The Incarnation, the Passion, and the Eucharist as Keys to Rightly Interpreting the Song of Songs

If you’ve ever read the Song of Songs (also called the Canticle of Canticles) in the Old Testament, you probably had more than a few questions about it! What is this very sensuous book about a lover and a beloved doing in the canon of Scripture? Are the modern biblical exegetes right when they say it’s just a loose collection of ancient Near Eastern erotic poetry that accidentally found its way into the Hebrew scriptures? Were the Jewish rabbis closer to the truth when they said it depicts the tender and tempestuous relationship between YHWH and Israel?

In his new book Wounded I Sing: The Song of Songs and the Incarnation of the Son of God, Dr. Timothy Kelly, a professor of theology at the International Theological Institute in Trumau, Austria, argues that Christians are uniquely positioned to unlock the mysteries of this book, which opens its secrets more and more as we read it in and through the Heart of Christ.

When the Word became flesh, the transcendent God of love reached down into our mortal, passible nature to join it as a man joins his betrothed, and upon the Cross He accomplished a bodily-spiritual nuptial covenant with the Church and every baptized soul that He renews, day after day, in fleshly-and-spiritual Eucharistic communion.

What the Hebrews longed for as yet-to-be-attained in the Messianic age, the Christian receives as now accomplished in the sacrifice and sacrament of the Lord's Passion—yet this, in turn, is the foretaste and pledge of something far greater: the eternal wedding feast of the Lamb. The dynamism of eros that characterizes the Song reveals both the fiery love of the Divine Lover and the yearning of His beloved to be inseparably one, but in a manner that is incarnate, ecstatic, total, irrevocable, blissful beyond what mind can conceive or imagine.

This is the essence of the Christian life and no book in the entire Bible conveys it better. No wonder the Fathers and Doctors wrote more commentaries on the Song of Songs than on any other book. No wonder it entices and baffles us: it speaks to our deepest desire, and yet does so with all the enigmas of salvation history and of our pilgrimage under the invisible hand of Providence.

And we can be thankful to Dr. Kelly for synthesizing all of this—drawing especially on St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Matthas Scheeben—into a readable guide that opens one magnificent vista after another. An exemplary work of Thomistic synthesis, with the clarity of Garrigou-Lagrange and the eloquence of Pieper.

Readers of NLM will be particularly interested in Kelly's extensive discussion of the Passion narratives (pp. 63-96), which play so pivotal a part in the ancient Roman Rite's celebration of Holy Week (with all four being read between Palm Sunday and Good Friday); how Christ's spousal office is necessarily priestly, sacrificial, and nutritive of His bride, the Church and the Christian soul; and how baptism and the Holy Eucharist, in particular, are nuptial sacraments with analogous aspects of unity and fecundity (pp. 97-149).

Without necessarily intending to be an apologetics work for the Catholic Faith, in fact Kelly's argument shows that both the Old Testament as a whole and the Passion of Christ make no salvific sense if there is not an immediate physical-spiritual communion possible with the Son of God, and in that sense proves that the Protestant account of personal salvation (through faith, by Scripture, by grace alone, etc.) is in tension with the entire trend of salvation history and of the life of Christ.

The early readers of this manuscript—including some of the greatest living Catholic biblical scholars—loved it.

Scott Hahn, editor of the Ignatius Bible’s commentary on the Song of Songs, wrote: “Rarely will you see a book that brings biblical, dogmatic, and mystical theology together so artfully and lucidly as this remarkable and readable synthesis does. Timothy Kelly refreshingly resets the entire question of the Song’s literal and spiritual meanings.”

John S. Bergsma, who co-authored A Catholic Introduction to the Bible with Brant Pitre, and wrote a book called The Bible and Marriage, had this to say: “An exquisite contemporary reading of the book, which I hope will contribute to returning the Song to its rightful and central place within Catholic biblical theology.”

Stephen K. Ray, author of commentaries on Genesis and the Gospel of John, summed it up as “an illuminating guide to a sublime and mysterious book.”

Fr. John Saward, author of some of the finest theological works of recent decades, declared: “Writing with a poet’s sensitivity to language, Dr. Kelly shows us how the Nuptial Mystery of Christ and His Church, of which the Song of Songs speaks with the authority of divine and prophetic inspiration, stands at the very centre of the Catholic faith.”

To find out more or “look inside,” visit the publisher’s site or any Amazon site.

