." And notice : God is said to
look in three ways. There is the glance of His Wisdom,
s. Alb. Mag. which He throws on all His creatures ; " God saw every-
Geu. 1. 31. tj^jjig t]^at He had made, and behold it was very good :" the
glance of His anger, which He casts on the ungodly ; as it is
Eccius. V. 7. written, — "His look resteth upon sinners:" and the glance
of His love on the righteous, according to that saying, —
Wisd. iv. 15. " He hath respect unto His elect." And this verse well an-
C. swers the 14th : for on whom can God look, save on one who
is always looking to Him ?
For I am desolate : or as it is in the Vulgate, The only
one : in the LXX., The Only -begotten. And here, then, we
have a key to the true sense. Who is this that cares to be
looked upon, and to receive mercy, save He Who is the
Ay. Only-begotten Son of the Father ? Some take it indeed,
to mean the only one, as not having a double heart : and that
is true also : but far better it is to understand the verse of
Him Who, being the Only and Eternal Son, yet became, of
His own free will, subject to such misery as none else ever
knew : Who was desolate beyond all earthly desolation, when
He cried out, " My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken
Me ?" And then to Him, as to none else, the verses that
follow will apply.
^f 16 The troubles of my heart are enlarged : O bring
tbou me out of my distresses.
Enlarged, indeed ! From the moment that He was bom
" in the manger, because there was no room for Him in the
inn," how did they increase, and gather, and multiply, till
they found their full accomplishment in the Cross ! And He
-^y* speaks of the sorrows of His heart first, because that Agony
in the Garden where they all found vent preceded in time,
and— if we may without irreverence compare that which is
infinite — exceeded in heaviness, the troubles of Mount Cal-
vary. Out of my necessities, it is in the Vulgate : and Ger-
G-. hohus beautifully dwells on the expression. " I know that
it is necessary for me to eat, to sleep, to drink, to be clothed,
if I desire to live : but, in order that I may be set free from
the bonds of such necessities, therefore, * to me to die is
gain :* and therefore I * desire to depart and to be with
Chbist.' I ask for a happy death, then, O my God ! when
PSALM XXV. 345
I say, Deliver me out of my necessities. That rich man, who
died ill, and in hell lift up his eyes being in torments, was
not delivered from them, since, being athirst, he desired a
drop of water to cool his tongue. But I desire so to die, that
I may be with Cheist. For if Lazarus, before the Advent
of Cheist, was free, in the bosom of Abraham, from these
necessities, how much more I shall be liberated from them,
if when dissolved I am with the Loed P" And then he goes
on in a passage, the antithetical beauty of which could not be
preserved in a translation : " O Domine ! sic de necessita-
tibus meis eripe me, ut quae non possunt mihi viventi deesse,
non possint obesse : sic insint, ut non obsint : serviant, non
dominentur : sint mihi ad usum, non ad abusionem." The
Italic version has dilatatce^ instead of multiplicatcB : and
Cassiodorus, who applies it to the Church, ingeniously ob- ^•
serves, and like a consular as he was, — " Necesse est enim ut
copioso fasce depuniatur, qui pro multis affligitur." The g Gregor.
Saints take occasion from this verse to dwell on the danger Moral, xx.
of turning what are necessities into sins. Perimus Ileitis. ^^•
And S. Augustine in his Confessions sadly complains that
he had often sinned in this way. It is surely rather a hard
construction put by the same Saint on this verse, where
he understands sins to be signified by necessities, because
through the frailty of our nature we cannot always stand ^/^^*}V*
. P, . 1 J -Kir i.1 • 1 ■ J • et Gratia,
upright. Are enlarged. Many they are in kind, many in cap. 66.
species, many in number, says the Biblical S. Albertus. s. Aibertus
Many in kind : Eccles. iv. 4. Many in species : Isa. xxxviii. ^s^'^^-
15, 2 Cor. xi. 29, Ecclus. xxv. 16. And in number : Ps. cxx.
4, Job iv. 20, Ps. xlii.
17 Look upon my adversity and misery : and for- p^
give me all my sins.
Or, as it is in the Vulgate, my humility and my labour. Cr.
And what humility ever like His Who left the Throne for
the Manger, the utmost bound of the everlasting hills for the
womb of the Virgin ? And what labour ever like His Who
taught the multitude by day, continued all night in prayer
to God, fainted under the weight of the Cross on which His
own weight was so soon to be hung ? Nor must we be afraid
of applying the verse to our Loed because of its conclusion :
forgive me all my sins. My sins, — those which for our sakes
He bare, — those which bearing He atoned for, — those which, .
more than anything else, wrung from Him the JSli, Eli, lama ^^*
* And 80 we read in the Gra-
dual of the Roman Missal for the
Second Sunday in Lent : perhaps
the translators read itrKarvvQ-qaav
instead of iirX-ndyvd-ncray.
begins, like the succeeding one
with rno, behold ; which cannot
be right, because the acrostic re-
quires a p- TTp, take away, seems
2 This verse in the present text \ the neatest word.
q3
346
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
G. sahachthani? But we may well also take the prayer into
our own. mouths. Adversity, every man that has a soul to
save must expect from the enemy of that soul : misery is
pledged to us by that saying, uttered too by him who was
Acts xiv. 22. galled the Son of Consolation, " that we must through much
^- tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." S. Augustine
ingeniously turns the verse against the Donatists : " See my
humility, whereby I never, through the boasts of righteous-
ness, break off from unity." Abbat Antiochus tells us,
quoting this passage, that labour, undertaken for the sake of
L. God, is one of the most favourable breezes which can carry
us into the everlasting harbour. And S. Bernard affirms
that humility and toil are the two uprights of the ladder by
which we ascend to Paradise.
Ay.
Job xxxiii.
27.
S. John XV.
26.
G.
S. Matt. X.
36.
Rom. viii.
26.
*) 18 Consider mine enemies^ how many they are :
and they bear a tyrannous hate against me.
Consider : and why ? Because, as Job says, " He looketh
upon men ; and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that
which was right, and it profiteth me not : He will deliver his
soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light."
Consider Mine enemies. As He saith, "Father, forgive
them : for they know not what they do." How many they
are. Look upon Me the Only One (ver. 15) on the one side :
Mine enemies, banded together on the other : on Pharisees
and Scribes, Jewish Rulers and Koman soldiers, Pilate and
Herod : and they hear a tyrannous hate against Me, " that
the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law,
They hated Me without a cause." Or, if we understand the
words as uttered by any afflicted Christian soul, then Ger-
hohus will explain them for us. " Look upon the demons as
the soldiers of Pharaoh, look upon the crowds of malignant
men as the chariots and horses of the same devils, look on
the concupiscences implanted in my flesh and senses, look
upon those undisciplined motives, of which I might well say,
' A man's foes shall be they of his own household.' Con-
sider all these mine enemies. And since I know not what I
should wish with regard to each of them, since, as saith
Thine Apostle, ' we know not what we should pray for as we
ought, but the Spieit itself maketh intercession for us with
groanings which cannot be uttered,' let that good and be-
nign Spirit teach me what I should desire to happen to
each of mine enemies ; whether to devils, that they may be
kept off, or to men, that they may be converted, or to carnal
concupiscences, that they may be extinguished, or to those
men who will not be converted, and are hardened in their
nature like the Pharaoh, that they may be hindered from
their evil effects." Cassiodorus ingeniously joins the mul-
titude of the enemies with the prayer that they may be con-
iidered and so pardoned. The destruction of a few might not
PSALM XXV. 347
have seemed so great a matter : but the greatness of their
niin itself cries out to, and claims, mercy.
19 0 keep my soul, and deliver me : let me not be li;
confounded, for I have put my trust in thee.
Xeep my soul in the first place from sin, and then deliver G.
me, if it be Thy will, from affliction. If I am cast into the
raging sea of this world, deliver me by sending the whale
that, however unlikely a minister of safety, shall bear me
securely to the shore : If I am thrown into the furnace of
Babylon, deliver me, and let the Angel of the Covenant stand
by me. If I am cast into the lion's den, deliver me by send-
ing Thy Angel, who shall shut the mouths of those beasts.
JLet me not he confounded. " How should I be confounded?" ^"f^^d
asks the great hymnographer, Joseph of the Studium : "when in the^4th^
Thou didst stretch forth Thine Hands on the Cross, to week of
atone for the ill actions of my hands : when Thy heart was ^"*"
wounded with the spear, to propitiate for the crime of my
wicked thoughts : when Thou didst taste of vinegar, to do
away the pleasurable sins to which I have yielded?"
20 Let perfectness and righteous dealing wait upon ]^
me : for my hope hath been in thee, ^ O Lord,
The Vulgate gives it differently. The innocent and the
right adhere to me, because I have loaitedfor Thee. See, they Ay.
say, the efficacy of prayer! But two verses back, the
Psalmist had interceded, — " Consider mine enemies ;" and
here those very enemies are become the innocent and right.
According to Cassiodorus, it is the Church Triumphant that ^*
is speaking. Because in the days of my warfare / waited
for Thee, therefore now the innocent, those little ones that
have been called from earth in their baptismal purity, and
the right, those who have been tried and found true in their
many struggles, adhere to me : have a portion and an in-
heritance with me : are denizens in the " many mansions"
prepared for them in the heavenly Jerusalem. There may
again be a reference to that 15th verse, where he describes -^•
himself as alone. Now he stands no longer alone, but girt
about with the assembly of the innocent and upright.
21 Deliver Israel, O God : out of all his troubles.
As that first Israel, after his compelled flight from his q.
fatlier's house, after his hard bondage with Laban, after his
marvellous escape from Esau, after the ruin of Dinah, after
1 So the verse ends in the I calls it superfluous, it seems
LXX., Italic, and Ambrosian ; ' needed to make up the metre of
and though S. Jerome, Ep. 136, | the original.
348 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
the loss of his best-beloved Joseph, was at length brought
into the best of the land, into the country of Goshen, while
that same Joseph was raised to be lord over all Egypt.
" Therefore," cries Gerhohus, *' in the same way in which
Thou, O God, didst then deliver that Israel, now deliver
Thy whole Israel : leave not oflf consoling him, by showing
him the glory of the True Joseph reigning over the Egypt of
this world, till that glorious and beautiful sight shall make
Gen. xiv. 28. j^-jj^ g^y. ^^^-^ < j^ |g enough ; I will go and see Him before I
die.' I will see him, in types and riddles, before I die : but
face to face, after I die : now I see Him reigning over the
whole land of Egypt, but then I shall see Him reigning in
Heaven, when the kingdom of Egypt shall have been de-
stroyed. Now I shall see Him in Egypt feeding His breth-
ren, and distributing com to all people : but then I shall see
Him, the Living Bread of Angels, and feeding both Angels
and men with the glorious Vision." The Eoman version
has. Deliver me, O God of Israel, from all my afflictions :
but far nobler is the common reading, which winds up this
Psalm of prayer with a supplication, no longer for one, but
for the whole Church !
And therefore :
Glory be to the Father, Who is gracious and righteous ;
and to the Son, the Way in Whom sinners are taught ; and
to the Holy Ghost, the Secret of the Loed.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be :
world without end. Amen.
Collects.
Ludoiph. Deliver us, O most merciful God, from all our miseries,
because we lift up our souls unto Thee ; remember not, we
pray Thee, the offences of our youth and our former igno-
rance ; and if we have through negligence offended Thee, do
Thou, of Thy clemency, pardon us. Through (1.)
Mozarabic. To Thee, O LoED, we raise our soul by the assistance of
hope ; and we beseech Thee so to embue it with celestial de-
sires, that it may cease to have its conversation upon earth.
Let not the enemy deceive it by promising terrestrial plea-
sures, but do Thou draw it to Thyself by offering celestial
joys. Grant to it, O Almighty God, such wisdom, that it
may cleave to the truth rather than to a lie : may follow
after humility, and be on its watch against pride, and par-
ticipate Thy rewards with the Saints. Amen. Through (11.)
T).C. Eemember us, O Loed, according to Thy mercy and good-
ness, and set free our feet from the nets of our enemies : that,
once readv to run in the path of evil, they may at length take
hold of the path of righteousness, and constantly and per-
eeveringly follow the same. Through (1.)
349
PSALM XXVI.
Title. A Psalm of David.
Aegument.
Aeg. Thomas. That Cheist hath established the Church unto
the innocency of a better hfe. The Prophet under the Person of
Cheist beareth record of himself. His earnest supplication, who
maketh progress according to God. The voice of the Church,
which consenteth not in the Passion of Cheist, imploring the judg-
ment of GrOD against her enemies. Concerning the tribulation of
the enemies,
Ven. Bede. The whole text of this Psalm is to be applied to
the perfect Christian, who persevering in the acquirement of different
praises in the Church, consoles himself with the Divine blessing.
The Saint, of whom we speak, maketh supplication at the begin-
ning of the Psalm that God would have respect unto his innocence :
because he hath not had his portion with wicked men : Judge me.
O Lord, &c. Secondly, he maketh request that he may not in the
Judgment of tlie Loed be reckoned with heretics and schismatics,
since he declareth his love to the house of God : Lord^ I have loved
the habitation of Thine house, &c.
Syeiac Psaltee. Of David, when his friends left him, and he
was an exile :' but to us the prayer of that man, who makes progress
in virtue.
Vaeiotjs Uses.
Gregorian. Wednesday (originally Simday) : Prime.
Parisian. Tuesday: Tierce.
Lyons. Monday : Tierce.
Amhrosian. Tuesday of the First Week : 11. Noctum.
Monastic. Sunday : Matins : I. Nocturn.
Quignon. Tuesday : Prime.
Antiphons.
Mozarabic. LoED, I have loved the beauty of Thine house, and
the place of the glory of Thy Majesty.
Monastic. Mine eyes * are ever imto the Loed.
1 Be thou my judge, O Lord, for I have walked
innocently : my trust hath been also in the Lord,
therefore shall I not fall.
It is a serious and seemingly perilous wish, which he ex-
presses for himself,— that he may be judged I^ But all the
» I cannot but think that this to be classed with the 8th and
is a mistake ; and that the pre- 23rd.
sent Psalm is one of the ear- 2 itjg^orth noticing that some
liest of David's writing, and so copies of the LXX. have Kp'iv6tt
350
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
D.C.
G.
S. John xi.
42.
Ps. xvi. 11.
S. John ii.
24.
G.
G.
C.
Gen. xxii. 1
Deut. xiii. 3,
commentators^ take it, if spoken by David, of the judgment
or separation from others, not of decision as regards himself;
— in the same sense, that is, with the opening of the 43r(i
Psalm, — "Give sentence with me, O God, and defend my
cause from the ungodly people." But we choose to apply it
to the Son of David : and then indeed from that unrighteous
tribunal He may well make His appeal : " What think ye ?
They all condemned Him to be guilty of death." " Pilate
gave sentence that it should be as they required." Be Thou
My Judge, 0 Lord, for I have walked innocently : or in My
innocency, as the Vulgate has. My innocency, says Gerhohus,
in the same way in which we speak of our Father, or our
daily bread. Ours because given to us. By two kinds of
steps, he adds, we approach the Lord ; those of intention,
and those of action. My trust. When ? — or rather, when
not? For present assistance: "I knew Thou hearest Me
always." For future preservation : " Thou shalt not leave
My Soul in hell." All through that troubled and sorrowful
Life: all through that agonised and living Death, "Jesus
would not commit Himself unto them, because He knew all
men." No: My trust hath been in the Lord; I shall in no
wise fall : or, as a reading of the LXX. has it, he weak?
Yet Thou wast weak, O Lamb of God, for our sakes ! Yea,
that we might be strong to the keeping of Thy commandments,
Thou didst gird Thyself with the fleshly vesture of our weak-
ness : that we might be strong to agonize at the entrance of the
strait gate. Thou wast weak in that mortal agony in the Gar-
den : that we might be strong to cast off the dominion of death,
Thou wast wounded to the death on the Cross ! I shall not fail.
Because He failed. Who is our Strength : He was sick, Who
is our Health : He died. Who is our Life.
2 Examine me, O Lord, and prove me : try out
my reins and my heart.
Examine me, or as the Vulgate has it, tenta me — -prohandoy
non reprohando. But they ask, Can it ever be a lawful prayer,
that we may be tempted ? There are two kinds of tempta-
tions, replies Cassiodorus. The one of the Lord, by which
He tries the good, that He may lead them ; as it is written,
• " God did tempt Abraham :" and again, " The Lord your
God tempteth you." The other of the devil, which always
leads to evil, and concerning which we pray, " Lead us not
no I, not fi e, and Apollinaris, in
his version, thus paraphrases :
much better than Duport's Kpive
n'-'Ai^a^.
' It showB in what different
senses the word is used by the
Church, when we find Cassio-
dorus here condemning the
" detestabilis arrogantia meri-
torum."
2 ov fii] iiadfyficrw, — or more
Uterally, give way : ^yp« nV.
PSALM XXVI. 351
into temptation." "God tempts that He may crown: the ^g^^^j^
devil that he may subvert," says S. Ambrose. And S. Au- hamo.cap.s,
gjistine dwells at great length on the difference of the two
temptations ; how, by the one, the man comes out as silver DeCivit.Dei.
purified in the fire : how, by the other, it is of the Lord's
goodness that we are not consumed, because His compassions j\ q
fail not. Or it is the Lamb of God that speaks. For how
was He not examined, how was He not proved, from the .
temptation in the wilderness to the last and most fearful trial ■^^'
of the Cross? From the "if Thou be the Son of God" of
Satan, to the " that the world may know that I love the Fa-
ther " of Himself. Mi/ reins and my heart. The one the
seat of pleasure, the other of business ; my recreations, and
my work : that which I eschew, and that which I engage in.
Try out. In the Yulgate it is Burn. And with what heat? *
asks S. Augustine. Surely with the fire of the Spirit : of
which it is said, " None can hide himself from the heat Ps. xix. 6.
thereof." And again: "I am come to send fire on the^-^"^^^"-
earth." And that this purification is the effect of God's
mercy, not of His severity, He continues :
3 For thy lovingkindness is ever before mine eyes :
and I will walk in thy truth.
None can explain this verse better than Hugh of S. Victor. Hugo, vic-
" It is the mercy of God v\ hich spares : it is His truth which ^^^^ ^^^- ^•
corrects. By His mercy He repelleth not penitents from in-
dulgence ; by His truth, while He punisheth sin, He hath
respect to the crime, not to the person. It is needful there-
fore that he, who would attain to salvation, contemn not
these two remedies of the medicine of God. For without
mercy, he cannot obtain pardon : without truth, he cannot be
amended. But there are some who, while with hasty pre-
sumption they expect their faults to be pardoned by the mercy
of God, will not patiently endure the scourges of correction :
and if perchance they acknowledge that they have suffered
as the punishment of their sin, they are forthwith puffed up
with the swelling of pride, and on that account think that
they have no occasion for the mercy of God, because, by their
own performance, they are fully justified before the Divine
tribunal. Against these let us hear what the Psalmist says :
Thy lovingkindness is ever before mine eyes : and I am well
pleased in Thy truth. I see that Thy lovmgkindness is every-
where necessary to me ; and the strokes of Thy correction,
by which Thou closely punishest my sin, I not only do not
shrink from, but receive with joy : nay, even in these, I ac-
knowledge that Thy mercy is not wanting. I am well pleased
(saith he) in Thy truth. Elegantly said, laudably said: a
saying worthy of imitation. As if he said, I have no com-
placency in myself except in Thy truth ; because that which
oispleaseth Thee in me, this even I myself reprehend. In
352
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Origen.
S. Bruno
earth,
Haymo.
Thy truth I have complacencv with myself: because, while
Thou pursuest my sins with the scourge, Thou makest me
glad with the love of correction. For why should I not be
complacent with myself in Thy truth, who formerly had an
evil complacency with myself in my own falsehood ?"
\Thy lovingkindness, — and now it is the sinner speaking to
God — is ever before mine eyes in the story of the Passion, and
I am well pleased in Thy truth, because all my delight is in
conforming myself to the likeness of Thy Son, Who is the
Truth. And, taking the exacter English rendering, I will
walk in Thy truth, we can keep to the same interpretation,
remembering that He Who is the Truth is also the Way.]
S. Albert
Magn.
c.
Brev. Col
cap. i. 9.
4 I have not dwelt with vain persons : neither will
I have fellowship with the deceitful.
He pleads for Himself, — the Son of David here speaking, —
first, from His freedom from sin ; next, from His fulness of
good. The former, / have not dwelt with vain persons :
the latter, " I will wash my hands in innocency." And the
former, — first as regards God : next as respects the righteous.
Again : in the former we have the action, — have not dwelt :
the word, — neither will I have fellowship : the thought, — " I
have hated the congregation of the wicked." The Yulgate
has it, I sat not with the counsel of vanity. No, of a truth,
O LoED Jesu ; Thou didst stand before it. Thou wast smitten
at its command, but sat with it, never ! And so, after Thy
example, Thy followers may sometimes be called to draw nign
an assembly of wickedness, but never will they dwell with it,
or take part in it. The abuse of this verse by the Donatists
is well known ; and the rebuke they incurred from S. Augus-
tine for refusing to sit in a Catholic Council, when, to be con-
sistent, they should have carried out the latter part of the
DePudicitia, yerse also, and not have appeared there at all. Tertullian
^*^" ' also abuses the text to the support of his Montanist dogma,
that adulterers were not to be reconciled to the Church. The
council of vanity is taken by primitive writers to mean that of
idolaters, idols being so often called by the name of vanities
in Holy Scripture. *' They have provoked Me to anger with
their vanities." " Turn ye not aside ; for then should ye go
after vain things, which cannot profit nor deliver, for they
are vain." *' What iniquity have your fathers found in Me,
that they have gone far from Me, and have walked after vani^,
and are become vainP" The deceitful. And how did He
reject them with,^ " Woe unto you. Scribes, and Pharisees,
hypocrites !"— " Why tempt ye Me, ye hypocrites ?"
L.
Deut. xxxii.
21.
1 Sam. xii.
21.
Jer. ii. 6.
^ The commentary of Gerho-
hu8 on this passage is well worth
reading ; though his vehemence
against the simoniacs and con-
cubinaries of his time leads him
to believe that an interdicted
Priest cannot validly consecrate
the Lobd's Body and Blood j
PSALM XXVI.
353
5 I have hated the congregation of the wicked :
and will not sit among the ungodly.
Or, as it is in the Vulgate, The Church of the malignant : Aj.
a fearful Church indeed : Satan's parody of the Immaculate s Albert.
Bride. That reprobate Church, as the wise man says, " is like eSs.
tow wrapped together, and the end of them is a flame of fire xxi. 9. '
to destroy them." The Church. They observe that, except
in one passage of the Acts, this word is always taken in a
good sense ; yet S. Ambrose remarks that the Apostle does in Roman,
well to salute the Churches of Cheist, because there are also *^*p- ^^i- ^^-
churches of the devil. And the hatred of God's enemies,
quh His enemies — "yea, I hate them right sore" — so entirely
opposed to the indifferentism of the present day, has always
been one distiDguishing mark of His ancient servants. Wit-
ness Phinehas ; " and that was counted unto him for righte- Ps. cvi. 31.
ousness among all posterities for evermore:" Samuel with
Agag : Elias with the priests of Baal. And notice the com-
mendation of the Angel of Ephesus, " Thou canst not bear ^^v. ii. 2.
them that are evil."
6 I will wash my hands in innocency, O Lord :
and so will I go to thine altar.
Two principal explanations are given of this altar. The Ay.
one that it is our own heart : that altar on which the " fire" of g ^^jg^
love is always to be burning : " it shall never go out." Hence Magn.
they run into all the richness of mediaeval theology, to explain
how the various altars of which Scripture tells, of wood, of |- Bruno in
brass, of stone, of earth, of gold, can apply to ourselves. So ^' ^^* ^**
S. Bruno of the altar of earth, which he explains of humility, ven. Bed. in
So Ven. Bede, of the altar of shittim-wood, which he under- Ex. xxvii. 1.
stands of purity. So Solomon's brazen altar, of constancy.
So Joshuas altar of unhewn stones, of earnestness and the Josh. vm. 31.
rejection of vain glory. And so, finally, the golden altar of
incense is interpreted of love. Others, again, understand the
altar to be our Loed ; as Him by "Whom all our prayers must p q
be offered, in Whom all our oblations must be made ; Him-
self Priest, Altar, Victim, and the God to Whom the offer-
ings are made. But by far the greater number of expositors
take it in the former sense. In innocency. Because it is C
possible to wash them among the guilty, and say, with Pilate,
" I am innocent of the Blood of this Just Person," while the
one of the hasty and unfounded
assertions which gave such ad-
vantage to his enemies. Here he
also debates the question, whe-
ther an individual Bishop can
tolerate the functions of one
whom the Pope has interdicted :
a doctrine, he says, taught by
many learned men, and capable
of seducing, if it were possible,
the very elect.
354, A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Church of God replies with one voice, " Suffered under
vid. Duran- Pontius Pilate." This verse no doubt suggested the rite of
tus, de rit. the Lavabo in the Western Church ; what millions of times,
2.'^28. ^ ^y what multitudes of lips, must it have been repeated, by
those who have now put off the corruptible and put on the
J incorruptible ! So will I go to. Or, as it is in the Vulgate,
^' So will I go round : as they say the Jews did on great fes-
tivals, with green boughs, whence the idea of the procession
of palms.
Origen. [^0 ^'^^^ I compass Thine altar, (A.V.) Origen, explaining
the altar to be the soul of man, further adds, " When the soul
nods not outwards, but looks towards herself, and to her own
centre, she compasses the altar of God, framing no angle
which can retain corruption, for the wise Solomon tells us
Prov. vu. 12. that folly * lieth in wait at every corner,' "]
7 That I may show the voice of thanksgiving : and
tell of all thy wondrous works.
A ^ Or, as it is more truly in the Yulgate, That I may hear the
^' voice of praise. For God must teach us, they say, first, before
we can hear, secondly, tell of His works. Even as the Loed
taught His disciples, before He sent them forth to convert
the world ; even as the Lord Himself sat among the doctors,
both hearing and asking them questions, before He Himself
Actsi. 1. "began to do and to teach." And notice, up to this verse
we have the righteous man's actions as regarding himself;
negatively, forsaking evil ; actively, doing good : now we
. come to his deeds as regards others. He must teach. " So
hear the voice of praise," says S. Augustine, " as not to praise
thyself even when thou art good. For, in praising thyself
as good, thou art become evil." But what is this ? "I wiU
wash my hands" — that I may hear ? Yes : for it is only the
pure that can hear so as to understand : it is only they who
are cleansed from sin to whom the voice of praise will speak.
G. The voice of praise. They take it in a most blessed significa-
tion of that voice, " Come, ye blessed of My Father," that
voice of heavenly and conclusive praise for which all earthly
blame were well and happily borne.
The Rhythm O beati tunc lugentes
Heu, heu, Et pro Cheisto patientes !
mundi vita. Quibus sseculi pressura
Eegna semper dat mansura !
And may tell of all Thy wondrous works, in that glorious
land, whose eternity, and that only, will suffice for the rela-
tion of all. If that may be gained, most willingly "I will
go to Thine altar," O Lord, even though it be as the victim
myself, even if Thou hast need of me, not as the worshipper,
but as the burnt-offering !
PSALM XXVI.
355
8 Lord, I have loved the habitation of thine
house : and the place where thine honour dwelleth.
I have loved. For
How lovely and true, how full of grace,
O LoED, Thou God of Hosts, Thy dwelling-place !
How elect each architect !
How serene its walls remain !
Never moved by, rather proved by,
Wind, and storm, and surge, and rain !
Adam Vic-
torin.
The Se-
quence,
Quam di-
lecta.
c.
The two clauses may be taken of the material and the spiritual
Church : the one, those walls which are raised by earthly
hands : the other, the house not made with hands, where
each of the Lord's saints is an elect stone, in heaven. Or, if
you will, of the Church militant and the Church triumphant.
And vrhen we think how low the habitation of God's house
seems to have fallen, — how thieves and robbers have come
up into it, — how that which we build, if a fox go up, he shall
break down our stone wall, it may be a comfort to know that
the cry of God's servants, in all ages, has been the same ; as
here S. Albertus, writing in the tenth century, in the full ^^^,lf^^
fervour of so many monastic institutes, makes grievous com-
plaints of the dishonour done to the habitations of His house,
and the ruins in which it lay. But, applying this verse to
the material temple, the author of the Opus Imperfectum ^^^^^ xlvii.
would nevertheless understand the beauty of the spiritual in s. Matt,
sacrifice, of the ardent love, the earnest praises, that there
abound ; not of the glory of shining marbles and precious
metals. " O house of God," S. Augustine bursts forth, confess, xii.
" luminous and beautiful ! I have loved thy beauty, and the is.
place of the habitation of my God, thy Builder and Pos-
sessor ! To thee my exile belongs ; night and day to thee my
heart yearns ; to thee my mind stretches forth ; to the part-
nership of thy blessed my spirit desires to attain." "Loed," ^ ^^^^.^^
whispered the dying Paula, " I have loved the habitation of ^^ l^^^'
Thine house, and the place where Thine Honour dwelleth ;
O how amiable are Thy dwellings, Thou Lokd of Hosts !"
Yes, we have a better right than had Balaam to cry. How L.
goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel ! ^^^ 5
we, who see that ministration of the Spirit, which is " rather ^ cor. ui. 8.
glorious."* "Our bed is green," quotes Gerhohus ; " the ^ant. i. 17.
beams of our house are cedar, and our rafters fir;" and then
continues, " But thou who readest or hearest these words of
the Holy Ghost, canst thou apply to thyself any of them ? '^*
Dost thou recognize in thyself any of the felicity of the
Bride, described by the Spirit in this song of love; or
' See the splendid passage in
S. Maximus, where he compares
the whole world to a temple, de-
dicated to God's worship. It is
too long to be quoted here.
356 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
hearest thou His voice, but canst not tell whence it cometh,
or whither it goeth ?" It is the sum of his lucubrations —
most precious and beautiful they are — on the text : would
only we could follow him through the whole !
j\ Q [The Carthusian sees in the beauty of God's house the
devoutness of priest and people in divine worship, and in
the place where Sis glory dwelleth the desire of Saints to
approach their Loed when veiled on His altar under the forms
of Bread and Wine. The English version, rendering habita-
tion instead of beauty, is in accord with the Hebrew text. The
R. Kimchi. Itabbins agree in explaining it of the Ark of the Covenant,
whence 'we may well transfer it to the higher and deeper
love which the Saints bear to the Man of Sorrows, in Whom
Col. ii. 9. " dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." " O good
Joh. Tauier, Jestj," exclaims the Illuminate Doctor, "whose heart is there
S%^S. t-^^^ would not be softened, kindled into love, roused to de-
Christi. votion, moved to sympathy, when we consider Thy deepest
poverty, wondrous humility, and most ardent love towards
us !" And loving Him so, we shall remember too where His
S.Bruno honour dwelleth, namely, in the bodies and souls of those
who are called by His Name, and love our own selves with
that true and unselfish love which makes us adorn ourselves,
for His sake, with all holy words and works, that He may
tabernacle gladly in us.
Metroph. of Make us those temples pure and fair
Thi'^Hymn, Thy glory loveth well,
Tpi(p^yy)]s The spotless tabernacles where
Moi/as 06- Thou mayest vouchsafe to dwell.]
9 O shut not up my soul with the sinners : nor
my life with the bloodthirsty ;
10 In whose hands is wickedness : and their right
hand is full of gifts.
L. The sinners : offenders against God : the bloodthirsty ^
s. Aibertus ^g^i^ist their neighbour. And they see a connection between
Mag:uu8. the two clauses of the eighth and the ninth verses : the former
in each having rather a reference to the present, the latter
to the future, life. The commentators have singularly little
to say on these verses ; the almost only noticeable note being
that of Hugh of S. Victor. Leaving the natural sense in their
■^' right hand is full of gifts, which S. Augustine applies, with
terrible minuteness, to those judges whose sentence is influ-
enced, not by bribes indeed properly so called, but by any
consideration of popular applause, or the like, he understands
rin.^ut^Jts!' ^* t^us. He would see two classes of the wicked ; the first, in
Thomas Aq! iv^wse hand is tvickedness, those who give themselves wholly
to Satan's work : the second, those who for a certain time,
and to a certain extent, serve God, and who/or that service
will obtain a certain temporal reward ; so that it may be said,
their right hand, tliat is, their labour, is full of this kind of
PSALM XXVI. 357
gifts, which the merciful Loed bestows on them whom His
Justice debars from higher reward. Thus Jehu, though he
« took no heed to walk in the law of the Loed God of Israel l^f^^ ""■
with all his heart, yet because he did well in executing that '
which was right" on the house of Ahab, had the crown of
Israel secured to his family for four generations.
11 But as for me, I will walk innocently ; O de-
liver me, and be merciful unto me.
In innocentid med ingressus sum. It was Innocent the _L,
Eighth's motto. For my own part, I would rather say with
S. Bernard : *' My merits are Thy mercies." And in this
verse we have working out our own salvation — / will walk
innocentli/, and God working in us — 0 deliver me. Cassio- C.
dorus sees an antithesis between this and the last verse.
They may bring gifts, such as they are, — a multitude of sa-
crifices, countless money cast into the treasury : I loill walk
innocently : so as to give the same sense as that noble passage
of Juvenal,
Hsec cedo ut admoTeam sacris ; et farre litabo.
But if innocent, why need to be delivered ? Because, they Ay.
say, I will walk in my innocency, implies the Blood which
alone can be our innocence, the Blood of that Lamb Who
taketh away the sins of the world. And they dwell on that
world-famous passage of S. Augustine, which the Master of
the Sentences has made his own : " Omnes justi, sive ante
Incarnationem Christi, sive post, nee vixerunt, scilicet spi- Magist. Lib.
ritualiter, nee vivent, nisi ex fide Incarnationis Jesu Cheisti, iu. Distinct,
profecto ; quia scrintum est : Non aliud nomen sub coelo, in ^s.
quo oporteat nos saivos fieri."
12 My foot standeth right : I will praise the Lord
in the congregations.
What are the feet, but the affections of the soul ? If thy Ay.
foot offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee. What is
the right way, the shortest, most compendious route to hea-
ven, but love, without which nothing can save, but which
can alone save without anything else ? My foot standeth
right, then, or my affections are settled in love. In the con-
gregation : or, as the Vulgate has it. In the Churches. And
so, while yet the Church of God is scattered over and di- ^'
vided into so many various nations, before we attain to the
one " general assembly and Church of the first-born," oh how
truly have these words been fulfilled ! Oh how truly has
David praised the Loed in the Churches, when not one
among the countless office books of the Christian world, but
is based on the Psalms ! They also take the foot of fixed
358 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
s. Cyril. resolutions, like that of the Apostle : *' Watch ye, stand fast
Adorat.^cap. ^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ • ^^^^ J^^ ^^^® ^^^ ' ^^ strong." But the former
14. meaning is the best ; because, as Albertus observes, when
once we have this love, we cannot contain it within us, we
s. Alb. Mag. must communicate it to others; and thence we get to — I
will praise the Lord in the congregations. But more blessedly
still, in that one congregation, in that one general assembly
De Civ. Dei ^^^ Church, when, as S. Augustine says, " We shall be at
ad fill. * leisure and shall see, we shall see and shall love, we shall
love and shall praise. Behold, joy without end ! To which
leisure, seeing, loving. He bring us Who is blessed for ever
and ever. Amen."
And therefore :
Glory be to the Fathee, to Whom we seek for judgment ;
and to the Son, the Truth in Which we walk ; and to the
Holy Ghost, Who is merciful unto us.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be :
world without end. Amen.
Collects.
Ludoiph. Grant, O Loed, Thy mercy to them that call upon Thee ;
and make us so constant in Thy truth that, our acts being
restored to innocency, we may be freed from the wicked.
Through (11.)
Mozarabic. Redeem us, O Loed, and have mercy upon us, that our
voice may praise Thee in the Church, and our lips may bless
Thee among the people : purge our reins and prove our
hearts by Thy love ; and cut off from us aU pleasures, and
stop the influx of evil thoughts. Amen. (11.)
Mozarabic, O GoD, Who by Thy lovingkindness didst prove Thy
^^oj^'^of blessed martyr N. on earth, nor didst permit him to be
artyr. tempted above that he was able to bear : preserve us from
all temptation, which may oppress our minds ; that we, faith-
fully serving Thee, may so be proved, as that our temptations
may not turn to the confusion of grief, but may bind us to
the embrace of the truth. Amen. (11.)
D. C. [O God, the author of innocency, and hallower of righteous
souls, try out our reins and our heart, by grafting in us the
calm of purity, that we may not dwell with the council of
vain persons, but with our feet standing right, we may wor-
thily praise Thee in the congregations. Through (1.)]
PSALM XXVII.
Title. A Psalm of David. In the LXX. : A Psahn of David
before he was anointed.'
^ rov AavlS, Ttpib rov ^picBqvai.
PSALM XXVII. 359
AEaUMENT.
Ae&. Thomas. That Christ is the illumination, protection, and
safety of His servants that put their trust in Him. To those who
for the first time enter into the Lord's house. Concerning the love
of the Law. The voice of them that are baptized. To them that
first enter into the faith of the Lord, To be read with the lection
of Isaiah the Prophet, *' Behold, they that love Thee shall eat good
things." The voice of the Prophet crying to GrOD.
Ven. Bede. David was thrice anointed : once at Bethlehem, in
he 1 uuse of his father, by Samuel; secondly, in Hebron, by the
1 , ■ je of Judah, after the death of Saul ; thirdly, in the same place,
;. / all Israel, after that the son of Saul was slain. But since we
read not that he composed any Psalm before his first unction, it
follows that the second is that to which this title refers ; before
which, while he was yet an exile because of the snares of Saul, he
is recorded to have written a Psalm. Note, that before he was
anointed is not found in the Hebrew.
Since frequently before he ascended the throne David was troubled
by his bitter enemies, the Prophet speaks (with reference to these
his escapes) through the whole Psalm. In the opening he declareth
himself to fear the Lord, and to tremble at none else : he testifieth
that, in the adversities of the world, one refuge remains to him, —
that, though he be tempest-tossed by corporeal dangers, he dwelleth
in the house of the Lord by the unchangeable devotion of his soul :
The Lord is my Light and my Salvation. Next, delivered from
manifold destruction in divers manners, he returneth thanks ; and
in the spirit of prophecy promiseth to himself the reward of future
beatitude, Hear my voice, O Lord.
Striac Psalter. David, on account of the sickness which had
fallen on him.
S. Athanasius. a Psalm of boasting in the Lord.
(It is manifest, on careful consideration, that this Psalm consists,
properly speaking, of two : the first, a hymn of triumph, ends at the
seventh verse ; the other, a penitential ode, is clearly in a different
metre, as well as on a different subject.)
Various Uses.
Gregorian. Monday : Matins. [Good Friday : I. Nocturn.
Easter Eve : II. Nocturn. Office for the Dead : II. Nocturn.]
Monastic. Sunday : II. Nocturn.
Parisian. Thursday : Tierce.
Lyons. Monday : Sext.
Ambrosian. Tuesday of the First Week : III. Nocturn.
Quignon. Thursday : Prime.
Antiphons.
Gregorian. Ferial. The Lord is the strength * of my life.
[Good Friday : There are false witnesses risen up against me *
and such as speak wrong. Easter Eve and Office for Dead : I
believe verily to see * the goodness of the Lord in the land of the
living.]
Monastic. The Lord is the strength * of my life.
360
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Parisian. Be my helper, O God ; leave me not.
Quiff non. The LoED * is my light and my salvation,
Mozarabic. My light and my salvation is the Loed : whom then
shall I fear ?
1 The Lord is my light, and my salvation ; whom
then shall I fear : the Lord is the strength of my
life ; of whom then shall I be afraid ?
varlenius. The anointings of David were three: in Bethlehem, in
Hebron over Judah, and again in Hebron over all Israel.
So were those of Cheist : in His Mother's womb, in His
Baptism, and after His Resurrection, when all power was
given unto Him in heaven and in earth. Cardinal Hugo^
sees the same triple unction in us : (1) in free grace, in our
first vocation ; (2) in sanctifying grace, after which we have
Hugo Card, to fight, as David with his enemies, and our Loed with the
devil in the wilderness ; (3) in heaven, for a blessed immor-
tality.
L My Light. And as Baptism is illumination, and so spoken
of both in Scripture and the Primitive Church, my Light is
well put before all other titles of the Loed. Then comes
the salvation in all those battles to which we are, as it
were, girded in Baptism. Notice the paronomasia between
M li*^ my light, and lf^'^^^^ shall I he afraid ? And, as in the
first clause, at the word light, we have the Sacrament of Bap-
tism, so in the second, at the phrase, the Strength of my life,
we have that of Confirmation,
s. Alb. Mag. Or, again, you may take it as S. Albertus does : The Lord
is my Light against the curse of ignorance, and my Salvation
A. against the impotence of infirmity. Well says S. Augus-
tine : " The Emperor is protected by his guards, and is safe ;
mortal is shielded by mortal, and feels secure ; the Immortal
defends a mortal, and do you dare to tremble T' The Lord
is \ny Light. And how so ? Pseudo-Dionysius explains it
well. First, as being the Source of all physical light and
brightness ; secondly, because all spiritual light and illumi-
nation, whether in angels or men, comes from Him, Who is
the Father of lights. Thirdly, because He is the Comforter
of them that are in mists and darkness ; as it is written,
" Unto the godly there ariseth up light in the darkness ; He
is merciful, loving, and righteous." Fourthly, because He is
the Source, the one only Fountain of that Light of Glory,
Cr. which forms the Beatific Vision. Or again : The Lord is my
Light and my Salvation. The Law was a light, showing
* These three unctions are very Baptism, the second, death, the
variously explained by different third, the beatification of soul
commentators. Ayguan dwells and body : and this, I confess,
at prodigious lengtli on the sub- seems to me the more likely
ject; making the first unction idea.
Pseudo
Dionys.
Cd.
Ps. cxii. 4,
I
PSALM XXVII. 361
what must be done, and what must be avoided ; but in no
sense a salvation, for it gave no power to do that which it
enjoined, or to keep from that which it forbade. " The Law Heb. vu. 19.
made nothing perfect ; but the coming in of a better hope
did." And we may boldly put the verse into our Loed's own
mouth ; for, speaking according to His Manhood, it was from p, q,
God that He increased, as S. Liike testifies, in wisdom ; of
God, that He was enliglitened and upheld in the darkness
and struggles of His thirty-three years' life on earth. And
now, O LoED Jesf, Thou art our Light ! If Thou be our
guard, wlio can harm us ? If Thou be our illumination, what
can darken us? So lead us on through the dim twilight
of this world by the light of Thy grace, that hereafter we
may attain, in heaven, to the-unclouded light of Thy glory!
2 When the wicked, even mine enemies, and my
foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh : they stum-
bled and fell.
In the first and most natural sense, our Loed would tell
us of that night, when His enemies, as soon as He had said,
"I am He," went backward and fell to the ground. Ger- s.John
hohus not inelegantly refers to the speech of S. Laurence on ^^iii. 6.
the gridiron, when it was indeed as though his enemies would
eat up his Jlesh: "Assatus sum; jam versa, et manduca." G.
They stumbled : or, as it is in the Vulgate, they became loeaJc :
and so we are reminded of that long war between the House ^ ^^^^ ^^ ^
of Saul and the House of David, which must be carried on
during the whole course of every individual Christian life ;
and, in a still higlier sense, between the Church of the Living
God and the legions of Satan, until the consunmiation of aU
things. But we must see a far deeper mystery in the verse.
" When the wicked" — thus speaks the Immaculate Lamb,
Whose Flesh is meat indeed, and Whose Blood is drink in-
deed— " ca7ne to eat up My Flesh at the altar, came unwor-
thily, came profanely, they stumbled and fell : this was the
key-stone of their inujuities, this put the finishing stroke to
their punishment." The story is well known of the younger
infidel, during tlie epocli of Voltaire, inquiring of his more
hardened and older friend, how to get rid of the prickings of
conscience by which he was even still sometimes annoyed.
" Take the Sacrament," replied the hoary sinner. The advice
was followed, and God's Spieit strove no more with that
man: he stumbled and fell. Others understand w;y ^e^A of S. Alb. Mag.
the fleshly failings and infirmities of every true servant of
God ; and the complaint to be of the joy and eagerness with
which the Loed's enemies hunt them out : just as Job speaks,
"If the men of my tabernacle said not. Oh that we had of Jo^^xxi.ai.
his flesh ! we cannot be satisfied." Or we may take they p q
stumbled and fell in a good sense. "Whoever shall fall on s.Matt.xxi.
that stone, shall be broken." While they came, as Saul, 44.
R
362
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter, they fell to the
earth at the voice of the Lord Himself; while they came, as
i^sam. XIX. anotherSaul, to destroy David at Naioth in Eamah, the Spieit
descends upon them, and they lie down and prophesy.
3 Though an host of men were laid against me,
yet shall not my heart be afraid : and though there
rose up war against me, yet will I put my trust in
him.
So the Jewish King fulfils the commandment of the Jewish
Lawgiver. "When thou goest out to battle against thine
enemies, and seest horses and chariots, and a people more
than thou, be not afraid of them ; for the Lord thy God is
with thee." These are the words that, together with the
first verse of this same Psalm, have been in the mouths of
many a martyr : and S. Cyprian, in that heart- thrilling ex-
hortation, adduces them nobly. They say that, when S.
Antony, after one of those strange physical assaults of the
Enemy by which the Divine love permitted him to be exer-
cised, remained victor, but through very exhaustion prostrate
on the ground, he chanted lustily, Though there rose wp war
against me, yet will I put my trust in Ilim. " He," says S.
Augustine, " will give victory to the contester "Who inspired
boldness for the contest. Let us not fear then the multitude
of the enemy, nor the shining armour, nor that mighty and
terrible Groliath. One David shall prostrate him with one
stone ; one youth shall put to flight the whole army of the
aliens." And the confidence of the King and of the Apostle
was the same ; for what is this verse but, in other words,
that saying of S. Paul? " I am persuaded that neither death,
nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers," — and the
rest of that catalogue so trying to faith, — " shall be able to
separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus
our Lord." But let us rather put the words into our dear
Lord's mouth, in the same night in which He was betrayed,
or rather ofi'ered Himself for the life of the world, and when
the band of men and ofiicers, under the command of Judas,
were already drawing nigh to take Him. An host of men
indeed: Jews and Eomans, — Pharisees, pufied up in their
boasted holiness ; soldiers, the very outcasts of humanity :
the fickle multitude that, at the beginning of that same week,
proclaimed Him King of the Jews, and now are about to say,
"Not this man, but Barabbas!" Then there ro^e tip loar,
such as never had been since the foundation of the world,
such as never can be till the consummation of all things, — a
war, the prize whereof was the whole human race, — a con-
test, where, on the arms of the Cross, as on scales, hung the
eternal joy or misery of all generations. Yet shall not my
heart he afraid. Yea, and though it were for an hour, — " If
it bo possible, let this cup pass ;" that hour went by, and
L.
Deut. XX. 1.
S. Hieron.in
Zach. c. 10.
In Martyr.
Exhort.c.lO.
S. Athana-
sius in Vit.
S. August,
contr. q. h.
Rom. viii.
. . . h'^T^
vvkt\ -p
irapfSiSoTO,
fiaWov 5e
favrhu tto-
peSiSov,
{nrtp rris
rod Kdafiov
J
PSALM XXVII. 363
then it was " the day of His joy, and the day of the gladness cant. m. ii.
of His heart :" it was " the Baptism that He had to be bap- s. Luke xii.
tized with, and how was He straitened till it was accom- 5o.
plished!" — it was the season when He was reigning "in
Mount Sion and in Jerusalem, and before His ancients glo- isa.xxiv.23.
riously !" In this will I be confident. They dispute to what
the word^ this refers ; but let us take it in its fullest and
most glorious sense ; for never was there, never can there be,
such a this as Calvary. A this, for Him That endured it ;
in this mortal agony, in this putting forth of all the powers
of all infernal spirits, in this accomplishment of all prophe-
cies, in this fulfilment of all types, in this the ark of a ship-
wrecked world, in this the True and Eternal Tree of Life, in nlTf!To^^
this tvill I, the God of confidence, he confident Myself. And '^"'^^^°'^°'
clinging to this, O Loed Jesus, crucified to this together
with Thee, grasping this as the anchor of our souls, dying if
it must be so at the foot of this, this " the place where valiant 2 Sam. xi.
men are," this the dying bed of the martyrs, the strength of ^^'
the confessors, in this will I he confident !
4 One thing have I desired of the Lord, which I
will require : even that I may dwell in the house of
the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the fair
beauty of the Lord, and to visit his temple.
However we may apply the words in a lower sense, their L.
own real meaning can rest satisfied with nothing short of a
that " house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens ;" ^^^ ^j.
and of this the principal among the Latin Fathers under- s. Gregor.,
stand the petition. This is indeed the one thing needful ; ^- J'®''*^"v
this is indeed the joy to be required, a.j, and to be taken by * ""^ *
violence. Save I desired : by prayer. I will require, not
by prayer only, but by self-denial, fasting, almsgiving, every-
thing which may cause God to bow down His ear to my pe-
tition. Gerhohus puts the sentence into the mouth of our ^•
LoED, and paraphrases it with even more than his ordinary
beauty : " I, in that night in which I was to be betrayed to
death, to the end that I might overcome death, desired one
thing of the Lord ; which I toill require, I, the True Unity,
by interceding for the unity of them that are Mine even till
the consummation of all things. And this was My prayer :
* In hoc ego sperdbo, is the
Vulgate ; but the LXX. has it,
iv ravrri iyu) iXirl^u}, in the fe-
minine. Does the toi^tj refer to
KapSia, so as to make the sense,
with this heart, of which I have
before spoken, will I be con-
fident? or does it depend on
irapfyL^oKi], though so far back,
R
and thus give a sense, "With
regard to the camp of the enemy,
I will have no fear?" or is it
simply a hteral translation of the
feminine nxi, which depends on
the word rror\)q before, or the
nrw that follows ?
864
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
s. John xvii. ' Fathee, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me,
24 • be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory,
which Thou hast given Me.' Thus I then asked that one
thing from the Loed, when I was about to die for that people ;
and not for that people only, but that I miglit gather toge-
ther in one tlie sons of God that were scattered abroad.
This one thing I then once asked, namely, in Mv death ;
but I will daily require it in the Sacrament which I have
commanded My Priests to offer for My holy Church con-
tinually. ]3y My own mouth I desired it once ; by the lips
of My Priests I still require it continually, as long as My
death shall be set forth in the Sacrament of the Altar, until
I shall come at the end of the world, that I may dwell in the
house of the Lord in peace : all war at an end, all My mem-
bers completely united to their Head, all the stones banded
together in the everlasting building, by the grace of Me,
Corner and Top stone. Author and Finisher of Faith."
O how many a soul, now set free from carnal struggles,
now liberated from earthly darkness, desired that one thing
in the days of her pilgrimage here ! in the time of that life
^ios a$io)' which is not life, that they might stand all the days of their
t6s.
S. Bernard.
Serm.
Origen.
Didjrmus.
Theodoret.
G.
true life in the House of the Lord ! " O blessed region of
Paradise !" cries one ; " O blessed region of delights, to
which I yearn from the valley of ignorance, from the valley
of tears, where is wisdom without ignorance, where is memoi^
without oblivion, where is intellect without error, where is
reason without obscurity ! Blessed are they that dwell in
Thy house ; they will be alway praising Thee ! The king-
dom of God is bestowed, promised, manifested, received ; be-
stowed in predestination, promised in vocation, manifested
in heaven."— We may also, if we will, take the verse in a
lower sense, — lower only comparatively with the highest, — of
the religious, as contrasted with the secular, life. In this
signification, over and over again have the great masters of
spiritual life preached from it to their followers ; in this sig-
nification S. I3ernard impressed it on his Cistercians, Peter
the A^encrable on his Cluniacs, S. Francis de Sales on his
Sisters of the Visitation. Or, again, as most of the Greek
Fathers, we may understand it of the visible and material
House of God, the symbol and foretaste of that eternal dwell-
ing. That I may see the fair leautv of the Lord. The Vul-
gate has it voluj)tatem ;^ but GerhoTins, following the Italic,
reads voluntaiem, and shows how fully our Loed's prayer in
this respect was fulfilled. And they may well take occasion,
hence to dwell on the two wills of the Loed, — as Perfect God
and Perfect Man. Never let it be conceived that Mono-
I
' The Ambrosian reads volup-
tatem. The Vidgatc read volun-'*
tatem till the emendations of
Sixtus v., Avhenee Hugli of S.
Victor and Gorhohus have taken
it. On the other hand, some
MSS. of the Italic have volup-
tatem. Tliis is, of eom-se, the
true reading, corresponding to
the LXX., rifmv6rriTa.
PSALM XXVII.
365
thelism was an abstract heresy, which has no relation to the
inward Christian life. It is everything for us, whether our
dear Loed, as man, had to utter this prayer, " that I may
gee the will of the Lord," — whether He suffered, and there-
fore can sympathise with, that bitter struggle against our
own wills ; or whether, by the so-called Theandric operation,
that struggle was in name only, not in reality. Well did S.
Sophronius labour and suffer for this, the engrafting in the
Catholic Creed that precious doctrine of our Lord's Sym-
pathy. Let the Scriptural Albert explain the verse to us : s. Albertus
*' That I may dwell. Here is what he seeks and requires; ^^'
that celestial habitation which is the House of God. O Israel,
how great is the House of God, and how large is the place Baruch iii.
of His possession. And this all the days of my life ! As if '
he saio, I wUl never cease. And in these words we are
taught that there should be unity in our prayers ; that we
should not ask for many things, but for one. ' When ye ^' ^^^' "^^
pray, use not vain repetitions.' There must be diuturnity, —
nave I desired ; and continually, — which I will require all
the days of my life. ' Be not thou hindered to pray continu- eccIus.
ally.' *Men ought always to pray, and not to faint.' It fyiji-22,
must be spiritual, that I may dzcell in the house of the Lord : g. i^ke
all the days of our present life, laboriously, in the Church xviii. i.
Militant : and after that, for ever and ever, gloriously, in the
Church Triumphant. First, of the first : * Neither death nor Rom. viu.
life .... shall separate us.' Of the second: 'Him that 38.
overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of My God, R^^* "i- ^2.
and he shall go no more out.' That I may see the will of the
Lord. According to that glorious petition, * Thy will be
done.' And to visit the Temple. Christ^ the Man, the
Temple of the Divinity. * The Lord God Almighty, and the ^«^- ^^>- 22-
Lamb, are the Temple of it.' " Thus far S. Albert.
5 For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in
his tabernacle : yea, in the secret place of his dwell-
ing shall he hide me, and set me up upon a rock of
8tone.
Or, as the Vulgate gives it, Se hath hid me. That taber- Euseb.
nacle, of which Isaiah says, " Come, My people, enter thou
into thy chamber, and shut the doors about thee :" the Eock Prov.xxx.
which is to be the hiding-place for the persecuted and feeble 26.
conies : that safe cleft, opened by the spear in the dgr of
Calvary, and since then, and to the end of all thmgs, afford-
* This, although proceeding
from 80 perfectly sound a theo-
logian as S. Albertus, has rather
a curious sound, and may serve
as an example of the Nestorian-
izing way of talking (for it pro-
bably was only a way of talking)
prevalent in Q-ennany in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries,
and which Gerhohus so vigo-
rously opposed.
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS,
Giles
Fletcher :
Christ's
Triumph
after Death.
D. C.
1 Kings viii.
12.
S. Bernard.
Serm. 61, in
Cant.
Exod.xxxiii.
21.
S. Bernard.
HugoVic-
torin. in Ps.
xxxviii.
ApoUi-
narius.
ing a refuge for all troubled souls until the indignation be
overpast. His tabernacle, won for us when with His own
Kight Hand and with His Holy Arm He gat Himself the
victory : but yet ** our chamber" also, because belonging to
each of us as much as if none other had a right to that hiding-
place.
Here let my Lord hang up His conquering lance,
And bloody armour, with late slaughter warm j
And looking down on His weak militants,
Behold His Saints, amidst their hot alarm,
Hang all their golden hopes upon His arm :
And, in this lower field dispacing wide.
Through windy thoughts that would their sails misguide,
Anchor their fleshly ships fast in His wounded Side !
Venerable Bede, connecting this with the preceding verse,
says very well that, it is as though some one, amazed at the
boldness of David's desire " to visit the Temple," had asked :
Do you, spotted with sin, do you, from the sole of whose foot
to the crown of whose head there is no soundness, venture
on such a request ? Yes : for in the time of trouble He hath
already hid me in His tabernacle ; in the time of glory, there-
fore. He may well give me a place in His mansion. In the
secret 'place of His dwelling. " The Loed said, that He would
dwell in the thick darkness." And, no doubt, here we have
a reference to the Incarnation ; our only defence in the time
of trouble, our only hiding-place from the just wrath against
sin. Tlpon a Rock. " What is there of good," cries S. Ber-
nard, " that is not to be found in the Eock ? On the Eock
I am exalted; on the Eock I am secure; on the Eock I
stand firmly. Secure from the enemy; brave, as regards
accident : and this because lifted up from the earth ; for
changeable and perishable is everything earthly." And no
doubt there is a reference in this to that magnificent vision
in Exodus : " Behold, there is a place by Me, and thou shalt
stand upon a rock ; and it shall come to pass, while My glory
passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the Eock, and
will cover thee with My hand while I pass by." And thus
is God's glory seen in the Incarnation. They take it, again,
of the religious life ; those holy men who, in the midst of
those tempests of iniquity, those frightful storms of violence
and ungodliness, had experienced this strong Tower ; where
thev, in the deep secret place of the Tabernacle, communed
with their Loed, leaving their converse with Him as the
teaching and the delight of all ages. O happy and holy
tabernacles — aOdvarai. KaKv^ai — of Citeaux, Premontre, Cluny,
Monte Casino, Fontevraud, S. Gall, how, while studying the
Psalms which so gloriously echoed among you, how do we
still feel the influence, how do we still drink into the learn-
ing, how may we still taste of the holiness, of those night-
watches, of those fasts, of those vigils, which made your
I
PSALM XXVIl. 367
Saints that whicli they were, and you the nursing mothers of
religion in the midst of floods of ungodliness !
6 And now shall he lift up mine head : above
mine enemies round about me.
S. Bernard names three ways in which our heads are S- Bernard.
lifted up : by disenchaining our hearts from earthly affec- Ezech!^^' ^"
tions ; by conferring on us Divine knowledge ; by kindling
in us the love of heavenly things. But let us rather take our
.Head in the sense of Him Who is our only and our True
Head, Jesus Christ. Noio, whatever happens to me, mi/ G.
Sead shall be exalted ; now, whatever sufferings are ap- .
pointed for me, my Head shall be honoured. "N^ow also ^'^'
Cheist shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life
or by death." Lifted up. But how P He was lifted up on
the Cross, as well as to the Throne : and in that sense also
may we take it, — that when we are suffering from our enemies
round abaU, our Head makes those sufferings His own. If
we are crucified. He shares our cross ; " Saul, Saul, why per-
secutest thou Me ?" If Stephen is stoned on earth, Jesus is *
standing in heaven. He hath exalted my Head is the read-
ing of the Vulgate ; and weU does S. Augustine remind us
that, our Head being already there, we, His members, ought
to be with Him now in thought and desire, as hereafter in
joyful reality.
Sic nobis cum coelestibus The Hj™".
Commune manens gaudium, omnium." '*
Illis, quod se prsesentavit,
Nobis, quod se non abstulit.
7 Therefore will I offer in his dwelling an obla-
tion with great gladness : I will sing, and speak
praises unto the Lord.
Or as it is in the Vulgate, I have gone round, and offered Q-.
the sacrifice of vociferation. And this going round, if fanci-
fully, is at least beautifully applied to the Litanies of the
Church ; which, beginning from the Blessed Trinity itself,
the Source of all being, go round or through the economy of
the Christian dispensation, commencing at the Incarnation,
continuing through the Life and Passion, culminating in the
Kesurrection and Ascension of our Lord, and the sending
down of the Paraclete ; and then again returning to that
glorious Trinity whence the office began. And the sacrifice
of vociferation gloriously describes the one and completed
oblation of the Cross, that most precious Blood, which cried
aloud for better things than that of Abel. Or the going ^
round may be the going through the world with the glad &
tidings of salvation : " So that from Jerusalem, and round s. Hieron.
368
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
about unto lUyricum, I have fully preached the Gospel of
Christ." Ambrosius Ansbertus refers us to the going round
Jericho, the devoted city : and thence gathers that it is when
the sins and temptations of our corrupt nature are devoted
to God, then a true sacrifice of peace is offered. Albertus
reminds us here, when we go round this lower world, and all
its beauty and glory, we shall find it nothing but a book full
of the praise of God ; and "marvellous is it," cries Gregory,
" that man is not always praising, since everything amidst
which he dwells is continually inviting praise." Or, finally,
we may take it, with others, of a soldier diligently going ma
rounds, keeping a diligent look-out on the enemy, and ful-
filling the last command, delivered to the multitudes, of the
s, Mark xiii. Captain of his salvation : " And what I say unto you, I say
unto all, Watch." I will sine/ and speaJc praises. But how
is this P to begin with singing, and to descend to speaking ?
Yes ; for as he that was not rich enough to bring the bul-
lock or the goat, was allowed to offer the pair of turtle
doves, or the two young pigeons, so here the meanest, as
well as the highest praise, is not rejected from the service of
God.
[There is yet another offering, when he whose " life is hid
with Christ in God," olFers the oblation of self-denial and
holiness, according to those words of a Saint :
L.
Rom. XV. 19.
In Apoc.
c. 1.
S. Alb. Mag.
S. Gregor.
M.
S. Ambros.
&
S. Remig.
37.
Col. iii. 3.
S. Bruno
earth.
S. Prosper.
Nee Cheisti exeraplo suavior exit odor
Quam cum homo castorum profert Hbamina morum,
Et de virtutum munere sacra Utat.]
G.
Hngo Vic-
tor in.
S. Gregor.
Moral, zxii.
8 Hearken unto my voice^ O Lord^ when I cry
unto thee : have mercy upon me, and hear me.
My Voice : that Voice which the precious Blood of Cal-
vary utters from the ground. Kemark, he saith not, words ;
for this is a mute voice, not articulated into phrases, but
none the less mighty, yea rather, none the less Almighty, to
bring down God's pardon. The Voice of that Blood, whe-
ther on the Cross or in the chalice : " one thing have I de-
sired of the Lord," the pardon of man. It has been well
observed, that this verse contains nine necessaries to prayer.
It must be,^ for a worthy matter ; vocal ; rational j proper ;
devout; right; humble; necessary; continuous. S. Gre-
gory well says, with a turn that can best be given in its ori-
ginal idiom : " ^ternam ctenim vitam si ore petimus, non
tamen ore desideramus, clamantes tacemus. Si vero desi-
^ * S. Albertus has here a cu-
rious passage, directed against
those who recite the Hours in
bed, and against those also who
say them vicariously ; as, for ex-
ample, if a Priest recited Tierce
to liimself, while attending Sexts
in Church, and so intended to
satisfy the canonical require-
ment for both Hours.
PSALM XXVII. 369
deramus ex corde cum etiam ore conticescimus, tacentes
clamamus."
I said, in the introduction to this Psalm, that this eighth
verse manifestly began a new composition; the triumphal
thanksgiving of the former having been succeeded by peni-
tential deprecation. The two Psalms, however, seem to have
been joined into one long before any historical evidence.
9 My heart hath talked of thee, Seek ye my face :
thy face, Lord, will I seek.
Or, as it is in the Vulgate, To Thee my heart hath spoTcen :
Thee my face sought out : Thy face, 0 Lord, will I seeJc.
" This," says Vieyra, " is the discreet energy wherewith vieyra.
David repeats to God that which he had already said to lo'sario^v.
Him, To Thee my heart spake. He saith not, *To Thee, O 351.
LoED, I spoke ;' because to God the heart alone speaks, and
with God the heart alone holds converse. And as the heart
is the instrument and the tongue which speaks to God ; thus,
as men understand only that which the tongue says, and
comprehend not tliat which the heart speaks, so God hears
only that which the lieart S])caks, and pays no attention to
that whicli the tongue says. Hence it follows that, if the
heart speak not, thougli the man may say the same tiling a
hundred and fifty times, yet, so far as God is concerned, he
speaks not one word, and is dumb. Voce sonant, corde muti
sunt."
The Hebrew in itself preseJits considerable difficulty; and
hence the very different reading of the Prayer Book and of
the Bible version, whicli, amplifying that of Tremellius and
Jerome, gives, TFhe/i Thou saidat. Seek ye My face. But L.
this is clear : tliat whatever tlie Psalmist had done in past
times, that he now stirs Jiimself up to do manifold times
more. Thy face. Lord, will I seek. As Moses did in the Exod.
Mount, wJien lie partly, but not fully, obtained that which xxxUi. 23.
he desired; and as tlie same Moses, nearly fifteen hundred
years after, did on the holy hill of Tabor. " The Lord is ^a'"-"^-^^-
food unto them that wait for Him, for the soul that secketh
Eim," says Jeremiah. " Aiid if good," asks S. Bernard, " to s. Bernard,
them that seek Him, what to thorn that find Him?" Or, as f^'J^J^''''-
the Saint says in that most precious rhythm :
" Quam pius te quaerentibus !
Sad quid invenieiitibus ?'*
S. Gregory complains that, after his elevation to the Pon- Epist. i. 5.
tifical dignity, lie had so much less opportunity for this most
sweet search after God than had been possible to him before.
Others, again, take the word face in the same sense in which
S. Paul speaks of the brightness of the Fathee's glory, and Heb. i. 3.
the express image of His Person, namely, of our Loed Jesus
Chbist. Here, it has been well said, in seeking for the glory s. Alb. Mag.
r3
370 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
and manifest vision of God, he asks, in fact, for two things :
1, for the end itself, in this verse ; 2, for the means requisite
to that end, in the next. And he prayed as the mother of
isam.i.i3. his master did: "Now Hannah, she spoke in her heart."
Ay. Notice that there are some who in their prayers speak, not to
God, but to man ; who seek not God's face, but man's : and
these are the hypocrites. And then, the bold, fearless decla-
ration. Thy face, Lord, will I seeh. It is needful, indeed,
that he who makes it should have that perfect confidence in
God, of which we before read, " Though an host of men were
laid against me, yet shall not my heart be afraid ;" for let
but once this calm, unflinching resolution be expressed, and
their name will be legion who attack us.
10 O hide not thou thy face from me : nor cast
thy servant away in displeasure.
L. Three times is that expression, the face of God, repeated ;
Pe/as?Epist. "^t^ence they gather the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity,
i. 143. But God's face may be hid for other causes besides that of
p displeasure ; whence the second clause of this verse. It may
""• be in pure love ; it may be for our own preservation, as was
the case with Moses in the rock ; it may be only that we may
seek more earnestly, and find more gloriously. And this
whole verse shows how God worketh in us both to will and
Q to do of His good pleasure. He had said in the verse above,
*' Thy face. Lord, will I seek." But of himself he could
never find ; therefore the second petition, I seek : O hide
not Thou. S. Augustine breaks out into a fervour of rapture
in his second exposition : " O hide not Thou Thy face from
me. Magnificent ! nothing can be more divinely spoken !
This is the feeling of those that truly love. Another man
would be blessed and immortal in the pleasures of those
earthly lusts which he loves, and peradventure for this reason
would worship God, and pray, that he may long live here in
his delights, and that nothing should fail him, which earthly
desire has in possession, neither gold, nor silver, nor any es-
tate that charms his eyes ; that his friends, his children, his
wife, his dependents, should not die : in these delights would
he live for ever. But since he cannot for ever, for he knows
that he is mortal, for this haply does he worship God, and
for this pray to God, and for this sigh to God, that all these
things may last even to old age. And if God should say to
him, Lo, I make thee immortal in these things, he would ac-
cept it as a great boon, and in the exultation of his joy and
congratulation would be unable to contain himself. ISTot so
doth the man act, who hath made one petition of the Loed."
11 Thou hast been my succour : leave me not,
neither forsake me, O God of my salvation.
PSALM XXVII.
371
My succour : and what does that prove save that the peti- A.
tioner is at work for himself ? One may move a stock or a
stone, that do nothing for themselves ; one cannot be said
to succour, unless the thing succoured try with its own
strength. And not less true is the remark of S. Jerome :
He that remembers so gratefully, shall certainly be assisted
most hopefully. Leave me not : and so he attributes aU his
past good actions to God ; for, unless the Loed had been
with him before, He could not be asked not to forsake him
now. Leave me 7iot, neither forsake me. And thence they
draw an argument for the difference between mortal and
venial sins. Leave me not : not even for one moment ; not
even so that I may commit one folly, may be guilty of the
least and most trivial fault. Neither forsake me. For, if s. Aibertus
Thou shouldest leave me to myself for any time, there is no Ma^us.
depth of guilt into which I may not fall. It is no merit of
mine, but simply Thine own watchfulness, which has hitherto
preserved me. And remember, says one earnestly, that ^7*
though none ought to despair while yet in the Way, because
till the very end the grace of God stands open, yet none can
feel secure, because, till the very end, the devices of Satan
will not be concluded. If, on the one hand. He is able to
save unto the uttermost ; on the other, " he that is dead" —
and therefore none hut he that is dead — " hath ceased from
S. Hieron.
S. Aug:, de
Grat. et Li-
bero Arbit.
c. 6.
sin."^ Or, if we put the verse into our Loed's mouth, we
must understand it : " Be Thou My helper, O Loed, My
all things
D.C.
Fathee, co-operating with Me in all things : leave Me not
in the hand of the wicked, on the Cross : leave Me not to the
guardianship of the soldier, in the sepulchre : 7ior forsake
Me, that is, My mystical Body, for which I lived, for which
I suffered, for which I died, for which I rose again from
the dead : leave Me not, neither forsake Me, O God of My
salvation."
" One of the things," says Vieyra, "which I have much S;,ep*.2
noted in David, is tne great frequency with which he be- Dom. da
seeches God not to leave him ; and the many and divers ways ^^^^^3^2™"
in which he repeats and urges this same petition: ' O go ' ;"
not from me, for trouble is at hand ;' * Leave me not, neither xl^y^Sl^i.
forsake me ;' ' Go not from me, O Loed ;' * Cast me not away 1 1 , bcxi.'ioj
from Thy Presence ;' ' Go not far from me, O God ;' ' O let cxix. 10.
me not go wrong ;' and five times^ in the same words, * For-
sake me not.' If God for a sin of David's left him once, and
afterwards restored His Grace with so much certainty and
efficacy, why does he so often, and in such different ways,
^ The singularly double sense
in which, iu early times, the
word merit was used, is weU il-
lustrated by the commentary of
Cassiodorus on this verse : " Ubi
sunt, qui humanis meritis dicunt
ahquid applicandum ? Petit Kex
et Propheta, plenus gratia et be-
nedictione ccelesti, ne deseretur
a Domino. Scit enim quia si
ille reliquerit, nulla se regere po-
testas prsevalebit."
2 Here; Ps. xxxviii. 21 ; Ixxi.
8 J cxix. 8 ; cxxxviii. 8.
372
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Deut. xxxi.
16, 17.
2 Chron.
zxiv. 20.
beseech God not to leave him ? Certain it is that the Pro-
phet would not discover so many ways of supplicating, unless
God had as many ways of leaving. And why ? The reason
depends equally on His mercy, and on our misery. God
never leaves man, unless man first leaves Him ; and because
we have so many ways of leaving God, therefore God has so
many ways of leaving us. Thus wrote God in an express
law : ' This people wiU forsake Me .... and I will forsake
them ;' and in another place drew a consequence from it :
* Because ye have forsaken the Loed, He hath also forsaken
you.' So that to leave and to be left is, between God and
man, a reciprocal condition. If God were to be the first to
leave, never should we be left ; but because we are the first
to leave, therefore it is that so often, and in so many different
ways, we are forsaken by God."
12 When my father and my mother forsake me :
the Lord taketh me up.
L. Look for a moment at King David, when he gave his
1 Sam. xxii. father and his mother to the care of the King of Moab ; and
^' thus, in the midst of his dangers and wanderings, was for-
saken by them. And then consider the Son of David, for-
saken and rejected by His own relations, — " for neither did
His brethren believe in Him," — and yet talcen up by that
Father, of Wliom He said, " I knew that Thou hearest Me
always." But mystically, human nature was forsaken by its
(3-. general father^ and mother at the very beginning: when,
forgetful of the misery and destruction they thus entailed on
their race, they ate of the forbidden fndt ; and God took it
up, by the promise given as soon as the sentence was ])ro-
nounced, that " the seed of the woman shall bruise tlie ser-
A. pent's head." It is a singular explanation of S. Augustine,
that by the father, the devil, by the mother, corrupt human
nature, is signified ; both of whom forsake us when we ear-
nestly and with purpose of heart turn to God. Others,
again, see in this verse the complaint of our Loed of His re-
jection by His father, the Jewish nation, and by His mother,
the synagogue, — that motlier who platted for Him so cruel a
D. C. diadem in the day of His Passion. And notice : when David
complains that his father and motlier had forsaken him, —
Ezek. xvi. 3. (and compare the text, "Thy father was an Amorite, and
thy mother an Hittite,") — in the person of Adam and Eve,
it was his Son, as well as his Loed, Who, taking him up,
was to repair his loss : " Instead of thy fathers, thou shait
* Ayguan gives a curiously
feudal explanation of this sense :
"Si rex militis donasset castel-
lum pro se et posteritato sua,
miles autem efllciatur proditor
regis ; lion digne non solum pri-
vatur pro se et tota posteritate,
castro, veruni etiam perpetuo
damnatur exiHo ?"
PSALM XXVII. 373
have children." There is a Hebrew tradition, to which the
Terse may refer, thai God had bound Himself by oath to be
the Father and Mother of the orphan, who with all his heart Cd.
and soul had resort to Him.
13 Teach me thy way, O Lord : and lead me in
the right way, because of mine enemies.
And it may still be the Son of David Who, according to Q.
the flesh, speaks. For He knew the malice and bitterness of
His enemies : He saw how tliej " watched Him ;" He knew
how they would entangle Him in His taUc. And what, in so
far as He was Man, He in the days of His flesh prayed for
Himself, that He still prays for those that, being Sis, are
Himself: "Why persecutest thou Me?" And this verse L.
well connects itself with that which precedes : for, if the
LoED has taken us up as our Fathee, then it is His to lay
down the laws by wliich we are to be governed and guided.
And David had good occasion to ofier this prayer : he, of
whom, on account of one unhappy deed, it is written, " Thou 2 Sam. xii.
hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Loed to bias- ^^- .
?heme." Teach me Thy way. And who is the way, save „ t ^* •
[e That said, " I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life?" |-J°^"^'^-
Him we have to learn as the Way ; Him we have to strive Aquiia and
after, as the end. Teach me : or, as others have rendered it, I^^"^° ^
Enlighten me : in Hira and by Him Who is tJie Light as
well as the Way. Or take it as the voice of Chbist Himself :
Lead Me in the right way, namely, from darkness to light, Lu.
from the sepulchre to the palace, from the darkness of Jo-
seph's cave to the ijieff'able light of heaven. And this he-
cause of Mine enemies : for tliey have set the seal, and ap-
pointed the guard, lest " the last error should be worse than
the first."
14 Deliver me not over to the will of mine adver-
saries : for there are false witnesses risen up against
me, and such as speak wrong.
Of David, no need to show how he was persecuted by the L.
false witnesses wJio chased him from city to city, from wil-
derness to wilderness : how Doeg, how the Zipliites, how the
men of Keilah rose up against him with their falsehoods :
and how, but by God's perpetual love, this " morning hind"
must have been taken in the toils. And so of the Son of
David : " There arose certain, and bare false witness against s. Mark xiv.
Him, saying, We heard Him say, I will destroy tJiis temple ^^*
made with hands, and in three days I will build another
made without hands." Well says Vieyra : "If we read the le^'g^sima
Gospel of S. John, we shall find tliat Cheist had of a truth Tom.\ 71. *
said the aforesaid words. If, tlien, Cheist in reality had
said that He would rebuild the temple in three days, and
374,
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
S, Ambros.
in Ps. xxxvi.
Ode 5 for
the Great
Sabbath,
(by Mark of
Idrus.)
A.
