THE BOOK OF PSALMS AS THE BOOK OF CHRIST:

A CHRISTO-CANONICAL APPROACH TO

THE BOOK OF PSALMS

Jerry Eugene Shepherd

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of

WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

in Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

1995

Faculty Advisor: Tremper Longman III

Second Faculty Reader: Peter E. Enns

Chairman of the Field Committee: Vern S. Poythress

Librarian: D. G. Hart

To my loving wife Cheryl,

and my three wonderful children,

Jennifer, Joel, and Timothy

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiv

PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii

CHAPTER

PART ONE

THE HISTORY OF MESSIANIC PSALM INTERPRETATION

AND CANONICAL INTERPRETATION . . . . . . 1

1. A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF MESSIANIC OR CHRISTOLOGICAL

INTERPRETATION OF THE PSALMS . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Apostolic Fathers to ca. AD 200

The Alexandrian and Antiochene Schools

to ca. 500

The Alexandrian School

The Antiochene School

Middle Ages to ca. 1500

The Reformation to ca. 1600

Martin Luther John Calvin

Other Reformers

From the Reformation to the Present

"Conservative" Exegesis to the Twentieth

Century

"Liberal" Exegesis to the Twentieth Century

Twentieth Century Developments

The Early History of Religions School

Form Criticism

The Myth and Ritual School

Sensus Plenior

Neo-orthodoxy and the Biblical Theology

Movement

2. THE CANONICAL APPROACH OF BREVARD CHILDS . . . . . 63

A Description of Childs's Approach

Objections to Childs's Approach

1. The Question of Methodology

2. The Question of Definition

3. The Question of Focus

4. The Question of Intentionality

5. The Question of Canonical Plurality

6. The Question of Emphasis

7. The Question of Tradition

8. The Question of the Whole Canon

9. The Question of Confessionalism

10. The Question of Theology

Conclusion

3. THE CANONICAL CRITICISM OF JAMES SANDERS . . . . . . 126

A Description of Sanders's Approach

The Need for Canonical Criticism

The Agenda and Assumptions of Canonical Criticism

Reconstruction of the Canonical Process

Differences with Childs

The Gains of Canonical Criticism

Evaluation of Sanders's Approach

Evaluation of Sanders's Reconstruction

Evaluation of the Assumptions and Gains of

Canonical Criticism

iii

Conclusion

PART TWO

THE CHRISTO-CANONICAL APPROACH . . . . . . 182

4. THE CANONICAL PROCESS APPROACH OF BRUCE

WALTKE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Assessment of Prior Interpretation

A New Proposal

Dependence on, and Distance from, Childs

Similarity to, but Distinction from, Sensus Plenior

Four Convictions

Four Stages

Issues to Be Raised in Regard to Waltke's Canonical

Process Approach

Conclusion

5. THE CHRISTO-CANONICAL APPROACH TO THE OLD

TESTAMENT: CHRIST IS THE CANON ABOVE THE CANON . . . 204

Thesis Number One:

Christ Is Criterion of Canon

Thesis Number Two:

Christ Asserts Himself as Canon by His Spirit

Thesis Number Three:

Christ is Lord over the Whole Canon

Thesis Number Four:

Christ Asserts His Authority in Covenantal Canon

Thesis Number Five:

Christ Has Incarnated Himself in Biblical Canon

Thesis Number Six:

Christ is Lord over Canonical Meaning

Thesis Number Seven:

Christ is Lord over the Canonical Meaning of the Old Testament

Conclusion

6. THE CHRISTO-CANONICAL APPROACH TO THE OLD

TESTAMENT: CHRIST IS LORD OVER THE INTERPRETER . . . 277

Thesis Number Eight:

Christ is Lord over Hermeneutical Methodology

Thesis Number Nine:

Christ is Lord over the Disclosure of Meaning

Thesis Number Ten:

Christ's Canon Is Canonical over All

Scholarly Reconstruction

Thesis Number Eleven:

Christ's Canon Is for Christ's Church

Thesis Number Twelve:

Christ's Canon is Paradigmatically Authoritative

Thesis Number Thirteen:

Christ's Canon Is to Be Interpreted in

the Light of Its Canonical Unity

Thesis Number Fourteen:

Christ's Canon Is a "Fuller Sense"

Conclusion

PART THREE

THE APPLICATION OF THE CHRISTO-CANONICAL

APPROACH TO THE BOOK OF PSALMS. . . . . . 386

7. THE CHRISTO-CANONICAL APPROACH TO THE SHAPE OF

THE BOOK OF PSALMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

The Psalms Superscriptions

The Authorship Ascriptions

The Historical Titles

Earlier Psalter Collections

Earlier Forms of the Psalter

The Elohistic and Yahwistic Psalters

The Five Books

Competing Canonical Psalters?

The Final Shape of the Psalter:

Theological? Canonical? Christological?

Is there a Theological Rationale?

Is the Psalter's Shape Canonical?

Does the Psalter Have a Christological Structure?

8. THE CHRISTO-CANONICAL APPROACH TO THE PSALMS

IN THE CONTEXT OF THE WHOLE CANON . . . . . . . . . . 453

Three Lines of Evidence

Royal Interpretation of the Psalms

Canonical Process

The Intertestamental Period

The Use of the Psalms in the Old Testament

The "Flash Point":

The Use of the Psalms in the New Testament

The Use of Psalm 22 in Hebrews 2:11-13

Suggested Explanations

Septuagint Influence

Philonic Influence

Qumran Influence

Rabbinic Midrash

The "Testimony Book" Hypothesis

Sensus Plenior

The "Redeemer" Myth

Hierophany

Towards a Solution

The Use of Psalm 22 in the New Testament

The Context of Psalm 22:23

New Testament Use of the Context of Isa 8:17-18

Linked Contexts

Other Passages in Which Christ is the Psalmist

Matthew 13:35 (Psalm 78:2)

Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34 (Psalm 22:2)

Luke 23:46 (Psalm 31:6)

John 2:17 (Psalm 69:10)

John 13:18 (Psalm 41:10)

John 15:25 (Psalm 35:19; 69:5)

John 19:24 (Psalm 22:19)

Acts 2:25-28 (Psalm 16:8-11)

Romans 15:3 (Psalm 69:10)

Romans 15:9 (Psalm 18:50 [2 Samuel 22:50])

Romans 15:11 (Psalm 117:1)

Hebrews 10:5-7 (Psalm 40:7-9)

Conclusions

9. THREE MESSIANIC PSALMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533

Psalm 8

Matthew 21:16

Hebrews 2:6-9

Psalm 41

Psalm 41 in the Context of the Book of Psalms

and the Old Testament

vii

bĕliyya al

Intra-Psalter Connections

The Use of Psalm 41 in John 13

Psalm 129

Psalm 129 in its Old Testament Context

Psalm 129 in its New Testament Context

Conclusion

10. IMPLICATIONS OF THE CHRISTO-CANONICAL APPROACH

FOR INTERPRETING THE BOOK OF PSALMS . . . . . . . 590

The Psalms Are to Be Interpreted According

to the New Testament Paradigm

The Psalms Are a Messianic Reservoir

The Psalms Are the Skandalon of the Old Testament

The Psalms Are to Be Prayed

Conclusion

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 608

vii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED

AB Anchor Bible

ALGHJ Arbeiten zur Literatur und Geschichte des

hellenistischen Judentums

ANF The Anti-Nicene Fathers

ANQ Andover Newton Quarterly

AOAT Alter Orient und Altes Testament

ARG Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte

ASTI Annual of the Swedish Theological Institute

ATR Anglican Theological Review

AusBR Australian Biblical Review

AUSS Andrews University Seminary Studies

BA Biblical Archaeologist

BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental

Research

BETL Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum

lovaniensium

Bib Biblica

BibOr Biblica et orientalia

BibRev Bible Review

BibS(N) Biblische Studien (Neukirchen, 1951-)

BJRL Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of

Manchester

BJS Brown Judaic Studies

BSac Bibliotheca Sacra

BT The Bible Translator

BTB Biblical Theology Bulletin

BZAW Beihefte zur ZAW

CBC Cambridge Bible Commentary

CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly

CBQMS Catholic Biblical Quarterly--Monograph Series

CH Church History

CJT Canadian Journal of Theology

ConBNT Coniectanea biblica, New Testament

ConBOT Coniectanea biblica, Old Testament

CQR Church Quarterly Review

CR Critical Review of Books in Religion

CRINT Compendia rerum iudaicarum ad novum testamentum

CTM Concordia Theological Monthly

CurTM Currents in Theology and Mission

DJD Discoveries in the Judaean Desert

ETL Ephemerides theologicae lovanienses

EvQ Evangelical Quarterly

ExpTim Expository Times

FB Forschung zur Bibel

FBBS Facet Books, Biblical Series

HAR Hebrew Annual Review

HBT Horizons in Biblical Theology

HeyJ Heythrop Journal

HNTC Harper's New Testament Commentaries

HTR Harvard Theological Review

HTS Harvard Theological Studies

HUCA Hebrew Union College Annual

IBC Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and

Preaching

IEJ Israel Exploration Journal

IBS Irish Biblical Studies

ICC International Critical Commentary

IDBSup Supplementary volume to Interpreter's Dictionary of

the Bible

Int Interpretation

JAAR Journal of the American Academy of Religion

JBC Jerome Biblical Commentary

JBL Journal of Biblical Literature

JCS Journal of Cuneiform Studies

JETS Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society

JHNES John Hopkins Near Eastern Studies

JJS Journal of Jewish Studies

JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies

JQR Jewish Quarterly Review

JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament

JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

JSOTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament-

Supplement Series

JSS Journal of Semitic Studies

JTS Journal of Theological Studies

MNTC Moffat New Testament Commentary

NCB New Century Bible

Neot Neotestamentica

NICNT New International Commentary on the New Testament

NICOT New International Commentary on the Old Testament

NIGTC The New International Greek Testament Commentary

NovT Novum Testamentum

NovTSup Novum Testamentum, Supplements

NPNF Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers

NTS New Testament Studies

OBO Orbis biblicus et orientalis

Or Orientalia

OTL Old Testament Library

OTS Oudtestamentische Studiën

PTMS Pittsburgh (Princeton) Theological Monograph Series

PSTJ Perkins (School of Theology) Journal

RelS Religious Studies

RelSRev Religious Studies Review

ResQ Restoration Quarterly

RevExp Review and Expositor

RevQ Revue de Qumran

SBLDS Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series

SBLMS Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series

SBLSP Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers

SBLSS Society of Biblical Literature Semeia Studies

SBT Studies in Biblical Theology

SJT Scottish Journal of Theology

SNTSMS Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series

ST Studia Theologica

STDJ Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah

TBT The Bible Today

xii

TD Theology Digest

TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament

TDOT Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament

TS Theological Studies

TToday Theology Today

TU Texte und Untersuchungen

TynBul Tyndale Bulletin

TZ Theologische Zeitschrift

USQR Union Seminary Quarterly Review

VC Vigiliae Christianae

VT Vetus Testamentum

VTSup Vetus Testamentum, Supplements

WBC Word Biblical Commentary

WTJ Westminster Theological Journal

WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament

WW Word and World

ZAW Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft

xiii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There are many to whom I must express my sincerest

appreciation for the help and support I have received during the

work on this dissertation. I wish first of all, to thank my

advisor, Dr. Tremper Longman III, for his constant

encouragement, his invaluable advice, and his friendship. My

gratitude also goes to my second reader, Dr. Peter E. Enns, for

his careful reading of the manuscript and his valuable

suggestions as to how the work could be improved. I owe a

great debt to my external reader, Dr. Patrick D. Miller, Jr., of

Princeton Theological Seminary, both for his encouragement

and for his constructive criticisms which have only helped to

make this a better work.

I also wish to express my gratitude to the other faculty

in the Biblical Department at Westminster Theological

Seminary for all they have done to shape my thinking in the

area of hermeneutics and biblical interpretation: Dr. Richard B.