Here’s a short video introduction, including a reading of part of the text:

The Song of Songs on the Feast of the Virgin’s Nativity

Before the Tridentine reform, very few feasts had Scriptural readings in the first nocturn of the Divine Office. On Saints’ days, it was typical for readings of their lives to supply all the Matins lessons, while on those of Our Lord and Our Lady, the first two nocturns were usually taken up with a sermon about the feast, and the third by a homily on the Gospel read at Mass. There were, however, certain exceptions to this, such as Christmas and Epiphany, which always had the same readings from Isaiah that they do today. Among the feasts of the Virgin Mary, only that of her Nativity had Scriptural readings; these were taken from the Song of Songs, or Canticle of Canticles, as it was traditionally known in the Latin West, from its title in the Vulgate, “Canticum Canticorum.”

Two pages of a breviary according to the Use of Prague, printed in 1502, with the Office of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary; the Canticle of Canticles is read in both the first and second nocturns. In many Bibles of this period, the Canticle also had notes added to the text to indicate who is speaking, as explained below: these were often incorporated into breviaries as well, as seen here. (Click image to enlarge.)

When the Birth of the Virgin was given an octave in the mid-13th century, readings from the Canticle were supplied for the days within it, but in the Tridentine reform, this arrangement was transferred to the Assumption. Readings from the Canticle were retained for September 8th and 15th, but in the reform of St Pius X, the latter date became the feast of the Seven Sorrows, which has readings from the Lamentations instead. After making the solemn dogmatic definition of the Assumption in 1950, Pius XII promulgated a new Office for it which has Genesis and First Corinthians in the first nocturn, so the custom is now retained only in its original place.

Pope St Gregory the Great (busily writing a Biblical commentary in cope and tiara, as one does), ca. 1370, by the Bohemian painter known as Master Theodoric, active in Prague ca. 1360-80.

The Canticle is, of course, one of the most difficult books of the Bible to interpret. Writing in the mid-3rd century, the great Biblical scholar Origen begins his commentary on it by noting that among the Jews, it is one of the parts of Scripture which the young are not allowed to read, and is “reserved for study till the last.” St Gregory of Nyssa (335-95 ca.), who, like the other Cappadocian Fathers, was greatly influenced by Origen, refers to it repeatedly as a mystery: “Through the title ‘Song of Songs’, the noble text also promises to teach us the mystery of mysteries.” In the West, St Gregory the Great’s commentary became the standard work on the subject; he begins his prologue by stating that “through certain aenigmata, the divine Word speaks to the cold and languid soul, and from the things which it knows, insinuates to it in a hidden way that love which it knows not.” The word aenigmata (the plural of aenigma) means “things which are enigmatical or dark in a figurative representation; allegories; things which are obscure or inexplicable; riddles, enigmas, obscurities, mysteries.” It entered the Latin language from Greek partly through the Vulgate version of 1 Corinthians 13, 12, a verse which the King James Version renders with one its most intriguing and often-used turns of phrase, “We see now through a glass darkly.”

The beginning of the Song of Songs in Bible printed at Strassbourg in 1481, with the Glossa Ordinaria and other commentary material printed in any around it, as was commonly done in that era. (There is another “glossa ordinaria” for the law code of Justinian, which was produced by scholars at the University of Bologna at the same time as the Biblical one.)   

In the early 12th century, a group of scholars associated with the cathedral school of Laon in France put together a collection of glosses on the text of the whole Bible. This became one of the standard textbooks for the rest of the Middle Ages and beyond, and was therefore known as the “Glossa Ordinaria”. In its section on the Canticle of Canticles, many of the glosses explain certain verses by indicating the speaker; for example, the opening words “Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth” is explained as “The voice of those who lived before the coming of Christ, who pray to the father of the bridegroom, who is Christ.”

Since the Canticle was regarded as an especially difficult text, many early printed Bibles contain a series of very brief notes interpolated into the text of it, which are derived from the Glossa Ordinaria, or one of the other works of Biblical interpretation that were commonly read in the Middle Ages, the Postillae of Hugh of St Cher, and the commentary of the Franciscan Nicholas of Lyra.

Here, then, is the text of the first chapter of the Canticle of Canticles, with the notes as printed in the Bible shown above.

The beginning of the Song of Songs, with the glosses in red, from a Latin Bible printed at Nuremberg in 1516. (The rest of the book is seen below; the type is small enough that the whole book fits into two pages.) 