Leo de Cas-
tro.
this is the very thing that the witnesses deposed to, hovr can
the Evangelist call them false witnesses ? . . . . They were
false, because Cheist spake in one sense, and they reported
in another ; and to report the words of G-od in a different
sense from that in which they were spoken, is to bear false
witness against God. Ah, Lord, how many bear false wit-
ness against Thee now ! how many times do preachers make
Thee say that which Thou never saidst ! how many times I
hear, not Thy words, but the preacher's imaginations !" The
latter part of the verse thus runs in the Vulgate, and it has
probably been as often quoted as any clause of the Psalms :
" ayid iniquity hath lied to itself." It is confessedly one of
the most difficult verses in the Psalms ; whether one ends
the meaning with the conclusion of the clause, or, with Tre-
mellius, carries it on into the next verse, " and they that
breathe out violence tcould have carried me off, unless I had
believed to see," &c. And iniquity hath lied to itself since
the beginning of the world ; but never so as when that old
Leviathan swallowed the bait of the Lord's Humanity, and
perished by the hook of His Divinity. Let the Eastern
Church tell us so in her own glorious language : 5t^ eavdrov rh
dprjrhv, 5to to^tjs rh (f^Oaprhv, /xera^aKXeis' acpOapri^eis yap 0eo7rpe7rfV-
TOTO, airadavari^cov rh Trp6(T\r]iJ./xa' r] yap crdp^ aov SiacpOopav ovk el5f,
Ae<r7roTa, ovde t] ^vx'f) (Tov ei's a.^ov ^^voirp^irws iyKaraXeXeiirrai.
Iniquity lied to itself, when the Jews were pursuing the
Spotless Lamb with their " Crucify Him ! crucify Him !" but
Satan (now too late discovering his mistake) had stirred up
Procla to send the message, " Have thou nothing to do with
that Just man." It has been imagined, but surely without
sufficient cause, that this verse was corrupted by the Jews,
in order to obscure the reference to the false witnesses against
our Lord.
Rupert.
S, Prosper,
de Vita Con.
templat.
S. Auirust.
in S. Joan.
15 I should utterly have fainted : but that I be-
lieve verily to see the goodness of the Lord in the
land of the living.
Oh, happy verse, comfort and support of so many travel-
lers in the vale of Baca ! Oh, blessed words, the last that have
been pronounced by so many Christian lips before they were
hushed by death ! Fainted I Yes : who would not ? Fainted
utterly ! Yes, and that a thousand times, but for that very
belief^ the Land of the Living ! O my land ! true Land of
the Living, true Land of Lite ! life, blessedly eternal, eter-
nally blessed ; where there is certain security, secure tran-
quillity, tranquil jucundity, happy eternity, eternal feUcity ;
where perfect love, nevermore fear, everlasting day, agile
motion, one spirit in all ! O Land of the Living, though the
eye hath not seen thee, yet the heart can long for thee, can
groan for thee, can yearn after thee, can aspire to thee.
Yes : if for a time we give way to the faintheartedness of
PSALM XXVII. 375
Hezekiah, " I said, I shall not see the Lord, even the Loed in isa, xxxviii.
the Land of the Living," that I believe verily of David comes **•
in to be our comfort and our strength. In the Land of the
Living. It is but little we see of Him here, in the land of G.
the dying, in the land of types and symbols, in the land of
figures and enigmas, in the land where "the days of dark- Eccies.xi. 8.
ness shall be many;" and "few and evil are the days of Gen.xivu.g.
the years of" every "pilgrimage." Of this Land of the L.
Living S. Jerome collects and explains many and many a Ad Dardan.
happy passage of Scripture : the earth that the " meek shall ep- 129.
inherit ;" the " delightsome land ;" the " place of broad rivers M^.^Ui.Tbf '
and of streams;" the city, whose "foundation is upon the isa.xxxm."
high hills ;" the earth that is "visited and blessed by God," ?,'• ^ „
that is " made very plenteous ;" the land " that floweth with if'
the true mOk and honey." Yes : however, in a low and
unreal sense, we may apply this verse to our life in this
world, — however much, beholding the multitude of life that
goes on, and is supported and kept up here, this globe may
be called the land of the living, — yet the united testimqjiy of NySSf.Tn
the Saints calls by that name the kingdom of heaven, and s. Matt. v. 4.
that kingdom only. Hear S. Albert, as always, Scriptural : Origen.
" The Land of the Dead is Hades ; * a land of darkness, as i^Xm^""'"
darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any s. Albert. m.
order, and where the light is as darkness.' The Land of the Job x. 22.
Dying is this world ; * For we must needs die, and are as 2 Sam. xiv.
water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up ^^'
again.' The Land of the Living is Paradise ; * Ye shall come Jadg. xvUi.
unto a people secure, and to a large land : . . . a place where '*•
there is no want of anything that is in the earth.' " Even
the Pythagoreans had their avrix^ova, — their Land of the
Living ; and God forbid that a Christian soul should use the I'^g^^^""-
word m a lower signification than they did ! Strom, v.
O qui sidereas habitas, Eex maxime, sedes, Pia Deside-
Quam tua pro) terris invidiosa domus ! "*» ^' ^*-
Exulat Eetliereis longe nox horrida terris,
Et nitet excelso lumine clara dies.
Clara dies, seterna dies, septemplice Phcebi
Fulmineum nostro lampada, luce premens !
[Note, too, how the Western Church, by taking the latter
clause of this verse as the Antiphon to the Psalm both for
Easter Eve and the Office for the Dead, leads us from the
thought of Cheist's victory over the grave to ours in Him.
Fear'st thou the death that comes to all, The Hymn,
And knows no interceder ?— Hru: adju-
O glorious struggle, thou wilt fall, «?'" ^«^««-
The soldier by the Leader !
Cheist went with death to grapple first,
And vanquished him before thee :
His darts, then, let him do his worst,
Can win no triumph o'er thee !]
376 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS,
16 O tarry thou the Lord's leisure : be strong,
and he shall comfort thine heart ; and put thou thy
trust in ithe Lord.
O blessed words, that have comforted so many a mourner's
heart, — that have braced so many a trembling spirit, — that
have gone to the prison or to the place of torture with the
Didymus. Church's heroes ! Yes, it matters not in what sense we take
s Bernard. *be words — whether as said by David to himself, or by David
to another, or by God to David. Tarry thou the Lord's
leisure. But how long ? The people whom the Loed fed in
the wilderness tarried His leisure three days ; the inhabitants
Jud. viii. 12. of Bethulia five days, and their heroine said, " And now who
are ye that have tempted God this day ? For if He wiU not
help us within these five days. He hath power to defend us
when He will : ... do not bind the counsels of the Loed
our God." It is written, indeed, — and blessed be God for
that promise, — " Knock, and it shall be opened unto you."
s. Chryso- " But he," says S. Peter Chrysologus, " who, when he hath
log. Serm. once knocked, is angry, because be is not forthwith heard, is
not a humble petitioner, but an imperious exactor. However
long He may cause thee to wait, do thou patiently tarry the
Loed's leisure. If He suffer thee to be imperilled on the
sea imtil the fourth watch of the night, He doth it to teach
thee trust in Him, and patience in time of adversity." Be
strong : viriliter age it is in the Latin, — a fair translation of
the LXX.'s audpi^ov, — but the Hebrew word pTH has no re-
g Fuigen- ference to man. And rightly, they say : some women have
tius, Ep. iii. 80 often stirred up men in faitJi and love. So Deborah, — so
^- *• the wife of Manoah, — so Judith, — so the holy women who
C. returned from the Tomb while the Apostles doubted, — so S.
Blandina and S. Ponticus in the amphitheatre of Lyons, — so
S. Faith and S. Caprais in the fire at Agen. A saying of
Gerhohus, though not so intended, will make an admirable
proverb for the daily use of a Christian :
" Non piites ncgatum,
Quod sentis dilatum."
G. And the Loed will undoubtedly say to every faithful waiter,
s, Mark viii. what He said to the multitudes of old, " I have compassion
^^' on the midtitude, because they have now waited on Me three
days :" the three days that remind of the threefold promise,
" Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall find ;
s. Albert. M. ^D^ock, and it shall be opened unto you." " In this verse,"
says S. Albert, " lie touches on four difficulties which suffer
us not to enter into eternal life. The first, the dilation of
God's answer ; against the which he saitli, Tarry. The se-
cond, the difficulty of doing well ; against the which he saith,
Be strona. The third, the danger of pusillanimity ; against
the which he saith, He shall comfort your heart. The fourth,
L.
PSALM XXVIII. 377
the bitterness of trouble ; against the which he addeth, and
put your trust in the Lord.'*
And therefore :
Glory be to the Fathee, in Whose house we desire to
dwell all the days of our life j and to the Son, the right Way
in which we are led: and to the Holt Ghost, in Whose
tabernacle we are hid.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be:
world without end. Amen.
Collects.
O God, Which art the Helper of all, defend us from the Ludoiph.
camps and the battles of the enemy ; so that we, dwelling in
the eternity of Thy House, may merit to behold Thy Face
by spiritual contemplation. Through (1.)
Deliver not, O Lord, Thy Church into the bloody hands Mozarabic.
of her enemies: grant that, when false witnesses rise up
against her, they may be put to confusion as soon as the
banner of the Cross is set up in her. Amen. Through Thy
mercy (11.)
O God, our Light ajid Defence, remove from us the night Mozarabic.
of sorrow and ignorance; give us the light of truth and
knowledge, that all our hope may remain fixed on Thee, and
that all the assembly of them that would seek to hurt us may
be brought to nought. Grant that we may be set on the
rock, that, being made strong in Chuist, in Him we may be
lifted up in charity, by Whom we are edified in faith. Amen.
Through Thy (11.)
[Almighty God, Helper and Strength of our life, defend D. C.
us from the snares of our enemies, and from all perils of soul
and body, that, by the gift of Thy lovingkiudness, we, stead-
fastly persevering in works pleasing to Thee, may be found
worthy to behold Thy goodness in the land of the living.
Through (1.)]
PSALM XXVIII.
Title. A Psalm of David.
Aegtjment.
CASSiODOHrs. In the number of the present Psalm, and of those
which follow, we have in no wise been able to discover any sufficient
reason : which, for example, was fitted to be the 26th, the 27th, or
the 28th. But we leave this point to tlie studious,— that, in the
examples, for instance, to which we have alluded, when they find no
mystical signification in the number as it stands, then they should
378
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
S. Johnii. 6.
divide it into its component parts, whether two or three. For in-
stance : they should divide twenty-six into the separate numbers of
twenty, and six ; twenty-seven into thrice nine. For it may be that
by this method of division the reason of the Psalm may more easily
be discovered. What does it matter whether the vessels of the
Psalms contain two or three firkins apiece ? If not even so can you
discover any likely signification, it befits you to believe that the
Creator of the earth and heaven hath distributed His works and
His sayings, without any doubt, by mystical excellencies, — He Who
doth all things in weight, number, and measure.
Aeg. Thomas. That Cheist, assisted by the Fathee, arose
from the sepulchre with a glorious Body. Cheist speaketh con-
cerning the Jews. The voice of the martyrs. The voice of the
Church against them that are treacherous. This Psalm is to be
read with the lection of Daniel the Prophet.^
Ven. Bede. It is well known that David, in the title of the
Psalms, always signifieth Cheist ; as mighty in hand in the contest
of His Passion, desirable in the glory of His Resurrection : but it
applieth to Him sometimes in Himself, sometimes in His members.
But when the word himself is added (Venerable Bede refers to the
title, Fsalmus ipsi David,) we must understand no other than the
Mediator of God and Man in and by Himself. And He it is that
speaketh through all this Psalm, praying on account of the humility
of the flesh which He hath assumed, threatening the punishment of
His adversaries, not through any desire of revenge, but for the vin-
dication of the truth. In the first section the Loed Cheist prayeth
by His humanity that His prayer may be heard in the time of His
future Passion : Unto Thee toill I cry. Next He rendereth thanks,
for that He hath been heard in those things for the which He made
request : Praised he the Lord, for Se hath heard. In the end
of the Psalm He addeth His desire, that, as He Himself hath been
raised up by the power of His Resurrection, so the people that shall
believe in His Name may obtain salvation : O save Thy people.
Syeiac Psaltee. a supplication and prayer, and an encourage-
ment to ask for help.
S. Jeeome. This Psalm hath the voice of the Mediator Himself
speaking in the conflict of His Passion to the Fathee. And the
ills which He desires for His enemies He willeth not of malice, but
predicteth as a Prophet that which certainly will be the punishment
of their sins.
Vaeious Uses.
Gregorian. Monday: Noctums.
Monastic. Sunday: II. Nocturn.
Parisian. Sunday : III. Nocturn.
Quignon. Thursday : Prime.
Lyons. Monday : Sext.
Ambrosian. Tuesday of First Week : III. Nocturn.
^ No doubt because the verse,
" Reward them according to the
wickedness of their own inven-
tion," applies 80 admirably to
the infliction of the same fate on
the enemies of Daniel wliich they
had intended for him.
PSALM XXVIII.
379
S. Luke iv.
Antiphons.
Qregorian. The LOED is the strength * of my life.
Monastic. Ditto.
Parisian. In GoD * my heart hath trusted, and I am helped,
and in my song will I praise Him.
Quignon. The Loed is my light and my salvation.
Mozarahic. The Loed is my strength and my Eedeemer, * my
heart hath trusted in Him, and I am helped.
1 Unto thee will I cry, O Lord my strength :
think no scorn of me ; lest, if thou make as though
thou hearest not, I become like them that go down
into the pit.
They well say that the first verse contains a petition that
the Divinity may not withdraw its affluence from the Hu-
manity of our Lord ; for that was the strength indeed by s. Thomas
which the Loed Who came to suffer was enabled to conquer. ■^^•
Think no scorn of me. The Nazarenes might think scorn
when they said, " Is not this Joseph's son ?" His relations
might think scorn of Him when they said, " He is beside
Himself." It was for the Father to say, " This is My Be-
loved Son, in Whom I am well pleased." And when at last
the same Father did make as though He heard not, imme-
diately there followed that great and bitter cry, the most
bitter that the world ever knew, " My God, My God, why
hast Thou forsaken Me ?"^ Unto Thee imll I cry. They fail
not to point out in how many ways Christ did cry : in the
plain, sowing the good seed among the multitude; in the
temple, preaching the law : He cried in the heart of others,
turning them to God ; He cried on the Cross, conquering
death. From this they take occasion to discuss that most
difficult question, why our Lord prayed for that which He
knew would come to pass. And after all, perhaps it is be-
yond the limits of human comprehension to fathom; and
the best answer that they can give is, that He would sanc-
tion by His example that which He commanded by His
Word : as in the Lord's Prayer, when He enjoins us to say,
" Thy kingdom come," which certainly will come whether it
be prayed for or not. And notice : man cries to the end
God may not be silent ; for if we keep silence He will also
be to us as He was to Saul in the day of his despair ; " When i sam.
Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him not, ^^^^' °
neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by Prophets."
Ay.
C.
^ Gerhohus, interpreting the
Vulgate, Ne sileas a me, does not
fail to enter at length into the
mediseval belief that the lion's
whelps are bom dead, and that
the parent lion, by roaring over
them, raises them to Hfe on the
third day. Keep not silence over
me, to the end that I may not
remain in death.
380
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
D.C.
G.
c.
Z.
A.
2 Hear the voice of my humble petitions, when I
cry unto thee : when I hold up my hands towards
the mel-cy-seat of thy holy temple.
And what was the time when our Lord's hands were thus
held up, save those most holy hours in which He hung upon
the Cross? The voice of My humble petitions, in the plural,
not the singular ; for we may piously believe, as Dionysius
says, that though only one intercession of our Loed is men-
tioned, yet never did He pray so earnestly and so lovingly
for the salvation of the world, as in the time of the world's
evening sacrifice. Hear the voice. It is as if He said, " I,
Who kept silence before Pontius Pilate, before Annas, before
Caiaphas, — I, Who replied never a word to the accusation of
the false witnesses, — I now cry unto Thee, O My Fathee,
Who canst hear the supplication of the heart as well as the
voice of the mouth." Towards the mercy-seat of Thy holy
temple. For so indeed they were stretched out to that holy
temple which is in heaven. But there was also a holy temple
then being reduced to dissolution, and by its very reduction
becoming the mercy -seat ; that temple which, being de-
stroyed, was to be raised again in three days. The words of
Gerhohus are so striking, that I may well quote them entire.^
**I, the assumed Human Nature, will cry unto Thee, O
Loed : Thou art My Deity, in which I, the Son of David,
am the Son of God, equally as the Fathee and the Holy
Ghost are God : I'hou art My Deity, and since Thou art
the word of the Fathee, keep not silence from Me, from
Me, the Human Nature, which Thou, O Woed, didst per-
sonally unite to Thyself. By the voice of My Blood, crying
from the ground, do Thou, O Woed, so speak as to be heard
even in hell, when My soul shall descend thither: make
manifest that I am not like them that go down into the pit,
from the weight of original, or the guilt of actual, sin. For
I, untainted by any sin, shall so be ' free among the dead,'
that I also shall be able to deliver others thence, and to in-
sult even death itself, saying, ' O death, where is thy sting ?
O grave, where is thy victory?' " And the tradition is, that
as it was commanded the Jews, in whatever part of the earth
they should be, to pray towards the temple at Jerusalem, —
as we find Daniel praying towards the place where that
temple stood, — so the Cross was set up in such a manner,
that our Loed's dying eyes rested on that same temple in
which He had so often taught, but the worship of which He
had come to abolish. S. Augustine takes it yet in another
sense, as if the Loed said, " While I am cnicified for those
* It may bo worth while to
observe, tliat in the following
passage Gerhohus most amply
vindicates himself against the
charge of Monophysitism, how-
ever imprudently in one or two
other expositions he may have
spoken.
PSALM XXVIII. 381
who by My death shall become Thy holy temple." They
notice on this verse how very rarely Chbist prayed for any Ay.
individual. There is the exception addressed to Peter, " I
have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not;" but that is
hardly an exception, because in Peter He interceded for the
other Apostles, as tlie very conchision of that sentence
shows : " When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren."
Hence they take occasion to discuss the curious question, —
whether the same prayer, if offered for one friend, has more
value than it would have for each of three friends, if offered
for them. And, notwithstanding the authority of S. Thomas
Aquinas, the greater number of the schoolmen answer, that
such is the virtue of charity, that each of the three is as
much benefited as one would have been. Nay, they go
further, and aiSrm that, if we pray for one person, our
prayers are equally effectual for all those who are in the
same condition as himself, whether they mention him or not :
which they illustrate by the simile that if you light a candle Doctor Prse-
for the benefit of a rich man sitting in his hall, it equally positivus.
illuminates all those who are in the same chamber. S. Ai-
bertus says, neatly enough, that in these verses we have the ^- Albert. M.
model of all prayer : firstly, the oratio ; secondly, the ratio.
3 O pluck me not away, neither destroy me with
the ungodly and wicked doers : which speak friendly
to their neighbours, but imagine mischief in their
hearts.
They usually understand this of heretics, who seem to L.
speak those things whicli are consonant with the words of
God, and yet all the while are inspu-ed by Satan to imagme q
mischief in their hearts. And how often did the enemies of
Cheist send forth those who should feign themselves just
men, and so entangle Him ! And, as Cassiodorus well ob- C.
serves, it is not onlv the voice of the Lobd, but of the dying
LoED : He knew that His time was come ; He knew that
they fools would soon " coimt His life madness, and His end Wisd. v. 4.
without honour ;" and therefore He prayed not to have His
inheritance with them. And as the same writer most truly
says, " Where are they now wlio affinn that Cheist had no
human soul, wlien it is said here, according to the Italic ver-
sion, ' Destroy not my soul -with the ungodly P' " And in that
neither destroy Me with the ungodly > there is no doubt a re-
ference to the fellow-prisoner of the Loed, Barabbas. And s. Albert. M.
this is more especially the case if we read the verse in 8.
Matthew as it ought to be read, according to the best MSS.,
"Pilate said unto them. Whom will ye that I release unto
you P Jesus whicli is called Barabbas, or Jesus Which is
caUed Cheist ?" Or they take it again in another sense,
as the Loed's prayer that His Flesh, naturally subject to D. C.
382 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
corruption, should not be left to decay, but should be pre-
served by the especial and miraculous power of the Godhead
Origen. £j.Qj^ ^^j ^Yie least yielding to the dominion of death. For
herein were the three Holy Children emblems of our Loed :
not only were neither they nor their garments subject to the
power of the flame, but neither had the smell of fire passed
upon them.
4 Reward them according to their deeds : and
according to the wickedness of their own inventions.
5 Recompense them after the work of their hands ;
pay them that they have deserved.
Here again we have some of those expressions which have
been a stumbling-block to many a mind in its use of the
Psalms. Nevertheless this we must constantly remember,
that we may, if we will, take them in a future tense ; or else
as the great majority of commentators hold, interpreting
them of God's determined enemies, and conforming ourselves
Ay. wholly to His will, that must happen to us which the Psalmist
in another place says, " The righteous shall rejoice when he
Ps. iviii. 9. geeth the vengeance." It is a very pretty meaning which
some mediaeval writers deduce : that here we have the words
of the LoED on the Cross. Reward them according to
their deeds, not according to their designs : they intended to
destroy a guiltless Man, but whatever they intended, their
G. deed was to ofier up the evening sacrifice of the world. And
according to that deed, and according to the blessings it
brought down, many of them at least were rewarded, as the
centurion, and no doubt others. Notice that recompense
them after the work of their hands is not in the Roman Psalter,
L. though to be found in the LXX. and the Hebrew. There
have not been wanting those, as the poet Apollinarius, who,
by a very forced construction, apply the whole of the two
verses to the good.
6 For they regard not in their mind the works of
the Lord, nor the operation of his hands : therefore
shall he break them down^ and not build them up.
Ay. Here we have ignorance alleged as the cause of the de-
isa, V. 13. struction of the wicked ; as saith the Prophet, " Therefore My
f)eople are gone into captivity, because they have no know-
edge." The ivorJcs of the Lord. And first and principally
that His greatest work, the Incarnation, by which the very
nature of matter has been changed, and all our relations
with the visible world, and its relations with us, transfigured.
C. And from the Incarnation, and the conversation of the Word
Incarnate among men, arise the operations of His hands,
those operations which the Scribes and Pharisees attributed
PSALM XXVIII.
383
Beelzebub,— those operations wliicb an evil and adulterous
jjenerationpersisted in neglecting, and desiring a sign from
javen. How they regarded them let S. Peter explain:
;But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a Actsiii. i4,
lurderer to be granted unto you; and killed the Prince of ^^> ^7, is.
life, Whom God hath raised from the dead ; whereof we are
itnesses. . . . And now, brethren, I wot that through ig-
korance ye did it, as did also your rulers. But those things,
rhich God before had showed by the mouth of all His Prophets,
lat Christ should suffer, He hath so fulfilled." And in like
lanner Moses speaks to the Jews : " Ye have seen all that the Deut. xxix.
LoED did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, 2, 4.
yet the Loed hath not given you a heart to perceive, and s. Albert. M.
eyes to see, and ears to hear unto this day." GerJiohus enters
into one of his curious discussions as to the understanding
the works of the Loed, when it pleases Him to bring ev3
upon any place. Quoting that text, " Every one that doeth
evil hateth the light," he says, acutely enough, " Note the
difference : it saith not, * He that doeth evil things hateth the
light,' but ' He that doeth evilly hateth the light.' There is
a vast difference between the two. It is true, every one that
doeth evilly doeth evil, but not true that every one that doeth
evil doeth evilly. For there are evil works of God : and these
are the most diflficult to understand. As He Himself saith, * I
form the light, and create darkness ; I make peace, and create
evil ; I, the Loed, do all these things.' "^ It is no wonder
that the Christians of that time saw a marvellous fulfilment -^•
of this verse, when the plan of Julian the Apostate for re-
building the Temple was miraculously frustrated. He in-
deed regarded not in his mind those prophecies that foretold
that of the Temple there should not be left one stone upon
another ; and therefore God did break doum and not build
up his abortive attempt, causing the very heathen to confess
that there was somewhat miraculous in his failure. And
Origen very fitly applies this verse to those who can see and in Ps. xviu.
study the works of God, and pass over all thought of the
Workmaster ; according to that saying of the Wise Man, " If wisd. xiii. 9.
they were able to know so much that they could aim at the
world, how did they not sooner find out the Loed thereof?"
And we must observe the elegant paronomasia in the Hebrew
between understood and build up, 1^^3J and 0^5..
7 Praised be the Lord : for he hath heard the
voice of my humble petitions.
Here, as the commentators tell us, we must distinguish
Ay.
^ This observation of Gerho-
hu8 shows how completely writers
of his stamp look to the Vulgate,
and not to the origiaal Greek.
For in the latter it is distinctly,
"Every one that doeth evil
things."
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
between the prayers of Cheist and the prayers of His people.
The latter, though they are always heard in a sense, they are
heard only so far as they are for the good of the petitioner ;
80 that either that is given which is requested, or something
that is better is given. 13ut the prayers of our Loed are al-
ways heard exactly as they are offered ; because nothing can
be better thaii that for which He makes request. And here
they dweU on the difference between the blessing which the
Creator gives to the creature, and that which the creature
s. Albert. M. gives to the Creator. "Note," says S. Albertus, "that the
creature praises the Creator by attributijig to Him the good
things which it possesseth : the Creator blesseth the creature
by doing good to it ; the Creator blesseth the creature by in-
creasing, whether its merit or its happiness. Hence it is
that, after each Hour, desiring as it were to attribute to the
LoED all the good that we have done, we say, ' Let us bless
the LoED ;' and immediately we add, doing that which we
enjoin, 'Thanks be to God.'" And Cassiodorus weU says
C that the thanks in the text are paid before that for which God
is thanked is wrought. For this is the work of faith, — to
believe that that which is prayed for will be granted, and to
return thanks for it as if it were already granted.
8 The Lord is my strength, and my shield ; my
heart hath trusted in him, and I am helped : there-
fore my heart danceth for joy, and in my song will I
praise him.
Or, as it is in the Vulgate, Therefore my flesh hath flou-
rished again, and with my ivhole will will I confess to Sim.
Eusebius very well observes that it is the usual custom of
God's providence to give an earnest to His petitioner that he
J has been heard, by impressing hira with the feeling that he
^' has not prated in vain. And in this sense many and many a
saint has said. My heart has trusted in Jlim, and I am helped,
long before that for which he prayed came to pass : just as
s. John xi. our Loed Himself said, " Fathee, I thank Thee that Thou
*i' hast heard Me," before Lazarus was raised from the dead.
And they notice the difference between the expressions, My
strength and M^ shield. My strength, in enabling me to
Q carry on an offensive warfare against Satan ; my shield in
giving me power to resist his temptations. So our Loed
might say, "My strength, when I went forth into the land
of darkness and in the shadow of death, when I preached,
* E-epent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,' when the
people that walked in darkness saw a great li^ht. But My
shield during the three temptations in the wilderness, and
again when the prince of this world came and had notliing in
Sera* «^** ■^^•" Therefore my flesh hath flourished again. Hear what S.
• ^' Ambrose says on this text : " My flesh," saith he, " hath flou-
rished agam." Notice the verb which he uses. He saith not
PSALM XXVIII. 385
flourished, but flourislied a^ain. But notliing can flourish
again, save that which has flourished before. Now the flesh
of the LoED flourished for the first time when it sprang from
the womb of Mary. As Isaiah saith, 'There shall come isa.xi. i.
forth a rod from the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow
out of his roots.' It flourished again when the flower had , ^j ^^^
been cut down by the Jews, and budded forth from the se- in"the same
pulchre with the reviving glory of His E-esurrection." Car- words, s.
dinal Hugo shows the resemblance between our Loed's flesh ^rm™^'
and a flower in these verses :
" Flos pulcher redolens spes fructus et brevis sevi ;
Mel dat api ; sertum capiti ; sine semine nascens."
And 80 in Isaiah we have, " And when ye see this your heart isa, ixvi. 14.
shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish as an herb."
[And when our flesh has become weakened by sin, defiled D. C.
with impurity, and enslaved by its passions, it can by repent-
ance be made to flourish again with the blossom and fragrance
of chastity.]
9 The Lord is my strength : and he is the whole-
some defence of his Anointed.
Or, as it is in the Vulgate, The Lor A is the Strength of His
people, and the Protector of the salvations of Sis Christ. S. .
Augustine, we may be sure, would not lose so very favour-
able a text for preaching the necessity of accompanying and
assisting grace. As it stands in our version, one cannot but
notice as so often, the allusion to the Trinity. They ob- ^
serve also that the expression His people {plehis suce) shows, ^'
in its very nature, how poor and contemptible they are in the
sight of the world, — how many Lazaruses there are for one
Dives, that are Cheist's. And nothing can more beautifully
express the whole scheme of salvation than that expression,
the Protector of the salvations of His Christ; the constant
guiding, and guarding, and defence of those persons or those
things (for, as they constantly tell us, we must take the
phrase in its widest sense,) which Cheist, by His precious
sacrifice, has won to Himself. S. Jerome takes this expres- s. Hiero-
sion Cheist to mean all Cheist's people ; like Him, anointed ; Jjy^^ j°^^^
like Him, made to our God, kings and priests. And then
the salvations of His Cheist will be the poor little works
which we, each in our own small way, may be privileged to
do or to bear for Him. In the Septuagint it is. He that holds
the shield over the salvations. Whence probably the old
hymn:
" Septrura tu tuum inclytum The Hymn,
Tuodefendeclypeo." ^.X/'^"*-
10 0 save thy people, and give thy blessing unto
s
386
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
L.
Deut. X. 9.
G.
Rupert.
thine inheritance
ever.
feed them, and set them up for
O how often has this verse heen repeated by the Church from
one end of the world to the other ! Save Thy people : those
who lead the ordiaary life of God's servants ; and bless Thine
heHtage : those who, like Levi, " hath no part nor inheritance,
the LoED is his inheritance ; according as the Loed thy God
promised him." It is worth while to translate the beautiful
explanation of Gerhohus. " According to this distinction of
Thy people and of Thine heritage, from the very beginning of
the Church, two kinds of lives have been followed: the one prac-
tised by the debility of the more infirm, the other perfected in
the blessed virtue of the stronger ; one remaining in the little
city of Zoar, one ascending to the height of the mountains ;
one by tears and almsgivings atoning for daily sins, the other
by the daily instancy of spiritual exercise acquiring eternal
merits ; the one inferior, the other superior ; those that hold
the inferior are engaged in earthly occupations ; those who
follow the superior despise earthly things altogether. The
former are the people of God ; the latter. His heritage." Feed
them : or, as it is in the Vulgate, Govern them. Here we
have one of the clauses in that wonderful hymn, the author
of which, like most of the other everlasting possessions of
the Church, will never be known till the end of all things ;
for none can doubt that it is far older than its usually alleged
parentage, which would attribute it to S. Ambrose and S.
Augustine. Lift them up for ever. Hence they well gather
the everlasting perfecting of righteous souls ; that the Bea-
tific Vision will be a state of perpetual progress, as well as of
infinite happiness. And Rupert well remarks that the way
to be lifted up at last is to be governed at first ; even as the
Wise Man says, *' Before honour is humility."
And therefore :
Glory be to the Fathee, the Loed our Strength ; and to
the Son, in Whom our heart hath trusted and we are helped :
and to the Holy Ghost, Who is the wholesome defence of
His Anointed ;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be : world
without end. Amen.
Collects.
Ludoiph. O God, the Strength of all, preserve Thy people from going
down into the pit ; and so knit us together with one heart in
Thy holy Temple, that the peace which we profess with our
mouth we may hold in our heart. Through (1.)
Mozarablc, We pray and beseech Thee, O Loed, not to keep silence
Ferial. from consoling us ; neither do Thou give us up to the desires
of our own hearts, and shut un our souls with sinners ; but
save Thy people whom Thou nast created, and bless Thine
PSALM XXIX. 387
heritage whicli Thou hast redeemed through Thy precious
Blood. Amen. Through Thy mercy (11.)
O God, our Keeper and Redeemer, look in mercy on us, Mozarabic,
and grant that our flesh may flourish again in the blossom of Passiontide.
chastity and the flower of holiness ; and because Thou art
the fortitude of Thine elect, save Thy people and bless Thine
heritage with the riches of Thy benediction. Amen. Through
Thy mercy (11.)
[Lifting up our feeble hands towards Thy holy temple as D. C.
we kneel, we beseech Thee, O Lord, shut not up our souls
with the ungodly which know Thee not : leave us not, nor
destroy us with them that work iniquity, but governing us,
lift us up with Thee in the kingdom of heaven. Through (1.)]
PSALM XXIX.
Title. A Psalm of David [at the completion of the Taber-
nacle.]
Aegument.
Ven. Bede. The completion of the Tabernacle signifies the per-
fection of the Church ; which, since it wageth wars against carnal
vices, hath rightly received the name of a miUtary tent.
The Prophet, foreseeing that the ends of the world would be
brought to the faith, first addresses all the nations, commanding
them to bring sacrifices to God. Next, in a sevenfold series, by
various allusions, he enumerates the graces of the Holt Ghost :
The voice of the Lord is upon the waters. But that he may show
that the power of the Father and of the Holy Ghost is one,
he telleth, thirdly, how the Holy Trinity effectuates Baptism, and
how the LOED giveth virtue and benediction to him who is rege-
nerate from it : The Lord maketh the water-jlood to he inhabited, Sfc.
EusEBiTJS OF CjESAEEA. An enigmatical prophecy, teaching con-
cerning God.
Arabic Psalter. A prophecy of the Incarnation, and concern-
ing the Ark and Tabernacle.
[This Psalm would appear to have been composed during an equi-
noctial tornado at the Feast of Tabernacles, which, falling in the
month of Tizri (August, September,) must often have been accom-
panied with hurricanes. Compare Ezra x. 9 : "All the people sat in
the street of the house of GoD, trembling because of this matter,
and for the great rain."]
Vaeiotjs Uses.
Gregorian. Ferial. Monday : Matins. [Epiphany : I. Noc-
tum. Transfiguration : I. Noctum.]
s 2
388
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Monastic. Sunday : II. Nocturn.
Parisian. Saturday: Tierce.
Lyons. • Monday : Lauds.
Ambrosian. Tuesday of the First Week.
Quignon. Tuesday : Tierce.
III. Nocturn.
Didymus.
G.
S. Pet.
Chrysolog.
Serm. lo.
Hob, xiv, 2.
Antiphons.
Gregorian. O worship * the Loed in His holy temple. [Epi-
phany : Bring unto the LoED, O ye sous of GrOD, worship the
Loed in His holy temple. Transfiguration : The Loed hath dis-
covered the thick places, in His temple doth every man speak of
His honour,]
Monastic. O worship * the Loed in His holy temple.
Parisian. Ascribe unto the Loed * glory and honour.
Mozarabic. In the temple of the Loed all shall tell His glory,
and the Loed shall remain a King for ever.
1 Bring unto the Lord^ O ye mighty, bring young
rams unto the Lord : ascribe unto the Lord worship
and strength.
There is no Psalm which has been thought to contain
more mysticism than this ; and, as Didymus tells us, its very
number, twenty-eight, is in itself a mystery. It contains
four septenaries ; or, taking twenty as the symbol of perfect
virtue, and eight as that of regeneration, the two — both the
beginning and the completion of the Christian course — are
both contained in it.^ Notice the difference between the
Bible and Prayer Book versions : the former translating this
verse. Give unto the Lord, 0 ye mighty : give unto the Lord
glory and strength. These young rams, as they beautifully
say, are the same of whom the Lord spoke to the Prince of
His shepherds, " Feed My sheep ; feed My lambs." And as
He then spoke thrice, so here a triple answer is given. O
ye mighty, or, as it is in the original, O ye sons of God :
whereon S. Basil takes occasion to observe, that only they
who are the sons of God by purity of heart can offer gifts
acceptable to Him j whence Cheist Himself commanded us
at the commencement of the prayer which He Himself in-
structed us to offer, to say, " Our Father." Eichard of S.
Victor treats this verse, and indeed the whole Psalm, at
great length, in a treatise founded thereupon to those en-
gaged in the religious life. S. Peter Chrysologus, not unna-
turally, takes occasion from this verse to exhort parents to
bring their children to God as soon as possible in Holy Bap-
tism. And we may well compare the text in Hosea, "So
will we offer the calves of our Ups." Based on the glory and
• Of these numbers I would
say with Lorinus, "Equidem
non istis arithmeticis mysteriis
magnopere delector : servio ta-
men interdum alieno palato."
PSALM XXIX.
389
honour of this verse is the Canon of the Fourth Council of
Toledo, which orders, under pain of excommunication, that
instead of the " Glory be to the Father, &c,," adopted by all
other Churches, "Glory and honour" should be ascribed, as
it is done by the Mozarabic Office to this day.^
[" He who collects the scattered sheep of Christ, who
turns back the erring, and finds the lost, this man brings Origen.
J''Oung rams unto the Lord." And as the Apostles are the carth!"°
eaders of Christ's flock, so those children whom they have Ric liamp.
begotten in the Gospel are fitly called sons of rams?']
2 Give the Lord the honour due unto his Name :
worship tlie Lord with holy worship.
And what honour is that P What honour is due to that s. Bernard.
Name, once the laughing-stock of the world, once the scorn
and derision of sinners, now the joy and safety of the saints,
and the happiness of the blessed ? As the hymn says :
The Hymu,
Gloriosi
Salvatoris.
*Ti8 the Name, by right exalted
Over every other Name,
That when we are sore assaulted
Puts our enemies to shame ;
Strength to them that else had halted,
Eyes to blind, and feet to lame.
With holy worship : or, as the Vulgate has it, In His holy
And this temple the commentators understand in
very difierent manners. In that tabernacle, say the Jews, Ay.
which, after all its wanderings in the wilderness, and its
varied habitations at Shiloh, Kirjath-jearim, and elsewhere,
was now decaying and waxing old, and ready to vanish away.
The Church Militant, say the Greek expositors ; holy, not- s. Basil and
withstanding all its sins, aU the tares that grow together ^^'^f ^^"*-
with the wheat, all its miserable weaknesses and shortcom-
ings. In the Material Church, say most of the ritualists ; Durandus.
and some of the Offices for the Dedication of a Church em-
ploy this verse as the antiphon. It is the religious hfe,
writes Richard of S. Victor, in a passage which may well be
quoted. " Above," says he, " we are commanded to offer a Rjcard.
sacrifice ; here the precept is to adore in the temple : the one '"^
^ It is a mistake of Lorinus
to say that the honour is now
omitted by every church ; as he
might have convinced himself by
merely looking at the Mozarabic
Breviary.
2 [This reading, which is also
that of the Syriac, has arisen from
taking the word crVw as though
D»y« from "r^, "a ram." The
LXX., which seems to have had
this originally as a mere variant,
now stands with both meanings
attached to the same words in the
text. The Targum, not looking
to the idea of sacrifice, para-
phrases D'b«m as "companies
of angels."]
390 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
that we may not enter with empty hands ; the other that we
may not stand with idle bodies. That we may not enter with
empty hands, Bring young rams unto the Lord ; that we may
not stand with idle bodies, Worship the Lord in His holy
temple. What is it to worship, except to bow down our
whole body to the feet of Him Whom we adore ? The Pro-
phet wills, then, that we should be subject, not only to the
higher members of the Loed, — that is, to prelates, — but even
to those that are lowest, and that of our own free will. Fulfil
1 s. Pet. ii. S. Peter's command, ' Submit yourselves to every ordinance
*^' of man, for the Loed's sake,' without doubt thou hast wor-
shipped the LoED. Enter, therefore, that august gate with
the vows of your religion, with the habits of your profession ;
remain in the house of discipline, hold the institutions of
■ your rule. This is truly the worship that David here re-
C. quires." Others, again, take this Temple of God to be a
Eure conscience, without which all worship is utterly value-
jss. And they observe that in this Temple it is the part of
the Fathee to lay the foundation, that of the Son to build,
that of the Holy Ghost to complete. Thus it was that Da-
vid made preparation for the Temple ; that the Son of David,
s. Alb. Mag. the pacific King Solomon, erected it. It would be endless
to tell how others have seen in this verse an allusion to the
offerings of the wise men ; or how in the four clauses about
offering, S. Basil and S. Athanasius see the Trinity of Per-
sons and the Unity of Essence,
s. Bruno [The holy temple, or hall, observes S. Bruno, the Carthu-
Carth. gian, is our own heart, now narrow, but soon to be enlarged
by charity, so as to make it a dwelling ample enough for
God Himself.]
3 It is the Lord, that commandeth the waters : it
is the glorious God, that maketh the thunder.
I^ow follows that remarkable description of the sevenfold
effects of the voice of the Loed, which has given rise to so
many expositions, and which, no doubt, is as deeply mys-
tical as any part of the Psalms. Let us take them as they
stand in the Vulgate, and then return to each verse as it is
given in our version :
1. The voice of the Loed is upon the waters.
2. The voice of the Loed in virtue.
3. The voice of the Loed in magnificence.
4. The voice of the Loed that breaketh the cedars.
5. The voice of the Loed dividing the flames of fire.
6. The voice of the Loed shaking the wilderness.
7. The voice of the Loed preparing the stags.
It is not wonderful that, with such a leading idea as that
suggested by the first clause, Baptism, many commentators
should have seen the Seven Sacraments in these voices. On
L. the waters, Baptism; in virtue, Confirmation; in magnifi-
PSALM XXIX. 391
cence, the Blessed Eucharist; breaking the cedars, Penance;
(compare the saying of Isaiah, " The day of the Loed of isa. u. 12,
Hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and ^^•
upon all the cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted
up ;") shaking the wilderness, Orders ; (compare " The voice isa. xi. 3.
of him that crieth in the wilderness ;") dividing the flames of
fire. Matrimony; preparing the stags, Extreme Unction;
(each Christian being here symbolised by the stag, as we saw
that our Loed was called the Morning Hind in the 22nd
Psalm.) This is the symbolism given by Lorinus. Ayguan -^J-
gives the same interpretation, but with a different adaptation
of particulars. The more usual way, however, is to see in the
seven voices the seven graces of the Holy G-host, the seven
thunders which S. John heard in the Revelation. And thus ^^^' ^- ^•
it is that Gerhohus writes, " The voice of truth is not the
voice of man, but the voice of the Lord ; whether that voice Gr«
insinuates the fear of the Loed upon the waters, — that is, the
minds of earthly men, unstable as water, — or whether it is
in virtue, alluring them that are heavenly-minded ; or whe-
ther in magnijicence, preparing a glorious consolation to happy
mourners ; or whether it be the gift of fortitude, hreaking
the cedars ; or whether the gift of counsel, which divides the
Jlames of fire : or the gift of understanding, which shakes
the wilderness of Cades : or, finally, of wisdom, which reveals
the thickets and prepares the stags, — that is, which reveals
the hidden meaning of God's Word, and prepares Christians
to act upon it."
The voice of the Lord is upon the waters. Where Ay- J^j,
guan says very well, "Because Cheist was baptized, the
voice of the Fathee was heard, * This is My beloved Son, in
Whom I am well pleased.' The Son appeared in the flesh,
so it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Oh, how won-
derfully this Voice thundered, and afforded an example of
humility to the whole world!" Whence Eemigius saith, s.Remigius.
" The Loed also thundered out of heaven ; and the Highest
gave His thunder, whence Cheist saith, * Thus it becometh
us to fulfil all righteousness :' that all the proud may learn
the example of humility, and may not think scorn to be bap-
tized by My poor members, when they see Me, the Loed of
all, baptized by John, My servant." S. Basil takes the voice s. Basil,
of S. John the Baptist. " John," says he, " was the voice of
the Loed in magnificence, when he preached such glorious
mysteries concerning Jesus." And notice the difiference be-
tween the voice and the Word ; belHveen the voice of one
crying in the wilderness, and the Woed That was with the
Fathee ; the inarticulate sound, and the perfect character
and image.
4 It is the Lord, that ruleth the sea ; the voice
of the Lord is mighty in operation : the voice of the
Lord is a glorious voice.
392
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
^y.
1 Cor. ii. 4.
1 Thess. i. 5,
D.C.
Rev, xvii. 1
That ruleih the sea. So it was wKen tlie wares of the Eed
Sea were made a path for the ransomed to pass over ; when
the sea of Galilee was swept by the tempest, and the Loed
awoke and said to it, "Peace, be still." Or, on the other
hand, when Jonah was passing from Joppa to Tarshish, and
the LoED sent out a great wind into the sea. Mighty in
operation. And so it was when that marvellous Voice was
heard, " Lazarus, come forth :" and he that had been dead
four days, came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-
clothes. And so, since our Lord's time, what His Voice was
then, that of His Apostles has been since : " My speech and
my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom,
but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." Or, as it
is in another place, " In power and in the Holy Ghost, and
in much assurance." Or again : That ruleth the sea. By
the sea we understand the various peoples of this world ; as
the metaphor is explained in the Eevelation. And so it was
when, at that first Pentecost, Parthians, and Medes, and
Elamites, and the rest of that noble catalogue, heard the
Gospel message, every man in his own tongue.
S. Greg.
Moral.
Jobxl. 21.
Rupert.
L.
Amos ii. 9.
Procopius
in Isaiam.
Rupert.
Ay.
5
yea,
The voice of the Lord breaketli the cedar-trees :
the Lord breaketh the cedars of Libanus.
And first, they take these cedars as the symbols of the
proud and haughty. It is written in the book of Job that
Behemoth lieth under the shady trees ; that is, mystically,
that Satan finds his dwelling-place in the heart of the proud.
And the voice of the Loed breaketh them : breaketh them,
that is, in the first place, by giving to those haughty ones a
broken and a contrite heart ; or if that fails, then by grind-
ing them to powder. Hence it is written in the Magnificat,
" He hath showed strength with His Arm : He hath scattered
the proud in the imagination of their heart." And so it is
written in the Prophet, " Yet destroyed I the Amorite before
them, whose height was like the height of the cedars
Yet I destroyed his fruits from above, and his roots from be-
neath." And so Procopius very well observes, that the cedar,
itself lofty, grows on lofty places, and bears no fruit. And
yet from these cedars of Libanus were the beams taken which
built the house of the Lord at Jerusalem. And it is so still,
Saul the persecutor, the Cedar of Lebanon, becomes Paul the
Apostle, one of the ma^n supports of the Lord's house : Mar-
garet, the sinner, becomes S. Margaret of Cortona, famous to
all ages for her penitence. I am afraid that Ayguan's dis-
tinction between lower cedars, — those in other parts of the
world, — and cedars of Libanus, the most towering of all,
however true physically, cannot be confined to his mystical
interpretation : that the haughtiest of all God's enemies are
the Jews. For surely, even among Christians, and even in
this ago, we shall find some that as truly crucify the Lord
PSALM XXIX. 393
afresh,— that as boldly say, " We will not have this Man to
reign oyer us," — as ever did Annas and Caiaphas, and their
companions. BreaJceth the cedars. S. Albertus, with his s. Aibertus
wonderful knowledge of Scripture, reminds us of S. Paul's Magnus.
warning : " If some of the branches be broken off, and thou Rom.xi. 17,
wert graffed in among them, boast not against the branches. *^-
But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root
thee."
6 He maketh them also to skip like a calf : Liba-
nus also, and Sirion, like a young unicorn.
The Yulgate is so entirely different, that we must consider
it also. And he shall diminish them as the calf of Lebanon :
and the beloved is as the son of the unicorns. To take our
own version first : Sirion is spoken of by Moses before :
" Which Hermon the Sidonians call Sirion ; and the Amo- i>eut. iii. 9.
rites call it Shenir." And so we read afterwards that " the j ^^j^^.^
half tribe of Manasseh increased from Bashan unto Baal- 23,
hermon and Senir, and unto Mount Hermon." And so when
David speaks here of these mountains skipping like a young
imicorn, or rather buffalo, it is but that which we shall find
hereafter of the mountains skipping like rams, and the little
hills like young sheep, when I will speak of the mystical
sense. Now let us take it as it is in the Yulgate. Nothing
has given the commentators more trouble than the phrase,
"He shall diminish^ them as the calf of Lebanon;" or, as it L.
is in the LXX., " like the calf Lebanon." Generally they Ricard.
seem to understand it of the effect of God's grace, in not victor,
only breaking down the pride of the haughty, but in so touch-
ing their hearts, as to give them the gentleness and playful-
ness of a young calf. Or, again, as in Lebanon was the best ^y.
pasture for calves, hence those destined for the Tabernacle
service were most frequently taken thence : so that here the
conversion of the proud into holy, reasonable sacrifices to
God is foretold. And the Beloved is as the son of the uni- C.
corns. They take it as a prophecy of the Incarnation : that
the " Beloved," the Only-begotten, He in Whom the Father
was always well pleased, — He should in no respect be differ-
ent from the other children of the Jews,— symbolised by uni- ^•
corns, because the favoured people of God, and intended to Ay.
push their enemies right and left, and to trample them under C.
loot. I do not dwell on these interpretations, however in-
genious and however beautiful, based as they are on so mani-
festly untenable an interpretation. Still, such is the sense
which the Church has usually attached to the words : and
it would have been unpardonable, — let that sense be as un-
grammatical as it may, — to pass it over.
[The skipping denotes, as they for the most part agree,
^ The LXX. probably read :s^. instead of DTjTi'.
s3
394
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
A. the "joy of exultation," the gladness of the sinner after he
Ay. tas been humbled by God, and taught His law. They ship,
In Ps. cxiii. but not till they have first been broken. And note who they
are that so skip with joy. Lihanus, " white," because their
isa. i. 18. sins, which were as scarlet, have been made as white as snow.
Sirion, the "breastplate," because they who were weak,
Eph. vi. 14. strengthened by God's might, have become breastplates of
1 Th'ess. v,8. " righteousness," of " faith and love."]
7 The voice of the Lord dividetli the flames of
fire ; the voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness :
yea, the Lord shaketh the wilderness of Cades.
G.
Liranus
and others.
The Hymn,
Beata nobis
gaudia.
Cathisma
after the se-
cond Sticho-
logia, Whit-
sunday
Lauds.
S. Greg.
Moral, ix.
46.
S. Basil.
Theodoret.
S. Alb. Mag
Gen. xxxi.
24.
In S. Matt,
cap. iii.
Fire they take of the concupiscence which is in human na-
ture even after Baptism. God's grace does not destroy or
remove this altogether in this world, but hinders it from
bursting forth into active corruption, prevents the soul from
being kindled by temptation into a furnace of iniquity. But
we may also see here those divided flames of fire which de-
scended at the great day of Pentecost upon the Apostles ;
when
The quivering fire their heads bedewed,
In cloven tongues' similitude,
That eloquent their words might be,
And fervid all their charity.
Or, again, dividing the flames of fire, so that they lighted
on the Apostles, but hurt them not ; were kindled on each
forehead as a lambent brightness, not an injuring heat.
" Fountain of the Spirit !" exclaims the Eastern Church,
" divided into rational and fiery streams, bedewed the Apos-
tles to whom it gave light ; that fire was unto them as a dewy
cloud, illuminating them, — a raining flame, by which we
have received grace, through water and fire."
In another sense they also take it, and that an even more
solemn meaning. God so divides the light and heat of His
ineffable glory : to the blessed it is a brilliant splendour with-
out heat, — to the damned it is a fearful fire without light : or
if there be any light, teaches S. Gregory, it will only be such
a light as shall add to, by revealing, the horrors of that dis-
mal place. Others, again, take it of God in His Providence
refraining the angry passions of wicked men, as when His
• command was to Laban, Take heed that thou speak not to
Jacob either good or bad. The voice of the Lord shaketh the
wilderness. And marvellously that Voice of the Lord, the
Forerunner of the Word, shook the wilderness, when he pro-
claimed, "Kepent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
S. Chrysostom says, " Verily, Juda;a was a wilderness, empty
of righteousness, full of sin ; and though the Lord had
planted it, the Lord irrigated it, all the prophets had tilled
it, it bare nothing but thorns and briars, and with those
PSALM XXIX. 395
thorns it crowned its own Lord." The wilderness of Cades.
Cassiodorus reminds us very well that in the wilderness of q
Cades it was that the stricken rock gave out its water. Hence
the wilderness of Cades may be interpreted of human nature
lying in its original sin, before the Sacrament of Baptism is
conferred on it. This wilderness the Voice of the Loed shook,
when His Apostle and other preachers made proclamation,
" Flee from the wrath to come ;" when they answered the
question, " Sirs, what shall I do to be saved ?"
8 The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to
bring forth young, and discovereth the thick bushes :
in his temple doth every man speak of his honour.
There is no verse which has given to commentators more
trouble than this, in its mystical sense. And no wonder : for,
as I said before, the translation is manifestly founded on a
mistake. There can be no doubt that the proper interpreta-
tion is, The voice of the Lord shattereth the oaks ; and to that
the same meaning will apply as to His breaking the cedar-
trees, namely. His putting down the proud in the imagina-
tion of their hearts. But as to the hmds, commentators are j,,
reduced, either to the mediaeval fable that stags, by breath-
ing into the holes of serpents, have the power of fascinating Liranus.
them out, and then destroying them, and that it is thus that
the LoBD from generation to generation gives power to His
people to triumph over that old serpent Satan ; or they ob- s. Hieron.
serve that hinds are the only animals which calve with pain ^"^J^' ^^'^'
and difficulty, and thus it is that the voice of God enables
His servants to bring forth good works, at whatever cost of
labour and pain to themselves : — which interpretations it is
very evident only arise from the determination of making
some sense where there is none. And discovereth the thick
hushes. Here all the expositors agree in understanding the
thick bushes as the mysteries of Holv Scripture, revealed
and explained by the Incarnation of the Son of God. So
the Eastern Church :
Eod of the root of Jesae, S. Cosmas
Thou Flower of Mary bom, ^^^^^^ '
From that thick shady forest Christmas.
Cam'st glorious forth this mom.
In the same sense they also take that passage in Habakkuk,
« The LoBD came from Teman, and the Holy One from the Hab. m. 3.
thick and shady mountain." S. Jerome dwells at length on
the metaphor, and shows how the forests, where wild beasts
lurk and thieves lie in ambush, typify those times of tempta-
tion which every Christian and the whole Cathohc Church
must go through ; and that the prophecy here is of God s
turning it into pasture land and corn field, just as tempta-
396
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
tions and trials are changed into means of grace and comfort.
s. Hiero- So the prophecies in Isaiah, that " Carmel shall become a
nym. in Isa. fold for flocks ;" that " on all hills that shall be digged with
S. Chrysost
Horn. 33.
L.
ixv, 10. ^j^g mattock, there shall not come thither the fear of briars
Isa. vii, 25. and thorns : but it shall be for the sending forth of oxen,
and the treading of lesser cattle." Nevertheless, it is better
to follow the usual interpretation, that by the voice of the
Lord, " Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Loed is with
thee ; blessed art thou among women," the thick and obscure
bushes of many an ancient prophecy were revealed ; and
thence it immediately follows. In His Temple doth every man
speak of His honour. For His Temples have since been filled
with the praises of Him, Who, by revealing the thick bushes,
hath brought us from darkness into His marvellous light :
and of His honour. Who, because of His humiliation, hath
s. Albert. M. i^ggj^ highly exalted, and received the Name which is above
every name. Notice, also, that with the same reference to this
2 deep obscurity, Euthymius refers that text, " Deep calleth
unto deep," to the two Testaments, the Old foretelling the
New, the New appealing to the Old. In a plainer significa-
s. Basil. tion, S. Basil takes occasion to rebuke those who discussed
their own matters in the House of God. " In His Temple,"
says he, " does every man speak, not of worldly business, not
of other men, not of gossip, but of His honour." Lorinus
does well to remind us, that while sacrifice was being offered
or the auguries consulted by a Homan Imperator, it was the
duty of one man to make proclamation, Hoc age : and how
much more ought the same rule to hold good in the worship
of the one true God !
9 The Lord sitteth above the water-flood : and
the Lord remaineth a King for ever.
Or as it is in the Yulgate, TJie Lord malceth the tcater-
flood to he ^inhabited. Nothing can be a more beautiful
L. symbol of Baptism than this. That is the true deluge, not
of vengeance, but of grace, that was spread over the face of
Rupert. ^jjg whole earth ; and wherever its waters have touched, there
Acts ii. 47. have new children been born to God, there the Loed has
added to the Church daily such as were being saved. And
if we ask why Baptism is here spoken of as a flood, rather
than, as in other places, as a river, we must remember that
the deluge itself lias always been regarded as the Baptism of
judgment preceding that of grace. So Hildebert says :
The deluge o'er the earth at midnight burst,
The fearful baptism of its sin accurst.
It is needless to seek other and further-fetched metaphors,
such as that of S. Albertus, who sees in this passage a proof
that bad as well as good are contained in the Church mili-
tant, because by means of that the Lobd makes the water-
HUdebert.
S. Albert. M.
PSALM XXIX. 397
flood of sin still to be inhabited by His children. And there-
fore it follows, The Lord remaineth a King fur ever. Because
by Baptism He has dominion from sea to sea, and from the
river unto the ends of the world, therefore the Loed shall j). c.
reign over the people thus purchased to Himself, when grace
shall be turned into glory, and the sea of Baptism shall have
had its end in that sea of glory which is before the everlasting
throne.
10 The Lord shall give strength unto his people :
the Lord shall give his people the blessing of peace.
Take the preceding verse of Baptism, and this remarkably
applies to Confirmation and to the Blessed Eucharist. The
LoED maketh the water-flood to be inhabited : The Lord shall
give strength unto His people, as His whole armour is then
bestowed when Confirmation is given : the Lord shall give Sis
people the blessing of peace, that Sacrament which was insti-
tuted in the same night in which He said, " Peace I leave Ay.
with you, My peace I give unto you." Or take it in another
sense, as the Jiistory of the whole Christian life. The Lord
shall give strength unto His people: there you have all its
battles, fightings witliout, fears within. The Lord shall give
His people the blessing of peace : peace unbroken, peace ever-
lasting ; Jerusalem, which is the Vision of Peace. " Then,"
says Richard, " we shall obtain fourfold peace : peace from Ricard. vic-
GoD, from the world, from the flesh, from the devil. The <^orin.
first, by obedience ; the second, by patience ; the third, by
abstinence ; the fourth, by prudence ; and all, by prayer."
Hear Gerhohus : " The Lord shall give strength unto His q.
people : the Lord shall give His people the blessing of peace.
There will be a distinction between people and people, as
well among the elect as among the reprobate. For among
the reprobate there will be a people that is not to be judged,
as it is written, ' He that believeth not is condemned already.' s. Johniii.
And there will be a people that is to be judged by those is.
words, ' Depart from Me, ye cursed.' In Hke manner among
the elect, there will be a people not to be judged— even those
who shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes
of Israel ; and there will be a people to be judged with those
most sweet words, * Come, ye blessed of My Fathee.' Oh,
what strength doth the Loed now give to that His people,
even the least among them,— to them in whom He is received
and comforted, when an hungered, athirst, sick, and in prison !
Oh, what peace will He hereafter give to all, when He shall
wipe away all tears from all eyes, and there shall be no more
death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any
more pain ; when of the increase of His government and isa. ix. 7.
peace, there shall be no end !"
And therefore :
Glory be to the Fathee, That commandeth the waters j
398
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
and to the Son, Who is mighty in operation ; and to the
Holy Ghost, Who shall give His people the blessing of
peace;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be : world
without end. Amen.
Collects.
Ludoiph. Give, O Lord, strength unto Thy people, and make us the
Temple of the Holy Ghost, that out of a pure heart we
may prepare a whole burnt-offering, that may be acceptable.
Through (2.)
Mozarabic. Q GoD, Whose sons — that is, the Angels — offer glory to
Thee, and at Whose feet all the Saints lay down their crowns,
we beseech Thee with all humility to receive the vows of our
minds, and to restrain the concupiscence of our flesh : accept
the prayers of Thy servants, and give them the fellowship of
Thy holy Angels, that He, Whose voice thundered in majesty
and shone in magnificence, may remove the darkness of ig-
norance from their minds, and may give them the lights of
knowledge by which they may merit to behold Thee. Amen.
Through (11.)
Give, O LoED, strength to Thy people against the ills of
all adversity ; enrich us with the blessing of Thy peace, that
in the abundance of our quiet we may all give glory to Thee
in Thy holy temple, and forgetting the misfortunes of this
life, may ever render to Thee honour and praise. Amen.
Through (11.)
[Deliver us, O God, from all evils, and give us a contrite
and humbled heart to offer unto Thee for our sins, that,
quelling, with Thy mighty operation and glory, all offences
which work unrighteousness, Thou mayest bless Thy people
in peace. Through (1.)]
Mozarabic.
D.C.
PSALM XXX.
Title. A Psalm and Song at the dedication of the House of
David. [Or, A Musical Psalm at the opening of David's house.]
Aegument.
Aeg. Thomas. That Christ planted the Church by His Eesur-
rection in eternal glory. The Prophet speaketh to the Father, and
to the Son, and concerning the praise of the same. Concerning the
Pasch of Christ, and the prayers of the future Church, and with
praise in man. The voice of Christ to the Father. The Church
prays and praises.
Ven. Bede. a Psalm and Song is this : when it thus commences
PSALM XXX. 399
the hymn, and the art of the organ follows up that which the human
voice has begun : and wherever it occurs, it teaches that by the
knowledge of Divine cognition, good works are to be taken in hand.
For the acquired knowledge of God must precede the eflSciency of
holy deeds. By the House of David we understand the Temple of
the Loed's Body : by the dedication of that house, His Resurrec-
tion, by which it was raised to eternal power and glory. At the
beginning of the Psalm, the Loed, after the glory of His Resurrec-
tion, returns thanks to the Fathee because He had delivered Him
from the adversity of the world, commanding also His saints to
sing praises to God, since all things are put in His power : I will
magnify Thee, O Lord, for Thou hast set me up. Secondly, He
affirms that He shall never be moved, and tells us that thanks must
be paid to the Loed by the living, and not by the dead. Thirdly,
He returns to His Resurrection, and exults in the deposition of the
frail flesh, and the eternity of His majesty and glory : Thou hast put
off My sackcloth, and girded Me with gladness.
Steiac Psaltee. a prophecy and returning of thanks.
Vaeigus Uses.
Gregorian. Monday : Matins. [Easter Eve : II. Noctum. As-
cension : I. Noctum.]
Monastic. Sunday : II. Noctum.
Parisian. Monday : III. Noctum.
Lyons. Monday : Lauds.
Ainbrosian. Tuesday of the First Week : III. Noctum.
Quignon. Tuesday : Compline.
Eastern Church. Mesorion of Terce.
Antiphons.
Gregorian and Monastic. As to Psalm xxviii. [Easter Eve :
Thou, Loed, hast brought my soul out of hell. Ascension : I will
magnify Thee * for Thou hast set me up. Alleluia.]
Parisian. Sing praises * unto the Loed, O ye saints of His,
and give thanks for a remembrance of His holiness.
Lyons. O Loed, my God, I will give thanks unto Thee for
ever.
Mozarabic. O Loed, my God, I cried unto Thee, and Thou didst
hear me.
1 I will magnify thee, O Lord, for thou hast set
me up : and not made my foes to triumph over me.
■ This is one of the musical Psabns : the others being 48, Q7,
68, 75, 92. What the dedication or opening of the house of
David was, is a point much disputed by commentators. Some
will have it to mean the completion of his own house in the
City of David : some the setting up the tabernacle there, as
if that were more truly David's house than his own. Others
again will have it of the anticipative dedication of the Temple
in the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. Again others
400
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
will have the Psalm to apply to the return of the Jews from
Babylon, and the complaints of sickness and the like to refer
metaphorically to the misery which God's people endured in
captivity. But perhaps, as the literal expression is the open-
ing of David's house, and as the allusions to sickness are so
very strong, it is easier to understand it of the re-opening of
the palace after some dangerous illness of David, of which we
have no account in the books of Samuel. But whatever diffi-
culty there may be as to the literal, there can be none what-
ever in the spiritual, meaning. And this is one among many
s. Hieron. instances in which the mystical interpretation which is stig-
matised as so doubtful and unreal, gives us a firmer hold than
any literal explanation can do. Thus it refers to the Ascen-
sion of the True David into the Kingdom which His own
E-ight Hand has purchased for Himself and for His people ;
to the dedication of the house not made with hands, eternal
in the heavens, effected, so to speak, by His own entrance
therein. It is in this sense that the Western Church employs
this Psalm among others for Ascension Day. I will magnify
Thee, O Lord. "The saint," says S. Ambrose, " exalts the
Lord, the sinner humbles Him ; and by how much the more
a man seeks to the Loed, by so much the more he both ex-
alts Him and is exalted himself." Set Me up indeed : for
" God is gone up with a merry noise, and the Loed with the
sound of the trump." Set Me up in glory above those who
lately set Me up on the Cross, as a mark of derision : Set Me
up as the Monarch to Whom the eyes of all the world must
be turned. Well may the Eastern Church exclaim, " Be-
cause Adam by the fall of his nature had descended into the
lower parts of the earth, therefore that very same nature,
renewed by God, was to-day set up far above all principality
and might and dominion : for God so loved it that He made
it sit down with Himself : so sympathised with it that He
united it to Himself : so united it to Himself, that He glori-
fied it with Himself." And so indeed we may take the verse
of human nature exalted in the Person of our Loed, and
exulting in its deliverance from Satan, the world and itself.
And not made my foes to tritimph over me. Not, says one,
as if it were God's act that our enemies do prevail against
us : but that he may show how entirely all victory, on our
part, comes not from ourselves, but from the Giver of all
Ay. good things. But, they ask. Did not Cheist's enemies
triumph over Him, when they that passed by railed on Him,
wagging their heads; when they said. Ah, Thou that de-
stroyest the Temple : or again. Sir, we remember that that
deceiver said, while He was yet alive ? Answer. They re-
joiced indeed over His death as man, but not over His dedi-
cation as the evening sacrifice of the world : and it is of the
dedication of David's house, whether in humility on the
Cross, or in glory on the Throne, that the Psalm tells. Dio-
nysius the Carthusian, who gives three distinct explanations
B. Isaac,
cap. vii.
Rupert.
Stichera
icliomela, at
the lite on
GreatThurs-
day of the
Ascension.
S. Pet.
Chrysolog.
PSALM XXX. 401
of this Psalm, the literal, the tropologic, and the anagogic, j) q
says very touchingly, in the second of them : We, who have
been raised up from the pollution of sin, are bound to con-
sider what and how great a benefit of God this is, that we
have been separated from the multitude of our acquaintances,
friends, co-evals and co-equals, who perhaps were in them-
selves much better than we are, but wnom yet hell has been
permitted to swallow up. What thanks and praise then are
we bound to pay to Him Who so justly condemned them, but
so mercifully spared us ! Whence that holy man, feeling
quite insufficient of himself to return the thanks that were
due, calls on all saints, whether in heaven or on earth, to join
him : " Sing praises unto the Loed, O ye saints of His, and
give thanks unto Him for a remembrance of His holiness."
2 O Lord my God, I cried unto thee : and thou
hast healed me.
I cried unto Thee. But when? When, as the Apostle
says, " He made prayers and supplications with strong crying Heb. v. 7.
and tears to Him That was able to save." He cried when He
said, " My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ?" "
He cried when He said, Fatheb, into Thy hands I commend
My spirit. But never at any other time did He so cry, as § pg^
by the sweet voices of His Five Wounds : the voice of our ciirysoiog.
Brother's Blood cried unto God from the ground, while it Gen. iv. 10.
spake better things than that of Abel. But how can it be Heb. xu. 24.
said that our Loed was healed, seeing we never hear that
His most precious Body was subject to disease? For this yen. Bed.
reason ; that till the Resurrection it was mortal and passible ;
after the Resurrection it became impassible as well as im-
mortal ; and thus the effects which were wrought on it as
on every other earthly body by Adam's sin, were, strictly
speaking, healed. O Lord my God. S. Albertus very well s. Alb. Mag.
observes that the Lord refers to power, the God to wisdom,
the my to love. He is God, therefore He knows how ; He , , ,
is Loed, therefore He can ; He is mine, therefore He will. ^^ ^^ ■
The thanksgivmg itself. Thou hast healed Me, agrees well ^ ^^^^
with the petition, " Glorify Thy Son :" for this glorification xvii^i.'^
and this healing are the same. C.
3 Thou, Lord, hast brought my soul out of hell :
thou hast kept my life from them that go down to
the pit.
Impossible in its literal sense that this verse could be origen.
written of David, who had not yet even fallen on sleep and
seen corruption. But it looks past all those long centuries,
and sees the Son of David returning from preaching to the
spirits that were in prison, accomplishing the Great Forty
Days that still remained upon earth, and with body and soul
402
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Mirandula :
Durandus.
Ven. Bed.
Eccles. ii.
16.
Cd.
A.
S. Basil.
Ecclus.
XV. 9-
reunited once and for ever, ascending into glory. The words
have always been used in defence of that Article in the
Creed, the descent into hell, as well against the heretics who
have denied it, like Calvin and Bucer, as against the Ca-
tholics who have taught that our Loed went there by eflPect,
and not by actual presence. It is true that this Article occurs
in no Creed that is used by the Eastern Church ; and that,
till the Council of Aquileia, it made no part of any Western
symbol. But still, it has been held by both East and West
from the very beginning ; and from the beginning also the
present verse has, by its commentators, been shown to affirm
it. But how are we to understand the expression, /row them
that go down into the pit ? That although in our Lord that
sentence was emphatically fulfilled, " How dieth the wise
man ? as the fool :" yet that that Life, that blessed soul, was
kept from the companionship of the malefactor and such as
he with whom it had been so lately associated on Mount Cal-
vary. Or we may take the words on our own lips : Thou hast
kept my Life, that which is dearer and better to us than life
itself, nay, that which is our very true and hidden life. Him
Who is all our salvation and all our desire, from them that
go down into the pit, the Jews, whose paths, and designs,
and aims, were leading them there. Or yet once more : the
pit may be the pit of wilful sin, and of final despair ; and
then, all those who take the Psalm on their own lips, are
thereby reminded that it is no virtue or strength of their own
which keeps them from descending into that abyss, but God's
goodness — Thou, Lord, hast kept — even as he, who when-
ever he saw a malefactor go by to punishment, was in the
habit of saying, " But for the grace of God there goes John
Bradford." And ascetic writers remind us that it is no more
possible for a soul, dead in trespasses and sins, to work out
its own resurrection from this pit, than for a body to raise
itself from the grave. The pit, says S. Augustine, is the
profundity of this world. What mean I by the profundity
of this world? The abundance of luxury and wickedness.
They therefore who immerse themselves in lusts and in carnal
desires, they go down into the pit.
[^Thou hast kept my life. The literal Hebrew text* is even
more precise in its reference to the Resurrection. It is:
Thou hast brought me back to life from {among) them that
are sunk in the grave.~\
4 Sing praises unto the Lord, O ye saints of his :
and give thanks unto him for a remembrance of his
holiness.
Sin^ unto the Lord : but how P Not with the mouth only,
hut with a pure heart and spirit. Because " praise is not
seemly in the mouth of a sinner, for it was not sent him of
' Following the Kethib reading.
PSALM XXX. 403
the Lord." And therefore not all, but His Saints only, are s. Aib.Mag,
called on thus to sing to Him. And observe that the word L
Saints may as well be translated merciful ones ; thereby s james
agreeing with what S.James says that pure and undefiled i. 27.
religion is. As to the latter clause. Give thanks fo?' a re-
membrance of His holiness, they take it in different ways.
Either give (hanks, because He, in Sis holiness, has been
pleased to remember us, the word remembrance being re-
ceived objectively : or in order that His holiness may be
kept in remembrance, when the same word is taken subjec-
tively. Apollinarius seems to understand it in the latter
sense :
/cal ol a.K-r]paffiQV fivrjfjL-fjlov alverhv icTTw.
Or we may put the words still into our Lord's mouth on ^^
the Cross. Give thanks because that which has been effected
by the Head may be hoped for by the members :
Pascha novum colite ; Adam.
Quodpra>iti„Capite J'='„™|_
Membra sperent smgula. Ecce dies
Give thanks, O ye saints, in taking up your own crosses, be-
cause the Saint of saints first took up His : and above all
Give thanks for a remembrance of His holiness in that blessed s. Alb. Mag.
Sacrament, which by its very name is the Eucharist, and H'^so Card,
which was instituted for the continual remembrance of His
death until His coming again. S. Augustine says : It is a
true and ancient proverb. Where the Head is, there are the
other members. Christ hath ascended into heaven, whither
we are about to follow. He hath not remained in hell, He
hath risen again, He dieth no more. An<i when we shall
arise again, we shall die no more also. " Give thanks," says q
Gerhohus, " ye who are in very deed, not in pretence. His
saints : not like the five foolish virgins who were accounted
saints because of their virginity, and because of their lamps,
but who, because they had no oil in their lamps, are not to
be counted real saints. Wilt thou know, O faithful soul,
betrothed to Christ, what are the arms by which He em-
braceth thee when adorned with true sanctity, not only in
the bridal chamber of future beatitude, but as thou art now,
commended to His angels and good prelates, as His para-
nymphs ? Not to dwell on that saying now, that ' His left
hand is under my head, and His right hand doth embrace
me,' — when His left hand in the present life helps thee by
loading thee with all manner of good merit, and His right
hand in the life to come shall beatify thee for the sake of
those very merits, bestowing on thee good things, not only
condign with, but far exceeding, the gifts of His grace ; to
omit this now : He, Christ, thy Bridegroom, is the truth,
and would fain, as it were, embrace thee with both His arms
in manifesting to thee both Himself and thyself. So that
first thou mayest know what thou wast, mayest know what
404 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
thou hadst made tliyself, when thou didst go aside after lies
from the truth : and thus, having become acquainted with
thy own wretchedness, mayest begin to understand what is
His loving-kindness. Look at thyself and fear : look at Him
and hope. If thy misery terrify thee, let His mercy console
thee. But that thou mayest be capable of mercy, love the
truth, which shows thy wretchedness. Such honour have aU
His saints, of whom it is now said, Sing praises unto the
Lord, 0 ye saints of His."
5 For his wrath endureth but the twinkling of an
eye, and in his pleasure is life : heaviness may endure
for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.
Or as the former part of the verse is in the Yulgate, For
1^^ in His indignation there is anger, and life in His will. This
again is one of those verses which have consoled many and
many a saint, in the prison, before the unjust tribunal, or on
the rack. And so strikingly does it apply to our Loed, that
even Habbi Moses Hadassan understands it of the Messiah.
The Father's wrath then endured during the time that He
hid His face from the Only-begotten Son ; long, fearful
p , hours to endure then, but the twinkling of an eye compared
^^' with the eternity of the glory which was won by that suffer-
ing. The Chaldaic version well expresses it: One hour is
s. Greg:. ^is anger : His good will is eternal life. S. Gregory Na-
^^az. Orat. gianzen, paraphrasing Isaiah, says well : " I gave thee up to
isa. Mv. 7. punishment and I will help thee ; in a little wrath I struck
thee, and in everlasting pity will I glorify thee. Far greater
than the measure of My correction, is the measure of My
loving-kindness." Gerhohus takes occasion from a conside-
ration of God's anger to enter into the various excuses and
G. apologies that are made for man's. And as it is written of
Prov. iii. 34. Him, " Surely He scorneth the scorners," so it is equally
true He is angry with them that are an-angered. Heaviness
^ may endure for a night : or as it is in the Vulgate, In tjie
evening loeeping toill tarry. " It is evening," says S. Augus-
tine, " when the sun sets. The sun had s^t on man, that is,
that light of righteousness, the Presence of God. Hence
... when Adam was expelled, what is said in the book of Genesis ?
en. 111. 8. ^j^gQ Q.QJJ walked in paradise, He walked in the evening.
The sinner had now hid himself in the wood. He was un-
willing to see the face of God at which he had been wont to
rejoice. The sun of righteousness had set on him. He did
not rejoice in the presence of God. Thence began all this
mortal life. In the evening weeping toill tarry. Ye will long
. be in weeping, race of man, for ye will be born of Adam,
works out •^'^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ come to pass, In the evening weeping will tarry,
this thought (tnd exaltation in the morning. When that light shall have
CTeater ^'<^gun to arise on the faithful which shall have set on sinners,
length^ For therefore, too, did Jesus Chuist rise from the tomb in
PSALM XXX. 4Cfe
the morning, that what He had dedicated in the foundation,
tame He might promise to the house. In our Loed it
evening when He was buried, and morning when He
again on the third day. Thou, too, wast buried in the
ing in paradise, and hast risen again on the third day.
on the third day ? If thou wilt consider the course of
^orld, there is one day before the law, another under the
law, a third under grace. What on that third day thy Head
showed, the same is on the third day of the world shown in
thee."
