MISERERE: THE FIFTY-FIRST PSALM WITH DEVOTIONAL NOTES. REPRINTED, WITH ADDITIONS,] From Neale's "Commentary on the Psalms.” LONDON: JOSEPH MASTERS, 78, NEW BOND STREET. NEW YORK: POTT AND AMERY. MDCCCLXX. 138. i. 14. PREFACE. IT has been thought desirable to reprint Dr. Neale's Commentary on Psalm LI., as a brief manual for devotional study in Lent and Advent. To fit it for more popular use, the marginal references to authors and some other details in the larger work have been omitted, while, on the other hand, many additions have been made, chiefly from the commentaries of Cassiodorus, Pope Urban IV., S. Bonaventura, Cardinal Hugo de S. Cher, and Girolamo Savonarola. Advent, 1870. R. F. L. A COMMENTARY ON THE FIFTY-FIRST PSALM. THIS may truly be called the Psalm of all Psalms; that which of all inspired compositions has, with the one exception of the LORD's Prayer, been repeated oftenest by the Church. And there are almost as many mysteries in its position as there are in its structure. As to the way in which the Church has repeated it. Till the last reformation of the Roman Breviary, it was said at every Hour, concluding the service, with the exception of Christmastide and the Great Forty Days. So, for some thirteen hundred years, this Fifty-first Psalm, in thousands of congregations, was repeated seven times daily. As S. Augustine says-and what small cause had he, compared to ourselves, thus to exclaim— "O most blessed sin of David, so gloriously atoned for! O most happy fault, which has brought in so many straying sheep to the Good Shepherd." And further notice the position of this Psalm as the fiftieth.' The Psalm, then, as the year of jubilee: so they all, those great lights of the Church, Origen, S. Hilary, S. Ambrose, S. Thomas, Cassiodorus, S. Jerome. Compare with this, 'That is, except in the Hebrew: the LXX. and Samaritan, and other almost contemporary versions reckoning it as the Vulgate. as the same saints have done, the law given on the fiftieth day after the people had departed from the land of Egypt; compare the parable of our LORD about the two debtors, the one that owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty, (S. Luke vii. 41 ;) especially remembering the sin of David, which you will, in this Psalm; compare the penalty of fifty shekels of silver inflicted on him who, among the Israelites, had dishonoured a virgin. (Deut. xxii. 28.) Think also of the fifty just men with whom Abraham's petition began, (Gen. xviii. 24;) think of the width of the Ark, fifty cubits, that ark which was to save all those who were saved from the general ruin, (Gen. vi. 15;) further, of the breadth of the tabernacle which Ezekiel in vision beheld and lastly of the freedom of Levites from the servile works of the tabernacle when their fiftieth year had been attained. (Numb. viii. 25.) But above all, the year of jubilee, when all debts were remitted, all manors returned to their original owners, all slaves were liberated, all prisoners were set free,— this, above all other interpretations, sets forth to us the mystery of this glorious fifty, which yet may be worked out, as we shall proceed to see, into many other senses. TITLE: To the chief musician. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the Prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. "Where sin hath abounded, grace did much more abound." For consider how for nearly three thousand years that sin of David, that one momentary glance from the house-top, has given occasion to the enemies of the LORD, in each successive age, to blaspheme, down from the Lucians and Porphyries of primitive times, to the Voltaires and Humes and Paines of our own. And yet, no doubt the encouragement it has given to those who otherwise would have despaired, may be known to the Searcher of all hearts, far to outweigh the mischief and the blasphemy. So S. Augustine said in his time: so S. Bernard taught in his: so the latest of those who have any claim to the title of a me diæval teacher, S. Thomas de Villanova, more than once asserts: so the great schools which have their rise on the one hand from S. Vincent de Paul, on the other from De Hauranne, differing as far as Catholics can possibly differ on the subject, are nevertheless agreed in this. One can only remember S. Augustine's words, with respect to a still sadder fall, and apply them to this: "O sin of Adam, certainly necessary, which merited such and so great a Redeemer." Here, too, we may observe how many theological terms have their first origin in this Psalm. The Kyrie Eleison at the beginning; the clean heart; the broken and contrite heart; the sinner shall be converted; and above all, here is first to be noticed, the first faint foreshadowing of one of the foundation truths of the Catholic faith. Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Never before had the HOLY SPIRIT been made known to the Jewish Church; nor yet again was the Paraclete spoken of to them till Isaiah, now about to conclude his prophecies by his martyrdom, said of the generation in the wilderness: "They rebelled and vexed His HOLY SPIRIT." Then as to the recitation of it. Never has Psalm whether by Priest in Confession, or by Synod in Canon, been so often put into the mouth of Penitents as this. And thus Origen; S. Hilary; S. Ambrose, more especially in his apology for David; Cassiodorus ; S. Jerome ; they all dwell strongly on this point. And again; it has been well observed that there is scarcely one great theological verity which is not in this wonderful Psalm set forth. Here you have-the Incarnation; the calling of the Gentiles; sin, both original and actual; the nature of preaching; grace, both justifying and sanctifying; the Atonement; the Institution of the Church; the Mission of the HOLY GHOST. When Nathan the Prophet came unto him. They enter largely into the various opinions on this seer; some holding with medieval writers that he is the same Nathan |