The voice of the one who longs for the coming of Christ. Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth: for thy breasts are better than wine, ₂ smelling sweet of the best ointments. The voice of the Church to Christ. Thy name is as oil poured out: therefore young maidens have loved thee. ₃ Draw me: we will run after thee to the odour of thy ointments. The voice of the bride to the young women. The king hath brought me into his storerooms: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, remembering thy breasts more than wine: the righteous love thee. The Church (speaking) about its sufferings ₄ I am black but beautiful, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Cedar, as the curtains of Solomon. ₅ Do not consider me that I am brown, because the sun hath altered my colour: the sons of my mother have fought against me, they have made me the keeper in the vineyards: my vineyard I have not kept. The voice of the Church to Christ. ₆ Shew me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou liest in the midday, lest I begin to wander after the flocks of thy companions. The voice of Christ to the Church. ₇ If thou know not thyself, O fairest among women, go forth, and follow after the steps of the flocks, and feed thy kids beside the tents of the shepherds. ₈ To my company of horsemen, in Pharao’s chariots, have I likened thee, O my love. ₉ Thy cheeks are beautiful as the turtledove’s, thy neck as jewels. The voice of the friends (of the bridegroom). ₁₀ We will make thee chains of gold, inlaid with silver. The voice of the Church (speaking) about Christ. ₁₁ While the king was at his repose, my spikenard sent forth the odour thereof. ₁₂ A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me, he shall abide between my breasts. ₁₃ A cluster of cypress my love is to me, in the vineyards of Engaddi. The voice of Christ. ₁₄ Behold thou art fair, O my love, behold thou art fair, thy eyes are as those of doves. The voice of the Church. ₁₅ Behold thou art fair, my beloved, and comely. Our bed is flourishing. ₁₆ The beams of our houses are of cedar, our rafters of cypress trees.

Biblical Types or Anticipations of Traditional Catholic Worship

Photo by Ramses Sudiang on Unsplash

With unabashed admiration for medieval allegorical commentators on the Mass who did not stop at the level of practical or historical explanations but went for deeper significance, playing like children in the garden of spiritual meanings that spring forth from the original literal seeds, I share with readers today certain suggestive Scripture verses that support or at least add additional weight to practices familiar in the usus antiquior. I do not claim, of course, that the human authors of these verses had in mind a future Christian liturgy of Europe in its fully-developed medieval condition. But we know that the Primary Author of Scripture did have in mind the many ways in which He would inspire the Church to glorify Him worthily in her traditional rites.

Separation of Sanctuary from Nave

“And Aaron was separated to minister in the holy of holies, he and his sons for ever, and to burn incense before the Lord, according to his ceremonies, and to bless his name for ever.” (1 Chron. 23:13)

“The chambers of the north, and the chambers of the south, which are before the separate building: they are holy chambers, in which the priests shall eat, that approach to the Lord into the holy of holies: there they shall lay the most holy things, and the offering for sin, and for trespass: for it is a holy place. And when the priests shall have entered in, they shall not go out of the holy places into the outward court: but there they shall lay their vestments, wherein they minister, for they are holy: and they shall put on other garments, and so they shall go forth to the people.” (Ezek. 42:13–14)

“The priests, and Levites, the sons of Sadoc, who kept the ceremonies for my sanctuary, when the children of Israel went astray from me: they shall come near to me, to minister to me: and they shall stand before me, to offer me the fat, and the blood, saith the Lord God. They shall enter into my sanctuary, and they shall come near to my table, to minister unto me, and to keep my ceremonies.” (Ezek. 44:15–16)

“Christ, being come an high priest of the good things to come…by his own blood, entered once into the holies, having obtained eternal redemption…. For Jesus is not entered into the holies made with hands, the patterns of the true: but into heaven itself, that he may appear now in the presence of God for us. Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holies, every year with the blood of others: for then he ought to have suffered often from the beginning of the world: but now once at the end of ages, he hath appeared for the destruction of sin, by the sacrifice of himself.” (Hebr. 9:11–12, 24–26)

“And it came to pass, when he [Zachary] executed the priestly function in the order of his course before God, according to the custom of the priestly office, it was his lot to offer incense, going into the temple of the Lord. And all the multitude of the people was praying without, at the hour of incense.” (Luke 1:8–10)

Incensation of the Altar

“And I saw seven angels standing in the presence of God; and there were given to them seven trumpets. And another angel came, and stood before the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given to him much incense, that he should offer of the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar, which is before the throne of God. And the smoke of the incense of the prayers of the saints ascended up before God from the hand of the angel.” (Rev. 8:2–4)

“And Aaron was separated to minister in the holy of holies, he and his sons for ever, and to burn incense before the Lord, according to his ceremonies, and to bless his name for ever.” (1 Chron. 23:13)

“Who then can be able to build him a worthy house? if heaven, and the heavens of heavens cannot contain him: who am I that I should be able to build him a house? but to this end only, that incense may be burnt before him.” (2 Chron. 2:6)”