Mane novum mane Isetum Adam. Vic-
Yespertinum tergat fletum j Sequence, ^
Quia Vita vicit letum Zyma vetus
Tempus est laetiti®. expurgetur.
" And the same thing," says the great Carmelite expositor, Ay.
" is clearly set forth in that passage of Kings where it is said :
'The king of Israel was stayed up in his chariot against the i Kings xxii.
Syrians, and died at even.' The King of Israel, that is, the 35.
Xing of them that see God, is Cheist. The Syrians are
devils." Heaviness may endure for a night. And so it did G.
for that dark night which was spread over Mount Sinai, when
there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud upon
the Mount ; and when God gave that law which, far from
wiping away the tears of man, added to them, because it
showed him his miseiy, without showing his remedy. The
Church was in the habit of singing on the procession in the Daniel.
Paschal night the Triumphal Song, taken word for word from i^^"°^°^'
a Sermon of S. Augustine, and uttered when the morning of
gladness was first about to dawn. And thus it ran :
When Christ, the King of Glory, entered hell, to bring to pass its
overthrow,
And the choir of Angels before His face commanded that the gates
of the princes should be lifted up,
The people of the saints which were held captive in death, exclaimed
with joyful voice :
Thou hast come, O desired One, Whom we expected in our darkness
that Thou mightest bring forth, in the hght, them that were
bovmd, from their prison-houses.
Thee, our lamentation called :
Thee, our long torments required :
Thou art made the hope of the desperate, the great consolation of
the suflfering.
6 And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be
removed : thou, Lord, of thy goodness hast made my
hill so strong.
Notice, firstly, the different division (and it is the more
correct one) of the Vulgate, which gives the latter clause of ^
this verse to the next. Plenty of examples there are of the ^'
406
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Ezek. xxviii.
17.
S. Mark xiv,
29.
S. Joan.
Chrysostom
Horn. 16 in
Act.
Cd.
z.
S. Ambros.
in S. Luc.
Lib. iii.
S. Pet. Da-
miani, Lib.
vi. Epist. 9.
D.C.
S. Albert. M.
Col. ii. 9.
Isa. xi. 1.
Cd.
Prov. xxii. 2.
B.C.
pride wliicli David here laments in himself. So it was said
to the King of Tyre, " Thine heart was lifted up because of
thy beauty ; thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of
thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground." So even
S. Peter could declare, " Though all men should be offended
because of Thee, yet will I never be offended." One of S.
Chrysostom's homilies is occupied in dwelling, from these
and the like examples, on the warning, that a haughty spirit
goeth before a fall. But to none does this particular Psalm
apply more exactly than to Hezekiah. Eaised up, as he had
been, from illness, — boasting of his treasures to the ambassa-
dors of Babylon, — and then not rendering again according to
the benefit done to him. " But," says S. Ambrose, " if David
is to be blamed, — if, in the midst of his holiness, he was
sometimes puffed up, — what is to be said of us miserable
sinners, who go so far beyond him in our presumption, and
fall so far short of him in our merits?" S. Peter Damiani,
referring to this passage, says: "Pride makes the human
mind like glass, so that, by reason of impatience, it can-
not bear a blow without shattering." And he very well
knew the working of the soul who could thus explain the
passage : " I, when converted from my sins, said in my
prosperity, — that is, in the excessive confidence of my
eagerness, — I shall never be removed : that is, I shall never
return to my former sins : I shall never again experience that
desolation and sorrow of soul which follows upon the parting
from God's ways. This is a very common feeling with new
converts, that as soon as ever they receive the unaccustomed
comfort and grace of the Holy Ghost, they at once incau-
tiously presume ; and in their joy, as if they never could lose,
that sweetness, propose great things to themselves, — things
beyond the power of human nature to accomplish." Butl
rather let us apply the text to our Loed. He might truly]
speak of His prosperity, — that is, of the abundance of giftsi
and graces bestowed on Him, in Whom dwells all the fulnessj
of the Godhead bodily ; of Whom it was said, " The SpieitI
of the LoED shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and
understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of]
knowledge and the fear of the Loed :" the abundance and
prosperity of Him, Who yet for our sakes became poor, even
as it is written, " The rich and the poor meet together." And
well might He say, I shall never he removed ; even according
to the vision of that king of old, whereby it was foretold that
in the latter times the God of heaven should set up a king-
dom which shall never be moved. Dionysius the Carthu-
sian gives a very singular explanation, reading the phrase,
I said, I shall not he removed for ever. That is, that our
LoED, knowing, as the Evangelist says, all things that should
come upon Him, knowing that it was necessary that He
should be moved, — that is, should endure tribulation for a
season, yet here comforts Himself by the thought that He
PSALM XXX. 407
should not be removed for ever ; that these afflictions would
pass, but the exceeding and eternal weight of glory would
remain. Thou, Lord, of Thy goodness, hast made my hill *o -n p.
strong. Or rather, as it is in the Vulgate, L(yrd, in Thy good
toill Thou hast added strength to my beauty. According to
our translation the sense is clear. David is speaking of the
hill of Sion, God's hill, in which it pleased Him to dwell, —
the fair place and the joy of the whole earth,— the hill which
lie himself had wrested from the Jebusites, and had made the
head of his kingdom. Or, if it be the Son of David Who
speaks, then the hill that is made so strong is that hill which
is exalted above the mountains, and to which all nations shall
one day go up,— namely, the Church of the Living God.
But if we take it in the Vulgate translation, then it is still
our LoBD that speaks : and He prophesies that His beauty, —
the beauty of which He is the source, and which He is ready Rupert.
to bestow on His people, — shall endure for ever : not like the
beauty of this world, the fashion whereof perisheth : but shall i^_
be as eternal as heaven itself. Thou hast added strength to
My beauty cannot but remind us of the verse, " Upon all the isa. iv. 5.
glory there shall be a defence :" that is, that the magnificence
of the outward decorations and the external ritual of the
Church is actually adding to her strength, by attracting those
to her who as yet know her not, and by exciting those in her
who are already her children.
7 Thou didst turn thy face from me : and I was
troubled.
No verse can more plainly teach us that glorious and com-
forting truth on which the mediaeval writers especially love
to dwell, that it is the looking, or not looking, of God upon
His creature, that forms the happiness or the misery of that
creature ; that those secret springs of joy which sometimes
seem to rise up of themselves, and with which a stranger in-
termeddleth not, are nothing but God's direct and immediate
looking on us ; while the sorrow for which we cannot assign Guiieimus
any especial cause, — call it melancholy, or low spirits, or by Pansiensis.
whatever other name, — is nothing but His turning away His s. Albert, m.
Face from us. I was troubled. As indeed He well might
say, of Whom it is written, that " He began to be sorrowful s. Matt,
and very heavy ;" and of Whom also it might be said, in the ^^^i- ^7.
words of the Prophets, " Your iniquities have separated be- isa. Ux. 2.
tween you and your God ;" the sins, that is, which He bore,
but which He did not. But never was He so troubled, never Hugo
did the Father so hide His Face from Him, as when this Victor.
verse was so emphatically fulfilled in His " Eli, Eli, lama sa-
bacthani!"
8 Then cried I unto thee, O Lord : and gat me
to my Lord right humbly.
40S
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Ay.
s. Albert. M. And how did He cry P Even at that very time that He
was Himself forsaken, He prayed for His murderers. Or, as
others take it, He prayed that His soul, so soon about to be
separated from His Body, might not be left in hell, nor His
flesh see corruption : that the dedication of David's house,
commenced in the anguish of the Cross, might be accom-
plished in the glory of the Eesurrection. Then cried I. No
occasion for crying or tears in Paradise, where there was
nothing but praise. But crying only, and that strong crying
and tears, can recover the second and better Paradise. I
cried, not only to the Loed, but even to them that stood
about. " Oh how," exclaims the Greek Churcli, " could ye
idiomeion of condemn the Xing of creation to an unjust death ? neither
the Great calling to mind His mercies, nor listening to His words : ' O
My people, what have I done unto you ? Did I not fill Judaea
with wonders ? Did I not raise the dead by a word alone ?
Did I not heal all manner of sickness and all manner .of dis-
ease ? What is it that ye render Me in return ? How long
will ye be regardless of Me ? Laying strokes upon Me in
return for My healing ; slaying Me for My life-giving ;
hanging Me, the Benefactor, on the Cross as a malefactor ;
the Lawgiver as the lawless ; the King of all as the culprit.'
Long-sun'ering Loed, glory be to Thee !" Right humbly.
*' For though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by
Ludoiph. the things which He suffered." And how could the Spotless
Lamb pray more humbly than from the place of malefactors,
amidst the derision of the crowd, in the midst of two thieves !
Sticheron
Parasceue.
Heb. V. 8.
9 What profit is there in my blood : when I go
down to the pit ?
10 Shall the dust give thanks unto thee : or shall
it declare thy truth ?
A sad verse as any that is in the Psalms. If we take it in
the usual sense, according to S. Jerome, it is the lamentation
of Cheist that His Passion, so to speak, had been endured
s. Hieron. in vain ; that so few, bitten by the fiery serpent of temptation,
in isa. xiix. would look to this the brazen serpent, and live ; that so few
would flee to that Cross for refuge, to lay hold on the hope
then set before them. S. Gaudentius tells his people from tlus
s Gaudent. complaint how their sins frustrated the effects of Cheist's
^^ Neophyt. Cross; how the price of the world was paid in vain; how
that Blood —
S. Thomas
Aquin. The
Rhythm,
Adoro te
devote.
L.
Cujus una stilla salrum facere
Totum mundum quit ab omni scelere,
would in its fulness have been poured forth to scarcely any
purpose. What profit is there in My Blood ? And they
answer, none, or next to none ; and they most decidedly so
reply, whose own holiness of life caused them more bitterly
PSALM XXX. 409
lament tlie evils of sin, as S. Dositlieus and S. Isidore of
?elusium. When I go down into the pit : or, as it is in tlie
'ulgate, When I descend into corruption. They understand
lis of our Lord's descending amidst the corruption of
[uman nature at the Incarnation, and still the question is
16 same, What profit is there in it ? " This profit there
ight to be," says S. Ambrose, " that for the Blood thus s. Ambros.
led for us, for the labour thus undertaken for us, we are ^^^^^' ^^
mnd to return all our labour, — if need be, to lay down our
^ery lives ; to offer ourselves, and all that we have, to be a
jasonable, holy, and living sacrifice to the Sacrifice on the
Jross." Or in another sense they understand the question
mcerning the Body of our Lord, as a prayer that it may
not be suffered to return to corruption. S. Thomas dwells
at great length on this subject, and points out the various
benefits we have received by the preservation of that Spotless Parsiii, q.
Body from the effects of the grave : that Body which was to ^2, Art. 3.
be raised up from the tomb, now no more liable to return to
corruption, in order that it might be the food of all the fol-
lowers of Christ till His Coming again. Shall the dust give
thanks unto Thee ? And here they introduce another mean- s. Alb. Mag
ii^g : that praise, to be acceptable to God, must come from a
heart devoted to Him ; from those who have set their affec-
tions on tilings above, not on things of the earth ; from those
■who are not of that dust which is the serpent's meat, but ^^^- ^^^- ^^•
whose heart and affections are altogether on high. Shall the
dust give thanks unto Thee ? Or, as it is in the Vulgate,
Shall the dust confess unto Thee? Whence S. Augustine A.
takes occasion to say, " When it is ill with us, let us confess
our sins ; when it is well with us, let us confess praise to
God ; but without confession let us never be," — a sentence
which is made his own by the Master of the Sentences. It
is a singular sense which is attached to these words by S. s. Basil.
Basil, the ascetic Doctor : " What profit is there in my hlood ? Horn. 24.
That is, in all the force and vigour of human existence, if by
that very health and strength of body I am led to corruption
of the soul." Whence he proceeds to dilate on the benefits
of fasting, and to praise the philosopher Plato for having
chosen an unhealthy spot as the place of his abode, because
sickness is the mother of philosophy.
[Shall the dust give thanks unto Thee 1 It is, teaches a
Saint, the question of Christ to His Father. If I be not ^^^^^
raised up again from the pit, then My bloodsheddmg has
been useless. If I come not back victorious, to open the
Scriptures to My disciples, to send them the Holy Ghost,
can My dust confess unto Thee, by bringing forth Con- ^-Thomas
feasors for Thee and preachers of Thy truth, as I, if raised ^"^ ■
up, will do ? Or, shall man, himself mere dust, ever give
thanks to Thee aright, if I return not to show him the way,
to be Myself his Oblation of Thanksgiving in the Eucharist ?
And then we may compare the words of S. Paul, " If Christ
T
1
410
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
1 Cor. XV.
14, 17.
c.
Lu.
G.
be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is
also vain, ye are yet in your sins."]
11 Hear, O Lord, and have mercy upon me :
LoRDj be thou my helper.
Or as it is in the Yulgate, The Lord heard and had mercy
upon me : the Lord is become my helper. But it matters little
as to the mystical sense, whether it is still the prayer of our
LoED that He might rise again, or His thanksgiving after
His Resurrection. And notice the force of the word helper.
For equally is it said by the Holy Ghost, that Cheist
raised Himself, or was raised by the Fathee ; raised Him-
self as God, was raised as Man ; the Father co-operating
with, and so verily becoming the Helper of, the Son. Save
mercy. And so the Father had mercy on that Frame on
which the Jews had no mercy ; crowning those limbs with
glory which they had lacerated with the scourge ; setting a
diadem of pure gold on that Head, which they had outraged
with thorns ; putting all power into those Hands, into which
they had thrust the reed of derision. He so had mercy on
the Son, as in Him to have mercy upon us ; He so became
the Helper of the Son, that henceforth every feeble and
wounded soul may derive from Him unbounded help, and
strength. Or, to look at the verse in another sense, we have
here no indistinct reference to the Blessed Trinity. The
Fathee is called on to hear ; the Son, by the recollection of
Calvary, to have mercy ; the Holy Ghost to be the Helper
of those in whom He dwells, and whom He sanctifies.
The
Adam
Vict.
Sequence
Ecce dies
Celebris.
12 Thou hast turned my heaviness into joy : thou
hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with glad-
ness.
Well and beautifully says Adam of S. Victor :
Saccus scissus et pertusus
In regales transit iisus ;
Saccus fit soccus gratise,
Caro victrix miserice.
L.
Isa. Ixi. 3.
S. Albertus
Magnus.
S. John xvi.
20.
And first we must apply these words to the Resurrection,
when the heaviness of the tomb was turned into the joy
of " The LoED is risen indeed, and hath appeared unto
Simon ;" when the saying of the Prophet was fulfilled, and to
them that mourned in Sion beauty was given for ashes, the
oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit
of heaviness ; when the promise of the Loed was fulfilled,
" Ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice ; and
ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into
joy ;" when the saying of old time was brought to pass, " For
Ay.
PSALM XXX. 411
Almighty God hatli turned to joy unto them the day wherein Esther xvi.
the chosen people should have perished; ye shall therefore ^^'
among your solemn feasts keep it an high day, with all feast-
ing." Thou hast put off my sackcloth : or, as it is in the
Vulgate, Thou hast cut or slit my sacTccloth {saccum meum
conscidisti,) where the word saccus, with its twofold meaning
of sackcloth and bag, gives a great scope to metaphorical in- A.
terpretations. So they tell us that the bag in which the ^^™- ^*- .
price of our redemption was contained, being cut open, that s^ Bernard,
price itself was poured forth. Or again, that this sack was Serm. ii. de
full of the precious wheat, hereafter to flourish into the har- ■^^^®"^-
vests of the Church, when first it had lain in the ground and
died. S. Albertus is fullest on the various meanings of the
sack ; " a word," says he, and he says it truly, " common to
all languages, as the redemption prefigured by it extended
to all nations." And, as it has been weU remarked, while
the sackcloth in which the Sun of Righteousness was enve-
loped was rent on the Cross, the material sun became black
as sackcloth of hair, when there was darkness over all the
earth from the sixth hour until the ninth hour. And girded
me with gladness : with the state of immortality, thenceforth
to be the reward of the conqueror, —
When they beneath their Leader Bern. Clun.
Who conquered in the fight, Rhythmus.
For ever and for ever
Are clad in robes of white.
13 Therefore shall every good man sing of thy
praise without ceasing : O my God, I will give thanks
unto thee for ever.
I know not whence this translation is derived : the Yulgate
gives it : That my glory may sing to thee, and I may not he
pHcJced, with the first clause of which the Bible version closely
agrees, and which is sufficiently literal.^ True, that because of
the triumph oH}ieCTO?,s,every good man shall sing of Ris praise
Who obtained it, without ceasing : but let us rather take the
verse as the voice of the Church. All these things were done,
all the afflictions endured, all the promises made good, to the
end that her glory might not be silent ; that m a thousand
ways, by her hymns, by her canticles, by her ritual, all which
things are her true glory, she may set forth the praises of the
Victor. Or we may take it as still spoken by our Loed, and
the glory, that glory which He had with the Fathee before L.
the world was, and which, having been for a whHe clouded
and ecUpsed by the humiliation of His earthly life and Pas-
1 [The Hebrew d¥ rfb is un-
doubtedly, will not he silent,
and 80 it is turned by the Sy
riac, Aquila, Symmachus, and
Theodotion, as -well as by the
A. v.]
T 2
Gen. xlii.21.
412 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
sion, was now to be restored to Him, not only in all its
former brightness, but with the addition of splendour which,
according, to S. Paul's teaching, His obedience and His
Eusebius. labours had merited for His manhood. And thus we see the
force of the next clause, and that I may not he pricJced. For
the Hands which had been pierced with the nails now serve
to remind Him, by that engraving, of His love, and of the
G. victory won by that love. My God. " 0 ye all," 8a3^s Ger-
hohus, " who, being the sons of Leah, or of the handmaidens,
love not this son of E-achel, ye who envy His dominion, — ye
who, so far as in you lies, hinder His reigning in this world,
— now, now, while it is the time of penitence that may be of
effect, return to Him the First-born, reigning over all the
land of Egypt, that is to say, heaven and earth, according to
His own most true saying, ' All power is given to Me in
heaven and in earth.' Lament before Him that ye have
sinned against Him, and He will have mercy upon you, and
will fill your sacks with corn, that ye perish not with hunger
before ye can arrive at His own home. And according to
the measure of your sins He may suffer you for awhile to
lament until ye say from your hearts, ' We are verily guilty
concerning our Brother.' But at length He will rend your
sackcloth, and will so enrich you, that none of you will any
longer stand in need of those sacks of yours ; and He will
bestow on each of you a beautiful stole, with which adorned,
and now free from the weight of your sacks, ye may be able
to exult, so that each of you will say to your elder Brother,
' Thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with glad-
ness.* And do Thou, O good Joseph, say to them, ' As for
you, ye thought evil against Me, but God meant it unto
good, to bring to pass as it is this day, to save much people
alive.' O my God, I loill give thanhs unto Thee for ever.
This let us say, one and all : ' Not unto us, O Loed, not unto
us, but unto Thy Name give the praise, that we perish not of
hunger, we who bring our sacks to Thee empty, and receive
them again full ; when, under a mystery, we feed on Thee,
the true Corn of life. And so it must be until the sackcloth
of our mortality shall be cut in twain, and Thou shalt no
longer be received as concealed under a covering, but face to
face shalt satisfy us with the finest wheat flour for ever and
ever.' "
And therefore :
Glory be to the Fatheb, to Whom the Son cried and was
heard, in that He feared ; and to the Son, Whose life was
kept from them that go down into the pit ; and to the Holy
Ghost, to Whom we cry, Loed, be Thou my helper ;
As it was in the beginning of the dedication of the Loed's
Temple on the Cross, is now, that the true Son of David is
set down on the throne, and ever shall be, when His people
shall behold the glory which He had before the world was :
world without end. Amen.
PSALM XXX. 413
Collects.
O most mighty God, Who liftest us up, suffer not our Ludoiph.
enemies to triumph over us ; but do Thou so strengthen us
by Thy might, that, our heaviness being turned into joy, we
may ever give thanks for the remembrance of Thy holiness.
Through (1.)
Bring our soxil, O Loed, out of prison, and keep our life Mozarabic.
from them that go down into the pit ; and as, when about to
redeem the world, by Thine ineffable virtue, Thou didst de-
scend from on high and burst the bars of hell, vouchsafe of
Thy mercy that we may never be brought down by our sins ;
and grant that, with them who are predestinated to eternal
life, we may, after our power, sing to Thee, and may merit the
possession of beatitude and Thy everlasting delights. Amen.
Through Thy mercy (11.)
Thee, O Loed, we humbly beseech that Thou wouldest s. Jerome.
turn our heaviness into joy ; that Thou wouldest relieve us
of the weight of our sins ; and that, as Thou dost gladden us
by the mystery of Thy Eesurrection, Thou wouldest vouch-
safe to raise them to heaven, for whose sake Thou didst not
abhor to descend into hell. Through (1.)
[Hear our prayers, O Loed, and have mercy upon us ; J). C.
turn our heaviness into joy, and gird us about with gladness
and salvation, that we may sing and give thanks to Thee
for all Thy benefits in the blessed dwelling of eternity.
Through (1.)]
DISSERTATION III.
THE MYSTICAL AND LITEEAL INTEEPEETATION OF
THE PSALMS.
1. Having now, through God's goodness_, accom-
??/of this plished the fifth part of our task, it seems time to
commen- dwell at greater length than hitherto we have done
^^^ on the system itself on which this commentary is
based. Utterly different as it is from the modem
style of interpretation, — liable to the charges of fan-
cifulness, unreality, and of making anything out of
anything, — I wish now to show that, whatever be
the faults of its execution, its principle, at least, is
the same as that ou which the great commentators of primitive
Fathers. ^ and mcdiseval ages wrote, and which they would have
recognised as their own. What that principle is, the
reader has now had sufiicient opportunity of judging;
and while none can be more sensible than myself of
the innumerable faults in detail for which the fore-
going pages may be blamed, for the theory on which
they have been composed I need — and I hope to show
that I need — no excuse.
t^rpretaUon ^* ^^^ mystical interpretation of Scripture, as
every one will allow, is the distinguishing mark of
diff'erence between ancient and modern commenta-
tors. To the former, it was the very life, marrow,
the principle csscncc of God's Word, — the kernel, of which the
o eary, literal cxposition was the shell, — the jewel, to which
the outside and verbal signification formed the
shrine : by the latter it has almost universally been
held in equal contempt and abhorrence ; it has been
affirmed to be the art of involving everything in
uncertainty; to take away all fixedness of mean-
I
MYSTICAL AND LITERAL INTERPRETATION. 415
ing; to turn Scripture into a repository of hu-
man fancies ; to be subversive of all exactitude, and
fatal to all truth. Scott, the '^commentator/' in
writing on that passage in Ecclesiastes, of the poor
man that delivered the city, and yet was not remem-
bered,— a parable, if any ever were, full of beauty
when applied to our Lord, — thus expresses himself:
*' I would gladly know by what authority any man, the abhor-
overlooking these useful instructions, sets himself, late, com-
by the help of a warm imagination, to discover Gospel '^^"***°'^^-
mysteries in this passage ? It would puzzle the most
ingenious of these fanciful expositors to accommodate
fairly the circumstances of the story to the work of
redemption. Two purposes, indeed, such as they are,
may be answered by such interpretation: (1.) Loose
professors are encouraged in their vain confidence, by
hearing that none of the redeemed are more mindful
of, or thankful to, the Saviour than themselves. (2.)
It is a powerful engine in the hands of vainglorious
men, by which to catch the attention and excite the
admiration of injudicious multitudes, who ignorantly
admire the sagacity of the man that finds deep mys-
teries, where their more sober pastors perceived no-
thing but noiseless practical instruction. I have
heard many sensible and pious persons lament this
sort of explication of Scripture as an evil of the first
magnitude, and I am more and more convinced that it
is so. At this rate, you may prove any doctrine from
any text : everything is reduced to uncertainty, as
if the Scripture had no determinate meaning, till one
was arbitrarily imposed by the imagination of men.''
3. Proceeding in the same strain, the writer goes
on to condemn the application of the parable of the
Good Samaritan to our Lord : because, forsooth, its
moral is contained in the words, " Go and do thou
likewise ;" as if this were not one cause of the Incar-
nation of the Word, that we might follow the blessed
steps of His most holy life ! The rule laid down by
the strictest interpreters of this sort appears to be Theruieiaid
this : that in those histories of the Old Testament uteraiists.
which are applied to our Blessed Lord in the New,
we may see a type of Him, but in those only. Thus,
416 THE MYSTICAL AND LITERAL
of the brazen serpent, the Paschal Lamb, Jonah in
the whale's belly, He was undoubtedly the antitype;
but Joseph, taken from prison and from judgment, —
but Elijah, fasting forty days and forty nights, and
translated into heaven, — but David, in his victory
over Goliath, — but Samson, destroying the Philis-
tines by his own death, — these are historical charac-
ters only, and cannot, without presumption, be in-
vested with a typical signification.
Aspectof 4, Now it is clear that, to those who entertain
mysticism • -i • i i i -n
Similar sentiments, the present work will present no-
thing but an aggregation of the wildest conceits, and
the most worthless fancies. If Scripture has not an
under-current of meaning, double, triple, quadruple,
or even yet more manifold, I confess, not only that
my work is a mere waste of labour, time, and paper,
which would comparatively matter little, but it also
follows that all primitive and mediaeval commenta-
tors, from the first century till the Reformation, have
more or less been deceiving the Church of God, —
have been substituting their changing fancies for His
immutable verities, — have adopted a system which is
alike the offspring and the parent of error, — that
their folios have been a hindrance to the cause of
truth, and the labours of their lives an insult to the
tothosewho principles of genuine interpretation. If any one can
Heve in it. belicve this, it will matter little what he thinks of
the preceding and following pages. I only wish to
prove that the mystical principles on which this com-
mentary on the Psalms is written are the principles
of the great commentators from the beginning ; and
if I can show that, I have shown enough.
The fourfold 5. It is well knowu that, from very early times, a
Scripture, fourfold meaning was attached to the plain text of
Scripture. It is expressed in the lines :
Litera scripta docet : quid credas, Allegoria :
Quid spere8, Anagoge : quid agas, Tropologia.
And on this principle S. Gregory the Great composed
his Morals on Job, keeping his skeins of meaning
separate, and with marvellous skill pursuing each to
the end. Durandus explains the various terms with
INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 417
great neatness : " In like manner, Jerusalem is un-
derstood, historically, of that earthly city whither pil-
grims journey; allegorically , of the Church Militant;
tropologically, of every faithful soul ; anagogically,
of the Celestial Jerusalem, which is our Country/'
6. Let us, in the first place, inquire from Scripture Arguments :
itself, what probability there is that the Holy Ghost ^^^^^^ ^^
intended such a system of interpretation to be ap-
plied to His own Word : then let us see how the
early Church felt on the subject : and then what are
the advantages, and what are asserted to be the
dangers, of the mystical sense.
7. Now it cannot be denied, that to those who want of m.
eschew the mystical or spiritual interpretation, — and mereViterai
whom we will in this dissertation call literalists, — a ism.
very large portion of Scripture can have nothing but
an historical interest. The journeyings of the Is-
raelites to their various encampments, — the genealo-
gies of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, — the numbers
of the tribes in the Pentateuch, — the prophecies
against the nations whom it pleased God to destroy
before Nebuchadnezzar, and many such like pas-
sages, are to them all but a dead letter. Nay, the
same Scott whom I lately quoted ventures, without
any apology, to call one such collection of passages
by a term which, when we remember Whose is the
lightest word of Holy Scripture, can scarcely be
called less than profane. He names the genealogies
of the first book of Chronicles by the appellation of
Thorns ! He is but consistent with himself; but
what kind of theory must that be which leads to such
a conclusion ?
8. In the first place, a diligent student of the Old Minute de-
Testament, supposing him absolutely unacquainted ^fji^^o^d
with the present controversy, would hardly fail to be
struck with the frequent specification of minute and
lengthened details, never of any great importance to
the subject in hand, and to us absolutely without in-
terest. Such, for instance, as the fact that, in the
miraculous draught of fishes which occurred after our
Lord's Resurrection, one hundred and fifty- three
great fish were taken ; that the young man by whose
t3
418 THE MYSTICAL AND LITERAL
means David and liis troops were led to the surprisal
of the Amalekites, laden with the spoil of Ziklag,
was relieved from his faintness by eating a piece of a
cake of figs and two clusters of raisins ; that the
exact number of children destroyed for profanity to
Elisha was two and forty ; that Elijah slept under a
juniper-tree in the wilderness ; the number of cattle
which Jacob sent as a present, to soothe the anger of
Esau, his brother; the particular fruit which the
spies, sent out to see the land, brought with them,
and the manner in which they carried it ; and a hun-
dred other examples of a similar kind. I say that,
encourage let a reader for the first time peruse the Bible, aware
mysticism, that it is the revelation of the will of God to man, —
aware that that revelation is contained in a very
narrow space, where the room of every sentence, so
to speak, is of inestimable value ; then let him ob-
serve how large a portion of that priceless space is
taken up in the narrative of details, — I say it with
all reverence, in themselves trifling, — and would he
not exclaim, "There must be something more in
this than meets the eye : under these details must
lurk a deeper sense than that which appears on the
surface. As the schools of antiquity had an exoteric
and an esoteric doctrine, so there must be a primary
■ and secondary manner of explanation here ?" I think
he would.
Authority of 9. But that which is only matter of probability,
mentJ^^^^" wcrc our supposcd reader left to himself, becomes
surely matter of certainty when he finds how the
authors of the New Testament were in the habit of
applying their quotations from the Old. Let us ex-
amine some of these : for inspired must be the basis
and theory of uninspired interpretations of Scripture.
I propose going through all the quotations from the
Psalms before I conclude this dissertation, and will not
therefore dwell on them here : at present I will refer
to some more striking examples from other books.
10. First let it be remembered that the Apostles
were of course used to the general style of scriptural
teSwn^ of i^t^^'pJ'Gtation prevalent among the Jews at the time
the Jews, whcu our LoRD was on earth. That interpretation was
1
I
J
INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 419
in the highest degree mystical ; as the works of one
celebrated author are sufficient to prove. Let any-
one read the treatises of Philo Judaeus, more espe-
cially those on the Six days^ creation of the worlds on
Clean Animals, on Circumcision, and on Those who
brought sacrifices : and he will see that the whole P^iio
system of interpretation is thoroughly mystical, while
he is perpetually reminded of the style of argument
employed by S. Paul. Now does our Lord, while
rebuking so perpetually the traditions of the Phari-
sees, ever hint, in the slightest degree, that their
system of interpretation of Scripture was faulty ?
On the contrary, does He not sanction it in the most
express terms? "The Scribes and Pharisees sit in
Moses' seat : all, therefore, that they bid you ob-
serve, that observe and do.'' And, in arguing with
the Sadducees concerning the resurrection of the
dead, does He not employ an argument of a highly
mystical character? Well, then ; we know in what
school of interpretation the Apostles were brought
up : we know that it was recommended to them by
our Lord, both by precept and practice : let us now
see whether they followed it themselves.
11. In Deuteronomy xxv. 4, among a number of
laws which apparently refer to the Jewish polity
only,— the entail of estates,— the rule for gleaning,
the prohibition of taking a necessary of life as a
pledge, — nay, even a minute direction with regard to
bird's-nesting,— we find the following : " Thou shalt
not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn." ex^^pJ^^^,
Surely, if ever there were a law which seemed con- mgox:
fined \o the literal interpretation, it is this. The God,
we should have said, Who has taught that without
Him not a sparrow falleth to the ground,— Who was
pleased to forbid the custom, not really cruel, be it
remembered, but only bearing a certain impression
of cruelty and hard-heartedness, of boiling a kid m
his mother's milk,— Who not only commanded that
when the eggs were taken, the parent bird should go
free, but actually annexed the promise of long life to
the observation of this command,— the God Who,
among other reasons for sparing Nineveh, conde-
420
THE MYSTICAL AND LITERAL
how applied
by S. Paul.
scended to mention the '^ much cattle" that was in
it, — that God, we should have said, was here pleased
to express His care, which is over all His works, for
oxen. But we turn to the Epistles of S. Paul, and
there we find : " Let the elders that rule well he
counted worthy of double honour; specially they
who labour in the word and doctrine. For the
Scripture saith. Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that
treadeth out the corn.^'
This, it would be replied, is merely an ingenious
application of a sense not originally intended. Such
a signification was not the primary intention of the
Holy Ghost ; and the Apostle^s example is not to
be followed by any uninspired writer.
Turn, then, to another passage, in which the
Apostle is enforcing the same doctrine ; and how
does he write ? " Saith not the law the same also ?
For it is written in the law of Moses . . . Doth God
take care for oxen? or saith He it wo/ALTooETHER/or
our sakes ? For our sakes, no doubt, this was written/'
Can anything be stronger than this passage? In
a law where the literal meaning seemed unusually
plain and worthy of the mercy of God, we are told
by the Holy Ghost that He did not intend to teach
us that meaning at all : that His design was ^alto-
gether' to enforce the mystical signification.^ I can
conceive no more decisive proof than this. Had
there been a mere allusion on the part of the Apostle,
we might not, perhaps, have been justified in laying
very much stress on his example. But when he says_,
in so many words. There is not an allusion ; the mys-
tical meaning was intended by the Holy Ghost, and
the literal meaning was not — what further can lite-
ralists reply ?
12. "When, then, we find the precept concerning
the labouring ox so treated, why may we not — or
rather, how can we be justified unless we do — see
in the commandment which forbids the ox and the
^ [This is rather more than
the passage will bear. The word
irdvrws, altogether, is not abso-
lutely exclusive, and it is enough
to say that the mystical sense is
here primary, and the literal only
secondary.]
INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 421
ass to plough together, an injunction not to be un-
equally yoked together with unbelievers ; and that
injunction, if not only, at least principally ? in the
rule for the distinction of clean and unclean beasts,
the mystical characteristic of the righteous and un-
righteous ? in the precept against wearing a garment
of mingled linen and wool, an injunction against
trusting in anything but our Lord, the Lamb slain
from the beginning of the world ? And, in short, in
every ceremonial precept, not the dead letter of the
statute, but the new and better life of the mystical
explanation ? Nor is it as if the instance on which
I have just been dwelling was the only example of a
similar application of Scripture. More remarkable
still is S. Paul's allusion to Agar and Ishmael : "For
this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; and answereth Agar and
to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with ^ai!*
her children.'^ Now what I would especially point
out in this passage is, that S. Paul does not refer to
the old patriarchal history as an illustration, or in-
structive comparison, but simply and absolutely as a
proof. " Do ye not hear the Law ?" " Nevertheless,
what saith the Scripture ?'' He alleges this history
in its mystical sense exactly as he elsewhere quotes
the plainest and most literal passages in support of
his arguments. No proof can be stronger than this.
In putting forward an argument, you of course chal-
lenge your opponent to test its strength. Is it pos-
sible that the Apostle would thus have brought for-
ward the history of Agar, had it been open to his
adversaries to rejoin, " But that is only a mystical
interpretation, and was not so intended by the Holy
Ghost T'
•13. Nor is it S. Paul alone who thus quotes the
Old Testament. Hosea, referring to the deliverance
of the Jews from the tyranny of Pharaoh, says, in
the person of God, " When Israel was a child then uj^^n^^j^y
I loved him, and called My son out of Egypt.'' son ouu,f
Nothing can more distinctly refer to the children of ^^^^^'
Israel in the plain literal sense. How does S. Mat-
thew understand it ? Relating the flight of the In-
fant Lord into Egypt, he says that He, with His
422 THE MYSTICAL AND LITERAL
Blessed Mother and S. Joseph, " was there until the
death of Herod : that it might be fulfilled which loas
spoken of the Lord by the Prophet, saying, Out of
Egypt have I called My Son/' Now let none dare
to say that S. Matthew refers, as a mere allusion, to
this prophecy. Nothing can be more distinct : the
reason our Lord went into Egypt was the comple-
tion of a prophecy which can only apply to Him
mystically, Tva 7rA>)p«j5yj to pyjSev. And this further is
to be noticed. Had any modern writer, without
Scriptural authority, ventured even to allude to the
passage in Hosea with reference to our Lord^s flight
into Egypt, it would have been called an unwarrant-
able straining of Scripture. ^ Look,' it would have
been argued, ^ how the prophet continues : Then I
loved him, and called My son out of Egypt ; as they
called them, so they went from them : they sacrificed
unto Baalim/ And whoever had thus quoted the
passage would have been twitted, not only with a
' perversion of Scripture, but with irreverence to the
Son of God.
14. Yet another instance from the same chapter.
"Heskaiibe " Hc camc and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that
culled a Na- it might bc fulfilled which was spoken by the pro-
phetSj He shall be called a Nazarene." Where is
this written? "The child shall be a Nazarite to
God even from his mother's womb.'' A marvellous
example of mystical interpretation ! The words are
said of Samson; they are applied to Christ, and
applied with a " that it might be fulfilled/' Further,
they are said of Samson in one sense, namely, as of
one who had the vow of a Nazarite or separatist upon
him : and applied to Christ in another; — namely, as
of a dweller in the city of Nazareth. Now had a
mediaeval writer thus applied the text, simply as an
allusion, and without any pretence at finding in the
Evangelical History the actual fulfilment of the pro-
phecy in Judges, would he not have been condemned
as guilty of an intolerably far-fetched suggestion ?
15. Most certainly, then, the mystical system of
interpretation is thoroughly Scriptural : and the only
attempt at reply to this argument that can be made
zarene.'
INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 423
is as follows : ^' Inspired writers/^ it may be alleged, The quota.
'' may find allusions and discover types'; or prophe- ¥estlme^r
cies may have been revealed to them under Old ^"^^^^^^
Testament language : but for uninspired authors to
discover such allusions or types is both presumptuous
and dangerous." But how unphilosophical is this !
In one or two out of many hundreds of laws and
many hundreds of instances, we are positively told
that — not an allusion, but — a prophecy existed of
better things to come. Can we suppose that these
instances or prophecies were picked out from the rest
because they differed from the rest? shall we say
that they are held forth as contrasts to, rather than
held up as types of, the general run of the Old
Testament Scriptures? Surely, surely, they are
specimens to encourage us in, not exceptions to not excep.
deter us from, the search for such mysteries. Ifpattems'S*
certain appearances of nature, certain metalliferous
veins, certain crystals of quartz tell the Californian
miner that gold is beneath the soil, is his Australian
brother to believe that God created the same appear-
ance in that colony to deter him from investigation, .j^g^^g^^
or to lure him on to researches which would be in system of
vain ? In two or three spots of the crust of Scrip- ^S^^^^ ^
ture, the Apostle has disclosed to us "much fine
gold" beneath. In the thousand spots that closely
resemble those two or three are we not to search for
ourselves ? and, searching, shall we not find ?
16. Besides, the greater part of the literalists
would not for a moment endure the restraint which
they would put upon us. They say indeed, " The
labouring ox is a prophecy — S. Paul tells us so; but
nevertheless you shall not tell us that the ox and ass
ploughing together yield a prophecy. We will believe
that on nothing short of inspiration." But how
would they like to be told, as Grotius would have erotius.
told them; "Jonah is a type of our Lord: He
said it, and it is so ; but Isaac on Mount Moriah is
none, the Scapegoat is none, David in the battle
with Goliath is none : for He never said that they
were." Would not this be the height of folly ? Yet
wherein does it differ from the usual arguments of
424 THE MYSTICAL AND LITERAL
literalists, such, for instance, as Scott the Commen-
tator ?
Apostolic 17. How the Apostles interpreted Scripture we
practice. havc sccn. How did their followers, the Isapostolic
writers of the first century, whose works we have,
expound it ? Did they dig the mine deeper, or desert
it as now exhausted? I need hardly answer that
question. Let S. Barnabas reply, that dear com-
panion of S. Paul, who must have been so thoroughly
endued with his spirit and theory of the interpreta-
tion of Scripture.
18. Take, for example, such explanations as the
following. I will not stop to discuss the question
Epistle of s. whether the Epistle attributed to S. Barnabas be
Barnabas. j.Q^\ly ]^jg^ p^y. j^y q^j^ p^j,|. J ]^^yg ^q doubt of its
authenticity ; and with such authorities on my side
as Dupin, Nourry, Gallandi, and in our own time
Franke, I need not hesitate to express that opinion.
Anyhow, those who place it latest allow it to have
been composed previously to a.d. 120; and therefore
certainly by an Isapostolic writer. "What kind of
figure,^^ says the author, " do you consider that to be
when Israel is commanded that men of consummate
wickedness should bring a heifer, and should sacri-
fice and burn it ; and then that boys should take
the ashes and cast them into vessels, and afterwards
should bind scarlet wool with hyssop on a staff, and
should thus sprinkle the people one by one, and
purify them from their sins? See how the Lord
speaks to us in a parable. This heifer is Jesus ; the
Examples, wicked men who bring it are they who carried the
Lord to slaughter. But now they are no longer
wicked men, nor to be considered as sinners. But
the boys are they who announce to us the remission
of sins and purification of the heart, to whom the
Lord hath given the power of preaching the Gospel,
and who are twelve in number, in testimony of the
twelve tribes of Israel. But why do three boys
sprinkle? Namely, to set forth Abraham, and
Isaac, and Jacob, because they were great before
God. And why is wool bound on the wood ? Be-
cause the Lord Jesus has His dominion on the
INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 425
wood, for which cause they that hope in Him shall
live for ever. And why wool and hyssop together?
Because in His Kingdom there will be evil and pol-
luted days in which we shall be saved ; in the same
way as he who hath bodily sickness is cured from
pollution by hyssop." Now observe how freely the
writer accepts this as an axiom, that every, the least,
particular in the sacrifice of the Red Heifer must of
necessity bear its own mystical interpretation. The
further fetched it seems to be, the more it corrobo-
rates our argument. And the fact that several rites
^alluded to by S. Barnabas are not found in Holy
Scripture, at least as we have it — whether he so
found it written in the copies he used, or received
them from Jewish tradition, affords still ampler tes-
timony in our behalf. "We will quote one or two
more passages : since it is of importance to have the
links which connect the mystical interpretation of
the Apostles themselves with that of the Church in
the third and fourth centuries.
19. One of the most remarkable is the follow-
ing: "But why did Moses say, Ye shall not eat
the swine, nor the eagle, nor the hawk, nor the J^isS*^
crow, nor any fish that hath not scales ? He com-
prehends three dogmas in his sagacity. Now the
Lord saith to them in Deuteronomy, Hearken, O
Israel, unto the statutes and the judgments which I
teach you. Is it then the commandment of God
that they should not eat ? Yes ; but Moses spoke
spiritually. He mentions the swine for this reason :
Thou shalt not be joined together to men of the
same disposition as swine. For when they live in
delights, they forget their Lord, but when they are
in want they acknowledge their Lord. And thus
the hog, when he eats, pays no attention to his lord :
but when he is hungry he grunts ; and when he gets
something he becomes quiet again. ^ Thou shalt not
eat,' saith he, * the eagle, nor the hawk, nor the kite,
nor the crow.' That is. He commands us; Thou
shalt not be like the men who know not how to pro-
cure for themselves food by their labour and their
•sweat, but snatch in their lawlessness that which
426 THE MYSTICAL AND LITERAL
pertains to another ; and tliey lie in wait for those
who walk in innocency.^ And these birds sit idle
and seek how they may eat the flesh of other crea-
tures, being pestiferous in their wickedness
And thou shalt not eat the hysena. Thou shalt not
be, saith he, an adulterer nor a man of immoral
life, nor shall be like such. Wherefore ? Because
this animal changes its sex yearly, and is sometimes
male, sometimes female. . . . Moses, therefore, when
he was speaking of clean and unclean beasts, spake
these laws pertaining to spiritual matters : but the
Jews, according to their carnal lusts, received them
as if he was simply referring to bodily food.'' And
now notice how remarkably he brings in the Psalms.
'' David comprehended the spiritual sense of these
three commands, and said in like manner : ' Blessed
is the man that hath not walked in the counsel of
the ungodly,' as those fishes walk in darkness in
the depth of the sea : ' nor stood in the way of sin-
ners,' like those who appear to fear the Lord and
sin like the hog ; * and hath not sat in the seat of
the scornful ;' like those birds which sit and wait for
rapine. There is the full explanation of the laws
concerning meats."
20. In like manner S. Barnabas finds the Cross
and Baptism set forth in the Old Testament; as in
Isaiah xxxiii. 16, 17, 18 : when *^ His waters shall be
sure," is beautifully applied to the Sacrament of
Historical regeneration. He sees in the first Psalm a similar
types. sense : '^ Blessed are they who, when they have be-
lieved in the Cross, descend to the water. He shall
be like a tree planted by the water side ; as that tree
strikes its roots downward into the river bed, so the
catechumen goes down to the pool of Baptism."
The stretching forth of Moses' hands on the Mount
in the battle with Amalek is a figure of the Cross;
to which also he applies that text : " All the day long
have I stretched forth My hands to an unbelieving
people." In the three hundred and eighteen servants
of Abraham he sees Jesus and the Cross : the Cross
is the T which stands for 300 ; Jesus in the letter I
' I follow the conjecture of Davis, as yielding the better sense.
I
INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 427
for 10, and H for 8. In fact we have here not only
symbolism, but symbolism of a very advanced cha-
racter.
21. The case is the same with the other Apostolic s. Hermas,
fathers. The Similitudes of Hermas are in their &c. "^ " '
very nature, fuU of mysticism. The Epistles of
S. Clement to the Corinthians, though not so mys-
tical as that of S. Barnabas, nevertheless contain
many examples of that style of interpretation. The
same thing may be said of those of S. Ignatius; see
especially his Epistle to the Ephesians, chapter xix.
And that which is perhaps the very oldest uninspired
Christian work, the Epistle to Diognetus, which
some have attributed to Apollos, but which was
certainly written while the Jewish Temple was stand-
ing, is of the same description. And so advancing
a little further to the time of Minutius Felix and
Commodianus, still we find' the mystical principle
urowing and increasing ; till in the fourth century it
lias acquired all the characteristics of a science. By
that time the principal tropologies were fixed in that
cnse which they retained till the sixteenth century.
rhe explanations, to which we shall presently allude
more at length, of Sion, Jerusalem, the heavens, the
clouds, the rivers, &c., had each its well-defined
meaning. So had numbers : one, the unity of the
Godhead ; two, the two natures of our Lord ; three,
the ever-blessed Trinity ; four, the four Evangelists,
hence the preaching of the Gospel ; five, on the one
hand a full knowledge of Christian mysteries, (the
doctrine of the Trinity + that of our Lord's two
natures ;) on the other, the state of ordinary sinners
who break half and observe half the law : (compare
the five brethren of Dives :) six, the Passion, from
our Lord's being crucified on the sixth hour of the
sixth day : also temptation, from the peculiar refer-
ence to that contained in the sixth day of the Crea-
tion ; seven of the sevenfold graces of the Holy
Ghost, and later, of the seven sacraments ; eight, of
regeneration, as being the first number that over-
steps seven, the symbol of the Old Creation ; ten,
the lawj eleven, iniquity as transgressing the law.
428
THE MYSTICAL AND LITERAL
Schools of
Alexandria
and
Antioch.
And not only were simple numbers thus explained
— compound numbers yielded a composite sense.
Twelve, was the faith preached throughout the world
— the doctrine of the Three dispersed into four quar-
ters. Forty, or eighty- eight, the struggle of the
regenerate with the old nature, five into eight, or
eleven into eight. Sixty-six, the extreme of wicked-
ness; six in the sense of temptation, into eleven;
(and compare this with the number of the beast in
the Revelation, the quintessence of all temptation.)
And even still more remarkably were numbers com-
pounded : as in the 153 fishes which, in so many
sermons, S. Augustine always explains in the same
way, of the whole congregation of the elect. Seven
stands for the Spirit, ten for the law : 17 is there-
fore the fulfilment of the law by the works of the
Spirit : sum the progression, 1+2+3+4
+16+17, and you get 153.
22. Starting then from Apostolic symbolism, and
carrying on the system by an unbroken chain of
writers, we arrive at the beginning of the fifth cen-
tury, and in the person of the greatest doctor of the
Church, to its very height — a height which would
appear the extreme of extravagance to those who
have not turned their thoughts to the subject. We
must remember, however, that although mystical in-
terpretation developed itself all over the Church, its
development was not in all her branches equal.
The genius of the West seemed to seize on it more
eagerly than that of the East. Again, in the latter
— the school of Antioch, and its ofiFshoot, the great
College of Edessa, appear to have been most averse
from it. And this is to be noticed, that a tendency
to mysticism seems to have been most alive where
the opposition to Arianism was the most vigorous.
The Arianising and Nestorianising tendencies of
Antioch are notorious : Alexandria was bitterly op-
posed to both, and the mystical tendency of Alexan-
dria scarcely less than that of Roman writers.
23. And this leads to another argument, and that
of considerable force. Mysticism must have gained
a firm hold indeed on the mind of the Church before
INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 429
it could be employed in controversy. An opponent, *
pressed with a mystical argument, would, if he dared'
scout mysticism itself. Yet when the Catholics of^^Ji^'^"^
the East brought forward their s^r,psu^uro >j xctph'ct controversy.
(loo AOrON ctyMv, or those of the West their Eruc-
tavit cor meum VERBUM bomm, in defence of the
Consubstantiality of the Word of God, did the
Arians ever speak of a misapplication, or call the
allusion strained or far-fetched? Again, when S.
Proclus, in his magnificent Lady-day sermon in the
Great Church of Constantinople, vindicated the per-
petual Virginity of S. Mary by the verse, "This
gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no
man shall enter in by it, because the Lord, the God
of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be
shut" — did Nestorius, then his auditor, and eager to
detect the slightest error in his terrible opponent,
object to such an explanation ?
24. It is worth while to notice how our Blessed
Lord Himself seems to invite us to discover mysti-
cal interpretations bv the very structure of His £'*^"™^"*^
■1 "I |- ,", IT' n -,• from the
parables — 1 mean by the addition of little circum- details of
stances in no way having any necessary connection ^^'■*^^^^'
with the main doctrine to be enforced. Thus, for
example, in the parable on prayer, why should the
importunate neighbour request three loaves rather
than any other number? And why should the
excuse be, "My children are with me in bed ?^'
Why did the good Samaritan take out two pence for
the payment of the host? Why did the unjust
steward diminish the account of oil from 100 to 50,
that of wheat from 100 to 80? Why did the man
invited to the Great Supper allege his purchase of
five yoke of oxen in excuse ? Why did the woman
hide the leaven in t/wee measures of meal ? And in
the events of our Lord^s life, which may be called
His active parables, why are the details so remark-
ably given ? Can we. imagine it by accident that on
the same day, and on the same occasion, our Lord
referred to the eighteen on whom the tower of Siloam
fell, and healed the woman which had a spirit of in-
firmity eighteen years ?
430
THE MYSTICAL AND LITERAL
Examples
from Old
Testament
continued.
25. Let US now take some of the references to^
Christ which to mediaeval expositors were easy and
trite — 1 had almost said commonplace, and see how
much interest they add to the usual interpretation of
the Psalms. What wonderful beauty there is in,
"Let the lifting up of my hands be an evening
sacrifice/' when applied to that One Great Sacrifice
which was offered up in the evening of the world —
in the evening, too, of the Paschal day — by the
stretching forth of His hands on the Cross ! in, " I
shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the
LoRD,^^ when we refer it to the morning of the first
Easter-day, and the commission to the Apostles to
make disciples of all nations : in, " I am a stranger
upon earth/^ when it alludes to Him Who came
unto His own, and His own received Him not : in
the double answer to the question " Who is the
King of Glory ?'^ the first, "The Lord mighty in
battle,^' because our Lord^s first ascension was so
soon after His triumph over death and hell; the
second, "The Lord of Hosts," because His other
ascension will be with the multitude of His redeemed
when their warfare is accomplished !
26. Again, in such a text as, " O think upon Thy
servant as concerning Thy word, wherein Thou hast
caused me to put my trust," when we take it of
that co-eternal Word, Who is, indeed, all the salva-
tion and all the trust of His people ! Or, when we
so understand, " Now for the comfortless troubles'
sake of the needy, and because of the deep sighing
of the poor," as to refer to Him Who was so needy
as to have no place where to lay His head, and of
Whom it is written, " Neither found I any to com-
fort Me." Indeed, it is remarkable how much
emphasis we may almost always give by taking the
poor as applying to our Lord. "For when He
maketh inquisition for blood. He remembereth
them," to be compared, in this sense, with that say-
ing of S. PauFs, "The blood of sprinkling, which
speaketh better things than that of Abel:" "and
forgetteth not the complaint of the Poor :" " Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do." Or
INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 431
again : '' The Poor shall not always be forgotten/'
Or again: "The Poor committeth himself unto
Thee;" "Father, into Thy hands I commend My
spirit/' Or, once more : " As for you, ye have made
a mock at the counsel of the Poor ;" that counsel
ordained before the foundation of the world,
Multiformis proditoris
Ars ut artem falleret.
Again : " He hath not despised nor abhorred the low
estate of the Poor." Or, again, very remarkably,
" All my bones shall say. Lord, Who is like unto
Thee, Who deliverest the Poor from him that is too
strong for him V if we take it with reference to the
prophecy, "A bone of Him shall not be broken;"
to which, indeed, all mediaeval writers refer that
other text, " Great are the troubles of the Righteous,
but the Lord delivereth Him out of all ; He keepeth
all His bones, so that not one of them is broken."
27. In the same way the so constantly occurring "^^«,^'fi'^ -
phrase, "The righteous," may be applied with ad-
mirable beauty. To our Lord also we may refer
such a text as, "While mine enemies are driven
back : they shall fall and perish at Thy Presence :"
understanding it of that speech of His, which when
His enemies had heard, " they went backwards and
fell to the ground." Or that whole passage, " The
sorrows of death compassed me the earth
trembled and quaked :" to those sorrows which did
indeed compass our Lord on the Cross, when "The
earth did quake, and the rocks rent;" and when
" He made darkness His secret place," at the time
when " there was darkness over all the earth, from
the sixth hour till the ninth hour." So also, " When
the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came
upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell ;"
of Judas's fall into final perdition, after the first
sacrilegious communion. Or, if we carry on the
allusion in, " False witnesses did rise up ; they laid
to my charge things which I knew not," to the next
verses, "Nevertheless, when they were sick," — the
Salvasti mundum languidum of the Advent hymn, —
432 THE MYSTICAL AND LITERAL
" I put on sackcloth/^ that is, the miseries and infir-
mities of human nature, ''and humbled my soul
with fasting," as in the forty days in the wilderness.
Or, to take a curious example of a double sense :
" Blessed is the man that considereth the poor and
needy : the Lord shall deliver him in the time of
trouble," which we may either understand of the
blessedness of him who fixes his faith and hope on
the King Who became poor and needy for our sakes,
— or, of the blessing due to His name. Who, " con-
sidering" us, poor and needy as we were, was Him-
self delivered in the time of His greatest trouble, —
was "preserved" and "kept alive," that He might
be " blessed," not only, as before, in heaven, but also
" upon earth."
28. Passages like these show the folly of some
attempts which have been lately made to print those
words in the Psalms which are supposed to bear
reference to any person of the blessed Trinity, with
Question of Capital initials. For it must entirely depend on the
ters?^^ ^^^' sense in which we take the Psalm for the time being,
as to how those capitals are to be disposed ; and, as
in the example just quoted, we could not print both,
" Blessed is the Man that considereth the poor and
needy, the Lord shall deliver Him in the time of
trouble;" and also, "Blessed is the man that con-
sidereth the Poor and Needy : the Lord shall deliver
him in the time of trouble."
Hence the reader will find that, in the text which
accompanies my commentary, there are no such ca-
pitals whatever, not even where the sense would
seem most fully to admit it. Thus, for example : if
we were to print, " My God, My God, why hast
Thou forsaken Me ?" we should, as it were, cut off
that text from applying to the people of Christ, as
well as to Christ Himself. So, again, were we
either to print, " O think upon Thy Servant as con-
cerning Thy word," or " O think upon Thy servant
as concerning Thy Word," we should, so to speak,
obUterate the alternative sense. Hence the great
wisdom of the ordinary typography both of the Bible
and Prayer Book version.
Lord's ife.
INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 433
29. But to resume our subject. So a glorious Types of our
prophecy of the Resurrection was seen in that verse, '"""*" ''"
"As for rae, I will sing of Thy power, and will praise
Thy mercy betimes in the morning ;"_that morning
on which the stone was rolled away so early from
the sepulchre. Again, of the Passion; in that,
" Their device is only how to put Him out,"— out of
the synagogue, out of the city, out of the world, —
"Whom God will exalt" — ''to be a Prince and a
Saviour, to give repentance and remission of sins :"
and in that again, " But, Lord, I make my prayer
unto Thee in an acceptable time," — the time of that
Sacrifice accepted, once and for all, for the sins of
the whole world. So again of the Resurrection :
"Yet didst Thou turn and refresh Me; yea, and
broughtest Me from the deep of the earth' again :"
and yet once more of the Passion, " He shall refrain
the spirit of princes, and is wonderful among the
kings of the earth," — as when He stood in His ma-
jesty before Pilate and Herod, and answered not
a word, "insomuch that the governor marvelled
greatly." So there is a remarkable coincidence be-
tween that verse, " Thy way is in the sea, and Thy
paths in the great waters, and Thy footsteps are not
known ;" and the passage in S. John's Gospel, where,
after our Lord had crossed the sea of Tiberias, "they
also took shipping, and came to Capernaum, seeking
for Jesus. And when they had found Him on the
other side of the sea, they said unto Him, Rabbi,
when camest Thou hither?" So again in, "Thou
hast brought a vine out of Egypt," those mediaeval
writers saw a type of the " True Vine," the Son
" called out of Egypt," and applied the prophecy
that followed to Him. Especially, according to
their interpretation, is that verse noticeable, " She
stretched out her branches unto the sea, and her
boughs unto the river ;" which, in common with that
other passage, " His dominion shall be also from the
one sea to the other, and from the flood unto the
world's end :" they referred to the Sea of Baptism at
the one end of Christian Life, and to the Sea of
Glass before the Throne, at the other. And not less
u
434 THE MYSTICAL AND LITERAL
strikingly did they see a prophecy of the prayer,
"Father, glorify Thy Name/' in that, "O turn
Thee then unto me, and have inercy upon me : give
Thy strength unto Thy servant, and help the son
of Thine handmaid. Show some token upon me
for good, that they who hate me may see it, and be
ashamed : because Thou, Lord, hast holpen me, and
comforted me."
30. Again, consider the following, as taken in
reference to the Resurrection : " Up, Lord, why
sleepest Thou? awake, and be not absent from us
for ever -^ or, " In the multitude of the sorrows that
I had in my heart. Thy comforts have refreshed my
soul;" compared with the Agony in the garden,
when there appeared unto Him an angel from hea-
ven, strengthening Him : or, " Man goeth forth to
his work and to his labour until the evening ;" in re-
ference to the thirty-three years of our Lord^s work,
and the evening in which He said, " I have glorified
Thee upon earth ; I have finished the work which
Thou gavest me to do.^' Consider, once more, the
allusion to the Atonement in those passages, " So
He said. He would have destroyed them, had not
Moses His chosen stood before Him in the gap : to
turn away His wrathful indignation, lest He should
destroy them /' and, " They angered Him also at the
waters of strife : so that He punished Moses for their
sakes :^^ or, " At midnight will I rise to give thanks
unto Thee/^ with reference to that glorious midnight,
when our Lord burst the bars of death, because it
was not possible that He should be holden of them :
or, " The plowers plowed upon My back, and made
long furrows," to His scourging : or, " My soul
fleeth unto the Lord, before the morning watch, I
say, before the morning watch," to His rising up a
great while before day, on that night before He left
the Apostles.
31. Another conventionalism, which, from the time
of S. Augustine downwards, directed and influenced
the whole mediaeval course of Scriptural interpreta-
tion, was the appropriation of the name Jerusalem —
the Vision of Peace — to the Church triumphant;
I
INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 435
that of Sion— Expectation— to the Church militant. Jerusalem
It will be found that this rule, with scarcely a single ^'^^'°''"
exception, holds good in the Psalms; and even in
those instances which at first sight appear to deviate
from the canon, a peculiar beauty is often afforded
by following up the clue. Take, for example, some
of the passages in which the rule clearly and unmis-
takeably holds good : —
'' Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of
Sion.'' " Regiam suam potestatem,;' says Ayguan,
''primo ostendit in ecclesia tarn ex Judia quam ew
Gentibus quce per montem Sion intelligitur, secundum
glossam:' " O praise the Lord, Which dwelleth in
Sion." ''That I may show all Thy praises within
the ports of the daughter of Sion.'' " Who shall
give salvation unto Israel out of Sion?" ''Send
thee help from the sanctuary, and strengthen thee
out of Sion," a manifest antithesis of the glorified
and the militant Church. "The hill of Sion is a
fair place, and the joy of the whole earth." " Walk
about Sion, and go round about her." " Out of Sion
hath God appeared in perfect beauty." "O that the
salvation were given unto Israel out of Sion." " For
God will save Sion and build the cities of Judah," —
the latter clearly a prophecy of the many mansions
built up in the true " Judah," the everlasting habi-
tation of " praise." " To speak of all Thy works in
the gates of the daughter of Sion." " Think upon
the tribe of Thine inheritance, and Mount Sion,
wherein Thou hast dwelt." " But chose the tribe of
Judah, even the hill of Sion which He loved." "Of
Sion it shall be reported that He was born in her."
*' Sion heard of it and rejoiced, and the daughters of
Judah were glad, because of Thy judgments, O Lord."
"Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Sion."
" That they may declare the Name of the Lord in
Sion, and His worship at Jerusalem, when the people
are gathered together, and the kingdoms also, to
serve the Lord :" His Name in the earthly Sion
now ; His worship in the heavenly Jerusalem, when
the ransomed and elect " people " of the saints shall
be gathered together after the '^kingdoms" of this
u2
436 THE MYSTICAL AND LITERAL
world shall have become the "kingdoms" of our
Lord and of His Christ. " The Lord shall send
the rod of thy power out of Sion ; be thou ruler, even
in the midst among thine enemies/^ where the last
clause distinctly shows the militant character of the
Church. "When the Lord turned again the cap-
tivity of Sion.^^ '^^As many as have evil will at
Sion.^-* " The Lord hath chosen Sion to be an ha-
bitation for Himself." *^ Praised be the Lord out
of Sion, Who dwelleth at Jerusalem." " The Lord
thy God, O Sion, shall be King for evermore." " Let
the children of Sion be joyful in their King."
32. In all these passages it is very plain that the
Morerecon- mediseval interpretation may hold, and in many of
pies^'^*™" tl^ci^ it must hold. To turn now to a second class
of texts, where at first sight the meaning seems less
clear. '^ O be favourable and gracious unto Sion ;"
and then, by a very beautiful sequence, " Build Thou
the walls of Jerusalem ;" because through God's love
and mercy to the Church here, those spiritual stones
are prepared by which the walls of the eternal temple
are to be built on high. And to the same purpose, and
in the same sense, is that other text, " Stablish the
thing, O God, that Thou hast wrought in us, for Thy
temple's sake at Jerusalem." Again, what an em-
phasis there is in " Thou, O God, art praised in Sion,
and unto Thee shall the vow be performed in Jeru-
salem !" " The saints," says Ayguan, " praise God
indeed in the Way, but shall perfectly praise Him in
their Country, when they behold Him face to face.
The first vow which we make to God in Baptism is
to renounce the devil and all his works, and to keep
God's holy will and commandmen^ts. But this vow,
through the infirmity of the flesh, we cannot fully
observe in the present life, but we shall perfectly
perform it in the heavenly Jerusalem." In like man-
ner of the completed vow : " I will pay my vows unto
the Lord, in the sight of all His people," of the
great multitude that no man can number, " in the
midst of thee, O Jerusalem." " There is the seat of
judgment, even the seat of the house of David : O
pray for the peace of Jerusalem ;" that is, seeing
INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 437
there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over Jerusalem
one sinner that repenteth, this joy, this "peace/^ is «^^^'o»-
to be earnestly sought for. So Ayguan, after S.
Augustine. " They that put their trust in the Lord
shall be even as the Mount Sion, which may not be
removed, but standeth fast for ever. The hills stand
about Jerusalem.^-' The names in our version would
more naturally be reversed ; but then we find in the
Vulgate, " They that trust in the Lord shall be even
as the Mount Sion ; He shall never be moved that
dwelleth in Jerusalem /^ which is a plain example of
the rule. " The Lord from out of Sion shall so bless
thee, that thou shalt see Jerusalem in prosperity all
thy life long.^' Here, at first sight, it would seem
that the names should be changed. But we may
rather elicit this meaning : the Lord shall so give
thee His grace while thou art still in the Church
militant, that thou thyself, with thine own eyes, shalt
see the prosperity of His heavenly kingdom all thy
life long ; and what is the " life long^^ of the soul,
but eternity ? " Videas," says Ayguan, ''bona coelestis
Hierusalem qum sunt per petua. Et quia resuscitatus
semper vives, semper ilia bona videbis.'' The 137th
Psalm occasions a difficulty. The earlier clauses,
'' If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, yea, if I prefer not
Jerusalem in ray mirth," plainly point to heaven.
But then, how are we to explain what follows, — "Re-
member the children of Edom, O Lord, in the day
of Jerusalem : how they said, Down with it ?'' And
mediaeval writers answer, that by the children of
Edom the heathen and the unbelievers are set forth ;
and that these will indeed be remembered and brought
into the fold, in the day of Jerusalem— the day when
the Vision of Peace shall shine forth perfectly— and
there shall be one fold and one shepherd : although,
in attacking the earthly Church, they did, in point
of fact, so far as in them lay, direct their malice
against that heavenly communion— (Down wiihit) —
with which the other forms but one family. Once
more : " Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem ; praise thy
God, O Sion :" in the one, '' He hath made fast the
bars of thy gates," namely, those gates through which
Isaiah.
438 THE MYSTICAL AND LITERAL
nothing shall pass that defileth ; in the other, a pro-
mise of a lower character, '^ He hath blessed thy
children within thee/^
33. There remain only two passages, which cannot
be, by any reasonable stretch of fancy, brought within
the canon. They occur in one Psalm : " Thy holy
temple have they defiled, and made Jerusalem an
heap of stones : their blood have they shed like water
on every side of Jerusalem.'^ Now it is known that,
though this is called a Psalm of Asaph, yet there is
a general tradition of the Church that it was com-
posed in the time of the Maccabees. " It is said in
the person of the Maccabees,^-* writes S. Athanasius.
" Asaph relates," says Bede, " the sufferings of the
people of the Jews, during the time of Antiochus."
" A prophecy,''^ exclaims Eusebius, " of that which be-
fell the Jews through Antiochus." Is there any con-
nection between the date of the Psalm and this fact ?^
The same in 34. Let US uow tum to the prophecy of Isaiah,
and examme the question, with the help of mediaeval
writers, there. The word Sion occurs in that book
thirty-six times ; Jerusalem, thirty-four.
Now Sion is not once nsed where it is not, to say
the least, patient of the meaning we attach to it ;
and, when thus understood, it frequently brings out
the sense with considerable sharpness and beauty.
Take a few examples :
Isa. i. 27. Sion shall be redeemed with judgment, and
her converts with righteousness.
Isa. X. 24. O My people, that dwellest in Sion, be not
afraid of the Assyrian.
Isa. xii. 6. Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Sion :
for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee.
Isa. xiv. 32. What shall one then answer the messengers
of the nation ? That the Loed hath founded Sion, and the
poor of His people shall trust in it.
Isa. xxviii. 16. Behold, I lay in Sion for a foundation a
stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure founda-
tion : — (manifestly spoken of the Incarnation.)
Isa. xlix. 14. But Sion said, The Lord hath forsaken me,
and my Loed hath forgotten me.
^ [But see in Yol. II. p. 526, that eyen this passage can be
brought within the rule.]
INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 439
Isa. li. 3. For the Loed shall comfort Sion : He will com-
fort all her waste places, and He will make her wilderness
like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Loed.
Isa. lix. 20. And the Redeemer shall come to Sion, and
unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob.
35. But when we come to the meaning of Jeru-
salem, we shall find that the rule by no means holds
good. Take, for example, such passages as these :
Isa. iii. 8. For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen.
Isa. X. 10. Whose graven images did excel them of Jeru-
salem and of Samaria.
Isa. X, 11. Shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and
her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols ?
Isa. xxviii. 14. Ye scornful men which rule this people
which is in Jerusalem.
There are some other passages of the same kind.
At the same time, by understanding Jerusalem of
the heavenly city when the prima facie sense of the
text would seem against it, we shall sometimes elicit
a very beautiful meaning. So, for example :
Isa. V. 3. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men
of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt Me and My vineyard ;
where God calls, as it were. His heavenly as well as
His earthly Church to be arbiters between Him and
His people. Again :
Isa. Iii. 9. Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste
places of Jerusalem: for the Loed hath comforted His
people, He hath redeemed Jerusalem ;
where we may well take the waste places to be the
poor, distressed, and persecuted Church on earth,
which, nevertheless, may be called '' of Jerusalem,"
indeed belonging to it.
Isa. Ixiv. 10. Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Sion is a
wHdemess, Jerusalem a desolation ;
where the latter clause may be taken in the sense of
that passage, " The angels of peace shall weep bit-
terly ;" and as expressing the deep sympathy of those,
who cannot sorrow for themselves, in the sorrows of
their earthly brethren.
36. The passages in which Sion and Jerusalem
440 THE MYSTICAL AND LITERAL
stand together, in addition to that last quoted, are
the following :
Isa. ii. 3. Out of Sion shall go forth the law, and the
Word of the Loed from Jerusalem ;
a noble example in our favour. The law, that is the
Mosaic law, went forth from Sion, the Jewish or
earthly Church ; the Word of the Lord, the Incar-
nate Word, from Jerusalem, according to that say-
ing, " I came forth from the Father, and am come
into the world/^
Isa. iv. 3. And it shall come to pass that he that is left in
Sion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called
holy, even every one that is written among the living in Je-
rusalem.
Here also they take the passage in its typical sense :
'Remaineth in Jerusalem, according to this interpreta-
tion, being equivalent to the promise, " Him that
overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of
God, and he shall go no more out/^ But by no
stretch of ingenuity can the next verse be so applied :
" When the Lord shall have washed away the filth
of the daughters of Sion, and shall have purged the
blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof."
Isa. X. 12. When the Lord hath performed His whole
work upon Mount Sion, and on Jerusalem.
Isa. XXX. 19. The people shall dwell in Sion at Jeru-
salem.
A very lovely text when interpreted by the usual
law : even while members of the Church on earth,
they shall see so much of the glory of God, and be
so near to Him, as to be already almost inhabitants
of the celestial city.
Isa. xxxi. 4. Like as the lion and the young lion roaring,
... so shall the Lord of Hosts come down to fight for Mount
Sion ... as birds flying, so will the Lord of Hosts defend
Jerusalem :
where the different kind of protection vouchsafed to
the Church militant and the Church triumphant is
admirably described.
37. This may suffice for one of the most remark-
able rules laid down by mystical writers. In the
INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 441
same way, the distinction between Jacob and Israel
will be found carefully observed. Jacob, the sup- Jacob and
planter, he that has a hard struggle to obtain his ^^'^*^'*
inheritance ; Israel, " He that sees Gob/' the Church
that enjoys the Beatific Vision.
Tunc Jacob Israel, et Lya tunc Eahel efficietur,
says Bernard of Cluny, when writing of the heavenly
country. And if we examine the Book of Psalms,
we shall again find how much light is thrown on
many passages by this distinction. And even when
at first sight the meaning would appear impossible^ a
little further attention will induce us to accept it.
For example : " O that the salvation were given unto
Israel out of Sion. . . . Then should Jacob rejoice,
and Israel should be right glad." The words would
usually be explained, "O that God would send down
His salvation, — that is. His blessing, which leads to
salvation — on Israel, His Church on earth, from Sion,
His own dwelling-place." But it is not so. O that
the salvation, that is, the number of those that shall
be saved, ivere given to Israel, that is, were brought
in to the Church above, as the tribute from Sion, the
Church below ! In other words, O that the number
of the elect were complete, — and it may well follow,
THEN shall Jacob rejoice, and Israel shall be right glad.
So again : " The Lord hath chosen Jacob unto Him-
self, and Israel for His own possession ;" where
notice the force of the word own, as implying such a
possession as can never be lost. Again : " He show-
eth His Word unto Jacob," as indeed He did at the
Incarnation ; " His statutes and ordinances unto
Israel ;" that is, the full knowledge of His mysteries,
the understanding of the depth of His dispensations,
is reserved for the Church triumphant. Remarkably
also it is written, " This is the generation of them
that seek Him, even of them that seek Thy face, O
Jacob ;" where our Lord is addressed in His cha-
racter as man, subject to the same temptations with
ourselves. Compare that passage in Isaiah, '' Fear
not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel ;" the
poor grovelling servant of God in this worlds fitly
u3
442 THE MYSTICAL AND LITERAL
likened to a crawling worm : they that have attained
the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ^
no less fitly called men of Israel. Notice^ again : " He
that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep :"
" He shall redeem Israel from all his sins/' " The
Lord doth build up Jerusalem, and gather together
the outcasts of Israel/' that is, His servants on earth
Who, though exiles from their home, and as yet out-
casts, are nevertheless outcasts of Israel. But then
we must carefully observe one point connected with
this symbolism. When Israel stands in apposition
with Jacob, the case is as I have said ; but it may
also stand in contrast with Judah, and then the
meaning will often be found altered. And here we
may notice a very remarkable truth. David and his
contemporaries had no conception of the falling away
of the ten tribes. To them, therefore, the word
Israel could not by any possibility have presented the
idea of backsliding. But with the later Psalm writers
the case was different; and accordingly with them
Israel will be more frequently found the type of a
Church wherein sin yet exists. For example : " If
the Lord Himself had not been on our side, now
may Israel say.'' So, again, in the 1 14th Psalm,
which has almost always been considered the compo-
sition of a later period than that of David : " Judah
was His sanctuary, and Israel His dominion." The
reader would find it an inquiry equally profitable and
interesting, to work out this investigation for him-
self : my own limits will not allow me to dwell longer
on the subject.
The Word. 38. Again : marvellous it is to discover what addi-
tional depth of meaning is given to almost every Psalm
by taking " the Word" to mean the Incarnate Word.
" The Lord gave the Word; great was the company of
the preachers;" for was it not when the Only-begotten
Son was given to man that preaching commenced?
Does not every pulpit depend on that first pulpit of
Calvary ? " The Word of the Lord also is tried in the
fire :" how more truly can His sufferings be described ?
« Thy Word hath quickened Me :" " Whoso eateth
My Flesh and drinketh My Blood, hath eternal life."
INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 443
" He sent His Word, and healed them/' Compare
it with that saying, " Himself took our infirmities,
and bare our sicknesses/' " His Word runneth very
swiftly." For, as S. Ambrose says,
From God the Fathee He proceeds —
To God the Father back He speeds ;
Proceeds as far as very hell,
Speeds back — to light ineffable.
" I am as glad of Thy Word as one that findeth great
spoils ;" take it of the Church, when, after four thou-
sand years she could then say, " Unto us a Child is
born/' The 119th Psalm, taken in this sense, is
transfigured into a beauty which cannot exist for
those who reject mysticism.
There is a treatise by the " Galilean Eagle,'' Pierre
d'Ailly, under the title of Verbum abbreviatum, in
which he goes through the passages in which The
Word is mentioned in the Psalms, and works out in
each its highest meaning.
39. It will now be proper to enumerate those 2"^*^^*°"*
passages in the Psalter which have been quoted in the Psaiter.
New Testament : and no stronger argument can be
adduced in favour of mysticism than that which is to
be derived from many of these quotations. And we
will first take those which are immediately and di-
rectly quoted by our Lord Himself.
Away from me, all ye that work vanity. Ps. vi_ g.
S. Matt. vii. 23. And then will I profess unto them, I
never knew you ; depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.
The words in the LXX. are precisely the same.
Out of the mouth of very babes and sucklings hast Thou vUi. 2.
ordained strength.
S. Matt. xxi. 16. Jesus saith unto them, Yea : have ye
never read. Out of the mouth of babes and suckhngs Thou
hast perfected praise ?
A literal quotation from the LXX.
My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me ? ^xU. 1.
See my commentary on this verse, and the tradition
there, mentioned, that our Lord beginning at Psalm
xxii., recited all the intermediate verses down to
Into Thy hands I commend my Spirit : xxxi. 6.
/T|/i,/|,
THE MYSTICAL AND LITERAL
XXXV. 19.
xli. 9.
