Tractates on the Psalms 0.1–1.2

That many hold differing opinions about the book of Psalms we know from the books they have left in writing. Some would have them divided, as among the Hebrews, into five books, so that the first book runs to the fortieth psalm, the second from the fortieth to the seventy-first, the third from there to the eighty-eighth, and the fourth to the hundred and fifth (on the ground that all these psalms have at their close "So be it, so be it"), and the fifth book then closes with the hundred and fiftieth psalm. Others have thought the psalms should be entitled "Psalms of David," by which title they mean that all of them were written by David. But we, following apostolic authority, both name and write it "the book of Psalms." For we remember that in the Acts of the Apostles it is said: "For it is written in the book of Psalms: Let his house become desolate, and let another take his office of overseer." So it is not to be called five books, as some Hebrews hold, nor "Psalms of David," as others simply say, but, following apostolic authority, it is to be known as the book of Psalms.

There are, moreover, several writers of these psalms. For some have David set at their head as author, some Solomon, some Asaph, some Idithun, some the sons of Core, one Moses. It is indeed absurd to call them Psalms of David when their authors are named in the very headings of the titles. It is more correctly called the book of Psalms, since prophecies of different authors and different times have been gathered into one volume. Some have also seen fit to set the names of Jeremiah, Haggai, and Zechariah before the headings of certain psalms, although nothing of this kind is found so issued in the authentic books of the Seventy translators; indeed, even in very many Latin and Greek manuscripts only the plain titles of the psalms appear, without these names.

As for those psalms that stand under various headings without the names of different authors, the tradition of the ancients is this: the psalms that follow without an author in the heading after a psalm whose author is named are to be reckoned as belonging to the author named for the preceding psalm, up to the psalm in which the name of another author is set at the head. So, if the heading of some psalm reads "A psalm of David," the rest that follow without a title are to be believed David's until the name of another prophet is placed in a heading; and from there to the next prophet, those that stand between without an inscription belong to the one who began to be set at the head as author in the heading of the earlier psalm.

But perhaps someone will withhold belief from this understanding on the ground that in the psalms that follow the one headed by Moses as author, namely in the ninety-eighth, it is written: "Moses and Aaron among his priests, and Samuel among those who call on his name," and so the psalm cannot be thought prophesied by Moses, since the name of Samuel, who was born so long after Moses, stands in the psalm. Let him remember that no one ought to find it strange or hard that so great a prophet should have uttered the name of so great a prophet, though he was yet to come, since in the books of Kingdoms the name of King Josiah was prophesied before he was born, the prophet saying: "Altar, altar, thus says the Lord: Behold, a son shall be born to David, Josiah is his name." From this it should not seem incredible that Samuel was foretold by Moses, especially since, according to Jeremiah, who says, "Not even if Moses and Samuel should stand," he was named alongside Moses and made his equal by the merit of his holiness. If this tradition, which, so far as is believed, originated with Ezra when he gathered the psalms into one book after the captivity, is judged false or improbable, those who contradict it must show who the authors of these psalms are. For it is settled that they could not have been prophesied except by prophets prophesying.

There is no doubt that what is said in the psalms must be understood according to the gospel proclamation, so that, whatever the person through whom the spirit of prophecy has spoken, the whole is referred to the knowledge of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, his taking a body, his passion and his kingdom, and to the glory and power of our resurrection. All prophecies are closed and sealed to worldly sense and the wisdom of this age, according to the saying of Isaiah: "And all these words shall be to you like the words of this sealed book. If they give it to a man who knows letters, saying, Read this, he will say, I cannot read it, for it is sealed. And if this book is given into the hands of a man who does not know letters, and it is said to him, Read this, he will answer, I do not know letters." The inability to read and understand the book of prophecy is shown in the person of each man, since the understanding of the learned man, who does not approach the seal of the closed mystery so as to read it, is likened to the ignorance of the unlearned through the lack of understanding common to both. For all things are woven together with allegorical and typical powers, through which are laid open all the mysteries of the only-begotten Son of God: his being born in the body, suffering, dying, and rising again, his reigning for ever with those who believe in him and are glorified with him, and his judging the rest. And because the scribes and Pharisees, not receiving the Son of God born in the body, denied everyone access to the understanding of prophecy, they are rebuked by the Lord under threat of punishment: "Woe to you, teachers of the law, who have taken away the key of knowledge: you do not enter yourselves, and you do not allow those who are entering to enter." For by denying Christ, whose coming is the work of the prophets, they took away the key of knowledge, since the faith in his bodily coming, once denied, shuts off the knowledge of the law, which proclaimed the Lord's bodily coming.