Gaffin, Jr., Dr. Moisés Silva, Dr. Vern S. Poythress, Dr. Dan

G. McCartney, and Prof. J. Alan Groves. My thanks go out as

well to Dr. Bruce K. Waltke, my initial advisor, now at Regent

College, for the original motivation to write on the Psalms

from a canonical perspective. With sadness, and yet with

xiv

gratefulness, I remember the teaching, encouragement and

friendship of the late Dr. Raymond B. Dillard.

I say thank you to Ms. Donna Conley, Registrar, for her

assistance in the final stages of the dissertation. Thank you also

to various members of the Library staff, Dr. Darryl G. Hart,

Ms. Grace Mullen, and Ms. Jane Patete for all their valuable

assistance.

With special gratitude I acknowledge the congregations

of three churches: Peace Baptist Church in Germanton, North

Carolina; Maple Glen Bible Fellowship Church in Maple Glen,

Pennsylvania; and West Meadows Baptist Church in

Edmonton, Alberta. Without their gracious support, this

dissertation would never have been completed.

I wish also to thank the administration, faculty, and staff

of Edmonton Baptist Seminary (and North American Baptist

College) for all they have done to enable me to complete this

dissertation while serving on their faculty. It is an honor to

work alongside these colleagues.

My greatest debt of gratitude and love is to my dear

wife, Cheryl, for her undying love and for believing in me. She

has earned this degree as much as I have. Thank you for being

my wife and for being there when I needed you. My wonderful

children, Jennifer, Joel, and Timothy, have had to live with

"Dad's dissertation" longer than they should have. Thank you

for the constant joy you bring into my life.

Finally, praise to the Lord who has revealed himself to

in canon and in his Christ. May he be pleased to use this

work for his glory and the god of his Church.

xvi

PREFACE

This dissertation is an investigation into the proper

interpretation of the messianic psalms, with special reference

as to whether the current emphases on canonical analysis can

assist in that process.

Part One investigates the history of messianic psalm

interpretation and the relatively brief history of canonical

analysis and criticism. Chapter 1 is a look at the history of the

messianic exegesis of the Psalms from after the time of the

New Testament to the present. Chapter 2 focuses entirely on

the canonical analysis of Brevard Childs, while chapter 3

examines the canonical criticism of James Sanders.

Part Two deals with the what I have called the

Christocanonical approach to distinguish it from some

approaches that are called canonical, but, which, I will argue,

should not be considered so. Chapter 4 deals with the canonical

process approach of Bruce Waltke, who provided the original

stimulus for the topic of this dissertation. Chapter 5, then,

outlines the theses and assumptions of the Christo-canonical

approach with respect to the nature of canon. Chapter 6

outlines the theses and assumptions of the Christo-canonical

approach with respect to the nature of the interpretive

canonical task.

Part Three applies the approach to the book of Psalms.

Chapter 7 deals with the shape of the Psalter. Chapter 8

xvii

investigates the function of the Psalms in their canonical

context. Chapter 9 applies the findings of the two previous

chapters to three test cases, Psalms 8, 41, and 129. Finally,

chapter 10 briefly outlines some of the implications of the

Christo-canonical approach for reading and understanding the

book of Psalms.

Throughout the dissertation the Hebrew verse

enumeration is used for the Masoretic Text of the book of

Psalms. When reference is made to the Greek text of the

Psalter, the Septuagint enumeration is used. Except for those

places where I felt it was necessary to give a more literal

1978, 1984, International Bible Society and Zondervan Bible

Publishers), has been used.

xviii

PART ONE

THE HISTORY OF MESSIANIC PSALM INTERPRETATION AND

CANONICAL INTERPRETATION

CHAPTER 1

A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF MESSIANIC OR CHRISTOLOGICAL

INTERPRETATION OF THE PSALMS

This survey could begin with the very writing of the

Psalms themselves, for, as I will try to show, there was a

messianic intention present from the very start. This intention

becomes increasingly clearer as the canon grows and becomes

fully developed with the revelation of Jesus Christ and the

completion of the canon of the Old and New Testaments. Also,

this survey could start with the New Testament, for it is

certainly true that the early Church Fathers saw their exegesis

as being of a piece with the apostles (though not canonical, of

course).¹ However, since that is part of the thesis I am trying to

prove, this survey will begin post-canon, that is, from the time

when the canon is complete, though not necessarily well-

defined and recognized. The survey will cover the following

broad areas: Apostolic Fathers to ca. AD 200, the Alexandrian

and Antiochene schools to ca. 500, Middle Ages to ca. 1500,

the Reformation to ca. 1600, and from the Reformation to the

present.

____________________

¹Glenn W. Olsen, "Allegory, Typology and Symbol: The

Sensus Spiritalis. Part Two: Early Church through Origen,"

Communio 4 (1977): 366, 371.

Apostolic Fathers to ca. AD 200

The Old Testament exegesis of the Church in this time

period must be seen in the light of the Church's struggle with

enemies on several different fronts: the military might of the

Roman Empire, Greek philosophy, the anti-Christian polemic of

the Jews,² and heretical tendencies within the Church itself.

Use and exegesis (not necessarily Christological) of the

Psalms served to combat enemies on all these fronts. In

particular, it helped to combat Marcion's attempt to cut the

Church off from the Old Testament, an attempt which the

Fathers rightly recognized would result in cutting off the

very foundation of the Church's argument that Jesus was the

Christ.³ At the same time, it should be remembered that we

____________________

²I believe, however, that William L. Johnson ("Patristic

Use of the Psalms until the Late Third Century" [Ph.D. diss.,

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1982], 3) goes too far

in characterizing the whole of Psalms exegesis in this era as

being "anti-Jewish." The dissertation fails both to define "anti-

Jewish" and to distinguish various levels of opposition to the

Jews and their exegesis. An example of this is as follows (pp.

100-101): "Some anti-Jewish attitudes in the Fathers supported

by the Psalms which have already been referred to and/or

implied can now be noted in summary fashion. The Christian

affirmation of Jesus as the messiah stands as a single but

profound rejection of Judaism's insistence that the messiah was

yet to come. In accounts of his passion, the Fathers habitually

found prophecies in the Psalms which the Jews said were really

references to some Old Testament figure. The Fathers openly

and emphatically pointed out direct participation of the Jews in

the death of Jesus. The Jews were even accused of deleting

parts of the Psalms which made reference to the cross of

Jesus." The problem here is that "Christian affirmation of Jesus

as the messiah" should not be seen as "anti-Jewish" on the

same plane as the other things he mentions.

³Peter R. Ackroyd, "The Old Testament in the Christian

Church," Theology 66 (1963): 51. Ralph L. Smith notes that

"early Christians could continue to use the psalms because they

have no extant Psalms commentaries from this time period, and

that there is no hard evidence that there was a conscious

attempt to find Christ in every psalm.⁴ The Fathers did not

always draw a straight line from a particular psalm to Christ,

nor did they always feel the need to allegorize to "search for

some hidden meaning."⁵ The earliest uses of the Psalms in the

Apostolic Fathers seem to be directed more toward motivation

to good works than for pointing either prophetically or

allegorically to Christ.

Among the Apostolic Fathers, 1 Clement (ca. AD 95) and

Barnabas (ca. AD 100) are the only works that use the Psalms

to any significant degree.⁶ For the most part their use is

parenetic, but they engage in Christological exegesis as well.

An example from each will demonstrate this. Clement

introduces the words of Ps 34:12-20 by putting them in Christ's

mouth: "Now faith in Christ confirms all these things

____________________

reinterpreted them in the light of Christ" ("The Use and

Influence of the Psalter," Southwestern Journal of Theology 27

[1984]: 6).

⁴Raymond E. Brown, "Hermeneutics," JBC, ed. Raymond E.

Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmeyer, and Roland E. Murphy

(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968), 611.

⁵Contra R. D. Richardson, "The Psalms as Christian Prayers

and Praises," ATR 42 (1960): 343.

⁶O. Linton, "Interpretation of the Psalms in the Early Church,"

in Studia Patristica 4, ed. F. L. Cross, TU 79 (Berlin:

Akademie-Verlag, 1961), 146. Johnson notes that even the

Didache, which gives elaborate instructions in regard to several

of the liturgical and ritual functions of the early Church, makes

no reference to the Psalms as a part of these services, nor does

it do any prooftexting from the Psalms ("Patristic Use of the

Psalms," 161-63).

for he himself through the Holy Spirit thus calls us: `Come my

children, listen to me . . ."⁷ Motivation for making Christ the

speaker of this particular psalm could come from the use of v.

21 in John 19:36; yet, interestingly, Clement stops just short of

quoting v. 21 in his rather lengthy citation.

The author of the Epistle of Barnabas, allegorizes to point to

both baptism and the crucifixion in Psalm 1. He introduces his

quotation of Ps 1:3-6 as the words of "another prophet," and

then, after finishing the quotation, says:

Notice how he pointed out the water and the cross together. For

this is what he means: blessed are those who, having set their

hope on the cross, descended into the water, because he speaks

of the reward "in its season"; at that time, he means, I will

repay. But for now what does he say? "The leaves will not

wither." By this he means that every word that comes forth

from your mouth in faith and love will bring conversion and

hope to many.⁸

Among the apologists there is not much use made of the

Psalms except for Justin Martyr (AD 96-166).⁹ Linton

comments on how Justin followed a well-recognized method in

order to make his Christological interpretations. The method

was (1) to over-literalize the language of a particular passage, (2)

____________________

⁷1 Clem. 22. Cited in J. B. Lightfoot and J. R. Harmer, The

Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations of Their

Writings, 2d ed., rev. and ed. Michael W. Holmes (London:

Macmillan, 1891; 2d rev. ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989), 55.

⁸Barn. 11. Cited in Lightfoot and Harmer, Apostolic

Fathers, 305. See also Frederic W. Farrar's comments on this

passage (History of Interpretation [E. P. Dutton, 1886; repr.,

Grand Rapids: Baker, 1961], 169-70).

⁹Linton, "Interpretation of the Psalms in the Early Church,"

147.

to show, based on the over-literalized language, how the

passage in question cannot refer to the "natural subject," (3)

then substitute, or rather, "reintroduce," the correct subject.¹⁰

For example, Justin refers Psalm 22 to Jesus, remarking that

David suffered none of the things mentioned in the psalm.¹¹

Again, in Psalm 24, Justin shows how the gates in vv. 7-10

cannot be the gates of the temple, for they are no longer

existent; they must, therefore, be the doors of heaven. The

King of glory cannot be either Solomon or Hezekiah, for they

were both well-known, and in either case, "it would be absurd

to think, that the guardians of the temple-doors should ask him,

who he was." Nor can the text refer to God, for he has always

been in heaven and has never had an occasion to enter it. "Thus

the text must concern the risen Lord, who enters heaven to sit

on the right hand of God. The scenery is not of earth but is

cosmic. It is the guardians of heaven who do not recognize

Christ in his kenosis."¹²

Another device that Justin used was that of trying to

distinguish the person or prosopon speaking in the passage.

____________________

¹⁰Ibid., 144-47.

¹¹Justin, 1 Apol. 35.6. Quoted in Linton, "Interpretation of the

Psalms," 147.

¹²Linton ("Interpretation of the Psalms," 147-48) paraphrasing

Justin (Apol. 51; Dialog. 36, 85). Linton notes that this is not

far removed from the argumentation used by Peter in Acts 2

regarding Psalm 16. On other early Christian usage of Psalm

24, see Allen Cabaniss, "The Harrowing of Hell, Psalm 24, and

Pliny the Younger: A Note," VC 7 (1953): 65-74; and Alan M.

Cooper, "Ps 24:7-10: Mythology and Exegesis," JBL 102

(1983): 37-60.

That is, it is important to determine whether the prophet is

speaking from himself or "out of person" (apo prosopou).

When it is according to the latter, the psalmists are speaking

"by the divine word which moves them."¹³ We will see this

again in Clement of Alexandria.

Justin also argued with the Jews over textual matters.

