Understanding the psalms: textual fluidity

Genoa psalter of 1516, edited by Agostino Giustiniani, bishop of Nebbio

In the previous part of this set of introductory notes on tackling the psalms, I pointed to the need to keep in mind that each psalm connects to others, and that both its position in Scripture and in the Office are deliberate choices that are likely to have some meaning.

Today I want to conclude this set of preliminary notes by looking at some of the issues around the various versions of the texts of the psalms themselves.

In my first post in this set, I suggested focusing first on getting the words of the psalm right.  But today I want to provide a bit of a counterpoint to that, as I want to suggest that when you are studying the psalms rather than actually singing or saying them as part of the Office, you shouldn't get too hung up on the exact words of the text, whatever language you encounter the psalms in.

When it comes to Scripture, I want to suggest, an undue focus on the exact words can sometimes lead us astray, because there is often more than one, at least equally valid, 'text tradition' to draw upon.

Critical editions, Hebrew Scripture and competing text traditions

We are used, in our time, to the idea that there is one correct, authoritative version of a text; indeed academia devotes a great deal of effort to the preparation of 'critical editions' of early texts as the first step before translations can be made.

In the context of Scripture, that has long translated into an assumption that since the Old Testament was originally composed in Hebrew, the Hebrew base texts that we have represent a more authentic version of it than the Septuagint Greek for example.

In reality, however, the oldest manuscripts of  the Hebrew 'Masoretic Text' (MT), the only version of the Hebrew known until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, dates from the tenth century.

In contrast, the Septuagint Greek, an officially commissioned translation started around three centuries before Christ, and which the Fathers regarded as a divinely inspired providential gift from God, is preserved in very early manuscripts indeed.

And it turns out that in fact these two rather different versions of the Old Testament genuinely represent two different text traditions both preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Why you should use the Vulgate!

I've written elsewhere on some of the reasons why Catholics should use the (Gallican) Vulgate (and ignore the Neo-Vulgate!), and focus on the Septuagint text tradition over the Hebrew Maseoretic Text, so I won't dig into that much further here.

I would urge though, Benedictines in particular to use the Vulgate, and translations based on it, as you will miss many of the echoes of the Rule if you don't.  

There are quite a few key words that St Benedict uses in various key contexts (such as the Suscipe, the verse used in the profession ceremony) that occur in several places in the Vulgate, but are not used in St Jerome's from the Hebrew or the Neo-Vulgate, and are not directly reflected in translations based on the Hebrew, as opposed to the Septuagint.

Text variations and commentaries

Despite all this though, in my notes I generally do provide a selection of Latin and English translations of each verse, and I wanted to explain briefly why I do that, and what to take out of it!

Patristic commentaries

And the first reason is simple: the Patristic commentators did not necessarily start from or stick to the version of the text that they sung in the Office when commenting on a psalm verse.

Instead, commentators such as St Augustine, St John Chrysostom and St Cassiodorus often mention different versions of the text, and sometimes provide alternative interpretations of verses based on them.

In other cases, they use versions of the text, such as St Jerome's from the Hebrew, as a tool to understand some of the more cryptic passages of the Vulgate (or Septuagint).

Text variants, in other words, are another input to interpreting verses at multiple levels, rather than just focusing on the literal.

Alternative versions of the Latin in the liturgy

The second reason is not unrelated to this: when you come across psalms in the liturgy, the version you encounter will not always be the Vulgate.  

The invitatory psalm 94, for example, is still sung each day at Matins using a 'Vetus Latin' text. 

And many responsories and antiphons use either the 'Romanum' or Vetus texts.

The problem with translations

 The third reason though, is that no matter what version of the Latin text you are using, you are working from a translation of a translation.  

No one translation, no matter how authoritative, can fully capture all of the possibilities and nuances of the original.

So having a couple of alternatives in front of you can sometimes add a bit of useful 'colour', and I'd encourage you to take a close look at them, and try and at least take note of the key the differences.

The translations

The versions of the text I sometimes or always include are as follows:

• Vulgate (V)  - the (Gallican) liturgical Latin;
• the neo-Vulgate (NV) - the current official version of the Latin used in Novus Ordo liturgy;
• the Romanum (R) - the version of the psalter used at Rome up (and elsewhere) until the tenth century (and beyond in some very limited cases);
• the Pian (P) - another failed twentieth century translation of curiosity value;
• St Jerome's translation 'from the Hebrew'; and
• the Septuagint.

I don't generally try to include the Vetus Latin (VL), since it isn't really one fixed text, but rather a collective term for several variants, but there are books and online tools to find the main ones if you are interested.