This is to be understood as said of every kind of prophetic Scripture: unless they are understood and recognized as referring to the Lord's coming to be begotten as man from a virgin, the force of their meaning remains sealed and closed. Yet that the book of Psalms in particular can be understood only through faith in his coming, we are taught by the Apocalypse of blessed John: "And to the angel of the church of Philadelphia write: Thus says the holy and true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one shall shut, who shuts and no one shall open." He has the key of David, then, because he unseals these seven seals, as it were, which David prophesies of him in the psalms concerning his bodily nature, passion, death, resurrection, glory, kingdom, and judgment, opening what no one shall shut and shutting what no one shall open. For through this prophecy fulfilled in him he will open what no one shall close, and conversely, when faith in the prophecy fulfilled in him is denied, he will shut what no one can open. For no one but he in whom these things were prophesied and fulfilled will impart the key to this understanding. Indeed, John taught this very thing in what follows, saying: "And I saw at the right hand of him who sat on the throne a book written within and without, sealed with seven seals; and I saw another mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice: Who is worthy to open the book and to loose its seals? And no one, in heaven or on earth or under the earth, was able to open the book or to look into it. And I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open the book or to look into it. And one of the elders said to me: Do not weep; behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has conquered, to open the book and its seven seals." This book, containing both past and future things in what was written within and without, is worthy to be opened by no one; and the apostle's weeping springs from longing for understanding and from grief at the difficulty. But the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has conquered, to open the book and its seals, because he alone loosed the seven seals we described above, by which the book was closed, through the mystery of his taking a body and of his divinity. The Lord himself bore witness to this after his resurrection, saying: "For all things must be fulfilled that are written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the psalms concerning me." By these things, then, the whole book of prophecy is both sealed and closed; for when you believe the things that were fulfilled through it, all those things that were sealed and closed will be opened and unsealed.

And although we know from the Lord's own declaration that everything was spoken through David by the divine Spirit, yet the very form of this prophecy also teaches that the knowledge of a heavenly, celestial teaching was present in him. For the prophecy was uttered on the instrument called psalterium in Greek and nabla in Hebrew, which alone of all musical instruments is quite straight, having in it nothing crooked or slanting, and is not stirred to the sound of musical harmony from its lower parts. Rather, an instrument shaped in the form of the Lord's body, it is straight, with no bend or curve, an instrument moved and struck from above and animated to sing a heavenly and celestial teaching, not sounding with a low and earthly breath like the other instruments of earth. For he did not proclaim low and earthly things in that instrument of his body, as he himself testified: "He who is of the earth is of the earth and speaks of the earth; but he who comes from heaven bears witness to what he has seen and heard." Through this Spirit from above, then, God is sung in the psalms, in the form of the Lord's body in which the heavenly Spirit spoke, and the form of this earthly musical instrument, sounding from above, is likened to it.

One should also know that among the Hebrews the number of the psalms is not distinguished; they were written down without any indication of order. There the first, second, third, fiftieth, or hundredth are not marked, but they are mixed together without any distinction of order or number. For Ezra, as the ancient traditions report, gathered them, unarranged and scattered according to the diversity of their authors and times, and set them down in one volume. But the seventy elders, who remained in the synagogue according to the tradition of Moses to guard the teaching of the law, after King Ptolemy had entrusted them with the task of translating the whole law from Hebrew into Greek, understood with spiritual and heavenly knowledge the powers of the psalms and brought them into number and order, assigning to each number, complete in its effect and fulfilment, the place of psalms complete and effective in the same way.

Although this can be understood from the powers of the individual psalms, we are taught it most completely from the history of events and times: that the placing of the psalms was ordered according to the effects of perfect numbers. For according to the history the third psalm is later than the fiftieth, since the inscriptions of the two differ by a long interval of time and age. The latter covers what happened in the affair of Uriah and David, while the former signifies David's flight when his son Absalom was pursuing him. But the power and mystery of number brought it about that this one and that one were placed at the numbers fitting and suitable to them.