Evidently, a Christian interpolation in Psalm 96:10 had added

the words "from the tree [or "cross"]" after the declaration "The

Lord reigns." Several of the Latin Fathers quote the passage

with the interpolation, even though there is only a single extant

Septuagint manuscript that has the addition. Rather than

recognize the addition as an obvious interpolation, Justin

argues with Trypho that the Jews were, in fact, the ones who

had left out the phrase."¹⁴

Irenaeus (AD 135-202), as the father of biblical theology,

stressed the essential unity of the Old Testament and New

Testament and the normativity of New Testament exegesis of

the Old.¹⁵ The Psalms became for him a source of details

regarding Christ's earthly life. He found the virgin birth

prophesied in Ps 85:13 and the memorialization of the virgin

Mary in Ps 45:18 ("I will perpetuate your memory

____________________

¹³Linton, "Interpretation of the Psalms," 147.

¹⁴Noted by Johnson ("Patristic Use of the Psalms," 39-40).

Johnson notes that Tertullian also supports the authenticity of

the phrase and ridicules the Jews for not being able to recognize

the obvious reference of the psalm to Christ.

¹⁵Linton, "Interpretation of the Psalms," 149.

through all generations"; cf. Luke 1:48, "From now on all

generations will call me blessed").¹⁶

Two scholars closely related in their exegesis are Tertullian

(AD 160-220) and his great admirer Cyprian (AD 195228).

Tertullian, like others before him, found details of Christ's life

in the Psalms. Using Ps 22:10 he showed how it had been

prophesied that the Messiah would come forth from the womb

and nurse at his mother's breasts.¹⁷ Everywhere in the Psalms

he could find references to the Lord's passion, and in at least

two different places found in the Psalms conversations between

Jesus and his Father.¹⁸ Cyprian followed his master Tertullian

closely in his exegesis. Indeed, it has been suggested that the

Psalms were as important as the Gospels in forming his

Christology.¹⁹

Three things should be noted at this point. First, as

Donald Juel notes, there is no one method of Scripture

interpretation here that takes precedence over another in

____________________

¹⁶Johnson, "Patristic Use of the Psalms," 32-33.

¹⁷Ibid., 33.

¹⁸Ibid., 14. Interestingly, Max Wilcox ("The Aramaic Targum

to the Psalms," in Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of

Jewish Studies, ed. David Asaaf [Jerusalem: World Union of

Jewish Studies, 1986], 147) has shown how in one of his

messianic interpretations, Tertullian agrees with the Targum to

the Psalms against both the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text.

¹⁹Lars Olav Eriksson, "Come, Children, Listen to Me!": Psalm

34 in the Hebrew Bible and in Early Christian Writings,

ConBOT 32 (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1991), 132 n. 244.

seeing Christ in the Psalms.²⁰ In other words, we are not yet

talking about schools of interpretation. Second, I think it is

important to note that, while these interpretations may seem

allegorical to us, most of the Fathers we have looked at (except

perhaps for the Epistle of Barnabas) were being, at least in

their own eyes, fairly literal in their exegesis. They talked in

terms of prophecy or promise and fulfillment, rather than in

terms of some arbitrary allegorism. I am not denying that they

were allegorical, but rather, that they did not perceive

themselves to be so. And in this, they somewhat unconsciously

practiced and anticipated the exegesis that Faber Stapulensis

(Lefevre D'etaples) consciously articulated in the fifteenth

century.²¹ Third, though it may seem like the opposite may be

the case, it is impossible, as noted before, to prove that these

early Church Fathers tried to find Christ in all the psalms.

Indeed, Justin's attempt to determine the prosopon of the

Psalms seems to show that there was no all-pervasive attempt

to find Christ in "every nook and cranny." But this would

change.

The Alexandrian and Antiochene Schools

to ca. 500

The contrast between Alexandrian and Antiochene exegesis

has been exaggerated. It is true, however, that the contrast

____________________

²⁰Donald Juel, Messianic Exegesis: Christological

Interpretation in Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress,

1988), 139.

²¹See the discussion on Faber later in this chapter.

shows up most sharply in their respective exegeses of the Old

Testament and, most particularly, in the Psalms.

The Alexandrian School

In opposition to the previously named Church Fathers, the

Alexandrians openly embraced Greek philosophy, thought of it

as being of divine origin, and brought its allegorizing technique

into their exegesis.²² The first prominent scholar of this school

was Clement of Alexandria (AD 150-215). While his overall

approach to Old Testament exegesis was allegorical, he did not

always use it indiscriminately. For example, he used the

prosopon argument that we saw earlier in Justin Martyr to

show that Christ must be the speaker in Psalm

16. However, anticipating the concept which was later called

"corporate personality," he regards Christ as speaking not for

himself, but as the representative of the whole people of God

of all time, both Jew and Gentile.²³

Of course, the most prominent scholar of the Alexandrian

school and, to our knowledge, the first Christian commentator

on the Psalms, though the commentary is not extant,²⁴ was

Origen (AD 185-254). There is no doubt that he engaged in

____________________

²²Farrar, History of Interpretation, 183-84.

²³Clement, Strom. 6.6, sec. 49,2-50,1. Cited in Linton,

"Interpretation of the Psalms," 150.

24 Karen Jo Torjesen, Hermeneutical Procedure and Theological

Method in Origen's Exegesis, Patristische Texte und Studien 28

(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1986), 19.

very fanciful and highly arbitrary allegorical exegesis.²⁵ That

he did so, however, exclusive of the historical and grammatical

sense is simply not the case. Though he did tend to relegate the

literal meaning of a passage to a place of value only for the

more simple believer, he made it clear that he thought the

literal sense was important. For example, his exegesis of Psalm

37 is very literal with no real trace of allegory.²⁶ Nor did he

necessarily try to find Christ in every psalm. In one place he

criticizes the Devil for his exegetical blunder in trying to apply

Ps 91:11-12 to Christ. Satan should have known that the

phrase, "He will command his angels concerning you, to guard

you in all your ways," could not be applicable to Christ, for

certainly Christ has no need of protection from angels.²⁷ It

must be admitted, as Linton has pointed out, that this is

certainly not part of any program on Origen's part to delimit

the Christological interpretation of the Psalms.²⁸ We should,

however, notice two things in this example. First, here is at least one

place in the Psalms where Christ is not to be found. Second, he is not

____________________

²⁵For a study of Origen's allegorical exegesis, see R. P. C.

Hanson, Allegory and Event: A Study of the Sources and

Significance of Origen's Interpretation of Scripture (London:

SCM, 1959).

²⁶Torjeson, Hermeneutical Procedure and Theological Method

in Origen's Exegesis, 23.

²⁷Origen, Homily on Luke, 31. Cited in Linton, "Interpretation

of the Psalms," 150-51.

²⁸Linton, "Interpretation of the Psalms," 150-51.

to be found there because, for Origen, the literal meaning

would not allow it. In fact, Origen seems to be using the

method we saw earlier in Justin Martyr's exaggeration of the

literal meaning, demonstration of how the literal meaning

cannot apply to the assumed subject (Christ), and substitution

(or "reintroduction") of the proper subject, in this case, any

righteous and faithful person in general.²⁹

Eusebius of Caesarea (AD 260-340), while not necessarily a

full-blown Alexandrian in his exegesis, engaged in allegorizing

of the Origenistic type. In commenting on Ps

110:7 ("He will drink from a brook beside the way; therefore

he will lift up his head."), he combined Ps 123:4; Matt 26:4;

Phil 2:8; and Eph 1:20, and argued that the brook referred to

the Lord's temptations and cross (the "cup" he drank being the

brook) and his subsequent exaltation from the Father ("lifting

up his head").³⁰

Yet, Eusebius did not find Christ in all the psalms either or

think that the ego of the psalms always had to be Christ. Part of

his reasoning was that there are confessions of sin in many of

the psalms, and these confessions cannot be seen as Christ's,

but are rather to be seen as the confessions

____________________

²⁹Origen also used the prosopon argument we saw in both

Justin and Clement; see R. P. C. Hanson, Allegory and Event, 197-

98.

³⁰Moisés Silva, Has the Church Misread the Bible?: The

History of Interpretation in the Light of Current Issues,

Foundations of Contemporary Interpretation 1 (Grand Rapids:

Zondervan, Academie), 69, citing D. S. Wallace-Hadrill,

Eusebius of Caesarea (London: A. R. Mowbray, 1960), 93.

of the pious who become convicted of their sins. Eusebius is

not always consistent with this line, however. For example, Ps

41:5 has a confession of sin, but v. 10 was cited by Christ in

reference to Judas in John 13:18. In this instance, Eusebius

makes Christ a confessor of sins on our account, on the

principle that the "I" of any psalm must be the same

throughout. The "I" of the psalms is not the same in every

psalm, but once it is established who the "I" is (in this case,

Christ), that person must be the "I" throughout the whole.³¹

The effects of Alexandrian exegesis can be seen in many

others in the next three centuries, whether they should actually be

thought of as being in the Alexandrian "school" or not, but still

with varying views as to the pervasiveness of Christ's presence

in the Psalter. In the fourth century, Hilary of Poitiers (d. AD

368) argues that Christ is the key to the true knowledge of the

book of Psalms, suggesting that this is what is meant in Rev

3:7 when Christ says that he holds the key of David (David here

being not the person, but the Psalter which he was considered as

having authored).³² Ambrose (AD 339-97), who had such a profound

effect on Augustine, said that "the Psalter is the voice of the

____________________

³¹Linton, "Interpretation of the Psalms," 151-52, citing

Eusebius, Demonstration evangelica 10.1, 18, 23.

³²A. K. Squire, "Adam's Song in a Commentary of Hilary of

Poitiers," in Studia Patristica 17/1, ed. Elizabeth Livingstone

(Oxford: Pergamon, 1982), 339.

Church."³³ Jerome, before turning away from Origenistic

allegory, would try to distinguish from the psalm

superscriptions whether Christ or some other was the speaker,

and would even within individual psalms assign one verse to

David, the next to Christ, the next to another, the next to the

individual Christian, the next to the whole Church, and back

and forth.³⁴ Commentators would take care to investigate

whether individual psalms were spoken vox Christi (by Christ),

vox ad Christum (to or about Christ), or both.³⁵ The Songs of

Ascents were turned into songs about Christians ascending to

the heavenly city.³⁶ Jerusalem, Mt. Zion, and the Temple all

became symbols for the Church; in particular, Jerusalem

represented the Church triumphant, and Zion, the Church

militant.³⁷

____________________

³³Henry de Candole, The Christian Use of the Psalms

(London: A. R. Mowbray, 1958), 39.

³⁴Linton, "Interpretation of the Psalms," 154-55; W. F.

Ewbank, "The Spiritual Interpretation of the Psalter," CQR 165

(1964): 429-36; G. W. H. Lampe, "To Gregory the Great,"

Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 2, The West from the

Fathers to the Reformation, ed. G. W. H. Lampe (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1969), 177.

³⁵Klaus Seybold, Introducing the Psalms, trans. R. Graeme

Dunphy (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1990), 220. Massey H.

Shepherd, Jr. notes that these distinctions also became part of

the Church's liturgy (The Psalms in Israel's Worship

[Collegeville , MN: Liturgical, 1976], 35).

³⁶F. Hockey, "Cantica Graduum: The Gradual Psalms in

Patristic Tradition," in Studia Patristica 10, ed. F. L. Cross, TU

107 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1970), 356.

³⁷John M. Neale and Richard F. Littledale, A Commentary on

the Psalms from Primitive and Medieval Writers, 4th ed.

(London: Joseph Masters, n.d.; repr., New York: AMS, 1976), 1.449-50.