“Our fathers have sinned and done evil in the sight of the Lord God, forsaking him: they have turned away their faces from the tabernacle of the Lord, and turned their backs. They have shut up the doors that were in tile porch, and put out the lamps, and have not burnt incense, nor offered holocausts in the sanctuary of the God of Israel. Therefore the wrath of the Lord hath been stirred up against Juda and Jerusalem, and he hath delivered them to trouble, and to destruction, and to be hissed at, as you see with your eyes. Behold, our fathers are fallen by the sword, our sons, and our daughters, and wives are led away captives for this wickedness. Now therefore I have a mind that we make a covenant with the Lord the God of Israel, and he will turn away the wrath of his indignation from us. My sons, be not negligent: the Lord hath chosen you to stand before him, and to minister to him, and to worship him, and to burn incense to him.” (2 Chron 29:6–11)

“Let my prayer be directed as incense in thy sight; the lifting up of my hands, as evening sacrifice.” (Ps. 140:2)

Facing the Altar as Mediators, Not Towards the People

“And the priests went in, and stood before the face of the altar and the temple: and weeping, they said: Thou, O Lord, hast chosen this house for thy name to be called upon therein, that it might be a house of prayer and supplication for thy people.” (1 Macc. 7:36–37)

“And the priests prostrated themselves before the altar in their priests’ vestments, and called upon him from heaven…” (2 Macc. 3:15)

“And Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the sight of the assembly of Israel, and spread forth his hands towards heaven; and said: Lord God of Israel, there is no God like thee in heaven above, or on earth beneath: who keepest covenant and mercy with thy servants that have walked before thee with all their heart…. And it came to pass, when Solomon had made an end of praying all this prayer and supplication to the Lord, that he rose from before the altar of the Lord: for he had fixed both knees on the ground, and had spread his hands towards heaven.” (1 Kg. 8:22–23, 54)

“Our fathers have sinned and done evil in the sight of the Lord God, forsaking him: they have turned away their faces from the tabernacle of the Lord, and turned their backs.” (2 Chron. 29:6)

“And they have turned their backs to me, and not their faces: when I taught them early in the morning, and instructed them, and they would not hearken to receive instruction.” (Jer 32:33)

The Silences During Mass—especially in the Canon

“And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven, as it were for half an hour.” (Rev. 8:1)

“For thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: If you return and be quiet, you shall be saved: in silence and in hope shall your strength be.” (Isa. 30:15)

“It is good to wait with silence for the salvation of God.” (Lam. 3:26)

“Hear in silence, and for thy reverence good grace shall come to thee…. In many things be as if thou wert ignorant, and hear in silence and withal seeking.” (Sir. 32:9, 12)

“For while all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her course, Thy almighty Word leapt down from heaven from Thy royal throne.” (Wis. 18:14–15)

“But the Lord is in His holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before Him.” (Hab. 2:20)

Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s website, SoundCloud page, and YouTube channel.

Biblical Typology For Children: Three Books From Emmaus Road Publishing

Building the Way to Heaven: The Tower of Babel and Pentecost 
The End of the Fiery Sword: Adam and Eve and Jesus and Mary 
Into the Sea, Out of the Tomb: Jonah and Jesus

These are the first in the Old and New Series, all written by Maura Roan McKeegan and illustrated by T. Schluenderfritz. Their goal is to introduce to children to the principle of biblical typology, that is, how the Old Testament people, symbols, and events foreshadow those in the New Testament. I do not know of any other children’s books that approach these topics in this way. It’s a great idea and it has been executed well.

There are attractive illustrations which use some of the visual vocabulary of Christian tradition (e.g. halos, and a mandorla) and the two streams of narrative are placed side by side so that the parallels cannot be missed.

I would certainly recommend all of these as part of Scriptural education for all children. Thank you to all involved for this project!

Reading through them, it seems to me that they would work best for those children who have a prior knowledge of the Biblical passages, and sufficient intellectual formation to be able to understand the concept of literary symbolism. The publisher recommends 7 years old; I wonder if for most it might be a little older than that. You can order them on the publisher’s website, here. Thanks to Peter K. for bringing these books to my attention, by the way, (Peter recently featured a wonderful book that does the same for grown-ups, Jean Danielou’s From Shadows to Reality)

There are so many reasons which the study of Scripture is
important, but here are some that relate to the value of biblical typology in particular, which these books address.