Again, the inscription of the fiftieth psalm is, according to history, later than the inscription of the fifty-first. But the power of the number fifty, and the unrepentant hatred of Doeg the Edomite against David, required that the earlier be placed after and the later before: so that the forgiveness of sins might be placed at the number fifty, and the punishment of faithlessness, going beyond the number of the appointed forgiveness, might be without pardon, since it had lost both the time and the number of repentance. For since in the fiftieth, in which are the sabbaths of sabbaths, the forgiveness of sins is appointed according to the foreshadowing of the year of jubilee, this psalm, in which forgiveness of sins is asked for through the repentance offered, is fittingly placed in the order at this number.

The book of Psalms consists of three fifties, and this arises from the reasoning and number of our blessed expectation. For whoever carefully notes the completion of the first fifty, then of the second fifty, and again of the third fifty, in which the book ends, will understand that the providence by which the psalms were arranged in this order agrees with the plan of our salvation. For the first step to salvation is to be reborn into the new man after the forgiveness of sins; after the confession of repentance, the kingdom of the Lord is kept for the times of that holy city, the heavenly Jerusalem; and afterwards, when heavenly glory is completed in us, we advance through the kingdom of the Son into the kingdom of God the Father, in which the whole company of spirits will proclaim the praises due to God. So we shall easily understand that the mystery of this arrangement by fifties is contained in the powers of the individual psalms placed at each fiftieth number.

That these are sabbaths of sabbaths is shown by the number seven multiplied seven times; yet the eighth, because the first day is the same as the eighth, completes it, being added according to the fullness of the gospel in the last sabbath. These sabbaths of sabbaths were observed by the apostles with such reverence that on these days of the fifty no one either worshipped with body prostrate on the ground or hindered with fasting the festival of this spiritual blessedness. The same was also established outside this period for the Lord's days, which by the fullness of the gospel proclamation go beyond the number of the sabbath. For although the name and observance of the sabbath was set on the seventh day, we rejoice in the festival of the perfect sabbath on the eighth day, which is also the first.

It is fitting to observe this power of the eighth, made perfect by heavenly mysteries, in the psalm placed eighth in number, which bears the title "for the winepresses": vessels prepared for new fruits and renewed to hold the heat of the fermenting new wine. This number is appointed according to the gospel eighth for receiving the gospel fruits, when these perishable vessels of our bodies have been remade. The text and wording of that psalm bear witness to this. The power of this eighth is contained also, as it were, in the power of the sixth psalm and number, which is a prayer "for the eighth"; and the reasoning of number brought it about that in the sixth there should be a prayer for the eighth and in the eighth the title "for the winepresses" should be added. This heading "for the winepresses" is found at three numbers: the eighth, the eightieth, and the eighty-third psalm all have this title, so that the order of this perfect blessedness might stand in perfect numbers, yet in such a way that the mystery of the triad, which among us is called the Trinity, should enclose the simple eighth and the tenfold eighth.

We can recognize this perfection of the eighth also in the hundred and eighteenth psalm. For in it the beginnings of the individual letters, according to the Hebrews, are gathered into groups of eight, eight verses each; and the very power of the psalm teaches the mystery of the eighth. There are twenty-two eights in it, for eight verses are assigned to the beginning of each letter. This is so arranged in order that, since this psalm completes the perfect man according to the gospel teaching, we might be instructed through all twenty-two letters of the Hebrew language under the mystery of the eighth.

This is the reason why the law of the Old Testament is reckoned as twenty-two books, so that they may agree with the number of the letters. According to the traditions of the ancients they are counted thus: the books of Moses are five; Joshua son of Nun the sixth; Judges and Ruth the seventh; first and second Kingdoms the eighth; third and fourth make the ninth; the two of Chronicles the tenth; the words of the days of Ezra the eleventh; the book of Psalms is the twelfth; Solomon's Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth; the twelve minor Prophets the sixteenth; then Isaiah, and Jeremiah with Lamentations and the Letter, and also Daniel, Ezekiel, Job, and Esther complete the number of twenty-two books. Some, however, have seen fit to add Tobit and Judith and count twenty-four books, according to the number of the Greek letters, the Roman tongue also being gathered in between the Hebrews and the Greeks; for in these three languages above all the mystery of God's will and the expectation of the blessed kingdom are proclaimed. From this came Pilate's act of writing in these three languages that the Lord Jesus Christ is king of the Jews. For although many barbarian nations have attained the knowledge of God through the apostles' preaching and the faith of the churches that remain there today, yet the gospel teaching is established especially in the Roman Empire, under which the Hebrews and Greeks are included.

