Letter to Marcellinus on the Interpretation of the Psalms

Contents

Reading pages: 1–16 · 17–33

1. 1Athanasius praises Marcellinus for studying the Psalms during his illness and promises to pass on what an old man taught him about them.
2. 2Each book of Scripture has its own subject, but the Psalter, like a garden, contains them all in song.
3. 3The Psalms sing of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, and the priesthood, as Psalms 18, 23, 113, 104, 105, and 28 (Greek numbering) show.
4. 4Psalms 106, 19, 125, and 121 (Greek numbering) recall Joshua, Judges, Kingdoms, and the return under Ezra.
5. 5The Psalms foretell the coming of God the Word, begotten of the Father, through whom all things were made.
6. 6The Psalms foretell Christ the anointed King, his becoming man, and his birth from a virgin of David's line.
7. 7The Psalms foretell Christ's sufferings—the plot of the rulers, the piercing of hands and feet, the dividing of his garments—borne for our sake.
8. 8The Psalms foretell Christ's ascension, session at God's right hand, judgment, and the calling of the nations.
9. 9The one Spirit inspires every book, so prophecy, law, history, and song appear in all of them; the Psalter in turn legislates, narrates, and prophesies.
10. 10Unlike the other books, the Psalter portrays the movements of each reader's soul and gives him the very words with which to repent, endure, give thanks, and praise.
11. 11Readers take the words of the patriarchs and prophets as others' words, but the Psalms they speak as their own.
12. 12The Psalms are a mirror in which the singer recognizes his own soul and its movements.
13. 13Christ both taught and lived virtue, giving himself as a pattern; the Psalms likewise give a pattern for every movement of the soul.
14. 14Athanasius classifies the psalms by kind—narrative, prayer, petition, confession, prophecy, praise, thanksgiving, and others.
15. 15Athanasius begins a guide to which psalm to use in each circumstance: blessing, persecution, thanksgiving, morning prayer, fear of God's threat, and conspiracy.
16. 16Further psalms for occasions: praise for salvation, the winepress song, Christ's victory, trust under trouble, refuge from wickedness, and long persecution.
17. 17Psalms for those who hear blasphemy, seek to know the citizen of heaven, are surrounded by enemies, marvel at creation, comfort the afflicted, or dedicate a house.
18. 18Psalms for the persecuted, the newly baptized, common worship, rescue from enemies, rejecting the heretics' claim that evil is natural, warning against envy of the wicked, mercy to the poor, and remembering God's past benefits.
19. 20Psalms for repentance, slander, betrayal, hiding from a persecutor, escape, false friends, hypocrites, flight to the desert, and enemies who lie in wait.
20. 21Psalms for praise, teaching on the resurrection, mercy, the prosperity of the wicked, God's anger, confession, shaming pagans and heretics, distress, the desecration of God's house, and feasts.
21. 22Psalms for when enemies threaten God's house, for longing for his dwelling, for release from captivity, against schisms, for confidence in God, and for the Sabbath and the Lord's day.
22. 23Psalms for the days of the week—Monday, Friday (the day of the cross), Wednesday (the day of betrayal)—and for the rebuilding of God's house, the Lord's reign, instruction, and approach to the Judge.
23. 24Psalms for discouragement, blessing God, praise, faith in prayer, spiritual progress (the Songs of Ascents), repentance after captivity to sinful thoughts, testing, and a tyrant enemy.
24. 25Psalms for blessing God's goodness, for singing to the Lord, for one raised to office among his brethren (the 151st), and for psalms with the Alleluia response.
25. 26The psalms most fully about Christ: his generation, cross, betrayal, kingdom and judgment, resurrection, ascension, and the benefits of his passion.
26. 27The Psalms are sung not for pleasure but so that God is praised with full voice and so that the singer's soul is brought into harmony with itself.
27. 28Melodious psalmody is an image of the harmony of a soul guided by the mind of Christ; the Psalms calm, heal, correct, and strengthen it.
28. 29Psalms must be sung with understanding; then, like David's playing before Saul, they bring the soul into order and calm, as the body's members become strings for the Spirit.
29. 30Every human need is provided for in the Psalms; they should be used in their own words, not embellished, so that the saints and the Spirit who spoke in them may pray with us.
30. 32Those who pray the Psalms will be heard and protected; Scripture itself shows the power of God's words, as with Moses' Song, Deuteronomy in Joshua's and Josiah's days, and the ark of the law.
31. 33The opening words of the last section; the rest is lost in the scan.