Though he is not strictly an Origenist, this is the best place

to discuss the Psalms exegesis of Augustine (AD 354-430), whose

exegesis, though not necessarily his theology, dominated the

hermeneutical course of the Middle Ages. A stumbling-block

preventing Augustine's conversion to Christianity was his

literal approach to the Old Testament which he had adopted

from the Manicheans. But Ambrose taught him to read the Old

Testament spiritually or allegorically, thus lifting the veil from

his eyes and bringing about his conversion. Augustine, using

this allegorical method in his commentary on the Psalms, gave

them the most thoroughly Christological interpretation to that

time.³⁸ As Neale and Littledale remark, "No commentator ever

surpassed S. Augustine in seeing Christ everywhere; `Him

first, Him last, Him midst and without end.'"³⁹ For example,

Augustine saw the sun in Ps 19:5-6, "which is like a

bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion," as a reference to

the virgin birth of Christ: "That is, as a bridegroom when the

Word was made flesh, He found a bridal chamber in the

Virgin's womb."⁴⁰ For Augustine, Ps 3:6, "I lie down

and sleep; I wake again because the Lord sustains me,"

becomes a prophecy of the Lord's death, burial, and

____________________

³⁸Bruce K. Waltke, "A Canonical Process Approach to the

Psalms," in Tradition and Testament: Essays in Honor of Charles

Lee Feinberg, ed. John S. Feinberg and Paul D. Feinberg

(Chicago: Moody, 1981), 4.

³⁹Neale and Littledale, Commentary, 1.77.

⁴⁰Augustine, Expositions on the Book of Psalms, trans. anon.

(Oxford: John Henry Parker; F. and J. Rivington, 1847), 1.135.

resurrection.⁴¹ Sometimes, even Augustine himself seems to

recognize how hard it may be for the reader to recognize Christ

in the Psalm, as he says concerning Psalm 31:

Here then Christ speaketh in the Prophet: I venture to say,

Christ speaketh. The Psalmist will say some things in this

Psalm, which may seem as if they could not apply to Christ, to

that excellency of our Head, and especially to That Word

Which was in the beginning God with God: nor perhaps will

some things here seem to apply to Him in the form a servant,

which form of a servant He took from the Virgin; and yet

Christ speaketh . . .⁴²

It is important to note, however, that Augustine's exegesis was

not just the logical extension of the allegorical method; it was

also combined with the rules of Tyconius⁴³ (late 4th cent.) to

give a new element to Christological interpretation. Up to

Augustine's time, the question had been whose voice was

speaking in any given psalm: was it a voice speaking about

Christ, a voice speaking to Christ, or was it the voice of Christ

himself speaking to the Father? Augustine combined

allegorical exegesis with Tyconius's first rule (concerning the

mystical union Christ and his body) to give a "whole Christ"

interpretation to the Psalter. As Miller says:

It was left to the ingenious hand of Augustine later to

combine all these aspects into one: "The psalm is the

____________________

⁴¹Ibid., 1.11-12.

⁴²Ibid., 1.239. On this passage, see Marvin E. Tate, "The

Interpretation of the Psalms," RevExp 81 (1984): 366.

⁴³ See Pamela Bright, The Book of Rules of Tyconius: Its

Inner Purpose and Logic, Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity

2 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), esp. pp.

61-62; also, Karlfried Froehlich, Biblical Interpretation in the

Early Church (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 104.

voice of the whole Christ, Head and body": Psalmus vox

toitus Christ, capitis et corporis.⁴⁴

Linton's judgment on this significant exegetical advance is

worth quoting here, because it explains, in part, why

Augustine's exegesis (and not that of the Antiochenes to be

discussed below) had such hold over interpretation in the

Middle Ages:

Although it cannot be maintained, that the solution of

Augustine, as to the subject of the Psalms is in any respect

exegetically convincing, it can nevertheless be reasonably said,

that the central problem of the Psalms has reached a definite

stage. For with Augustine's conception of Christus totus the

christological and the parainetical, the dogmatical and the

devotional use of the Psalms--both essential to the Church--are

brought into harmony.⁴⁵

However, there were those who opposed this allegorizing,⁴⁶

for they saw that heretics could use the method too. For

example, the Manicheans used Ps 19:5 (cf. the use by

Augustine mentioned above) as proof that Christ laid aside his

human nature in the sun.⁴⁷ The opponents of allegorical

interpretation were those of the school of Antioch.

____________________

⁴⁴Athanasius Miller, "The Psalms from a Christian

Viewpoint," Worship 31 (1957): 340.

⁴⁵Linton, "Interpretation of the Psalms," 156.

⁴⁶Even among those who generally followed an allegorical

method, there were those, such as Athanasius, who may have turned

somewhat away from it for various reasons; see G. C. Stead, "St.

Athanasius on the Psalms," VC 39 (1985): 76.

⁴⁷Farrar, History of Interpretation, 208 n. 6.

The Antiochene School

Diodore of Tarsus (d. AD 394) is usually regarded as the

founder of the Antiochene school. We have no extant work of

his, though Froehlich is of the opinion that portions of his

commentary on the Psalms may be preserved in an

"eleventhcentury manuscript under the name of Anastasius of

Nicaea."⁴⁸ In his prologue Diodore somewhat anticipates

modern scholarship in his discussion of the order and

arrangement of the Psalms, and the non-authenticity of the

superscriptions.⁴⁹ As regards the interpretation of the Psalms,

Diodore says nothing about type or antitype, but only about

how a psalm may be adapted for many different uses.

Commenting on Psalm 118, he says that it must first be

understood according to its historical context, but that it may

then be understood as fitting the circumstances of those who

come after. He is careful to note, however, that the latter is not

a case of allegory, but simply an adaptation to "many situations

according to the grace of him who gives it power."⁵⁰

The foremost representative of the Antiochene school was

Theodore of Mopsuestia (AD 350-428). Though his commentary

on the Psalms is not extant, we are able to piece together from

both his followers and opponents his exegesis of the Psalter.

____________________

⁴⁸Froehlich, Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church,

21-22.

⁴⁹Ibid., 85.

⁵⁰Ibid., 93.

It is well known that Theodore regarded only four psalms as

messianic (2, 8, 45, and 110). But it must be understood that by

messianic Theodore meant psalms that were actually prophetic

of Christ. He still regarded all the psalms to be Davidic and

believed that they were oracles given to David rather than a

collection of religious devotional poetry or a compilation of

cultically oriented hymns.⁵¹ For Theodore, just as much as for

earlier exegetes, David was a prophet; the difference was that

Theodore considered the period of fulfillment of the prophecy

to extend all the way from the time of David's son Solomon

down to the time of the Maccabees, considering only those four

psalms mentioned above as extending into New Testament

times.⁵² Aside from these four psalms, the New Testament

writers' usage of psalmic passages to refer to Christ was not

because they were predictive of Christ, but because the psalms'

"phraseology and the rich meaning and symbolism contained in

them supported analogous spiritual conditions in Christian

revelation."⁵³ Theodore allowed only a typological

relationship between the literal meaning of Psalm 22

and Christ. He pointed out that the psalm could not in any

way be literally about Christ, for even the second half

of the verse which Christ quoted on the cross

____________________

⁵¹Dimitri Z. Zaharopoulos, Theodore of Mopsuestia on the

Bible: A Study of His Old Testament Exegesis, Theological

Inquiries (New York: Paulist, 1989), 82-83.

⁵²Ibid., 84.

⁵³Ibid., 144-45.

("Why are you so far from helping [saving] me") could only be

uttered by a sinner, and Christ could never speak of his sins.54

His opponents replied that the psalm had to be messianic

because the title of the psalm said that it was "for the end" (eis

to telos, the Septuagint's rendering of lamnassēah, commonly

rendered in most translations today as "for the choir director").

Theodore's reply was that the titles were not always

authentic.⁵⁵

As for the psalms he did consider to be messianic, his

argumentation with respect to Psalm 45 will be sufficient to

show his reasoning. Throughout the commentary he seeks to

establish the "argument" of each psalm.⁵⁶ This argument

consists of establishing what prosopon is to be assigned to

David in each of the psalms. David, being a prophet, wrote the

Psalms with divine guidance and assumed in each one the

prosopon of a future historical figure. In Psalm 45, argues

Theodore, David has adopted the prosopon of Christ and thus

prophesies of the time of his incarnation.⁵⁷ But how does

Theodore know that David is speaking in the person of the

____________________

⁵⁴Ibid., 145-46.

⁵⁵Robert M. Grant with David Tracy, A Short History of the

Interpretation of the Bible, 2d ed. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 66.

⁵⁶Lampe, "To Gregory the Great," 178.

⁵⁷James L. Kugel and Rowan W. Greer, Early Biblical

Interpretation, Library of Early Christianity 3 (Philadelphia:

Westminster, 1986), 188; Joseph W. Trigg, Biblical

Interpretation, Message of the Fathers of the Church 9

(Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1988), 33.

Messiah here? Zaharopoulos's summary of Theodore's

argument explains that

contrary to the current Jewish interpretation which read Psalm

45 as a nuptial song written by David to be sung at Solomon's

wedding, we, the Christian commentators, must maintain that

the imagery is altogether too exalted, and the thought too

peculiar to suit a royal epithalamium song. David, who was

one of the greatest personalities of the Old Testament, could

not have written such a secular song celebrating the marriage

of an earthly king. A literal interpretation of this psalm will

make it look like a joke or mockery. The only way out of this

predicament is to "spiritualize" the whole content of the psalm,

and then interpret it as a prophetic metaphor. The psalm is more than

a love canticle celebrating the sumptuous nuptials of an ancient Israelitic

king; it is written in the prophetic style and spirit. According to Theodore,

it is a prophecy of Christ and his church. Consequently, we need not

bewilder ourselves with fruitless attempts to identify the "king" with

an earthly monarch (Solomon or Hezekiah), and the "queen" with a

mortal princess, but we may at once see our Savior wedded to

his bride, the church, in these adoring words of the psalm.

Prophecy is here clothed with "spiritual metaphor."⁵⁸

Noting Theodore's inconsistency here in allowing a messianic

interpretation for the psalm, Zaharopoulos notes that

the Mopsuestian is neither the first nor the last biblical scholar

who has been forced to compromise his guiding methodology

and basic presuppositions. The esteem in which he held David would

not allow him to accept his hallowed hero as a rhapsodist and entertainer

composing wedding songs. With his emphasis on grammar and literalism,

the secularism of the psalm forced Theodore to sacrifice irrationally his

method of interpretation on the altar of allegory.⁵⁹

This leads me to two final observations about the

Antiochene exegesis. First, as many have pointed out

recently, the difference between the Alexandrian allegoria and

____________________

⁵⁸Zaharopoulos, Theodore of Mopsuestia, 150.

⁵⁹Ibid., 150-51.

the Antiochene theoria has been exaggerated. The

Alexandrians did give attention to the literal interpretation, and

the Antiochenes, their protests notwithstanding, did engage in

allegorical interpretation.⁶⁰ Their theoria was, "for all practical

purposes a close equivalent of Alexandrian allegoria."⁶¹ As

Froehlich says,

At close inspection both allegory and theoria, speak about the

same analogical dynamic Origen so eloquently described: the

biblical text leads the reader upward into spiritual truths that

are not immediately obvious and that provide a fuller

understanding of God's economy of salvation.⁶²

Second, it must be observed here that, no less for the

Antiochenes than for the Alexandrians, allegory was used, not

by choice but by necessity. And the necessity was caused by

the need for relevance. For some, the need was to find

meaning in what seemed to be so many obscure details in

various portions of the Scriptures. For the Alexandrians,

though it is simplistic to say so and does not account for

their entire motivation, the need was to integrate their

scriptural faith with philosophical allegorism. For Theodore,

the need was to account for the presence in the Scriptures of

what seemed to be no more than a secular wedding song.

Indeed, as Silva has pointed out, though working with a

broader definition of allegory than some would allow,

____________________

⁶⁰Silva, Has the Church Misread the Bible? 53.

⁶¹Brown, "Hermeneutics," 612.

⁶²Froehlich, Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church,

20.

"Allegorical interpretations are very difficult to avoid for a

believer who wishes to apply the truth of Scripture to his or her

life"; indeed, "every hour of the day thousands of Christians

allegorize the Scriptures as they seek to find spiritual

guidance."⁶³

No wonder then, that, by and large, it was the Alexandrian

exegetical method that continued into the Middle Ages.