It follows that after this eightfold number of twenty-two eights we should consider the number of psalms that comes next, in the fifteen Songs of Ascents. For after that perfect teaching of the preceding eights, this Song of Ascents had to come together into fifteen psalms from two perfect numbers, the seven and the eight, that is, the seventh and the eighth number. For through the observance of the law, which is established in the seven, and the progress of the gospel, which is completed by the eight both in present religion and in hoped-for expectation, one climbs by this Song of Ascents to heavenly and eternal things. For by this number of steps the chief priests used to go up in the temple into the holy of holies, so that, since neither the seven of the law without the eight of the gospels, nor the eight of the gospels without the seven of the law, could produce a perfect man, whoever had believed perfectly this perfect and true number of seven and eight that is in the fifteen Songs of Ascents might be placed in these perfect, blessed, and holy of holies.

Although we have said these things according to numbers pleasing in the observance of the law and distributed in the gospel mystery, yet we shall attain the power of each number in full from the headings of the psalms and from the understanding of what they say. The titles of all the headings are different. For besides those marked with the names of their authors or with indications of causes or times, there are others whose title is "for the end"; others with only "a psalm of a song" or "a song of a psalm"; and there must have been different reasons for the different headings. For it is not without reason that the order of titles changes with such variety, so that now "for the end," now "a psalm," now "a song," now "a song of a psalm," now "a psalm of a song" is placed in front to distinguish the psalm beneath. And although we shall try to give the reasons for each inscription in each psalm, yet for the convenience of the attentive reader we compress the meaning of all the headings into a short discourse.

The end is that for whose sake the other things exist, while it gives its own cause to nothing else. For all things are for the sake of the end, but nothing comes after the end. One strives toward the end and ceases at the end. So the end is the completion of what goes before and, reaching out from itself to nothing further, is its own possession in itself. The psalms inscribed "for the end," then, are to be understood as arising from the perfect and complete teachings and hopes of eternal goods, because the course of our faith reaches out to what is said in them and, with no further advance, rests in them at the very end of the blessedness it longed for and has attained.

In the musical arts these are the varieties of function and kind. A psalm is when the voice is silent and only the playing of the accompanying instrument is heard. A song is when the choir of singers, using its freedom and not bound to follow the harmony of the instrument, rejoices in a hymn of the melodious voice alone. A song of a psalm is when the instrument leads and the voice of the singing choir is heard following and rivalling the instrument, imitating the measures of the psaltery with the melodies of the voice. A psalm of a song is when the choir sings first and the art of the accompanying instrument is fitted to the hymn of human singing, and the psaltery plays with sweetness equal to the melodies of the leading voice. To these four kinds of musical art, then, the headings fitting to each psalm have been adapted. The reason for each heading is shown from the powers of the psalms and from the very differences of musical teaching.

In the psalm headed only "a psalm," there is teaching or confession of faithful works and religious deeds, when the prophet, by recalling what he has done, instructs us to do similar deeds, the movements of the instrument of our body being tuned to the godly uses of duty. But when only "a song" is set in the title, there is in it spiritual knowledge and understanding of the heavenly secret, which one attains through the knowledge of wisdom, since, without recalling works of faith, it displays only the teaching of the perfect knowledge of God. For not all knowledge is at once in good work, nor again does every good work attain true knowledge. For this reason there is also the third kind of heading, "a song of a psalm," when the teaching of knowledge is joined to the accomplishment of good works. For one must first live in good works, so that the knowledge of the divine mystery that follows may be perfect, according to what is said: "Do you desire wisdom? Keep the commandments, and the Lord will grant it to you." The Lord therefore grants wisdom to those who attain the grace of understanding through the merit of works. From these pursuits of works and teaching, then, the reason for the psalm headed "a song of a psalm" is to be known. But where it is "a psalm of a song," there the practice of good work is treated through the knowledge of understanding, when knowledge of God gained beforehand gives us the accomplishment of faithful deeds, which we should desire.

This fourfold variety of musical art, then, has been fitted to the varieties of the psalms: "psalm" concerns the recalling of deeds through the movement of the instrument of the body; "song" contains the knowledge of teaching through the knowledge of wisdom; "song of a psalm" is when knowledge is granted through the merit of deeds going before; and "psalm of a song" is when the work of faithful deeds is begun and carried on through the knowledge of understanding already attained. Through these properties of the headings, then, the understanding of the psalms will have to be sought, because to each kind of prophecy one kind of musical comparison has been fitted in the property of the titles. But those that have no inscription of any meaning, such as the first, the second, and many others, are to be understood as sung from the teaching of the Holy Spirit for the spiritual knowledge of general learning, so that each person might seek from them the reasoning of spiritual understanding according to the sincerity of his faith.