Ixxxii, 6.
ex, 1.
cxviii. 22.
when He resigned His most blessed soul into His
Father's hands.
!N'eitlier.let them wink with their eyes that hate me without
a cause.
S. John XV. 25. But this cometh to pass, that the word
might be fulfilled that is written in their law, Tliey hated
me without a cause.
Notice that this quotation not only authorises, but
obliges, us to understand the whole of Psalm xxxv.,
" Plead Thou ray cause/' &c., of our Lord Himself.
But if we are so to take that Psalm, who can dare to
blame us for a similar interpretation of the many
Psalms which resemble it so closely ?
Yea, even mine own familiar friend, whom I trusted : who
did also eat of my bread, hath laid great wait for me.
S. John xiii. 18. But that the Scripture may be fulfilled,
Hethateateth bread with me, hath lifted up his heel against me.
The quotation is not literal : our Lord's words are,
6 rqcliyuiV [j.£t hf^ov tov aprov, en^psv Itt' e[MS rrjv TTTspvocv
avTou : whereas in the LXX. it is, ei/,e<ya.Xvvsv W lju.s
TtrsQVKTi^ov. In the Vulgate, magnificavit super me
supplant atlonem.
I have said. Ye are gods, and ye are all the children of the
Most Highest.
S. John X. 34. Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye
are gods ?
The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on My right hand,
until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.
The basis of our Lord's question to the multitudes :
S. Matt. xxii. 43 ; S. Mark xii. 36; S. Luke xx. 42: How
say they that Christ is David's Son ? And David himself
saith in the book of Psalms, The Lord said unto my Lord,
Sit Thou on My right hand, till I make Thine enemies Thy
footstool. David therefore caUeth Him Lord, how is He
then his Son ?
The same stone which the builders refused is become the
head stone in the corner. This is the Lord's doing ; and it
is marvellous in our eyes.
S. Matt. xxi. 42 ; S. Mark xii. 10. Jesus saith unto them,
Did ye never read in the Scriptures, The stone which the
builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner :
this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes ?
Besides these, there are two other passages, where
INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 445
it would seem as if our Lord were distinctly refer-
ring to, though not actually quoting from the Psalms.
" The hill of Sion is a fair place and the joy of the xiviu. 2.
whole earth : upon the north side lieth the city of
the great King." One can hardly doubt from the
similarity of the phrase, that this verse was in our
LoRD^s mind when He taught on the mount, " Swear
not at all : neither by Jerusalem, for it is
the city of the great King."
So again : if we first read, " Who giveth fodder cxivii. 9.
unto the cattle, and feedeth the young ravens that
call upon Him," shall we not think it probable that
in the discourse on the plain, S. Luke xii. 24, our
Lord took His illustration, " Consider the ravens :
for they neither sow nor reap ; which neither have
store-house nor barn; and God feedeth them/^ as if
He were arguing, And yet ye know from your own
Scriptures that God does indeed take care of them.
We will now proceed to the other quotations made
in the New Testament from the Psalms : and it will
be more convenient to take them in the order of the
Psalter.
Why do the heathen so furiously rage together: and why Ps. u. 1.
do the people imagine a vain thing ? &c.
Acts iv. 25. Who by the mouth of Thy servant David
hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine
vain things ? &c.
Here we have the second Psalm ascribed, which it
is not in the Psalter, to David. The quotation is
word for word from the LXX.
I will preach the law, whereof the Loed hath said unto ii. 7.
Me, Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee.
Acts xiii. 33. As it is also written in the second Psalm ;
Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee.
But the better reading is, " the first Psalm," which
thus gives additional likelihood to the other division,
which makes the first and second Psalm into one.
Heb. i. 5. For nnto which of the Angels said He at any
time, Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee ?
Heb. V. 5. So also Christ glorified not Himself to be
made an High Priest, but He that said unto Him, Thou art
My Son, to-day have I begotten Thee.
446 THE MYSTICAL AND LITERAL
The quotation in all these passages is perfectly-
literal, as it will be understood in all cases hencefor-
ward to be, where I do not notice a difference.
ii. 9. Thou shalt bruise them with a rod of iron.
Eev. ii. 27 ; xix. 15. And He shall rule them with a rod
of iron.
Although not formally quoted, the words are pre-
cisely the same, except the necessary change of per-
son. noi[/.ocvs'i§, shalt guide them as a shepherd, the
rod of iron clearly referring to the shepherd's staff.
I know not why our own version is so vague.
iv. 4. Stand in awe, and sin not.
Eph. iv. 26. Be ye angry, and sin not.
6pyii^£(r&e is the translation of the LXX.
V. 10. Their throat is an open sepulchre.
Eom. iii. 13. Their throat is an open sepulchre.
viii. 4—6. What is man, that Thou art mindful of him : and the son
of man, that Thou visitest him ? Thou madest him lower
than the Angels : to crown him with glory and worship.
Thou makest him to have dominion of the works of Thy
hands : and Thou hast put all things in subjection under his
feet.
Heh. ii. 6 — 8. But one in a certain place testified, saying,
"What is man, that Thou art mindful of him ? or the son of
man, that Thou visitest him P Thou madest him a little lower
than the Angels ; Thou crownedst him with glory and honour,
and didst set him over the works of Thy hands : Thou hast
put all things in subjection under his feet.
1 Cor. XV. 27. For He hath put all things under His feet.
But when He saith. All things are put under Him, it is ma-
nifest that He is excepted, Which did put all things under
Him.
A slight variation of phrase; ttuvtoc vTrera^otg vtto-
KUTCti Toov TTodoov auToO, and Travra yap vttstoi^ev vtto tovs
TTo^xg auTov. Here, and in the preceding, is a re-
markable example of what we may call a mystical
interpretation. Had a mediaeval writer applied the
Son of Man in Psalm viii. to our Lord, the literalists
would have accused him of destroying the meaning,
which was only to teach man a lesson of humility,
by comparing him, in his littleness, with the glory of
the nightly stars. Yet S. Paul quotes the text,
INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 447
not allusively, but argumentatively : "/or He hath
put/' &c.
His mouth is full of cursing, deceit and fraud. x. 7.
Eom. iii. 14. Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitter-
ness ;
verbally different : oy apSig to g-toixci uvtov ysfjusi xat
vixpius xa» So'Xoy : and, cov to (TTOfxa. ctgSig xu) mxplocg
ysfxsi.
I have observed, in its proper place, that thatxiv.4.
which appears a quotation in Rom. iii. 10, 11, &c.,
is, in reality, a corrupt borrowing back by the Psalm
of a passage not originally there (and not given in
our Bible version,) and made up of fragments from
other Psalms. I therefore pass it over here.
I have set God always before me : for He is on my right xvi. 9—12.
hand, therefore I shall not fall. Wherefore my heart was
glad, and my glory rejoiced : my flesh also shall rest in hope.
For why ? Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell : neither shalt
Thou suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption. Thou shalt show
me the path of life ; in Thy presence is the fulness of joy.
Acts ii. 25 — 28. For David speaketh concerning Him, I
foresaw the Lobd alwavs before my face, for He is on my
right hand, that I should not be moved : Therefore did my
heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad ; moreover also my
flesh shall rest in hope : because Thou wilt not leave my soul
in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see cor-
ruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life ;
Thou shalt make me full of joy with Thy countenance.
And xiii. 35. Wherefore he saith also in another Psalm,
Thou shalt not suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption. For
David, after, <fec.
What is this but a distinct protest against li-
teralism ?
My Savioue, my God, and my might, in Whom I wiQ xviii. 1.
trust.
Heb. ii. 13. And again, I wiU put my trust in Him.
The particular applicability of the text to S. Paul's
thesis, that, by the Incarnation we have become one
with our Lord, it is not easy to develope : but this is
clear, that no literalist would ever have dreamt of
applying Psalm xviii. 1 to our Saviour; and that,
from this verse, we may, nay, we must^ apply the
whole Psalm also to Him.
448 THE MYSTICAL AND LITERAL
Here the quotation is not literal : LXX.^ eATriw stt*
avTov. S. Paul, scrofji^oii TreTroiSws Itt' oiVTco.^
xviii. 50. ^or this cause will I give tlaanks unto Thee, O Lobd,
among the Gentiles : and sing praises unto Thy Name.
Rom. XV. 9. And that the Gentiles might glorify God
for His mercy ; as it is written : For this cause I will confess
to Thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto Thy Name.
The word Kvpis is omitted in S. Paul's quotation.
xix. 4. Their sound is gone out into all lands : and their words
into the ends of the world.
Rom. X. 18. But I say. Have they not heard .P Yes,
verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words
unto the ends of the world.
A most striking example of a mystical quotation.
Who^ that did not beforehand know, would imagine
that David was speaking of aught else save the na-
tural heavens? No wonder that the Fathers have,
with one consentient voice, interpreted this Psalm
throughout of the Apostles.
xxii j8^ They part my garments among them : and cast lots upon
my vesture.
S. Matt, xxvii. 35. And they crucified Him, and parted
His garments, casting lots : that it might be fulfilled which
was spoken by the prophet. They parted my garments among
them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots.
S. John xix. 23, 24. And also His coat : now the coat was
without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said
therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots
for it, whose it shall be : that the Scripture might be fulfilled,
which saith. They parted my raiment among them, and for
my vesture they did cast lots. These things therefore the
soldiers did.
Here even the literalist sees a prophecy of our
Lord ; but, it would appear, of Him only. No
doubt this fact also was true of David in some of his
afflictions : probably when he left Jerusalem in that
hasty flight from Absalom, and the rabble might
easily have broken into his palace.
xxii. 22. I will declare Thy Name unto my brethren : in the midst
of the congregation will I praise Thee.
* [The quotation in Hebrews I xii. 2, with which it agrees word
ii. 13, is not from the Psalm, for word.]
but from the LXX. of Isaiah
INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 449
Heb. ii. 11. For which, cause He is not ashamed to call
them brethren, saying, I will declare Thy Name unto My
brethren : in the midst of the Church will I sing praise unto
Thee.
S. Paul gives aTrayyeXco for Sirjyrjo-o/jta*.
The earth is the Lord's, and all that therein is. xxiv. i.
1 Cor. X. 25. Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat,
asking no question for conscience' sake : for the earth is the
Lord's and the fulness thereof.
And so, if the reading be genuine, at ver. 28.
Blessed is he whose unrighteousness is forgiven, and whose ^^^^ i-
sin is covered : blessed is the man unto whom the Lord
imputeth no sin.
Eom. iv. 6. Even as David also describeth the blessed-
ness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness
without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are
forgiven, and whose sins are covered: Blessed is the man to
whom the Lord will not impute sin.
What man is he that lusteth to live : and would fain see ^xxiv. 12.
good days ? Keep thy tongue from evil : and thy lips, that
they speak no guile. Eschew evil, and do good : seek peace,
and ensue it. The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous :
and His ears are open unto their prayers. The countenance
of the Lord is against them that do evil.
1 S. Pet. iii. 10—12. For he that will love life and see
good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips
that they speak no guile ; let him eschew evil, and do good ;
let him seek peace, and ensue it. For the eyes of the Lord
are over the righteous, and His ears are open unto their
prayers : but the face of the Lord is against them that do
evil.
The quotation is verbally exact if we exclude the
necessary change of persons, excepting at the com-
mencement.
The LXX. have it : t/j Io-tiv oivSpooTrog 6 QsXmv ^myjv,
ayuTTUiV Yifjispci^ ISsTv uya^ocg ;
S. Peter quotes it : 6 yup QsXoov ^ooyjv ocyuTrav, xu) ISeTv
^jxepaj uyocQug.
He keepeth all his bones, so that not one of them is xxxiv. 20.
broken.
S. John xix. 36. For these things were done, that the
Scripture should be fulfilled : A bone of him shall not be
broken.
This is generally applied to the Paschal Lamb
only, to which there is, no doubt^ a reference also.
450 THE MYSTICAL AND LITERAL
But the words are too express to permit any doubt
that S. John was quoting, not from the Pentateuch,
but from the Psalter.
In the LXX., cv 1^ aurcwv ov (7-vvTpi(3v}(rsTai.
In S. John, dcrrouv ov (rvvTpi^Y}(rsToti catrco.
xl. 8—10. Sacrifice and meat-offering Thou wouldest not : but mine
ears hast Thou opened. Burnt-offerings and sacrifice for sia
hast Thou not required : then said I, Lo, I come. In the
volume of the book it is written of me, that I should fulfil
Thy will, O my God.
Heb. X. 5 — 7. Wherefore, when He cometh into the world,
He saith, Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, but a
body hast Thou prepared Me : in burnt- offerings and sacri-
fices for sin Thou hast had no pleasure : then said I, Lo, I
come, (in the volume of the book it is written of Me,) to do
Thy will, O God.
The quotation is almost verbally exact. The but
a body hast Thou prepared Me is the reading of the
LXX. (see my note on the passage.) But S. Paul
gives (1) oXoxauTWjxaTa for oAoxaurcocta, (2) oux bv^o-
XYi<rotg for ovx. rirri<rccg ; and (3) rod ttoiyjo-ch, 6 Oso's, to
0eA>]jU,a <TOV, for tov 7roiYi(Tcn to fisAyjjxa crou, o Oeog [xou,
rj^ouXYjQYjv. Where he again quotes the passage in
the following verse, he still differs verbally in (2) ovx,
^Q sXY}(r ocg ovds svd 6 xyj a- u §.
xiiv. 22. Por Thy sake also are we killed all the day long : and are
counted as sheep appointed to be slain.
Rom. viii. 36. As it is written : For Thy sake we are killed
all the day long : we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
xlv. 7, 8. Thy seat, O God, endureth for ever : the sceptre of Thy
kingdom is a right sceptre. Thou hast loved righteousness,
and hated iniquity : wherefore God, even thy God, hath
anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.
Heb. i. 8, 9. But unto the Son He saith. Thy throne, O
God, is for ever and ever : a sceptre of righteousness is the
sceptre of Thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness,
and hated iniquity ; therefore God, even Thy God, hath
anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows.
u. 4. That Thou mightest be justified in Thy saying, and clear
when Thou art judged.
Eom. iii. 4. Let God be true, but every man a liar, as it
is written, That Thou mightest be justified in Thy sayings,
and mightest overcome when Thou art judged.
iv. 23. O cast thy burden upon the Loed, and He shall nourish
thee.
INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 451
1 S. Pet. V. 7. Casting all your care upon Him, for He
careth for you.
An allusion, rather than a direct quotation.
LXX. : sTrippi^ov stt] Kvpiov tyjv fj^spi[xvoi.v aov, xa) otvTOS
<rs dioc^pe^si. S. Peter: Tracrav tyjv [/.spiy^vav uy^oov f.Tfi^pi-
And that Thou, Lord, art merciful, for Thou rewardest ixii. 12.
every man according to his work.
1 Cor. iii. 8. Every man shall receive his own reward
according to his own labour.
The quotation is not literal ; but all the commen*
tators agree that it is a virtual reference.
Thou art gone up on high, thou hast led captivity captive, ixviii. is.
and received gifts for men : yea, even for thine enemies, that
the LoBD God might dwell among them.
Eph. iv. 8. Wherefore He saith, When He ascended up
on high. He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.
The quotation is literal, except for the change of
the second into the third person, and the substitution
oi gave (the Syriac reading) for received.
The zeal of Thine house hath even eaten me. ixix. 9.
S. John ii. 17. And His disciples remembered that it
was written. The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up.
And the rebukes of them that rebuked Thee are fallen
upon me.
Eom. XV. 3. For even Christ pleased not Himself; but,
as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached Thee
fell on me.
Let their table be made a snare to take themselves withal : ixix. 23, 24.
and let the things that should have been for their wealth
be unto them an occasion of falling. Let their eyes be
blinded, that they see not : and ever bow Thou down their
backs.
Rom. xi. 9, 10. And David saith, Let their table be made
a snare and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompence
unto them : let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see,
and bow down their back alway.
The first verse has considerable verbal variations.
Let their habitation be void : and no man to dwell in their ixix. 26.
tents.
Acts i. 20. For it is written in the book of Psalms, Let
his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein.
Here also there is a considerable variation.
452
THE MYSTICAL AND LITERAL
ixxviii. 2. I will open my mouth in a parable; I will declare hard
sentences of old.
S. Matt. xiii. 35. That it might be fulfilled which was
spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in
parables ; I will utter things which have been kept secret
from the foundation of the world.
Ixxviii. 25. He rained down manna also upon them for to eat : and
gave them food from Heaven.
S. John vi. 31. Our fathers did eat manna in the wilder-
ness, as it is written : He gave them bread from Heaven
to eat.
The Jews do not quote correctly.
oipTov oupuvoti 'idcoKsv oLVTois is changed into aprov I x
Tou ovgccvou etcuxsv arjiois <p txy e iv.
Bread of Heaven is surely much stronger than
bread out of Heaven : and the amplification of to eat
by no means strengthens the force. The Psalmist^s
original language is far better fitted to the highest
mystical sense.
ixxxix. 21. I have found David My servant : with My holy oil have I
anointed him.
Acts xiii. 22. To whom also He gave testimony and said,
I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after Mine own
heart, which shall fulfil all My will.
This can hardly be called a quotation, mixed up as
it also is with 1 Sam. xiii. 14.
xci. 11. He shall give His Angels charge over thee : to keep thee
in all thy ways. They shall bear thee in their hands : that
thou hurt not thy foot against a stone.
S. Matt. iv. 6. And saith unto Him, If Thou be the Son
of God, cast Thyself down : for it is written. He shall give
His Angels charge concerning Thee : and in their hands they
shall bear Thee up, lest at any time Thou dash Thy foot
against a stone.
S. Luke iv. 9 — 11. And said unto Him, If Thou be the
Son of God, cast Thyself down from hence : for it is written,
He shall give His Angels charge over Thee, to keep Thee :
and in their hands they shall bear Thee up, lest at any time
Thou dash Thy foot against a stone.
All the Fathers have the observation that Satan
omits a clause, so as to make God's Word false — " in
all thy ways :" that is, in all places where thy duty
calls thee. Observe, further, that S. Luke gives the
Tou lt(x^6koL^a,l ere, which S. Matthew omits.
I
INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 453
The LoED knowetli the thoughts of man : that they are xciv. ii.
but vain.
1 Cor. iii. 20. And again, The Loed knoweth the thoughts
of the wise, that they are vain.
The Apostle reads, rwv cro^wv, for rm Scv&pM7ra)v,
The Vulgate agrees with the LXX., in the original
passage.
To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts : xcv. s— ii.
as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the
wilderness ; when your fathers tempted Me : proved Me, and
saw My works. Forty years long was I grieved with this
feneration, and said : It is a people that do err in their
earts, for they have not known My ways ; unto whom I
sware in My wrath : that they should not enter into My
rest.
Heb. iii. 7—11. Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith.
To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as
in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilder-
ness : when your fathers tempted Me, proved Me, and saw
My works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that
generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and
they have not known My ways. So I sware in My wrath.
They shall not enter into My rest.)
And further, Heb. iv. 7. Again, He limiteth a certain day,
saying in David, To-day, after so long a time ; as it is said,
To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.
For if Jesus had given them rest, then would He not after-
ward have spoken of another day.
There are a few verbal differences.
The LXX. has Trjxpao-jutoD : the New Testament
TTsipaa-fxou. But here, probably, the genuine reading
is that which the Apostle gives; as both Vulgate and
Italic have tentationis.
The LXX. has pjOKliJ,a,(Tcty : the N. T. shxif^ua-^v fx.e.
epyoi [jiov. TzaaapoLKQvrcx. epyoc (x^ov TS(r(rapax.ovTCi
errj Trpoa-MX^KTU &C. hr,. Aio Trpoa-MX^KTot &C.
xat uvTo) ovK eyvooa-otv. uvto) Se ou}C 'iyvMcroiV.
But far more noteworthy is the Apostolic argu-
ment, founded so completely as it is on the symbol-
ical understanding of the "passage. Consider that
the Epistle to the Hebrews is— perhaps with the ex-
ception of that to the Romans — the most deeply
reasoned of all the Apostolic writings : it was, and
was intended to be, a challenge to Jewish learning
and Rabbinical cavils; and yet a mystical argument
454
THE MYSTICAL AND LITERAL
appears to the writer of so much force, that he recurs
to it twice. It is easy for commentators to admire
the depth and richness of this argument of S. Paul,
who would yet be the first to sneer at the Nicene
ratiocination from My heart hath produced a good
Word: but is there really any difference between
the force of the two? And had S. Paul happened to
use the latter, and the Fathers of Nicsea the former,
would not the praise and the blame have been ex-
actly reversed ?
xcvii. 7. Worship Him, all ye gods.
Heb. i. 6. And again, when He bringeth in the First-
begotten into the world, He saith, And let all the Angels of
God worship Him.^
This is one of the passages that most remarkably
prove our system. Let any ordinary reader take up
Psalm xcvii. : let him be told that in the " clouds
and darkness are round about Him'^ the mystery of
the Incarnation is foreshown ; in the clause, '^ The
heavens have declared His righteousness,^^ the Guid*
ing Star is set forth ; would they not call all this
fanciful and unreal? And yet here the Apostle
clearly declares this to be David's meaning; for
where else in that Psalm does the Father bring in
the First-begotten ? Certainly in no way that is not
more typical, more removed from the ordinary system
of explanation. No : the value of such a quotation,
as a proof of, and clue to, mystical interpretation, is
positively incalculable.
cii. 25—27. Thou, LoBD, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of
the earth : and the heavens are the work of Thy hands.
They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure : they all shall wax
old as doth a garment ; and as a vesture shalt Thou change
them, and they shall be changed : but Thou art the same,
and Thy years shall not fail.
^ [These words are an exact
quotation, not from the Psalm,
but from the LXX. of Deut.
xxxii. 43, which varies much
from A. V. The sense is then
this : When GoD brought Israel,
His typical first-born, into the
Land of Promise, He said to him
by the mouth of Moses, Let all
the Angels of God worship God
Who hath done so great things.
And then the words are trans-
ferred to the entrance of GoD
the Only-begotten Son into the
world, to conquer it. This is
even more deeply mystical than
the interpretation of tlie Psalm,
as given above.]
INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 455
Heb. i. 10. And, Tliou, Loed, in the beginning hast laid
the foundation of the earth : and the heavens are the works
of Thine hands : they shall perish ; but Thou remainest ; and
they all shall wax old as doth a garment ; and as a vesture
shalt Thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but
Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail.
Now S. Paul teaches us that this is addressed to
the Son. How? and why? Simply because the
whole Psalm, in his eyes, possessed a deeply symbol-
ical meaning. Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon
Sion refers to the Incarnation : it is time that Thou
have mercy upon her is the counterpart to When the
fulness of the time was come^ God sent forth His Son.
When the Lord doth build up Sion tells of the con-
struction of the Church on the ruins of the Syna-
gogue : ivhen He turneth Him unto the prayer of the
poor destitute alludes to the "mundus languidus."
If it be not by such reasoning as this, how could the
Apostle know that the Son, rather than the Father,
was intended by the prophet ? And if it be replied,
" It was a matter of direct inspiration,'' the answer
is easy. Granted, it might have been so to himself:
but here he is arguing with those who denied his in-
spiration,— with those whom he desired not to take
the statement on his own authority, but to search the
Scriptures, whether these things were so : with those,
therefore, who acknowledged a mystical sense as
well as himself. Once allow his inspiration, and why
argue from the Old Testament at all ? I think that,
the more this argument is considered — and it is one
which I do not remember to have seen adduced— the
more irrefragable it will appear.
He maketh His Angels spirits : and His ministers a flam- civ. 4.
ingfire.
Heb. i. 7. And of the Angels He saith, Who maketh His
Angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire.
Let another take his office. ^^^' 7*
Acts i. 20. And his bishopric let another take.
The Lord said unto my Loed : Sit Thou on My right ex. 1.
hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.
Acts ii. 34. For David is not ascended into the heavens :
but he saith himself, The Lobd said unto my Loed, Sit
456
THE MYSTICAL AND LITERAL
Thou on My right hand, until I make Thy foes Thy foot-
stool.
1 Cor. xv. 25. For He must reign, till He hath put all
enemies under His feet.
Heb. i. 13. But to which of the Angels said He at any
time, Sit on My right hand, until I make thine enemies thy
footstool ?
^^- 4- The Lord sware, and will not repent : Thou art a priest
for ever after the order of Melchisedek.
Heb. vii. 21. For those priests were made without an
oath ; but this with an oath by Him that said unto Him, The
LoED sware and will not repent. Thou art a priest for ever
after the order of Melchisedek.
Heb. V. 6. As He saith also in another place, Thou art a
priest for ever after the order of Melchisedek.
cxii. 9. He hath dispersed abroad, and given to the poor : and his
righteousness remaineth for ever ; his horn shall be exalted
with honour.
2 Cor. ix. 9. As it is written, He hath dispersed abroad, he
hath given to the poor ; his righteousness remaineth for ever.
The Apostle quotes with less emphasis, (but in
agreement with the Hebrew,) s]g tov alcJom ; in the
LXX. it is gJf TOV ulcovoi TOV ouchvog.
cxvi. 10. I believed, and therefore will I speak.
2 Cor. iv. 13. We having the same spirit of faith, ac-
cording as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I
spoken ; we also believe, and therefore speak.
I said in my haste. All men are liars.
E/om. iii. 4. Let God be true, but every man a liar.
I give this as a quotation, because almost all the
Fathers who have written on the passage affirm it
to be so : though, in itself, it would hardly appear to
me to be one.
cxvii. 1. O praise the Loed, all ye heathen : praise Him, all ye
nations.
Rom. XV. 11. And again : Praise the Loed, all ye Gen-
tiles, and laud Him, all ye people.
cxviii. 6. The Loed is on my side : I will not fear what man doeth
unto me.
Heb. xiii. 6. So that we may boldly say, The Loed is my
helper : and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.
cxviii. 22. The same stone which the builders refused, is become the
head stone in the corner.
Acts iv. 11. This is the stone which was set at nought of
you builders, which is become the head of the corner.
I
INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 457
1 S. Pet. ii. 7. Unto you therefore which believe, He is
precious : but unto them which be disobedient, the stone
which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of
the corner.
Observe here how S. Peter, both in his sermon
and in his Epistle, dwells on this text without the
least doubt of its symbolical meaning ; and that, in
the former case, in the midst of enemies, who, had
they not been used to such a system of interpreta-
tion, would only have been offended or disgusted by
the allusion.
The Lord hath made a faithful oath unto David, and He cxxxu. ii.
shall not shrink from it : Of the fruit of thy body : will I set
upon thy seat.
Acts ii. 30. Therefore being a Prophet, and knowing that
God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his
loins, according to the flesh. He would raise up Christ to
sit on his throne ; he, seeing this before, spake of the resur-
rection of Cheist.
The poison of asps is under their lips. ^xi. s.
Eom. iii. 13. The poison of asps is under their Ups.
40. In conclusion, do we ordinarily attach sufficient The under-
importance to such expressions as that with reference the disI °
to our Lord in the last days of His earthly life ? l^^^^^r
"Then opened He their understanding, that they
might understand the Scriptures." Does not this
infer a regular tuition in some system of interpreta-
tion of which hitherto they knew nothing? He
expounded unto them all the things concerning
Himself. Some of those things, we have already
seen, involved what would now be called the deepest
mysticism, and forthwith we see its fruits. History
is no longer a bare relation of facts — it is a parable.
Agar is no longer the concubine of Abraham, but
"Mount Sinai in Arabia.'' The Mosaic law is a
Christian Parable ; " saith He it not altogether for
our sakes?" Christ is everywhere, in Prophet,
Psalm, History : every Old Testament Saint is the
type of the Saint of Saints; every persecutor is the
forerunner of the Destroyer of souls. And what fol-
lows? Observe the depth of study, the profound
search, the intensity of investigation of the mystics.
458 MYSTICAL AND LITERAL INTERPRETATION.
contrasted with the jej unity, the commonplace super-
ficiality of the literalists ! To the latter, Scripture
is no mine : its treasures are at the surface ; a first
reading may exhibit as much of the meaning as a
twentieth; and hence the stupid dictum of a mar-
vellous genius/ likening the first interpretation of the
Bible to the first crush of the grape, which first
crush is not wine, but a sickly and unwholesome
must.
Conclusion. 41. In uuison with the system which it has been
the object of this Essay to unfold, the present Com-
mentary is written. I know that it will be called,
by many, fanciful, unreal, destructive of Scripture,
will be said to put imagination in the place of reason,
and to substitute the words of men for the word of
God. But let this only be borne in mind. Our
system is the system, as all must allow, of every
saintly Commentator from S. Barnabas to S. Francis
de Sales — the system, as I have endeavoured to show,
not only of Isapostolic but of Apostolic writers.
The interpretations are none of them my own;
their authors are given ; they come with greater or
less authority; -but those that have least will be
found to possess some considerable weight. I claim
nothing but the poor thread on which the pearls are
strung. To collect them has been the happy work
of many years — work which has consoled me in trial,
added happiness to prosperity, afibrded a theme of
profitable conversation with dear friends, furnished
the subject-matter for numerous sermons. I pray
God to accept it as an offering to the Treasury of His
Church ; and to give that system, if it be His will,
favour in the eyes of Scriptural students, which I
know to be the only method whereby His own, be
it declaration or command, can be fully acted out,
IqsvvaTs Tus ypoL^a-s . . . xou EKEINAI EIIilN ' AI
MAPTTPOTXAl UEPl EMOT.
^ [Lord Bacon.]
I
I
459
PSALM XXXI.
Title. Bible Version : To the Chief Musician, a Psalm of
David. Vulgate : In finem, Psalmus David, pro extasi.
Argument.
Aeg. Thomas. That Christ, vrhen crucified, commended His
Spirit into His Father's hands, speedily to receive it again. The
Voice of Christ, hanging on the Cross, and praying for Himself
and for His faithful people. Here is the Confession of Faith of
them that believe in God. The Voice of Christ in His Passion
concerning the Jews.
Ven. Bede. This title is a well-known one, pertaining to the
Lord Christ, concerning Whose Passion and Resurrection this
whole Psalm is sung.
Through the whole Psalm they are the words of the Lord the
Saviour. At the beginning He prayeth to the Father, that He
may be freed from imminent ills, and then exults, without doubting
that He hath been heard. Next, He returns to His Passion, and by
diverse allusions, marvellously describeth how it was ordered. Have
mercy upon Me, 0 Lord, for I am in trouble. Thirdly, He return-
eth thanks for Himself and His faithful people, since He hath given
His gifts of mercy to the universal Church : admonishing also the
Saints that they persevere in the love of the Lord, since they have
heard of the rewards of the good, and the retribution of the evil.
This Psalm may, historically, be understood of David himself.
Syriac Psalter. A thanksgiving, and a perpetual supplication
to God.
S. Jerome. The Psalm, at the opening, contains the voice of
the Mediator Himself; then of the people redeemed by His Blood,
in the person of the Prophet. The Redeemer therefore saith to the
Father, In Thee, 0 Lord, &c.
Various Uses.
Gregorian. Ferial : Comphne, every night, to ver. 6, inclusive.
Monday : Matins.
Monastic. Sunday: II. Noctum ; and Compline on the last
three days of Holy Week, ver. 1—6.
Parisian. Wednesday : Prime.
Lyons. Monday : III. Noctum.
Amhrosian. Tuesday of the First Week : HI. Noctum.
Quignon. Sunday : Compline, ver. 1—6 : and Monday, Nocturns.
Antiphons.
Gregorian. Monday : Matins as before. Compline : Have mercy
upon me * and hearken unto my prayers.
Lyons. Dehver me * in Thy righteousness.
Mozarabic. In Thee, O Lord, have I put my trust : let me
never be confounded ; but rid me and deliver me in Thy righ-
teousness.
x2
460
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
S. Athanas.
ad Mar-
cellin.
Ay.
Didymus.
Origen.
I have before mentioned the tradition that our Loed, beginning
the 22nd Psalm on the Cross, went through that and those which
follow, till He concluded His prayer and His mortal life together
with the sixth verse of the present Psalm. The first six verses,
therefore, have always been considered as forming a separate Psalm ;
and from the very earliest ages have been appropriated in the West
to Compline. For, night being the type of death, it was felt that
the words with which our Loed closed the day of His earthly life
were the fittest with which the Loed's followers could close each
day of their earthly pilgrimage. What is the precise meaning of
the words ipro extasi, which end the title, it seems difficult to say : it
seems probable that it had its rise from the verse, J *aic^ in My haste,
this same expression occurring in the LXX. It is not mentioned by
S. Jerome, nor Cassiodorus ; though it is recognised by S. Augustine.
The poet ApoUinarius evidently takes it of the especial influx of the
Holy Ghost under which David composed this Psalm. The Psalm
itself is recommended by S. Athanasius to Marcellinus as most
appropriate to the Christian who, for the Name of his Master, is
enduring the attacks of enemies, or sufiering from the coldness of
friends. S. Augustine dwells at great length on the ecstasy or trans-
port under which it was composed. "An ecstasy," says he, "is
either a panic on account of some dreadful apprehension, or a strain-
ing after heavenly things in such sort, that the sense of earthly
things is in some sense lost." And having shown how, in either
sense, the Psalm is applicable, he proceeds : " Here, then, Cheist
speaketh in the Prophet ; I venture to say Cheist speaketh. The
Psalmist will say some things in this Psalm which may seem as if
they could not apply to Cheist, to that excellency of our Head,
and especially to that Word Which was in the beginning GToD with
GrOD : nor perhaps will some things here seem to apply to Him in the
form of a servant, which form of a servant He took from the Virgin :
and yet Cheist speaketh, because Cheist in Cheist's members."
1 In thee^ O Lord_, have I put my trust : let mi
never be put to confusion, deliver me in thy righ-
teousness.
Let Me never he fut to confusion. If they are the words]
of our Loed on the Cross, then it is better to take them in the
Vulgate sense, Let me not he put to confusion eternally.
" Though I bear all the sins of the world for a while, in order
that they may be done away for ever, let them be confounded
that persecute Me, but let not Me be confounded ; let them
be afraid, but let not Me be afraid." And observe that the
verse which is the commencement of this Psalm of David's,
is the end of the most glorious hymn that the Church uses :
O Lord, in Thee have I trusted : let me never he confounded.
As if to show us that the beginning and end of Christian life
must send up this prayer, — must acknowledge that from our
own acts, if we are left to ourselves, nothing but confusion *
can follow. In Thy righteousness. They take it of the Son
of God, Who is made wisdom and righteousness to us. And
here, as they observe, and all through the Psalm, David
PSALM XXXI. 461
sometimes speaks in the person of the Head, sometimes in
that of the members, without giving any notice of the change.
"Which he doth," says Ayguan, " on account of the exceed- Ay.
ing unity which there is between the Head and the members.
Just as the tongue undertakes to speak in the person of all
the limbs ; as, if the foot be hurt, the tongue says, You hurt
me. For He Who vouchsafed for us to be Man, and to be
endued with the form of a servant, disdains not to transfigure
us into Himself. Which He doth in many ways ; as when
He speaketh in the person of His members as if it were His
own, ' Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me ?' And again, ' I
was an hungered, and ye gave Me meat.' Or when He ma-
nifests, in or from Himself, something which He hath not of
Himself, but of us, because He has mercifully received it
from us : as when He speaks of being sorrowful, or of fear-
ing. He, then, Who thus transfigures us into Himself, dis-
dains not to use our words, that we may with a good courage
employ His. Wherefore, although Christ saith some things
in this Psalm which cannot apply to Him as Head of the
Church, yet it is Cheist Who speaks them for all that, be-
cause Christ is in His members, and the Person of the
Bridegroom and Bride are, as it were, one." And S. Augus-
tine still more strikingly : " The wonderful and excellent
unity of this Person the prophet Isaiah also sets forth : for ^'
speaking in him too, Christ saith in prophecy : ' He hath
bound a mitre on Me as on a bridegroom the chaplet, and
hath adorned Me with ornaments as a bride.' He calls Him-
self the Bride as well as the Bridegroom : why calls He Him-
self the Bridegroom and the Bride, unless they should be two
in one flesh ? If two in one flesh, why not two in one voice ?
Christ may therefore speak, because the Church speaks in
Christ, and Christ in the Church, and the Body in the Head,
and the Head in the Body." Notice that the words which
are in the LXX., /col i^e\od /*€, are not to be found either
in the Hebrew or in the Vulgate, and are very probably only
a different version of the same phrase. Let me never he put
to confusion. It may be in the future— I shall never be con-
founded; or better still, I shall not be confounded for ever: C.
that is, though I may be confounded for a while, though for
a while it may seem that God's face was withdrawn from
me, that promise shall be fulfilled, " For shame ye shall have
double, and for confusion they shall delight in their portion : ^s*- l^i. 7.
therefore in their land shall they possess the double, everlast-
ing joy shall be upon them."
2 Bow down thine ear to me : make haste to de-
liver me.
Bow doion, in two senses: the one by which the Lord
bowed His ear to the commandments of His Father ; the L.
other by which, since our prayers have no power to ascend
462
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
A.
Ps. xviii. g.
A.
Gloss.
Rupert.
S. Greg. M.
Homil. in
Ezek.
S. Greg. M.
S. Albertus
Magnus.
to heaven, the Son of God stoops, as it were, to meet them
half way. Or mystically, Bow doivn Thyself, as in the In-
carnation : for so it is written, " He bowed the heavens, and
came down." In like manner, when the woman taken in
adultery was brought before our Loed, He stooped down :
just as when the whole human race was arraigned before the
tribunal of His justice. He had stooped down, by taking
upon Himself our form, and became subject to the Cross for
our sakes. Make haste to deliver me. It is the natural
prayer of man, and as we see, not forbidden by grace. But
think how long the time seems to us in passing, which is to
our Loed but as one moment; for a thousand years to Him :
are but as one day, and one day as a thousand years. The
Master of the Sentences understands the text in a different
way. Others must wait until the time of the general Eesur-
rection : Make haste to deliver Me. Them Thou shalt raise
again at the end of the world ; Me, on the third day : them,
as the general harvest ; Me, as the first-fruits. Or, if we
take it in another sense : Make haste to deliver Me, and
why ? Because man makes such haste to destroy himself.
3 And be thou my strong rock^ and house of de-
fence : that thou mayest save me.
4 For thou art my strong rock, and my castle :
be thou also my guide, and lead me for thy name's
sake.
The foolishness of God is wiser than man. So it may be
said of these two verses : Be Thou My strong rock : for Thou
art My strong rock : the prayer to God that He may be that
which we know He is. That He may be in reality and in
our feeling that which we know Him to be by faith. It is
the same prayer that might be made with respect to one of
the cities of refuge. We know that He is our hiding-place,
as the city of refuge was the hiding-place of those who had
committed manslaughter. But as the city of refuge was no
refuge except to those that used their utmost endeavours to
fly thither, so this our strong rock, however much it be so
by nature, will not be so to us, unless with all our heart and
soul we seek that He should be such. Be Thou My strong
rock. " Notice," says S. Gregory, " that the place is of little
avail, unless the Spirit of God be present. Satan sinned in
heaven ; Adam sinned in Paradise ; Lot, who had been a
saint in Sodom, sinned in the mountain." For Thou art My
strmig rock — there we have the past ; the various helps for
the sake of which we trust God : and my castle — there we
have the future ; the erection of hope which we dare to build
because we have been so assisted in times past. Be Thou
also my Guide. In one sense we thank the Loed that He
has been our Guide ; in the other we pray that we may follow
His steps, because He is our Guide. That He marked out
I
PSALM XXXI. 463
the path for us, we know : that we cannot walk in ihe path
which He has marked out for us, except by His own grace,
we know also. And lead me. And there we see the neces- Cd.
sarj progression of a Christian life. Thou art my strong Ja.
rock : Be Thou also my guide. A guide is not wanted in a
fortress ; but a guide is needed in such an aggressive warfare
as ours always must be. And notice why we are to be led :
Lead me, for Thy Name's sake. Thy Name, the Name set Rupert,
over the Cross, Jesus of Nazareth ; Thy Name, the Name so
given by the Angel, before He was conceived in the womb.
Lead me : because this our true Moses is our leader in the
wilderness : because this our trae Joshua is our leader over
the Jordan to the promised land.
5 Draw me out of the net that they have laid
privily for me : for thou art my strength.
Many, says a mediaeval writer, were the nets which Satan Rupert,
laid for our Lord : the triple net of concupiscence in the
wilderness ; the net of perplexity in the questionings of the
Scribes and Pliarisees ; the net of fear in the garden; the
net of divided duty upon the Cross. And yet it is written, s. Pet.
that they have laid; for Satan acts not by himself, but era- Chrysolog.
ploys his instruments, whether the natural impulses of the
human frame, as hunger and thirst, or the mistakes of good
men, as the Apostles, " Lord, wilt Thou at this time ?" or
the temptations of the wicked, as the " Let Christ the King
of Israel descend now from the Cross" of the Chief Priests.
Cardinal Hugo dwells at great length on the way in which
God extricates His elect from these nets. " De heo" as he Hugo Card,
says, " educente, deducetite, circumducente, adducente, intro-
ducente." In the Vulgate and the LXX. the prayer is made Hugo Vie-
still more emphatic and immediate, Draic me out of this net : *onn.
as if to adopt the supplication with the greater force to every
one of God's servants who may take it in their lips. Art
thou in trouble, O Christian, from the concupiscence of an
evil heart ? Bratv me out of this net, that they— the lust of
the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life— have laid
for me. Art thou beset by the machinations of evil spirits,
with thoughts injected into the soul which thou abhorrest,
whether they spring from the Mammon of covetousness, the
Moloch of anger, or the Belial of impurity ? L>raw me out of
this net that they have laid for me. Art thou afflicted with
earthly enemies, eager to slander away thy good name, to
deprive thee of thy rightful influence, to cut short thy means
of serving God P Draw me out of this net that they have laid
for me. Or, if you choose to take it rather as the future,— G.
Thou shalt draw Me out, — marvellously was that promise
fulfilled. The net spread was, " Is it lawful to give tribute
unto Caesar or not?" The rent in the net was, "Render
therefore unto Cajsar the things that are Csesar's, and unto
464 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
God the things that are God's." The net was, " Moses in
the Law commanded that such should be stoned, but what
sayest Thou ?" The rent was, " He that is without sin
amongst you, let him first cast a stone at her." The net,
" Let Cheist the King of Israel descend :" the rent, " It is
C. finished." But above and beyond all, at that first Easter,
this prayer or promise was most emphatically fulfilled. The
net then, the cavern of the new tomb, the great stone, the
quaternion of soldiers, the seal. And how He was drawn out
of that net, let the Alleluias of Easter-tide year by year re-
peat. And yet notice that word 'privily, although it is given
^ with more force in our version than in the LXX. or Vulgate.
^' Eor never is any net so dangerous, — never is any machina-
tion of Satan so formidable, — as when it is secret. The
prayer of the hero of old might be the prayer of every Chris-
tian now, " Only give us light, and destroy us." This then
is what he prays to be delivered out of: now see what He
prays to be delivered into.
6 Into tliy hands I commend my spirit : for thou
hast redeemed me, O Lord, thou God of truth.
G. O blessed verse, whereby the world's redemption was
sealed ! wherewith the most pure Spirit of the Savioue de-
parted from His most sacred Body ! This is the verse which,
as it hallowed the dying bed of the Master, so it has formed
the last utterance of many of His servants. Happy verse,
which has merited to form the last accents of so many of
those from death to life, from sorrow to joy, from a vale of
L. misery to a paradise of immortality ! The Proto-martyr
ended his struggle with these words : the same words are
recorded to have been uttered by the dying S. JSTicolas ; by
S. Basil the Great; and above all by S. Louis of Erance,
who with this prayer breathed forth his spirit on the coast
of Tunis, just as the Christian fleet was reported in sight.
Rufinus. Thence arises the question, a question much discussed by me-
diaeval authors, how far the Soul of Cheist may be said to
have been redeemed. And they answer that it was, by His
own perfect obedience : nevertheless, in a far difi'erent sense
from that in which the souls of His servants are redeemed.
Just as our Loed commended His Spirit to God in a dif-
ferent way from that in which we also commend our spirits
to Him : He, as a Son to His Eathee ; we, as a pardoned
Yen. Bede. culprit to a merciful Judge. There is a tradition among the
later Eathers that Satan took his station on the left arm of
the Cross during the whole time of our Loed's Passion, an-
xiously waiting for something that he might have to accuse
Him, and that with these words he found his endeavour in
C. vain, and departed. Cassiodorus well says, He commends
to the Eathee that inestimable treasure, His soul. If that
soul were an inestimable treasure, it was of greater value
PSALM xxxr. 465
than the whole world : therefore, in giving it, He paid the
ransom of the whole world. It was a good and safe hand
to which He trusted that treasure. It is a happy thought of s. Theo-
one of the oldest Christian writers, that, ever since our Loed p^^*"^'
pronounced this commendation of His own Spirit, the spirits
of the righteous have had secure access to the same Father :
and 80 says S. Athanasius, that the souls of all good men s. Athanas.
w^ere by these same words entrusted into the same loving
care, Cheist desiring that His people should have no less
secure place of refuge at the hour of their death, than He
had at His. It was an ancient custom, though not com-
manded, that I know, by any rubric, that the Priest, at the
moment of consecration, should repeat these words to him-
self; testifjdng the completion of the bloody Sacrifice on
Calvary at the moment of the consummation of the unbloody
Sacrifice on the Altar.
7 I have hated them that hold of superstitious
vanities : and my trust hath been in the Lord,
It well follows, Because into Thy hands, therefore I hate L.
all other hands. And so in the opposite sense : Because the
LoED answered not Saul, therefore he consulted the woman ' ^^.™-
that had a familiar spirit. Vanities, in their primary sense, ^''^"^' ""
no doubt are the idols that having eyes, see not, having ears,
hear not ; but also all those helps in which man is wont to put
his trust, and of which it is written, " Thus saith the Loed : jgr. ix. 23.
Let not the rich man glory in his riches, neither let the
mighty man glory in his might." Notice that the Vulgate
translates, not, / have hated, but T/iou hast hated ; still the ^"' ^ ^'
speech of our Loed, and still with reference to His own ob-
lation. S. Augustine says very well, " Who holds to vanity ? A.
He that by fear of death dieth. For by fear of death he
lieth, and dieth before he dies, who therefore lied that he
might live. Whereas Thou shunnest one death, which Thou
canst put off, but canst not put away. Thou fallest into two,
80 as that Thou diest first in soul, and then in body." And nugoVic-
Hugh of S. Victor says very well, " It is the voice of the torin.
righteous man who despises present felicity. He had just
before commended his spirit to God ; and as if he were now
asked what he desired to be done with his body, he answers
that he cares not, because all flesh is vanity. For they who
superfluously and unlawfully attend to it, and minister to it,
cannot keep it back one hour from corruption." Again : it „
is, they say, mercifully spoken by God ; Thou hatest them ""•
that observe vanities, not that are surrounded with them, not
that sometimes give way to them, not even that are subject to
them ; (for it is written, " The creature was made subject to Rom. viii.
vanity not willingly ;") but only those that observe, that is ^^'
give themselves up to, them.
X 3
Ex. ii. 23.
)\
466 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS. V
8 I will be glad, and rejoice in thy mercy : for
thou hast considered my trouble^ and hast known
my soul in adversities.
j^ It is to this verse that the Blessed Virgin seems to refer
when she says, " For He hath regarded the lowliness of His
handmaiden :" words almost the same with the LXX. ren-
dering of Thou hast considered my trouble. And see how
beautifully the two clauses depend on each other : I will he
glad and rejoice — and why .P — hecause Thou hast considered
G. my trouble. How did He consider it but by taking it upon
Himself .P It is written of old time that " the Lokd looked
upon the affliction of the children of Israel, and had respect
unto them ;" but He not only looked on the affliction of His
true Israel, but He Himself took it upon Himself. The in-
ference is perhaps more ingenious than true which Gerhohus
draws : Thou hast looked back upon, respexisii, not simply
looked upon, aspexisti, my trouble. And why ? ]3ecause Thy
face was formerly turned away from me on account of my
sins. Thou hast known my soul in adversities. And oh, how
well does He, Who for our sakes was so afflicted, rejected
by those whom He came to save, slain by those to whom
He came to give life, how well does He know our soul in
the time of its suflferings ! Thou hast known. Yes, always
with the knowledge of omniscience ; but with the knowledge
Hugo Vic- <5f sympathy only from the time that Thou didst not abhor
toriii. the Virgin's womb. So, as always, God suflfers that man
p may rejoice ; God is troubled that man may exult. Cassio-
dorus well draws a lesson from this verse against Pelagian-
ism ; telling us, as it does, how the I will of the first clause
depends on the Thou hast of the second. In adversities.
Or as it is in the LXX. and the Vulgate, From necessities.
Necessities, so made by sin : as labour is now a necessity be-
cause of God's award, " In the sweat of thy face thou shalt
eat bread:" as death is a necessity, because of the declara-
tion, " Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." And
by these necessities we may understand that which the
schoolmen call the penalties —
Cauma, gelu, sitis, esuries, morbus, labor et mors.
9 Thou hast not shut me up into the hand of the
enemy : but hast set my feet in a large room.
I^^ The original reference was no doubt to the city of Keilah,'
where David was so nearly shut up to his destruction. So
was Jonah shut up in the whale's belly ; so Joseph in Pha-
Cd. raoh's prison. But above all, so was our Loed shut up in
the narrow sepulchre ; of which, nevertheless, it may be
said, that He was not shut up there, seeing that early on the
third morning He was set free thence. And it is worth
S. Albert. M.
Ay.
PSALM XXXI. 467
while to notice how often the width or breadth of the place of
deliverance forms a part of Scriptural thanksgiving; "Thou p^ ^^,.„
shalt make room enough under me for to go, that my foot- ^•*^*"' ' "
steps shall not slide." As if with reference to that Jerusalem
in which there are many mansions :
Our homes are here too narrow ;
Our friends are far apart,
We scarce share joy or sorrow
With the desert of our heart ;
There will be room above
In our great Fathee's hall,
To live witli those we love
Through the best time of all.
And the large room may also mean the Church Catholic on G.
earth, extended as it is from sea to sea, and from the flood
unto the world's end. My feet. They understand it also of
the Apostles, who went forth through the world, being, as it
were, the Lord's feet, in order to proclaim His message, and
destroying the power of Satan ; as it is written, " The foot
shall tread it down, even the feet of the poor and the steps
of the needy."
10 Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am in
trouble : and mine eye is consumed for very heavi-
ness ; yea, my soul, and my body.
The command is, " Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and s. Alb. Ma^.
weep with them that weep." Therefore the Church, though Rom. xii. 15.
rejoicing with her triumphant Lord, she has just said, " Thou
hast set my feet in a large room," yet, sorrowing with her
militant members, continues, almost in the same breath,
Have mercy upon me, for I am in trouble. Or, if we like Gr.
to go back again, and see here the afflictions of which we
have in the preceding verse seen the termination, then they g rj^^^
take the eye of the understanding, the soul of the will, the Aquin.
body — or as it is in the Vulgate, the belly — of the memory ; p^^*^|^
because, as food is digested by the one, so are facts by the posT'peiit.
other. And in all these our blessed Lord suffered, so as to q
be consumed or worn out by them. Hence the question of
the Jews, " Thou art not yet fifty years old." Some of the ^[^^^V-
schoolmen have gathered from this verse that our Lord,
while still in the flesh, actually suffered the pains of damna-
tion : an opinion which, if not heretical, is at all events as false ^isk. ^
as it is painful. But if we put these words in the mouth of
the Church, then the eye is to be understood of her prelates,
by whom, as it were, she sees ; the soul, of her more intellec- Gloss.
tual children ; the body, of the poor and ignorant. Instead
of Mine eye is consumed for very heaviness, the Vulgate has
it, is troubled with anger. "And how should we not be A.
468
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
angry, says S. Augustine, " to see those filling the theatres
who a little before filled the churches ; to hear those blas-
pheming ^ho but a little before said Amen in the service ;
those who have taken the words of David on their lips, per-
CJ^ forming the works of Satan in their lives." And this also
we may learn, — how hard is that war which the saints have
to carry on against the world, the flesh, and the devil ; that
war which made S. Paul cry out, " O wretched man that I
am !" and David say, 3Iine eye is consumed for very hea-
L.
Ven. Bede.
Ay-
S. Albert.
Magn.
Isa. Ix. 8.
1 1 For my life is waxen old with heaviness : and
my years with mourning.
12 My strength faileth me, because of mine ini-
quity : and my bones are consumed.
Still our LoED speaks ; and He speaks of what He suffered,
to the end that thou, O Christian, shouldst become, instead
of a Benoni, a child of sorrow, a Benjamin, a son of His right
hand. And notice, He not only tells us how, during His
w^hole life. He was a man of sorrows for our sake, but how
long that life was ; for length of time is not to be measured
by the number of years, but by the number of doings or suf-
ferings in those years. Instead of heaviness, the Vulgate
translates, My strength has become tveah in poverty, or beg-
gary, as the LXX. has it. Ayguan complains bitterly how
true that was in his time ; how the Church was weakened,
not by means of poverty, but in poverty by means of riches.
It is the old story of " golden chalices and wooden priests."
Singularly enough, Parez^ understands it in exactly the oppo-
site sense. S. Albertus draws the best corollary from the
text. " Cheist speaks, and speaks concerning His members.
Hence we can test ourselves whether we are of the members
of Cheist and the Church : if so, we are in very heaviness :
and because of this moaning it is that the Church is called a
dove. Hence the Apostles also are called doves : ' Who are
these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their win-
dows?'"
13 I became a reproof among all mine enemies,
but especially among my neighbours : and they of
mine acquaintance were afraid of me ; and they that
did see me without conveyed themselves from me.
^ This commentator, living in
a most worldly age, and at a
time when the Church had at-
tained a degree of wealth which
it never knew before or since,
applies this text to her sufferings
on account of her poverty. Truly,
tlie complaint is worthy of one
who dedicated his commentary
to Cardinal Koderick de Borgia,
afterwards Alexander VI.
PSALM XXXI. 469
Mine enemies ; and they understand it of the heathen : ^
M^ neighbours ; it is said of the Jews : Mine acquaintances ; ^'
that applies to bad Christians. And these, as causing more
pain to our Loed than either heathens or Jews, are put in A.
the third and highest place. These are the vine-branches of ^^^^ ^^ ^
•which Ezekiel speaks ; branches of the True Vine, but to be
cut oflf and thrown into the fire. And as of other trees, how-
ever wild, however knotty, some use may still be made, but
vine-branches are absolutely worthless save to heat the oven,
so of the comparative demerits of heathens and bad Chris-
tians. They of Mine acquaintance ivere afraid of Me. Of s. Albert. M.
whom is it written but of Peter, who was indeed afraid of
that acquaintance? who said, "1 know not the man." So -r\ n
that our Lord might say with Job in old time, " Mine ac- ■^- ^•
quaintance are verily estranged from me : my kinsfolk have '^°^ ^^' ^^^
failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me." They veu. Bede.
that did see Me without ; only as He was in His external ap-
pearance ; only as He was when there was no form nor come- ^sa., im. 2.
liness, and when He was seen, no beauty that He should be
desired. They saw His humanity, and could not behold His
Divinity ; they saw how He was punished in the sight of wis. Ui. 4.
men, they saw not His hope full of immortality. And as
with the Master, so with the servants, says S. Bernard.
Multi vident nostras cruces qui non vident nostras unctiones.
I became also a reproof ; and as the Head did, so do His
members. " If any one," says S. Chrysostom, " strives after s. chrysost.
patience and humility, he is a hypocrite. If he allows him-
self in the pleasures of this world, he is a glutton. If he
seeks justice, he is impatient ; if he seeks it not, he is a fool.
If he would be prudent, he is stingy ; if he would make
others happy, he is dissolute. If he gives himself up to
prayer, he is vainglorious. And this is the great loss of the
Church, that by means like these many are held back from
goodness ; which the Psalmist lamenting says, I became a
reproof among all mine enemies.'^
14 I am clean forgotten, as a dead man out of
mind ; I am become like a broken vessel.
Clean forgotten. Not absolutely, but so far as hope is con- D. C.
cemed. We trusted that it had been He which should have
redeemed Israel. We trusted. O miserable imperfect ! And s. Albert. m.
observe again, that the Loed is not forgotten by our lips, but
by our heart. And so it is written in Isaiah : " This people isa.xxix.i3.
draw near Me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour
Me, but have removed their heart far from Me." And in
Jeremiah : " Thou art near in their mouth, and far from their
reins." I am become like a broken vessel. Even like those
pitchers which, in the midnight attack on the army of the
Midianites, being dashed together and broken, emitted the
glare of the concealed lamp to the confusion of the assembled s. Bernard.
470
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
host. For so the Lord's Body bein^
gave to light the till then concealec
vinity.
broken on the Cross,
splendour of His Di-
* li. With pitcher and with burning lamp
He marched to storm th' invader's camp,
Our own, our Eoyal Gideon.
The mortal pitcher shattered sore,
The Godhead's lamp to ruin bore
The vanquish'd host of Midian.
Diez. : Serm. I can hardly admire the observation of Diez, who from this
i. Dom. i. expression gathers that the Passion of our Lord is profitable
pos pip . ^^j. gygpy. pu^rpose we can need. A vessel which is not broken
usually serves but to one or two uses : " Let it," says he,
" once be shattered, and we care not to what end, however
vile, we employ it."^ S. Paulinus says : " Our Lord Jesus,
the Word of God, was made flesh and dwelt among us ; and
took upon Himself the fragile vessel of our body, which by
the voluntary sin of Adam had, as it were, slipped from his
hand and been broken, that He might form it in a better
s. Paulinus- ^o^ld, becoming, as the Psalmist says, ahrohen vessel, in the
Epist. iii. likeness of a body of sin, that He might condemn sin in the
Rom. viii. 3. body."
15 For I have heard the blasphemy of the multi-
tude : and fear is on every side, while they conspire
together against me^ and take their counsel to take
away my life.
L.
Take it literally, and you have the evil say-
ings of Nabal and Shimei : take it mystically, and jiJu. are
s.Lukexxii. ^^^ *^ ^^^ Pavement and to the Cross : you hear the " Pro-
64. phesy, who is it that smote Thee?" and the many other
things blasphemously spoken against Him. Fear teas on
every side. In the contests of tlie servants of G-od it was
U, now on this side, now on that ; never on every side at once.
In the contest of the Son of God, all that they bore sepa-
rately, He bore conjointly, and by means of all He "was
heard in that He feared." They coyisjjire : for like Samson's
s. Aibertus foxes, with difi'erent aims and going in different ways, — for
agnus. neither so did their witness agree together, — they were yet
joined together by the firebrand of malice. And they con-
Ay. spire principally against three things : against the wisdom of
Christ, to catch Him in His words ; against the goodness of
^ Lorinus says, "I ought some-
times to mention and to refute
such explanations as this, lest
ray readers should acquire a taste
for expositions wliich ought to
be rejected : as if Holy Scripture
were so jejune as explained by
the Fathers, that we must gree-
dily have recourse to such trash
as the above." There is some
truth in this remark ; yet Diez,
in his way, is sometimes a beau-
tiful commentator too.
PSALM XXXI. 471
Christ, in ascribing His works to the devil ; against the
power of Cheist, in putting Him to death. And thus the
prophecy was fulfilled: "The Lord said unto me, A con- Jer. xi.g.
spiracy is found among the men of Judah, and among the
inhabitants of Jerusalem."
16 But my hope hath been in thee, O Lord : I
have said, Thou art my God.
For the first clause see the first verse of this Psalm : for
the second, read what is said on Psalm xvi. 2.
17 My time is in thy hand ; deliver me from the
hand of mine enemies : and from them that perse-
cute me.
My time is in Thy hand : or as it is in the LXX. and the
Vulgate, My lots are in Thy hand. It has been thought that
the LXX. altered the passage in order to protest against the
idea of human aflfairs being ordered by fate, and to teach
that that which seemed as uncertain and accidental, as a lot, ^s^^^^^^-
was really in God's hand. Others think that it is an error
of transcription : KKr\poi for Kaipoi. The old Italic, and there-
fore, of course, Cassiodorus and the Mozarabic, have tempora.
What does the lot mean ? The Doctor of grace, of course,
explains it of grace. " Since God had found no deserts of
ours, He hath saved us by the lot of His own will, because A.
He willed, not because we were worthy. This is a lot. With
much significance upon that vesture of the Lord woven from ^\g^^"e J
the top, which signifies the eternity of love, when it could AdoVat. in I
not be divided by the persecutors, was the lot cast." Others spir. 4.
understand it of the various lots or portions of life. And s. Gregor.
hence because the lot of life is in God's hands and not in^^^l'sasf*
our^, therefore S. Athanasius argues in his apology for his ^ ^^.j^^nas
flight, that we have no right to throw it away by exposing it '
to the fury of persecutors. " Thou givest," says Theodoret, Theodoret.
" to whom Thou wilt, and as Thou wilt, the lot of sorrow or
joy, riches or poverty, servitude or domination, peace or war ;
and again Thou changest these lots according to the purpose
of Thine own counsel." Eusebius, who takes the other read-
ing, understands the clause as an exhortation to patience.
My time is in Thy hand : the time when Thy promise shall
be fulfdled ; " Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be Eusebius.
comforted" the time when Thine own sweet words ^ shall be
made good ; " Your sorrow shall be turned into joy ;" the time
of which it is written, " The patient abiding of the meek shall
not perish for ever." My time, because it will work for my
good ; because its procrastination is to try my faith, because
its arrival is to awaken my thankfulness. " Give us, O Lord,"
cries the most scriptural of commentators, "the lot of pre- s. Albert. M,
destination according to the good pleasure of Thy wiU, — the Eph. i. 5.
lot of grace, that with Thine Apostle, I may receive the re-
472
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Gloss.
mission of sin by faith in Thee ; and the lot of glory, as
Dan. xii. 13. Thou didst promise to Thy holy Prophet, that he should stand
in his lot' at the end of the days. Notice ; they distinguish
between mine enemies, and them that persecute me. By the
former, they understand Satan ; by the latter, his earthly
agents. At the end of this verse there is in the Mozarabic
Psalter a diapsalma : and the Antiphon for the second part
is: "LoED, let me not be confounded : for I have called
upon Thee."
18 Show thy servant the light of thy countenance :
and save me for thy mercies' sake.
s. Ambros. S. Ambrose, in one of his epistles, explains at length how
Epist. 82 ad ^Q name and duties of a servant are applied to Him " Who
Ay.
Ricard. Vic-
torin.
Rupert.
took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the
likeness of men." Thy countenance. For God shows His
countenance to us in two ways ; to faith in types and enig-
mas; to sight in the Beatific Vision. Eichard of S. Victor
says, " There can be nothing sweeter, nothing more desirable
to lovers, than mutually to see one another, and without this
everything that to others is pleasant seems distasteful, every-
thing that to others is desirable seems loathsome. Each de-
sires to love and to be loved, each desires to see and to be
seen. After the fashion, therefore, of a lover, the soul that
is inflamed with the desire of Divine love, that is in an
ecstasy with the longing for the Celestial Bridegroom, crieth
out, Shoto the light of Thy countetiance upon Thy servant."
Again, they take Thy countenance to signify the Son, Thy
mercy to set forth the Holy G-host. Gerhohus, here com-
paring the shining forth of God's face to the light which
the pillar of fire shed upon the camp of the Israelites,
works out the whole type with reference to that analogy.
And again, taking God's countenance of our Lord, we may
see in it the fourfold character of this Angel of the Great
Counsel, and may pray to be transformed into the image of
each. That by the mystery of the Divine Incarnation, the
face of a man, we may have brotherly love ; by the mystery
of the Lord's Passion, the face of an ox, we may crucify the
flesh with its affections and lusts ; by the mystery of the
Lord's Hesurrection the face of a lion, we may gain the cou-
rage of resistance, so that sin may no longer have dominion
over us ; by the mystery of the Lord's Ascension, the face
of an eagle, that we may also in heart and mind ascend to
Him and with Him continually dwell. In this way the light
of our Lord's Countenance is to be displayed on us, changmg
while it shines upon us, into His own image.
19 Let rae not be confounded, O Lord, for I have
called upon thee : let the ungodly be put to confu-
sion, and be put to silence in the grave.
PSALM XXXI. 473
20 Let the lying lips be put to silence : wliich
cruelly, disdainfully, and despitefuUy speak against
the righteous.
Here again we have the optative of cursing, which we may
explain as a future, or as a prophecy. They take the lying s. Hiero-
lijis, not only to mean the lips that utter falsehood, but those "y"^-
which by speaking anything unworthy o^ a Christian, break
the conditions under which they were given to man, namely,
of being employed in the praises of God. Jjet me not he Gr.
confounded. It is the same petition with which Bathsheba j ym\^% ii.
came to Solomon, and that we must present to the true So- i6.
lomon. Again : there is no occasion to take the prayer, Let
them he put to confusion, as a petition for their destruction;
rather, let them be put to salutary shame here, in order that
they may not find the day of grace past, and when the season
for prayer is over, be put to silence in the grave. Those who
have written on penitence, have employed this text to show g q
that there may be great sorrow for sin without a spark of
true repentance. Those that are lost, grieve, as Dives did,
not for the guilt of their sin, but for the bitterness of their
punishment : for there can be no true repentance without
confession, and here there is no confession because there is
silence. And notice again the triplicity of evil as so con-
stantly through Holy Scriptures : cruelly, disdainfully, and ^
despitefuUy. Cruelly : when they have both the power and ^*
the will to do harm : " We beseech thee, let this man be put Rupert,
to death," of Jeremiah : " Let Him be crucified," of our Jer. xxxvUi.
Lord. DespitefuUy : when they have the will but not the ^•
Sower; "All this availeth me nothing, so long as I see j,g^jj^ j3
lordecai the Jew, sitting at the king's gate." Disdainfully:
when they think it not worth while to show their power ;
"Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even s. Albert. m.
break down their stone wall." Against the righteous. " This ^^^^ ^^..^ g
is the Name whereby He shall be called, The Lord our
Eighteous One."
21 O how plentiful is thy goodness, which thou
hast laid up for them that fear thee : and that thou
hast prepared for them that put their trust in thee,
even before the sons of men !
This verse is employed more than once by Origen to Origen, peri
prove the termination of the torments of hell, following as
it does on the clause which threatens them to the wicked.
Pseudo- Jerome endeavours to refute this application at great g ^att""
length. Which Thou hast laid up : or as it is m the Vulgate,
Which Thou hast hidden. With one consent they take it of ^.^^^^ ^.^
the Beatific Vision ; the great ocean of all blessedness, the torin. '
hidden sea which sends forth every stream of happmess that ^^^^ ^^^
comes into this world. Hence the Lord speaks of the kmg- dinai.
474
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Col. iii. 3.
Theodoret.
Origen.
Paulus Bur.
gens.
S. Thora.
Aquin.
G.
D. C.
dom of heaven as a hidden treasure : hence " our life is hid
with Christ in God." Theodoret well observes that the
laying up of this goodness, or rather sweetness, as it is in the
Vulgate, take it in whatever sense you will, is typified by the
law forbidding the employment of honey in sacrifices. This
life, which is a life of sacrifice and self-denial, is not to enjoy
the honey of God's perfect vision. But in inferior senses
they make very beautiful application. How plentiful is Thy
goodness in the deep and hidden meanings of Holy Scripture ;
those loving allegories and parables for which the Church in
all ages has been wont to dig ; the kernel hid in the shell,
the gold concealed in the ore, the gem tabernacled in the
shrine. Again, in another sense, this sweetness is hidden in
the Blessed Eucharist ; concealed /rom those whose soul, like
that of the Israelites, loathed this light bread ; who ask with
the Jews, How can this Man give us His Flesh to eat ? con-
cealedybr those who can say with that saint of old :
Jestj, quem velatum nunc aspicio,
Quando fiet illud quod tam sitio
Ut, te revelatd ceYweuB facie,
Visu sim beatus tuae glorise ?
Sow plentiful. Gerhohus well says : " It was sweetness that
the penitent thief heard the words, ' Thou shalt be in para-
dise,' even had that been to take place after thousands and
thousands of years ; but the plentiful sweetness was in the
word that the Loed added, 'to-day.' There we have the
plenty and the sweetness ; but the great plenty (for so it is
in the Vulgate) consisted in that, ' With "Me.' Consider
then the verse: 'Amen, I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou
be with Me in paradise.' Amen ; that is, I, the faithful and
true Amen, say faithfully and truly to thee, that, not after a
long lapse of time, but to-day, not with an Angel of lower or
higher rank, but with Me, shalt thou be in paradise : that is,
in the true garden of delights, where is the great plentiful-
ness of sweetness." And see what is the fruit of standing by
the Cross. We are taken thither at the beginning of the
Psalm by the words, ' Into Thy hands I commend My Spirit,'
and after waiting there, we have now come to the plentiful
goodness laid up in that kingdom to which this ladder set
upon the earth verily leads. Laid up for them that fear
Thee. Prepared for them that put their trust in Thee. See
how the fear of God leads us to hope in God. Dionysius
the Carthusian has a passage which I should spoil not to give
in his own words. " There is a double kind of fear, filial and
servile ; whence this passage may be interpreted in a double
sense. Thou hast hidden, that is, Thou hast concealed, these
Thy good things from them that fear Thee with a servile
fear. For such are neither worthy nor capable of the least
degustation of that Divine sweetness, because they do good
only, not from the love of good, but from the horror of pun-
PSALM XXXI. 475
ishment. In the other sense thus: lohich Thou hast laid
up ; that is, sweetly shown, and only declared in the hidden
chambers of the heart, to them that fear Thee with a filial
fear. But in the mean while, some that love God with only
initial fear, as those that are newly converted, are for one
short hour admitted to the table of the sons, so that they
may taste a little of the sweetness of God, and may cry out
to Him, O hoio plentiful is Thy goodness. But this is done
by the wisdom of Jesus Christ, that He may allure them to
Himself, and may cause them, as it is written in Ecclesiasticus, Eccius.
' in the day of evil to remember the day of good.' Wherefore, ^^' ^^' ^^^^'
they who have thus been privileged, have need to take great
care, lest when they are deprived of the aforesaid consolation,
they become pusillanimous, or else too importunately demand
it of God, in Whose hand it is to give, or not to give, as ' He
will.'" But in one sense more we must apply the words to
the sweetness of the Passion. The mystery indeed hid, and q^
laid up from ages and from generations, and at last revealed
on Calvary. Even before the sons of men. Not primarily nor
principally for their sakes ; but, says one, if a king's palace
is lighted up at night, however closely it be barred up and Hugo Vic-
concealed from view, yet flashes of the light and bursts of to'^"*-
the music will find their way forth, and be seen and heard by
the wanderer on the wild common in the dark night.
22 Thou shalt hide them privily by thine own pre-
sence from the provoking of all men : thou shalt keep
them secretly in thy tabernacle from the strife of
tongues.
Observe, in the first place, who it is that hides : "In that s. Albert. m.
day shall the Lobd defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem." zech. xii. 8.
Then, when He hides ; " Jacob shall return to his home, and j^^. ^^^ j^
shall be in rest and be quiet, and none shall make him afraid."
And, thirdly, from what ? From the provoking of all men,
which He while on earth bore Himself from the cradle to the
grave. And again notice : as S. Augustine says, of how little
value is place, however strong, or however well defended, in
itself for our protection. " It were of little avail to be hid- A.
den," says he, " in heaven, in paradise, in Abraham's bosom,
if God be not with thee. Let God Himself be our place,
and our house of refuge, and be thou the house of God, and
then thy house will dwell in thee and thou in it. If thou
shalt receive Him in this world in thy heart, then He shall
receive thee after this world to His presence." In Thy ta-
hernacle. It is Christ Himself; a tabernacle rather than a -^y-
temple in this sense ; that He goes along with us and abides
with us in all our journeyings through the world. Bellar-
mine says well: " In Thy tabernacle ; that is, in Thyself, in q^
which Thou also dwellest, for God hath no other tabernacle
wherein He can be found but Himself. And they that by
476
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
L.
Heb. xii. 3.
S. Lxike ii.
34.
Acts xxviii.
22.
love and contemplation dwell in God, fulfil the Psalm, ' Whoso
dwelleth under the defence of the Most High shall abide
under the shadow of the Almighty.' " From the strife of
tongues. Take it if you will, with S. Augustine, of heretics ;
our comfort must be to consider Him that endured such con-
tradiction of sinners against Himself, " lest we be weary and
faint in our minds." It was prophesied in His very infancy,
that our Loed should be " for a sign that should be spoken
against :" and of our Lord's people long after it was said,
" As concerning this sect we know that everywhere it is
spoken against."
Caietan.
Rabbi Salo-
mon.
Arias Mon-
tanus.
2 Sam. ii.
1—3.
G.
P.
Judg.
xviii. 7-
Ay.
Jer. i. 18.
A.
D. C.
23 Thanks be to tlie Lord : for lie hath showed
me marvellous great kindness in a strong city.
Literally, the greater number of commentators understand
the strong city of Keilah, and the marvellous great kindness
of the warning given to David by God that he would be de-
livered up by its inhabitants. According to others it refers
to the time when he was received by the Jews at Hebron,
whither God had commanded him to go up, and crowned
there. And first notice how faith loves to descend from the
general promise to the particular instance : *' Thou shalt hide
them" " Thou shalt keep them" and then, " Tie hath showed
me marvellous great kindness." Thanks he to the Lord. And
why ? Let Gerhohus tell us. *' Thanks, because He has
not weighed my merits according to my righteousness, but
has given His Holy Spirit, and showed me marvellous great
kindness. For what am I, and what is my father's house,
that to me, precondemned in original sin, and not justified by
actual righteousness, — to me, who am dust and ashes, He
should vouchsafe to show such kindness, and that without
any preceding good merits, but with a multitude of evil me-
rits ?" In a strong city. They take it of the Church militant,
strong in the infallibility of her doctrine, strong in the virtue
of her Sacraments, strong in the various gifts of the Holy
Ghost. They take it also, and that more blessedly, of the
Church triumphant ; strong in that no enemy can draw nigh
to attack her, as it is written, " The people that are therein
dwelt careless, quiet and secure." And again, they take it
of conscience ; as it is written, " Behold, I have made thee
this day a defenced city, and brazen walls against the whole
land, .and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not
prevail against thee." It is in the LXX. A city of encom-
pas.^ment, and therefore the Italic gives it, In civitate cir-
cumstantice : in the LXX. ireptox^s. This of course means a
city compassed round with walls and bulwarks. Yet Augus-
tine chooses to understand it of Jerusalem, which old belief
held to stand in the middle of the earth, and thus to be com-
passed round by every other people. The strong city is also
well applied to our Lord ; for, says one. His humanity, by
PSALM XXXI. 477
the mercy of God alone, has been assumed into a personal
union with the Word, preserved from every sin, and filled
with every grace, which created nature is capable of con-
taining.
[A soul free from passions is a walled city, but the enemies, Origen.
breaching this wall, made their way in together with Bath-
sheba to David. Wherefore he prays in the fiftieth (51st)
Psalm that the walls of Jerusalem may be built.]
24 And when I made baste, I said : I am cast out
of the sight of thine eyes.
When I made haste, as we are all so continually tempted Ay.
to do : " My time is not yet come, but your time is alway
ready." So the Apostles, only a few weeks after the resur-
rection, " Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom
to Israel?" But, according to the Vulgate, it is, I said in ^^^si. 6.
my ecstasy : and as S. Augustine reminds us, we must re-
member that the very title of the Psalm is, " A Psalm of
David in his ecstasy." They take this mystically to mean
the rapture of those who have been admitted to see some-
thing of the glory of the next world ; as Moses, to whom the
LoBD showed " His back parts," as Paul when he heard things
*' which it was not possible for a man to utter." And seeing
this glory, he would do as so many of the saints have done. Pseudo-
judge himself unworthy to stand in the presence of God. Epy^jg.
Thus the Seraphim with twain of their wings covered their rarch. iv. 3.
faces ; thus Elijah, M'hen he heard the still small voice, isa. vi. 2.
wrapped his face in his mantle : thus Moses, when he stood 1 Kings
by the burning bush, hid his face, for he was afraid to look '^'i^- ^^^
upon God : thus David was afraid to take the ark of the Loed 2^sam. vi.
into his own city: thus Simon Peter, after the miraculous \
draught of fishes, fell down and said, " Depart from me, for s. Luke v. 8.
I am a sinful man, O Loed." The whole again is very beau-
tifully applied to our Loed's Passion. Where notice three s. Aibertus
things : 1. That though He kept silence at the judgment-seat, Magnus,
yet not in His ecstasy of love on the Cross : / said, 2. Where
it was, on Calvary, in the greatest display of the greatest
love : I said in My ecstasy. 3. What it was : I am cast out
of the siqht of Thine eyes: and what is that but, " My God, D C.
