30 July 2020

Psalms (2)

A Commentary on the Book of the Psalms, Preserving Christian Publications, Boonville, New York 2008, American ISBN 978-0-9802084-4-3, is a fine book which would feed the spirituality of those who wish to benefit from the surface text of the psalms. But, as Bishop Moriarty explained "it omits those portions which are purely philological, or which relate to the discrepancy and reconciliation of texts and versions". And, frankly, what the Archdeacon omitted is the sort of thing I, moi, love getting into.

Does all that 'dry' historical stuff really matter? Let me briefly take Psalm 91 (Vg-LXX) = 92 (MT). Bonum est confiteri, as Anglicans have always called it. There is a rabbinical legend that this was the song of praise uttered by Adam as the first Sabbath dawned upon the world, and that it descended by tradition as the special hymn for that day. Moving into historical time, what we do know is that it was sung in the Temple on the Sabbath at the offering of the Tamid, the first lamb of public sacrifice, in the morning, when the wine offering was poured out and the Breads were offered (Numbers 28). And verse 2 refers to both the morning and the evening sacrifices of the lamb. In the old Breviary, it was still in use on the Sabbath at Lauds because "the Roman Church, amongst other tokens of the poweful Judaizing influence which affected its earliest days, retains it as part of Saturday Lauds". Apparently, rabbinic Judaism still uses it on the Sabbath. And its Sabbath use survived the revision of the Palter under Pope S Pius X. Indeed, even the Liturgy of the Hours retains its use on alternate Sabbaths.

I am aware that not everybody, in their journey of Faith, needs the same props. But I don't see what harm such informations will do to any presbyter or laic as they say Saturday Lauds before setting off up the Hill to the Altar of Sacrifice.

In my second paragraph, I high-lighted one sentence. It was borrowed from A Commentary on the Psalms: from Primitive and Medieval writers; and from the Various Office Books and Hymns of the Roman, Mozarabic, Ambrosian, Greek, Coptic, Armenian and Syriac rites. By The Rev. J.M. Neale, D.D., sometime Warden of Sackville College, East Grinstead, and the Rev. R.F. Littledale, Ll.D., sometime scholar of Trinity College Dublin. 1887.

A ripe product of the scholarship of the second generation of the Catholic Revival in the Church of England (and Ireland). It does what it says on the tin. I doubt if it's still in print ...

13 comments:

william arthurs said...

The first three volumes of Neale and Littledale's Commentary on the Psalms----going up to and including Ps 118----are available as scans on Archive.org.

One of them has the library stamp BIBLIOTECA BODLEIANA.

DMG said...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Commentary-Psalms-Primitive-Mediaeval-Writers-ebook/dp/B07X1TFSWQ

Thorfinn said...

It is available from purveyors of classic reprints of uncertain production quality.

Brian M said...

https://andrewespress.com/neale-commentary-on-the-psalms/

Fr. Yousuf said...

It is available from Lancelot Andrewes Press in Colorado
https://andrewespress.com/neale-commentary-on-the-psalms/
Could we even dare to imagine Lauds in church? In the days of Pius Parsch that was a "Liturgical Movement" thing to do, at least on Sundays, he had Matins said and Lauds sung before Mass.

Stan Metheny said...

Neale is the most valuable commentary I've found for praying the psalms in liturgical context of the Divine Office. It is still available from Lancelot Andrewes Press at this link: https://andrewespress.com/neale-commentary-on-the-psalms/. It is also available as eBook via Kindle or pdf.

Titus said...

Neale's text appears to be available from online retailers in used editions or as a print-on-demand copy generated by caveat-emptor-quality OCR.

Jesse said...

I expect that other readers will have beaten me to this punch, Father. But the Neale and Littledale commentary is very much in print (or at least in print-on-demand):

https://andrewespress.com/neale-commentary-on-the-psalms/

"Moi" (as you would say), I rejoice in two nineteenth-century sets: one for work and one for home. (The first acquired at great expense from a rare books dealer when I was a postdoc, the second from a generous colleague when he retired.)

It's a marvellous work of piety and erudition, and not just for the study of the psalms. The scriptural index has often led me to Patristic and medieval interpretations of other parts of the Bible that I might never have discovered otherwise. And the several "dissertations" (especially the one on the fourfold sense of scripture) are still instructive.

Though am I right in thinking that Neale was misled into treating the "neo-Gallican" liturgies as if they were actually ancient authorities?

Fr Edward said...

Neale and Littledale has been scanned and can be read on google books

Thomas said...

Reverend Neale's Commentary is in fact in print. You can get it from the Lancelot Andrewes Press in Colorado (or at least you could as of a few weeks ago, because that's when I got mine).

E sapelion said...

Volume IV is also available on the Internet Archive
https://archive.org/details/commentaryonpsal04nealuoft

Grant Milburn said...

I found all four volumes at Internet Archive.

Brian M said...

Nashotah House used to offer inexpensive paperback reproductions of fairly decent quality on Amazon; they are no longer listed there, but perhaps the volumes are still for sale in the bookstore.