Psalms 1-50: Volume 7 (Volume 7)

Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture #7

by Craig A. Blaising (Editor), Carmen S. Hardin (Editor), Thomas C. Oden (Editor)

The Psalms have long served a vital role in the individual and corporate lives of Christians, expressing the full range of human emotions, including some that we are ashamed to admit. The Psalms reverberate with joy, groan in pain, whimper with sadness, grumble in disappointment, and rage with anger. The church fathers employed the Psalms widely. In liturgy they used them both as hymns and as Scripture readings. Within them they found pointers to Jesus both as Son of God and as Messiah. They also employed the Psalms widely as support for other New Testament teachings, as counsel on morals, and as forms for prayer. But the church fathers found more than pastoral insight in the Psalms. They found apologetic and doctrinal insight as well, as is attested by the more than sixty-five authors and more than 160 works excerpted in this Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture volume. Especially noteworthy among the Greek-speaking authors cited are Hippolytus, Origen, Eusebius of Caesarea, Athanasius, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, Didymus the Blind, Evagrius of Pontus, Diodore of Tarsus, John Chrysostom, Asterius the Homilist, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyr, Cyril of Alexandria, and Hesychius of Jerusalem. Among noteworthy Latin authors we find Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose of Milan, Jerome, Augustine, Arnobius the Younger, and Cassiodorus. Readers of these selections, some of which appear here for the first time in English, will glean from a rich treasury of deep devotion and profound theological reflection.

Genres: Old Testament, Reference, Theology, Biblical Studies, Christianity, Christian

486 pages, Hardcover

First published September 30, 2008

Reviews

[Julie Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly stunning commentary consisting solely of Church Fathers. There are more than sixty-five authors and over 160 works excerpted in this commentary, some of which appear for the first time in English here.

[Joseph R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This commentary provides an overview of patristic thought on the first third of the Psalms. The book has the text of each psalm (the translation is the Revised Standard Version) followed by a synopsis of the comments from the ancient Fathers of the Church. After that is texts from the Fathers (usually a paragraph of commentary, see the sample texts below), with citations for further research.

This book is valuable as a study guide for exploring the Psalms as the earliest Christians saw them. The Fathers range from the first disciples of the apostles down to Saint Augustine in the 400s. They have a lot of interesting insights intot the meaning of the psalms. The commentaries also provide a way to pray the psalms more deeply by extending the time a reader spends with each psalm, highlighting nuances that can be passed over with a quicker reading.

I found this very valuable and am looking forward to the next volume.

Highly recommended.

Some sample texts:

From the commentary on Psalm 29, by Basil the Great on false glory:

The cedar is at time praised by Scripture as a stable tree, free from decay, fragrant, and adequate for supplying shelter, but at times it is attacked as unfruitful and hard to bend, so that it offers a representation of impiety.

And from the commentary on Psalm 32, by Caesarius of Arles on confession:

God wants us to confess our sins, not because he himself cannot know them but because the devil longs to find something to charge us with before the tribunal of the eternal Judge and wants us to defend rather than to acknowledge our sins. Our God, on the contrary, because he is good and merciful, wants us to confess them in this world so we will not be confounded by them later on in the world to come.

And from the commentary on Psalm 42, by Augustine on seeing God:

"Where is your God?" If a pagan says this to me, I cannot retort, "What about you? Where is your God?" because the pagan can point to his god. He indicates some stone with his finger and says, "Look, there's my god! Where is yours?" If I laugh at the stone, and the pagan who pointed it out is embarrassed, he looks away from the stone toward the sky; then perhaps he points to the sun and says again, "Look, there's my god! Where is yours?" He has found something he can demonstrate to my bodily eyes. For me it is different, not because I have nothing to demonstrate but because he lacks the kind of eyes to which I could demonstrate it. He was able to point the sun out to my bodily eyes as his god, but how can I point out to any eyes he has the sun's Creator?

[Jonathan]

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