My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me P" And again : / am
cast out. Compare with this that saying of S. Paul, regard-
ing Him that died on this same Cross : " The bodies of those
beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the Heb.xiii. 11,
High Priest for sin, are burned without the camp. Where- '
fore Jesus also . . . sufiered without the gate." And yet
again this : It is written in Isaiah, according to the reading
of the Vulgate : " Yet did we esteem Him a leper." Now isa.iiii.4.
of the leper the command was, " All the days wherein the ^^^ ^m. 46.
plague shall be in him, he shall dwell alone : without the
camp shall his habitation be." Even in this sense then, it is
478 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
well written : I said in My ecstasy, I am cast out of the sight ]
of Thine eyes.
25 Nevertheless, thou heardest the voice of my
prayer : when I cried unto thee.
Nevertheless, or as it is in the Vulgate, Therefore ; which,
Ven. Bede. Lorinus says, affords no true sense : but Venerable Bede
and Ayguan with a deeper insight into the Psalmist's mean-
ing, support that signification. For notice that God's there-
Ay.
uper . for^ are not as man's therefores. " Jesus loved Martha,
^: •^°'^" and her sister, and Lazarus ; when He had heard therefore
that he was sick. He abode two days still in the same place
where He was." Or again : Israel " believed not in God,
and put not their trust in His help : so — He commanded the
clouds above, and opened the doors of heaven." Which com-
pare with man's therefore in the same Psalm : " He cast out
the heathen also before them .... and made the tribes of
Israel to dwell in their tents : so — they tempted and dis-
. pleased the Most High God." This verse, with the preced-
ing ones, are ingeniously applied by S. Augustine to S. Peter.
G. And Gerhohus works out the analogy at greater length. To
him, marvellous great kindness had been showed by having
the keys of a strong city entrusted to him ; but by his own
free will he was cast out of the sight of his Loed's eyes, when
those all- seeing eyes clearly beheld his future fall, and he
nevertheless said, ** Though I should die with Thee, I will
not deny Thee." And still further was he cast out when
he said, " I know not this Man of whom ye speak." And
because he was so cast out, therefore it is written, " The
J),C, Lord turned and looked upon Peter." Therefore Thou
heardest the voice of my prayer. What prayer ? Because
in the ecstasy of My love I said, " Fathee, forgive them, for
they know not what they do ;" therefore is the promise, " I
shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the
uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession."
26 O love the Lord, all ye his saints : for the
Lord preserveth them that are faithful, and plen-
teously rewardeth the proud doer.
Notice first, that even saints have to be exhorted to the
first and chief of all duties, the love of God. It is with
Amor posni. bitter shame that in his admirable treatise, called Amor pee-
tens,\\h.i. nitens, the great and good Van Neercassel proves at length
that this is the first duty of a Christian, against the corrupt
maxims of modern casuists. It is remarkable how S. John,
though emphatically the theologian of the Apostolic college,
V.Bede. is, nevertheless, given to dwell on plain declarations which
one might have been disposed to think needless. " Let no
cap
PSALM XXXI. 479
man deceive you : lie that doetli righteousness is righteous :" i g, john
" Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is in. 7.
good." Or, we may take it in this sense; that only those 3 s. John 11.
who are saints in deed and in wish, can truly love God ; since
to profess to love Him, while leading an unholy life, is the ^.
worst of falsehoods. And we must love God in a threefold
way J which way the Loed set forth by His threefold ques-
tion to Peter, " Loyest thou Me P" With all the heart, with -^y-
all the soul, and with all the strength. Preserveth them that C.
are faithful. Where He shows that perseverance is the gift
of God, no less than the commencement of grace. Instead
oi jpresei^veth them that are faithful, it is in the Vulgate, He
shall require the truth. As He did in those most terrible ^- ■^^^- ^^s-
words, " Adam, where art thou .P" And again, " What hast
thou now done ? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto
Me from the ground." And because He requires the truth,
therefore the truth is pleaded with Him by His servants ;
" Eemember now, O Lord, I beseech Thee, how I have walked isa. xxxviii.
before Thee in truth, and with a perfect heart :" and is re- ^'
warded by Him ; " And in their mouth was found no guile,
for they are without fault before the throne of God." And Ay.
plenteously reicardeth the proud doer. They dispute where
the adverb plentifully/ ought to be joined ; and most of the
commentators take it as the LXX. does, in the sense of
Beicardeth him that plentifully doeth proud things. For, 4n?s.^°"'
they say. It is not true to affirm that the sinner is plentifully Genebrar-
rewarded, that is to say, up to, or beyond his demerits, no, ^"s-
not even in the case of those that are finally lost : for it is
■written, " He hath not dealt with us after our sins."
27 Be strong, and he shall establish your heart :
all ye that put your trust in the Lord.
Be strong. Nothing is more common in the Psalms than
this exhortation ; see what is said on it at the end of Psalm ^
xxii. Above all things notice, how over and over again this
exhortation occurs at the beginning of the conquest of Canaan
in the first chapter of Joshua. And remark how completely Gr.
this verse accords with S. Paul's: " Work out your own sal-
vation, for it is God that worketh in you." Be strong, and g Aib.Mag.
He shall stahlish. And this the Lord Himself teaches us,
when He said, " Stretch forth," to him who of himself had
no power to stretch out at all. All the commentators refer
back to the many times that they have already explained this
verse. But observe that there is one caution: He shall p q
stahlish your heart, all ye that put their trust in the Lord.
Trust in thyself, and the wise man's saying will be good,
" He that trusteth in himself is a fool :" trust in another, and Prov. xxviii.
the prophet threatens, " Cursed is the man that putteth his ^^•
trust in man." But put thy trust in the Lord, not discouraged Jer. xvii. 5.
as the Apostles were, " We trusted that it had been He," but
480
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
going on and still trusting, and then tlie same Prophet fore-
Jer. xvii. 7. tells the reward : *' Blessed is the man that trusteth in the
LoED, and whose hope the Loed is."
And therefore :
Glory be to the Fathee, to Whom the Son saith, " Into
Thy hands, O Loed, I commend My Spirit ;" and to the
Son, of Whom it is written, " Thou art my strong rock and
my castle :" and to the Holy Ghost, through Whom they
that are His saints love the Loed ;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen.
Ludolph,
Mozarabic.
Collects.
We beseech Thee, O Loed, to bestow upon us the ineffable
bounty of Thy sweetness ; to the end that, while we seek for
Thy truth, we may overcome all the temptations of pride.
Through (1.)
Mozarabic, Turn US, O GoD our Protector, from our crooked ways,
and grant that we may, without fear, dwell in the land of
our inheritance ; and having set us free from sin, govern us
by faith, so that we may neither be extolled by worldly pros-
perity, nor disturbed by the tribulation of our envious
enemy, nor clouded by the darkness of our sins ; but that,
ever hoping in Thee, we may rejoice in that Thou showest
the light of Thy countenance upon us. Amen. Through
Thy mercy (11.)
Deliver, O Loed, the souls of Thy servants from their dis-
tresses ; and since they do put their trust in Thy righteous-
ness, shut them not up in the hands of their adversaries ; but
look upon our humility, and give us refuge in Thy strong
city, Who didst die to this end, that Thou mightest overcome
hell, and that we might attain heavenly glory in Thy most
holy city. Amen. Through Thy mercy (11.)
[O Loed Jesu Cheist, let not the strength of Thy Church
fail, we pray Thee, in her pilgrimage through the poverty of
this world ; and should the bones of our virtues be consumed
for a time, grant that we, uplifted by the example of Thy
Passion, may never fall into the snares of the enemy. (11.)
O God, the Hope and Salvation of the faithful, let not us,
who put our trust in Thee, be put to confusion eternally, but
graciously bow down Thy merciful ears to us fallen sinners
who cry unto Thee ; and of Thy goodness, justify us through
remission of our debts and pardon of our sins, and save us
through Thine unspeakable confession. Through (1.)]
Mozarabic,
Passiontide,
D.C.
481
PSALM XXXII.
Title. A Psalm of David ; Maschil. LXX. and Yulgate : Of
understanding, for David.
Argument.
The second of the penitential Psalms.
Aeg. Thomas. Tliat Christ speedily grants remission of sins, if
•we make a pure confession of our offences. The voice of penitents.
The voice of tlie sinners. The voice of penitents after Baptism ; and
the answer of the Loed surrounding with mercy them that call upon
Him.
Ven. Bede. This being a Psalm of penitence, in the first place
it mentions David in the title, because of the Loed Cheist, since
to Him whatever this penitent is about to say hath respect. Then
followeth an instruction, because none can truly lament his sins save
he that understands them. And the Psalm is rightly marked with
such a title, when the sinner imderstands too late that he has fallen
into wickedness, because sins which he ought at once to have con-
fessed to the Loed he finds that he has concealed too long, and
therefore the Loed saith to him, " I will inform thee and teach thee
in the way wherein thou shalt go." In the first part of the Psalm
the penitent speaketh manifestly confessing his sin, acknowledging
the punishment that he hath deserved for believing that his iniquities
could be concealed. In the second part, since he hath condemned
himself by his own confession, he pleads for forgiveness from the
Lord. In the third, after commending the advantages of penitence,
he shows that the saints in this world make their supplications to
God, and that in them is His trust. In the fourth, the Lord,
answering his words, promises to surroimd with His mercy them
that put their trust in Him.
EusEBius OF C^SAEEA. A prophccy of those who are to be
saved by Cheist.
Syeiac Psaltee. Of the fault of Adam, who dared to commit
sin ; and a prophecy of Cheist, that by Him we are to be delivered
from Gehenna.
Vaeious Uses.
As a penitential Psalm with the Litanies. According to Sarum
use, at Prune every day in Lent.
Gregorian. Monday : Matins. [All Saints : II. Nocturn.]
Monastic. Sunday: 11. Noctum.
Parisian. Tuesday : Compline.
Quignon. Tuesday : Tierce.
Lyons. Tuesday : I. Noctum.
Amhrosian. Wednesday of the First Week : I. Noctum.
Eastern Church, Mesorion of Terce.
Antiphons.
Gregorian. Deliver me * in Thy righteousness. [AH Saints :
Be glad, O ye righteous, and rejoice in the Loed, and be joyful, aU
ye that are true of heart.]
Y
482
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Monastic. As Gregorian.
Parisian. Thou forgavest * the iniquity of my sins. For this
shall every one that is godly make his prayer unto Thee.
Lyons. Blessed are the people * whose God is the Loed Je-
hovah.
Ambrosian. Them that put their trust in the Loed mercy em-
braceth. Kyr. Kyr. Kyr.
Quignon. We will sing and praise Thy power,
Mozarabic. God, my exultation, redeem me from those that sur-
round me.
L.
S. Cyril.
Hierosol.
Prsefat. in
Cat.
S. Greg.
Mag.
Innocent.
S. Hierou.
ad Tryphon,
Orlgen.
1 Blessed is he whose unrighteousness is forgiven :
and whose sin is covered.
Note. Psalms xxxii. to xxxviii. inclusive form the third
part of the commentary of Gerhohus. It is headed all the
way through Fez's edition, Honorius Augustodunensis ; as if
he were its author. I have said in the second Dissertation
that two gaps were filled up by Fez from the commentary of
that writer, namely, from Psalm xlv. to li., and from Ixxix.
to cxix. But he does not mention that this is the case in the
present Psalms. At the same time, the character of the com-
mentary is very unlike Gerhohus, and it does not symbolise
the Gloria Patri at the end of each verse : I shall there-
fore quote it as Honorius, though not certain that it is in-
deed his.
This Psalm was treated by Alphonsus a Castro in twenty-
four Homilies ; by Toletus in fifteen. We also have the ad-
vantage of the exposition of S. Gregory the Great, Innocent
III., and the other authors who have treated the penitential
Psalms only.
Notice, this is the first Psalm, except the first of all, which
begins with Blessedness. In the first Psalm we have the
blessing of innocence, or rather, of Him Who only was inno-
cent : here we have the blessing of repentance, as the next
happiest state to that of sinlessness. S. Cyril of Jerusalem
sees in this sudden commencement the congratulation of the
sinless angels to those who, after having once fallen, are now
again made worthy to join their society : when the voice of
the Father is heard. Bring forth the first robe, and put it
on him. They take unrighteousness of original sin ; sin of
actual transgression. Others apply the two clauses to sin
before and sin after Baptism. Justin Martyr takes oppor-
tunity from this verse to confute those heretics of early
times who, as Solifidians now, distort S. Paul's teaching to
mean, that man is justified from sin by faith only. " For,"
says he, " David, who is the Apostle's example of imputed
righteousness, how earnestly did he repent, and do works
meet for repentance, after his sin in the matter of Bathsheba !"
Origen will have it that, in the first clause, the Psalmist ex-
presses the ceasing to do evil ; in the second, by the word
covered, learning to do well; as it is written, ** Charity shall
PSALM XXXII. 483
cover the multitude of sins." But above all things, as Augus-
tine teaches, we must be careful not to understand the word a
covered as if the sin really remained there, though God, so
to speak, flung a robe round it, and hid it from His eyesight.
Eather it signifies the utter obliteration of sin, so that not a s. Basil,
yestige of it remains. Toletus has treated the subject very ^Su?^"
well, and with great depth of scriptural knowledge, and
shows that "covering" is the same thing which, in other JJ^; ^J^i-Vj ^^25
parts of Scripture, is called " purging," " blotting out," "par- Coi*. ii. 14.
doning," "taking away," "loosing," "cleansing," "making "^"^v"- 21-.
white," "justification," "reconciliation," " washing," " cast- fg. ^"•^'^^•
ing into the depths of the sea," and other the like terms. It is.Johni.g.
is covering, as the African Bishop Victor tells us, in the same Rora'v^j
sense in which Joshua, the son of Josedech, the type of sinful 2 Cor. v. is.
humanity, was covered: in the first place the angel said, ]L9°^-\i- ^'*
" Take away the filthy garments from him ;" and then, and '^^ ^"■*^'
not till then, " they set a fair mitre upon his head, and clothed Zech.iu.4,5.
him with garments." In this sense we must be unclothed,
as well as clothed upon, if we would present ourselves with
the wedding garment at the marriage feast. The commen-
tators seem to vie with each other in their richness of mys-
tical allusions: according to S. Ambrose, it is the sons off*Q™^7x'
Noah covering their father in his shame ; according to S. 23.
Augustine, it is the red rams' skins which covered the ark — ^
red, because of the Blood of Christ ; according to S. Isidore, ^^^^^^ [^
it is Kachel covering the idols with the camel's furniture, cen. xxxi.
And if we ask why these sins are spoken of as covered, the 34.
answer is, because God resolves, the guilt being blotted out,
not to behold even the temporal punishment. The innu- Ay.
merable questions which arise on this subject of confession
and satisfaction, have given no small labour on this verse to
the schoolmen. S. Augustine, at very great length, dwells
on the apparent contradiction of S. James and S. Paul ; and
as befits the Doctor of Grace, seizes the opportunity of ex-
tolling the free grace of God, without any preceding merits
of our own. I know not, however, that any one sums up the
meaning of the verse more shortly and neatly than does
Bede, speaking of our sins, and of God's mercy : Non vult ea
cognoscere quia mavult ignoscere.
2 Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord im-
puteth no sin : and in whose spirit there is no
guile.
Unto ivkom the Lord imputeth no sin. It is certain that, ;
let the transgression be pardoned completely, still the state j
of mind in the off'ender is not the same as if it had never \
been committed. And herein is the malice of sin, that in one j
sense even the death of Cheist, while it completely pardons, f
does not restore the sinner to his first righteousness. The
AngeUc Doctor dilates at great length on the nature of im-
Y 2
484
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
S. Greg.
Naz. Orat.
de Baptism.
Vieyra.
Serm. de S.
Augustin.
iii. 111.
Cd.
Rom. iv. 6.
Amor Pob-
NITENS.
Theodoret.
in loc.
putation : and hardly any of the schoolmen but laboriously
comments on this verse. The doctrine of S. Gregory Na-
zianzen, if carried out to the full, would end in the most
dangerous heresy : that by not imputing sin is meant God's
looking at the general state and wishes of the sinner rather
than the actual offence. Vieyra, in commenting on the be-
ginning of this Psalm, speaks admirably well. " The under-
standing of this text was, even in the time of S. Augustine,
much controverted between Catholics and heretics, on ac-
count of the distinction which the Apostle makes between
sins pardoned and sins covered. If the two things are dis-
tinct, wherein consists the difference? Passing over the
many questions involved, I would observe that the Apostle
spoke as a divine theologian ; for to the pardon and abso-
lution of sins two things must concur : the one, the remis-
sion of the fault, which by some theologians is called condo-
nation ; and the other the infusion of grace : by remission
of guilt, sins are pardoned ; by infusion of grace they are
covered." And hence the Portuguese divine exalts the glory
of S. Augustine, who, knowing that his sins were covered in
the sight of God, chose to uncover them again before men.
Again : it has been well observed that three heretical conclu-
sions have been drawn from this : — 1. That justification does
not consist in the infusion of righteousness, but in the remis-
sion of sins alone. 2. That this remission is not a true dele-
tion of sin, but only a covering of it ; so that there it is, but
though there, God will not impute it. 3. That, after the re-
mission of sins, there is no further use in satisfaction. The
doctrine of S. Paul is sufficient to overthrow the first error,
when he speaks of " the blessedness of the man to whom God
imputeth righteousness without works." Where observe that
the Apostle not only speaks of iniquity blotted out, but of^
righteousness infused. Into the other two points it would
require a treatise to enter fully ; but again I would recom-
mend to any one who is interested in the subject that most
admirable work, the Amor poenitens ; the learning of which]
on the one hand, and the unction on the other, seem to render
it worthy of S. Augustine and S. Thomas united.^ Theo-
doret says, " Such liberality God uses to sinners, that He not
only forgives, but obliterates their sins, so that not the small-
est vestige of them remains."
' Having had occasion more
than once to speak of this book,
I -will here fnention its editions.
The first is called' Amor poenitens,
sive de recto clavium tisu, autore
Joanne de Neercassel, JSpiscopo
Castoriensi, Vicario Apostolico :
Trajecti, 1683. The second edi-
tion, Emmerich, 1685. There
is also a French translation :
L' amour penitent. Livre pre-
mier : De la necessite et des condi-
tions de V amour de Dieu pour oh-
tenir le pardon des peches. Livre
second : De Vtisage legitime des
clefs, ou Conduit des Confesseurs
et des penitents par rapport an
Sacrenient de Penitence.
PSALM XXXII.
485
3 For while I held my tongue : my bones con-
sumed away through my daily complaining.
It is as though David said, " The blessedness of those par- i
doned ones who have confessed their sins may be theirs : as .
to me, so far from confessing them, I kept silence ; and hence \
the grief, and weakness, and sickness of my present state."
There is a silence, indeed, which reaches the ears of God s. Greg,
sooner than any words ; a silence which cries out, as Cassio- ^Qo'cent.
dorus says ; but it is not that of which David here speaks.
" There is a time," as Solomon says, "to keep silence, and a Eccies.iu.;.
time to speak." There is no subject which has more elicited •■
the eloquence of mediaeval writers than the shame which
keeps men back from confession. None has treated on this
matter better than Hugh of S. Victor, the commencement of vi^fo^in
whose treatise on the subject bears closely on this verse, de Sacra-
" Great is the malice of men. When a man wishes to act mentis : ad
ill, he never seeks for authority ; when we tell him to act ^^ '
well, he clamours for it. So it is with confession. When we i
tell a man to confess his sins, he says. Give your authority :
what text of Scripture orders us to confess ? Well : grant-
ing that Scripture does not order us to confess our sins, what
text is there that orders us to keep them to ourselves ? If
you will not confess because you have no command, how can
you dare to be silent, when you certainly have no command
for that ? But this is to answer a fool according to his folly.
Passages there are innumerable which set this duty before
us : • Whoso hideth his sins shall not prosper.' And again :
While I held my tongue" &c. But they say, How can these
two things exist together ? If David held his tongue, how is j
it that we hear of his daily complaining? And the answer |
is, Because it was such complaining as that he might as well
or better have been silent : complaining, when complaint was
of no benefit; keeping silence, when only he could so be
heard as to be healed. None can express this better than S. D. C.
Augustine, but it would do his words injury to translate
them. '' Tacuit unde proficeret ; non tacuit unde deficeret. j^
Tacuit peccata sua ; clamavit merita sua. Si clamaret pec-
cata sua, et taceret merita sua, innovarentur.'"
4i For thy band is heavy upon me day and night :
and my moisture is like the drought in summer.
Or as the Vulgate gives it, Because day and night Thy hand
was heavy upon me, I was converted in my misery, while a
thorn is fixed through me} There is no doubt that this Psalm
* It is worth noticing that
there are two readings of various
editions of the Vulgate : one,
Dvm config'dur spina, which
most of the commentators fol-
low ; the other, which is taken
by Cassiodorus and Ayguan,
Bvm confringitur spina. In the
486
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Rupert.
Hugo Car-
dinal.
S. Remig.
S. Greg.
Mag.
Hugo Card.
Innocent.
Ay.
Innocent.
had to do with David's sin in the matter of Uriah ; therefore
it is well to notice that all the grief of which he here speaks
was simply known to himself: for externally during that
miserable year the state of his kingdom was prosperous, and
his arms against the Ammonites seemed to be successful.
And it is worth observing, that here, day precedes night ;
whereas generally, from the very first chapter of Genesis,
night takes precedence of day. " And the evening and the
morning were the first day." But it is so here, because this
sorrow of David's was no true repentance ; only that sorrow
of the world which, but for God's mercy, will in the end
work death. So in this case, the light — that is, the pleasures
of sin — first, then the darkness, according to Satan's rule ;
God's path being the light affliction first, and then the
eternal weight of glory ; the evening and the morning, which
lead on to the eternal day. And the thorn is no unmeet
type of that miserable pain of sin in him who has not the
courage to get rid of, it by confession. It is truly the child's
fear of having a thorn taken out. And yet it was God's
hand all this time which was leading David, though by a
way that he knew not ; and this very pain was the means of
leading him to the happier condition of the next verse. The
mediaeval writers give reasons enough why sin is compared
to a thorn ; a thorn springs up through the negligence of the
tiller of the field ; it is useless, bears no good fruit, chokes
the crops, and is good for nothing but fire.
5 I will acknowledge my sin unto thee : and mine
unrighteousness have I not hid.
6 I said, I will confess my sins unto the Lord :
and so thou forgavest the wickedness of my sin.
My sin : mine unrighteousness. Most of the commenta-
tors understand the former of sins of commission, the latter
of omission. But Cassiodorus, who, as we have seen, is fond
of dwelling on the distinction between mortal and venial sin,
understands the former clause of the lesser, the latter of the
greater. Innocent from these verses draws seven points of
good confession. 1. That it be perfect, — that is, that it
omits nothing. 2. That it be cautious, well weighing the
difference between different sins. 3. That it be made with
full intention of purpose : / said, I will confess. 4. That it
be humble. 5. That it pertain to our own sins, and not to
those of others. 6. That it have the sense of God's Presence
at the moment. 7. That it be efficacious ; So Thou forgavest.
One or two of the expressions in the Vulgate are stronger
and more emphatic than they are in our version. I made my
various Greek versions, the dif-
ference of sense is remarkable.
Sjmmachus : It is turned to me
to corruption, as a sv/mmer burn-
ing. Aquila : It is turned to my
spoiling in summer desolation.
PSALM XXXII. 487
sin known unto Tliee. "This," says S. Gregory, "is more s. Greg,
than / acknowledge. For lie makes his sin known who not *^'
only tells what he hath done, but also relates all the cause
and origin of the sin ; who does not speak of the iniquity
superficially, but of the when, and where, and how, and whe-
ther by accident, or ignorance, or design." Again : the Vul-
gate has it, I said, I will confess against mi/self my unrigh-
teousness to the Lord ; and so it is in the LXX. ; and in the
Italic more emphatically, I will 'pronounce against myself.
S. Augustine says very well : " Many confess their trans- A..
gressions, but against the Loed God Himself; when they
are found in sin, they say, God willed it. For if a man say
either, I did it not ; or, This deed which you blame is no sin ;
he confesseth neither against himself nor against God. If
he say, I surelv did it, and it is sin, but God willed it, and
so what harm have I done ? — this is to confess against God.
Haply you will say, No one saith this : who is there that
saith God willed it? Many say even this ; but what else is
it when a man says. My fate did it, or my stars caused it ?"
And observe, that in the first confession that was ever made,
the sinner, instead of confessing against himself, confessed
both against his neighbour, and also against God: " The Gen. m. 12.
woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the
tree." This verse has, from the very beginning, been applied
to sacramental confession. S. Jerome, writing to Algasia, |* ^g^""*!^"^"
dwells much on this point ; though, singularly enough, and nJ^. " ^'
by an error in which he has found no followers, he denies s. Chrysost.
that David was speaking of himself. It is needless to ob- Ep^H^b."^
serve that these clauses have been distorted to argue the s.Cyrii.iiie-
needlessness of confession to a Priest, because David did so rosoi.Cat.ii.
to the Lord. The idea is noticed with disapprobation as
early as the time of Cassian : though he is speaking of the j
public confession used in primitive times, and first abolished
in the Church of Constantinople. They take occasion to ob-
serve, what is not generally known, that auricular confession J^Jj^*"^^^,®
was, and is, practised among the Jews to an Aaronic Priest, ract. Gaiia-
but especially of three crimes, — blasphemy, murder, and tinus. ub. x.
adultery, of two of which David had been guilty. I said, /^*p- "'•
will confess ; and so Thou foraavest. Hence notice how
ready God is to forgive : and this is one of the formal pas- C.
sages which prove that, even in Sacramental Confession,
when made with true contrition, the sin is blotted out before
the penitent begins to speak. Thus the father, while the
prodigal son was yet a great way off, had compassion, and
ran to meet him, and fell on his neck and kissed him. With
which blessed result the first part of the Psalm ends. I said,
I will confess. Let us see how the Eastern Church begms
her Lent confessions, and that by the mouth of two of her
greatest divines. Thus Joseph begins the Triodion : ^±!!^ ort^
" How shall I now bewail my fall ? What beginnmg can ^^^^^^^r 1.
I make, I who have lived like the Prodigal Son, of tummg
Caietan,
488 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
to salvation ? O merciful One ! save me by the judgments
tliat Thou knowest. Behold the time, behold the day of sal-
vation, behold the entrance of the fast. Keep vigil, O my
soul ; and maintaining diligent watch, keep locked the gates
of passion for the Loed. The billows of sin swelling up
against me would draw me down to the abyss of despair ;
but I flee to the Ocean of Thy mercy : save me, O Loed."
So Joseph : now let us hear Kyr Theodorus. " Come, O ye
people, let us welcome to-day the grace of the fast, the God-
given time of repentance, wherein we may propitiate the Sa-
viouE. The season of the contest has come upon us : it has
commenced, the stadium of the fast : let us all begin it with
eagerness, offering virtues to the Loed as our gifts." This
is the way in which the Eastern Church begins her, I said,
Iivill confess,
7 For this shall every one that is godly make his
prayer unto thee, in a time when thou mayest be
found : but in the great water-floods they shall not
come nigh him.
Few verses in the Psalms are harder to be understood than
this : and none has given rise to more varied expositions
among the commentators. For this. Some will have it : en-
couraged by this example, that after so foul a faU, God so
readily forgave. Others : for this, that is, for the like sin, if
ever they should be guilty of it. Others, again : for this,
namely, warned by this example, they who are holy shall
make their prayers that they may not be permitted to fall as
David did. Whichever be the sense, they well argue from
. this passage against Anabaptists and Pelagians ; as S. Au-
( gustine, and as the Council of Milevi, have long ago laid
/ down, that the state of absolute and enduring perfection is
impossible to a Christian in this life. In a time lohen Thou
j^^ mayest be found. Some take it of the time of the Gospel, in
contradistinction to that of the Law. Others, again, of those
more especial seasons of grace, when God seems to open the
Z. windows of heaven and pour out a more abundant blessing ;
such as the times of Lent and Easter, or the epochs of any
remarkable providence or deliverance in any particular life.
Others, again, take it of the whole season of life, as a warn-
ing that the time will come when it will be too late to pray ;
when once the Master of the house is risen up ; when the
harvest is past and the summer ended ; when God has pro-
s. Greg-. nounced that terrible sentence, " Because I have called, and
Hesychius. yg refused, I have stretched out My hand, and no man re-
garded; I also will laugh at your calamity." £ut in the
great water-floods they shall not come nigh him. And here
the extremely difficult question is, Who it is that will not
draw nigh, and who it is that cannot be drawn nigh toP
Lyraiius. In the first place : some would explain it ; But, notwith-
PSALM XXXII. 489
standing all their prayers to God, such is the weakness of
their nature, and such the strength of their adversary, that
in the great storms of temptation, they must expect for
a while to be unable to draw nigh Him. S. Jerome, by a
manifold twist of the sense, would tell us that, except it were
for earthly tribulations, the people of God never would
choose Him for their hiding-place. Others, again, under-
stand it : In the great water-floods of temptations and trou- innocent,
bles, they, that is the water-floods themselves, shall not draw Toietus.
nigh — that is, shall not hurt — the saints of God. The diffi-
culty of this interpretation is, that it seems to make the word
hut, to say the least, useless ; since to carry out that signi-
fication it ought rather to be and therefore. Perhaps, on
the whole, the explanation of Lorinus is the best, who would L.
contrast the great water-floOds with the time wherein God
may be found : somewhat in this sense. For this shall those
that fear God, but who have yet fallen into sin, pray their
prayer for forgiveness, while it may yet be said, " Behold,
now is the accepted time ; behold, now is the day of salva-
tion : hut, if they procrastinate their repentance till in the
time of the great water-floods of extreme tribulation and
death, tkey shall not — that is, they shall not in any human
probability ; they shall not, save as the exception ; they shall
not, but by the especial goodness of God — be enabled to draw
nigh Him at last. The more mystical interpretations are Ay.
almost endless : the most ingenious is that which would in-
terpret the great water-floods of riches; and would thus
mate the verse analogous to our Lord's declaration, " How
hardly shall thev that have riches enter into the kingdom of jjQj^Qj.j,jg
God." Others have endeavoured to see in the great water-
floods the innumerable purifications by water of the Jews,
which had no power to remove sin, however much they might
increase superstition. But, after all, however much has been
written on this verse, it must be confessed that its true mean-
ing is extremely doubtful ; and that none of the commenta-
tors have so interpreted it as to give us an explanation with-
out some grave difficulty.^
[_The great water-floods may be well taken of the tide of
worldly pleasures in which the luxurious are found, of the Gersou.
disputes of Gentile philosophy, which carry away the proud
of intellect, and of the turbulent quarrellings of the sects ;
all alike numerous, restless, bitter, and far from the one,
still, sweet fountain of living water, the Loed Jesus Him-
self.]
8 Thou art a place to hide me in, thou shalt pre-
serve me from trouble : thou shalt compass me about
with songs of deliverance.
^ The sense which I have at- I Vieyra in his Sermon on Mon-
tached to the latter clause of day in the Second Week of Lent,
this verse is that given to it by I Tom. viii. p. 453.
y3
490
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
The Vulgate is somewhat different : Thou art my re
from the tribulation which hath surrounded, me : O my ex-
ultation, deliver me from them that compass me about. They
love to show how the various refuges of which we read in
Holy Scripture are but the faint types of that hiding-place
which the Loed is to His people. Noah, shut into the Ark
by the hand of God Himself ; the Ark of the Tabernacle
1 Sam. iv. 5. when it went into the camp of the Israelites ; the high hills
Ps. civ. 18. a refuge for the wild goats, and the stony rocks for the
Cant. ii. 14. conies ; the dove in the clefts of the rock ; the chickens hur-
rying under their mother's wings. S. Chrysostom tells us
that in his time this verse was sung at every funeral, as it is
in the Eastern Church to this day ; and very beautifully,
when taken in connection with the Gist Psalm, also then re-
cited, " Whoso dwelleth under the defence of the Most High
shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty." Cassio-
dorus, whose earlier life had been spent in the courts, com-
pares very ingeniously the efforts made by an advocate to
deny or to palliate the guilt of his client, with the confession
of the penitent here in the preceding verses, wherein he
denies nothing, uses no subterfuge, and palliates nothing,
but which yet at last compasses him about with songs of de-
liverance.
Rupert.
Gen. vii. l6
S. Hieron.
S. Matt,
xxiii. 37.
S.Chrysost.
Horn. 4. in
Heb.
Hugo Vic
torin.
9 I will inform thee, and teach thee in the way
wherein thou shalt go : and I will guide thee with
mine eye.
Or, as it is with greater emphasis in the Vulgate, In this
way wherein thou shalt go. And consider how beautifully
the words are spoken by our Loed ; He, hanging on the
Cross, the innocent for the guilty, the Guide and the Cap-
tain of His people, promises to teach them in this way in
which they shall go, — this way, the way of the Cross, because
there is no other path to the crown ; this way, the Via Dolo-
rosa, along which He Himself went, and by which His people
must go. I will inform thee by My words, " Take My yoke
upon you, and learn of Me ;" and teach thee by My example,
" He, bearing His Cross, went forth to a place called the
place of a skull." Guide thee loith Mine eye. But why ?
seeing we generally use the hand in beckoning to those whom
we would direct m their way P But herein is our Loed's
love set forth : the hands that He so often had used for us
men, and for our benefit, He can no longer employ, nailed
as they are to the Cross ; nothing remains to Him but His
eye with which to direct the wanderer, and by that eye He
guided Peter to the haven of safety. The Fathers dwell in
various ways on the exceeding great and precious promises
Theodoret. contained in this verse. Theodoret speaks of self-knowledge
as the way in which we ought to go. S. Augustine shows how
the end of all affliction is tne obtaining the wisdom promised
PSALM XXXII. 491
here. S. Remigius looks on the verse as a kind of challenge
to the evil spirits who would beset us to touch him if they
dare, to mislead him if they can, to whom God has given the
promise of His own wisdom. I will inform thee and teach „
thee in this way. What way, save our Lord Jesus Christ,
Who is Himself the Way, the Truth, and the Life P Euse-
bius of Emesa refers it rather to the leading of the Holy
jGrHOST. Very tame and poor in comparison with this is the Xj.
interpretation of the Jews, followed by some of the literalists :
that David, speaking in his own person, promises to counsel .
others how to avoid the sins of murder and adultery into nius.^Toie-
which he himself had fallen. tus, sa.
10 Be ye not like to horse and mule, which have
no understanding : whose mouths must be held with
bit and bridle, lest they fall upon thee.
Sorse and mule. The one they take as the warning against ^
luxury, the other against obstinacy. Therefore it is to be .
observed that the woman in the trial by the water of jea- ^^^^ ^ ^^
lousy had offered for her the tenth part of an ephah of barley innocent.
meal, the food of horses. Again, the mule is taken as the g. Greg,
type of ingratitude ; being produced, as it is, by other animals, Mag.
but producing none itself; And they observe that the nobler Toietus,
animals, the horse and the mule, are here examples of sin- ^^^"^- "•
ners ; whereas the ox and the ass set forth God's people : as isa. i. 3.
it is written, " The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his A,
master's crib." Here it would seem that David was speak- Honorius.
ing to those around him ; but as the latter part of the verse
is given by the Vulgate in the imperative, some commentators s. Cyrii.
take that portion to be addressed as a prayer to God by Alex, contra
David : or as others have it, by Christ to the Father. •'"^'^- ^•
And so He does turn about the enemies of the people by an
invisible bridle ; as it is written, " Because thy rage against
Me and thy tumult is come up into Mine ears, therefore I a^Kmgsxix.
will put My hook in thy nose, and My bridle in thy lips, and
I will turn thee back by the way that thou camest." And
hence in the Secret of the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost,
the Latin Church prays, " We beseech Thee, O Lord, have
respect to the oblations Thou hast received; and of Thy
goodness compel, if it needs be, our rebellious wills to Thy-
self" But that we may not be thus compelled by force, hear
our Lord's words in time : " Take"— not be forced to take— s. Pauiinus.
" My yoke upon you, and learn of Me." And those are the S- Matt,
warnings for us : Nebuchadnezzar, who, because he would
not hear God as a man, had a beast's heart given him ; and ^an. iv. 30.
Samson, who, because he threw away his gifts of manly Judg.xvi.4.
strength, was forced to grind in the mill like a brute. And ^ ^^^^^^
observe the difference beween the hit and the bridle,— the
one suggesting a harsher, the other a milder treatment ; as
if to show us that sinners are to be dealt with according to
492
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Zech. xiv.
20,
P.
L.
tlie circumstances and details of their crime. And one day
these very instruments of correction shall turn to the glory
of God, as it is written that " In that day there shall be upon
the bridles of the horses, Holiness unto the Loed." But if not,
11 Great plagues remain for the ungodly : but
whoso putteth his trust in the Lord, mercy em-
braceth him on every side.
Ps. xxxiv.
19.
Ps. xxxiv.
21.
Homil. de
Fide.
And if we wish the catalogue of those plagues, we can read
it in Deuteronomy xxviii. Yet we must remember, that
these plagues in and by themselves, are no proof of God's
anger ; because " whom the Loed loveth He chasteneth, and
scourgeth every son wl^om He receiveth." S. Barnabas
Acts xiv. 22. teaches us that we must through much tribulation enter into
the kingdom of God, son of consolation though he was. And
even of the well-beloved Son it is written, that " He learned
obedience by the things which He suffered." S. Gaudentius
of Brescia tells us that the use of affliction is threefold ; either,
for the probation of the righteous, as it is written, " Great
are the troubles of the righteous ;" or, for the emendation of
the sinner, as here : or, for the final destruction of the im-
penitent according to that saying, " Misfortune shall slay the
ungodly." S. Chrysostom says ; " Wherefore David, know-
ing these difficulties, saith concerning them, ' Many are the
afflictions of the righteous:* yet see what he addeth, *but
the Loed delivereth them out of all.' He has scarcely spoken
of the disease before he mentions the cure. But of God's
enemies he saith, Great plagues remain for the ungodly, and
he adds no such thing by way of comfort." For the latter
clause, see what is said on the first verse of the preceding
Psalm.
12 Be glad, O ye righteous, and rejoice in the
Lord : and be joyful, all ye that are true of heart.
Pirst hear Yieyra ; for the observation is well worth re-
membering : " In the thirty-second Psalm, God promises the
final pardon of sins and glory and blessedness, which follow
it. * Blessed is he whose unrighteousness is forgiven, and
whose sin is covered.' Where much must you notice that
word covered. Because the blessedness and remission of sins
which here are promised, God wills to be attributed not only
to His mercy, but to the protection of His providence. There-
fore it seems by no means at variance with Divine justice,
that that blessedness which is due to the keeping of the ten
commandments, should here be granted to the ten short pe-
titions of this Psalm." And so Cassiodorus observes, that in
this same Psalm, which is composed of eleven verses, (so it
is in the Yulgate) has in the first ten the words addressed by
man to God, and contains in fact, ten prayers j and within
Tom. vi.
314.
c.
PSALM XXXII. 493
the last and eleventh, God answers man, and gives Mm the
forgiveness of his sins, which he had besought ; and together
with the name of righteous, He confers on them His grace,
of which the reward is glory. And what does the same
Cassiodorus infer from this reckoning ? He infers that the
ten prayers, however short, of this decade, have, in the sight
of God, the same virtue as the keeping the commandments
of the decalogue, if only they are offered from the heart. L.
The end of the Psalm then, answers to the beginning ; it
began with a declaration of blessedness, and since then every
one is full of sorrow, till the exultation of this last verse.
Among the works of S. Augustine there is a treatise on the incert. in
Magnificat, written by one of his imitators, which distin- Magnificat,
guishes the gladness felt by man into three kinds ; neither
from God nor in God, as they who rejoice in sin : from
God but not in God, as they who abuse the gifts of God :
and both from God and in God, as those who turn His
gifts to His love and to His honour. Observe that this epi-
thet, true of heart, is applied by the Church in one of
her Versicles to Martyrs : and most fitly : for how can the
truth and reality of love to God be better shown than by
martyrdom ? as it is written, " Greater love hath no man than
this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Ayguan, . ^
commenting on the expression, Glory, all ye that are true of ^'
heart, and comparing it with the verse in Hosea, " His glory hos. xiv. 6.
shall be as the olive tree," draws an ingenious mystical in-
struction. The olive, he says, and says truly, is first green,
then red, then livid, and then black. And so in the penitent :
there is the greenness of hope ; there is the crimson of
brotherly love, ready to lay down life from affection : there
is the lividness of penitence, and the dark shade of humility :
and penitence, such as is to lead us to God, must have all
these things.
And therefore :
Glory be to the Fatheb, the Loed to Whom we confess
our sins ; and to the Son, " the Way wherein we shall go :"
and to the Holy Ghost, Who informs us and teaches us ;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be:
world without end. Amen.
Collects.
O Holy Loed, Who forgiving sins, dost give blessedness to Ludoiph.
them that confess Thee, hear the prayer of Thy present
family, and having destroyed the sting of sin, bedew us with
spiritual exultation. Through (1.)
We have sinned, O IiOED, we confess, like prodigal sons ; idiomeion
we dare not look up to heaven : for it was thence we fell and J^jf^J^^^^gj.
became wretched. We have sinned against heaven and be- con of the
fore Thee, and we are not worthy to be caUed Thy sons, we to^^j^^on.
denounce ourselves, we need neither accusers nor witnesses, JJo'^dweek
we have iniquity triumphing over us, we have evil con- of the Fast.
494
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Mozarabic.
Mozarabic.
S, Hieron.
D. C.
versation condemning us. Merciful Fathee, Only-begotten
Son, Holy Ghost, receive us penitent, and have mercy
on us.
Forgive, O Lord, the impiety of our hearts, for which
every one that is godly shall make his prayer unto Thee in
a time when Thou mayest be found ; and give us understand-
ing according as we pray, and guide us in the way in which
we go. Amen. Through Thy mercy (11.)
[O God, from Whom the privy things of the heart are not
hid, from Whom the secrets of the conscience are not con-
cealed, forgive, we beseech Thee, our unrighteousness, and
blot out all our sins, that Thou mayest win our souls by par-
doning our offences, and possess them by covering our mis-
deeds. And since Thou art our Joy, redeem us by Thy pity,
and in redeeming, deliver us from the plagues which remain
for the ungodly. (11.)
We humbly beseech Thee, O Loed, to cover our sins by
pardon, and to impute our misdeeds no more, that we may
become sharers in the everlasting gladness of the saints. (1.)
O LoED Jesu Cheist, Wisdom of God the Fathee, give
us understanding, and inform us with Thy precepts, guide us
with Thine eye in the way we go, that under Thy leading we
may surely come to Thee, Who art the Way, the Truth, and
the Life. (5.)]
PSALM XXXIII.
Title. LXX.
Hebrew.^
A Psalm of David. Without any title in the
Aegfment.
Aeg. Thomas. That by Cheist, the Word of the Fathee, the
heavens and their powers vrere established. The Prophet exhorts
God's people with praise. The voice of the Church consoling the
martyr. The Prophet admonishes to rejoice in the Loed.
Ven. Bede. In this Psalm the Prophet exhorts the Church of
the faithful to psalmody, enumerating the power and mighty deeds
of the Creator, that man may more eagerly hasten to praise Him,
when he knows His virtue and power. Through the whole Psalm
* S. Gregory Nyssen accuses
the Jews of having destroyed
this title out of hatred to the
Messiah; as also those of Psalms
43, 71, 74, 91, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97,
99, 104. Honorius observes that
this Psalm is well placed the32nd
in order (according to the LXX.
and Vulgate,) the blessedness of
the righteous being set forth by
eight, the number of the beati-
tudes, all the quarters of the
world by four. Hence the mys-
tical meaning of its position is
perfect blessedness over the whole
world.
PSALM XXXIII.
495
the Prophet speaketh : but in the first section he admonisheth the
just to rejoice in the Loed, Who supports His creatures with ad-
mirable power. In the second he exclaims that the man is blessed
who has merited to take His worship in hand, signifying the Chris-
tian times in which a multitude of the Gentiles would believe.
EusEBius OF CiESAREA. An exhortation to celebrate God's
praises, together with Divine knowledge.
Vaeious Uses.
Gregorian. Tuesday : Matins. [Office of Many Martyrs : 11.
Nocturn.]
Monastic. Monday : I. Nocturn.
Parisian. Thursday : Matins.
Quignon. Wednesday : Vespers.
Lyons. Tuesday : I. Nocturn.
Amhrosian. First Week : Wednesday : I. Nocturn.
Antiphons.
Gregorian. It becoraeth well * the just to be thankful. [Many
Martyrs. But the righteous * live for evermore, and the reward
of them is with the Most High.]
Monastic. It becometh well * the just to be thankful.
Parisian. The Word of the Lord is true.
Ambrosian. Same as Psalm xxxii.
Mozarahic. Praise the LoED upon the harp, sing praises unto
Him upon a psaltery of ten chords.
1 Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous : for it be-
cometh well the just to be thankful.
This Psalm has from the beginning been applied to the
martyrs, as it is said now on the Festival of Many Martyrs.
And so it was in the time of S. Augustine. Thus he speaks ^^
on such a festival : *' You know that which we have just been serm. 335 in
singing, Be glad in the Loed, and rejoice, O ye righteous. Nat. Mart.
If the righteous rejoice in the Loed, the unrighteous only
rejoice in the world. This is the first rank that has to be
overthrown.^ First we must conquer delectation and then
trouble. How can we conquer the world when it rages, if
we cannot vanquish it when it flatters ?" Thus then, in this
verse we invite those blessed ones with God to join in our
gladness : for it indeed becometh well those to be thankful of
whom the hymn says :
Me incessanter
Laudantes amanter
The Hymn,
In urbe me&.
1 The saint is alluding to the
Eoman manner of warfare, ac-
cording to which the newer levies
were placed in the first rank, bet-
ter troops in the second, and the
old veteran triarii in the third :
whence ventum est ad triarios,
for all having been done that can
be done.
496 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Hinc lii beati
Perpetim firmati,
Hinc gloriosi
Semper luminosi,
Similes mihi.
Sunt hi viventes
Me vita fruentes,
Pulchre lucentes
Me lumen videntes,
Sunt et divini
Di quoque igniti
Mihi uniti.
And if it becometh well the just to be thankful, so also,
Eccius. XV. the wise man says, " Praise is not seemly in the mouth of a
9. sinner." And therefore notice that neither our Lord nor S.
s. Luke iv. Paul would allow Satan to confess the power of God. " He
*^* rebuking them, suffered them not to speak, for they knew that
He was Cheist." And thus, when the Pythoness proclaimed,
Acts xvi. 17. «' These men are the servants of the Most High God," Paul
L. commanded the evil spirit to come out of her. Notice also
how the last verse of the preceding Psalm and the first verse
of this seem to run into each other : the penitential sorrow of
the one having been gradually raised into the exultation of
^y^ the other. Ayguan has a singular idea of the body's up-
braiding the soul with reference to It hecometh toell the up-
right, as it is in the Vulgate : both were created by God
upright, and intended to look up towards the sky. Man
does not imitate the beast by bowing his head to the ground,
as even the heathen poet tells us,
Ovid. Me- .... Coelomque videre
tain. X. 85. Jussit, et erectos ad coelum toUere vultus ;
but in his soul man does stoop and bend down, curved in-
stead of upright, to the pleasures and business of this world.
Bejoice. S.Ambrose observes that there is no greater de-'
fence against Satan than spiritual joy, which indeed comes
Ambros. de second in the catalogue of the graces of the Spirit ; as the
David. ' evil spirit that vexed Saul was driven away by David's harp.
2 Praise the Lord with harp : sing praises unto
him with the lute, and instrument of ten strings.
Here we have the first mention of musical instruments in
the Psalms. It is to be observed that the early Fathers
almost with one accord protest against their use in churches ;
as they are forbidden m the Eastern Church to this day,
Durantus de where yet, by the consent of all, the singing is infinitely su-
Rit. Ecci. c. perior to anything that can be heard in the West. It is not
''"*• easy to determine when they were first introduced into the
deofflx:^^ West. S. Gregory the Great speaks of organs; but Ama-
Eccies. c. 3. larius in the eighth century, describing the use of the Church
PSALM XXXIII. 497
of France, says that no instruments were employed. S.
Thomas Aquinas seems to disapprove them, or at least barely Secunda Se-
tolerates them ; and the Church of Lyons, which held more chusst^'gi,
faithfully to primitive practice than any other in France, Art. 2!
admitted them only in the sixteenth century. To what per-
fection they were brought among the Jews the whole routine
of the Temple service abundantly shows. The instrument of
ten strings they take to mean the music of the Church
Triumphant, ten being the symbol of perfection : and as the
Vulgate, herein following the Hebrew, mentions only the
harp and the ten-stringed Psaltery, instead of the three instru-
ments which both our Bible and our Prayer Book version
have, they see in this the union of the Church on earth with
that in heaven. So Bernard of Cluny, —
Thou city of the Angels ! thou city of the Lord ! Bernard de
Whose everlasting music is the glorious decachord. Morlaix.
Tropologically, all mediaeval writers dwell on the similarity
between the strings of musical instruments and Christian
souls. Firstly, they are made of dead animals, — so must we s. Greg,
be dead to sins. Next, they require an equal tension, as our Mag. Mor.
passions must be subdued and moderated. Thirdly, as all *^*
their sound depends on the air ; so all that we can do is to be
attributed to the Holy Spirit. Adam of S. Victor sees a
parallel between the martyrs and their sufferings and the
strings of the lyre, which are drawn tight and stricken, so
that they may yield their sweetest sound.
" Sicut chorda musicorum Adam. Vict.
Tandem sonum dat sonorum, The Se-
Plectriministerio; TunS'da-
Sic in chely tormentorum turn, for S.
Melos Cheisti confessorimi Laurence.
Martyris dat tensio."
So, again, Hildebert of Le Mans :
" Sicut chorda solet dare tensa sonum meHorem, Hildebert.
Sic poenis tensus dat plenum laudis honorem."
3 Sing unto the Lord a new song : sing praises
lustily unto Him with a good courage.
This is the first time that we have had that expression, A
new song : on which S. Augustine has left us a whole treatise,
and on which all mediaeval writers love to dwell at length.
Zigabenus sees in this expression the four great hymns of ^*
the New Testament : he also sees in the decachord the ten
songs of the Old Testament, those of Miriam, Moses, Deborah, A.
Hannah, David, Solomon, Judith, Hezekiah, Habakkuk, the
Three Children, — an adaptation rather than an explanation.
498
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Ay.
S. Augustine would have the decachord to mean the three
commandments which pertain to God, the seven which per-
tain to man.* The remarks of Ayguan may so well apply to
choirs of the present day, that I will transcribe them here.
" For when we go to sing the Office of God in church, reve-
rence and humility ought to be more strictly observed, lest,
when we come into the presence of God Himself, we should
be worse than at other times. For there are some who, wan-
dering in their thoughts, staring about with their eyes, slovenly
in their dress, look about and gaze upon the flat walls, sing one
thing and think of another, are bodily in the choir, and men-
tally in the market.^ And there are some singers of effeminate
voices, who glory in their delicate modulation, and put in other
notes than those that are written in the ecclesiastical books,
that they may rather, forsooth, please the people than God.
They who sing after this fashion do not sing in the choir
with Miriam, the sister of Moses : but in the palace with the
daughter of Herodiaa, that they may please those that sit at
meat, and Herod. They glory in reaching such and such a
high note ; but no one reaches such a high note as he whom
God is accustomed to hear from His lofty mountain. You,
therefore, sing in the valley of humility, that you may merit
to be heard on the hill of glory. If you so sing as to be
careful about the praise of others, you sell your voice, and
make it not yours, but theirs. You have your voice while
you sing in your own power ; have your mind in your own
power too." Lustily unto Sim tvith a good courage. Notice
how God cares rather for the will than for the deed : how we
must throw ourselves heart and soul into our work, if we
would do that work so as to please Him. Our English trans-
lation, lustily, gives the force more emphatically than any
other version. If we wish to show the inferiority of the
Bible translation, we could not choose many more glaring
examples than this. Compare, on the one side, the noble,
Sing praises lustily unto Sim with a good courage ; on the
other. Play skilfully with a loud noise}
\_A new song, because Christ has made all things new, and
we having put on the new man, must have a new kind of
sTBonaVeii- praise in our mouths. That, remarks another saint, is love,
s^fh • • ^^^ Lord hath said, "A new commandment I give unto
34. ° ^^* you, that ye love one another." And not only one another,
' It is impossible to preserve
the alliteration of the original :
Sunt in choro corpore, sed inforo
mente.
3 [But, after all, the Hebrew
denotes instrumental, and not
vocal music. It may be para-
phrased, as by De Wette, thus :
Smite the harp fitly for Him,
amidst tJie blare of the trum-
pets,']
Rupert.
S. Brun
Carth.
Rev. xxi. 5.
^ It is needless to observe that
S. Augustine divides the Deca-
logue as it is divided by the West-
em Church at this day : amal-
gamating our first and second
into one, dividing the tenth into
two. This subject deserves more
attention than it has received.
Our method is strongly sup-
ported even as late as the twelfth
century by Kupert of Deutz.
PSALM XXXIIT. 499
but "Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you." s. Lukevi.
And it may be further taken of the counsels of perfection, I'^'j^att xix
of chastity, " He that is able to receive it, let him receive 12.
it ;" and of poverty, " Sell that ye have, and give alms."] s. Luke xU.
4 For the word of the Lord is true : and all his
works are faithful.
" I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life," said the Word -^•
of the LoED Himself; and it well follows. All Sis works are
faithful, since it is written, " All things were made by Him."
Yet the greater part of the early commentators do not take
it in this sense. Theodoret, with the literal interpretation,
which his school dearly loved, takes it of Holy Scripture.
So does S. G-audentius of Brescia. S. Basil and Cassiodorus DeFide.c.v.
take it of the Catholic faith ; S. Bruno, by a miserably nar-
row interpretation, understands it of the precept of singing. *
The word, says Ayguan, is the half-way spot between the ^*
intention and the action ; and therefore is the Word of
the Lord true, or straight, Ibecause of the faithfulness of all
His promises. As it is written, " All His commandments are
true : they stand fast for ever and ever."
5 He loveth righteousness and judgment : the
earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.
Righteousness and judgment : or as it is in the Vulgate,
Mercy and judgment. For these are the two pillars on which ^^ ^^
God's house is reared up, — the Jachin and Boaz which ^
stand before the celestial temple. And mercy is well put
before judqment : for the promise of the Deliverer who
should bruise the serpent's head was given before the sen-
tence of punishment was pronounced on Adam and Eve : as
also at the last day the King will first speak the blessedness
of those on the Kight Hand, before He shall bid those on
the left to depart into everlasting fire. And since He loves D»<iyinus.
mercy, so He commands us to love it also. " What doth the Micah vi. 8.
LoED require of thee, but to do justice and to love mercy ?"
The earth is full. And why does he rather say the earth
than mankind? Because God's mercies are over all His
works, as well as over man : He that gave warning in the
pla^e of hail that the cattle of the Egyptians should not
perish, — He that forbad the taking the dam and the eggs to-
gether,— He that had pity on the much cattle of Nineveh, — Z.
certainly shows His goodness to His other creation as well as to
man. Again ; the earth is mentioned as if to tell that this world, |- J^"'*^
and not the next, is the season for repentance and mercy.
6 By the word of the Lord were the heavens made :
and aUthe hosts of them by the breath of his mouth.
Here we have one of the most remarkable testimonies in
the Old Testament to the doctrine of the Trinity. Ahnost
500 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
.
all the Fathers hare so applied it, — Tertullian,^ S. Cyprian,^
S. Ambrose,^ S. Augustine/ S. Isidore,^ S. Fulgentius,^ S.
Athanasius,' and many others. Some of these have gone fur-
ther, and have attributed the creation of the heavens more
especially to the Woed, that of the stars and angels more
especially to the Holy Ghost. S. Augustine, referring the
heavens, as he always does, to the Apostles, shows how it was
the teaching of the Word of God which made them what
they were, and formed them for their work. " And how
dared," says he, " those same heavens to go with confidence,
of weak men to be made heavens, except that hy the Word of
the Lord were the heavens made firm ? Whence could sheep
among wolves have such strength, except that hy the breath
of His mouth were all the strength of them ? ' Behold,' saith
He, ' I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves.' O
LoED, most merciful, surely Thou dost this that the earth
may be full of Thy mercy ! If, then, Thou art so merciful as
to fill the earth with Thy mercy, see whom Thou sendest, see
whither Thou sendest. Sheep into the midst of wolves. ' I
send them,' saith He, ' because they are become heavens to
water the earth.' Whence weak men can be heavens.
But all the strength of them hy the Spirit of His mouth.
Behold, the wolves shall take you, and deliver and give
you up to the powers, for My Name's sake. Now arm
ye yourselves. With your own strength .P Far from it.
'Take no thought how or what ye shall speak, for it is
not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Fathee which
speaketh in you.' This is of a truth, All the host of them by
Cd. the breath of His mouth." Many have thought that S. John,
at the commencement of his Gospel, and especially in that
saying, " All things were made by Him," was simply refer-
ring to this passage, and re-stating it in its own highest
Christian meaning. If this be so, it is a curious instance of
the way in which the Apostles understood the symbolical
teaching of the Psalms. S. Basil understands the heavens,
not of Apostles, but of Angels, which, however, is less in ac-
cordance with the general principle of symbolism. Ground-
ing themselves on this verse, the Jewish rabbis declare that
the basis of all the bases of the Mosaic law is this : that the
creation of the world was the immediate work of God, and
not His mediate work by the hand of Angels.
7 He gatliereth the waters of the sea together, as
it were upon an heap : and layeth up the deep as in
a treasure-house.
Taking the heavens to signify the Apostles, and the hosts
' Contra Hermogen. cap. 3.
* Contra Judseos, cap. 3.
^ In Symbolum, cap. 6.
^ De Asoen. Deitatis.
^ De Nativitat. cap. 4.
6 De Fide, cap. 8.
7 Orat. 4, contra Arianos.
PSALM XXXIII. 501
of them the exceeding great army of converts which by their s. Basil,
preaching was spread throughout the world, then here we see
an analogy with that prophecy in Isaiah, " The earth shall
be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the
sea." These waters He gathered together in that book of
remembrance which is written for them that fear Him : and Mai. Ui. i6.
layeth up the deep as in a treasure-house : for what are His
treasures but the innumerable souls which either directly or
indirectly the preaching of the Apostles has brought in?
The Vulgate has it, gathering as in a bottle the waters of the
sea : and they refer to the new wine and the new bottles ^*
which the Lord's Incarnation was to prepare. Others again
take the deep thus laid up in a treasure-house, of the depth ^^ ^^'
of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God :
others, of afflictions, bitter in themselves like the waters
of the sea, but the exceeding great treasures of grace. Or
again : Theodoret takes the waters in the bottle of the clouds, Theodoret.
sucked up and raised from the sea and there reserved till the
time comes to pour them forth upon the earth. As it is written
in Job : " Who can number the clouds in wisdom, or who can Job xxxviii.
stay the bottles of heasrenP" On an heap. As it was when ^'^'
the Red Sea was passed, and when the nether waters of the ^•
Jordan were cut off. And if we take the Latin, Placing the ^"F° ^^^-
ahysses in His treasures, then we may see how the greatest °"^'
sinners have sometimes become His greatest saints ; abysses Aquin.""
of wickedness turned into treasures of mercy. S. Basil says, g^ g^gjj
" Laying up the abysses in Sis treasures. It would have been
more after the common manner of speech. Laying up His
treasures in abysses: that is, containing His treasures in
mysteries and hidden secrets. But now He speaks of the
abysses themselves as of something precious and worthy of
Divine treasures. Nor do I know whether the reasons them-
selves of Divine judgments hidden in themselves, and com-
prehensible by no minds, are hence called abysses, because
they are reserved to the Divine understanding alone. We,
when we shall be held worthy of that knowledge by which
God is seen face to face, shall then contemplate those abysses
in the treasures of God. But if you collect what is written
concerning bottles in the sacred volume, you will approach
nearer to the understanding of those prophecies. Those are
called new bottles in the Gospel who day by day renew their
spiritual life, and receive new wine from the True Vine. But
they who have not yet put off the old man with his deeds,
are old bottles, into which new wine cannot conveniently or
safely be poured." Thus Adam of S. Victor :
Utres novi, non yetusti, The's'e-^'''*'
Simt capaces novi musti ; quence, Lux
Vasa parat vidua ; jucunda, lux
Dat Hquorera Helisffius ; '""''Sms.
Nobis sacrum rorem Deus,
Si corda sint congrua.
502
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
S. Bruno
Carth.
Haymo.
Jer. V. 22.
S. Nice-
phorus.
Honor! as.
[The waters, being the nations of the world, according to
Rev.xvii.i5. that saying, " the waters are peoples and multitudes, and
nations and tongues," are gathered together into the unity
of the Church, which is compared to a bottle, because, as a
leathern bottle is made of the skin of a dead animal, so the
Church is made up of those who have mortified sin in the
flesh.]
8 Let all the earth fear the Lord : stand in awe
of him^ all ye that dwell in the world.
In like manner, the Prophet: "Fear ye not Me? saith
the LoBD : will ye not tremble at My presence, Which have
placed the sand for the bound of the sea, by a perpetual de-
cree, that it cannot pass it?" They seem to see, in the two
clauses, a double division of those who are addressed : Let
all the earth : those who are of the earth, earthy : — all ye
that dwell in the world : those who are true children of that
Church which is scattered throughout the whole globe.
Stand in awe of Him. And was it not so, when after the
stilled storm, Peter fell down at His knees, saying, " Depart
from me, for I am a sinful man, O Loed ?" Was it not so
when the Gadarenes besought Him that He would depart
out of their coasts? Well says S. Augustine: "Let them
not fear another instead of Him. Doth a wild beast rage ?
Fear God. Doth a serpent lie in wait? Fear God. Doth
man beat thee? Fear God. Doth the devil fight against
thee? Fear God. For the whole creation is under Him
Whom thou art commanded to fear." Stand in aioe of Him.
Or as it is in the Vulgate, Let all the inhabitants of the earth
he moved because of Him. And that answers precisely to the
saying of Ezekiel : " So that the fishes of the sea, and the
fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all
creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the men
that are upon the face of the earth, shall shake at My pre-
sence."
A.
Ezek.
xxxviii. 20.
The Hymn,
Dapuer
plectrum.
S. Basil.
S. Isidor,
Hisp.
9 For he spake, and it was done : he commanded,
and it stood fast.
Prudentius, in that noble hymn of his, has versified this
Ipse jussit, et areata : dixit ipse, et facta sunt :
Terra, coelum, fossa ponti, trina rerum machina,
Queeque in his vigent sub alto Solis et Lunse globo.
The Greek Fathers seem to take the two clauses as referring,
the former to God's material, the latter to His spiritual,
works. But notice then : He spake, and it ivas done : a most
clear reference to the Woed, by Whom it was done. S.
Isidore most truly teaches that He spake is often said of God
PSALM XXXIII. 503
instead of " He did :" because by His Word His creative
power was exercised. And S. Ambrose well says : " GrOD
did not give the command that the effect might be : but that
it might be seen to be His effect." They dispute with refer- Hexaem.
ence to this verse, why, in the Apostles' Creed, in the Latin,
God is called Creator of heaven and earth, and in the JSTicene,
the Maker. And they reply that it was with reference to .
th» heresy of Marcion and his followers, that God did indeed ^^
create all the great and chief parts of nature, but that as to
the little every-day occurrences of this hfe, they are brought
to pass, made, so to speak, by Satan.
10 The Lord bringetli the counsel of the heathen
to nought : and maketh the devices of the people to
be of none eff'ect^ and casteth out the counsels of
princes.
11 The counsel of the Lord shall endure for ever :
and the thoughts of his heart from generation to
generation.
So of Ahithophel ; so it was with Holofernes ; so with Sen-
nacherib. And therefore well might Gamaliel say, " If this
counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought ; but
if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it." And the Scriptural
S. Albert heaps together innumerable passages which testify s. Albert. M.
to the same thing. So says Eliphaz : " He disappointeth the j^^^ ^ ^^
devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform
their enterprise. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness,
and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong." So S.
Paul : " For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with
God." So, again, Isaiah : " My counsel shall stand, and I isa. xivi. lo.
will do all My pleasure:" and once more: "The Loed of
Hosts hath sworn, saying. Surely as I have thought, so shall
it come to pass : and as I have purposed, so shall it stand."
And thus writes S. Cvprian : "Hast thou the protection of s. Cyprian.
God ? stand safe and without fear against everything that Somf**'
the devil or the world can perform. For what fear can he
have from the world, to whom God is a protector in the
world?" Casteth out the counsels of princes. It is not in
the Hebrew ; but being in the LXX., and both in the Italic
and Vulgate, it has probably fallen out of the original by
accident. And who are these princes, save the devil and his ^J-
legions ? as our Loed Himself says, " Now is the judgment s. John xu.
of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast ^^•
out." " So," says one of the greatest of the Fathers, " so, O ^ag! Mor.
Christian, his devices against thee are every day brought to ix. 4."
nought. He sends such and such a temptation, intending it
to be thy ruin ; but the Loed, by His overruUng providence,
turns it into thy victory. He pours forth against thee all
the fiery darts of evil thoughts : thy Loed not only inter-
504
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
D. C.
cepts them, but infuses in their stead His Holy Spieit into
thy soul." The counsel of the Lord. Yet we must remember
S.J^ohnDa- that, as.S. John Damascene says, "Counsel, properly speak-
'"'^'"' ing, is only taken by the ignorant." Hear, therefore, the
Carthusian : " But Holy Scripture frequently attributes
counsel to God : but it is then ascribed to Him, not in so far
as it includes the inquisition of doubtful matters, but in so
far as it excludes a hasty determination." And they remind
us that there are three kinds of counsels which God over-
throws : 1, the vain philosophy of heathen sects, long before
the Advent ; 2, the counsel of Scribes and Pharisees, Annas
and Caiaphas, Herod and Pontius Pilate, against our Loed,
while He was on earth ; and 3, the counsels of great perse-
cutors, of Decius and Diocletian, of Huneric and Mahomet,
against His Church since His Ascension. And notice once
more how God turns the counsels of the wicked into good.
" Often," says S. Gregory, " while some, puffed up by human
wisdom, devise the most subtle counsels against the dispen-
sation of God, they only carry out the Loed's will ; and
while they seek to overthrow it, they indeed confirm it. So
Joseph, sold into Egypt that he might not be lord over his
brethren, by that very means was made a king and prince
to them."
Moral, lib
6, cap. 11,
12 Blessed are the people, whose God is the Lord
Jehovah : and blessed are the folk, that he hath
chosen to him to be his inheritance.
Hugo Card. How does He choose them ? And Cardinal Hugo answers
the question at length. If we take God's own simile of a
husbandman. He removes the briars of sin, He ploughs with
the plough of the Word, He sows the seeds of grace ; He
surrounds with the hedge of fear ; He walks in His garden
in the cool of the evening. S. Basil will have the people to
mean the Jews ; and then, when they counted themselves,
as the Apostle speaks, unworthy of eternal life, the folk to
mean the Gentiles. Or, if you like, we may take the people
to mean the chosen band of the Apostles : as the Loed Him-
self saith, " Have not I chosen you twelve ?" Others, again,
see, in the distinction between the two clauses, the Church
Militant and the Church Triumphant ; or rather, — and it is
to be noticed how completely a mediaeval writer here eschews
the notion of a purgatory^ of suffering, — of the Church
awaiting her future reward before the Kesurrection, and the
Church as having entered into possession at the consumma-
tion of all things. To use his own words, " The blessedness
L.
S. John vi,
70.
Ay.
^ The same thing appears from
another passage, (105 C,) where,
instead of the usual modem
Roman division of the Church
into Militant, Suffering, and
Triumphant, Ayguan knows of
no division but Militant and
Triumphant.
PSALM XXXIII. 505
which Is possessed in our country, so far as respects the first
robe before the Eesurrection, but which will be complete as
to both robes after the Resurrection." What this blessed-
ness consists in let S. Bernard tell us : " In that eternal and S.Bernard.
blessed life those blessed ones triply have fruition of God : ^pJir^cmi
to wit, seeing Him in all things, having Him in themselves,
and, which is ineffably more glorious and blessed, beholding
Him in His very essential Trinity, and contemplating that
glory without any enigma, by the pure eye of the heart.
And it is this condition of blessedness, which noting, the Sa-
vioUE saith, ' This is life eternal, that they may know Thee,
the only true God.' " And if we take the two clauses to-
gether, we thence find that God is the possessor as well as
the possessed : as is set forth by S. Anselm with admirable
force in his Prosologion. "Therefore God Himself says.
Fear not, for I have redeemed thee ; I have called thee by
thy Name ; thou art Mine." Corderius is rapt beyond his
usual elevation in considering this passage : " O words," says Cd.
he, " most sweet, and that fill the mind with wonderful hap-
piness ! We are the possession of God, we belong to Him,
we pertain to Him ; no one can hurt us, without challenging
the power of God. ' Thou art Mine,' He says, and that by
a peculiar reason ; not in that way only in which the heaven
and earth are God's, as being the demiurge and architect of
all, but because, saith He, ' I have redeemed thee, fear thou
not.' The purple blood itself of the Immaculate Lamb, that
immortal and incomparable price, which, save God, nothing
can equal, cries out loudly, ' Fear not;' and, as S. Cyprian m^.'^c. lo.
speaks in his exhortation to martyrdom, promises to us
security and protection. To the same effect is that which
follows :"
13 The Lord looked down from heaven, and be-
held all the children of men : from the habitation of
his dwelling he considereth all them that dwell on
the earth.
So the ancient hymn tells us :
Speculator adstat desuper The Hymn,
Qui nos diebus omnibus, Lux ecce
Actusque nostros prospicit mrgitaurea.
A luce prima in vesperum.
Instead of from the habitation of Sis dwelling, the Vulgate
has ii, from His prepared dwelling, an expression which they
interpret variously. The meaning attached to it by S. Gre-
gory Nyssen is something harsh : The Lord— th&t is, Cheist Tract. 2^ in
—from His prepared dtvelling—thsit is, from the bosom of
the Father, Whose He always is, looked down upon the
chUdren of men at the Incarnation. S. Thomas takes it as AquuTaT^
reminding us that there is a certain abode prepared, as for
506
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
God now, so for those that are God's hereafter; a place
where He is, and where we shall be also. And so in Eccle-
siasticus : " The eyes of the Loed are ten thousand times
brighter than the sun, beholding all the ways of men, and
considering the most secret parts." Prepared habitation.
We may take it, if so we will, of those whom God has used
as His instruments and temples by which to work, and in
which to dwell : according to that saying, " What, know ye
Cor. VI. 19. jjQ^ ^\^^^ jour bodies are the temples of the Holt Ghost,
Which is in you?" Thus, from His habitation in each of the
Apostles, the Holy Ghost considered the various nations to
whom, by their means, He preached : China and India by
S. Thomas, Scythia by S. Andrew, Spain by S. Paul. So it
iimsVeiand. is that He exercises that which Tertullian calls His censo-
XV. rium lumen over those to whom His word is spoken by His
messengers at this day. And there is no doubt a contrast
in the first and second clauses, between The Lord looked
down from heaven and from His prepared habitation. Under
the old dispensation He looJced down from heaven as a God
afar off; under the New Covenant from Sis prepared habi-
Heb, X. 5. tation : as it is written, " A body hast Thou prepared Me."
Ecclus.
xxiii. 19.
D. C.
A.
Tertullian
de Virgin
The Hymn,
Pange
lingua.
Man with man in converse blending,
Scattered He the G-ospel seed.
14 He fashioneth all the hearts of them : and un.
derstandeth all their works.
S. Basil.
Z.
Or, as it is in the Vulgate, He fashioneth the hearts of them
singly. Hence they are accustomed to refute the fancy of
Origen, that the souls of men were created long before their
bodies, and that they are simply put into • each body as it is
formed. It is not here the place to open, as so many modern
commentators do, a door to the whole Jansenian controversy,
from the last clause, and under standeth all their works.
Others have gathered that the singly or separately refers to
the spirit of man as contrasted with the souls of beasts ; and |
others, as S. Isidore of Pelusium, take it to mean that God!
by Himself, and without any intermediate ministry, has
fashioned each several soul. "But do thou, O Christian,"!
Hugo Victo- says Hugh of S. Victor, " knowing that He understandeth all\
'^"'**- thy works, Whose works even from the cradle to the grave
were what they were, that He understandeth all thy works,
Whose highest work was performed on the Cross of Cal-
vary, take heed lest He behold in thee works of worldly!
pleasure, works of self-indulgence, works of sin; works thel
very opposite of, and contrary to, those which His owaj
right hand and which His holy arm effected ; works thatj
will be thy shame and confusion in that day when thouj
and all the sons of men, must be judged according to thy]
works."
PSALM XXXIII. 507
15 There is no king that can be saved by the mul-
titude of an host : neither is any mighty man deli-
vered by much strength.
16 A horse is counted but a vain thing to save a
man : neither shall he deliver any man by his great
strength.
This is the lesson which God at sundry times and in divers ^
manners taught His people. Thus He said to Gideon, when ^'
about to fight with the Midianites, " The people are yet too ^^^s- '^"•'*-
many ; bring them down to the water, and I will try them
for thee there." So, again, the man of God said to King
Amaziah, " O king, let not the army of Israel go with thee ;
for the Lord is not with Israel. But if thou wilt go, do it, xxv.7."
be strong for the battle ; God shall make thee fall before the
enemy." And so, once more, where it is written that Judas ^ jy^acc. xv.
Maccabeus "stretched out his hands towards heaven, and 21.
called upon the Lord That worketh wonders, knowing that
victory cometh not by arms, but even as it seemed good to
Him, He giveth it to such as are worthy." Neither is any
mighty man delivered hy much strength. For consider that ^'^P®'*^-
He Who was indeed the mightiest of all mighty, — the God
Who, to them that had no might, increaseth strength, — the
God Who is strength Himself, delivered not the race of
man by strength, but by weakness ; as when He fell beneath
the Cross, as when He bowed His head and gave up the
ghost, as when in the weakness of death He was taken down .
and laid in the grave. Mighty man : or giant, as it is in the ^'
Vulgate. They compare, therefore, Sihon, King of the Amo- Ps. cxxxvi.
rites, and Og, the King of Bashan,— the latter "of the rem- ^^'^ll\^^ j,
nant of the giants," — with the two clauses of the present
verse : as they do the horse, counted hut a vain thing to save
a man, with that of Pharaoh, which went down into the
Eed Sea. And so it is written in another place, " Thus ^- ^^
saith the Lord : Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Jer. ix. 23.
neither let the mighty man glory in his might : let not the
rich man glory in his riches : but let him that glorieth glory
in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, that I am
the Lord." And notice why a horse is so often spoken of as • ^^ •
a worldly method of defence or attack : because the children
of Israel never used horses in battle. We read of the vast
number of war-horses brought into the field by the Ammo-
nites and Syrians ; also the chariots of iron, which proved
an insuperable difficulty to the Ephraimites, in driving out
the ancient possessors of their land. But, excepting for
show, the kings of Judah had none; and even for show, the
Law forbade any great number, "He shall not multiply fg«'^*- ^^"•
horses unto himself" Neither is any mighty man delivered :
or, as it is in the Vulgate, And a giant shall not be saved m
the multitude of his strength. There we have a clear refer-
z 2
508 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
ence to those giants wliom the Philistines sent forth against
God's people, Goliath at their head : all of them manifest
A. types of Antichrist. Let S. Augustine, then, teach us what
is to be our strength. " To the Loed all, in the Loed all.
God be your hope, God be your fortitude, God be your firm-
ness ; He be your prayer. He be your praise : He be the help
by which you labour, He be the end in which you rest."
17 Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that
fear him : and upon thera that put their trust in his
mercy.