Middle Ages to ca. 1500

It was, indeed, the Alexandrian allegorical method that

dominated the Middle Ages. Until the fourteenth century there

were few proponents of the Antiochene exegesis, at least, few

whose writings have survived. Isidore of Pelusium felt that a

great disservice was done by making the whole Old Testament

refer to Christ, because then the force of passages that really do

refer to Christ are weakened in their apologetic force.⁶⁴

Theodoret (d. 460) propounded Antiochene views for a while,

but then seems to have drawn back, even criticizing Theodore

for being more Jewish than Christian in his exegesis.⁶⁵ Julian

of Aeclanum (d. 454) has left a commentary on the Psalms, but

it is most probably a translation from

____________________

⁶³Silva, Has the Church Misread the Bible? 63, 66.

⁶⁴Lampe, "To Gregory the Great," 178.

⁶⁵Farrar, History of Interpretation, 219; Grant and Tracy, A

Short History, 63.

Theodore's work.⁶⁶ Some of Theodore's teaching on the

Psalms seems to be represented in a manual composed by

Junilius Africanus (ca. 550), Instituta regularia divinae legis.⁶⁷

Finally, Isho'dad of Merv (9th cent.) has an introduction to the

Psalms that defends Antiochene exegesis and refers to

"impious" Origen as the inventor of the art of allegory. The

introduction treats only Psalms 2, 8, 45, and 110 as messianic,

just as Theodore had.⁶⁸

Apart from these few remnants of Antiochene exegesis the

exegetical course of the Middle Ages is dominated by

Alexandrian allegory and by the "four-horse chariot" of John

Cassian (d. 435). Cassian's four senses of Scripture (literal,

allegorical, tropological, and anagogical) more fully fleshed

out the allegorical method.⁶⁹ These four senses of Scripture

were further taken up in the Psalms commentary of Cassiodorus

(490-583) and in numerous medieval commentaries to follow.

The allegory was often highly arbitrary. Farrar makes

mention of one Antonius, Bishop of Florence, who allegorized

the eighth Psalm: "to mean that God put all things

____________________

⁶⁶Raymond E. Brown, "The Sensus Plenior of Sacred

Scripture" (Ph.D. diss., St. Mary's University, 1955), 44-45.

⁶⁷Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages

(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1964), 18;

Grant and Tracy, A Short History, 70.

⁶⁸Zaharopoulos, Theodore of Mopsuestia, 115; Grant and

Tracy, A Short History, 64-65.

⁶⁹Smalley, The Study of the Bible, 38; Brown, "The Sensus

Plenior," 56; Grant and Tracy, A Short History, 85-86.

under the feet of the Pope." The sheep were the Christians, the

oxen were the Jews and heretics, the beasts of the field were

the pagans, and the fish of the sea represented the souls in

purgatory. For Antonius, the statement in Ps 74:13, "You broke

the heads of the monster in the waters," was proof that demons

could be cast out by baptism."⁷⁰

The main vehicles for the exposition of Scripture and, in effect,

Alexandrian exegesis, in the Middle Ages were the catena and

the gloss. These were largely compilations of interpretations

and comments by the Church Fathers and their successors on

various texts of Scripture (in this way bearing some resemblance

to the growth of the Talmud in Judaism).71 There were commentaries

on the Psalms in the Glossa Psalmora, the Magna Glossatura,

and the Glossa Ordinaria. In addition to the catenas and the

glosses, there were the postilla (commentaries that developed

from lectures). All of these perpetuated Alexandrian allegorical

and Christological exegesis. Also, the Psalms were abundantly

used in the Church's liturgy, in which Gregory the Great (540-604),

one of the greatest of allegorizers, had a dominant hand in

____________________

⁷⁰Farrar, History of Interpretation, 297.

⁷¹For more information on the catenas and glosses see Farrar,

History of Interpretation, 249-53; Grant and Tracy, A Short

History, 83-84; Seybold, Introducing the Psalms, 249-50;

Smalley, The Study of the Bible, chap. 2; "The Bible in the

Medieval Schools," in Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 2,

The West from the Fathers to the Reformation, ed. G. W. H.

Lampe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 197-

209; and in the same volume, Dom Jean Leclercq, "From

Gregory the Great to Saint Bernard," 189-197.

formulating. The use of the Psalter in the great Christian

festivals and liturgies helped to secure its Christological

interpretation. Leafblad notes:

It was the tradition to conclude every psalm and versicle

(psalm verse which was used as a complete unit apart from the

context of the entire psalm) with the lesser doxology Gloria

Patri. Its use in this manner set the Psalm within a New

Testament trinitarian framework. Furthermore, it served to

affirm the pre-existence of Christ who is prophetically

portrayed in the psalms. More than a mere gesture, this

dogmatic and apologetic practice served to confirm the

Christological significance of such texts from the Old

Testament . . .⁷²

Before passing on to some of the later exegetes who

began to rediscover the importance of the literal sense, it

would be appropriate to mention briefly the course that Jewish

exegesis began to take in the eleventh to thirteenth

centuries. Judaism, in the face of the Christian proclamation

that Jesus was the Messiah, had tenaciously held on to a

messianic exegesis of the Psalms. There was also in Judaism,

as in Christianity, the parallel development of literal

interpretation (peshat) and a more figurative, mystical

interpretation (derash).⁷³ With Rashi (1040-1105), David Kimhi

____________________

⁷²Bruce H. Leafblad, "The Psalms in Christian Worship,"

Southwestern Journal of Theology 27 (1985): 48; see also

Seybold, Introducing the Psalms, 220; Smalley, The Study of

the Bible, 29; Leclercq, "From Gregory the Great to Saint

Bernard," 189; S. J. P. van Dijk, "The Bible in Liturgical Use,"

in Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 2, The West from the Fathers

to the Reformation, ed. G. W. H. Lampe (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1969), 220-52.

⁷³Erwin I. J. Rosenthal, "The Study of the Bible in Medieval

Judaism," Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 2, The West

from the Fathers to the Reformation, ed. G. W. H. Lampe

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 253-54.

(1160-1235), and Abraham Ibn Ezra (d. 1167), there was a

more persistent insistence in Psalms exegesis on the peshat

versus the derash, in order to counteract Christian allegorical

interpretation. Thus, Psalm 2, traditionally interpreted in

Jewish exegesis of the day of the Messiah, becomes in Jewish

exegesis, at least according to the peshat, a psalm about

David's coronation.⁷⁴ The importance of this exegetical move

on the part of Jewish scholars, for our study, is that for those

Christian scholars who were more apologetically inclined in

their exegesis, there was correspondingly more attention paid

to the literal sense in order to interact with Jewish scholarship

on that level. However, for those who were more concerned

with the life of the Church and the process of edification, there

was correspondingly less attention to the literal sense.⁷⁵

With the founding of the Abbey of St. Victor in 1110,

there was set in motion a recovery of the importance of the

literal sense. Hugh (or Hugo) of St. Victor (d. 1142)

emphasized the literal sense, though still retaining an

____________________

⁷⁴Michael A. Signer, "King/Messiah: Rashi's Exegesis of

Psalm 2," Prooftexts 3 (1983): 273-78.

⁷⁵For more on this subject see Rosenthal, "The Study of the

Bible in Medieval Judaism," 252-79; Signer, "King/Messiah:

Rashi's Exegesis of Psalm 2," 273-78; Uriel Simon, Four

Approaches to the Book of Psalms: From Saadiah Gaon to

Abraham Ibn Ezra, trans. Lenn J. Schramm (Albany: State

University of New York Press, 1991); James S. Preus, From

Shadow to Promise: Old Testament Interpretation from

Augustine to the Young Luther (Cambridge: Belknap Press of

Harvard University Press, 1969), 70; Smalley, The Study of the

Bible, 193.

allegory based on the literal sense.⁷⁶ His exegesis was still

very much Christologically oriented,⁷⁷ though little of it is

extant except for a few devotional notes on a few psalms.⁷⁸

One of his disciples, Andrew of St. Victor (d. 1175),

practically denied any role to allegory at all. His influence is

perhaps best seen in the Psalms commentary of one who was

"almost certainly a pupil of Andrew,"⁷⁹ Herbert of Bosham

(ca. late 12th, early 13th cent.). Herbert declares that he is not

adept at explicating the mystical sense and will try to explain

only the literal or lowest sense of the Psalter.⁸⁰ Yet for each

psalm he also mentions what has been the "traditional,

christological interpretation of each psalm." Smalley notes that

one would think Herbert would be forced to choose, at this

point, in favor of the literal over the traditional. Sometimes he

does, but he is inconsistent. At times he will choose the literal

interpretation in deference to Jewish exegesis. At other times he will

opt for the traditional Christological interpretation, while admitting

____________________

⁷⁶Smalley, The Study of the Bible, chap. 3; Brown, "The

Sensus Plenior," 58-59.

⁷⁷Norbert Lohfink (The Christian Meaning of the Old

Testament, trans. R. A. Wilson [Milwaukee: Bruce, 1968], 51)

quotes him as saying, "The whole divine Scripture is one book,

and this one book is Christ."

⁷⁸Smalley, The Study of the Bible, 97-98.

⁷⁹Ibid., 187.

⁸⁰Ibid., 187-88. My discussion of Herbert's exegesis relies

heavily on Smalley's description (pp. 186-94).

that it is not the literal interpretation. But here, he is almost

surely equivocating on the use of the word "literal," actually

making the literal meaning to be the opposite of the true

meaning.⁸¹ Herbert also interacts with Jewish exegesis,

sometimes siding with Rashi's historical exegesis, sometimes

chastising him for abandoning a traditional Jewish exegesis

and doing so out of hatred for Christians.⁸² Herbert nowhere

gives any one principle by which a messianic psalm may be

distinguished from one that is not. However, he does suggest

that on occasion the Apostle Paul has by his apostolic authority

changed the sense of some Psalms passages in his citation of

them (e.g., Ps 68:19).

In the thirteenth century, with the rediscovery of

Aristotle, the importance of the literal sense as the

foundation for all the other senses and as the only true basis

for theological work was emphasized by Thomas Aquinas (1225-

74). He did not at all deny the allegorical or spiritual

sense, but held that this spiritual sense was limited in its

____________________

⁸¹See Smalley's discussion of his exegesis of Psalm 64 (The

Study of the Bible, 192-93). S. B. Frost also notes that Herbert

considered the lowest sense of the Psalter to be Christological

("The Christian Interpretations of the Psalms," CJT 5 [1959]:

27).

⁸²Smalley (The Study of the Bible, 193) further says regarding

Herbert's interaction with Rashi, "In a lively piece of historical

reconstruction, he argues that the Jewish people contemporary

with Christ must have been accustomed to hear the psalms

interpreted as messianic prophecies; otherwise the apostles

would never have gained a hearing when they applied these

prophecies to Christ in their preaching." I will try to show later

that this is not as reconstructive as Smalley suggests.

usefulness to edification and could not be used

apologetically.⁸³ There is some disagreement over whether

this spiritual sense was, in fact, a "second" literal sense.⁸⁴ This

carried over into the fourteenth century and the work of

Nicholas of Lyra (d. 1349) who, however, does indeed suggest

that a passage of Scripture may have two literal senses. There

was, on the one hand, the literal sense of the human author, and

then on the other, the "true" literal sense of the divine author.⁸⁵

He was in touch with the Jewish scholarship of his day, and

being "the best equipped scholar of the Middle Ages,"⁸⁶ he

interpreted the Psalms according to the "historical" literal

sense. But he was also a Christian who wanted to make the

Psalms relevant to the Christian life, therefore he also

interpreted each psalm according to the "spiritual" literal

sense. Even though Nicholas is best remembered for his

emphasis on the human author's "historical" literal sense,

Preus notes that no one has pointed out (i.e., as of 1969)

that his designation of the spiritual sense as a second

literal sense, actually opened the way for a renewed

____________________

⁸³Smalley, "The Bible in the Medieval Schools," 215-16.

⁸⁴Contrast Grant and Tracy (A Short History, 88-89) with

Scott Hendrix ("Luther Against the Background of the History

of Biblical Interpretation," Int 37 [1983]: 232).

