We continue with St Robert Bellarmine's commentary on Psalm 37, the third in the series of seven Penitential Psalms.
The Latin is reproduced courtesy of the Digital Collection site - UANL and is accompanied by my fairly literal translation. The Scripture excerpts (Douay Rheims/Vulgate) are taken from the DRBO site but the verse numbering follows that of Bellarmine’s Latin text.
Where footnotes are included, the text follows each verse.
Verse 6
I am become miserable, and am bowed down even to the end: I walked sorrowful all the day long.
Miser factus sum et curvatus sum usque in finem; tota die contristatus ingrediebar.
From this corruption David has become miserable and bowed down and he laments. This can be understood in two ways:
firstly as regards the sin and
secondly as regards the punishment. For he who commits grave sins, especially the sin of licentiousness, by this in itself he becomes wretched, because having abandoned God, in whom is our happiness, he is bowed down to the earth and is made like beasts of burden; and, through this, he is miserable, greatly miserable; and this is what is evidently meant by
even to the end, I am so miserable and bowed down that I could not be made more miserable and bowed down, because from the delight of
angels I have stooped to the base pleasures of beasts. This is seen in the Hebrew text where it has
I am miserable and bowed down to the limit. For that reason,
in finem / to the end does not mean
to the end of life or
to the end of time or
in eternity but rather
to the limit of being bowed down, so that I cannot be bowed down any further. In the eighth verse we read: “I am ... humbled exceedingly,” using the same Hebrew word which the Septuagint uses sometimes to mean
even to the end, sometimes to mean
greatly or
exceedingly. It may also be understood of punishment, for he who who commits a sin of licentiousness is made miserable and exceedingly bowed down on account of remorse of conscience, fear of the divine wrath and a humiliating and perplexing sense of shame, so that such a man dare not raise his eyes up to heaven. But each of these ways of understanding can be joined together so that the meaning might be: I am become miserable by the misery of sin and of its punishment, and I am become exceedingly bowed down,
firstly, because the face of my soul, which I should have fixed upon God, I turned to carnal and utterly base desires;
secondly, because, through a sense of shame, I am unable to look up to heaven but, with head lowered and cast down, I feel forced to look upon the ground; and for all these reasons, “I walked sorrowful all the day long,” that is, with a conscience continually gnawing and accusing me, sorrowful and grieving I proceed; for what joy could there be to a miserable man if he acknowledges his own misery?
Verses 7 & 8
For my loins are filled with illusions; and there is no health in my flesh.
Quoniam lumbi mei impleti sunt illusionibus, et non est sanitas in carne mea.
I am afflicted and humbled exceedingly: I roared with the groaning of my heart.
Afflictus sum, et humiliatus sum nimis; rugiebam a gemitu cordis mei.
The Prophet moves from his particular sin to the general corruption which he experienced from the sin of our first parents, from which his own particular sin issued forth as from a fountain-head. And, from this corruption, he says he is afflicted and humiliated, and that he continually groans and roars. “For my loins,” he says, that is, that part which is animal and lust-driven, the restraints of original justice being shaken off, give birth continually to shameful and base desires; and so he is filled with illusions of evil spirits; “and there is no health in my flesh,”because goodness does not dwell therein but rather the evil of various passions, which render his flesh ill. And so “I am afflicted and humbled exceedingly,” because it shames me that I, a man endowed with reason, cannot be free from animal baseness; and so “I roared” because of sorrow, “with the groaning of my heart,” moved to outward roaring and shouting. I know the Rabbis and some of their followers made up I know not what stinking, bodily disease from which David suffered in his private parts; but our holy fathers Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine and Gregory in their commentaries on this text refer these verses to concupiscence of the flesh, so that it might be similar to that of which the Apostle writes in
Romans vii: “ I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin …Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me?” etc.
[1] St Ambrose and St
Augustine write: “
My soul is filled with illusions,” where we read “
My loins are filled with illusions;” But the Greek words for loins and souls differ in only one letter. And so it was easy to corrupt the Greek text because of the similarity of the letters, but nothing of this is found in the Hebrew. And so the the reading is that one which harmonises the Greek and the Latin text.
Illusions, the word we have, seems to mean
shame in Hebrew, and so Jerome translates it, not changing the sense; for he who is filled with shame is exposed to derision. St Jerome has
evigilavi/I have woken up, for
afflictus sum/I am afflicted, but I know not what follows fromthis. For the word we have means
to be weakened in Hebrew; to be weakened and to be afflicted can in fact be taken as having the same meaning.
[1] But I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin, that is in my members. video autem aliam legem in membris meis, repugnantem legi mentis meae, et captivantem me in lege peccati, quae est in membris meis. Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Infelix ego homo, quis me liberabit de corpore mortis hujus? [Rom. Vii. 23-4]
Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam.
No comments:
Post a Comment