They take it of that eye which, while the Loed was before
the judgment-seat, looked Peter into repentance, — while He
was hanging on the Cross, inspired the penitent thief with
s. Cyril. love and hope. And that word behold, as S. Cyril says, is
Alex. jjqIj j(j2y ^Q \^Q passed by. It seems to bring the mercy of
God home to us ; as if, not only in those old histories, but in
Q these present days, that Eye was still watching us through
our wanderings, and beaming upon us the strength which is
to bring us to our home. And notice once more the gradual
ascent from fear to love : upon them that fear Him, first ;
then upon them that put their trust in His mercy. This was
the verse on which the poor old anthropomorphite monk in
Egypt based his religion. " It has been all my life," he said,
to the Bishop who showed him the impossibility of his creed,
" my comfort to believe, that the Loed was watching me
with eyes like those of a man : now you have taken away my
God, and what shall I do for another?" S. Albert well ob-
serves that here we have a promise of God's protection in
this Hfe in the first clause ; of His salvation in the world to
come in the next. And he goes on to make an ingenious ap-
s. Alb. Mag. plication of the Mosaic law. " Hope and fear," he says, " are
the two millstones between which a man's soul is ground so
as to become contrite ; and therefore the Law forbids that
Deut. xxiv. either the upper or the nether millstone should be taken to
pledge, neither being of use without the other." And there-
Eccius. ii. 9. fore they are well joined in Ecclesiasticus : " Ye that fear the
A. Loed, hope for good." S.Augustine says well: "Whereby
shall we be saved? Not by might, not by strength, not
by power, not by glory, not by a horse. Whereby, then ?
Whither shall I go ? Where shall I find whence I may be
saved ? Seek not long, seek not far. Behold, the eyes of the
Lord are upon them that fear Him. Ye see that these are
the same whom He beholds in His habitation, those who
hope in His mercy ; not in their own merits, not in strength,
not in fortitude, not in a horse ; but in His mercy."
18 To deliver their soul from death : and to feed
them in the time of dearth.
PSALM XXXIII. 509
They take it with one consent of the blessed Eucharist. j^
Its two principal virtues — deliverance from temptation and
eternal death, and food and refreshment in the wilderness of
this world — are marvellously brought out. Gerson, in his
beautiful treatise on the Magnificat, dwelling on this subject, Gerson. in
contrasts with the seven deadly sins seven physical properties Ma&niflc.
of the Altar Bread, which he sums up in a line :
Parva, nitens, sana, teres, azyma, mundaque, scripta.
And in three others he sums up the twelve blessings which
it bestows :
Restaurat, satiat, delectat, roborat, auget :
Obdormire facit ; caro servit ; mens dominatur :
Yim genitivam dat : transformat, inarrhat et unit.
To deliver their soul from death : thus speaks David. " He s. John vi.
that eateth Me, shall even live by Me," says the Son of
David. " The time of death is now," says S. Augustine ; .
" the time of saturity will be by-and-by. He That deserteth '^'
us not in the famine of this corruption, how will He desert
us when we shall have become immortal P But while it is
the time of famine, we must tolerate, we must endure, we
must persevere to the end ; and because we bravely bear this
famine of our pilgrimage, we must expect to be refreshed in
the wilderness, that we faint not." And, as this, so those
many other dear promises in the Old Testament of food to
them that are needy : " The poor shall eat, and be satisfied ;" ^s- ^^- 26.
" The LoED giveth meat unto them that fear Him ;" " Be- ^^' <=^^- ^•
hold. My servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry." ^^*' ^*^' '^'
19 Our soul hath patiently tarried for the Lord :
for he is our help, and our shield.
20 For our heart shall rejoice in him : because we
have hoped in his holy Name.
And here we have the answer of the righteous, who have -^^
up to this time been addressed or been spoken of. The
Psalm is, as it were, antiphonal : the one choir tells of God's
past mercies, the other resolves to trust in Him for the pre-
sent. It is worth noticing that the second verse is rendered
difierently in the LXX. and the Vulgate from the original.
Instead of the hope in God's Name being the cause of joy,
these versions would imply that the joy was the cause of the
hope. Because our heart rejoiceth in Him, we have hoped in
Ris holy Name. S. Bernard dwells at great length on the
duty of spiritual joy. Observe, that in the list of the graces Rnpert.
of the Holy Ghost, if love stands the first, joy occupies the
second place ; and of what value must that be in the sight of
God, which precedes our dear Loed's last legacy, namely,
peace ! And notice the difierence between owr help and our Ay.
510
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
P.
S. Basil.
L.
shield : the former the positive, the latter the negative assist-
ance ; the former leading on to good works, the latter de-
fending' from evil temptations. It is the same thing which
we shall hereafter find in the 46th Psalm, " God is our hope
and strength ;" hope in the good things which we intend to
perform, — strength against the temptations which we desire
to conquer. In His holy Name. Another instance of that
reference to the Name which is above every name, of which
we have had so many, and shall have so many more. '' It is
enough," says S. Basil, " that we are called by the name of
Christians, to render us superior to every assault of every
enemy." That Name, lauded in so many hymns ; that Name,
no less the worship of the saints in heaven than of those who
are yet militant on earth. They propose* ten names of God,
and ask which is that to which reference is here made. God
forbid that I, or that any one who may read these pages,
should doubt for one moment :
The Se-
quence, Je-
sus dulcis
Nazarenus.
Jesu Nomen omne bonum
Tenet, dulcem facit sonum,
Promeretur regni thronum,
Auditum laetificat :
In hoc lucet splendor Patris :
In hoc patet decor Matris ;
In hoc fulget honor fratris ;
Hoc fratres magnificat.
Hugo Vic-
torin.
c.
21 Let Thy merciful kindness, O Lord, be upon
us : like as we do put our trust in thee.
" O valiant prayer," cries Theodoret, " measure Thy mercy
by my confidence." So it is indeed ; and let us take that
prayer in virtual effect on our own lips, whenever we join in
the noblest hymn in the Church, ending as it does with the
same supplication. O high aim, marvellous petition of the
Christian ! that he may be forgiven only as he forgives ; that
he may be helped only as he trusts ! Hugh of S. Victor,
with that deep mind of his, sees here, in that word_^a^, " fiat
misericordia tua super nos," the mixture of free will and of
grace, which is the only true and safe teaching. Cassiodorus
here sees a petition for the Incarnation : that being the mer-
ciful kindness hid from ages and generations, but now re-
vealed in the cottage of Nazareth by the message of Gabriel.
Let the same writer give us what he calls the conclusion of
the Psalm. " What honeyed words have we heard ! how
gloriously has the celestial Psaltery sounded ! Such are the
chords of its mandates, that if we will receive them in the
ears of our minds, we shall both purify ourselves by the
means of David's lyre, and it will be to us as it was to Saul :
^ Kutilius Benzonus dwells on this subject at great length in bis
treatise on the Magnificat.
PSALM XXXIV. 511
evil spirits will be chased away, so that with pure heart we
shall serve the Lord. Yes, the blessed have also their music,
which enters the hearing of the faithful soul; the sound
whereof never fails, the meaning whereof never grows old."
And therefore :
Glory be to the Father, Whose Counsel shall endure for
ever ; and to the Son, the Word of the Lord, by Whom the
heavens were made : and to the Holy Ghost, the Breath of
His Mouth ;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be : world
without end. Amen.
Collects.
Feed, O Lord, Thy people, in the time of famine, with Ludoiph.
Thy Word, and deliver our souls from the death of sin ;
that, being filled with Thy mercy, we may, through Thy
gift, merit to be admitted to the joys of the righteous.
Through (1.)
Let Thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us ; and as Thou didst Mozarabic.
separately fashion the hearts of men, so be Thou pleased to
sanctify them specially; and because Thine eyes are ever
open to them that fear Thee, bestow on us the fulness of Thy
fear, and confer on us the completeness of Thy knowledge.
Amen. Through Thy mercy (11.)
O God, Whose command it is that the righteous should be Mozarabic.
full of joy ; whose praise both obeys Thee by loving, and
loves by praising ; who, by the Harp of the Law, sing the
New Song, and in the Psaltery give the glad music of pious
words ; grant, O Lord, that we may follow in their footsteps,
and praise Thee together with them : and because Thy Word
is true, and all Thy works faithful, grant that we may believe
Thee with a faithful heart, and may diligently obtain Thy
loving-kindness. Amen. Through Thy mercy (11.)
[O Christ, Word of the Eternal Father, by Whom the p. c.
heavens were made, enlighten us with the gift of Thy Spirit,
and stablish us in good works, that we may be justified
through faith in the Trinity, and through working that which
is pleasing to Thee, and may, together with the people Thou
hast chosen for Thine inheritance, be glorified for ever. Who
Uvest (5.)]
PSALM XXXIV.
Title. A Psalm of David, when he changed his behaviour before
Abimelech, who drove him away, and he departed.
In his exposition of this title, S. Augustine, perhaps, displays a
greater depth of Scriptural study than in any other part of his
commentary on the Psahns. David changed his behaviour before
512 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Abimelech : the True David changed His behaviour, that is, came
in a way which they expected not, before " the kingdom of His
Tathee," — (for so Abimelech is interpreted,) — that is, before the
Jews. David " affected :" the Son of David took our affections and
sicknesses on Him. David drummed (so is the Vulgate) on the
doors : in the drum, S. Augustine sees its tension, and applies it to
the tension of our Loed on the Cross. His spittle ran down on his
beard : that is, Cheist affected the speech and behaviour of children.
The whole exposition, which takes up an entire sermon, — it was
preached on a Saturday, — is most remarkable, and to literahsts must
appear the wildest effort of an unrestrained fancy.
Aegitment.
Aeg. Thomas. That Cheist guards the just in their various
temptations by the intervention of Angels. The voice of some
righteous' man. The voice of the Church assembling her congrega-
tion for a fast. A prayer also at the Altar. A prayer of faith. For
a fast.
Yen. Bede. (After explaining the title from S. Augustine.) The
whole Psalm is alphabetic, with the exception of the sixth letter. In
the first part, the Prophet resolves to bless God, admonishing the
gentle that, in company with himself, they persevere in His praise.
In the second, in order to bring to pass the conversion of the faith-
ful, he dwelleth on the rewards that follow after this life. In the
third he warns them, as if they were his children, from what sins
they ought to abstain. The fourth teaches that the righteous shall
be delivered out of all his troubles, while the wicked shall suffer the
punishment they have deserved.
Steiac Psaltee. a Psalm of David, when he went to the house
of the Loed, and gave the first-fruits to the Priests.
Vaeiotis Uses.
Michaelmas Day,
Common of Apostles.
Common of Many Martyrs.
Gregorian. Monday : Nocturn. "
[S. John Baptist : III.Noctum. All
Saints : III. Nocturn.]
Monastic. Monday : I, Nocturn,
Parisian. Thursday: Sexts.
Lyons. Tuesday : I. Nocturn.
Ambrosian. First Week. Wednesday : I. Nocturn.
Quignon. Tuesday : Vespers.
Antiphons.
Gregorian. Ferial. It becometh well * the just to be thankful.
[Michaelmas Day : Glorious * hast thou appeared in the presence
of God : therefore the Loed hath clothed thee with beauty.
All Saints : O fear the Loed, ye that are His Saints, for they that
fear Him lack nothing ; the eyes of the Loed are over the righteous,
and His ears are open unto their prayers. Common of Apostles :
The righteous cry, * and the Loed heareth them. Common of
Many Martyrs : They delivered up * their bodies unto death, that
they should not serve idols : therefore they are crowned, and possess
the palm.]
* I read cujtisdam with Ferrandus, not qucadam.
PSALM XXXIV. 513
Monastic. Ferial. It becometh well * the just to be thankful.
Parisian. Come, ye children, * hearken unto me : I will teach
you the fear of the Lord.
Amhrosian. As the preceding Psalm.
Mozarabic. (First Diapsalma.) O praise the LoED with me,
and let us exalt His Name together.^
1 I will alway give thanks unto the Lord : his i^
praise shall ever be in my mouth.
Taking the clue which S. Augustine has given us, we shall
find that our True David "changed His countenance" before Arnoid.Abb.
" the Kingdom of His Fathee" twice : at His Incarnation, ^ "^V^^:
once for ever ; in the Holy Eucharist, again. Therefore in the siUo^' ^^
Apostolic Constitutions this Psalm is ordered to be recited
during the whole of the Communion. Cassiodorus tells us q
that it has so many mysteries, that we* can hardly believe that
it was not written during the Christian dispensation. Hence
also it is recited at a time which — at first sight — would seem L.
less applicable, namely, Good Fridav. S. Theodore the Mar- Mensea.
tyr, when so scourged that the flesh nung down from his sides
in strips, sang this verse. I will give thanhs : but how P In
many ways. By the earnest keeping His commandments. ^y
Hence, when the Psalmist says, " O praise the Loed, all ye ^^ ^.„ '^^
His hosts," he forthwith continues, " that do His pleasure."
By patience under adversity : hence Job, " The Loed gave, •^°^*- ^^•
and the Loed hath taken away : blessed be the Name of the ps. cvi. 12.
Loed." Then, by believing Him: as it is written, "Then
helieved they His words, and sang praise unto Him." Then,
by doing good to our neighbours : " Blessed be God, even 2 Cor. i. 4.
the Fathee of our Loed Jesus Cheist .... that we may
be able to comfort them which are in any trouble." Alway -p. ^
give thanks. WhatP when we are asleep, or in recreation, " '
or taking our food ? Verily, yes ; for it is written, " Whether 1 Cor. x. 31 .
therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the
glory of God." S. Basil tells us that the praise of God, once s. Basil,
rightly impressed as a seal on the mind, though it may not
always be carried out into action, yet in real truth causes us
perpetually to praise God. There cannot be a more beautiful
practical commentary on the subject than the letter in which
S. Jerome comforts S. Paula for the loss of her Blsesilla. Or, ^^^'^^"'^i.
again, if we take the Psalm to refer to the Holy Eucharist, am. "
this verse answers to the initial hymn, anthem, introit, m-
gressa, missa, or whatever else it may be called i—certamly, g. Albert, m.
m every known ancient Liturgy, praise is the commencement.
Then the fifth verse tells us of our Loed's Presence, mvisible
in one sense, visible in another, on the holy Altar. In the
^ I know not why Parez
should say of this Psalm, " Sed
quando exponitur materia aut
auctor Psalmi, non est creden-
dum quod David fecit ilium, sed
Esdras aut ahquis sanctus homo,
prout fuit sibi revelatum."
514 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
I
seventh we are told of the mystical communion there is, at
the time of celebration more than in any other, between the
holy Angels and ourselves : " the Angel of the Lobd tarrieth
round about them that fear Him." Then the Communion
itself, " O taste and see how gracious the Lord is !" And
so I shall have occasion to point out the similarity between
the structure of the Psalm and that of the Oflfice, as I con-
tinue its exposition.
n 2 My soul shall make her boast in the Lord : the
humble shall hear thereof, and be glad.
Serm. 71. There is a most excellent sermon on this verse by Philip
Greve, Chancellor of the University of Paris, deserving of
J special mention. In the Vulgate it is, My soul shall he
praised in the Lord, which, though only a rude wa}"- of repre-
senting the Hithpahel conjugation,^ is yet worked out into
a very beautiful sense : I am then praised, when my Lord is
praised : as every good thing I do by His grace redounds to
Him, so, since He has vouchsafed to be incorporated with
me, and to incorporate me with Himself, I have a right to
partake in His glory ; not the less a right, because given,
A S. Augustine is marvellously struck with the beauty of these
Epist, 77. two words, to be said in every time and place, Deo gr atlas,
as a true making our boast in the Lord. Thehumhle, or as it
were better, the afflicted. Here the Man of Sorrows speaks :
He Who said, " I knew that Thou hearest Me always," —
how better could He make His boast in the Lord ? And,
as they see His confidence in the midst of such sufferings,
all the train of His afflicted servants may well be glad. And
thus it was that our Lord said, " I seek not Mine own
A glory ;" and again, " If I honour Myself, My honour is
^' nothing." S. Gregory, therefore, teaches very well how w(
are herein to follow the example of our Lord : not to d(
any work for the sake of our own praise, as a final end
though we may for the fruit or effect of our own praise, as
s. Gregor. the glory of God, or the salvation of souls. The humble yoi
Mor. xxii. 9. may, if you wiU, take of the Apostles, — exulting, as they
must have done, when they saw their dear Lord making
Ay. His boast in the Father, in His ineffable union with Him,
the Oneness of their wills, in the intercommunication of
s Bernard their power. S.Bernard says, " It is good consolation, when,
Serm. xxiv'. trying to do well, we are blasphemed by sinners, if thf
in Cautic. righteous love us. Against the mouth of them that speal
lies, the good opinion of the good, and the testimony of oui
conscience is amply sufficient." " My soul shall he praised
S. Albert. M. in the Lord : the humble shall hear thereof, and he glad.
* bVnnn.
2 Quoting S. James i. 21, S.
Albertus proceeds : " Et est ar-
gumentum quod Parochiani de-
bent audire verbum divinur
in mansuetudine, et divinut
officium, et tunc possunt eorur
corda Isetificari : aliter non."
PSALM XXXIV.
615
Let me please the humble, and I can bear with equanimity
whatever the envy of the evil may object against me." My
soul shall be praised in the Lord: as it is written, " The eccIus. iii.
glory of a man is from the honour of his father:" much ^^•
more, then, from the honour of our Fathee Which is in
heaven.
3 O praise the Lord with me : and let us magnify J
his Name together.
Here with one accord, and most naturally, they dwell on
the public worship of God. This verse, indeed, is the parent
of all ritual. Hear S. Augustine : " If ye love God, hurry A.
away to the service of God all who are united to you, or are
in your house. If ye love the Body of Christ, that is, the
Unity of the Church, hurry them away to that delight. Ex-
cite in yourselves love, my brethren, and cry to each one of
those that belong to you, and say, O praise the Lord with
me."^ We must bear in mind, however, that this verse is not
rightfully to be separated from the next : and then we have
the ever- blessed Trinity clearly enough set forth to us. O
praise the Lord — the Father — with me : and let us magnify
Sis Name together. And what Name, as I have so often
said, save the Name that is above every name ? "I sought
the Lord, and He heard me :" that Lord, Who has promised
to give the clean heart, and to renew the right spirit, when-
ever invoked in Holy Baptism. O magnify with me: as it
is written in the Apocalypse, " Let him that heareth say, L.
Come." And so, in the framing of the earthly tabernacle,
"the curtains shall be coupled one to another:" "and they Exod. xxvi.
shall make fifty taches," — namely for the couplings — "of^-
gold :" for what joins one Christian to another — save the
gold of charity ? V . Bede will have us lay great emphasis on yg^ g^jg
that together : as showing the unity that ought to subsist
between all our Lord's members. And hence it was, says
he, that His own bones were not broken on the Cross : to
show that neither are His people, who are His Flesh and
His Bones, to be severed from each other by any assault or
violence of the enemy. And hence we learn this great truth,
that without union there can be no true praise.
4 I sought the Lord, and he heard me : yea, he 1
delivered me out of all my fear.
^ The wonderful coarseness of
S. Augustine's illustration of this
verse may show two things : —
1. The long period of years
which is necessary before the
softening influence of the Church
can do itself justice. 2. How
impossible it is that any, even
the most excellent, of the Com-
mentators of past ages should
altogether satisfy the need of
the present generation.
516
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
S. Matt,
xxviii. 20
We may take it in two ways. In the first place, of our
Blessed Loed Himself in His Sacramental Presence : I
Arnold. Abb. sought Him, and Se heard. Most indubitably, most perpe-
"• ^- tually. The words are pronounced which He pronounced ;
the actions are performed which He performed; and the
gracious promise is fulfilled — "Lo, I am with you alway,
even unto the end of the world." And how delivered me out
of all my fear ? Thus. He encourages us to draw nigh, yes,
and to feed upon Him, by manifesting Himself, not, as in
the glory of His corruptible Body, He did to the three
Apostles on Mount Tabor — not, as in the glory of His incor-
ruptible Body, He did to the four soldiers in the garden of
S. Joseph ; but under the form of Bread and Wine, without
terror, without fear, without devouring and overwhelming
Majesty. Or we may take the Lord here, as I said just now,
of the Ever-Blessed Spirit, so as to see the Consubstantial
Trinity set forth to us, in these two verses. And then
again, in the other great sacrament, Se heard me : let
Priest, parent, bystander, every one be servants of Satan,
still the promise of God stands sure — still God is true,
though every man be a liar : the Holy Ghost heard and
came down into the heart. I sought the Lord. But how ?
*' I sought Him," says the Carthusian, " faithfully contem-
plating, ardently loving, well living, and afiectionately pray-
ing." And notice : he saith not, " I Boughi from the Lobd,"
but I sought the Lord : to teach us, that God Himself, in
and by Himself, is to be the end of all our desires. Eemem-
ber the beautiful legend about S. Thomas, when he had
amplifies the finished that part of the Summa Theologies v^hich regards the
su jec . Person of our Savioub : the miraculous voice, ** Bene scrip-
, sisti de Me, Thoma; quid ergo hahehis?" " L>omine, nil
Y&i.-MBixim. jpostulo prcBter teipsum." Some of the heathen philosophers
vii. Ex. 1. knew as much as this by theory: O marvellous "feeling
after Him," and almost "finding Him !" And, if the words
are by us put into our dear Loed's mouth, then, He delivered
Me out of all My fear, ^ is a parallel clause with the Apostle's
" was heard in that He feared."
D. C.
Ay.
A.
Heb. V. 7.
^ 5 They had an eye unto him, and were lightened :
and their faces were not ashamed.
The Vulgate has, as the more natural sense of the Hebrew
^ It is not easy to say why
instead of the usual reading of
tlie LXX., iK nratrwv ruv dAl\\/f(i)v
fiov, the Vatican MS. should
have it, iK iracwv rCov irapoiKiwv
IJ.OV. There is no trace of this
in any other version.
[^napoiKiuv is the usual read-
ing, e\lrpeuy that of the Cod.
Alex. The source of the com-
mon reading is easily traced, be-
cause the root lia "he turned
out of the way," is applied to
turning aside from a journey to
dtoell in a place, or to shrink-
ing aside in fear. And further,
Symmachus reads irepiffTda-ewy.^
PSALM XXXIV. 517
is, " Draw ye nigh unto Him, and be ye illuminated." And
in the first place, we naturally think of Baptism : the " illumi-
nation" of the early Church. And here let me deviate from
the immediate literal force of the text, to make a remark
which will augment its spirit. Every one must see that the
verse, " Wherefore he saith. Awake, thou that sleepest, and
arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light," may ^ph. v.u.
be referred to Baptism. But few comparatively may have
noticed, that the quotation is part of a Baptismal Hymn :
A ih \ € 7 f f iyfipai 6 KaOevSwv,
Kol audffTa iK rwu vfKpwv'
[koI] iirKpavdi <tol 6 XpiffrSs,
This would be nearly certain in itself, but when we observe
the Anacreontic march of these lines {o - u - k,--), and then
find that the Baptismal Hymn of the Gregorian Antiphonary
was actually, in the Antiphonary of S. Gregory, in that Thomas, v.
metre, the truth is clenched. No commentary on our text ^osu'^' ^^^
can be better than this beautiful little hymn :
Audite voces hymni, Et vos, qui estis digni,
In hac beata nocte Descendite ad fontes.
Currite sicut cervi Ad fontes vivos Yerbi :
Bibite aquam vivam : Habetis plenam vitam.
Donatur vobis signum Ad Salvatorem dignum ;
Qui pependit in ligno Tradidit nos baptismum.
Ghiudete baptizati, A Chbisto coronati :
Albara habetis vestem, Chrisma peruncti estis.
Candidati estis : Chrisma peruncti estis :
Hyssopo emundati, Ad vivos fontes renati.
Mundate corda vestra, Ut crescat fides vestra :
In ipsum permanete Semper ; Deum timete.
Ex Egypto venerunt, Qui mare transierunt :
Yirtutes cognoverunt, Et laudes cantaverunt.
Gloria tibi, Cheiste, Qui regis hanc benigne j
Miserere nobis, Qui passus es pro nobis.
In this sense also are the words of Isaiah to be under-
stood : " O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the isa. ii. 6.
light of the LoBD." S. Augustine beautifully takes these ^,
words in another sense : that illumination which is conferred
by the Holy Eucharist, and which he compares to the illu-
mination of Jonathan's eyes, by the honev which he took i Sam.xiv.
with his stick from the wilderness : the honey, the Holy ^7-
Mysteries; the rod, the Cross. Draw nigh unto Sim.
Well says the Doctor of Grace, in another passage," If then ^ract Jk.
by drawing nigh ye are illuminated, and by departmg ye are
darkened, the light was not in you, but in your God. Draw
ye nigh, that ye may rise : if ye shall depart, ye shall die.
518
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Ps. xxxvi. 9
Ay.
Hugo Vic-
torin.
Ven. Bede,
S. Matt,
xxii. 12.
c.
Exod.xxxiii.
23.
Cd.
S. Laurent.
Justin.
Serm. de
Epiphan.
If, then, by drawing near, ye live, and by going away, ye
die, your life was not in you ; for He is your life, Who is
given by Christ :" " for with Thee is the Well of Life, and
in Thy Light shall we see Light." Again : they observe oil
three effects of the Blessed Eucharist : Faith ; (here,) Draw
nigh : Hope, (v. 8,) Taste ; Love, (v. 9,) Fear. And take
care, Hugh of S. Victor says, how ye draw nigh. Peter
drew nigh : true : — but so did Judas ; so did the Chief
Priests: so did Pilate; so did the Jews to crucify Him.
Thou, therefore, O Priest, beware how thou approachest the
Altar, that thou drawest not near to that Body and that
Blood to thine own damnation, but to thy blessed^ and ever-
lasting enlightenment. And your faces shall not he ashamed :
not like him who drew to the wedding feast, not having on
the wedding garment : and who inherited the shame and ever-
lasting contempt of, " Friend, how camest thou in hither, not
having a wedding garment?" Draw nigh. Up to this time,
says Cassiodorus, he has been constituting his choir, forming
his procession ; — now comes the actual approach — now comes
the reality of that to which all before has been but prepara-
tion. Draw nigh. But how can we draw nigh that we may
be enlightened by that light which no man can approach
unto ? Even, while in this life, as Moses, to whom it was
promised, " Thou shalt see My back parts, but My face shall
not be seen." S. Laurence Justiniani has a beautiful refer-
ence to the Epiphany, when the Wise Men did indeed draw
nigh, and were of a truth enlightened by that star which
when, after a temporary loss, they saw again, they rejoiced
with exceeding great joy : he says : — " The Grace which
makes us gracious is that glorious morning star, which pre-
ceding every one of the elect, leads his heart to God. For
without any manner of doulDt, the human heart has been
overthrown : is no longer in possession of its own rights ;
never loveth wisdom, is never faithful to God. But by the
light the rational mind is made wise, is taught concerning
heavenly things, is imbued with faith : things without which
the pilgrim can never reach Jesus."
22 The Lord delivereth the souls of his servants :
and all they that put their trust in him shall not be
destitute.
^ Some of Hugh's remarks are
very singular and are also quoted
by Ayguan : " Tarde ad investi-
gandam culpam peccatoris, sed
prompte ad inquirenda vestigia
leporis ; velociores ad convocan-
dum canes, quam ad pauperes
congregandos. Libentius panem
cani porrigent, quam pauperi.
Hi sunt, quorum thalamus orna-
tior est Ecclesia, mensa paratior
Altari, scyphus calice pretiosior,
equus carior missali, cappa (the
use of this word in the sense of
a secular cloak is worth notice)
casula pulchrior, camisia delica-
tior alba."
PSALM XXXIV. 519
(I have here taken the liberty of inserting the Vau verse :
which, from whatever cause, is now read at the end of the
Psalm.)
Delivereth. Or, as it is in the Vulgate, shall redeem. It is
most marvellous to see, through the whole of the Psalter, how,
when any phrase seems more immediately to refer to the Pas-
sion, the commentators pour out their heart's love in exalting
the glory of that Passion. Out of the abundance of the heart
the mouth speaketh. They cannot pass it by. They lose
sight of context, analogy, sequence ; they forget everything
but Calvary. O happy writers, who now have entered into
the fruit of that Cross to which, in the time of your pilgrim-
age, you clung so closely ! God grant — and you, dear reader,
must pray for it too — that he who is now endeavouring,
feebly and afar off, to follow in their steps, to see the im-
press of the Passion, to set up the standard of the Cross
everywhere, may one day be counted worthy to enter into the
Land where the Loed of the Passion is the King of the
Redeemed ! And here they proceed to discuss the old ques- .
tion, whether Christ died for all ; and are ready with their -^T'
answer, — Yes ; so far as sufficiency : No ; so far as efficiency.
Shall not he destitute. They look on to the hour of death Cd.
and see in it a prediction of a blessed euthanasy. A grace
that God seems more especially to give where He will and
how He will ; but yet, as a general rule, rather bestowed on
those who have surrendered their will habitually and perfectly
to their Loed.
6 Lo, the poor crieth, and the Lord heareth him : t
yea, and saveth him out of ail his troubles.
Tlie _poor,— made poor for us — crieth. But how? He ^
cries by the sweet words of His midnight prayers. He cries
by the Almighty supplication of His Blood on Calvary,
" Father, forgive them !" " Loed, lay not this sin to their s. BasU.
charge !" And He is heard for this very reason, namely, be-
cause He is poor ; because He emptied Himself of all that
He had. And in this sense also that prophecy is fulfilled,
and because He was poor in His life, therefore He made His
grave with the rich in His death : for how is he not rich,
who has all the desires of his heart granted him? Poor / Hugo vie
yes, indeed. His mother was so poor, that she was compeUed ^o"»-
to bring Him to the temple with the alternative offering of a
pair of turtle doves, or two young pigeons : He had not
where to lay His head ; forsaken by His Apostles He hung
naked on the Cross : He chose poor disciples, and as He came
into the world in a dwelling,— so when He went out of it. He
was laid in a sepulchre,-that was not His own. S Jerome, s^Hieron,
citing this very place, calls Him the Prince of the Poor. ^sai. cap.
The Poor. " For ye know the grace of our Loed Jesus xxix.
Cheist that, though He were rich, yet for our sakes He be-
520
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
S. Ambros
Apolog.
cap. ii.
came poor, that we through His poverty might be rich."
Well says S. Ambrose : O happy poverty, which, if it hath
no treasure of money, yet hath treasures of wisdom and know-
ledge ! Despise not, my sons, poverty as ignominious ; The
poor cried, and the Lord heard him. Envy not riches, as
Q^ something of great value : " The rich have tasted and suffered
hunger." This^ ^oov. That is, not aw^y poor : many a La-
zarus in this world, has never entered into Abraham's bosom
in the next ; but he that has the true poverty of self-denial,
he that really and verily follows, as a poor subject, the poor
King. And hence they naturally take occasion to dwell on
the advantages and privileges of religious poverty. This poor.
s. Albert. M. And remember what He further was, and what He did.
Eccies. ix. "There was found in the little city" of the world " a Poor
Wise Man, and He by His wisdom delivered the city ; yet
no man remembered that same poor man."
f\ 7 The angel of the Lord tarrietli round about
them that fear him : and delivereth them.
Brev. Rom.
Oct. 2.
Custodes hominum psallimus Angelos :
Humano generi quos Pater addidit
Ccelestis comites, insidiantibus
Ne succumberet hostibus.
Vit. apad
BoUand.
Jul. 27.
S. Hieron.
in Zech.
Zech. ix. 8.
This is the first time that, in the Psalter, we read of the
ministrations of Angels. But many Fathers rather take this
passage of the " Angel of the Great Counsel :" and gloriously
to Him it applies. In that case, the promise applies to the
same Angel : He tarrieth round about them that fear Him.
We shall have occasion hereafter, when we shall have S.
Bernard's assistance, in Psalm xci., to speak at length of
these blessed spirits, and the work they perform for us. If
one especial and created Angel is here to be understood,
then Michael is named by all ; and Pantaleon, the martyr,
quotes this verse in particular of him. It is with difficulty
that I can restrain myself from entering on so lovely a sub-
ject at length now ; but I will defer till it shall please God
to bring us all that distance, — which at present looks so
formidable, — on in our course. Here therefore I wiU only
observe, that S. Jerome beautifully refers to the present
verse in explaining that prophecy of Zechariah : " I will
encamp about Mine house because of the enemy, because of
him that passeth by, and of him that returneth."2
^ One of the instances in which
the Bible is truer and more im-
phatic than the Prayer Book ver-
sion. Both Italic and Vulgate,
as well as LXX. — " Isle pauper
clamavit," — OItos 6 tttwx^s
iK€Kpa^€ — give the full force of
the original iTO \» m.
2 See Thomasius on this verse.
The Tulgate reads Immittet An-
gelus Domini. But many an-
cient MSS. have Immittet An-
J
PSALM XXXIV.
521
8 O taste, and see, how gracious the Lord is : ^
blessed is the man that trusteth in him.
We cannot but take it, in the first place, of the blessed
Eucharist : and the Vulgate, tliat the Lord is sweet, will help
us better to understand that signification. Let me quote the
words of Vieyra : " Taste, and see how sweet is the Lord. Serm. iv. 4.
He saith not. Taste, and see how sweet is the Bread, — but
— the LoBD : for the Loed is the Bread, that is there eaten.
And forthwith he exclaims. Blessed is the man that trusteth
in Sim. In this exclamation, and in its consequence, we
may observe, If David invites us to eat the Lord's Flesh in
the Sacrament, and in it to taste the sweetness of that Flesh,
it would seem that he ought to continue, — Blessed is the man
that eateth Him ; not, trusteth in Him. Why doth he not
then ? Because the Prophet desired not only to reveal the
mystery, but to declare the motive. In the first clause, O
taste, he revealed the mystery, which is the Sacrament :
in the second, he declared the motive, which is Hope. And
with reason did he so exclaim, as if he were even more as-
tonished at the motive than at the mystery. For what can
be more admirable than this ; that God, making Himself an
universal blessedness for the reward and satisfaction of all
other virtues, should, as regards Hope, make Himself an
especial and particular blessedness. For all other virtues,
a blessedness in heaven ; for Hope, a blessedness on earth ;
for aU other, a blessedness which consists in God seen ; for
Hope, a blessedness which consists in God received." Pseudo- Hierarch.
Dionysius speaks with equal verity of " that ravishing feast, eccI. cap.
fuU of aU delights." S. Basil says : " Since our Loed then "'•^'^^''•
is the True Bread, and His Flesh is Meat indeed, it is need- ^- ^*^'^-
ful that the joy of receiving that bread should be conceived
in us by spiritual taste. For as the nature of many may be
spoken and written about for ever, while yet the sweetness
is not 80 understood as it would be by our tastes, so neither
can the sweetness of the celestial Word be made manifest by
words of human learning, unless, by our own experience, we
understand what is the delight of that banquet." Well says
the Gloss : " Attend to the Lord's words ; ' I am the Way, s. Alb. Mag:.
the Truth, and the Life.' Draw nigh therefore to the Way,
see the Truth, taste the Life."
[It is no marvel that this verse, so plainly foretellmg the
Holy Eucharist, should have caused the whole Psalm m
gehi/m Dominus : and S. Augus-
tine mentions that reading, but as
a spurious one. The translator
misunderstood the military term
irop6/Li/3aAer, shall camp around.
S. Jerome very well gives it, Cir-
cumdat Angelus Domini in gyro.
Suidas explains vapeixfiaXdi'Twv
by KVKKaxrdvroDv. Hesychius in-
terprets irapefJifiaXei by dvitTKe-rrei.
The LXX. translate the Hebrew
HDn variously by KaTaarpaToire-
Sfio (Josh. iv. 19,) KVK\6co (Isa.
xxix. 3 :) irtpiKaei^u} (Josh, pas-
sim ;) and irepixapaKSw (Jer. lii.
4.)
522 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Const. which it occurs to be used in the Altar Service of the early
Apost. viii. Church. The Clementine Liturgy directs it to be sung dur-
Cat. Myst. ^^S ^^^ communion of the people, and the use was known at
6, 17. * Jerusalem in the days of S. Cyril.]
1 9 0 fear the Lord, ye tbat are his saints : for they
that fear him lack nothing.
^ 10 The lions do lack and suffer hunger : but they
who seek the Lord shall want no manner of thing
that is good.
Jj^ We heard of the sweetness : we must not forget the fear.
The lions do lack is, in the Vulgate, the rich have stood in
need: but ours is manifestly the correct translation. And
now we may conceive that dear Lord, the chief among ten
thousand, and altogether lovely, making proclamation from
s. Alb. Mag. the pulpit of His Cross, There is no lack. " Ye see how large
a letter I have written unto you with Mine own hand." " Ye
are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own
bowels." No lack of love, when Calvary was the very
throne of love : no lack of wisdom, when the Cross was the
spot where the mystery, hid from ages and generations, was
now at length explained : no lack of might, when here the
strong man was bound and spoiled by the stronger. Shall
want no manner of thing that is good. Not like that which
Hugo Vic- was said to Dives : " Thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good
things ;" but such good as comes from the source of all good-
ness and beauty ; such good as is derived from Him Who is
the Chief Good. And no manner. Whether it come in a
fair or in an unpleasing shape ; whether as prosperity or ad-
versity ; whether as the gentle dews from heaven or the
pruning of the careful gardener ; neither the one nor the
other shall be kept back from him. " He That spared not
Rom. viii. His own SoN, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He
32. not with Him also freely give us all things ?" But they
who seek the Lord. How principally but in the blessed Sa-
Ay. crament of the Altar ? And what good things can they look
for there, which they shall not abundantly receive ? " For
when we seek the Loed, what is there which we do not findP
One is He that is sought : but in that One all things are con-
Q tained. O marvellous grace! O singular compendium of
blessedness! Why should we fatigue ourselves in divers
inquiries ? Let us rather with one accord hasten to Him,
Whom when we have gained, we seek not further for any,
because we now already possess all good things."
^ 11 Come, ye children, and hearken unto me : I
will teach you the fear of the Lord.
s. Hilar. S. Hilary remarks that, whenever the fear of God is men-
tioned in Scripture, it is not spoken of barely, and there an
torin
S. Luke xvi
PSALM XXXTV. 523
end ; but mucli either precedes, or follows, its mention, of tlie
steps by which it is to be gained, of its excellence, or of its
cause. So it is here. David only proposes his subject in
this verse : he proceeds to dilate on it in those which follow, s. Hieron.
Here we must, say the commentators, rather understand by ^^ ^^^- *^*P-
the fear of the Loed, that initial fear which is the stepping-
stone to filial love, than that especial grace called by the s. Justin, in
same name, one of the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, and '^'^p^-
which Isaiah foretold as about to rest on our Loed. Come,
ye children,^ and hearken unto me, says David here : " Sujffer
the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not,"
said the Son of David at another time. The Master of Sen- Lib^^f hist,
tences dwells, from this verse, on the four kinds of fear : 34. ' '
mundane, servile, initial, filial. Mundane, when we fear to
commit sin, simply lest we should lose some worldly ad-
vantage, or incur some worldly inconvenience. Servile, when
we fear to commit sin, simply because of hell torments due
to it. Initial, when we fear to commit it, lest we should
lose the happiness of heaven. Filial, when we fear, only
and entirely because we dread to offend that God Whom we
love with all our hearts. I will teach. Whence notice ; that
this fear is not a thing to be learnt all at once ; it needs care-
ful study and a good master. S. Chrysostom compares the s. Chrysost.
Psalmist's school here with the resort of heathen students
to the academy : and S. Ephraera, referring to this passage, oVKe""'
calls the fear of God itself the school of the mind. " As if timoi-e.
He proclaimed," says S. Laurence Justiniani, " I will teach s. Laurent,
you not the courses of the stars, not the nature of things, not ^^^g^'yu.
the secrets of the heavens ; but the fear of the Lord. The cap. i.
knowledge of such matters, without fear, puffs up : but the
fear of the Lord, without any such knowledge, can save."
" Here," says Cassiodorus, " is not fear to be feared, but to
be loved. Human fear is full of bitterness : Divine fear, of
sweetness : the one drives to slavery ; the other allures to
liberty ; the one dreads the prison of Gehenna, the other
opens the kingdom of heaven." They notice that, up to this
verse, we have been, as it were, led through the different steps
of the Blessed Eucharist ; now the Catechumens are, as it
were, addressed. S. Augustine, preaching no doubt to a
congregation which contained many such, fails not to dwell
on this. We read of old time that " Jacob sware by the fear
of his father Isaac." Even so do Thou, Whose Name is love,
be the Fear of Thy people ; that which they fear with all ^
their heart ; that, beside which they fear nothmg.
12 What man is he that lusteth to live : and would D
fain see good days?
to be coupled with love, because
the very word filius is derived
from <|)iAos, which, says he, means
1 Hugh of S. Victor here ad-
duces one of his singular argu-
ments from the barbarous ety-
mology of that age : that fear is
love.
524
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
S. Bernard
in Ps. xc.
S. Cjrprian,
de Laude
Martyr,
L. A sermon on this text is extant among those of S. Chry-
sostom, though apparently written by a Latin writer, an
imitator of S. Augustine. He represents mankind as inter-
rogated, and unanimously replying in the affirmative to the
question contained in this verse ; but immediately, as soon as
the way in which these good days are to be obtained is made
known to them, drawing back from it. To live : and there
is but one kind of life that is worthy of that name. The
life which we live, says S. Bernard, is rather death than
life, — a deadly life ; and from the very moment in which we
begin to lead it, we do nothing but approach death, and be-
gin to die : there only is true life, where life is lifelike and
vital. Good days. Shall we hear a description of these good
days, from one who, by the rough road of martyrdom has
long since entered into them ? " The saints shall exult in
glory ; they shall see God and shall be glad : they shall re-
joice, shall be satiate with glory, shaU be replenished with
eternal felicity. There they shall not taste by broken frag-
ments how sweet is God, but shall be imbued, and fulfilled,
and satiate, with that wondrous deliciousness : nothing lack-
ing, nothing attacking: all their desire, Christ, present
among them, shall fulfil. They shall never grow old, they
shall never pine away, they shall never grow sick : perpetual
satiety, happy eternity, shall confirm the sufficiency of their
beatitude. No concupiscence shall then be in their members ;
no carnal rebellion shall ever, ever more arise : but the whole
condition of redeemed man shall be chaste and pacific : na-
ture shall be made whole in its very essence, and thenceforth
shall remain so, without any spot or wrinkle. Lastly, God
shall be all in all ; and His presence shall satisfy all the ap-
petites of soul and body : and for the future, the ministrating
operations of angelic virtues towards us shall die : and the
city of God, filled with inhabitants, governed by its perfect
statutes, shall never again be changed from the fixed state of
consummate blessedness." Good days. Moses never saw
them ; Paul never saw them ; our Loed Himself, according
Ven, Bede. to the flesh, never saw them ; never, in the land of the dying :
it was necessary that they should wait, till they could enter
on the Land of the Living. Or, as Augustine neatly ex-
presses it, *' It is folly and madness for us to seek good days
here, when the Loed and Creator of days had none such."
3 13 Keep thy tongue from evil : and thy lips^ that
they speak no guile.
TQ 14 Eschew evil, and do good : seek peace, and
ensue it.
L. Oh how they all dwell — those masters of the spiritual
life, on the well keeping of the tongue as the first step to
Paradise I From Pambo in the desert, who, asking advice
of the aged monk what were the chief duties of an ascetic,
PSALM XXXIV.
535
and the old man beginning, " I said, I will take heed to my
ways, that I offend not with my tongue," replied, " That is
enough, let me go home and practise it" — to the teachers of
this day, all dwell on S. James's exhortation, " If any man s. Jame
offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also ^"
to bridle the whole body." But none has written more
strikingly, more eloquently, more attractively, than Drexe-
lius in his little book with that quaint title, Orhis Phaeton.
Eead that work, study its deep engravings — and, so far as
knowledge goes, O Priest, thou wilt be well qualified to
preach on one of the most important subjects which can ever
occupy thy pulpit.^ " Man," exclaims S. Augustine, " can Serra. 4, de
tame the wild beast : can he not tame the wild tongue ? sub- ^^^^' ^°™'
dues the lion, but subdues not the course of talk ; himself
tames, but tames not himself; tames that which he fears,
and not that which he ought to fear, so as to tame him-
self." Where shall we look then for the remedy against this
evil, — where for a lesson in this hard kind of wisdom, save to
the pulpit of the Cross, compared with the silence at the
Pavement ? The spotless Lamb in the one taught us that
there is a time to keep silence : in the other, He made it no
less manifest that there is a time to speak. That tongue in- Eccies.iii.;.
deed was not only kept, in its last earthly accents on the
Cross, from the very mention of evil, but how did it scatter p^gjon^^®
blessings everywhere around it ! Eschew evil and do good. cap. 43.'
The ola command, so constantly repeated in different words ;
" Cease to do evil, learn to do well." " Beloved, follow not
that which is evil, but that which is good." The child's lesson
" to renounce the devil and all his works," first : then " to keep
God's holy will and commandments and. walk in the same
all the days of my life." Seek peace and ensue it : or, as the
Syriac version has it, run after it. Well says an ancient
writer, " He -saith not, If peace follow thee, receive it : but, ^^^^
even if it flies from thee, follow it. For example : if (which imperf. iA
is possible, for thou art a man) thou shouldest have quarrelled s. Matt,
with any, if he first invites thee to peace, then peace fol- Hom.g.
lows thee : with joy receive it. But if he, being evil, perse-
vere in evil, then peace is hidden from thine eyes ; but do
thou, as a son of peace, knock at the door of peace— and
this is to seek peace. Say not, He was the first to do the
wrong, and ought to be the first to make the apology ; thou
art more glorious, if, though injured, thou ensuest peace,
than if thou endeavourest after vengeance. Seek therefore
peace, that thou mayest find the reward of peace." Those
Cd.
^ This treatise is longer than
most of those of Drexelius. The
edition I use (Munich, 1629,)
consists of two 12mo volunies,
each containing 700 pages. Any-
one who would reproduce it in
Enghsh — perhaps with a httle
abbreviation — and would re-en-
grave the curious plates of Sa-
deler, would deserve the grati-
tude of the English Church. In
the mean time I would very ear-
nestly recommend the original
to my brethren.
526 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
who have been tracing, in the former part of the Psalm, the
details of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, see here the frequent men-
tion of peace, whether in the Episcopal Pax vohis, the giving
T the kiss of peace, or the Dona nobis pacem. And they quote
very well two passages from Propertius, which might have
been written by a Christian poet : —
Eleg.iii.8,1. Pacis araor Deus est : pacem veneremur amantes :
Pax juvat : at media pace repertus amor.
And again :
Si Deus est et Amor, pacem meditatur, amatque
Quae bona sunt, — cur hunc non celebrabo Deum ?
Se is our Peace. And in that sense, too, seek peace, and
ensue it. So He is typified by Solomon, the Pacific King,
but more especially in the Canticles. S. Jerome sums up the
whole of these verses very well : " Unless we hate evil, we
s. Hieron, cannot love good ; nay, rather, we must do good, that we
Ep. 113. jjiay decline from evil : we must seek peace, that we may flee
war; nor is it sufficient to seek it, unless when we have
found it and it flies from us, we follow that up with all care,
which passeth all understanding : that in which the habita-
tion of God is set, as the Prophet writes : ' His place is
made in peace.' And it is well said, ensue peace, according
to that of the Apostle, 'ensuing hospitality;' that not with
any commonplace and every-day language, with any lip-
words, we invite guests ; but retain them with all the ardour
of our minds, as offering themselves for our gain and
profit."
J/ 15 The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous :
and his ears are open unto their prayers.
^ 16 The countenance of the Lord is against them
that do evil : to root out the remembrance of them
from the earth.
^. Ambros. These two verses exactly respond to the preceding couplet.
cap!^9."^* The present verses tell why we should do that which the
former command. The eyes of the Lord. For it is better,
says S. Ambrose, to have an approving glance than a lauda-
tory word. But in the highest sense, those blessed eyes, so
heavily then pressed by the Crown of Thorns, and dimmed
with the blood thence pouring down over the mystical vest-
ments of the true Aaron, were over all the generations from
the Day of Pentecost till the Day of Judgment : watching all
their struggles, sympathising with all their defeats, rejoicing
in all their victories : marking and acknowledging eacn little
Pass^cap? "^^^^ done for Him; and looking past the light afllictions
40. * ' for the moment, to that far more exceeding and eternal
PSALM XXXIV. 527
weight of glory. Here, as so often, wlien the wicked are
spoken of, the great Commentators of the Church are almost
silent.
17 The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth them : ^
and delivereth them out of all their troubles.
And this verse, no doubt, is one reason why the Psalm in
which it occurs is appropriated to the Commemoration of
Martyrs. Delivered out of all their troubles they are, not
in the earthly sense of liberation ; but, as the ancient poem
says.
By one short hour of death and pain,
Life everlasting they obtain.
And this is, oh how far ! the truer deliverance : as Peter, A.
crucified on the Janiculan Hill, obtained a more glorious
liberty than he found when, having passed through the
streets, the Angel left him. And it is truly said. Out of all
their troubles : when not from bodily pain only — not from
sin and its temptations only — not from fatigue of body or
soul only, but from all of these together, all at once, the in-
tended cruelty of the persecutors frees them for ever. The
righteous cry and the Lord heareth : but why ? Because once
the Righteous cried and the Lord did not hear : when the
time of our Captain was come, that He should be delivered Rupert,
into the hands of wicked men : when the threefold prayer in
the Garden of Gethsemane, though heard indeed in the
spirit, was refused according to the letter. And therefore
hence, O true servant of God ! thy prayers must be heard,
thy supplications must be accepted. He was forsaken and
disregarded from Calvary, that to them the ears of God
might ever be open, the answer of God might always be
ready. From all Sis troubles !
For Thee all pangs they bare : The Hymn,
Fury and mortal hate; ^1^"^
The cruel scourge to tear ;
The hook to lacerate.
But vain their foes' intent ;
For, every torment spent,
Their valiant spirit stood unbent.
"They cry to Him," says the Eastern Church, " ^or Cathisma on
strength— and from Him that was wounded to the Death, j^ the Week
and weak with mortal weakness, on the Cross, they obtain of the Om^
might. They cry to Him for Wisdom— and from Him that ^««f-6ear.
condescended to the ignorance of childhood they receive
counsel that cannot fail. They cry unto Him for riches—
and from Him that had not where to lay His Head, that was
born in the poor Inn-Manger, and buried in a given grave,
they receive the pearl of great price. They cry to Him for
528 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
joy — and from tlie Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief
they receive the pleasures that are on His Eight Hand for
evermore."
p 18 The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a con-
trite heart : and will save such as be of an humble
spirit.
s. Basil. Oh glorious promise of the Incarnation, to them that sat
in darkness and in the shades of death ! After all the mise-
ries and clouds of the four thousand years, the Loed drew
nigh — nigh, to heal a world sick to death — nigh, to give hope
to the hopeless — nigh, to rise, the Sun of Righteousness, on
the night of error ! And not then only, but now, now to
every repenting sinner, He is nigh, Who came, not to call
the righteous but sinners to repentance : He Who, while He
A tabernacled in the flesh, was so ready with His " Neither do
I condemn thee." And notice the repetition of these words,
heart, and spirit : as if on them the whole virtue of the pro-
s. Matt. vi. mise depended. Not a contrite exterior : " they disfigure
16. their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast" — not
s. Matt. vii. troubled lips : " Many shall say in that day, Lord, Loed,
^^' have we not prophesied in Thy Name, and in Thy Name cast
out devils ?" But sorrow of the heart, not of the mouth ;
humility of the spirit, not of the expressions. As it is written,
Baruch u. " The soul which is greatly vexed, which goeth stooping and
18. feeble, and the eyes that fail, and the hungry soul wiU give
Thee praise and righteousness, O Loed." Cassiodorus says,
C " The custom of men and God's work are different in this
matter. For he who desires to get nearer to those who are
higher than himself stands on tiptoe : he stretcheth himself
out if he would reach a lofty building. But the Loed Most
High cannot be reached save by those who are bowed down
by numility, nor can we attain to His sweet joys, save by
bitter tears."
•^ 19 Great are the troubles of the righteous : but
the Lord delivereth him out of all.
Even the Jews see in this a prophecy of the Messiah ; and
Tertuiiian. ]iow shall we not, then, O blessed Jesus, apply the verse
don * cap!^ altogether to Thee ? to Thee, so prefigured in it, as that Thy
19. Saints may only follow afar off, filling up that which is
behindhand of Thy affliction in the Flesh for Thy Body's
sake, which is the Church ?
The Se- Caput Jesc, cor, mens, manus,
quence, Jb- Yulnus, livor, sanguis planus,
Nazarmus. VeAes, corpus, vigor sanus
Parantur hominibus :
PSALM XXXIV. 529
Hsec torquentem passa dura
His Isesura et natura
Reparantur pia cura
Purgatis criminibus.
Many are the trouhles. " Each Limb of Thy Holy Flesh," idiomeia on
exclaims the Eastern Church, " endured ignominy for our ™^f, °^
sakes, Thy Head, the Thorns ; Thy Face, the Spittings ; sufferings.
Thy Cheek, the Buffets ; Thy Mouth, the Gall mingled with
Vinegar for Thy Taste ; Thine Ears, the blasphemies of the
Wicked ; Thy Back, the Scourges ; Thy Hand, the Eeed :
Thy whole Body was stretched on the Cross ; Thy Hands
and Feet endured the Nails, and Thy Side the Spear ; Thou
That didst suffer for us, and by Thy Sufferings didst set us
free." Many are the trouhles. And in that He bare them
as Man, worship His longsuffering as God.
Admirabilior quia raundura morte redemit, Laevin. Tor-
(Sic placuit) quam quod condidit a nihilo. Christo Cru-
Credere namque Deo facile est qusecumque volenti, — cifix. Elegia.
Credere ditHcile est sed voluisse mori.
Hoc voluit tamcn, ingenti percussus amore :
Et postquam voluit, quis potuisse neget ?
Dat ccelum, et perfert fanda atque nefanda. — Quid ergo ?
Flecte genu ; mentera surrige : Numen Homo est.
Aspice luctantem cum Morte Hominemque Deumque :
At vincit moriens : et tibi Victor ovat.
And, if we turn from the Head to the Members, the
proper commentary on this verse would be such a work as
that of Gallonius, De Martyrum Cruciatibus : where are set
forth the racks, the scorpions, the plumbatse, the crosses, the
furnaces, the wild horses, the stocks, the bent trees, the
furious beasts, the wasps, the precipices, the scapha, whereby Gallonius,
Chbist's constant Martyrs were tried. But the Lord de- cru^S;!'
livereth him out of all. No better explanation of these Ed. 1602,
words than those with which that writer concludes his task : p- ^^^*
** These, then, O unconquered soldiers of God, O gallant
Chieftains of Christ, these are the glorious trophies of your
victory, the most manifest proof of your faith and your gra-
titude. Death, O ye noble warriors of God, which ye so
ardently desired, hath ever for you the eternal and happy
life. Blessed are ye indeed : delivered of a verity out of all
your troubles ! And do all not say so, when, as your earthly
sufferings were increased, so ye, beholding with your mortal
eyes the heavenly reward, spake thus to the Loed in your
hearts without any motion of your lips : Here, O most mer-
ciful God, let our bodily sufferings be increased, if only here-
after our peace and our rest may be augmented !" Or, if you
prefer the ancient hymn :
Dum sic torti cedunt morti Carnis per interitum, ^ulnce'o
Ut electi sunt adepti Beatorum prsemium. ^Ifal'ea-
Per contemptum mundauorum Et per bella fortia, torum.
Meruerunt Angelorum Victores consortia.
A A
530 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
s. Petr. cei- But if SO with them, what of their Head ? How waa He
lens. Serm. delivered out of all His troubles when the cloud received Him
e scens. ^^^ ^£ ^^^^ sight of the Apostles, when the everlasting gates
were commanded to lift up their Heads, that the King of
Glory might come in ? How was He delivered from all His
miseries when this Royal Pilgrim, having returned from the
far country that He had redeemed, sat down at the Right
Hand of the Father, " from henceforth expecting till His
enemies be made His footstool ?"
ti^ 20 He keepeth all his bones : so that not one of
them is broken.
Marvellous prophecy of this true Paschal Lamb ! As it is
Exod. xu. written under the old law : " neither shall ye break a bone
^^- thereof."
Horse de Quapropter grex carnificum
S«nll , 08 tibi non confregit :
gemide. Longmus sed deincum
Tuum latus impegit.
It is remarkable, however, how slight is the allusion made
to this, the literal sense, in the commentators. They rather
^ ^t^N^" t ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ marvellous care with which God watches the
inBii)l.Phot! bones of His Saints : so that, though their framework be
taken to pieces for a while, they are not really broken — not
really injured, but guarded safely till the voice of the Arch-
s. Basil. angel shall reunite them. So, again, they understood the
Horn, in Ps. words of those valiant men, those heroes of the Church, whom
^^^- God raises up from age to age to do His mighty works, and
who may well be called its bones. Or, better still, S. Gregory
s. Greg, M. understands it of those valiant acts themselves : that let
Mor. V.22. Satan oppose them as he will, let all the powers of hell draw
out their array against a single deed of God's chosen war-
riors, they shall not be able to gainsay or to prevent it:
whence S. Bernard may well encourage every Christian man
to fight his battles with courage, to run his race with ardour,
since not one of the bones, or the noble actions which he con-
templates, shall fail of its purpose. Again, the same S. Gre-
s. Greg.M. gory, in another place, takes the bones of the Church to
Mor. XXIV. -^Q ^^g ecclesiastics, and thus the promise comes to the same
thing as those most glorious words uttered to the Disciples :
s. Matt. « Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."
xxvm. 20. g Albert well connects this promise with the aflflictions of
s. Alb. Mag. the righteous which have just been spoken of; because thus
they suffer, therefore their bones, that is their faith and hope,
and the actions springing from these, shall not be broken or
Job X. 12. decay. And so it is written : ** Thy visitation hath preserved
my spirit."
]1 21 But misfortune shall slay the ungodly : and
they that hate the righteous shall be desolate.
PSALM XXXIV. 531
Or, as it is in the Vulgate— 27ie death of sinners is most
evil. Hear S. Peter Damiani :
All come round him ! Cogitation, Habit, thought, and word are The Hymn,
there : Gruvi me
All, though much and long he struggle, Hover round him in the air. IZ'^'"'" ^"^'
Turn he this way, turn he that way. On his inmost soul they glare.
Conscience' self the culprit tortures, Gnawing him with pangs
unknown :
For that now amendment's season Is for ever past and gone,
And that late repentance findeth Pardon none for all her moan.
Hear DioDysius the Carthusian :
Conscience bearing attestation Th^
To her own prevarication, ^IjjJJ^'.
t/an m nnal condemnation creatura.
Nought but even justice find.
Then sucli forms of wrath address her,
And with pains so sore distress her,
That the soul — such griefs oppress her —
Maddens into fury blind.
By the blessed reprobated,
And to hopeless sorrow fated,
Euined, blighted, desolated,
Down she sinks for ever lost.
Fire and frosty tempest roaring,
Dark and sulphury vapour soaring,
Damned souls their fate deploring.
And the gulf that is not crossed.
They that hate the Righteoxis. Take it in its highest sense,
and then think of the deaths of Spinosa, of ilobespierre,
of Voltaire, whose motto of Ecrasez Vi ***** my pen
shrinks from writing, of Julian, casting his blood into the air,
and exclaiming with liia dying voice, Thou hast conqueeed,
O Galilean ! and then say, with all the heart and soul,
A pcenis inferi Libera nos, Domine !
And now :
Glory be to the Father, the Lord in Whom we make our
boast ; and to the Son, the Angel That tarrieth round about
them that fear Him : and to the Holy Ghost, Who is near
unto them that are of a contrite heart ;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be :
world without end. Amen.
Collects.
O God, Disposer of the Angels and of all creatures, send Ludoiph.
forth Thine Angel to tarry round about us, that we, being
guarded by his protection, may be delivered from the most
evil death of sin. Through (2.)
aa2
532 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Mozarabic. j^g^ q^j, sq^I bless Thee, O Loed, at all times, because
that in Thy corrections Thy love is always present, while
Thou both chastenest us with Thy discipline, and cherishest
us with Thine indulgence ; while by strengthening Thou
healest us, and by healing Thou strengthenest us. Grant
therefore that we, who have tasted Thy sweetness in faith,
may receive Thy most full retribution in Thy pleasures.
Amen. Through Thy mercy (11.)
Mozarabic. Redeem, O Loed, the souls of Thy servants, who do put
their trust in Thee : grant of Thy clemency that we may
find Thy blessing in adversity as well as in prosperity : and,
because Thou art nigh to them that are of a contrite heart,
open Thine ears to the spirit of our contrition, and let Thy
peace, which passeth all understanding, keep our souls and
bodies. Amen. Through (11.)
D. C. [O God, Who art gracious unto all, cause us to eschew
evil and to do good. Grant that we may ever seek peace
and ensue it, whereby, tasting and seeing Thy sweetness, we
who trust in Thee, may, through Thy preventing mercy, ob-
tain everlasting blessedness. Through (1.)]
PSALM XXXV.
Title : A Psalm of David. Vulgate : Ipsi David.
Aegtoment.
Aeg. Thomas. That Cheist guards and defends us with spiritual
arms. The voice of Cheist to His Fathee in His Passion against
the Jews. The voice also of the Church in Fasts and against the
rage of devils. All the Psalm is spoken in the Person of Cheist ;
and by Cheist may be referred to all Psalms. Through the Fast.
Yen. Bede. The whole Psalm is said in the Person of Cheist,
Who seeketh to be freed from the persecution of His enemies : and
since Ipsi is prefixed to His Name, none else of His members, but
the Mediator Himself is set forth. Through all this Psalm it is the
Loed Cheist that speaks with respect to the dispensation by which
He suffered. In the first part, He deraandeth retribution against
His adversaries ; which words, nevertheless, will avail to their con-
version. Plead Thou My cause. Next, He rejoiceth concerning
His Resurrection ; and upbraiding the Jews with their iniquities,
expoundeth that which was done in His own Passion. And, my
soul, be joyful in the Lord. Thirdly, He promiseth that, through-
out the whole orb of the world, praise shall be rendered, by His
own members, to the power of the Fathee, Who, by the benefit
of His Resurrection hath delivered Him from His enemies ; pray-
ing that the persecutors may be confounded, and the faithful may
exult in great glory. So will I give Thee thanks in the great con-
gregation.
PSALM XXXV. 533
EusEBius. A supplication of the Righteous One, and a prophecy
of Cheist.
Aeabic Psaltee. a prophecy concerning the Incarnation, and
concerning those things which the people perpetrated against Jerci
miah.
S. Jeeome. Tliis Psalm contains the Sacrament of the Loed's
Passover, in which it is to be noted that the things which are spoken
with humility, weeping, and lamentation, are not to be referred to
the Divinity, but to the Flesh, which it assumed. He prayeth there-
fore to the LoBD the Fathee, and saith.
Vaeious Uses.
Oregorian. Monday : Matins.
Monastic. Monday : I. Nocturn.
Parisian. Tuesday : Prime.
Lyons. Tuesday : II. Nocturn.
Ambrosian. First Week ; Thursday : II. Nocturn.
Quignon. Monday : Matins.
Antiphons.
Monastic^ I -^^S^* Thou * against them that fight against me.
Parisian. When they were in trouble * I behaved myself as
though it had been my friend or my brother.
Ambrosian. Say unto my soul, * O Loed, I am thy salvation.
Kyr. Kyr. Kyr.
Mozarabic. Say unto my soul, O Loed, * I am thy salvation,
1 Plead thou my cause, O Lord, with them that
strive with me : and fight thou against them that
fight against me.
This is the second of the Passion Psalms : the first being C.
Psalm xxii.' They notice that, as He was thirty-four years
old according to the flesh when He entered on His Passion, Bongus, de
so this Psalm comes rightly in order as xxxiv. (according to ^y^^- ^"-
Western reckoning.) So highly did the African Church es- Tub sT''
teem it, that it was given to S. Augustine by his fellow Bishops
to write a treatise on. Plead Thou my cause. It is a great
spectacle, S. Augustine verjr nobly says, to see God armed on
thy behalf. But armed He is for us, whenever in His strength j^,
we take the battle in hand with our inbred corruptions : when-
ever, for His truth's sake, we go forth to battle with the
world. And then, "If God be for us, who can be against
us ?" Or, as it is in the Vulgate, Judge, O Lord, them that
hurt me. As a patient sufferer said of old, when asked what vie du p.
was his greatest comfort in an overwhelming storm of ca- AvriUon.
lumny, " The Loed is Judge." As much as to imply that,
let whatever judgment be passed upon him by men, a tri-
bunal of perfect equity existed in the Loed's mountain. If
we see in this verse, as the Master of Sentences does, the
general cry of the saints to God, then it is a parallel text
534
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Ay. with that prayer in the Apocalypse, " How long, O Lord,
holy and true, dost Thou not avenge our blood ?" But take
it rather of the Lord Himself, in the last stage of mortal
weakness, the ashy paleness of death stealing over His face,
the drops of most precious Blood almost ceasing to fall from
the wounded hands and feet, — that hour when, according to
the belief of the Church, Satan made his last and fiercest
assault on this spotless Lamb, as he will on us,— that hour
s. John xiv. when His own prophecy was fulfilled, "The Prince of this
30- world cometh :" and then hear Him, knowing that the salva-
tion of the world hung on His victory alone, that the misery
or beatitude of all generations depended on His mighty arm,
then stretched in weakness on the Cross, and fastened to it
with dreadful nails, — hear Him cry to His Father and our
Father, to His God and our God, Plead Thou My cause,
0 Lord, with them that strive with Me! It is well ob-
served by Hugh of S. Victor, that the punishment of those
who secretly oppose the righteous is frequently reserved
to the next life : Plead Thou : whereas open adversaries are
openly crushed in this : Plight Thou. Here, once for all, it
is well to quote S. Asterius's six reasons for imprecations
like these in the Psalms. 1. The emendation of those against
whom they are uttered. 2. That their punishment may be in
this world, not the next. 3. That others may learn wisdom
by their sufferings. 4. That our own existence may be freed
from their plague and danger. 5. That others may be ter-
rified, and fear to do the like. 6. That the triumph may not
be given to unbelievers, of asking, Where is now their God P^
Yenerable Bede understands the first clause of the Head,
the second of the members : that strive with Me, namely,
while our Lord still tabernacled on earth ; thatfght against
Me, to the end of time, and after His Ascent to the Father.
s. Albert. M. Against them. And who are they? S. Albert well observes,
that David had three principal enemies : Goliath, Saul, Ab-
salom. Goliath, by the assent of all, is a type of Satan.
Saul, which by interpretation is cravivg, signifies the flesh,
which in very deed is ever craving. Absalom, which means
The Father s Peace, is the world, which comes with a show
of feigned peace in the hope of luring the soul. It is the
same thing which Adam of S. Victor tells us :
Hugo Vic
torin.
S. Asterius
Horn. 8.
V. Bede.
^ The subject being one of im-
portance, let me give the saint's
actual words : Tb KaTfvxf(T6ai
ruv ix^P<^v, Si' e| airias (pacri.
Miai/, fifhTiaOrtvai tovs ixOpovs
fiovXSfievos. TvTTTe yapaBoKi/jLOV
kpyvpiov, Kol KadapiaOiafTai.
Aeurepa, 'Iva ^Se fxa(TTi^6fx.evoi,
Kol iroKifiot'iMfvoL, KOV(p6T€pov Trei-
paadcuai t7)s alui/iov Ko\d(r€(os.
TplTTfy 'Iva Tous TovTwv fidari^i
&\\ovs evpf6r) aaxppovl^cov. Tlay-
oipyos yop iSuii/ 6.(ppoj/a ixa(ni\6-
fxevov. KpaTuicvs avrbs naiSfVfTai.
TepdpTT], Tiiv fiioi/ Xoifi^v koI v6aov
ctwaAActTTWi'. UefiTTTT], 'iva fj.^
Kal SlWoi avTiZ fj.a6r]T€x6u}(n, tos
iTrevf\6(i<xas irA7J7as (pofir)6turfs.
"Ekttj, 'iva (x^ iiiTwai Titles' Uov
iartv b ©ebs rov ^afilS ; fiij ahrhv
iKSiKU Kal (Tc^^et ;
PSALM XXXV.
535
Caro, mundus, demonia, The Se-
Diversa movent praelia : quence, Su-
Incursu tot phantasmatum ^H^gaudia,
Turbatm* cordis Sabbatum.
2 Lay hand upon the shield and buckler : and
stand up to help me.
He has before asked for assistance : he now specifies the C.
kind of assistance that he needs. Hugh of S. Victor says Hugo vic-
very well (with reference to the Vulgate, which has it, Ap- *?.""• .
prehende anna et scutum) ; " We fight with arms, we are txeGvihlT^'
protected by a shield. For the world fights against the elect nat. lib. m.
in a twofold manner : by word and by sword. The word of
falsehood we overthrow by wisdom : the sword of adversity
we resist by patience. Wisdom therefore forms the arms,
patience the shield which we take. But why do we say to
God, Lay hand upon the shield and buckler, unless because
He, fighting in us, arms us against our adversaries? be-
cause, as we receive His gifts from Him, so without Him, we
cannot use those gifts to our salvation?" Or we may take s. Cyrii. in
it mystically, of the Incarnation of our Blessed Loed. The ^°^"
arms, or sword. His blessed soul, which could not fulfil its
entire purpose till drawn forth, so to speak, from the sheath
of its body. The shield, that Body itself, exposed to so many
blows, made of metal molten from the earth, glittering in the ^^
sun. And it was only by means of that Incarnation that the
God, Who willeth not the death of a sinner, did really stand
up to help us. And see again the likeness between the Head
and the members. " Take unto you the whole armour of God,"
says S. Paul to the latter: Lay hand upon the shield and
buckler, says David to the former. Because He, therefore
you : no use in our girding ourselves with spiritual armour,
unless He, in the first place, had girded it on Himself.
[As it is written in another place : " He shall take to Him Origen.
His jealousy for complete armour, and make the creature His wisd. v. 17.
weapon for the revenge of His enemies. He shall put on
righteousness as a breastplate, and true judgment instead of
an helmet. He shall take holiness for an invincible shield,
His severe wrath shall He sharpen for a sword." These are
the weapons of which the Psalmist has need. But as the
just, when made perfect, " shall beat their swords into plough- isa. u. 4. .
shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks," so God too,
when punishment is over, will change His complete armour
of jealousy for the vestments of peace, the breastplate for the
alb and rational,* the helmet for a priestly mitre, the shield
into the holiness of peace, wrath into lovingkindness.]
* [The ro^iowaZ was a jewelled
golden plate, engraved with
Christian emblems, anciently
worn by Bishops in imitation of
the breast-plate of the Jewish
High Priest. It disappeared in
the West about the fourteenth
century.]
536
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Felix Fo-
lengius.
Dr. Good.
Theodorus.
z.
S. Nicepho-
rus.
Josh. viii.
Numb. xxii.
26.
Ay.
S. Albert, M
3 Bring fortli the spear, and stop the way against
them that persecute me : say unto my soul, I am thy
salvation.
First, there is a difficulty in the meaning. Stop " the way,"
say both of our versions. Both the Italic and Yulgate,
without finishing the sense, conclude adversus eos. But we
will rather take it, Sring forth the spear ayid the bowstring :^
a translation which, I think, has some peculiar beauties of its
own. If he spoke principally of defensive armour before, now
he seems to turn to that which is offensive. For it is not
enough to the Christian warrior only not to be conquered ;
he must in his turn assail. "Ye shall take them captives,
whose captives ye were." " "We are more than conquerors
through Him that loved us." And thus here, not only the
spear, to attack in hand-to-hand conflict, but when the in-
vading hosts of evil spirits have been put to flight, then the
bowstring, still further to confuse and to overwhelm their
rout. A most true signification ; but, if you prefer the other
interpretation, the commentators will tell you how shutting up
the toay is utter destruction ; the victorious host behind, the
hand of the Loed, an insurmountable barrier, stretched out
before. Just as the men of Ai : " they were in the midst
of Israel, some on this side, and some on that side : and
they smote them so that they let none of them remain, or
escape." Just again as it was when the Angel stood before
Baalam and his ass : when "he went further and stood in a
narrow place, where was no w^ay to turn, either to the right
hand or to the left." Say unto my soul. " To say," with
God, is the same thing as to do ; and I have already ex-
plained why " He spoke," or " He said," is so often employed
for " He did." Some would take My soul in the sense of
" My earthly life :" and then it becomes a figure for the
Loed's Resurrection. That precious Body must indeed for
a while be deprived of its proper life ; but God the Fathee
would still be with it, would still preserve it from corruption,
would still be its salvation. Or, if we will, we may take the
figure into our mouth, and address it to Him Who, " in that
He hath suffered, is able also to succour." / am thy salva-
tion. It is said in another place, " There is no help for him
^ The word njpl or -li^pl has
generally been taken to mean,
and stop, i.e. the way or the pro-
gress. But, as in the former verse
we had " shield and buckler," so
here we seem to want " spear
and " some oflPensive kind
of arms. Here the Arabic S^
which means a nerve or string,
comes in very well : and so we
may translate it bowstring. I
do not see that there is much
force in the objection of Lorinus :
" Cur HebrsDorum Deum He-
brseus Persicis armis David ar-
maret ?"
[Modern critics translate tlie
word as " battle-axe," comparing
the Eastern term adyapis, found
in Herodotus and Xenophon,]
PSALM XXXV. 537
in his God." But lie, whose hosts said so, is a liar, and the
father of it ; convicted of being so here. And there is an in-
timacy, and closeness, and dearness in that phrase, say unto
my soul, which nothing else can express. " Speak ye to the i^a. xi. 2.
heart of Jerusalem," is the Prophet's command. " Speak 2 Sam. xix.
to the heart of thy servants," says Jo^b to David. It is '''
written of Hezekiah, before the great invasion of Senna- L^xuT"
cherib, that he " spoke to the heart" of the people. " I will hos ii 14
allure her, and speak to her heart," says the Loed Himself
of His Church. O Thou true David, thus speak Thou to us,
when we are wearied out with the burden and heat of the
day ! O Thou true Hezekiah, thus encourage us, when the
spiritual Assyrian draws nigh to besiege the citadel of our
hearts, with all his hosts : and, save in Thee, we have no
trust nor hope !
4 Let them be confounded, and put to shame,
that seek after my soul : let them be turned back,
and brought to confusion, that imagine mischief for
me.
Notice this : how over and over again shame is spoken of
as the portion of God's enemies. " Some to shame and Dan. xii. 2.
everlasting contempt" — their final doom. And so in the
Prophet : " Let them be confounded that persecute me, but
let not me be confounded." And therefore it was that He
endured such shame on the Cross. For we are sadly too apt g August.
to forget, in reading of the sufferings of martyrs, and of Him de Agone
That is the Martyr of Martyrs, how great a part of that bitter christiano.
cup was filled by shame. And well was it said by the
Martyr- Archbishop on the scaffold: "Jesus despised the
shame for me ; and God forbid that I should not despise the
shame for Him !" But there is no occasion to confine this
passage of the Psalmist to an evil sense ; it may be taken as Cd.
a prayer that they may experience such salutary shame in s. Gregor.
this world, as not to be put to everlasting confusion in the Naz. Apo-
next. That seek after my soul. But how is this, when in °^' ^'
another place he complains with bitter grief, "No man
sought after my soul ?" Compare the two passages, and learn A.
how slack are the efforts of those that seek after our souls for
good, compared with the eagerness and perseverance of those
that seek after it to destroy it. Fut to shame. Well says
S. Bernard, " What will be the confusion, what the shame, s. Bernard,
what the grief, when, in the sight of all, the turpitude of evil jjig^'"]' ^*
men shall be stripped bare, their ignominy revealed, their
filth made manifest ! When the sinner, then made immortal,
shall be gnawed by the worm of internal conscience with
all its malignity ; shall be gnawed ?— ay, consumed by it :
and there shall be no place for dissimulation, nor hope of
salvation."
A a3
538 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Rolina de Ah ! quern podera crer quando vivia
Moura, In- -^^ sancta obediencia e justa rida,
Que taes contas, e tal desconto havia
Para a minima culpa commettida!
Quao mal tamanho excesso tentavia
Como arrisca a Gra9a ja perdida!
Que preceito difficil e scabroso
Nao fora facil, brando, e deleitoso !
s. Albert. M. Seek after mi/ soul. They ingeniously give the apeecTi of
^ enes. xiv. q^^ ancient monarch to the true King of Sodom : " Give me
the persons, and take the goods to thyself."
5 Let them be as the dust before the wind : and
the angel of the Lord scattering them.
6 Let their way be dark and slippery : and let the
angel of the Lord persecute them.
