Page images
PDF
EPUB

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

In this re-issue of the first volume of the Commentary 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 scattered references to promised Dissertations and Appendices which were never completed have been expunged, and some errors of textual criticism have also been withdrawn, besides much incidental correction of casual faults of type or supervision.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 elaborated 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 additional information in the account of Uses and Antiphons prefixed to each of the Psalms, as well as in the Collects subjoined to them. All these details

have been considered in the present edition, and some pains have been taken to make the new portions 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 discriminate between original and supplementary matter. R. F. L.

LONDON, June, 1869.

INTRODUCTION.

DISSERTATION I.

THE PSALMS AS EMPLOYED IN THE OFFICES OF

THE CHURCH,

tom's pane

Psalms.

1. "If we keep vigil," says S. John Chrysostom, "in S. Chrysosthe Church, David comes first, last, and midst. If gyric on the early in the morning we seek for the melody of hymns, first, last, and midst is David again. If we are occupied with the funeral solemnities of the departed, if virgins sit at home and spin, David is first, last, and midst.1 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 uninhabitable land, he excites the praises of GOD. In monasteries, amongst those holy choirs of angelic armies, David is first, midst, and last. In the convents of virgins, where are the bands of them that imitate Mary; in the deserts, where are men crucified 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 S. Chrysostom is referring to that stanza of Theognis,

ἀλλ ̓ ἀεὶ πρῶτόν τε καὶ ὕστατον,

ἔν τε μισοισιν

ἀείσω· σὺ δέ μευ κλύθι, καὶ ἐσθλὰ
δίδου.

B

Ecclesiasti

logy" of the Psalter.

seraphic bands, turns earth into heaven, and converts men into angels." Nothing can more admirably 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 transfigured from the worship of the synagogue to that of the Church; that, to use the mediæval metaphor, the trumpets of the tabernacle have given place to the Psaltery and the New Song of the Christian ritual.1

2. The Church of the primitive and of the Middle cal "mytho- Ages, then, adapted the Psalter to her own needs; 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 mediæval 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 fascinates. 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 difThe literal ficulties, to develope the historical and literal meansense alone, ing, and in some of the very plainest passages to 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 Horne's. Earnestly desirous as was the pious author of seeing

for the most part,

1 Quarum tonat initium
In tubis epulantium,
Et finis per Psalterium,

says Adam of S. Victor in a sequence on the dedication of a church.

modern

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 richest meaning, does he pass in silence! How often does noticed by he seem incapable of discovering the delicate shades Commentaof meaning which depend on the conventional use of tors: phrases, or the order of sentences! The Commentary 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 have 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 occasion to speak at greater length towards the conclu- the principal 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 itself, 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 utterly fail to discover.

the spiritual meaning,

aim of the

work.

pied in its

3. The first thing that strikes us in the primitive Time occuand mediæval use of the Psalter, is the large proportion mediaval 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

« PreviousContinue »