⁸⁵Hendrix, "Luther Against the Background," 232.

⁸⁶Heiko A. Oberman, Forerunners of the Reformation: The

Shape of Late Medieval Thought Illustrated by Key Documents,

translation of documents by Paul L. Nyhus (New York: Holt,

Rinehart, & Winston, 1966), 286.

emphasis on spiritual interpretation and abandonment of the

historical sense. Preus writes:

For the first time in literature, a New Testament reading

of an Old Testament passage is dignified with the label

"literal," and arguments are brought forward to defend it.

Given Lyra's authority in the years that followed, it

would now be easy for someone simply to dispense

with the first of these literal senses (historical) in favor of the

more edifying second "literal" sense. The near-suffocation of

the historical-literal meaning, about which Lyra complained,

would now be able to proceed, armed with the apparent

authority of Augustine, Thomas, and the foremost champion of

historical exegesis in the late Middle Ages.⁸⁷

Preus then gives an example of how Nicholas interprets

Psalm 2 literally in regard to the original historical situation, but

then goes on to say that he, in accord with "the doctrine of the

apostles and the saying of the ancient Hebrew doctors, will

explain this psalm as being literally about Christ."⁸⁸ For

Nicholas, this spiritual literal sense does not always result in a

psalm being considered messianic, but it does open the way for

it in those who follow. Thus, unwittingly, Nicholas set in

motion a reversion to the elevation of the spiritual sense above

what was traditionally called the literal sense.

Paul of Burgos (d. 1435) follows Nicholas's discussion

to a degree, but wants to find more of a grammatical or

historical connection that ties the spiritual sense to the

literal sense. So, for instance, that the New Testament

____________________

⁸⁷Preus, From Shadow to Promise, 69.

⁸⁸Ibid., 70 (emphasis Preus's).

quotes Psalm 2 in reference to Christ is not sufficient. Rather, it

is the grammatical fact that the son in Psalm 2 is addressed in

the singular and therefore can apply to only one person, and

that person must be Christ, that secures the Christological

interpretation. Also, with this line of interpretation, Paul seeks

to make this literal Christological interpretation serve an

apologetic function. Thus, he faults the Jews, not for their

inability "to discern the spiritual senses," but because they have

a "false understanding of the literal sense."⁸⁹

James (Jacobus) Perez of Valencia (d. 1490) argues seemingly

against Nicholas and Paul when he holds that the spiritual

sense is valid for theological (i.e., doctrinal) and apologetic

proof and seeks to discard the literal sense altogether. For him,

the Old Testament has theological value only as it is

understood to be about Christ. His commentary on the Psalms

is particularly Christological, though he may arrive at a Christ-

centered interpretation by one of two routes: either by promise

and fulfillment, or by allegorical or spiritual interpretation.⁹⁰

The last interpreter to be considered in this section is

Jacobus Faber Stapulensis (or Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples;

d. 1536). His commentary on the Psalms was published in 1509,

____________________

⁸⁹Ibid., 86-97.

⁹⁰See the discussion of Perez in Preus, From Shadow to

Promise, 102-116.

just four years before Luther began his first lectures on the

Psalms in 1513.⁹¹ Faber, in essence, says, "enough of all this

foolishness" and simplifies the entire discussion by putting

forth what he considers to be the one literal sense, which

encompasses both the meaning of the divine author and that of

the prophet.⁹² Nicholas had suggested two literal senses; Perez

had for all practical purposes abandoned the historical literal

sense; now Faber says: the spiritual sense is the literal sense,

and there is no other sense. The only "valid" sense is the

"prophetic literal sense or the New Testament literal sense. The

intention of the prophet is identical to the intention of the Holy

Spirit, who speaks through him."⁹³ For Faber, it is a "tragic,

un-Christian confusion that calls the literal sense `that which

makes David an historian rather than a prophet.'"⁹⁴ The

historical sense is practically entirely discounted:

The actual intention of the psalmist (that is, David throughout),

and the "autobiographical" confession arising out of that

situation, have nothing to do with the proper interpretation of

the Psalms. In fact, Faber opposes to that history David's claim

of having been a mouthpiece of the spirit. One could scarcely

remove himself more decisively from the sphere of historical

exegesis.⁹⁵

____________________

⁹¹Oberman, Forerunners, 286-87.

⁹²Ibid., 287; Preus, From Shadow to Promise, 137-38.

⁹³Oberman, Forerunners, 287.

⁹⁴Cited in R. Gerald Hobbs, "How Firm a Foundation: Martin

Bucer's Historical Exegesis of the Psalms," CH 53 (1984): 486.

⁹⁵Preus, From Shadow to Promise, 138.

As Preus states, Faber "has taken what seems to be the shortest,

least arduous route to an altogether christological exegesis of

the Psalms."⁹⁶ However, as Preus goes on to state, the cost

was a high one, for doctrine, history, and the literal sense were

all sacrificed in the process.⁹⁷ It was left for the Reformation

to recover the losses.

The Reformation to ca. 1600

In this section, we will look at Martin Luther and John Calvin

in particular, and just briefly at a few other Reformers.

Martin Luther

Before he nailed the ninety-five theses to the church door at

Wittenburg on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther (14831546)

was an exegete of the Psalms. In August 1513 he began a

lecture series on the Psalms that only concluded in October

1515. From the outset, he exegeted the Psalms as being

literally about Christ. This can be seen by comments on various

psalms in the preface to these lectures.⁹⁸ Regarding Psalm 1 he

says, "Literally this means that the Lord Jesus made no

concessions to the design of the Jews and of the evil and

adulterous age that existed in His time." For the second

____________________

⁹⁶Ibid., 142.

⁹⁷Ibid.

⁹⁸Luther's Works, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan, vol. 10, First

Lectures on the Psalms I: Psalms 1-75, ed. Hilton C. Oswald,

trans. Herbert J. A. Bouman (St. Louis: Concordia, 1974), 7.

Psalm he says, "Literally this refers to the raging of the Jews

and Gentiles against Christ during His suffering." And

regarding Psalm 3 he says, "This is literally Christ's complaint

concerning the Jews, His enemies." His justification for this is

that "every prophecy and every prophet must be understood as

referring to Christ the Lord, except where it is clear from plain

words that someone else is spoken of."⁹⁹ Even of the first

penitential psalm, Psalm 6, Luther says, "this whole psalm is

like raging fire and the most impatient zeal erupting from the

heart of Christ."¹⁰⁰ And of another penitential psalm, Psalm

38, Luther says that it must be understood literally concerning

Jesus Christ. In v. 5 where the psalmist says, "my iniquities

have gone over my head," Luther declares that it must be

understood that, "in the first place, they went over the head in

the case of Christ with respect to punishment, but not with

respect to conscience."¹⁰¹

His scheme, at least in the early part of these

lectures, is to give first the literal sense of each psalm as

it refers to Christ, then to give the allegorical sense as it

refers to the Church, and then to give the tropological sense

as it refers to the individual Christian. For the most part,

____________________

⁹⁹Ibid., 10.7

¹⁰⁰Ibid., 10.78.

¹⁰¹Ibid., 10.177.

he ignored the anagogical sense.¹⁰² Also, contributing to

Luther's Christological exegesis is what Steinmetz has called

the caput-corpus-membra schema:

All Scripture is written concerning Christ. Because of the

union of Christ and the Church as caput et corpus, whatever is

spoken prophetically concerning Christ is at the same time

(simul) posited of the Church His body and of every member in

it.¹⁰³

However, during the course of the lectures, there seems to be a

shift away from this three or four senses of Scripture scheme,

along with a less and less explicitly literal-Christological

explanation of each psalm. Preus's explanation for this is that

Luther has turned away from the Stapulensis and Perez type of

christologizing and despite his apparent dislike, in the first part

of the commentary, for Nicholas of Lyra's "judaizing"

exegesis, he has in fact come round to Lyra in the end.¹⁰⁴

Preus believes that Luther's hermeneutic, whereby the Old

Testament must be interpreted by the New Testament,

and the literal meaning of the Old Testament was only

what the New Testament interpreted it to be, was one that

____________________

¹⁰²Hendrix, "Luther Against the Background," 230. However,

David C. Steinmetz feels that this non-emphasis in individual

psalms on the anagogical sense was due to the overall

eschatological orientation of the commentary (Luther and

Staupitz: An Essay in the Intellectual Origins of the Protestant

Reformation, Duke Monographs in Medieval and Renaissance

Studies 4 [Durham: Duke University Press, 1980], 60).

¹⁰³David C. Steinmetz, "Hermeneutics and Old Testament

Interpretation in Staupitz and the Young Luther," ARG 70

(1979): 55.

¹⁰⁴Preus, From Shadow to Promise, 268-69.

left the Old Testament without any theological content.¹⁰⁵ But

as Luther continued his lectures he began to have more of an

appreciation for the "faithful synagogue" of the Old

Testament, and then he finally "discovered that the Old

Testament faith and religion were so much like his own that

they could become exemplary for his own faith, and for the

Church's self-understanding."¹⁰⁶ Preus theorizes that Luther

gradually came to an appreciation of Old Testament faith:

In his first course as a professor of Bible, Luther's task was to

provide an interpretation of his text that would be both learned

and edifying for his Christian audience. Although the text was

an Old Testament book, his first response was to abandon it, in

effect, in favor of the New Testament. He outdid the whole

tradition, from Augustine to Faber, both in his christological

interpretation and in setting up an opposition between the

"historical" sense and his "prophetic" interpretation. As he was

at length to discover, however, he could not carry through this

plan and at the same time do justice to the Old Testament text,

for "all its goods" were not in present grace and spirit, but in

future "words and promises." When Luther awakened to this

fact and began hearing the testimony of pre-advent Israel, the

result was not only the theological recovery of the Old

Testament but the eloquent first themes of an emerging

Reformation theology.¹⁰⁷

In essence, Preus is suggesting that Luther's

Christological interpretation of the psalms in the early part

of his lecture course is what kept him from coming to the full

realization of the doctrine of justification by faith.

Preus's theory has not gone unchallenged,¹⁰⁸ and I do not

____________________

¹⁰⁵Ibid., 147-53.

¹⁰⁶Ibid., 166.

¹⁰⁷Ibid., 267.

¹⁰⁸See Gordon Rupp's review of Preus's book in JTS n.s. 23

believe that Luther's Christological exegesis was at all responsible for

hindering his discovery of justification by faith (though this may be

the case with the allegorical exegesis). Yet, one thing is certainly true:

though Preus may have exaggerated just how pronounced the change

is within the confines of the two-year lecture series in the Dictata super

Psalterium, there is no doubt that a change did occur between this first

lecture series and the next which began in 1518. Notice his different

perspective as disclosed in the preface to the publication of those lectures:

At the urging and insistence of my fine students I am

expounding the Psalter for the second time in your [Frederick]

Wittenburg . . . As I expound it, I do not want anyone to

suppose that I shall accomplish what none of the most holy and

learned theologians have ever accomplished before, namely, to

understand and teach the correct meaning of the Psalter in all

its particulars. It is enough to have understood some of the

psalms, and those only in part. The Spirit reserves much for

Himself, so that we may always remain His pupils. There is

much that He reveals only to lure us on, much that He gives

only to stir us up. And as Augustine has put it so clearly, if no

human being has ever spoken in such a way that everyone

understood him in all particulars, how much more is it true that

the Holy Spirit alone has an understanding of all His own

words! Therefore I must openly admit that I do not know

whether I have the accurate interpretation of the psalms or not,

though I do not doubt that the one I set forth is an orthodox

one. For everything that blessed Augustine, Jerome, Athanasius,

Hilary, Cassiodorus, and others assembled in their expositions

of the Psalter was also quite orthodox, but very far removed from

the literal sense. For that matter, this second exposition of mine

is vastly different from the first. There is no book in the

____________________

(1972): 276-78; Scott H. Hendrix, Ecclesia in Via:

Ecclesiological Developments in the Medieval Psalms

Exegesis and the "Dictata super Psalterium" of Martin Luther,

Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought 8 (Leiden: E. J.