T The literal reference, no doubt, is to the Egyptians. Dust
before the wind, when they said, but too late. Let us flee !
their way, dark and slippery, is the plague of darkness. And
notice the horror and magnificence of the vengeance, the
Angel still further dispersing that which is already scattered
by the wind : hurrying forward and pressing on (as the
Vulgate well has it, coarctans) those who, had they time to
A. be cautious, were yet in the extreme of danger. " A hor-
rible way," says S. Augustine. " Darkness alone who feareth
not? A slippery way alone who avoidetli not.P In a dark
and slippery way how shall men go? where set foot? — -
These two ills are the great punishments of men — darkness,
^^ ignorance ; a slippery way, luxury." They take slippery of
the sin of impurity, because it is, so to speak, a sliding slope
to every other crime: as David began with adultery and
ended in murder. Solomon began with unbridled lust, and
ended in idolatry. Whence notice how often, in her ferial
hymns, the Western Church prays to be defended from every
thing that is luhricum.
Die Domi-
nica.
And again —
Ne foeda sit vel luhrica
Compago nostri corporis,
Per quam Averni iunibus
Ipsi crememur acrius.
Feria u.
And again —
Pater potentis gratise
Culpam releget luhricam.
Ferla v. Oculi nee peccent luhrici
Nee noxa corpus inquinet.
And yet once more —
PSALM XXXV.
539
Excita sensu luhrico '
Te cordis alta somniant.
Sabbato.
But tate these verses in their highest and noblest sense, s. Thomas a
as spoken by our Blessed Lord on the Cross. The darkness, viiianova in
the miraculous darkness of the Three Hours is passing off; ^^^'
and with it, their last effort being now all but over, their last
battle being now all but lost, the host of evil spirits that
have had their station all the weary time by that tree where
the world's Salvation hung, are hasting off together into the
abyss. Tliere, as they hurry along, retreating with the re-
treating darkness, and pursued by those Heavenly Spirits
who have kept watch by the Cross, " Let their way" exclaims
the Man of Sorrows, now almost the Lord of Glory, " Let
their way he dark and slippery, and the Angel of the Lord
persecuting them."
[The loving and merciful temper of the great "Western
divines is well shown in Haymo of Halberstadt's explana-
tion of this verse. He takes it of the conversion of sinners.
Let them, says he, be lifted up from earthly things and raised
towards heaven as easily as dust, by the rushing mighty wind
of the Spirit of God, and let His Angel, whether a good ^^y"'"''
one persuading, or an evil one terrifying, aid the work, com-
pelling them (Vulg.), should they resist the Spirit, so that
they may be converted, whether voluntarily or by compul-
sion, and that the way of sin, once bright and pleasant to
them, may appear dark and perilous to them thenceforward.]
7 For they have privily laid their net to destroy
me without a cause : yea, even without a cause have
they made a pit for my soul.
And first notice the net and the pit : as if to show us that L.
Satan has various kinds of temptations, answering to the
characters whom he endeavours to destroy ; just as some
animals are taken by the snare, some by the pitfall. Cardi- Hugo Card,
nal Hugo notes the multitude of sins heaped up together in
this one verse — malice in privily, or, as it is in the Vulgate,
without reason ; deceit in the net ; cruelty in to destroy me :
folly in without a cause; presumption in that it is done
against my soul, which is committed to God, and is no longer
under my own care. Net. That was a marvellous vision of
S. Antony, in which he saw the whole world full of the
snares of Satan : marvellous, and oh ! how true !
' This is one of the many in-
stances of the marvellous depth
of these ferial hymns — hymns
which at first sight are consi-
dered dull, and vfhich it requires
Bome amount of study to appre-
ciate. But, when appreciated,
they claim a phce infinitely
above tlie best among the pretty
(and they are extremely pretty)
ferial hymns of the Parisian
Church.
540
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Pia Deside-
ria. Lib. ii.
Gemit. 9-
Ay.
Ven. Bede.
c.
S. Paulinos.
Epist. 2.
Origen. in
Cant. ii. 9.
The Se-
quence,
Salve dies
dierum
gloria.
Scilicet ilia fuit spectri feralis imago
Antoni celso vertice visa jugi :
. Cum paruere oculi collecta sub unius ictum
Omnia, quae mundo dedita regna jacent.
Omniaque hsec ingens obsepserat undique rete,
Multaque furtivis stamina sparsa viis :
Quisque suas fraudes — sensit sua vincula quisque ;
Hie caput, ille pedes vinctus, et ille manus.
Nets. And so tbey were in our dear Lord's pilgrimage.
Tlie Herodians had their net — the lawfulness of giving tri-
bute to Caesar — the lawyer his, Who is my neighbour? the
Sadducees theirs, In the Eesurrection, whose wife shall she
be? But the deadliest net of all was the stone and the seal,
and the quaternion of soldiers to keep guard. " Pilate saith
unto them, Ye have a watch : go your way, make it as sure
AS YE CAN." Oh bitter irony, more biting and poignant
than ever was irony yet ! Without a cause. " For what
more without a cause," says Cassiodorus, " than this, to turn
those very words to a crime and a reproach which were
spoken for salvation P"
8 Let a sudden destruction come upon him una-
wareSj and his net^ that he hath laid privily, catch
himself : that he may fall into his own mischief.
Here is another instance of that which I shall have occa-
sion to mention hereafter, the mixture of singular and plural
in reference to the enemies of David. " They have privily
laid their net — without a cause have they made a pit ;" and
now, Let a sudden destruction come upon him unawares. S.
Paulinus tells us, " All the figure of this world which passeth
away, and by the eyes allureth the heart, is spread with dia-
bolical nets. Let us believe the Prophet, that we walk in
the midst of gins and amongst swords." Origen long before
had understood a verse of the Canticles in a similar way.
Where we and the Vulgate read it, " Showing himself through
the lattice," that commentator interpreted it, " having broken
through and peering out from the nets which Satan has
flung all round the world." And truly at length Satan was
caught in his own mischief; when, endeavouring to destroy
the preacher of truth, he made manifest the Divinity of Jesus
Cheist.
[And so Adam of S. Victor :
Prsedo vorax, monstrum tartareum,
Carnem videns, nee cavens laqueum,
In latentem ruens aculeum,
Aduncatur.]
9 And, my soul, be joyful in the Lord : it shall
rejoice in his salvation.
PSALM XXXV. 541
10 All my boues shall say, Lord, who is like unto
thee, who deliverest the poor from him that is too
strong for him : yea, the poor, and him that is in
misery, from him that spoileth him ?
They observe on the likeness there is between this verse Ay.
and the commencement of the Magnificat. And rightly.
When the net of Satan has come on himself, then is the time
that the exceeding and eternal weight of glory begins for our
Lord ; that when that net has been broken on Mount Cal-
vary, then follows the glorious Ascension from Mount Olivet.
And the expression is not without its own force. All my
hones shall say. For the prophecy went long before that " a
bone of Him shall not be broken :" and thus, remaining un-
broken when those of the thieves were broken, they may well
here be represented as praising the love and faithfulness of
God. Lord, who is like unto Thee ? We may well say with
Augustine, " It is better to use these words than to endea- A.
vour to explain them." It is the question whence the arch-
angel Michael derives his name : so the old hymn :
Ut Deus quis ? sonat Michael ;
Ut fortis ! tonat Gabriel ;
Salutis dona Raphael ;
Laudatur his Emmanuel.
And they go through the titles which our Loed claims to Ay.
Himself, " The Loed is our Judge, the Loed is our Law-
giver, the Loed is our King," and ask the question as S.
Gregory does, looking at the different judges, and lawgivers,
and kings raised up for God's people. Lord, who is like unto
Thee, Who deliverest the poor 1 They take it with one accord
of this poor human nature of ours ; so weak in itself, so sub-
ject in the best to be led astray, so destitute of all good gifts Hugo Car-
which may make it acceptable to God. From him that is too ^"^ •
strong for him. And so the great poet of the Eastern Church, i^iomeion,
Joseph of the Studium, exclaims very well in one of his Lent Thursday in
hymns : " O my soul, how canst thou go forth to battle with *^|^*J^j,7\j^g
thy spiritual enemy ? with what armour canst thou gird thy- past,
self? what troops hast thou to fight on thy behalf? where
are even thy ten thousand to oppose him that cometh agamst
thee with twenty thousand ? If thou hast to struggle agamst
principalities and powers, and the rulers of the darkness of
this world, in whom canst thou place thy dependence save m
Him only Who is King of Kings and Loed of Lords ?" And S- Hr^^^n
notice this : in the first clause the poor only is mentioned ; 3, '
in the second, both the poor and him that is in misery. Why
is this? Because in the first he refers to our Loed s life
upon earth ; in the second, to the time when He Himself has
been received up into heaven, and the Church is left to carry
on her warfare alone. But still it is, the poor and him that
542 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
is in misery : the poor, for He is the poor Kinsj even yet,
coming among us so humbly as He does under the form of
bread arid wine. And yet He suffers in the sufferings of the
Church that is in misery : " In all their afflictions He was
afflicted ;" " Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me ?" Or
others, taking the three words as they stand in the Vulgate,
inops, egens, pauper, see in the first a poverty of grace ; in
the second, a poverty of means to serve God ; in the third, a
poverty of happiness. And all these needs, as they truly
Hugo Car- say, are supplied by God ; Who says to the first, " My grace
dinai. jg sufficient for thee;" Who in the second rewarded him that
bad the two talents equally in proportion with him that had
the five ; and Who comforts the third by declaring that the
sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared
with the glory that shall be revealed.
11 False witnesses did rise up : they laid to my
charge things that 1 knew not.
12 They rewarded me evil for good : to the great
discomfort of my soul.
The t5'pe speaks of the Antitype, David of the Son of
L. David. We know how false witnesses rose up against David
while he was in the courts of Saul, while he was in the wil-
1 Sam. xxiii. dcrness, while he was in the land of the Philistines : "It is
^^* told me that he dealeth very subtilly." But more truly still
this verse sets before us the judgment-seat of Caiaphas, when
the witnesses, quoting the Lord's words, perverted His
^y^ meaning, and yet even so did not agree together. They take
the opportunity of entering at length with S. Jerome into
the reason why these witnesses, who in one sense said what
was true, are yet called false witnesses; and how they fell
short ill their credibility of the conditions required to make
testimony valid, as given in the old verses :
Conditio, sexus, setas, discretio, fama,
Et fortuua, fides ; in testibus ista requires.
To the qreat discomfort : or as it is even still more strongly
in the Vulgate, the sterility of my soul. As much as to say,
speaking after the manner of men, it was impossible that a
heart so ungratefully outraged should bring forth any fruit
L. of kindness towards them that had thus dealt towards it.
** Many good works have I showed you from My Father ;
for which of these works do ye stone Me?" Evil for good.
It is on this that that most touching hymn of the Church,
the Improperia on Good Friday, entirely turns. They are
too well known to need quotation here : but take a few
stanzas from the cognate hymn, which will make the best
commentary on our verse :
PSALM XXXV. 543
O popule mi, quid merui ?
In quo te contristavi ?
Nonne quibus debui
Bonis te amavi ?
En liberura te dominuni
Cunctorum procreavi j
Et mundum palatium
Tibi fabricavi.
Tu pauculis argenteis
Me hosti vendidisti ;
Et ut scurram, olleis
Eegem providisti.
Ut unicum te filium
Meo sinu fovi :
Semper tuum coramodum
Sedulo promovi.
Tu pcoramatis et colaphis
Hanc curam rependisti,
Probris tu me pluribus
Captum affecisti.
0 popule mi, num merui
Horrende sic tractari?
Et tam miserabili
Mode laniari ?
13 Nevertheless, when they were sick, I put on
sackcloth, and humbled my soul with fasting : and
my prayer shall turn into mine own bosom.
When they were sicTc, even as the world was sick to
death all those four thousand years before the Loed's Ad-
vent.
Salvasti mundum languidum Eusebios in
Donans eis remedium. ^°*^'
I put on sacJccloth. Namely, the sackcloth, the poor, rough,
unsightly habiliments of human nature. Or they take it in
another sense : as sackcloth is made of skins of goats, and a
goat is the symbol of wickedness, so our Lord clad Himself
with the appearance of our sins, just as Jacob put on the ^
skin of the goat before he went in to his father Isaac. With
fasting. How with fasting, the forty days in the wilderness
may tell. But observe this, that after the Son of Man had
entered on His ministry, thenceforth He came eating and
drinking. And herein is their mistake who, comparing the ^*
ascetic life of S. Jolin Baptist with the secular life— to use
the word in its secular sense — of our Lord, thence argue,
that, as what He did must needs be most perfect, the worldly
Ven. Bede.
544 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
life is higher in God's account than that which would avoid
the world. But they forget that our Blessed Loed came to
be a pattern of both lives ; and that for thirty years of the
one He was pleased to undergo but three years of the other ;
Anon.in Ca- whence their own argument is turned the other way. It is
barU ^^ ^^^ altogether without its beauty, the explanation which
would refer to the closing act of the sickness of the world ;
when the Loed humbled His soul with fasting at the time
that they gave Him vinegar mingled with myrrh, and when
He had tasted thereof He would not drink ; and in those
very hours it was that He may be said to have put on sack-
cloth, when there was darkness over all the M^orld, as it is
isa. 1. 3. written, " I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make
sackcloth their covering." When they were sick : it is in the
C. Vulgate, Cum mihi molesti essent, — When they were trouble-
some unto me. And hence they take occasion to dwell on the
meekness and patience of Him that could so speak ; that so
characterised all the cruelty and malice of the Jews. And
Ay. they observe, again, how, by the times when the Loed, during
His public ministry, vouchsafed for the moment to fast, He
taught some marvellous truths. When He was athirst and
sat by the well. He said for the first time plainly, " I that
speak unto thee am He." When He came and sought figs
on the barren fig-tree and found none. He gave His disciples,
and through them the Church, the unbounded gift of mira-
cles. My prayer shall turn into mine own bosom. They
take it of the elect, who may be said, like the disciple whom
Theodoret. Jesus loved, to lie in His bosom. " I pray for them ; I pray
not for the world, but for them whom Thou hast given Me."
And this is a better interpretation than that of Eusebius, who
will have it to mean, that, had our Loed's Prayer ascended
to the Fathee, it must infallibly have been heard for the
Jews ; but their iniquities weighed it down, so to speak, pre-
vented its rising, forced it to return to the place from whence
D. C. it came. Or if we look away from the Master to the ser-
vants, we may take it in the sense of our Loed's saying, ** If
s. Luke X. 6. the son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon it ; but
if not, it shall turn to you again." The Cardinal John Vi-
talis, who wrote a very useful compendium of this Psalm,
rightly gathers from these verses that there are four things
necessary in order that a fast should be acceptable to God.
1. True contrition : I wept and chastened myself toiih fasting.
2. Earnest devotion : My prayer shall turn, &c., — that is,
My prayer having ascended to the throne of God, shall come
^' back to me, fraught with all the good things for which it was
sent. 3. Kindness to others : in the next verse. 4. Severity
to oneself: I put on sackcloth.
14 I behaved myself as though it had been my
friend, or my brother : I went heavily, as one that
mourneth for his mother.
PSALM XXXV. 545
And they compare our Loed's own, " How often would I
have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her
chickens under her wings !" They refer, too, to the kiss i^S^^.*^
with which, according to tradition, it was the custom of the
Savioue to greet His disciples at their going out and at their
return: whence Judas' sign. I behaved Myself as though it
had been My friend. " Jesus saith unto him, Friend, where- S. Matt,
fore art thou come ?" The Vulgate gives the latter clause ^^^*" ^*"
of the verse differently : as one that grieveth and goeth in
sorrow, so toas I humbled. And S. Jerome translates it. As
one for whom his mother mourneth. I went heavily. When
else, but in the journey in the Via Dolorosa, when the fire of L.
God's wrath was kindled already, when the wood of the
Cross was prepared, and the patient Lamb bare the one on
His shoulder, and endured the other in His very heart ? i" |: Aibertus
behaved Myself as though it had been My brother. For this *^"^"
our True Joseph did indeed, when He beheld His brethren,
lost in sin, led away captive by Satan, weep over them ; so ^^^* ^^^"* ^"
that all the house of the true Pharaoh, the blessed Angels
heard.
15 But in mine adversity they rejoiced, and ga-
thered themselves together : yea, the very abjects
came together against me unawares, making mouths
at me, and ceased not.
Marvellous prophecy of the Cross ! second only — if in-
deed second— to that in the 22nd Psalm. Still closer to the
history, if we take the Vulgate : The scourges were gathered
together upon Me. Even so, O Loed Jesu, the ploughers ^J^^J^'^-^jg
ploughed upon Thy back, and made long furrows : precious piageiiat.
furrows for us, where are sown patience for the present life,
and glory in the next ; where are sown hope that maketh not
ashamed, and love that many waters cannot quench. The
very abjects. Even those worst of abjects, who said, " God,
I thank Thee that I am not as other men are ;" who had set
the poor sinner before the Loed with their "Moses in the
Law commanded that such should be stoned." Making
mouths at Me. And is it not wonderful that, well knowmg
this prophecy, yet the Chief Priests and Scribes should have
BO fulfiUed it, as that it should be written concerning them, ^^^^^ ^^
" They that passed by mocked Him, waggmg their heads t ^^ j^^. ;
The Vulgate gives the latter part : they were scattered, and
turned not to repentance. And so indeed their devices were
scattered : their devices of mockery, the reed, the purple
robe, the title, turned into the proclamation of the True
King ; their seal and quaternion of soldiers made the means
of more gloriously attesting the verity of His Eesurrection.
And yet, most surely, they y^ eve not turned to repentance :)^^^^^^
for as soon as the soldiers brought tidings of that greatest ot
miracles, they were ready with their bribe and their precon-
546
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Honorias
Augustod.
certed lie. Or, take it of the Church, and then most truly is
it written, gathered themselves together. For what kind of
torture, what species of ignominy was not put in force against
those valiant soldiers of Jesus Cheist ? The very abjects.
Such as those Roman Emperors who wallowed in the deepest
abysses of unspeakable impurity, — who spent their lives in
inventing new sins, of whose doings even that awful first
chapter of the Epistle to the Romans is but the faint shadow :
and it needs to penetrate the horrors of the great Sixth Satire
to comprehend somewhat of the real state of the heathen
world when the Lokd came.
s. Matt,
xxii. 16.
Vid. in Ps.
xxii. titul.
S. Petr.
Chrysolog.
Horn. xi.
Lam.ii, 15.
Isa. xxxvii.
23.
S. Thomas
Aquiu.
L.
16 With the flatterers were busy mockers : who
gnashed upon me with their teeth.
The flatterers. " Master, we know that Thou art true,
and teachest the way of God in truth." Who gnashed. As
when they led Him to the Mount of Precipitation to cast
Him down therefrom ; as when they cried out, " Away with
Him ! Away with Him ! Crucify Him !" For thus this
" Morning Hind" was given over to the cruel dogs, who first
gnashed and ground those teeth with which they were after-
wards to tear the innocent Victim in pieces. Gnash now your
teeth against Him, O remorseless Jews ! The time shall come
when ye shall gnash them for yourselves ; when, not before
the judgment-seat, not in the Pavement, not around the Cross,
but in tlie outer darkness, but in the truer Tophet, but m the
abode of Satan, there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth !
And so it is written in the Prophets, " All Thine enemies have
opened their mouth against Thee : they hiss and gnash the
teeth." And still the Lord says to them, as to the hosts of
another Sennacherib, " Whom hast thou reproached and blas-
phemed F and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and
lifted up thine eyes on high ? even against the Holy One of
Israel."
17 LoRDj how long wilt thou look upon this : O
deliver my soul from the calamities which they bring
on me, and my darling from the lions.
S^ow long ? " He asks," says one, " out of sympathy with
human weakness, and to manifest Himself True Man ; for
long and short are not the terms of Him, with Whom one
day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one
day." Deliver. Or, as the Vulgate has it much more strik-
ingly, Restore. And then, as it was the prayer of the Lord,
80 it may well be the supplication of all His members, now
going down into the valley of the shadow of death. IVie ca-
lamities. All those, when fearfulness and trembling come
upon us, and an horrible dread hath overwhelmed us. Which
they bring on Me : they, that terrible THEY, of whom we
PSALM XXXV.
547
read in the Parable, " This night shall they require thy
soul of thee." My darling. O bitter irony, if applied to
the larger number of those who profess and call themselves
Christians ! The soul their darlmg ! when they might have
addressed it over and over again in those fearful words of the
great Portuguese preacher, " My soul, I know well that I "T-^r^^-
am slaying thee and damning thee now ; but if at this pre- iv.Tie?*
sent moment I murder thee by my sin, by my repentance I *
intend, at some future time, to raise thee up again." This
their darling! which they neglect, endanger, mislead all
their life, and then only, when they draw near to the gates
of death, begin to cry out, "What shall it profit a man, if he
shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ?" Some, q
putting these words in the Loed's mouth, will understand
them of His Body : dear indeed, precious indeed, raged at
indeed by many lions, so mangled on the Cross, so marred
more than any man, so torn with the scourge, so defiled with
the spitting. Or, again, in another sense we may take the
words to ourselves, and pray that our darling, while there is ^,
yet time, may be restored from the spiritual lion, who goeth
about, seeking whom he may devour, and into whose power
we have so often fallen.
18 So will I give thee thanks in the great con-
gregation : 1 will praise thee among much people.
What congregation, save the great multitude that no man Petrus
can number, out of every nation, and kindred, and people, Biesens.
and tongue ? Then were the Lord's thanks rendered to His Ascens.^
Father and our Father, to His God and our God, when,
returning victorious, — when, leading captivity captive, — when,
having smitten the gates of brass, and broken the bars of
iron in sunder, — when, having left that most dear promise
to the Church, " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end
of the world," — He sat down at the llight Hand of the Fa-
ther, from thenceforth expecting till His enemies be made
His footstool. And see how clearly He distinguishes between
the Church Triumphant and the Church Militant. O great
congregation indeed, verily great, verily glorious, whither
" the tribes go up, even the tribes of the Lord, to testify
unto Israel, to give thanks unto the Name of the Lord !"
And the much people are the earthly followers of the Lamb, Ay.
not yet before the throne, but already washing their robes,
and making them white in His Blood. It is, both in the
LXX. and the Vulgate, I will praise Thee among the heavy
people. The people, that is, as yet weighed down by the
^ A sermon on the text. Jam quence as this : no, nor anything
amplius nolipeccare. The writer worthy of being called second to
knows not, in the whole history it. It was preached at Bahia,
of sermons, any such magnificent in the Lent of 1640.
specimen of denunciatory elo-
\
548
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Kusebius,
Hesychius.
c.
Ay.
Rev. xi. 10.
S. John XV.
26.
L.
S. Thomas
Aquinas.
burden of their sins : oppressed with many sorrows ; not as
yet able to lay aside every weight, though endeavouring to
run with patience the race that is set before them. Others,
however, take heavy in the sense of earnest, staid, sober ; the
reverse of the waverer, unstable in all his ways. So S. Au-
gustine : " In a weighty people, which the wind of temptation
carries not away, in such is God praised ; for in the chaff He
is ever blasphemed." S. Thomas gives both explanations.^
19 O let not them that are mine enemies triumph
over me ungodly : neither let them wink with their
eyes that hate me without a cause.
As for a while they did with regard to the Head, — the
whole of that " next day that followed, the Day of Prepara-
tion ;" when it was continually, " That Deceiver, while He
was yet alive." So, once more, was it, when Diocletian and
his fellows reared up the pillar which proclaimed the abso-
lute destruction of the Nazarite worship : so those coins,
which carry down the supposed triumph to this very day.
And it shall be so yet once more, a triumph for the time
most perfect of all, when, the Two Witnesses having been
now slain, " they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over
them, and make merry, and shall send gifts to one another."
That hate Me without a cause. We have^ our Loed's own
authority to apply the words to Himself; the Holy Ghost
here, as in so many other places, teaching us that the mys-
tical system of interpretation is His own. " But this cometh
to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in
their law. They hated Me without a cause."
20 And why ? their communing is not for peace : (
bat they imagine deceitful words against them that
are quiet in the land.
Through the very common confusion between the negative
and the pronoun, the LXX. and the Vulgate have it. They
spalce peace to Me, which seems better in accordance with the
fuile mentioned in the other verses. And even thus, O Lord
Esus, Judas spake peace to Thee, when, in the darkness of
that night, he drew nigh to Thee with his Hail, Master !
Even thus also do they now speak peace, who give Thee that
most unrighteous kiss, when they receive that most precious
Body and drink Thy Blood unworthily ! The latter part of
^ Gravitas quandoque sumitur
in bono, quandoque in malo.
2 And hence Dionysius the
Carthusian well takes occasion
to say, " Quidara vero nimis
literaliter exponit hunc librum
Psalm orum. Nam non solum
Psalmum prsesentera, sed et alios
plurimos Psalmos, qui manifeste
loquuntur de Christo et ej us Pas-
sione atque mysteriis, exponit
ad literam de David."
PSALM XXXV, 549
the clause is very obscure in the Vulgate. And while tJiey
spake in the wrath of the earth they imagined deceit. Some qioss,
take this to mean, " while they spake in wrath about earthly
things ;" as when the Jews said, " The Eomans shall come ^^"- ^^^®'
and take away both our place and nation." Other some, D. c.
" While they spake in concealed wrath." But He— if we
follow our own version— was indeed quiet in the land. Who, § « •,
when He was reviled, reviled not again ; when He suffered.
He threatened not : He was quiet Who, when the two Apos- ^heodoret.
ties would have called down fire from heaven, rebuked them
with, " Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of."
21 They gaped upon rae with their mouths, and
said : Fie on thee, fie on thee, we saw it with our
eyes.
And how better might the verse be quoted than here : s. Thomas
" Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed ? and against ■^^•
whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes isa. xxxvii.
on high P even against the Holy One of Israel." When they ^^'
stood round Him on the pavement, when they gathered
about Him on the Cross, this. Whom they smote with the ^^S o? ''
palms of their hands, — as the Eastern Church says, — " was the Holy
He Who, when He laid His hands on the sick, cured them in Sufferings.
a moment ; this, Whom they defiled with their filthy spit-
tings, was He Who, when He had made clay of the spittle,
gave sight to the blind ; this, Whom they tormented with a
crown of thorns, was He Who hath crowned the heavens
with a diadem of stars ; this. Whom they clad in a purple
robe. He Who yearly spreads over the earth the green
beauty of spring." Fie on Thee ! Fie on Thee ! It is the
same interjection of malicious joy that they used when the
LoED of all hung on the Cross : " Ah, Thou that destroyest
the temple !" And here, in the mystical sense, they take the ^^^^ ^^
saying of the Prophet, " Thou shouldest not have looked on s. Cyrii. '
the day of thy Brother in the day when He became aAiex.inioc.
Stranger :" a Stranger, that is, from His Fatheb, because of
the weight of our sins : shouldest not so have looked : shouldest
have looked as the Israelites to the Brazen Serpent, as it is
written, " Look unto Me, and be ye saved." We have seen g Thomas
it with our eyes : the day for which they longed : the day Aquin.
when the Son of Man was delivered into the hands of sin-
ners : the day when the Scriptures should be fulfilled, that -p q
thus it must be. Or they take it, even more strikingly, of
the just man, falling seven times a day, and when rismg, as-
saulted by the legion of evil spirits that keep watch over
him with their "Fie on thee! fie on thee! we saw it!"
Yet be of good courage, O follower of the Crucified ! that
which they say of thee, with more or less reason, they said
of Him without any cause ; and He allowed them to say it
to the very end, that He might take on Himself the burden
550 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
A of thy sins. And this is that which is written by the prophet,
.. "All Thine enemies have opened their mouth agjainst Thee:
am. 11. . ^1^^^ j^j^^ ^^^ gnash their teeth : they say, We have swal-
lowed her up : certainly this is the day that we looked for:
we have found, we have seen it." And now as they thus
s. Albert. M. stood by the Cross was that accomplished which was written
Jer xii 8 ^^ *^^ Prophet, " Mine heritage is unto Me as a lion in
the forest : it crieth out against Me : therefore have I
hated it."
22 This thou hast seen, O Lord : hold not thy
tongue then, go not far from me, O Lord.
23 Awake, and stand up to judge my quarrel :
avenge thou my cause, ray God, and my Lord.
24 Judge me, O Lord my God, according to thy
righteousness : and let them not triumph over me.
J "We saw it with our eyes," — Thou hast seen: and oh,
how differently ! They saw the Man of sorrows and ac-
quainted with grief in the last agonies of earthly existence ;
He saw the mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince
of Peace, opening the kingdom of heaven to all believers.
They saw their desires accomplished, their Victim in the
toils, their hate satisfied : He saw them speaking great swell-
ing words against the Most High. And so still those evil
spirits see our falls, that they ma}^ have wherewithal to accuse
us : that, when we stand before the Judgment-seat of God,
D. C. Satan may stand at our right hand to resist us. He sees
them that He may pity them ; sees us, that He may lift us
s. Greg. ""P froni them ; sees us, that He may encourage us against
Nyssen. ^ them. And notice here how the promise of Chkist, and the
^'^ --^ - ^Qj.j^ Q^ Christ in us and by us, have given us now a claim
on God's mercy, as well as on His justice ; how, in the
strictest sense, we have " right to the Tree of Life." Whence
■^y* he fears not to say. Judge me, 0 Lord, according to Thy
righteousness. Yet not barely so : he puts in one expression,
by which he shows under what aspect he desires them to be
tried : Judge me, 0 Lord my God, because His Son is my
ransom ; and since His Son is my ransom, therefore ray
cause goes no longer by mercy alone, but by justice also.
There is another reading. Judge Me according to My righ-
teousness, which indeed applies admirably to the Son of God.
^y " For," says the great Carmelite expositor, " it is with merit
and reward as it is with ascending and descending water.
The law of water is that it will ascend as high as it has de-
scended. Thus the Lord for our sakes was abject below all
other men ; made a contempt to them ; trampled under their
feet : wherefore now, according to His humanity, He is ex-
alted far above all things, both that are in heaven and in
earth, — exalted according to the righteousness of the Fa-
Orat. Cat
23
PSALM XXXV. 551
THEr's promise, exalted according to the merit of His own
humiliation."
25 Let them not say in their hearts, There, there,
so would we have it : neither let them say. We have
devoured him.
20 Let them be put to confusion and shame toge-
ther, that rejoice at my trouble : let them be clothed
with rebuke and dishonour, that boast themselves
against me.
We have devoured him. It is a bold saying of Augustine, a
but a very true one : " The world seeks to swallow thee up :
do thou then boldly slay it, and devour it instead. Cut it in
pieces, grind it down : as it was said to Peter, ' Kill, and
eat:' do thou kill in them what they are; make them that
which thou art. Therefore, perhaps, that calf, being ground
to powder, was cast into the water and given to the children
of Israel to drink, that so the body of ungodliness might be
swallowed up by Israel." Let them he put to confusion. See
what is said on verse 4 of this same Psalm.
\_Clothed loith rebuke and dishonour. This, remarks Origen, Origen.
is the vesture which Satan gives to them who are baptized
into him, whereas those who have put on Cheist in Baptism
are clothed with righteousness and wisdom.]
27 Let them be glad and rejoice, that favour my
righteous dealing : yea, let them say alway. Blessed
be the Lord, who hath pleasure in the prosperity of
his servant.
28 And as for my tongue, it shall be talking of
thy righteousness : and of thy praise all the day
long.
That favour My righteous dealing. It is the Lord That
speaks ; but how are His words to be taken ? That desire
My righteousness, it is in the Vulgate : whence they under- Ven. Bede.
stand it of such as attribute all they have done of good, or Remigius.
endured of ill, to no merit or power of their own, but to His
merit and power. Who of God is made unto us Wisdom, and
Eigbteousness, and Sanctification, and Redemption. Others ^ ^^^
take it, That so desire My righteousness, as to imitate it, to ^qyin^
tread in My footsteps, to keep Me always before them.
Or, again : that so favour My righteous dealing, as to stand
on My side in the great battle with Satan. It is as if the
Lord, returning from the slaughter of His adversaries, looks
up to us as that conqueror of old time with His,—" Who is
on My side? who?" Of His servant. Kven as it is written,
" Behold, My servant shall deal prudently ; He shall be ex- isa. m. is.
553
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
C.
Remigius.
S. Thorn.
Aquin.
Ay.
Yen. Bede.
Haymo.
A.
alted and extolled, and be very high." His Servant, and
ours too ; for what is there that this good and faithful Ser-
vant doth not for us ? He ministers to our infirmities ; He
spreads His own banquet for us ; He bears our sicknesses
and weaknesses for us : because man will not serve God,
therefore God shall serve man, — shall be obedient unto
death, even the death of the Cross. In the prosperity. Or
as it is in the Vulgate, Let them say alway. Let the Lord he
magnified, who desire (not desireth) the peace of His Servant.
That is, who long for the full acquisition of that most pre-
cious of all legacies, " Peace I leave you, My peace I give
unto you ; not as the world giveth give I unto you ;" who
desire this peace, — this, and none other ; no peace with the
world, no peace with Satan ; war to the end with them : but
still peace, the earnest and foretaste of that perfect peace
which is only to be found in Jerusalem, the Vision of Peace.
And thus notice the two clauses : the one of this world. As
for my tongue, it shall he talking of Thy righteousness ; the
other of the next world, and of Thy praise all the day long.
All the day, the eternal day ; the
the
Clara dies, seterna dies, septemplice Phcebo ;
Endless noon-day, glorious noon-day ;
the day of the happy ones ; the day that hath no need of the
sun to give it light, or to mark out its hours ; for the Lord
God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the Light thereof;
neither has it any hours, any lapse of time, any beginning
nor ending, any morn, nor any eve. Or we may take it of
the earthly day, if we will ; and then Augustine will tell us,
in a noble passage, how to keep up this continual praise.
" And whose tongue endureth to speak the praise of God all
the day long? See, now, I have made a discourse some-
thing longer than my wont, and ye are wearied. I will sug-
gest a remedy, whereby thou mayest praise God all the day
long, if thou wilt. Whatever thou doest, do well, and thou
hast praised God. When thou singest a hymn, thou praisest
God ; but to what advantage thy tongue, unless thy heart
also praise Him ? Hast thou ceased from singing hymns,
and departed, that thou mayest refresh thyself? Be not in-
temperate, and thou hast praised God. Dost thou go away
to sleep? Rise to do no evil, and thou hast praised God.
Dost thou transact business ? Do no wrong, and thou hast
praised God. Dost thou till thy field? fiaise not strife,
and thou hast praised God. In the innocency of thy works
prepare thyself" to praise God all the day long."
And therefore :
Glory be to the Father, Who hath pleasure in the pros-
perity of His Servant ; and to the Son, against Whom false
witnesses did rise up, laying to His charge things that He
PSALM XXXV. 553
knew not ; and to the Holy Ghost, Who pleadeth our
cause ;
As it was in the beginn
world without end. Amen.
cause ;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be
Collects.
O God, our Salvation and Protection, arm us with the Ludoiph.
helmet of hope, and with the shield of Thy glorious defence,
that we, being helped by Thee in all time of our necessity,
may merit to enter into the ioy of them that love Thee.
Through (2.)
Cheist, the Son of God, Who wast not terrified when Mozarabic,
Thine adversaries, like roaring lions, gnashed their teeth ^^ Passione.
at Thee, but with singular patience didst endure all their
ragings ; we beseech Thee to restore our souls by penitence
to Thyself, that we, constantly following Thine example, may
not by yielding to anger fall into Thy condemnation, but, by
the pattern of Thy long-suffering, may be rendered gentle to
all. Amen. Through (11.)
O Lord, Who didst of old time suffer in our body, when Mozarabic,
wilt Thou look upon us ? when wilt Thou turn the eyes of "^^ Passione.
Thy clemency to our groans and distress P Delay not, tarry
not ; now draw nigh ; now be Thou turned ; now regard us,
that our prayer, wnich now, by reason of our secret sins, re-
turns back again into our own bosom, may, by the abundance
of Thy mercy, enter into Thy Presence, and be accepted by
Thee. Amen. Through (11.)
Lay hold, O Loed Jesu Cheist, of Thy victorious arms, Mozarabic,
and stand up to avenge the quarrel of Thine heritage, re- ^^ Passione.
deemed by Thine own precious Blood : guard us with the
shield of faith, that the fiery darts of the enemy may not be
able to hurt us ; and with the weapons of Thy might beat
down, O King of Glory, the Enemy himself : and, because
Thou art the Salvation of our souls, grant that we, laying
aside all the load of sin, may attain to the blessings of Thy
promises. Amen. Through (11.)
[Judge, O LoED, them that hurt us, and fight Thou against Mozarabic,
them that fight against us, that as Thou wast Thyself at- ^« Passione.
tacked in our body, so Thou mayest make us invincible, abid-
ing in Thy body. Through (11.)
O God, strong and mighty, lay hold of the shield and p. c.
buckler, and stand up to help us against them that fight with
118, and defend in all places our weakness from their malice,
that being glad and rejoicing in Thee, we may alway securely
magnify Thee, and sing praises unto Thee all the day long of
eternity. Through (1.)]
B B
554 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
PSALM XXXVI.
Title : To the Chief Musician : A Psalm of David, the servant
of the Lord. (To the Supreme. By the Lord's servant, David.)
Aegument.
Aeq-. Thomas. That Cheist is the Fountain of Light, and
Eternal Life. The prophet, together with the praise of God, speaks
of the works of Judah, and it is an accusation of his concerning
the Jewish people. — Of lamentations.
Yen. Bede. (In the Title.) Take, then. The servant of the Lord,
in no other sense than of Him, Who, being in the form of God,
took upon Him the form of a Servant, and became obedient even
unto death. The whole Psalm is said in the person of the Prophet.
In its beginning he vehemently accuseth the despisers of the Law,
and saith that they have no portion with God, commemorating also
their wicked designs. Next, still praising God, he describeth the
gifts that are bestowed as the reward of His servants, and saith that
they are filled with the plenteousness of the House of the Loed ;
and this Psalm is briefly concluded with the destruction of the
wicked.
Steiac Psaltee. Of David, when Saul was pursuing him. But
to us a rebuke of our enemies, and a discourse concerning the
Godhead.
S. Jeeome. This Psalm points out the person of the ungodly,
rebukes his pride, shows the Fountain of Eternal Light.
Yaeioits Uses.
Gregorian. Ferial ; Monday : Matins.
Monastic. Monday : Lauds.
Parisian. Wednesday : Lauds.
Lyons. Monday : Compline.
Amhrosian. Wednesday of the First Week : II. Nocturn.
Quiff non. Thursday : Nones.
Antiphons.
Ghregorian. As Psalm xxxv.
Parisian. Under the covering * of Thy wings shall they put their
trust, O LoED ; and with the torrent of Thy pleasure shalt Thou
give them to drink.
Ambrosian. As the last.
Mozarabic. In Thy Light, O GoD, we shall see light.
Quignon. With Thee * is the Well of Life ; and in Thy light
shall we see light.
1 My heart showeth me the wickedness of the
ungodly : that there is no fear of God before his
eyes.
PSALM XXXVI. 555
The last Psalm ends, "that have pleasure in the prosperity Honoriu.
of His servants." Therefore, as if with reference to that, AuSod.
rightly does the title of this say, A Psalm of the servant of
the Lord, David.
This is the only Psalm which is said to be written by a s. Ambros.
servant of the Lord. That which comes nearest is the title
given to Moses, as the composer of the 90th, namely, the
Man of God} Some will have the reason this : that, as the
Psalm especially describes the character, so it should be ^'
written in the person, of a servant of God.
The Vulgate reads differently : The unrighteous hath said,
to the end he may commit sin in himself. There is no fear, &c.
And others desire to read, instead of my heart, his heart— 2i
most needless correction. For so it is. My heart—lei it be
the true servant of God that speaks— does indeed show me
the wickedness of the ungodly. That is, the motions of sin A.
within me — the thoughts injected into my mind by Satan,
my numberless falls— all these things show me that, were it
not for the redeeming and upholding grace of God, any
wickedness that the ungodly now does, I might be doing
myself "Who maketh thee to differ from another? or
what hast thou that tliou hast not received ?" From study-
ing myself, I know him. From my own wickedness, how-
ever in me chained and kept under, I can judge and feel for s. Greg,
his. It is a bold but true figure of S. Gregory Nyssen, that, Jljy^^^l^:
where there is no fear of God to restrain, the devil holds Resurreijt.^
a festal dance with sin. But, on the other hand, TertuUian
writes : Where is God, there is the fear of God, which is the
beginning of wisdom ; there is the fear of God, there is
honest gravity, and anxious diligence, and solicitous care,
and deliberate communication, and religious subjection, and TertuUian.
an united Church, and all things God's. The unrighteous fcrkjf'cap
said. The great Carmelite expositor here dwells, after S. 43.
Gregory, at some length, on the four exhaustive divisions of
all human words. What is ill said ill : what is well said
well ; what is well said ill : what is ill said well. Ill said
ill : as, " Let us crown ourselves with roses before they be Ay.
withered ; let no flower of the summer pass us by." Well s.Greg. m.
said well : Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Moral, xxiv.
Well said ill : as the Pharisees to the man born blind, Be *^*p* ^'
thou His disciple. Ill said well : as when the Apostle ex-
horts : Let him that stole steal no more. Honorius of Autun Honor. Au-
says very well, that the Psalm is divided between the two gustod.
nations — the people of sinners — here, My heart showeth me
the ungodly ; the people of the righteous, further on : O
LoBD, Thy mercy is in heaven, and Thy truth reacheth unto
the clouds.
' I know not whence Ayguan
has the title which he tells us
that some prefix to this Psalm :
bb2
" For victory : the word of the
Lord : of David, or to Bavid.'^
I
556
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Eusebius in
loc.
S, Hraban.
Maur.ii.3l6.
Ay.
S. Greg. M.
xxii. cap. 10,
2 For he flattereth himself in his own sight : until
his abominable sin be found out.
And we are carried in thought to that place and that day,
when " He stooped down, and with His finger wrote on the
ground, as though He heard them not." To the end that his
iniquity may be found out to hatred, it is in the Vulgate.
And they well warn us here what is that danger : he flat'
tereth himself in his own sight. O most miserable state of
that man who is given over to sin, and yet thinks himself
righteous ! who has internal peace, only because he has no
world, Satan, self, to strive withal ! Be found out. It may
be, not in this world, but in that Day of Days when the
secret of all hearts shall be made manifest. He flattereth
himself. It was the very first attitude of men. " The
woman, whom Thou gavest to be with me." " The serpent
beguiled me." Where note : these two, because mercy was
in store for them, were questioned as to their sins : " Hast
thou eaten?" " What is this that thou hast done?" Only
to the serpent, for the reason that no place was left to him
for repentance, it is said at once, " Because thou hast done
this." Here once more I have occasion to repeat, how the
Saints who commented in early and middle ages on the
Psalms, seem, as if by instinct, to have avoided dwelling on
such a verse as this. Was it that they realized too deeply
what that finding out of sin really was ? that they could
image to themselves in more terrible strength than words can
express what is the second death ?
3 The words of his mouth are unrighteous, and
full of deceit : he hath left off to behave himself
wisely, and to do good.
4 He imagineth mischief upon his bed, and hath
set himself in no good way : neither doth he abhor
anything that is evil.
s. Thomas -And there notice another prophecy of Baptismal Grace.
devuiaiiova, He hath left off. Left off? Then he had once begun.
And so he had. If not in fact, yet in possibility ; if not
actually, yet potentially. He had the glorious and whole
" first robe :" he hath flung it aside, preferring the fig-
leaves of flattery and false excuses to the garment by and in
which he put on Jesus Chbist at the first. On his bed. For
observe, Satan's servants find not the whole day long enough
for his work. They give up the night to it also. They that
call themselves followers of the Loed, how do they weary
even in the twelve hours of the day, wherein a man may
work, and will not encroach on their own rest to do His
labour. He hath set himself, which implies a certain amount
of resolution and will. God's Spieit will not always strive
with man, but it will for a while ; and he that will not fight
i. 327.
L.
S. Ambros.
c.
PSALM XXXVI. 557
the good fight of faith, he that will not resist Satan, he must
sometimes battle against the Paraclete ; even as said S. Ste-
phen, " Ye do alway resist the Holy Ghost, as your fathers
did, so do ye." Neither doth he abhor. And, if he doth not
abhor, he cannot fight : and if he doth not fight, how can he ^'
be crowned ? Anything that is evil. And so is one of those
of whom S. Paulinus speaks, to whom "that is sweet, which Epist. vii. ad
is bitter ; that is polluted which is chaste ; that is hostile ^^^®'^'^-
which is holy." Further notice this ; how thought, word,
and deed are here expressed. Thought — he imagineth mis-
chief; word — the words of his mouth are unrighteous ; deed ^-"^o"^'
— hath set himself in no good way. JJ'pon his hed. Beauti-
fully S. Augustine : " Our bed is our heart : there we suffer
the stings of our evil conscience, and there we rest when our
conscience is good. There is our bed, where the Loed Jesus A.
Christ commands us to pray. ' Enter into thy chamber,
and shut thy door.' What is, Shut thy door ? Expect not
from God such as are without ; but such things as are
within." Most diligently does Ayguan follow up the Scrip- Ay.
tural expressions concerning a bed, and tell us that there are
six different beds of wickedness — that of luxury ; that of
avarice ; of ambition ; of greediness ; of torpor ; and of
cruelty ; and he illustrates them all by examples from Scrip-
ture.
5 Thy mercy, O Lord, reacheth unto the heavens :
and thy faithfulness unto the clouds.
6 Thy righteousness standeth like the strong moun-
tains : thy judgments are like the great deep.
7 Thou, Lord, shalt save both man and beast ; . . .
The Eastern commentators see in the former part of these
verses a description of those various gifts which the Holy
Ghost bestows on the Church. The heavens : the Apostles s. Athanas.
(see what I have said on this almost universal symbolism at ^^^^J^Vj^
the beginning of the 19th Psalm.) The clouds : the prophets, loc.
who darkly and enigmatically transmit the truth, even as
those earthly vapours the rays of the Sun. The strong moun-
tains : the most ancient of God's Saints. The great deep :
the abyss of Wisdom and Love contained in the Holy Scrip-
ture. Man and beast: the Jew and Gentile. And the
epithets or phrases attached to each will tally with these in-
terpretations. Thy mercy. For where can it be better set
forth than in the great words of one of those Heavens?
"This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation,
that Chbist Jesus came into the world to save sinners."
Thy faithfulness. For, of all those prophecies, which has not
been fulfilled ? And so of the rest. S. Bernard will rather s^^'-f J^-
see in the first verse a prophecy of the Incarnation ; the Annunciat.
mercy which devised the plan in heaven ; the faithfulness
with which it was devised and promised, and fulfilled, that
558
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
I
Hugo Card.
L.
De vera reli-
gione, cap.
S. Bernard.
Serm. v. de
verbis Isaice,
Ecclus.xxiv,
S. Joann.
Chrysost.in
Ps. civ,
Deut.xxii.6,
Jerem. xxxi
27, ibique S
Hieronvra.
Zechar. ii. 4
et S. Hiero-
nym.
D. C.
salvation which God had spoken by the mouth of all His
holy Prophets since the world began. Thy faithfuhiess unto
the clouds. And, as we know, the clouds are continually ex-
pounded of preachers. The mystical resemblance between
them is given in two lines of Hugo : —
Pulsa Notis : procul a terris : mare linquit : in imbres
Solvitur, et tonitrus : volat : et tenuata dat Irim.
That is, they, above all others, are tossed about by the
winds of tribulation ; they rise far above the earth by con-
templation ; they leave the bitterness and barrenness of the
world ; they are the occasions of the tears of repentance, and
they thunder forth their warnings against sinners : their
word, like their Master's, " runneth very swiftly," and they
divide Scripture into its various component keys of meaning,
and set forth the reconciliation of man to God. Like the
strong mountains. The Vulgate follows the Hebrew more
closely. Like the mountains of God. S. Augustine well
says that the precepts of the Gospel are greater than those of
the old Law, because the former have respect to heavenly,
the other only to earthly things ; that the Lord hence as-
cended the mountain before He delivered His discourse ; and
he refers to this passage also. Others will have Thy righ-
teousness to mean Thy righteous ones, and thus the Saints of
God to be compared to the strong mountains, because of
their firmness in resisting the storms and billows of this
world ; because of their being the first to catch the beams of
the Sun of Highteousness, which they reflect to others. Thy
judgments are like the great deep. Even as it is written in
Ecclesiasticus, where our Blessed Loed is spoken of under
the character of Wisdom : " Her thoughts are more than the
sea, and her counsels profounder than the great deep."
These, according to S. Chrysostom, are the deep with which
the LoED " covereth Himself as with a garment." Both
man and least. Witness the merciful law about the dam
and the eggs : witness the "much cattle," alleged as a reason
for showing mercy to JNineveh; witness the ass preserved
when the disobedient prophet was slain by the lion. But we
may take it mystically of the ruder, and the more educated
servants of God ; and the manner in which mediaeval com-
mentators heap together parallel passages in the same sense,
. is very striking. " Behold, the days come, saith the Loed,
• that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah
with the seed of man and with the seed of beast." So
again : " Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls
' for the multitude of men and of cattle therein." Compare
also that : "So foolish was I, and ignorant : even as it were
a beast before Thee;" and the Loed's being born in the
manger, where were the ox and the ass. In a more mystical
way, they see in that, Thy Truth reacheth tinto the clouds, a
parallel passage to the " Thou hast made Him a little lower
PSALM XXXVI. 559
than the Angels," of the 8th Psalm. Thy Truth they take of
the LoED Chbist ("I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,")
the clouds are the Angels (as that passage is explained i)y
Pseudo-Dionysius,) in his Angelic Hierarchy, "Who are isaiah ix. 8.
these that fly as a cloud?" and, humbled as the Truth was ny^l'SeSp'!"
by the Incarnation and the Nativity, yet He reacheth to the Aiigei. Hie'-
Angels, in that He is made only a little lower than they. ^^''^h. cap.
Th^ judgments are like the great deep. S. Augustine takes ^^' a
it m a sadder sense : as the mountains the righteous, so the
abyss the sinner ; and as the sin, so the judgment prepared
for it ; bottomless sin, measureless vengeance. The Angelic
Doctor ingeniously compares the three heights — the moun-
tains, the clouds, the heavens. God's " righteousness is very
high;" hence compared to the first, because He rewards
more than we deserve. His Truth is higher; hence com-
pared to the second, because by " the truth of His promises, § Thom.
He gives what we do not deserve at all. His mercy is high- Aquin.
est of all ; hence compared to the Heavens ; for that is in-
finite in prevailing over infinite sin." Mountains of God. ^
For there are mountains of the Devil, the heresiarchs of
former times : Arius, Montanus, Noetus ; and even now many
a Diotrephes, who loveth to have the pre-eminence, and re- ®"' ^ ®"
ceiveth not the Apostles,
.... How excellent is thy mercy, O God : and
the children of men shall put their trust under the
shadow of thy wings.
But excellent does not come up to the force of the He-
brew ; rather, Hoto precious, ri rifxiov, as Symmachus has it.
The Vulgate rendering is, Sow hast Thou multiplied Thy
mercy ! The second clause of the verse makes us especially Ay.
remember the mercy of all mercies, namely, Calvary ; and
for that, " let them give thanks whom the Loed hath re-
deemed." Multiplied them; but they are all from that
one most precious root. Augustine says well : " Not with- A.
out reason is it here put, ' O Lord, Thou savest man and
beast : but the children of men ;' as though, settmg aside the
first. He keepeth separate the children of men. Separate
from whom ? Not only from beasts, but also from men, who
seek from God the saving of beasts, and desire this as a great
thing. Who, then, are the children of men ? Those who put
their trust under the shadow of His wings. For those men,
together with beasts, rejoice in possession; the children ot
men rejoice in hope ; those follow after present good vrith
beasts ; these hope for future good with the Angels. And
what is the shadow of Thy wings 1 " I sat down under His g Cyril.
Shadow with great delight." Those wings which were Aie^^^^^^^^
stretched out on the arms of the Cross, as if thence over-
shadowing the whole world, gathering the young and feeb^ ^^^u 34
ones together, and guarding them : so to be a refuge from Jerem. u. 34.
560
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Ruffinus.
Remigius.
tlie storm, a hiding-place from tlie world. There is a tra-
dition that the shadow of our Lord on the Cross fell on and
covered the penitent thief; and so, " that the very shadow of
Peter passing by might overshadow" some of them, was suf-
ficient for those who sought healing from his hands. Others,
however, take these wings, wherelDy the Christian is, as it
were, taught to fly, of the two great precepts of the Law :
love of God, love of ourselves : but not, to my mind, with
half their beauty who see the Cross in them.
S. Bernard.
Serm. 49, in
Cantic.
The Hymn,
Splendor Pa-
terncBgloritB.
Cd.
Guarric,
Serm. ii.
Cant. hi. 11.
8 They shall be satisfied with the plenteousness
of thy house : and thou shalt give them drink of thy
pleasures, as out of the river.
They shall he satisfied. Or as it is in the Yulgate, They
shall be inebriated. Hence in the first place they look to the
time when the pleasures of God's House were thrown open
to the world at the day of Pentecost ; when Parthian s and
Medes, and the countless nations that came up to Jerusalem,
first of all had a way opened to a better House of God than
that in which they were then seeking to offer their supplica-
tions. Satisfied. " But, O Lord Jesu," cries S. Bernard,
" what is this, that man, created after God's image, — that
man, with a capacity of immortality, that man whose likeness
Thou Thyself didst assume, — should be satisfied! How
much love, how much gladness, does that immortal soul take,
to fill up the measure of its contentment!" To this verse,
perhaps, S. Gregory refers in that hymn where he says :
Lseti bibamus sobriam
Ebrietatem spiritus.
The plenteousness of Thy house, in its highest sense, what
is it but that gift, a greater than which God cannot bestow,
a more precious than which man cannot receive, — the Bread
of Angels, the Cake which is to support us during all the
course of our journey through the wilderness ? Drink of
Thy pleasures. And how can it be that the Blood so poured
forth, when there was no sorrow like His sorrow, — when He
was despised and rejected of men, — when His physical and
mental sufierings strove together, as it were, which should
be the greatest, — that this Blood should be spoken of under
the title of Thy pleasures ? Whence also not here for the
first time, for the holy interpreters of the Psalms have set
that truth before us again and again, we are reminded of the
day of the gladness of His heart, of which the Bride speaks
in the Canticles. Think, then, of this, O Christian, whoso-
ever thou art, that art tempted to despise the chastening of
the Lord, or to faint when thou art rebuked of Him, that
the Blood which He thus shed, from its earliest drops in His
Circumcision to that hour when He poured it forth in Geth-
PSALM XXXVI. 561
semane ; and again, when " the ploughers ploughed upon
His back and made long furrows ;" and further, when the
Crown of Thorns was forced on to His Head ; and yet again,
when the purple garment was torn from His re-opened
wounds, down to the time that they pierced His Hands and s. Albert, m.
His Feet, and opened His Side with a spear ; that the shed-
ding of this Blood was not only our redemption, but His
pleasure. And further, As out of a river. Not out of a pool
or lake, that may dry up and be exhausted, — not out of some
Cherith of a stream, of which it is written, that "in process ' Kings xvii.
of time the brook dried up because there had been no rain in '^'
the land," — but from a never-ending supply. For He that
fed the five thousand with the five loaves, and multiplied the
widow's oil, how has He daily, from His Eesurrection till
now, satisfied untold myriads of His people with that Living
Bread and that Blood, which is drink indeed ! Whence it
well follows :
9 For with thee is the well of life : and in thy
light shall we see light.
And first they notice the marvellous reference to the s. Basil.
Blessed Trinity which this verse contains : For with Thee, Theodoret.
the Father, of Whom are all things, is the well of life : with Z.
Thee, as it is written, " In the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was with God." And forgive the Fathers of the s.^Cyrii!**^'
Eastern Church if, in the latter clause, they saw the proces- Hierosoi.
sion of the Holy Ghost from the Father alone. In Thy
light : which they compare with " The Spirit of Truth which Rupert,
proceedeth from the Father." And then notice, taking the
Fountain of Hfe in another sense, how the blessing of the
pure of spirit is here also pronounced. The well of life, the
waters of Baptism; and the light, the illumination which
has, even from Apostolic times, been synonymous with that
Sacrament, — even as the Epiphany, the commemoration of
our Lord's Baptism, is to this day in the Eastern Church ^ Bgr^arrt
called The Lights. And all the commentators delight to show serm. 57.
how many lights there are which profess to guide us through
the darkness of this world ; many a Barcochebas, a Son of
the Star, who fall under that condemnation of the Apostle,
"Wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness ofs. Judeis,
darkness for ever." In Thy light. For even of each of the
saints it is said, " He was not that light, but was sent to bear
witness of the Light, that was the true Light." " Scarcely ^jJJ^/^
anywhere else in the whole Psalter," says one of the greatest serm. 27.'
preachers of the conclusion of mediaeval times, " do we so
find the Son and the Holy Ghost, and the Sacraments,
preached as here. It is as if David spoke with John's voice,
when he tells of the Light ; with Paul's voice, when he sets
forth the Well of life." Again : In Thy Light shall we see
light, is of course the basis of that clause in the Nicene
BB 3
562
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
S. Ambros.
de Fil. c. V.
L.
Rupert.
Judith vii.
17.
Gen. XX vi.
18.
Christ's
Triumph.
Creed, " Light of Light." S. Ambrose dwells at great length
on the subject in connection with this verse, and shows where
and how the symbol falls short of that which it typifies.
Once more, notice this, for so marvellously does Scripture
hang together -. compare the junction here of the Well of Life
and the Light, with God's opening Hagar's eyes, so that she
beheld the well of water. " And do thou beware, O Chris-
tian," so says a mediaeval doctor, "lest that wicked Holo-
fernes come and cut off the fountains of thy salvation, so
that thou canst find no water : take good heed lest the herd-
men of the Philistines stop up the wells, as of old time, in the
desert, — the wells which the true Abraham, the father of the
faithful, opened, — and thou perish of thirst."
And now we come to the consideration of that which has
made this verse one of the most famous passages in Scrip-
ture, the nature of the Beatific Vision. Mediseval writers
here find that on which to argue in support of both views, —
that which ascribes the power of beholding it to the innate
essence of the Deity ; the other which considers it an intrinsic
endowment of every beatified spirit. No one can describe it
more beautifully, and at the same time more according to
mediaeval teaching, than Giles Fletcher :
" It is no flaming lustre made of light ;
No sweet concent or "well-timed harmony ;
Ambrosia for to feast the appetite,
Or flowery odour mixed with spicery ;
No sweet embrace, nor pleasure bodily ;
And yet it is a kind of inward feast,
A harmony that sounds within the breast j
An odour, light, embrace, in which the soul doth rest.
" A heavenly feast no hunger can consume ;
A light unseen that shines in every place ;
A sound no time can steal ; a sweet perfume
No winds can scatter ; an entire embrace.
That no satiety can e'er unlace ;
Engraced into so high a favour there.
The saints with their beau-peers whole worlds outwear,
And things unseen do see, and things unheard do hear.
" Ye blessed souls, grown richer by your spoil.
Whose loss, though great, is cause of greater gains,
Here may your weary spirits rest from toil
Spending your endless evening that remains
Amongst those white flocks and cele^ial trains
That feed upon their Shepherd's Eyes, and frame
That heavenly music of so wondrous fame,
Psalming aloud to all the honours of His Name."
S. Thomas nowhere seems to penetrate so deeply into
those mysteries which eye hath not seen nor ear heard, as
where, rapt as it were beyond himself, he shows that, in
PSALM XXXVI. 563
order to see the Essence of God, some kind of similitude to i Par. g. 12.
that Essence on the part of the visual power is requisite ; in and |e^" ^'
opj)Osition to those who taught, as later and poorer theo- cunda^se-
logians have endeavoured to prove, that the Vision itself is ^undse,
habitual to beatified spirits. The two texts on which he ?"fe?t. 3?'
builds those magnificent passages are the verse which has led '
us into this inquiry, and that in the Eevelation, " Having the Rg^ ^xi 1 1
glory of God."
10 O continue forth thy loving-kindness unto
them that know thee : and thy righteousness unto
them that are true of heart.
Having thus spoken of the Beatific Vision, David tells of s. Thom.
the way by which only it can be reached. And as if carried ^^"™-
away by the dear hope of the glory which shall be revealed,
he speaks of faith as if it were knowledge : 17ii/ loving-kind-
ness unto them that know Thee. Where, by a verse which we D. C.
had long ago, we can enter into the fuller meaning of this,
"They that know Thy Name will put their trust in Thee." Ps. ix. 10.
For it is that beloved and glorious Name of Jesus which
opens the way to God's knowledge by faith in this world.
And notice, again, how the loving -kindness precedes the
righteousness. The loving-kindness which gives us the power ^- ^•
to act ; the righteousness which rewards us for acting when
we have the power. The loving-kindness which bestows on
us the grace ; the righteousness that crowns us with the re-
ward of grace, which is glory. Thi/ righteousness unto such s. Thomas
as are true of heart : that is, themselves righteous. For ^i""***^-
unto him that hath shall more be given. And so it is almost
in the last verse of the Bible : " He that is righteous, let him
be righteous," — or rather, continue and act out the being
righteous — " still." And observe this : the two parts of each
clause answer to each other, — the righteousness is to be con- Theodoret.
tinned to them that are righteous; therefore the loving-
kindness ought to be promised to them that love. Instead
of which it is, to them that know Thee. For of a truth it is
one and the same thing really to know and really to love.
11 O let not the foot of pride come against me :
and let not the hand of the ungodly cast me down.
12 There are they fallen, all that work wicked-
ness : they are cast down, and shall not be able to
stand.
The foot of pride. It is singular what a depth of meaning s. Ambros.
they find in this expression. First we are reminded of the |«j;^-^'^3;
struggle between Jacob and Esau, symbols of the unregene- 35. "
rate and the regenerate man. Then, again, of the wise man's L.
advice, " Keep thy foot when thou goest into the house of Eccies.v.i.
564 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
God." And tlien of our Loed's lesson in humility, by wash-
ing His disciples' feet. And, furthermore, observe the gra-
D. C. <^^^1 increase of evil : the foot of pride in the first clause,
and that only to attack, come against me : the hand of the
ungodly in the second, and that not simply to attack, but
to prevail, cast me down. There. "And who shall tell
Ay. us," says a mediaeval writer, " what that there is ? Little
word, but oh, what a depth of meaning ! Few letters, but
p^ what untold lapse of time !" Are they fallen, all that work
ivicTcedness. Rejoice, therefore, O Christian, when at last
thy reward shall come, and thou shalt be delivered from
them that work wickedness within thee, the lust of the flesh,
and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life ; and around
thee, the world and all its fascinations ; and against thee,
Satan and all his powers. Let this be thy comfort : He
saith not, " They shall he cast down," but " They are cast
down ;" they are already destroyed by Him That died on
the Cross. He that believeth not — and who is the great un-
believer, but Satan ? — is condemned already. Shall not he
ahle to stand. See what is said on the last verse of the first
Psalm.
And therefore :
Glory be to the Father, with Whom is the Well of Life ;
and to the Son, in Whose light we shall see light : and to
the Holy Ghost, Whose righteousness standeth like the
strong mountains ;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen.
Collects.
Ludoiph. GrOD, Which art the Fountain and Source of everlasting
life, glorify us with Thy heavenly mercy; that we, being
filled with the plenteousness of Thy house, may evermore
eschew all guile and superfluity of naughtiness. Through
Mozarabic. ^ LoED GoD, with Whom is the Fountain of Life, and in
AdVesperas. Whose light we shall see light, increase in us the brightness
of Thy knowledge ; that, when we are thirsty, we may receive
from Thee the fountain of living waters ; and when we are
dark, we may be lightened with the brightness of Thy un-
derstanding. Amen. Through Thy mercy (11.)
Mozarabic. Let not, O LoED, the foot of pride come against us, and let
AdVesperas. not the hand of the ungodly cast us down ; but give us grace
so to put our trust under the shadow of Thy wings, that we
may be preserved from the assaults of all things that come
about us to destroy us ; and being filled with the plenteous-
ness of Thy house, and given to drink of the river of Thy
pleasures, we may be preserved by Thy Holy Spieit in this
world, and in the world to come adorned with the brightness
of Thy grace. Amen. Through Thy mercy (11.)
PSALM XXXVII. 565
[O LoED, never leave unsheltered the children of men who MozaraWc.
put their trust under the protection of Thy wings, but cherish
and nourish us like the young of a bird, that we may be fitted
for our flight on high, SuflPer us not to be harmed by the
rending of the deceitful, nor to fly from the nest of Thy
Church, but guiding us under Thy Fatherly shadow, grant
us to come, by Thine aid, to the plenteousness of Thy
house (H.)]
PSALM XXXVIT.
Title. A Psalm of David.
Abgtjment.
Aeg. Thomas. That Christ is the salvation of all the righteous
that hope in Him. Hence He exhorteth all to faith, showing the
salvation of the Chiu-ch, and admonishing all them that believe to
remain firm in the faith. Read with this Psalm the Wisdom of
Solomon.
Ven. Bede. Since most men feel so deeply the affliction of the
good and the prosperity of the wicked, that they care not for virtue
which is unremi)(fierated in this Ufe, this Psalm is composed to
refute such an error, by teaching that we are to look to the end of
both. It is alphabetical, and the voice of the Church is heard
tliroughout ; but tlie sixteenth letter is wanting. At the beginning
she admonishes men not to imitate the wicked, but to ask from the
Lord everything that is good, since He knoweth how to give that
wliich will profit, and to preserve those good things which He hath
given. Next, she teaches how the wicked after all envy the just, as
knowing his portion to be so far the superior. Thirdly, she bears
witness that she has never seen the righteous man forsaken, mingling
the punishment of the wicked and the reward of the just in a profit-
able interchange. The first head containeth six letters ; the second,
seven ; the third, eight.
Striac Psalter. Concerning them who say that God avengeth
not Himself on the transgressors.
S. Jerome. This Psalm glorifieth the person of the righteous,
blameth that of the unrighteous, teacheth the goodness of GOD,
plucketh up depravity.
Various Uses.
Gregorian. Ferial; Monday: Matins.
Monastic. Monday : Matins.
Parisian. Tuesday : Sexts.
Lyons. Tuesday : Sexts.
Amhrosian. Wednesday of the First Week : II. Nocturn.
Quiff non. Tuesday : Matins.
566
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Antiphons.
Gregorian and Monastic. Commit * thy way unto the Loed.
Parisian. The righteous * is ever merciful and liberal, and his
seed is blessed.
Amhrosian. As before.
Mozarahic. Delight thou in the LoED, and He shall give thee
thy heart's desire.
Vit. S. Ful-
gent. c. 3.
Philippus
Grevseus,
Serm. 71.
S. Thomas
Aquinas.
J^ 1 Fret not thyself because of the ungodly : neither
be thou envious against the evil doers.
2 For they shall soon be cut down like the grass :
and be withered even as the green herb.
Origen seems to have valued this Psalm above all others,
calling it the most precious medicine of the human soul. S.
Ambrose, on the other hand, compares it with the 34th, as
both admirable specimens of that which he calls the ethic
Psalm, but gives the preference to that. S. Augustine's
commentary is chiefly remarkable on this account : that from
its perusal S. Fulgentius is said to have been converted.
Fret not thyself, ^mulari is the Latin word; and that
which is involved in this expression is recited in a line of
Cardinal Hugo's :
^mulus inflatur, amat, invidet, ac imitatur.
All the Fathers tell us how this has been the sift which from
the beginning of the world has principally beset God's ser-
vants,— the envying the temporal and external prosperity of
the wicked. " This," says one, " is a brave confession, yet
not altogether so open, so unpalliated, as that of Asaph in
the 73rd Psalm. Had I been the Priest," he continues,
" who had had to hear these two confessions, Asaph should
have gone down to his house justified rather than the other."
But on the other hand they observe, that here, no sooner is
the difficulty propounded, than the remedy is pointed out.
Like the grass; and why? "Because it springs up," says
the same Philip, " under the parching sun of concupiscence ;
is cut down in a moment by the sickle of death ; is heaped
up together with others that have fallen like itself, in
bundles, to be burnt ; is carried away by the wagon that
creaks and groans, as the judgments of God make themselves
heard in their execution." They see in the two comparisons,
cut down like the grass, loithered as the green herb, — or as it
is in the Vulgate, the pot-herh which is good for meat, — two
kinds of temptation to sin : those from show, and those from
profit. Ayguan dwells on the different likenesses which
Holy Scripture finds for the temptation arising from earthly
prosperity : the withering grass, as here ; the flying arrow,
the departing shadow. And into the latter similitude he
enters at great length ; showing that all shadows must be in
PSALM XXXVII. 567
their shape, either equal throughout, or pyramidal, or re-
versed pyramidal, which he calls conoidal. In the first of
these he sees original, in the second venial, in the third
mortal, sin. It would take us too far from our subject to
foUow him in his ingenious exposition .
3 Put thou thy trust in the Lord, and be doing 2
good : dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.
4 Delight thou in the Lord : and he shall give
thee thy hearths desire.
The first clause was taken as the motto of one of the most
powerful monarchs the world ever knew, D. Manoel of Por-
tugal ; Sjje^^a in Domino, or as he chose to spell it, Sphera :
therefore all the churches of his epoch are surmounted by
the Sphere instead of the Cross, — not, as the casual visitor is
so apt to take it, in the sense of the world, but as the expres-
sion of hope. Here, they say, is the first time that we are Ay.
commanded to make an ark of hope ; and it is well connected
with that which follows, Dwell in the land. What land, save
that which is our true country ? the land of the saints, the Aquinas. ^
land where there are many mansions for us. And the second
precept, Be doing good, in like manner hangs on to the suc-
ceeding promise, Thou shalt he fed : fed here with the bread
of angels ; fed hereafter by that Beatific Vision which is at
once continual hunger and continual satiety. They take it, origen.
however, in another sense ; so that dwell in the land shall s. Ambrose,
mean, so dwell, as to cultivate and rule over the territory of
their own soul. Or again, S. Augustine will have it to apply
to the Church, and then the translation of the Vulgate comes
in very well : Dwell in the land, and thou shalt he satisfied
in its riches. " But what will that be," cries a mediaeval D. C.
writer, " when we are called to dwell in the true land of
gold, uniting in itself the excellencies of the various regions
in this world, where we have at once the gold of Havilah, of
Ophir, and of Parvaim ; and the gold of that land is indeed
good ? This is the only gold that can satisfy and not increase
the desire which it seems to allay." Or, if you will, take the
exhortation as if addressed to our dear Lokd. Be doing ^7*
good : even as when He went about doing good, and healing
all manner of sicknesses ; Himself taking our infirmities and
bearing our diseases. Dwell in the land : that land to which
it pleased Him to limit His own work, and at first to confine
the ministrations of His Apostles ; as He said Himself, " Go
not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the
Samaritans enter ye not." And thou shalt he satisfied in
its riches ; those riches as yet unseen ; those many pearls of
great price, which He hved to seek, and having found them,
which He died to buy. And with equal force it goes on :
Delight thou in the Lord,—eyen as it is written, " I knew
that Thou hearest Me always j" and again, " This is My Be-
568 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
loved Son, in "Whom I am well pleased," — and Se shall give
tJiee thy heart's desire ; that desire, led by which He said, in
the same night in which He was betrayed, " I will that they
also whom Thou hast given Me may be with Me where I
am." And on the Cross itself, " Father, forgive them ;" and
again, "I thirst," namely, for the salvation of the human
race. Thy heart's desire : the desire of that heart which,
having all His life long desired the hour of His Passion, was
at length pierced with the spear, both that it might shed
forth its life-blood for our redemption, and might open a cleft
wherein we might take refuge from danger.
J 5 Commit thy way unto the Lord, and put thy
trust in him : and he shall bring it to pass.
Aicuin. " Commit thy way," says a mediaeval writer, " to the Lord,
and then thy Way shall guard thee in all peace ; namely, He
Who is the Way, without Whom no man cometh unto the
D. 0. Father." They take it not only of the way that lies before
us, with all its difficulties and dangers, but of that way or
disposition of our natural heart, which must be kept under,
Haymo. if ever we would enter into life. Or, again, you may take it
in the sense of that way in which, however it be opposed,
each Christian has to walk for himself; the way that leads
up the golden steps, in spite of the lions that stand on this
side and on that. Commit this way to Him, and He shall
Ezra viii. 21. bring it to pass; shall bring Ezra in safety, without any
earthly guard, from the river of Ahava to the Temple of Je-
rusalem ; shall lead Elijah without fear from the juniper- tree
C. in the wilderness to Sinai, which is the mount of God. They
dwell on the force of the Vulgate reveal, where we read com-
mit, and hence speak of confession. " A way it is," says one,
" covered with clouds and thick darkness, wrapt up and en-
folded in manifold vain excuses, palliated and covered from
human eyes. Reveal it, therefore, to Him Whose vision, as
the wise man says, is ten thousand times brighter than the
sun ; and whatever be the depth of its iniquity, put thy
trust in Him still for pardon. Thou canst only offend His
mercy by doubting His readiness to forgive." Bring it to
Hugo Card. pass. " O blessed word," cries another, " that it ! If he
had mentioned this for the other good thing, nay, even if he
had drawn out a catalogue of ten thousand good things, yet
it, the thing on which thou, O Christian, hast set thine heart,
the thing that thou must have, or perish. But now, let it be
what it may, this promise abundantly covers it : be it never
so difficult, never so strange, never so impossible to human
Aicuin, energy, Se shall bring it to pass ." And in its highest sense
the Lord Himself committed His way, the last thorny way
that those blessed Feet ever trod, into His Father's hands ;
and having said this. He gave up the ghost. And how was
it brought to pass, as the Lord of glory hung on the Cross P
PSALM XXXVII. 569
How, but by that last sentence, by wbicb He summed up
both the actions and sufferings of His life ? Set the two one
over against the other : He shall bring it to pass : "It is
finished."
6 He shall make thy righteousness as clear as the
light : and thy just dealing as the noon-day.
Are we to take it of the light by which the Loed our Hugo vic-
Bighteousness was heralded to the Gentiles, was made clear *°'^"^-
to the wise men who came up from the east to Jerusalem ?
Or again, of the marvellous brightness which glittered forth
from Him on the Mount of Transfiguration ? And notice :
He was no less Loed of the darkness than Loed of the light,
for never was He more manifestly proclaimed Almighty God
than when there was darkness over all the earth from the
sixth hour until the ninth hour. Thy just dealing as the
noon-day. Hugh of S. Victor understands it of the Last
Judgment. " The righteousness of good men," says he, " is
now concealed, because the justification which they seek for
is not visible by human eyes. And although the example of
good works shines forth from them even in this world, yet
the brilliancy of the intention from which those good works
proceed must now be concealed. But in the world to come
that glory shall also be made manifest; because He for
Whom, and by Whose grace they directed all their works,
will proclaim it before men and angels."
7 Hold thee still in the Lord, and abide patiently *y
upon him : but grieve not thyself at him, whose way
dotli prosper, against the man that doeth after evil
counsels.
8 Leave off from wrath, and let go displeasure : j-y
fret not thyself, else shalt thou be moved to do
evil.
9 Wicked doers shall be rooted out : and they
that patiently abide the Lord, those shall inherit
the land.
Hold thee still. "And this," says S. Jerome, "is the
hardest precept that is given to man; insomuch that the
most difficult precept of action sinks into nothing when com-
pared with this command to inaction." And they show how Hugo vic
our LoBD Himself fulfilled this command perfectly; how, *or"i-
during the time that He wrought at Nazareth, in obedience
to His supposed father. He held Him still, notwithstanding
all the miseries of His people, notwithstanding all the many
sicknesses which He might have healed by a word, notwith-
standing the many sinners whom He might have called to
570
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
S. Albertus
Magnus.
Ludolph.
A.
S. Alb. Mag.
Jer. xii. 1 .
S. Thomas
Aquinas.
c.
Hugo Card.
S. August,
de Civ. Dei,
lib. 22.
1 Cor. XV.
28.
repentance, and did not. And again : when tlie zeal of His
relations pressed upon Him that advice, " If Thou do these
things, show Thyself to the world," He held Himself still by
the reply, " My time is not yet come." And again before
Pilate, and yet once more before Herod, as a sheep before
her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth. Sim
whose way doth prosper. Whose way, that is, as distinct
from God's way ; the way that seemeth right to a man, but
the end thereof is the place of death ; the way that begins in
ease and ends in bitterness. And who is it whose way pros-
pers above all others? Who but he, the great enemy of
GwD and man, the lord of the broad gate and the wide way
leading to destruction. And notice the distinction between
the two ; Sim whose loay doth prosper, — the man that doeth
after evil couiisels : the former, the chief and suggester of all
wickedness, not him that doeth after, but that deviseth evil ;
the latter, those who have entered on his service, and must
expect his wages, which is death. Then in the next verse
observe the three steps of evil: 1, wrath; 2, displeasure;
3, fret thyself. He begins with the highest, wrath, that is,
its expression by action ; displeasure, that is, its expression
by word ; fretting, that is, when it is confined to the mind,
but exists there. And why not fret thyself .P Because they
say, God has a most beloved Son, namely, our Loed Jesus ;
and a most evil servant, namely, the fallen nature of man.