Secondly, since I'm mainly interested in the Latin tradition, that is, how the psalms have been received by the Church, and St Jerome aside, that didn't really include reference to the Hebrew until around the time of the Renaissance (and Reformation), I generally ignore the Hebrew unless I think it is particularly important or illuminating.  

Moreover, there are plenty of modern commentaries and online tools that focus almost exclusively on the Hebrew, so I see little point in duplicating that work.  For a light introduction, for example, the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible is a useful starting point, while online sources such as Blue Letter Bible will provide the Hebrew and links to Strong's wonderful concordance on it.  

I also try and include several English translations so you can try and get a feel for the range of possibilities.

It is worth keeping in mind though, that these basically fall into two camps, those based on the Hebrew MT, and those based on the Septuagint-Vulgate tradition.

Those in the Septuagint-Vulgate camp are:

DR: Douay-Rheims (- Challoner)

Brenton: Brenton's translation from the Septuagint

Those mainly based on the MT include:

MD: Monastic Diurnal (early twentieth century Collegeville translation)

RSV: Revised Standard Version

Cover: Coverdale

Knox: Knox translation

Grail: Grail (earlier version)

Please do ask if you come across an abbreviation that you can't decode!

Understanding the psalms: The three attentions of St Thomas Aquinas

Catacomb of the Via Latina. Jacob's Ladder,
Source: Wiki Commons

This Lent, as I've previously flagged, I plan to provide some verse by verse notes on some of the Vespers psalms for Friday and Saturday.  

Before I turn to the individual psalms themselves next week though, I want to provide first some notes on a few key topics around their interpretation, focusing on the importance of the words themselves aside from their meaning; the significance of the order of the psalter; the psalm titles; and dealing with what might be described as 'textual fluidity', or variant translations and text traditions for the psalms.

Vespers on Friday and Saturdays

The Vespers psalms of Friday and Saturday are particularly appropriate to Lent, I think, because the Benedictine Office effectively contains a mini-Triduum each week in its the psalms, with several of them traditionally understood as referring to the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. 

I want to start backwards as it were, though, with the very last psalm of the week, Psalm 147, since it both sets out what it is that we are seeking to achieve, namely the enduring summer that represents true peace of heaven, but also reminds us of the need to endure the seasons of hardship that come before it.

And that strikes me as a metaphor very apt for Lent!

While some of the psalms at the earlier hours on Saturdays can certainly be interpreted as referring to the descent into hell and freeing of the souls there, or the resting in the tomb, by the time we reach Saturday Vespers, we are effectively at First Vespers of the Resurrection, as the ancient first antiphon for the hour, Thy kingdom O Lord is a kingdom for all ages' makes clear.

But as the Roman Office is used during the Triduum rather than the Benedictine, we don't sing Psalm 147 at Vespers in Holy Week (though in the post-Pius X version it is sung at Lauds), so it seems appropriate to consider it in the weeks when it is said rather than later.

Focusing on the words

Before I start the verse by verse notes, though, I thought it would be timely to make some comments on the key sources for my notes, some of the thinking behind the various components of the notes I provide, as well as suggestions on how to approach the task of learning the psalms.

So today, I want to suggest that when you are thinking about digging into a particular psalm, or learning a new hour of the Office, the first thing to do is not to worry about its meaning at all, but to focus solely on the words themselves.

And by words, I mean the Latin of the psalm, even if you have little or no Latin, and even if you plan to pray the Office in English.

Why bother to learn to pray the Office in Latin, or look at the Latin of the psalms?

I generally start my notes by focusing on the Latin translation of the psalms rather than English.

There are three main reasons I take this approach.

First, purely legalistic: for those who wish to pray the older forms (ie 1960 or earlier rubrics) of the Office liturgically, the permissions for it to be said required it to be in that language.  

That doesn't, of course, prevent the older form of the Office being said devotionally in English or another language by those who are not bound to say it, and starting in English and gradually learning is a good tactic.

There is a reason for this legal requirement though, namely, to preserve, and join in solidarity with, the patrimony of the Benedictine order and the Church in praying the Office as it has been prayed for centuries, going back to St Benedict's own time.

Most importantly though, the specific words of the Latin enable us to connect with the theological, spiritual and musical traditions of the Church.  

Saying the Office in Latin also allows us to use the traditional chants of the Office, as well as the rich patrimony of polyphonic settings; and to connect with a theological and spiritual vocabulary that forms part of the Church's tradition, and has gained meaning and developed through time in the works of the Fathers and Theologians.

If you would like to dig a bit deeper into reasons for starting from the Latin, I strongly recommend reading David Birch's book Latin Prayer Aspects of Language and Catholic Spirituality

Do you need to understand the Latin to be able to pray in Latin?