Brill, 1974), esp. pp. 263-82; Steinmetz, "Hermeneutics and

Old Testament Interpretation," 26 n. 14.

Bible to which I have devoted as much labor as to the

Psalter.¹⁰⁹

In essence, Luther, humbly but decisively, turns his

back on allegorical exegesis, and it shows in his commentaries

on the Psalms. Now, for Luther, Psalm 1 is about the "personal

blessedness" that "is common to all men."¹¹⁰ In a preface to a

commentary on the penitential psalms he states that in his first

commentary on the Psalms he "often missed the meaning of the

text," and then goes on to exegete Psalm 6 as referring to any

penitent who is contrite over his sins.¹¹¹ Psalm 38, of which

Luther had said that it must be understood literally about

Christ, is now to be understood as portraying "most clearly the

manner, words, acts, thoughts, and gestures of a truly penitent

heart."¹¹² The prophetic-Christological interpretation is still to

be found, particularly in Psalms 2, 8, 19, 45, 68, 109, 110, 117, and

parts of Psalm 118.¹¹³ For example, in regard to Psalm 109, Luther

says that "David composed this psalm about Jesus Christ, who speaks

the entire psalm in the first person about Judas, his betrayer, and

____________________

¹⁰⁹Luther's Works, vol. 14, Selected Psalms III, ed. Jaroslav

Pelikan, 284-85.

¹¹⁰Ibid., 14.287.

¹¹¹Ibid., 14.140.

¹¹²Ibid., 14.156.

¹¹³Luther's Works, 12.1-93, 97-136, 137-44, 195-300; 13.1-

37, 227-348; 14.1-39, 41-106, 257-77, 313-49.

against Judaism as a whole, describing their ultimate fate."¹¹⁴

But the difference is that now Luther christologizes only when

led to do so by reason of New Testament citation or the

recognition of what appears to be the purely prophetic. Christ

is not to be found in allegory, but in promise and the belief of

the Old Testament faithful in that promise. Luther was not

entirely consistent and still occasionally engaged in allegorical

exegesis.¹¹⁵ But for the most part, the literal meaning of the

text now carries the day, though the New Testament had

priority in determining what that literal meaning was.

What caused this change in Luther's approach? Some have

attributed it to a closer attention to the Hebrew text. When he

started the original lectures in 1513 he was not that proficient

in Hebrew. But during the years 1515-18 he studied Hebrew

more intensely in preparation for future lectures on the

Psalter.¹¹⁶ Luther himself referred to his new attention

____________________

¹¹⁴Luther's Works, 14.257.

¹¹⁵Though some have seen allegory where it does not exist;

e.g., Ronald Hals says that Luther "unashamedly allegorizes"

the "day [of Ps 118:24] as the time of the New Testament

("Psalm 118," Int 37 [1983]: 278). However, I do not believe

that this is an example of allegorizing, but rather a case of

following an exegetical track begun by Christ himself (Matt

21:42; Mark 12:1011; Luke 20:17; Acts 4:11; Eph 2:20; 1 Pet

2:7).

¹¹⁶Scott H. Hendrix, "The Authority of Scripture at Work:

Luther's Exegesis of the Psalms," in Encounters with Luther,

vol. 2, ed. Eric W. Gritsch (Gettysburg: Institute for Luther

Studies, Luther Theological Seminary, 1982), 150-52; see also James

A. Sanders, "Hebrew Bible and Old Testament: Textual Criticism

in Service of Biblical Studies," in Hebrew Bible or Old Testament:

Studying the Bible in Judaism and Christianity, ed. Roger Brooks

to the Hebrew text as "theological philology."¹¹⁷ Certainly

this was one factor. Preus, as already mentioned, attributes the

change to Luther's new appreciation for the expectant faith of

the Old Testament saints and to his new found ability to relate

both the despair and the hope of the Old Testament saints to

what was happening in the depths of his own soul; or, in other

words, Luther found that he could identify with the Old

Testament saints themselves, without having to do so through

the prism of the New Testament. In his developing doctrine of

justification by faith, he was able to identify with the Old

Testament faithful without first having to identify with Christ.

I believe there is a measure of truth here, though I would want to

modify Preus's theory to some extent. That modification will

be examined in the last chapter.

John Calvin

John Calvin (1509-64) has been called "the first

scientific interpreter in the history of the Christian

Church."¹¹⁸ He was certainly, up to his time, the most

judicious. In his commentary on the Psalms, as far as I can

____________________

and John J. Collins, Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity 5

(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 44.

¹¹⁷Hendrix, "Luther Against the Background," 232; "The

Authority of Scripture at Work," 150-51.

¹¹⁸K. Fullerton, Prophecy and Authority, 81, cited in Bernard

Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation: A Textbook of

Hermeneutics, 3d ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1970), 57.

tell, only Psalm 110 in its entirety is applied directly and

literally to Christ, though many other psalms are seen as

typologically referring to Christ. All the psalms, except for

Psalm 110, have their literal meaning in the life of David or

Solomon or whoever the author of the particular psalm was.

Calvin believes in only one literal meaning of the text, but with

either prophetic or typological applications to the life of Christ.

For example, Psalm 2 is applied first of all to the reign of

David, but Calvin says, "All this was typical, and contains a

prophecy concerning the future kingdom of Christ."¹¹⁹

Sometimes, Calvin recognizes the Christological nature of a

psalm because the psalm, hyperbolically, goes beyond what

can be said of David, as is the case with Ps 16:10.¹²⁰ At the heart

of Calvin's hermeneutic in the Psalms, however, is what we

also saw in Luther, the solidarity of Christ and his members.¹²¹

A good example of this is Calvin's remarks regarding the New

Testament use of Psalm 40:

There still remains another difficulty with this passage. The

Apostle, in Heb. x. 5, seems to wrest this place, when

____________________

¹¹⁹John Calvin, Joshua and the Psalms, trans. Henry

Beveridge (repr., Grand Rapids: Associated, n.d.), 125.

¹²⁰Ibid., 216-24.

¹²¹As S. H. Russell ("Calvin and the Messianic Interpretation

of the Psalms," SJT 21 [1968]: 42) notes: "It is clear, therefore,

that the master-key of Calvin's exegesis of the messianic

elements in the Psalms is the solidarity of Christ and His

members both before and after the incarnation." See also James

L. Mays, "Calvin's Commentary on the Psalms: The Preface as

Introduction," in John Calvin and the Church: A Prism of

Reform, ed. Timothy George (Louisville: Westminster/John

Knox, 1990), 202.

he restricts what is spoken of all the elect to Christ alone, and

expressly contends that the sacrifices of the Law, which David

says are not agreeable to God in comparison of the obedience

of the heart, are abrogated; and when quoting rather the words

of the Septuagint than those of the prophet, he infers from them

more than David intended to teach. As to his restricting this

passage to the person of Christ, the solution is easy. David did

not speak in his name only, but has shown in general what

belongs to all the children of God. But when bringing into view

the whole body of the Church, it was necessary that he should

refer us to the head itself. It is no objection that David soon

after imputes to his own sins the miseries which he endures; for

it is by no means an uncommon thing to find our errors, by a

mode of expression not strictly correct, transferred to Christ.¹²²

Also, as in the case of Luther, there was, I believe, a

proper recognition of the faith of the Old Testament and an

identification of Calvin with the Old Testament saint, a

recognition that stands behind Calvin's oft-quoted sentences:

I have been accustomed to call this book, I think not

inappropriately, "An Anatomy of all the Parts of the Soul;" for

there is not an emotion of which any one can be conscious that

is not here represented as in a mirror. Or rather, the Holy Spirit

has here drawn to the life all the griefs, sorrows, fears, doubt,

hopes, cares, perplexities, in short, all the distracting emotions

with which the mind of men are wont to be agitated.¹²³

The question that needs to be asked, however, even as in

the case of Luther, is what effect this identification with

the Old Testament faithful had on Calvin's Christological

interpretation. Does Preus's theory, that this recognition by

Luther caused him to downplay his Christological exegesis,

apply to Calvin as well? Did the discovery of the doctrine of

justification by faith take away a Christological element from

____________________

¹²²Calvin, Psalms, 437.

¹²³Ibid., 115-16.

Calvin's exegesis? Perhaps in one way it did, but in another

way, no, as Thomas F. Torrance remarks:

It was this [doctrine of justification by faith] that led Calvin, as

it had led Luther, toward such a clear grasp of the essential

method we must adopt in interpretation and exposition if we

are to be faithful to the actual matter of the Scriptures in their

witness to Jesus Christ. Justification by grace alone calls a man

so radically into question that he must be stripped of himself,

and therefore in all knowing and interpreting he must work

from a centre in Christ and not in himself.¹²⁴

This is hard to understand. How did the doctrine of

justification by faith result in a hermeneutic in which Calvin

worked from a Christological center, and yet departed so

radically from the Christological exegesis that went before?

And is the same thing necessary for us today? Again, I will

attempt to answer this question in the last chapter.

Other Reformers

Like Luther and Calvin, most of the other reformers of the

sixteenth century gave more attention to the Hebraica Veritas,

and along with it, the literal-historical interpretation of the

Scriptures.¹²⁵ There was some carry-over from medieval

allegorical exegesis, but for the most part the trend was to

prepare for the Christological interpretation by

____________________

¹²⁴Thomas F. Torrance, The Hermeneutics of John Calvin,

Monograph Supplements to SJT (Edinburgh: Sottish Academic

Press, 1988), 158.

¹²⁵R. Gerald Hobbs, "Hebraica Veritas and Traditio

Apostolica: Saint Paul and the Interpretation of the Psalms in

the Sixteenth Century," in The Bible and the Sixteenth

Century, ed. David C. Steinmetz, Duke Monographs in

Medieval and Renaissance Studies 11 (Durham: Duke

University Press, 1990), 83-99.

laying a solid foundation in the historical meaning of the text,

as evidenced in the Psalms commentaries of Zwingli and

Bucer.¹²⁶ There was always the threat that a strict historical

interpretation might exclude a Christological interpretation

altogether, and it actually happened in the case of the heretic

Servetus.¹²⁷ But for the most part, the recovery of the literal

historical-grammatical interpretation resulted in a

Christological interpretation which was limited to either a

prophecy in those cases where the New Testament called for

such an interpretation, or to typology where there was the

recognition that the language of the psalm seemed to go

beyond the earthly Davidic king. This was the trend that would

continue among conservative Christian scholars right up to the

present.

From the Reformation to the Present

This section will give a broad, sweeping

characterization of Psalms exegesis up to the twentieth

____________________

¹²⁶R. Gerald Hobbs, "How Firm a Foundation: Martin Bucer's

Historical Exegesis of the Psalms," CH 53 (1984): 477-91;

"Martin Bucer on Psalm 22: A Study in the Application of

Rabbinic Exegesis by a Christian Hebraist," in Histoire de

l'exegese au XVIe siecle, ed. Olivier Fatio and Pierre Fraenkel,

Etudes de Philologie et D'Histoire 34 (Geneva: Librairie Droz

S.A., 1978), 144-63.

¹²⁷Servetus even considered Psalm 110 to refer exclusively to

David and his son Solomon. See Jerome Friedman, "Servetus

on the Psalms: The Exegesis of History," in Histoire de

l'exegese au XVIe siecle, ed. Olivier Fatio and Pierre Fraenkel,

Etudes de Philologie et D'Histoire 34 (Geneva: Librairie Droz

S.A., 1978), 164-78.

century, while focusing more narrowly on some significant

twentieth century developments.

"Conservative" Exegesis to the Twentieth Century

Among Catholic scholars during this time, there was

always maintained, at least in theory, the dual sense of Scripture,

literal and spiritual.¹²⁸ There were of course those who

maintained the importance of the literal sense, and even those

who were engaged in textual and "higher" criticism.¹²⁹ But the

spiritual sense of the text was always presumed to be there.