If thou wilt have thy portion with the Son, what is it but to
cast in thy lot with Him Who was the Man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief .P If thou desirest the companionship
of the servant, thus it is written, " The way of the wicked
doth prosper." Shall inherit the land. What land, save
the region of the blessed, — the land of the Tree of Life, — the
land where the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick. Shall
inherit. ' Blessed inheritance, which shall be denied to none
that is worthy, given to none that is unworthy ; nay, rather,
which none that is unworthy ever desires to have, if he might.
Glorious inheritance, where there is adversity neither from
oneself nor from others ; where the reward of goodness will
be He Who is the Author of goodness, nay rather. Who is
goodness itself; the reward, than which He hath nothing
higher to give, nor we to receive. What else is this inherit-
ance but that of which it is written by the prophet, " I will
be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people." I will
be all things that they desire, — life, salvation, food, glory,
honour, and peace. So rightly do we understand that which
is written by the Apostle, " that God maybe all in all :" may
be seen without end, may be loved without weariness, may
be praised without fatigue.
^ 10 Yet a little while, and the ungodly shall be
clean gone : thou shalt look after his place, and he
shall be away.
PSALM XXXVII. 571
11 But the meek-spirited shall possess the earth :
and shall be refreshed in the multitude of peace.
They all admire the faith of the Psalmist, in that he calls Didymus.
this season of trial and temptation a little tohile. It were Rufflnus.
much to call it so were it only his own sufferings of which he
spoke ; but now that he looks forward to the time when the
warfare of all God's saints shall be accomplished, the ini-
auity of all God's people shall be pardoned, much more is
lis an act of faith to regard that time as short. Thou sJialt ^ Aibertus
looh . after his place. A.nd what is the place, the place as- j
signed in God's Providence that the wicked has ? What but
the trying and proving of the just ? The place of Pontius
Pilate and Herod before our Loed ; the place of the accusers
in regard to S. Stephen. But then in the next world the
gold shall have been purified, and shall shine forth without
any further trial. Notice how David here and Job tell of C
the same thing : " Thou shalt look after his jplace," says one;
" Surely there is a place for gold where they fine it," says
the other. And further observe this : the entireness of that
victory, the ungodly shall he clean gone ; not beaten down for
a moment, and then rising again, as here ; but abolished, an-
nihilated for ever. And further observe how David and the Lu^oiph.
Son of David teach the same thing. The meeTc- spirited shall
possess the earth. " Blessed are the meek, for they shall in-
herit the earth." And they yet further note this : that that
•which David mentions merely as a fact, — they shall possess,
— our Loed elevates to a beatitude. Blessed, for they shall
inherit. It is the triumph of the New Testament over the
Old : just as we saw the sermon on the Mount commence
with eight Beatitudes the Psalter with only one. And shall
be refreshed — or, as it is in the Vulgate, And shall be de-
lighted—in the multitude of peace. And observe the parallel Hugo Vic-
passage in another Psalm, V Abundance of peace so long as torin.
the moon endureth." And what is the moon ? The Church :
the giver of partial peace in this world ; the enjoyer of eternal
and unbroken peace in the next. For consider, says one, Hrabanus
what will be that multitude of peace, when all are lovmg, MaurusinS.
and all loved ; when aU enjoy the happiness and the grace of Matt. xm.
each ; when there is none to envy, and none occasion to be
envied ; when, as the hymn says.
Though each one's respective merit 'jd^^Jmnis.
Hath its varying palm assigned,
Love takes all as his possession
Where his power has all combined :
So that all that each possesses
All partake in unconfined.
12 The ungodly seeketh counsel against the just : ^
and gnasheth upon him with his teeth.
572 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
13 The Lord shall laugh him to scorn : for he
hath seen that his day is coming.
P. And first we thlDk of Satan presenting himself before the
LoED to accuse Job ; then of the same adversary standing at
the right hand of Joshua the son of Josedech, to resist him ;
and then, lastly, watching every action and saying of our
blessed Loed on the Cross, when, as He Himself testified,
s. Johnxiv. "the Prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me."
^^' And gnasheth wpon him with his teeth. As it was when the
-^y- Loed blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning ;
Zech. iii. 2. as it was when Zechariah heard the words, " The Loed re-
buke thee, O Satan, even the Loed that hath chosen Jeru-
salem rebuke thee : is not this a brand plucked out of the
fire ?" And as it was in the Antitype of both these, when
that Consummatum est crushed all the open attacks and se-
cret wiles of Satan for ever. Neither is it possible to pass
over the resemblance between this verse and that which re-
lates to the martyrdom of S. Stephen. And indeed this is
Serm de i ^^ Psalmellus in the Ambrosian office for that saint. The
Sesta Feira Lord shall laugh him to scorn. Well says Yieyra : " What
de Qua- jg that laughter of Gop, of Him Whose smile is life ? What
ff p?ni?™' is that saying, ' I also will laugh at your calamity, I will
mock when your fear cometh?' I read of the wrath of the
Lamb against which they that are lost shall in that day call
upon the hills to hide them, and the mountains to protect
them ; and I used to think it the most terrible passage in
Scripture. But truly, when I remember for how many days,
years, decades of years, GtOd's long-suffering with the sinner
lasts ; what enormous sins He overlooks and prsetermits ;
Acts xvii. how, as the Apostle saith. He winks at the crimes of igno-
3^- ranee, and turns away from wilful offences ; then, at last, to
see all this mercy turned, not into calm, austere judgment, —
not into silent condemnation of those things for which mercy
ventures no longer to plead, — but into exultation, as it were,
at the overthrow of the sinner, — but into that laughter, which,
save God, none dares attribute to God ; — this, I say, thrills
me through with such horror, that I know not m hat can be
imagined more terrible ; that all other dread in comparison
with this seems easily borne."
^ 14 The ungodly have drawn out the sword, and
have bent their bow : to cast down the poor and
needy, and to slay such as are of a right conversa-
tion.
15 Their sword shall go through their own heart :
and their bow shall be broken.
s. Thorn. The Angelic Doctor reads us a moral lesson, taking the
AquiD. sword here for anger. We are not to have a sword at all, if
PSALM XXXVII. 573
we can help it ; but if we cannot, at all events let us keep it
in the sheath : and if we keep it there it will become rusty,
and we shall not be able to draw it at any future time. By
the sioord and the hoio some would distinguish between im-
mediate and mediate temptations ; between those which lead Lidoiph.
us at once to sin, and those which only conduce to a proxi-
mate occasion of sin. Others, again, take the sword of open, Ay.
the bow of secret, attacks. The ungodly drew out the sword
against our Loed when He said, " All these things will I give
Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me." He bent the
bow when they tempted Him with "Is it lawful to give
tribute unto Caesar or not ?" Again : S. Ambrose understands s. Ambros.
tke sword of an evil tongue ; and it was well said by the
heathen Diogenes, when he heard some young man distin- qj
guished for his beauty indulging in impure language, " How
foul a sword to come out of that ivory sheath !" Origen, in
his own inimitable way, contrasts the bow of Satan with that Gen. ix.
of God : the former the instrument by which the world is
~ct on fire, when otherwise it would be at rest ; the latter
ihe sign and promise of grace even in the midst of the tem-
pest. " Beware, above all things," says a mediaeval writer, g aik f m
" of the spiritual Tubal-cain ; still forging, as he forged at '
first, weapons of quarrel and slaughter." And notice the
difference between the poor and needy. A man may be poor,
though he be not needy ; for his poverty may content him : Haymo.
a man may be needy though he be not poor, for his riches
may discontent him. The Loed of all things vouchsafed
to be both poor and needy. Poor, as it is written, " The
Son of Man hath not where to lay His head;" needy,
in that He seeketh, O Christian, for thy love. Of a right s. Albert m.
conversation. For remember always that it is the cause, and
not the suffering, that makes the martyr; even as our Loed
pronounces not them to be blessed who have all manner of
evil spoken against them, unless it be both falsely and for
His Name's sake. Their sword shall go through their oivn
heart. And first they naturally remind us of the great battle
between Theodosius and Eugenius, the last struggle that
Paganism made for the empire of the world; when such -^
was the force of the storm that burst in the faces of the
heathen, when the Emperor, advancing to rally his shat-
tered forces, had exclaimed with a loud voice, " Where is
the God of Theodosius ?" that their darts and arrows were
turned back upon themselves. But here we have the whole
mystery of redemption :
Multiformis proditoris l^'^^n,
Ars ut artem talleret. Pange
lingua.
First we think of the prophecy, " All they that take the
sword shall perish by the sword;" then of Goliath, whose Ay.
head was smitten off by his own weapon ; of Saul, who drew ^^jc'^'^jJi,.
the sword against David, and fell upon it himself; of Doeg ;
574 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
who did the like ; of the Egyptian whom Beuaiah, the son of
Jehoiada, slew by his own spear ; of Haman, hanged upon
the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai; of Holo-
fernes, whose head was struck oflP by his own faulchion ; of
the mighty rulers of Persia, slain by the fire by which they
had intended that the three children should be consumed ;
and finally, of the courtiers of Darius, over whom the lions
by which they had proposed that Daniel should be devoured
had the mastery. And therefore well may the Eastern
idiomeionof Church exclaim, " Thou hast gone forth, O Son of G-od, to
the Great destroy the enemy with his own weapon ; by that in which
he trusted hast Thou overthrown him, beheading him frith
his own sword, piercing him with his own spear. Wherefore
we cry, Glory, O Loed, to Thy Passion, and honour to Thy
Resurrection."
^ 16 A small thing that the righteous hath : is
better than great riches of the ungodly.
A small thing. And they think first of the grain of mus-
tard seed, that small thing that is the least of all seeds, and
at length branches into the large tree, where the fowls of the
C. air shelter. Others, again, take it of the Blessed Eucharist,
small and mean to outward appearance, but in reality a trea-
S. Thomas ^^^^ greater than any that Satan has to offer. Or, pursuing
Aquinas. the idea of the mustard seed, they show how the righteous
founded that small thing the Church in the large upper room
p at Jerusalem, and how it was better — that is, stronger than —
and prevalent over all that the ungodly, namely Satan, ga-
thered together to oppose it.
17 For the arms of the ungodly shall be broken :
and the Lord upholdeth the righteous.
1 18 The Lord knoweth the days of the godly :
and their inheritance shall endure for ever.
19 They shall not be confounded in the perilous
time : and in the days of dearth they shall have
enough.
Origen, taking the ungodly for Satan, understands by his
arms those chief ministers of his, the Pharaohs, the Sen-
nacheribs, the Herods, that are types of Antichrist. And
"^y* the Lord upholdeth the righteous : as He did when, by stretch-
ing out His own arms on the Cross, and having thereby
hrohen the arms of the ungodly, our Loed was raised again
the third day from the dead. Of which Cross it is well said,
■D* t/. that the Lord knoweth the days of the godly ; for there
hanging He beheld, as from a watchtower, the advance and
the victories of His evangelists and other saints, as they went
forth conquering and to conquer : and how, confiding in His
PSALM XXXVII. 575
promise, " Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the
world," they should so increase and multiply that their
inheritance should endure for ever. We may take i^Ae ^e- S.Albert. M.
rilous times of those persecutions which, one after another,
have beset the Church ; in some of which it would seem, that
if those days had not been shortened, the very elect must
have fallen. And the days of dearth are those epochs of
spiritual declension when, 'in the Church itself, it has appeared
as if there were scarcely any life ; such as the eleventh cen-
tury, when, as the great Latin historian says, " The Loed Baronias.
seemed asleep in the barque of Peter;" and again, the
eighty years which elapsed between the Council of Florence
and the outburst of the Eeformation, when worldliness was
eating out the very essence of religion ; and again, the
miserable eighteenth century, the dreariest time of all eccle-
siastical history. They shall have enough : for even in the
worst of these years God raised up His own saints ; and they
were all followed by seasons when a more than usual blessing
seemed to have been poured down by the Holy Ghost.
Origen, mystically expounding the manna's ceasing to fall on origen. in
the seventh day, and being gathered in a double portion on Exod, xvi.
the sixth, exhorts us in this sixth age of the world to lay
up in store for ourselves against the season of Antichrist,
when spiritual manna will cease ; when the elect must live,
so to speak, on what they have already provided ; when there
will be a famine of God's Word throughout the earth ; and
when, 80 far from signs and miracles being testimonies to the
true faith, infidels and persecutors will perform great and
mighty wonders, and they that are persecuted for Christ's
sake will be able to perform none ; when that fearful verse
will be accomplished in a sense of which at present we can
have no idea, " He doth ravish the poor, when he getteth
him into his net." Yet even then, in the days of dearth, they
shall have enough : for the Loed Himself speaks of the elect
who shall stand firm notwithstanding all; and S. John tells
of those who will be beheaded because they will not receive
the mark of the beast. They shall have enough till the time
comes when the last spark of goodness will be crushed out of
the earth by the slaughter of the two witnesses, and then im-
mediately shall the end be.
20 As for the ungodly, they shall perish : and the ^
enemies of the Lord shall consume as the fat of
lambs : yea, even as the smoke shall they consume
away.
Notice this : that there is a distinction made here between Genebrard.
the ungodly— that is, between those who only follow their in loc.
own lusts ; who are wicked, not for the sake of wickedness,
but because they will not exercise self-denial — and the ene-
mies of the Lord : that is, those hardened sinners who match
576
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
tliemselves, as it were, against God, setting their strength
against His, and defying Him, as it were, to do His worst.
Of the former it is only said, They shall perish; of the
latter, they shall consume as the fat of lambs. That is, as a
sacrifice is offered to the honour of God, in like manner
their destruction shall conduce to His glory also : as it was
with Korah and his company ; with Pharaoh in the Ked
Sea ; with the host of Sennacherib ; with Antiochus and
Galerius ; and other the like bold enemies of God. As the
smoTce. Cardinal Hugo gives these verses as illustrative of
the similarity between smoke and the destruction of the
wicked :
Hugo Card. Ascendit : niger est : tenuis : lacrymosus ab igne :
Deficit : ostendit ventum : fingit : tenebrosus.
That is, sudden ascent in prosperity; blackness of sin; un-
reality of supposed prosperity ; the tears occasioned by it ; ■
its rapid failure ; showing which way the wind of worldly I
popularity sets ; the fantastic nature of its schemes ; and its ■
having to do with the shades of everlasting darkness. These
are favourite reflections of mediaeval writers. Compare what
S. James says concerning the vapour that appeareth for a
little time, and then vanisheth away.
Rupert, in
Isa. cap, ix.
S.James iv.
14.
^ 21 The ungodly borroweth, and payeth not again :
but the righteous is merciful^ and liberal.
22 Such as are blessed of God shall possess the
land : and they that are cursed of him shall be rooted
out.
It is a marvellous parable of the whole life of man ; being
in general what the parable of the talents is in particular.
The ungodly borroweth. First take it of Satan, whose glo-
rious position above the rest of the heavenly host was only
lent to him, that by it he might add to the glory of God.
Hugo Card. ^^^ ^^^^ of mankind, remembering that we must all *'orrow
^gx,' ^ time, health, strength, influence, everything that is 8ymbo-
Hsed by the talents of one parable and the pounds of another.
And payeth not again: eiihev payeth as the unprofitable ser-
vant, the principal alone without increase, or utterly wastes
it in the service of sin. Borroweth : not only from God, but
also from the ministers of God. From them the sinner bor-
rows our Loed's Body and Blood, and ought to repay it in
all those good works which are prepared for him to walk in :
he borrows absolution, and ought to return it by obeying the
precept, " Go and sin no more :" he borrows consolations, and
rebuke, and advice, according to his need, and he ought to
repay it by doing the good work recommended, or eschewing
the evil against which warning has been given, and then he
payeth not again. But the righteous is merciful. Take it,
C.
A.
Ruffinus.
S.Cyril.
S. Thomas
Aquin.
PSALM XXXVII. 577
in the first place, of His mercy, Who only is righteous ; and
then, imitating His kindness to them, the kindness of His
followers towards each other. And liberal. And they take s. Aibertus
this clause of the saints whose delight it is to follow not only ^^S"^*^^-
the direct precepts, but also the evangelical couDsels which
He has left behind Him. Unprofitable servants in one sense
they are, and must be, in that they can never do that which,
but for the fall of Adam, they might have done — that which
He, according to His humanity, did for them. But yet, in
another sense, they do more than they need to secure their
own salvation, when they observe not only that which He has
made necessary to the entrance into eternal life, but also the
counsels which He recommends to those who would most
closely tread in His footsteps, but which He leaves free to
do or not to do to the great majority of His servants in this
world. Observe that, in the Vulgate, the latter verse is
translated, They that bless God, and they that curse Sim.
And how, says a mediaeval writer, can we bless God so effec- P.
tually, as by suffering or dying for Him ? " Bless God and
die" in this sense is to turn the advice of Job's wife into
the holiest of all exhortations. And they observe how com- s. Thom.
pletely the verse takes for granted that we are already citi- ■'^'i'*^'^'
zens enrolled and inscribed in the heavenly country. They
that are blessed shall inherit, they that are cursed shall — not
fall short of, nor be counted unworthy of, but shall be rooted
out of: as if it were already theirs, and rent away from them.
23 The Lord ordereth a good man's going : and Q
maketh his way acceptable to himself.
24 Thon '•h he fall, he shall not be cast away : for
the Lord upholdeth him with his hand.
Or as it is much more strikingly in the Hebrew, The Lord S-J"gen-
ordereth the going of the man, and He will have delight tn ^d Monim.'
his way. So that at once we are led to Him Whose gomgs ^.^^^ ^ ^
forth have been of old, even from everlasting,
Egressus ejus a Patre, The Hymn,
Eegressus ejus ad Patrem, j;<;»j««-
Excursus usque ad mteros ; gentium.
Eecursus ad sedem Dei :
as S. Ambrose magnificently says. Going. And how does s-^^^^-
He go save with that Cross m His hand which we are to 37,
imitate Him in taking up, and in following Him ? Be thou
therefore sure of this, O Christian, that if thy going be not
ordered in the same way, thou art no true servant ot His : as g j^^ ^ ^
it is written not only that when He putteth forth His own ^ ^^^^^
sheep He goeth before them, but that the sheep follow Him Aquinas,
also. Though he fall : for he shall fall into the hands of his
enemies, into the net laid for him, into the pit opened for
c c
578
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
The Hymn,
0 heata
beatorum.
L.
A.
him : the Morning Hind shall be taken in the toils : the inno-
cent Lamb shall become a prey to the raging lions. He shall
not be cast away. Not though His enemies say, " There is
D, C. no help for Him in His God ;" not though they seal the
stone and set the watch. And so of His followers : they also
have fallen by all kinds of terrible deaths ; nevertheless
Sam. XXV. "their souls," as the wise woman speaks, " were bound up
9- in the bundle of life with the Lord."
Dum sic torti cedunt niorti
Camis per interitum,
Ut electi sunt adepti
Beatorum prsemium.
The Lord wpholdeth him with His hand. So, even in the
very depth of His earthly sufferings, the Only-begotten Son
was not forsaken. But a hundredfold more has that Son,
now exalted to the right hand of Power, Himself upholden
those that were suffering in His Name and for His cause.
Whether miraculously, as when He sent the Angel who, as-
suming the form of a comely young man, wiped with a nap-
kin the limbs of the Cappadocian confessor, so that he felt no
manner of pain, but grieved when he was taken down from
the rack ; or whether, as more frequently, instead of anni-
hilating pain, He caused the courage of His servants to
triumph over it. Or, if you will, now looking away from the
Head, and to the members only, you may take though he fall
of sin : and then how often has the promise been made true,
" Satan hath desired to have thee, that he might sift thee as
wheat ; but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not."
And notice the reason why : not from any power that the
fallen man has to turn himself, — no, but for this reason only ;
for the Lord upholdeth him with His hand. It was to be
expected that the great Doctor of Grace should from this
passage dwell at great length on the triumphs of grace ; but,
wresting his words, as they do those of Scripture also, those
who falsely profess to be his followers have abused this verse
in support of their doctrine of final perseverance ; namely, -
that he that has once been elect may indeed, to use their own
expression, fall, but neither fatally nor finally. Hence such
fearful self-delusion as that which renders the death-bed of a
Cromwell so terrible.
2 25 I have been young, and now am old : and yet
saw I never the righteous forsaken, nor his seed beg-
ging their bread.
26 The righteous is ever merciful, and lendeth :
and his seed is blessed.
The greater number of the Fathers assert that the first of
these verses cannot be taken in a literal sense ; because, to
omit other instances, Elijah begged bread of a woman of
S. Luke
xxii. 31.
PSALM XXXVII. 579
Sarepta. The Patriarchs went down into Egypt for food, s. BasU.
and Lazarus desired to be fed with the crumbs that fell from
the rich man's table. But, in its literal sense, we must no
doubt confine the promise, as S. Ambrose tells us, to the ?• ^"J^'os.
theocracy of the Jews. Vieyra well says (he is preaching on cap.'s." "
God's promise, " All these things shall be added unto you :") ?. Hieron.
" It would seem that I have experience against me : you will I^,^ ySf;
tell me that we often see many good persons who are left in serm. tom,
great distress : therefore it is not true that the way to obtain ^"" ^^*-
bread is to serve God. But allow me to say, I had rather
believe David's assertion than yours. See what he affirms,
Junior fui, et enim senior, &c. If you had eyes as enlight-
ened as David's, you would probably say the same thing.
Sometimes we think that those are righteous who are not
righteous ; that those serve God truly who do not serve Him
truly ; and therefore it seems that God's promise fails, when
the failure is in them. That men maybe one thing and seem
another is easy ; that God should fail in His word is impos-
sible. In conclusion : with respect to those who appear to
serve God and who suffer necessity, one of two things is cer-
tain : either they are not good, or God is proving that they
are. Christians and Christianesses of my soul! if ye are
serving God, and yet are in want, my word for it, that God
is proving you : * Tarry thou the Lord's leisure,' says David.
Look at former examples : Abraham was rich for serving' God,
but he was first proved by exile ; Joseph was rich for serving
God, but he was first proved by captivity ; David was rich for
serving God, but he was first proved by persecutions ; Jacob
was rich for serving God, but he was first proved by labour.
And to those in Gospel times the same thing happened.
Christ gave them not to eat the first day, nor the second
day, but the third day : qui a jam triduo sustinent Me. After
He had proved the constancy and patience with which they
followed Him, then He gave them of the miraculous bread ;
first He proved, then He provided. When He proves, then " Em Deos
He provides." And this, perhaps, is the best literal explana- p»^*; ^^^
tion which can be given of the text. But now take it in the provar."
truer and mystical sense. Yet saw I never the riohteous for-
saken : not even on the Cross ; not even when He uttered
that lamentable cry, in which He complained of being for the
moment deserted. Nor his seed begging their bread. For |q™^'
when did a Priest ever seek the Bread that cometh down opusc 19.
from heaven in the words and according to the rites which f ^ntoiun.
the Lord Himself taught, without receivmg that Angels j^^, tit.
Food, that Manna of all souls ? This is the true meanmg of ii,c. 7, s.s.
the passage : that however much, for wise and good reasons,
God may sometimes appear not to hear the petition, literal y
taken, " Give us this day our daily bread," yet, spiritually
understood, never did He shut His ear against it, nay, never,
for one moment did He keep the petitioner waitmg^^ And
observe that this must have been one of David's latest Psalms : Ay.
c c 2
Ay.
580 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
I have been young, and now am old. And notice how beauti-
fully it applies to the testimony borne by the Church as she
draws near the end of her militant existence ; that for all
those centuries, — from the time that the Loed, changing the
old into the new Sacrifice, said, " This is My Body, this is
My Blood," to that which has been offered in ten thousand
different churches this very morning— still the saying is true,
Yet saw I never the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging
their bread. Is ever merciful and lendeth. This, as it were,
depends on what went before ; when we were told that " the
ungodly borroweth, and payeth not again." Not, however,
that this appears the full meaning of the Hebrew, which is
rather. All the day long he giveth and lendeth. The word
righteous is not in the Hebrew, nor in the Italic nor Vulgate :
it is supplied by a variant of the LXX. and by the Ambrosian.
And his seed. Namely, that countless seed from all people,
and languages, and nations, and tongues, which the Blood
Ludolph, of Him Who is the Martyr of martyrs raised up for the
Church. So that what was true in the highest sense of
Gen. xxii. Abraham is also true of our dear Lord, " In Thy seed shall
^^' all the nations of the earth be blessed."
D 27 Flee from evil, and do the thing that is good :
and dwell for evermore.
28 For the Lord loveth the thing that is right :
he forsaketh not his that be godly, but they are pre-
served for ever.
The first clause of the 27th verse has occurred before (Psalm
xxxiv. 14.) It is singular that the duration only, not the place,
of dwelling is here mentioned.^ Hence some take it not as a
D. C. promise, but as a command : Dwell in the precepts of God to
thy life's end. Others receive it as the reward of those who
have departed from evil. Behold, says Ludolph, their reward :
they shall dwell in the land of the living, in eternal beatitude,
in the companionship of Angels. S. Thomas remarks on
Flee from evil, that there are two kinds of evil : the one that
makes man wicked, and which alone is truly evil, namely,
sin ; the other that which does not make man wicked, namely,
punishment. And this no man either can or ought to desire
to flee entirely in this world. " For whom the Lord loveth
He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth."
TertuUian, writing to his wife, dwells at some length on this
sense : He is said to flee from evil who doth not that which
Jertuiiian-^ may injure the cause of God : He is said to do the thing that
is good, who worketh that which may profit it. And S. Je-
rome and S. Thomas dwell at great length on the distinction
between these two. And then follows that great basis of
^ pS^ot so very singular, as the place, without the duration, is
mentioned in the third verse.]
ad uxor, lib
i. cap. 3
PSALM XXXVII. 581
all Christian morality, The Lord loveth the thing that is
right. It is not right because He loves it ; but because there
is an intrinsic good and evil, the nature of which, to speak EpStT4"ad
with all reverence, it is not in the power of Omnipotence Ceiantiam.
itself to alter, therefore He abhors this and chooses that. a'S^TL''
And observe how all the great lights of the Middle Ages lay Art. 9. * '
down this truth as the very foundation of morality. Do-
minus amat judicium : it is the very text of Alan of Lisle,
of Ockhara, of Bradwardine, of S. Thomas, of Euysbroek.
Se forsaketh not His that he godly. Because the Son was
for a moment forsaken, therefore not even for a moment L.
shall the followers of the Son be left. But they are preserved
for ever. In a little wrath, the face of the Fathee was
hidden from the Son for a moment, but with everlasting
mercies has He gathered and will He gather the elect through
the suflferings of the Son.
29 The unrighteous shall be punished : as for the
seed of the ungodly, it shall be rooted out.
30 The righteous shall inherit the land : and
dwell therein for ever.
Here notice the distinction between the Father of Evil and s. Thom.
his posterity. The unrighteous shall he punished, as it is *^"™'
written : " And then shall that Wicked be revealed whom the
LoED shall consume with the Spirit of His Mouth, and shall 2Thess.u.8.
destroy with the brightness of His coming." And then fol-
lows what we have already had four times, namely, at verses
9, 11, 18, and 22; that the righteous shall inherit the land;
to which look back for what is said upon it.
31 The mouth of the righteous is exercised in ^
wisdom: and his tongue will be talking of judgment.
32 The law of his God is in his heart : and his
goings shall not slide.
A strange thing, says Vieyra, we have here ; meditation is
attributed to the mouth, and judgment to the tongue {is
exercised, or, as it is in the Vulgate, meditahitur,) whereas it
is the judgment that meditates and the tongue that speaks.
But the righteous man in such a manner joins meditation to
prayer, and the mental exercise of judgment with the vocal
exercise of words, that he may even be said to meditate with
his tongue ; and he is righteous, not because he speaks much,
but because he meditates much. He is not righteous be-
cause he speaks much, as it is written, " A man full of words
shall not be counted righteous," but because he meditates
much : The mouth of the righteous shall meditate wisdom.^
The law of his God is in his heart. And see how that was
^ Vieyra is here only popu- I often does : see note x of the
larising S. Thomas, as he so 1 Angelic Doctor on this Psalm.
582 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Ay. fulfilled, when witli three quotations only from God's word,
and those all from one book, Satan was put to flight. Is ex-
p. ercised. And how can that be save by temptation? It is that
which brings out the strength and virtue of Holy Scripture ;
just as it is only the storm that can prove the strength of the
oak's roots. Therefore it well follows, Sis goings shall not
Ludoiph. slide. For by means of those words of God, His goings,
Whose footsteps we are to imitate, were kept straight in the
J) Q direct road to eternal life. Or, if we take it in a higher
sense, let the righteous now be, not the One Sinless Man, but
every Christian, and then, when it is said, he is exercised in
wisdom, it means that he is exercised in the Eternal Wisdom,
the Con substantial and Co-eternal Son of God. It is this
verse which one of those who have entered most lovingly and
most boldly into the sanctuary of the Loed's Passion, Luis of
Edit. Isseit. Granada, prefixes to his " Meditations on the Life and Pas-
p. 4. sion of Christ." And then observe how the two clauses of
the verse are thus connected : exercised in wisdom ; that is,
in the Loed's first Coming in great humility : talking of
judgment, that is, of His Second Advent in great glory.
^^ 33 The ungodly seeth the righteous : and seeketh
occasion to slay him.
34 The Lord will not leave him in his hand : nor
condemn him when he is judged.
Seeth. But it means more than this : watches or observes,
or pries into. The Hebrew word tzaphah is curiously enough
preserved in the name of the Venetian officers, called the
tzajffl, a kind of police whose business it was in the darkest
J days of the Doges to pry into the occupation and wealth of
such citizens as were considered dangerous to the republic.
And observe how true the verse was of Joseph, of Susanna,
of David, of Daniel : and in like manner it is written in the
Wis.ii. 12. book of Wisdom, " Therefore let us lie in wait for the righ-
teous, because he is not for our turn, and he is clean contrary
s Cyril *^ ^^^ doings :" a verse which S. Cyril, writing on this Psalm,
Alex. ' curiously enough quotes from Isaiah. And as the sinner
Ay. considers or narrowly observes the righteous, so, as mediaeval
writers tell us, the righteous ought to keep watch on the
machinations of the sinner ; as it is written in the book of
Josh. ii. 1. Joshua, " Go view the land and Jericho." What is the land,
save the human body, made of clay ? And Jericho, which
by interpretation is the moon,^ signifies the changes and
chances of this mortal life, with respect to which it is the
Christian's duty to be perpetually on the watch. Shall not
leave him in his hand. Witness Job : how of him the Loed
' [The true meaning of Jericho | "moon," m% though either ety-
is more probably " fragrant," i ^^^^ ig possible.]
fi-om m\ " to breathe," than I
t
PSALM XXXVII. 583
said in the first place, "Only upon himself put not forth s. Albert. M.
thine hand ;" and then, " He is in thine hand, but save his .-^o'^^- ^2;
life." Nor condemn him lohen he is judged. So of Joshua "" '
the son of JTosedech, when Satan appeared as his adversary
to resist him, it follows : "The Loed rebuke thee, O Satan, zech.Ui. 2.
even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem, rebuke thee ; is
not this a brand plucked out of the fire ?" When he is judged.
They interpret this clause in five different ways. Either:
When the righteous is judged by the sinner : and so Symma- ^'
chus takes it. In this sense S. Augustine finely says of S.
Cyprian : " The Proconsul pronounced Cyprian's condemna-
tion, from the inferior Judge that Martyr received his sen-
tence ; from the Superior, his Crown." And in the same way ^' ^•
S. Gregory says of the Saints, They can be slain and cannot
be bent : therefore they are mightier than the Judge, and
more powerful than the slaughterer.^ The second would in-
terpret it. When the righteous is judged by God. The third
is, When God is judged by the world ; and this is the mean-
ing which S. Ambrose supports, basing it on that verse,
" That Thou mightest be justified in Thy saying, and clear pg ^ ^
when Thou art judged." The fourth would interpret it, The
Loed shall not condemn him, the righteous, when he, the
sinner, is judged ; the final separation of the sheep from the
goats. And, lastly, some see in the Latin, Cum judicabitur ^' "^^^^ ^*^'
illi, the favourable termination of the Judgment itself.
35 Hope thou in the Lord, and keep liis way^ and p
he shall promote thee, that thou shalt possess the
land : when the ungodly shall perish, thou shalt
see it.
Hitherto we have been speaking of hope ; now we come to q
perseverance in hope. Keep Sis way. So our translation
rightly gives, following the Hebrew, though others read, His
ways. But keep His way : the one way. Him That is the g ^^1,^05.
Way, the Truth, and the Life. O marvellous force that there
is in the word to keep ! So keep that neither by pain nor ■^'
by death itself canst thou be separated from Him ; so keep C.
that He may lie all the night of this world in thy bosom ; so s. Hieron.
keep that He in His turn may, in the evil hour, keep thee. Ludoiph.
That thou shalt inherit the land. The heavenly land ; else
never would it have been said : He shall promote thee. A g. Thomas
poor promotion that would be which would give us this earth Aquin.
as our possession. But I do not understand why the same
S. Thomas says of the first clause, Expecta Dominum, that it
refers to those who are in tribulation, while the second. Keep
^ Occidi possunt et jlecti ne-
queunt, are S. Gregory's words.
They are well paraphrased in a
beautiful sequence that I have
seen in the church of Le Puy
Potest Martyr trucidari }
Et non potest cedere.
584
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Origen.
A.
The Hymn,
Quisquis
valet nume-
rart.
L.
S. Hiero-
nym. in E:
Origen.
S. Albert ]
Isa. Ix. 2.
Rom. V. 14
Sis way, has to do with prosperity. Certainly in our trans-
lation it is not so, the former being Hojpe thou in the Lord.
From this verse in the latter part, they take occasion to in-
quire what will be the order of the justification of the righ-
teous and condemnation of the wicked, at the Last Day. If,
in this account of their appearance before the judgment seat,
our LoED speaks of the righteous as first judged, yet in the
parable of the tares He appears to teach the contrary order,
" Gather ye first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn
them ;" with which also the last verse of that account in
S. Matthew seems to agree, where we read first, " These
shall go away into everlasting punishment ;" and then, " the
righteous into life eternal." All the conclusion that we can
arrive at must be shut up in this : " The secret things belong
to the LoED our God." Thou shalt see it. And so says the
Hymn:
Suum cemunt Temptatorem
In pcenis perpetuo :
Suum pium Salvatorem
CoUaudant in jubilo ;
Quern et remuneratorem
Sentiunt in prsemio.
^ 36 I myself have seen the ungodly in great power :
and flourishing like a green bay-tree.
37 I went by, and, lo, he was gone : I sought him,
but his place could no where be found.
It is as if David said : " I have taught you that these things
will happen ; now furthermore I tell you that I have seen
them myself." The ungodly. Some take it of Judas Iscariot,
who, for a time, certainly was in great power, when he re-
ceived, like the other Apostles, the gifts of healing the sick,
cleansing the lepers, and casting out devils. And there is
something very striking in beholding, as we do in the early
Christian pictures, the nimbus of Apostolic power attributed
not less to the Apostate than to any other of the twelve.
Others, again, understand the expression of Satan. He, too,
was in great power when, as it is written, " Darkness covered
the earth, and gross darkness the people ;" and again, when
" Death reigned from Adam to Moses." Flourishing like a
green hay-tree.^ It is difficult to say why in the Vulgate we
^ [The margin of A.Y. agreeing
with Aquila, Symmachus, and
the chief modern critics, reads in-
stead of hay-tree, thus, A green
tree growing in its own soil, that
is, not artificially planted, but
indigenous. Such trees are, of
course, those most Hkely to be
cut down for timber or firewood,
whereas those " planted in the
house of the Loed" are left for
beauty and shade. And the con-
trast will thus be between the
life of the natural man and that
of the Saint of Q-OD.J
PSALM XXXVII. 585
have elevated like the cedars of Lib anus ; and so in the LXX.
and in the Italic. I went hy. A great many read, He passed
away ; but the other lection is received by the greater num- ?• Chrysos.
ber of the Fathers. / went by, but how ! By passing, they in coios,
say, from earthly to heavenly things : by looking, not at the
things which are seen, but to the things which are not seen, g Ambros.
And in this same sense they take that expression, " So that Serm. 15 in
they who go by say not so much as. The Loed prosper you ;" s^wi''^' •
that is, those who look away from the present prosperity to ps. cxxviii.
the future condemnation of the wicked. And lo, he toas gone. s. Greg:. M.
And as it is written, "The beast whom thou sawest was, ^g^'j^xxlx^s
and is not." S. Peter Damiani warns us lest we should ever ReV. xvu.s.
think, from this passage, that of Satan in this world it can s. Pet. Da.
ever so be said. He is gone, as that we may feel secure JP^*;* ^^^^^'
against his assaults. He was gone. As it is written in the
book of Wisdom: "The hope of the ungodly is like dust," wisd.v. u.
or, as it should be, thistledown, " that is blown away with
the wind ; like a thin froth that is driven away with the
storm, like as the smoke which is dispersed now and then
with a tempest, and passeth away as the remembrance of a
guest that tarrieth but a day." His place. For he had a InS'"^^^
place once, above the highest of the Archangels : which losing
by his pride, and falling like lightning from heaven to earth,
he could indeed nowhere be found, in the rank and glory which ^'
he once possessed. Invent by. And they well tell us how it
is our duty always to do so by passing away from man's And see
thoughts and desires, and fixing our eyes on that which God ger^^J-o^
commands, and on that which He thinks. vU. 196.
38 Keep innocency^ and take heed unto the thing j^
that is right : for that shall bring a man peace at the
last.
Or, as it is in the Ambrosian Psalter, and in the reading of
Cassiodorus, Keep trust. Keep it, says S. Augustine, as the A.
miser keeps his money, defending it with bolts and bars,
always imagining it in danger, guarding it the most securely,
when others are taking their rest. They work out the idea at
great length and by way of allegory ; showing how the soul of Ay.
man is, as it were, a castle, which cannot be taken by assault,
but must be surrendered, if it ever fall into the power of the
enemy, by treachery. Again, others understand — whether
you choose to read innocency or truth — Him Who is the Im- S. Ambros.
maculate Lamb, Him Who is the Truth, as well as the Way s. Hieron.
and the Life. Keep Him, that is, in such a way as never to Hesych.
permit Him to be separated from thee ; clinging fast to the
Hand which is able to raise thee up above the billows of this
world, and to assist thee through and over all difficulties, in
the ascent to the Heavenly Hill. And it is not ill put by The irrefra-
some of the later Schoolmen, that the reason why we are to for^'and car-
keep innocency is because it was the request, so to speak, dinai Hugo.
c c3
586 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
which our Lokd left us on the Cross, when He fulfilled in its
Isa.i. 18. completest sense His own promise, " Though your sins be as
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." At the last. But,
s. Matt. X. in all probability, not till the last. " Think not that I am
^*' come to send peace on earth : I came not to send peace, but
M ^'^y^^^"^ a sword." For thou canst not, says one, have peace at the
s. Matt. cap. first and at the last also ; thou canst not have the peace which
vU. is from God above, save at the price of contest with Satan
below. For this is the fruit of that ; as much as the flowers
of the summer and productions of the autumn have, as a
foregoing necessity, the tempests of the winter. It is in the
Vulgate, For there are remains to the pacific man ; that is,
there is an hereafter for him, in which the peace that he has
desired all through this life shall at length be possessed. Our
Bible translation, however, comes nearest to the Hebrew,
Marh the perfect man, and behold the upright ; for the end
of that man is peace.
39 As for the transgressors, they shall perish to-
gether : and the end of the ungodly is, they shall be
rooted out at tlie last.
This clause comes over and over again as an Antiphon in
the Psalm. And in fact it is this which is the key-note to the
whole. See what is said of it in previous verses.
n 40 But the salvation of the righteous cometh of
the Lord : who is also their strength in the time of
trouble.
41 And the Lord shall stand by them and save
them : he shall deliver them from the ungodly, and
shall save them, because they put their trust in him.
The salvation of the righteous. And who or what is this, save
Ay* the Only -begotten Son of God ? Their strength, the strength
of all that trust in Him, at all times, but more especially in
the time of trouble. For He had so well learned the lesson of
s Bernard tribulation Himself, that none as He can sympathise, as well
Serm. 27. ' as help in time of trouble. Their strength. They ask whether
Calvary is the source rather of strength or of love, whether
the Cross is to be regarded chiefly as the Fountain whence
flowed all that might which enabled the Martyrs to overcome
the world, or of that love which could not be quenched by
the many abysses of the deepest tribulation. And therefore
Sc^^"^' ^^ notice that the Rock, the type of the Cross, was smitten twice,
in order that these two things might flow forth abundantly :
the strength that gives victory, the love that brings felicity.
Shall stand by them. Never more truly fulfilled than when
the Proto-Martyr saw Jesus standing at the Right Hand of
God j and the Church, gathering confidence from this in-
PSALM XXX VII. 587
sight into celestial things, claims the same sympathy for the
same sufferings, to the end of the world : '* Who standest at
the Right Hand of God, to succour all those that suffer for
Thee." And notice the four steps of that help which is here
promised. Se shall stand hy them, save them, deliver them
from the ungodly, save them. And it is not without a deep
meaning that that which seems tautology is here set down.
Because He stands by them, as by Stephen, He saves them
in this world. In that He finally delivers them from the
ungodly, He saves them in the world to come. Here, says
S. Thomas, from the act and consequences of sinning ; there,
from the very possibility of sinning. And the reason is set
down why they can sin no more : as it is written, " He that
is dead hath ceased from sin." Because they are delivered
from the ungodly, namely, Satan ; and from that which the
ungodly can alone lay hold of, the corrupted and tainted part
of their own nature. And all for the reason which forms, as
it were, the subject-matter of the Psalm, because they put
their trust in Him. It begins by exhorting the Christian to
do that which it concludes by taking for granted that he has
done ; and his struggle in turning the commandment into the
act is the subject which fills so long a Psalm.
And therefore :
Glory be to the Fathee, Who ordereth a good man's
going, and to the Son, Who forsaketh not His that be godly ;
and to the Holy Ghost, Who is also their Strength m the
time of trouble ;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be : world
without end. Amen.
Collects.
O God, the Blessedness of all who put their trust in Thee, Ludoiph.
Who art both the Witness and the Judge of them that con-
tend in the race of righteousness ; we pray Thee that Thou
wouldest so keep them from falling in this life, that Thou
mayest crown them in the life to come. Through (2.)
O LoED God, forasmuch as the ungodly lieth in wait for Mozarabic,
the righteous, do Thou be pleased to frustrate all his counsels ;
and suffer not them to perish through their own infirmity,
whom Thou didst vouchsafe to save by the salutary wood of
the Cross. Amen. Through Thy mercy (11.)
O LoED God of righteousness. Who art ever merciful Ludoiph.
and lendest, so bestow on Thy servants the talents which
Thou seest to be expedient for them, that they may return
them with a good increase to Thy honour and glory, Who
livest.
588 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
PSALM XXXVIII.
Title. A Psalm of David, to bring to remembrance.
Argument.
Aeo. Thomas. That Cheist, in the time of His Passion, was for-
saken by His friends and neighbours. The doctrine of Confession.
The Confession of the penitent with the whole soul. The Confes-
sion of patience, and virtue to salvation. Read in Job. At the
end of the prayers the Confession of the penitent who supplicateth
for the mercy of the Judge.
Veneeable Bede. When he saith to bring to rememhrance, the
title teaches us this, that since we cannot always and altogether
avoid sin, we may at least abstain from giving way to it. And in
that he adds concerning the Sabbath [this is the additional title in
the Vulgate,] he signifieth that the penitent ought always, while he
feels the wounds of present sins, to call to remembrance the rest
of the eternal Sabbath. Some apply this Psalm to the history of
blessed Job : but Jerome thinks it said in the person of any peni-
tent, or mystically in that of the Savioue at the time of His Passion.
This penitential Psalm is divided in a fourfold way. In the first
part he seeks by the sorrows of the present life to move the pity of
the merciful Judge 5 in the second he speaks of his body as de-
formed by wounds, and his soul grieved by the hard sayings of his
friends. In the third, the medicine of the Savioue is set forth, of
that Sayioue who was prepared to endure the depths of His un-
merited Passion, while the sinner merits more than he sufiers. In
the fourth, he speaks of God, as his only Preserver in all difficulties
and dangers.
Syeiac Psaltee. Of David, when the Philistines said to King
Achish, This is David who slew Groliath : we will not that he go
forth with us against Saul. Besides, there is in it for us the Institu-
tion of Confession.
S. Jeeome. This Psalm shows that if any sickness happens to
the body, we are thereby taught to seek for the medicine of the
soul.
Vaeious Uses.
Oregorian. Monday : Matins. [Good Friday : II. Noctum.]
Monastic. Monday : I. Nocturn.
Pa/risian. Friday: Compline.
Lyons. Wednesday : Prime.
Ambrosian. Wednesday, in the First Week : III. Nocturn.
Quignon. Friday : Tierce.
This Psalm, as the third Penitential, against Gluttony, was said
at all times when the Litanies were recited ; and, according to the
Primitive use, retained in the Sarum, but dropped in the Eoman,
Breviary, was recited after the Slst Psalm at Tierce, daily during
Lent.
PSALM XXXVIII. 589
Antiphons.
Gregorian. O Lord, rebuke me not in Thine indignation.
[Good Friday : They also that sought after my life did violence.]
Monastic. In Thine anger, rebuke me not, O Lord,
Parisian. O Lord my God, be not Thou far from me.
Ambrosian. Haste Thee to help me, O Lord God of my salva-
tion.
Mozarabic. Lord, Thou knowest all my desire, and my groaning
is not hid from Thee,
1 Put me uot to rebuke, O Lord, in thine anger :
neither chasten me in thy heavy displeasure.
Besides the usual commentators by whom we are assisted,
we have, of course, for this Psalm, the little constellation of
theologians who have treated the Penitential Psalms only.
And in addition we have one admirable treatise by Andrew
Kivet, better known by his Latinized name of Rivetus,
First, they desire to know in what sense this Psalm can be
spoken of as a commemoration, seeing that it in no way com-
memorates either the events of David's own life, or, as so
many do, the History of the Children of Israel. S, Gregory Ny?s^^Tract
Nyssen affirms that it is simply intended as a breviate or a. in Tit,
short summary of prayer for a penitent — what such a one
ought to remember when he presents himself before God,
And then what it has to do with the Sabbath is not very
clear. S. Chrysostom holds it to apply to the Great Sab- s.Chrysost.
bath ** that followed the day of preparation ;" and thus to be ^°2^^* '".?•
occupied in our Lord's Passion and Burial. They well ob- * * ^^^^'
serve that the bodily disease from which the Psalmist was
suffering when he composed it is mercifully left uncertain, to
the end that whatever be the diseases of our own soul, we may j^
use it with a good courage. In most of the editions of the
Vulgate it has twenty-one verses ; and Innocent III, sees in
this a triple Sabbath. Triple either in honour of the Blessed jnjiocent.
Trinity, or with reference to the three Sabbaths which the
true servant of God must of necessity have : that of rest
amidst the warfare of this world, that of peace when that
warfare is accomplished, but before the final consummation
of blessedness ; and the eternal Sabbath of heaven, S, Basil s, Basil,
compares this opening verse with the complaint of the sick
man, who, knowing that he cannot recover without medicine,
yet begs of the physician to temper its bitterness to his
weakness. There is nothing more curious than to remark
the worldwide difference between earlier and later commen-
tators on this verse ; the former, S. Augustine, for example,
S. Gregory, S, Caesarius of Aries, S, Felicianus of Orleans,
and others, applying it to the sufferings of good men in this
Hfe, and absolutely asserting that with this life they will
end, and the latter, such as Dominic Soto and Lorinus, ap-
plying it to purgatory and its penal fires. As to the verse
590
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
z.
S. Aug. Con
fess. X. 6.
2 Kings xiii,
17.
Luis of Gra-
nada. Me-
dit. p. 176.
D.C.
S. Bruno
Carth.
Ric. Harap.
Cicero de
Harusp.
Resp. 18.
Bakius.
A.
Isa. i. 6.
itself, I have already spoken of it at the beginning of the
sixth Psalm.
2 For thine arrows stick fast in me : and thy hand
presseth me sore.
Thine arrows. And they see a great comfort in this ex-
pression. We may understand the arrows of temptation shot
at us by Satan ; and yet in a certain sense they are God's
arrows also ; because He will not permit them to be above
our power of endurance, and will not only, if we call on
Him, shelter us from them, but will cause them to turn to
. our more exceeding reward if we resist them. Nay, Au-
gustine fears not to call them, even in this sense, the arrows
of the Lord's deliverance. And we may take them also in
another sense ; arrows, not of temptation, but the thoughts
which God, by the ministry of Angels, injects into the minds
of His servants, thoughts of love, of work to be done for
Him, of suflferings to be endured for Him, and which yet
are painful, in that they stir us up to exertions above or
. contrary to our own nature. And be thou well pleased,
O Christian, says one, when such arrows stick fast in thee.
Suffer them not to fall from thee and to be lost ; cherish the
pain, for it is salutary ; let patience have her perfect work,
that thou mayest be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
\_Thy hand presseth me sore, forcing the very arrows deeper
into the wounds, instead of drawing them out and healing
the sufferer. Fresseth, or as LXX. and Vulgate read. Thou
hast strengthened Thine hand upon me, making my pain con-
tinuous instead of a momentary pang. And as God's arrows
for man's sin are passibility and mortality, so He does not
use them slightly, but punishes with grievous sorrow, disease,
and death. And we may aptly compare that saying of the
Roman orator, "Deorum tela in impiorum mentibus figuntur."
But we may also well contrast the penitent submission of
David with the despairing cry of Julian the Apostate, when
vainly striving to pluck the Persian javelin from his deadly
wound, " O Galilean, Thou hast conquered."]
3 There is no health in my flesh, because of thy
displeasure : neither is there any rest in my bones,
by reason of my sin.
It is said by our Blessed Lord of sin not His own, but
borne by Him, as the scapegoat carried the transgressions of
the children of Israel. And He might well, when hanging
on the Cross, say. There is no health in my Flesh ; for this
very cause, that of His people it had been said long before,
" From the sole of the foot even unto the head, there is no
soundness in it, but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying
sores." Any rest in my bones ; or, as it is in the Vulgate,
JBeace to my bones. And Innocent III. here takes occasion
PSALM XXXVIII. 591
to distinguish four kinds of men. The first, those who have inJiocent.
peace with sin, because they consent to and obey it ; but not
from sin, because their conscience upbraids them with its
present guilt and future punishment. The second have peace
both with sin and from sin, because they have so entirely
and so long given themselves up to it, that their conscience
is seared, as it were, with a hot iron. The third, those who
neither have peace with it nor from it, because they constantly
and valiantly resist it. The fourth, those who have no peace
with it, because they must ever hate it, yet have peace from
it, because they have now passed into that blessed world,
where there is no more temptation. It is, no doubt, the fear
of seeming to speak irreverently of our Blessed Lokd, by
putting texts like the present into His mouth, which has
caused so great a departure from the mystical interpretation,
that S. Augustine and his followers have attached to the
Psalms. He here dwells at great length on the applicability
of those texts which speak of sin to Him Who did no sin,
but bare all.
4 For my wickednesses are gone over my head :
and are like a sore burden, too heavy for me to bear.
There is one place where these words might so have been j^
said, as never else, and that is, the Garden of Gethsemane ;
for there indeed, for a time, that Head which was once the
joy of the Angels, and fairer than the children of men, was
overwhelmed by the biUows and waves of iniquity that went
over it : as it is written, " Save me, O God, for the waters are
come in even unto my soul." S. Paulinus has a singular g pauiin.
allegory in connection with this verse, concerning the hair of Epist. 14.'
Samson, — how, when it was severed from his head, his ini-
quities did indeed go over it : and this, taken in contrast
with S. Mary Magdalene wiping our Lord's feet with her
hair, and thus transferring, as it were, to them, and by
them so soon after to the Cross, the weight of her own ^
guilt. And, if we take the words of sinners themselves, ^*
then they teach us the very same lesson that we learn from
the history of the fall. As man, from desiring to be like
God, lost his primitive glory and debased his condition ; so
here sin, whicn begins by inducing him that commits it to
lift up his head in pride against God, ends by going over it,
and being a sore burden, too heavy for him to bear. " Choose, s. Chrysost.
therefore," says the most eloquent of the Greek Fathers, " be- ^ Homii. de
tween the light yoke and easy burden of the Loed, and the ^^^'
sore weight and heavy burden of sin ; that talent of lead
which Zechariah saw bound in the Ephah ; that ponderous zech. v. 7.
burden which made Jonah too heavy for the ship in the
storm." And compare with this God's denunciations of His
anger against the various nations of old time, under the title
of the " Burden of Nineveh," " The Burden of Egypt," and L.
the like.
592
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
5 My wounds stink and are corrupt : through my
foolishness.
S. Greg.
Moral, ix.
31.
Hugo Vic-
torin.
Origen.
Cant. i. 3.
S. Thomas
Aquinas.
Baruch li.
18.
The Jews will have it that David, in the course of the year
that followed his sin with Bathsheba, and before he was con-
vinced of it by the message of Nathan, was thus smitten
with boils from head to foot : and to this, they say, the Psalm
refers. S. Gregory takes the putrefaction here mentioned in
the Vulgate, of sins which, having been given up, are again
faUen into ; such as the Apostle means when he speaks of the
sow that was washed returning to her wallowing in the mire ;
such as our Lord Himself tells us of, when the evil spirit
cast out of a man takes to him seven spirits more wicked
than himself, that they may enter into him again and dwell
there ; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.
Mediaeval writers dwell at length on the various resemblances
between the wounds of the body and the sins of the soul ;
how complete penitence not only heals the wound, but effaces
the scar ; how true penitence, but less complete, heals the
wound indeed, so as to prevent all further danger or pain
from it, but still leaves the scar, which shows what once has
been ; while unreal penitence brings to pass, as it were, a
false cure, and leaves the unprobed wound to break out here-
after more dangerously than ever. But the noblest com-
mentary on these words that was ever written by the pen of
man is undoubtedly that marvellous book, the Confessions of
S. Augustine.
[ilf;^ wounds stink. These words, observes Origen, prove the
sincerity of repentance, for so long as the sinner wallows like
a hog in the filth of sin, even its odour is pleasant to him, but
when he begins to hate his sin, then all its surroundings be-
come odious too, and he calls on the Heavenly Physician to
heal him. It is fitting then that sweet and perfumed oint-
ment should be applied to the fetid sores. What shall it
be? Let the Bride answer. "Thy Name is as ointment
poured forth."]
6 I am brought into so great trouble and misery :
that I go mourning all the day long.
Here notice five evils arising from sin : 1, the privation of
grace, which leads to misery ; 2, the difficulty of doing well,
and its consequent trouble ; 3, the impossibility of rising by
any strength that nature has in itself, in that all the day
long ; 4, the wretchedness of an evil conscience in mourning ;
and 5, the pains of hell, which they say are expressed in the
word I go. And to such as these, when the means of salva-
tion is taught them, that text applies : " The soul that is
greatly vexed, which goeth stooping and feeble, and the eyes
that fail, and the hungry soul, will give Thee praise and righ-
teousness, O LoED." And observe the depth of this misery :
PSALM XXXVIII. 593
I go mourning all the clay long : day, the type and symbol of
gladness and joy, now turned into sorrow. There are others D. C.
who, taking the Vulgate translation, I am boiced down con-
tinually, understand by it the beginning of the sinner's re-
turn to God : boived down, that is, by taking the Lord's
Cross, and bearing it after Him.
7 For my loins are filled with a sore disease : and
there is no whole part in my body.
Or, as it is in the Vulgate, For my loins are filled with
illusions : that is, with temptations ; against which S. Paul
arms the Christian with the fitting remedy. Let your loins Eph. vi. i4.
be girt about with truth. And referring to this it is that,
where Behemoth, the type of Satan, is described, it is said, Jobxi. 16.
"Lo, now, his strength is in his loins :" on which S. Gregory Moraf^'
dwells at very great length. Innocent III., referring to the innocent,
word illusions, calls the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, ^^^- "^ ^°*^-
and the pride of life, the three chief sophists that, by their
delusive arguments, endeavour to seduce man into the way
of destruction. And this, he says, is the syllogism that they
propound: the world sets forth earthly pleasures as the
major; the flesh proposes the carnal receptivity of those
pleasures as the minor ; and then Satan brings forward eternal
death as the conclusion.
8 I am feeble and sore smitten : I have roared for
the very disquietness of my heart.
9 Lord, thou knowest all my desire : and my
groaning is not hid from thee.
10 My heart panteth, my strength hath failed me :
and the sight of mine eyes is gone from me.
Of whom, they ask, can this be said, but of the Man of s. chrysost.
Sorrows ? Feeble, when so taken in the ship ; feeble, when Hesych.
sitting by the well; feeble, when falling beneath the Cross, s. Pet.
A7id sore smitten. So, indeed, by the servant that smote c'hrysoiog.
Jesus, the Servant of servants, with the palm of his hand ;
when He was scourged by the soldiers ; when His most
blessed Head was smitten with the reed. But what was this
to that infinitely more grievous stroke wherewith He was
smitten by the Father, when that prophecy was fulfilled,
" Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, and against the Zech. xiu. 7.
Man that is My fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts?" And
though it may seem at first sight that those words, I have
roared, cannot apply to Him of Whom it is written that He
held His peace, insomuch that the governor marvelled
greatly, yet they may well be spoken of that strong crying Heb. v. ;.
and tears, of which the Apostle also tells us. Thou knowest
all my desire. How not ? when the Only-begotten said, " I
and My Father are one." And even here we may take comfort A.
594
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
1 Cor. xiii.
12.
A.
S. Ambros.
Pet. Lomb.
Lib. iv. Dis-
tinct. 48.
S. Albert. M,
de sensu et
sensato.
Honorius.
Ric. Hamp.
Cant. V. 6.
Origen. et
S. CyrU.
Alex.
S.John
xviU. 8.
in that saying of S. Paul, " Then shall I know, even as also I
am known." Lord, Thou Jcnoicest all my desire. It may seem
madness to the world ; it may seem folly even to the wise ;
it may be so surrounded with dijficulties as to appear impos-
sible ; but if Thou knowest it, it is enough. If Thou knowest
it with the knowledge of approval, Thou wilt either fulfil it,
or reward me without fulfilling it. If Thou knowest it,
Thou also knowest the means by which it is to be brought to
pass. Into Thy hands I commit it, and Thou wilt not dis-
appoint it. PantetJi : or, as it well is in S. Jerome's ivSiii^-
idXion, fluctuates : no unmeet metaphor for palpitation. All
mediaeval commentators speak of that suffering of our Loed
on the Cross, which emphatically fulfils that which David
here tells. But even still more strikingly does this verse
describe His passion, if that be true which modern physical
science asserts, that, really and literally, the immediate cause
of His death was a broken heart ; that having happened to
Him which, in some few other cases of great mental agony,
has been known to occur, that one of the great valves of the
heart burst. The sight of mine eyes. " Because," says the
Master of the Sentences, " He was so surrounded by the
darkness and cloud of sin." It was this that shut out from
Him the light of God's favour, the brilliancy of heaven, even
the common light of this world. And S. Albert enters
at great length into this part of our Lord's sufferings : the
darkening of His eyes while He hung on the Cross ; the
darkness of nature, which spoke of and symbolised the deep
blackness of man's sins.
[They apply these words also to the sinner, yearning to be
reconciled to God, and they take the strength that fails as
the incapacity for doing good, and the vanished light to be
the illumination of grace which has been darkened by sin.
But a deeper expositor sees in the str^gth and light Christ
Himself, the desire of the mournful soul, which cries here,
as in the Canticles, " My beloved had withdrawn Himself,
and was gone, my soul failed."]
11 My lovers and my neighbours did stand looking
upon my trouble : and my kinsmen stood afar off.
12 They also that sought after my life laid snares
for me : and they that went about to do me evil talked
of wickedness_, and imagined deceit all the day long.
They see in this not only the flight of the Apostles, when
even our Lord Himself said, " Let these go their way," and
it is added, with that which is indeed, however unintention-
ally, the bitterest irony, " that the saying might be fulfilled
which He spake. Of those whom Thou gavest me, I have lost
none," — as if this were the only way to preserve the disciples
firm in their allegiance to Him, that they should not have to
bear outward witness to that allegiance, — but they also see
I
PSALM XXXVIII. 595
those twelve legions of Angels, who were so ready to help,
and whose help was refused, who therefore verily stood afar
off. Though S. Bernard speaks much more truly when he I^^^^J^*^*
says that the Angels are represented by the lovers and ^^^'
friends, but man by the kinsmen. " For verily," as S. Paul ^^b. ii. )6.
says, " He took not upon Him the nature of Angels, but
He took on Him the seed of Abraham." Those who so
dearly loved Him, — those who had sung Gloria in Excelsis
at His birth, — those who were afterwards to appear, the
one at the head and the other at the feet where His Body
had lain, and who were still later to prophesy of His Second
and more glorious Advent, — they now, if not allowed to
assist in His trouble, yet stood looking upon it, as one of
those mysteries which these blessed spirits desire to look
into : even as was typified long before by the Seraphim who
bent over the Ark of the Covenant, as if desirous to pene-
trate into that which it contained. But His kinsmen, —
that is, the race of man, with regard to whom He was made
bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh, — they stood afar
off, except, indeed, such as gathered round the Cross to
mock and to revile. Have laid snares for me. And so it Ay.
was, indeed, when the tempters were sent out that should
feign themselves just men; when, from the Koman penny,
from the woman taken in adultery, from the story of the
seven brethren, a snare was laid, if it might be so, to take
our LoBD. S. Bernard applies it to those who now lay s. Bernard,
snares for every faithful priest of the Great Priest ; who en- cILtic!^'' "^
deavour to entangle him in his works, to perplex him in his
actions, to make the straight crooked, and the plain places
rough. Imagined deceit all the day long. They take it as a
warning of the dangers of prosperity. Tliey that went about S- Basil.
to do me evil are Satan and his hosts ; and the day in which
they principally imagine deceit is the season of prosperity. ^
It is the same thing which we read in the 91st Psalm : " A
thousand shall fall beside thee, and ten thousand at thy right
hand." When a thousand fall in the ordinary circumstances s. Bernard,
of life, then ten thousand fall in the time of prosperity. As "^ ^^'
it is written in another place, " The wood devoured more ^ Sam. xvUi.
people that day than the sword devoured."
13 As for me, I was like a deaf man, and heard
not : and as one that is dumb, who doth not open his
mouth.
14 I became even as a man that heareth not : and
in whose mouth are no reproofs.
And so it is written, " Who is bhnd, but My servant, igg.. xm. 19.
or deaf, as the messenger that I sent ?" Blind, in not being
able to behold the difficulties which stand in his way ; Vieyra.
deaf, in paying no attention to the objections and opposition
raised by weak friends and strong enemies. And notice how
596
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
Ay.
Isa. liii. 7.
the propliet repeats the question again, as if to emphasise it
in its full depth of meaning, " Who is blind as he that is per-
fect, or blind as the Lord's servant?" "And it is just this
blindness and deafness," exclaims the great Carmelite expo-
sitor, " of which thou, O Christian, standest in need. Though
the mountain that opposeth thee be as lofty as Zorobabel's,
thou must not be able to behold it: though there be the
thunder of the captains and the shouting amidst those hosts
that come forth to bar thy passage towards the heavenly land,
to thee they must be inaudible. In this manner it is that
thou wilt best follow thy Lord ; hearing indeed, and under-
standing not, — seeing indeed, but perceiving not." And
here also we have a reference to our Lord's silence at the
judgment-seat, when, " as a sheep before her shearers is
dumb, so He opened not His mouth."
D. C.
Ay.
S. Thomas
Aquinas.
Ludolph.
Ay.
Cicer. Rhe-
tor, lib. ii.
15 For in thee, O Lord, have I put my trust :
thou shalt answer for me, O Lord my God.
Oh ! cries a mediaeval writer, how many dear fors there
are in the Bible ! Notwithstanding all that has gone before,
the false accusation, and the silent bearing up against them,
here it comes — Thou shalt answer for me. It is as if the
Lord said, I cannot answer for Myself. It was prophesied
of Me, centuries ago, that, as a sheep before his shearers, so
should I be dumb before them that should deprive Me of all
things, yea, even of life itself. But Thou shalt answer for
me : when there is darkness over the earth, from the sixth
hour till the ninth hour ; when the vail of the Temple is rent ;
when the earth quakes, and the graves are open. Thou hast
answered for me already on the banks of the Jordan, when
Thou didst say. This is My Beloved Son : on the mountain
of Transfiguration, when there came the voice from the
cloud : in the hill country of Judsea, when that sound de-
scended from heaven, " I have both glorified it and will glo-
rify it again." And Thou shalt answer for Me again when
at the Last Day Thou shalt commit all judgment into My
hand, so that I, unrighteously judged before the tribunal of
Pilate, shall righteously judge all nations ; Thou still answer-
ing for Me, by the glory with which Thou shalt invest Me,
as Thou didst of old time by the humility in which Thou
didst support Me. I have. Thou shalt. And they well
observe, that in those words the whole Christian life is con-
tained. I have committed my all to Thee ; Thou shalt return
it to me with interest : " I have said. Thou art my God :"
Thou hast said, I will keep thee as the apple of Mine eye.
The Carmelite commentator, a little pleased to show his clas-
sical learning, reminds us how Cicero tells us that in certain
of the Greek republics he who slew a tyrant was at liberty to
ask from the magistrates any reward that he chose. It is
thus, says he, with God. Of all tyrants, the greatest is
PSALM XXXVIII.
597
Satan : and he that shall so far slay him, as to destroy the
power of the devil in his own soul, may indeed demand from
God whatever he chooses, with the certainty of being heard.
In that sense also, Thou shalt answer for me, O Lord my God.
16 I have required that they, even mine enemies,
should not triumph over me : for when my foot
slipped they rejoiced greatly against me.
I have required. And notice with what a holy boldness it s. Thomas
is said ; as if it was more than asking or petitioning ; as if 'i'^"*^-
he supplicated for something to which he had a right. And _ _,
observe this : he says not, that I should triumph over them, -L'- ^'
but, that they should not triumph over me. It is the same
thing that is written by another of the most famous adver-
saries of Satan, " Having done all, to stand." For he well Eph. vi, is.
knew that the final victory over the devil and all his powers
must be reserved for the next world. Not to be con-
quered is the greatest victory that we may expect in this
world. When my foot slipped. He saith not, When I Ludolph.
yielded ; or. When I fell ; but. When my foot slipped. For
those enemies of ours know well to how fatal a result the
least slip may lead ; how far from the right way the slightest
deviation from the King's high road may conduct us. And
notice, therefore, that it is not merely, they rejoiced, but, they
rejoiced greatly against me. And none had greater occasion
to know this than had David himself. He gave way to the
idleness of advancing age and a hot season, when Joab went
forth to make war against the enemies of the Loed, in be-
sieging Rabbah of the children of Amnion. One slip — so
slight that, in itself, it would have remained unnoticed.
Then, instead of doing the business of the day in its day, he
must needs give way to idleness by resting in the middle of
the day : the result we know. And so again the foot of
another Saint slipped when he, in a dark and cold night, must
needs warm himself at the fire in the company of his Loed's
enemies. Well might the fiends rejoice greatly over him,
when from that one slip they knew that the Prince of Apos-
tles would continue to fall till he began to curse and swear,
sajdng, I know not this Man of whom ye speak.
17 And I, truly, am set in the plague ^ : and my
heaviness is ever in my sight.
We have already referred to the vision of S. Antony,
in which he saw the whole earth covered with nets and
' It is almost certain that the
word plague here is used in its
Latinized signification of net;
though neither this, nor the
more usual sense of the word,
comes very near to the original,
[which is, as A. V., ready to halt
or fall,'] nor to the fiagella of
the Latin, nor the fidariyas of
the Greek.
598
A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
D. C.
S. John
xviii. 4.
traps : and here, David is not only exposed to tliem, but is
taken in them. If we take it in the sense of the Latin, I am
ready for correction, the verse marvellously applies to the
Son of David. For of Him it is written, " Jesus, therefore,
knowing all things which should come upon Him, went
forth." He was ready for all and each of those sufferings
from the very time when the salvation of man being devised
by the counsel of the ever-blessed Trinity, the Author of our
salvation said, " Here am I, send Me."
18 For I will confess my wickedness
sorry for my sin.
and be
Ay.
17
They here take occasion to dwell on some of the signs of
a true Confession. I will he sorry — not for the shame, not
for the punishment, but for the sin. They observe that the
confession of sins has three great drawbacks which hinder
its utility : either that contrition does not precede, or satis-
faction accompany, or emendation follow. Confession with-
s. Bernard, out contrition is to profess to have a wound, says S. Bernard,
Kb ^"^^"* ^^ which the pain is not felt. Without satisfaction, says S.
s Thomas ^ugustine, it is rather the profession than confession of sin.
de Villa- And without emendation, it is rather a charm than a cure :
nova, serm. jt is to omit half the divine law regarding sin. Whoso con-
fesseth and forsaketh them shall find mercy. Whoso con-
fesseth them and forsaketh them not shall find the shame in
this world of acknowledged guilt, and shall but be judged
more strictly in the next with that terrible sentence : " Out
of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant."
19 But mine enemies live, and are mighty : and
they that hate me wrongfully are many in number.
Mine enemies live. And here they dwell at great length
on the difierent ways in which those spiritual enemies are to
be met. Some to be openly opposed ; Resist the devil and he
shall flee from you : some to be escaped from : " Flee forni-
cation." Mine enemies live: that always, whether I resist
them or not ; and are mighty ; that, unless I keep them
under By constant self-examination and watchfulness. And
then put these words into our Lord's mouth : ^line enemies
both temporal and spiritual, both the devil and they that are
of their father the devU, and who do his works ; Satan, when
he would have cast Me down from the pinnacle of the temple ;
the Jews, when they would have hurled Me down from the
mount of precipitation : Satan, when he would have had Me
out of these stones make bread ; the Jews, when they called
Me a man gluttonous. Mine enemies live and are mighty,
and they that hate me wrongfully. And then we are brought
back again to those tender reproaches addressed by the Lord
to His people, to which so lately we had occasion to refer.
S. Thomas
Aqumas.
Ay.
B.C.
Ludolph.
P. 543.
PSALM XXXVIII. 599
How from Him all good, how from tliem all evil : how the
greatness of the patience and mercy which shone forth from
the Lord's Passion was counterbalanced, as it were, by the
greatness of their malevolence who were the instruments of
that Passion. Are many in number. From the soldiers who nadl^M?dU
were sent forth to destroy the infants of Bethlehem and the tat. p. 454.'
coasts thereof, down to the multitudes that mocked and re- P.
viled on Mount Calvary, many in number indeed ! Or, if we
apply it to those ancient enemies who were cast out of heaven ven. Bede.
with their leader, then we know that the number of those
who followed Lucifer in his revolt were the third part of the
heavenly host. Many : and therefore the many mansions in
our Lord's kingdom ; therefore the loss of the Angels made
up by the redemption of man.
[But. It is not a complaint, but a thanksgiving. Here is Gerson.
God's medicine, salutary, but painful. Because I have shown
my wounds to the Physician, He is ready to heal me, in His
own way, by causing me to suffer persecution, and that at the
hands of those who are mighty, bitterly hostile, and many.
And it has always been true, not only of single penitents,
but of Churches turning back to God after long dalliance
with the world. The moment they show tokens of renewed
spiritual life, the world, till then ready to pamper and flatter
them, turns on them in bitter and unmerited hatred, that per-
secution may kindle love yet more.]
20 They also that reward evil for good are against
me : because I follow the thing that good is.
Here we have the True Daniel — " We shall not find any Ay.
fault against him, except we find it concerning the law of his ^^^' ^^- ^*
God." And notice the cruelty with which the Jews found
this cause of blame. With the accusers of Daniel the com-
plaint was straightforward ; it was that the Prophet kept
those commandments of God which contravened the laws of
Darius. But with regard to our Lord, it was that He, the
Brightness of His Father's glory, and the express image of
His Person, transgressed His Father's laws ; as, for exam-
ple, in the commandments respecting the Sabbath. In the
Vulgate, instead of, I follow the thing that good is, we Ludolph.
have. Because I spahe that which is good. And if so, even
more remarkably does it tell us of Him of Whom His very
enemies wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out
of His Mouth, and the officers that were sent to apprehend
Him were compelled to confess " that never man spake like
this Man."
21 Forsake me not^ O Lord my God : be not
thou far from me.
22 Haste thee to help me : O Lord God of my
salvation.
n
600 A COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
D. C. I do not knovr that the whole latter part of this Psalm cai
be explained better than in the words of Denis a Ryckel :—
My lovers and my neighbours, that is, the Jews who seen
to be My friends, in that they profess to love God, and t(
expect His Son from heaven, did stand looTcing upon mi
trouble, when they gathered a council against Me to put m1
to death, and when they cried out before Pilate, Crucifj
Him, crucify Him. And my kinsmen stood afar off; that iSj
they who were My disciples, but departed from Me, crying
S. Johnvi. out, " This is a hard saying : who can hear it?" As for me,
^^- I was like a deaf man and heard not ; as Luke testifieth
s Luke when he saith, " Herod questioned with Jesus in many
xxiii. 9. words, but He answered him nothing;" and Pilate, when he
exclaimed, " Hearest Thou not how many things they witness
against Thee?" For in Thee, O Lord, have I put my
trust; as being perfect Man and in a certain sense like
other men, a traveller to the celestial country : Thou shalt
hear me, O Lord my God : that is, Thou shalt grant what-
ever I absolutely and deliberately desire. Mine enemies
live and are mighty ; that is the Jews, who said, " Come, let
us kill Him, and the inheritance shall be ours ;" and they
that hate me wrongfully are many in number : that the word
might be fulfilled which was written in their law, " They
hated Me without a cause." Forsake me not, O Lord my
God, that is. Leave not My Body in the sepulchre, but
quicken it on the third day. Be not Thou far from me,
that is, Fulfil Thine own promise that Thou shalt not leave
My soul in hell, neither shalt Thou suffer Thine Holy One
to see corruption. Haste Thee to help me, so that I may
bring all My saints, as yet detained in the land of darkness
and the shadow of death, at My own resurrection into the
light of life. O Lord God of my salvation — of Mine, in so
far as I am very man ; of Mine, in so far, also, as I am one
with them whom I have redeemed, and who put their trust
in Me. " See," he continues, " how full of affection is this
Psalm, how gloriously it teaches what the true penitent ought
to be, how he should lament to the uttermost all his sins, and
be prepared to suffer their penalty. And since this Psalm is
one of the Penitential Psalms, we ought especially to labour
that we may enter into its full meaning, for it is in some sense
obscured. As to those who expound it of David, of v^^y
little profit is their interpretation, seeing it ought rat^ i*
be applied to Him Who is the King of all penitents, and ^
Eeceiver of those who return to Him."
And therefore :
Glory be to the Fathee, the Loed God of our salvai on
and to the Son, Who shall answer for us : and to the Hol
Ghost, Who will not be far from us ;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall bejj
world without end. Amen. "
PSALM XXXVIII.
601
Collects.
O Thou that art the Healer both of the soul and the body, Ludoiph.
lend forth Thy salvation and make us whole : that while
ve deplore all our sickness and all our infirmity, we may
)y Thy strength overcome the temptations of the enemy,
[hrough (2.)
O God, by Whose ears the secret desires of the heart are Mozarabic.
leard, make haste to help us ; and so turn away from us the
ierceness of Thine anger, that we who do put our whole trust
Q Thee, may never fall into the nets of the enemy. Amen.
Chrough Thy mercy (11.)
O Cheist our God, Who didst vouchsafe to endure such Mozarabic,
iianifold sufferings in Thine own most sacred Body, have Pas^iontide.
iiercy upon us ; and grant that while the true health of Thy
[race dwells in our mortal frame, we may from strength to
trength go on to the Crown which Thou hast prepared for
Amen. Through Thy mercy (11.)
A
J. MASTEBlli^j
4.NI> SON, PRINTERS, ALDERSGATE STREET, LONDON .
Jim
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