Other headings, which signify historical events, or times, or days, or include something else, show what the psalm consists of, either from the interpretation of names, or from comparison of deeds, or from the likeness of similar things. So, where there is "for the sabbath day," or "for the hidden things of the son," or "for the eighth day," the issue of the spiritual psalm is understood through the bodily meaning of the headings; or when "of that David" or "to that David," or Absalom, or Saul, or Doeg are noted in the title under the history of events, we may grasp the prophecy that is in the psalm either through the qualities of the pronouns, as "to that" or "of that David," or through the powers of the names, as in Absalom, Saul, and Doeg.

As for the diapsalma, which is inserted in very many psalms, one should know that it marks the beginning of a change either of person or of sense, with a change of musical mode: so that wherever a diapsalma comes in, it is to be understood that either something else is said, or it is said by someone else, or it is sung in another measure of musical art. And we shall try to give an account of the persons and senses where we find a diapsalma coming in. But the Greek and Latin translation could not preserve the discipline of musical mode. These things, then, my discourse has gathered into a short summary, hastening to the exposition of the psalms themselves.

Careful and well-weighed judgment must be given to the exposition of each psalm, so that it may be known with what key of understanding each of them is to be opened. For every book is like a beautiful and great city with many different houses, whose doors are closed with their own different keys. When these keys are heaped together and mixed in one place, they cause the greatest difficulty to someone ignorant who wants to open each house, to find the key of each house. It belongs either to familiar knowledge quickly to pick out the known key from that heap of variety, or to great labour to find the fit and suitable key for opening each entrance, since reason and nature do not allow keys that are not their own to be fitted to unmatched locks. So, by the Lord's mercy, as we seek the key for opening each psalm, let us lay open the entrance of this first psalm with its own proper and suitable key.

Psalm One. The chief point of understanding in the psalms is to be able to discern in whose person, or with reference to whom, what is said ought to be understood. For their composition is not uniform and undifferentiated, as though they did not have both different authors and different kinds. We often find in them that the person of God the Father is presented, as in the eighty-eighth psalm, when it is said: "I have exalted one chosen from my people; I have found David my servant, with holy oil I have anointed him. He will call upon me: You are my Father and the upholder of my salvation. And I will make him the firstborn, high above all the kings of the earth." The person of the Son, on the other hand, is introduced in very many, as in the seventeenth: "A people whom I did not know has served me"; and in the twenty-first: "They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots." But the matter itself plainly teaches that this first psalm cannot be understood either in the person of the Father or in the person of the Son: "But his will was in the law of the Lord, and in his law he will meditate day and night." For in the psalm in which we noted the person of the Father to be indicated, things proper and fitting to him are mentioned, when it is said: "He will call upon me: You are my Father, my God, and the upholder of my salvation." And in the one in which the Son is shown to speak, he declares himself, from what he recounts, the author of his own words, saying: "A people whom I did not know has served me." For when the Father says, "He will call upon me," and the Son says, "A people has served me," they show that they themselves are the ones speaking of themselves. But now, when it is said, "But his will was in the law of the Lord," no person of the Lord speaking of himself is shown, but rather that of another, proclaiming the blessedness of the man whose will is in the law of the Lord. So the person here is to be recognized as that of the prophet, through whose mouth the Holy Spirit speaks, instructing us by the service of his mouth in the knowledge of the spiritual mystery.

Since he says these things, we must ask of what man we ought to understand him to speak. For he says: "Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the chair of pestilence; but his will was in the law of the Lord, and in his law he will meditate day and night. And he will be like a tree that is planted by the streams of waters, which will give its fruit in its season; and its leaf will not fall, and all things whatever he does will prosper." I have found that many, either in present discourse or from their writings, have thought of this psalm that our Lord Jesus Christ should be understood to be signified in it, whose blessedness is proclaimed in what follows. But they taught this neither with measure nor with reason; they did so from a well-meant opinion, since all the prophecy of the psalms is to be referred to him; but where and when the language of the prophecy refers to him must be discerned by the truth of reasoned knowledge.