I want to advocate here for studying the psalm in Latin, even if you plan to pray it in English.

But I'd also like to suggest at least trying to pray it in Latin.

Some people will object that it inappropriate to pray in a language such as Latin unless we actually understand what we are saying. 

I beg to differ!

In fact, St Thomas Aquinas addressed the important question of what is necessary in order to pray 'in spirit and in truth' and gain the merits that come from prayer in his Summa.  He argued (ST II-II 183 art 13) that there are three kinds of attention in prayer:

"It must be observed, however, that there are three kinds of attention that can be brought to vocal prayer: one which attends to the words, lest we say them wrong, another which attends to the sense of the words, and a third, which attends to the end of prayer, namely, God, and to the thing we are praying for. That last kind of attention is most necessary, and even idiots are capable of it. Moreover this attention, whereby the mind is fixed on God, is sometimes so strong that the mind forgets all other things, as Hugh of St. Victor states [De Modo Orandi ii]."

In St Benedict's time, Latin was (more or less) still the vernacular for most monks and nuns, but for most of the Church's history down the centuries monks, nuns and the laity encountered Latin as a second language, the language of the Church.

And they typically learnt to pronounce the words first, and only learnt their meanings later.

Learning how to pronounce the psalms

In the light of all this, the first step in learning a psalm is learning how to pronounce it using Ecclesiastical Latin pronunciation (warning: if you learnt Latin at school or University, you were probably taught 'classical' pronunciation', a reconstruction of an earlier stage of Latin than that used in the Vulgate or by the Fathers, and which is significantly different).

There are a number of excellent summary guides to Ecclesiastical Latin pronunciation available online, and you can find a good selection of them here.

You can also find youtube videos of the psalms read aloud.

In the context of the Office though, I think the best approach is to hear them sung in the context of the Office.  A number of monasteries do livestreams and/or make recordings available of some or most of their Offices,

I recommend listening to each psalm over and over, ideally repeating line by line, until you can clearly hear, and then reproduce the Latin.

An excellent tool for this purpose is the Neumz ap, as it actually shows you which part of the chant is being sung, the only problem being that it is currently keyed to the Novus Ordo calendar rather than the 1960 one so won't always align. An alternative is to use the archives of the chants of Le Barroux website or their podcasts.

Memorize?

It is also worth considering trying to memorize the psalms.

Today both books and electronic versions of the Office are readily available.

And some people are much better at this than others (I will admit that I, personally, am absolutely hopeless at memorization).

Even so, for centuries the Office was sung entirely from memory, and this has numerous advantages.  

It means you can say the Office anywhere, anytime, without needing to be obvious about it.  

You can sing Compline and Tenebrae during the Triduum without straining your eyes in the darkness!

It helps you more easily make connections between different psalms and Scripture more generally.  

And it provides rich fodder for meditation.

Indeed, one of the most common monastic practices in the early church was the constant recitation of the psalter outside of the Office in its numerical order each day while undertaking other tasks.

So this Lent, consider setting out to memorize a few psalms!

Psalm 147

Just in case you want to get started immediately, here is the text of Psalm 147 (with a translation alongside), by way of a teaser.

Psalm 147 – Lauda Jerusalem 

Vulgate	Douay-Rheims
Lauda, Jerúsalem, Dóminum: * lauda Deum tuum, Sion.	Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem: praise your God, O Sion.
2  Quóniam confortávit seras portárum tuárum: * benedíxit fíliis tuis in te.	Because he has strengthened the bolts of your gates, he has blessed your children within you
3  Qui pósuit fines tuos pacem: * et ádipe fruménti sátiat te.	Who has placed peace in your borders: and fills you with the fat of corn.
4  Qui emíttit elóquium suum terræ: * velóciter currit sermo ejus.	Who sends forth his speech to the earth: his word runs swiftly.
5  Qui dat nivem sicut lanam: * nébulam sicut cínerem spargit.	Who gives snow like wool: scatters mists like ashes.
6  Mittit crystállum suam sicut buccéllas: * ante fáciem frígoris ejus quis sustinébit?	He sends his crystal like morsels: who shall stand before the face of his cold?
7  Emíttet verbum suum, et liquefáciet ea: * flabit spíritus ejus, et fluent aquæ.	He shall send out his word, and shall melt them: his wind shall blow, and the waters shall run.
8  Qui annúntiat verbum suum Jacob: * justítias, et judícia sua Israël.	Who declares his word to Jacob: his justices and his judgments to Israel
9  Non fecit táliter omni natióni: * et judícia sua non manifestávit eis.	He has not done in like manner to every nation: and his judgments he has not made manifest to them. Alleluia.

You can hear it read aloud here.

You can find the next part in this series here.