In conservative Protestantism, allegorical became, more

or less, a thing of the past (except for some of the more pietistic

movements). Christ was present in the Old Testament in

typology, and he was present in prophecy. For the psalms, this

meant that David had to be upheld as type, prophet, and author.

Davidic authorship of the psalms was seen as necessary, not

only for the ones attributed to him in the superscriptions, but,

of course, those assigned to him by the New Testament. David

had, at least in some measure, to be regarded as a prophet,

for the New Testament so regarded him (Acts 2:30). And

for those psalms where there was recognition that the

setting of the psalm was one in the life of David,

____________________

¹²⁸Brown, "The Sensus Plenior," 64-65.

¹²⁹Emil G. Kraeling, The Old Testament Since the

Reformation (Harper & Row, 1955; repr., New York:

Schocken, 1969), 43.

but there was language in the psalm that seemed either to

resemble or foreshadow events in Christ's life, David had to be

upheld as type. Along with this, of course, it was important to

date, at least the psalms attributed to David, to the time period

of his reign. Consequently, the dating of a psalm became a very

important part of its meaning and interpretation.

With David playing the dual role of author/prophet and type, it

became necessary to try to delineate just where in the psalms

David played these roles. Thus, more sophistication was

needed in putting whole psalms or parts of psalms into

categories. Some scholars, such as E. W. Hengstenberg

regarded all the messianic psalms as being prophetic, and

simply divided them into psalms predictive of the Messiah's

sufferings or predictive of his glories.¹³⁰ Other scholars

divided the messianic psalms into various classes. Franz

Delitzsch used five main categories: typical, typico-prophetic,

Jehovic, indirectly messianic, and purely predictive (only

Psalm 110 being in this last category).¹³¹ A. F. Kirkpatrick

used somewhat similar categories, but had no corresponding

category to Delitzsch's purely prophetic.¹³²

____________________

¹³⁰ E. W. Hengstenberg, Christology of the Old Testament and a

Commentary on the Messianic Predictions (London, 1872-78;

repr., Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1956), 1.149-52.

¹³¹Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Psalms, trans.

Francis Bolton (repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 3.66-71.

¹³²A. F. Kirkpatrick, The Book of Psalms: With Introduction

and Notes, The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

It should be mentioned here as well that there were many

Psalms commentaries on the more popular level which set forth

a messianic interpretation of many of the psalms. For

example, Spurgeon's massive, originally seven-volume,

Treasury of David has been very influential on large segments of the

conservative Christian Church.¹³³ The scholar who would

dismiss works such as these as non-scholarly or pre-critical

would do well to remember the words of Brevard Childs:

With all due respect to Gunkel, the truly great expositors for

probing to the theological heart of the Psalter remain

Augustine, Kimchi, Luther, Calvin, the long forgotten Puritans

buried in Spurgeon's Treasury, the haunting sermons of John

Donne, and the learned and pious reflections of de Muis,

Francke, and Geier. Admittedly these commentators run the

risk, which is common to all interpretation, of obscuring rather

than illuminating the biblical text, but because they stand

firmly within the canonical context, one can learn from them

how to speak anew the language of faith.¹³⁴

"Liberal" Exegesis to the Twentieth Century

I fully recognize that "liberal" and "conservative" are loaded

terms that have probably worn out their welcome. However,

I use the term "liberal" as a convenient label to broadly

characterize an approach to the Bible that is more critically

oriented toward the biblical text than had been the traditional

position of historic Christianity for its first

____________________

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902), lxxvi-lxxxv.

¹³³The work appeared in several editions and has been

reprinted many times. The original edition was published in

London by Passmore & Alabaster, 1870-1885.

¹³⁴Brevard S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as

Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 523.

eighteen centuries, and that does not work from the

presupposition that the Scriptures are infallible and inerrant.

Among the various elements in the Psalms that came under

scrutiny by the critics were: (1) the authenticity of the

superscriptions, (2) Davidic authorship of any of the psalms,

(3) the unity of the compositions, (4) their antiquity, and

(5) their value for Christian theology in light of their

troublesome elements (imprecations, confessions, pharisaical

righteousness, Jewish nationalism, materialism). Little wonder,

then, that these critical scholars, with their rejection of the

supernatural, found neither prophecy nor type in the Old

Testament psalms. Messianism in the psalms, for these

scholars, was a moot point.

Twentieth Century Developments

Much of what has already been discussed continued into the

twentieth century. Conservative Protestant scholars still looked

at the messianic psalms as either predictive, typological, or a

combination of the two. Liberal Protestant scholars continued

to deny the elements mentioned above. But there have been

some new twists in this century. What follows is a brief

discussion of some of these new developments, not necessarily

in chronological order. Interaction with many of these

developments and their representative scholars will take place

in later chapters.

The Early History of Religions School

Comparative studies in the first part of the twentieth century

tended to deny to Israel any originality in her religious

conceptions. This reached an extreme in the writings of

Friedrich Delitzsch and his "pan-Babylonianism." For

Delitzsch, the Psalms were totally unworthy of use in

Christianity and Christian worship, and bore no relationship to

Christ or the religion of the New Testament.¹³⁵ Admittedly,

this was an extreme position, and the reaction against it came

even from within the religio-historical school; but clearly there

was no desire within this movement, as practiced in the first

part of the century with all its positivist assumptions, to find

any revelation of a future messiah in the psalms.¹³⁶

Form Criticism

Hermann Gunkel's work and the subsequent work of

his pupils, especially Sigmund Mowinckel, has had the

most profound impact of all twentieth century developments

on the study of the Psalms.¹³⁷ Formerly, the key to the

interpretation of a psalm had been its date and exact

____________________

¹³⁵See Kraeling, The Old Testament Since the Reformation,

156-58.

¹³⁶For more on this school see Herbert F. Hahn, The Old

Testament in Modern Research, exp. ed. (Philadelphia:

Fortress, 1966), 83-118.

¹³⁷See Erhard Gerstenberger, "Psalms," in Old Testament

Form Criticism, ed. John H. Hayes (San Antonio: Trinity

University Press, 1974), 179-223; Ronald E. Clements,

"Interpreting the Psalms," chap. in One Hundred Years of Old

Testament Interpretation (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976),

76-98.

historical situation. Now, the key was to find the correct

Gattung for any given psalm, and then to determine the psalm's

Sitz im Leben. This had profound effects on both conservative

and liberal exegesis. For both, there was a shift away from the

need to find an exact date or historical situation in order to

interpret a given psalm. For those more liberally inclined, there

was no longer the need to be so radically bent on assigning all

the psalms a post-exilic or even a Maccabean date. For at least

some of those more conservatively inclined, it was noticed that

Gunkel and his followers had found that the Sitz im Leben for

many of the psalms fit better into a pre-exilic situation rather

than a post-exilic, and that the royal psalms, in particular, may

have gone back to the days of the divided monarchy, if not, the

united monarchy. For many conservatives, it was enough to

have the other side recognize that there may have been a

Davidic impetus to the Psalter, and they themselves began to

back off from the necessity of upholding the authenticity of the

superscriptions or the need to defend Davidic authorship of all

psalms attributed to him. In other words, form criticism seemed

to be, at least in Old Testament and Psalms studies, a rather

neutral discipline that both sides could engage in. The

conservative could practice form criticism in the Psalms and

still hold to both prophetic and typological messianic

elements in the psalms. The liberal could practice form

criticism and concede that, in a general way, Jesus Christ was

the fulfillment of the messianic hopes in the Psalms, without

conceding that there were actual prophecies or intentionally

typological elements in them.

It is impossible to trace in a brief survey all the developments

that have taken place in trying to find the proper cultic Sitz im

Leben of the psalms, in particular the so-called "enthronement"

and royal psalms. Well known are the hypotheses of Sigmund

Mowinckel (enthronement festival), Artur Weiser (covenant

renewal), and Hans-Joachim Kraus (royal Zion festival).¹³⁸

Again, I will be interacting with these in later chapters, but in

passing, I think it is safe to say that conservative scholars have

been much more prone to adopt portions of the Weiser and

Kraus hypotheses into their Psalms interpretation, than that of

Mowinckel's tie-in to the akitu festival and its resemblance to

the early pan-Babylonianism. In particular, those who saw the

messianic psalms as more typological in nature, rather than

purely predictive, have been able to point to various elements

in these hypotheses as messianically typological. This holds for

the next development as well.

____________________

¹³⁸Sigmund Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel's Worship, 2

vols., trans. D. R. Ap-Thomas (New York: Abingdon, 1967);

Artur Weiser, The Psalms, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962);

Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 1-59: A Commentary and Psalms 60-

150: A Commentary, trans. H. C. Oswald (Minneapolis: Augsburg,

1988-89); Theology of the Psalms, trans. Keith Crim (Minneapolis:

Augsburg, 1986).

The Myth and Ritual School

The scholars in this school, known also as the "Scandinavian

school" and the "Patternism school" took Mowinckel's work to

another level. Mowinckel had posited the centrality of the

king's role in the cult, but had emphatically declared that it was

"wholly improbable" that the Israelite king "should have been

regarded as identical with Yahweh, or in the cult have played

Yahweh's part."¹³⁹ However, those in the myth and ritual

school proposed the identification or near-identification of the

king with Yahweh in the akitu festival, and held that the

festival involved a ritual humiliation of the king as

representative of the humiliation, death, and subsequent

resurrection and exaltation of the deity, and that many of the

psalms (such as Psalm 89) reflected this ritual.¹⁴⁰ Several of

the representatives of this school advocated that this way of

looking at the Psalms more clearly gave a typological picture

of Jesus Christ in the New Testament.¹⁴¹

____________________

¹³⁹Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel's Worship, 1.59.

¹⁴⁰For representative works of this school see Aage Bentzen,

King and Messiah, 2d ed. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1970); S.

H. Hooke, ed., Myth and Ritual (London: Oxford University

Press, 1933); ed., The Labyrinth (London: Oxford University

Press, 1935); ed., Myth, Ritual and Kingship (London: Oxford

University Press, 1958); Ivan Engnell, Studies in Divine

Kingship in the Ancient Near East, 2d ed. (Uppsala: Almqvist

and Wiksell, 1943); Aubrey R. Johnson, Sacral Kingship in

Ancient Israel (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1955).

¹⁴¹For example, Bentzen, King and Messiah, esp. pp. 33-34,

75-76, 83 (n. 7), 86 (n. 12), 110 (n. 8), 111 (n. 8).

This school, which had considerable success for a while, has

been declared to be more or less a thing of the past, and even

the hypothesis that Marduk was a dying and rising divinity in

Babylonian religion has largely been abandoned.¹⁴² Yet there

are still modified remnants in survival today, notably in the

work of John Eaton.¹⁴³ And the typological, though not

explicitly stated, is implicitly suggested. For example, in the

last paragraph of the preface (p. ix) to Eaton's Kingship and the

Psalms, a work devoted to showing that most of the psalms are

royal psalms, the author says:

I pray that the truth may be served and not hindered by this

work, which after its fashion is turned toward the greatest

mystery of religion, towards the representative figure that

carries all the world's agony and hope.¹⁴⁴

This line of typological exegesis will be further examined in

chapter 8.

Sensus Plenior

Among Catholic scholars, and some Protestant scholars as

well, one way of explaining the relationship between the Old

Testament and the New Testament has been the sensus plenior,

____________________

¹⁴²See Karel van der Toorn, "The Babylonian New Year

Festival: New Insights from the Cuneiform Texts and their

Bearing on Old Testament Study," in Congress Volume:

Leuven, 1989, ed. J. A. Emerton, VTSup 43 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991),

331-44.

¹⁴³John H. Eaton, Kingship and the Psalms, SBT 2d ser. 32

(Naperville, IL: Alec R. Allenson, 1976); The Psalms Come

Alive: Capturing the Voice and Art of Israel's Songs (Oxford:

A. R. Mowbray, 1984; repr., Downers Grove: InterVarsity,

1986), esp. pp. 116-44.

¹⁴⁴See also Eaton's conclusion (pp. 198-201).

the "fuller sense." Though there is no one authorized definition