The first is that the themes in salvation history are a pattern of events that relate to each of us in our personal pilgrimage of salvation. Once we grasp the idea of the interrelatedness of all things, by understanding how particular and significant episodes in Scripture are related to each other, it facilitates a mode of thinking by which we more naturally place our own story, and hence ourselves, into that picture. So, for example, the crossing of the Red Sea relates to the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan and the descent of the Spirit, and then also to our own sacramental Baptism and Confirmation, by which each of us dies and rises spiritually and receives the Spirit (1 Cor, 10, 1-5). Our foretaste of eternal life to come, like Israel eating manna in the desert on the way to the promised land, is our reception of Holy Communion, the pledge of our own future life and resurrection (John 6, 54). Each of us has a story by which we die with Christ, and as Christians are raised up with him too. I am reminded that this applies to me every time I walk into a church and cross myself with the holy water - ‘Jordan water’.

The second is that this can be the basis of a formation that is, in my estimation, more likely to help children retain their faith when they get older, and see them through the teenage years. This goes further than simply teaching the truths of the Faith, which is, of course, vitally important too. Those that develop this way of thinking will then be more inclined to read the Book of Nature and those aspects of the culture, including the natural hierarchies in society, allegorically, and take delight in it. For such people, all that they see points to the unseen, and all that is good points to God. They will perceive a pattern in the world around them and be able to fill in the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle, so to speak. Except that this piece is not missing exactly; rather, it is real and present, but invisible. I wrote about this mode of thinking in greater depth in an earlier article, here: The Good the Better and the Sunday Best: Using St Thomas’s Fourth Way to Evangelize and Retain Faith in the Young.

The place where all of this comes to together and is illuminated most powerfully for us in the liturgy. The actions of the liturgy are powerfully symbolic. These books, therefore, will help to enrich participation in the liturgy, both through the content learned and the stimulation of this mode of thought by which we start to read what is happening, even relating to those aspects not directly taught in the books. I need hardly describe to readers of this website how beneficial this will be, in turn, to all aspects of human life if realized.

In a matter relating to my own particular focus of interest, in my opinion, the study of Biblical typology is something that should be mandatory for all people who wish to paint sacred art. Danielou’s book is more likely to be appropriate for the training of the artist, but all artists should be able to create art, intended for children or adults, which reflects such a training and communicates the truth of the Faith through beautiful art. In the Roman Church, we are at the early stages of re-establishing this as a living tradition, but once done (and I remain hopeful that it will be done), then a book could connect the themes described even more directly to the traditional liturgical art of the Church. I look forward to the day when a seven-year-old could walk into the Baptistry in Florence and instantly understand what he or she is seeing, because it not only reflects the lessons learned in a book such as this, but also the images they see in their recently built hometown parish church!

The Octave of the Ascension 2018

From St Gregory the Great’s 29th Homily on the Gospels, read in the Breviary of St Pius V on the Octave Day of the Ascension.

Concerning this glory of (the Lord’s) Ascension, Habacuc said (3, 11), “The sun was raised up, and the moon stood in its order.” Who is indicated by the name of the sun, if not the Lord, and who by the name of the moon, if not the Church? For until the Lord ascended into heaven, His Holy Church was in every way fearful of its enemies in the world; but after She was fortified by His Ascension, She openly preached what She had come to believe in secret. (Luke 12, 3) Therefore “the sun was raised up, and the moon stood in its order”, because when the Lord repaired to heaven, His Holy Church grew in the authority of her preaching.

The Ascension of Christ, by Andrea Mantegna, 1460-64

Hence through Solomon is it said in the voice of the Church, “Behold He cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping over the hills.” (Canticle 2, 8) For She looked upon the heights of such great works, and said “Behold he cometh leaping upon the mountains,” since in coming for our salvation, He made certain leaps … From heaven He came into the womb, from the womb to the manger, from the manger to the Cross, from the cross to the tomb, from the tomb He returned to heaven. Behold, that He might set us to run after Him, the Truth made manifest though the flesh made these leaps for us, for “He rejoiced as a giant to run His way” (Ps. 18, 6), that we might say to Him from the heart, “Draw us: we will run after thee to the odor of thy ointments.” (Canticle 1, 3)

Therefore, dearest brethren, it is necessary that we follow Him in our hearts to that place where we believe He ascended in the body. Let us flee earthly desires; let nothing here below now delight us, who have a Father in heaven. And we must also consider this very carefully, that He who ascended peaceably will be terrible in His return, and whatsoever He commanded us with mildness, He will demand of us with severity. Let no one therefore take little account of the times of penance granted to us, let no one fail to take care for himself while he can; for Our Redeemer will come to judgment all the more strictly, according as He first show greater patience to us before the judgment.

The Ascension Dome of the Basilica of St Mark in Venice; mosaics ca. 1175-1200. (click to enlarge) The words written in a circle that separate Christ and the four angels around him from the Virgin Mary and Apostles are four hexameters, “Dicite quid statis, quid in aethere consideratis. / Filius iste Dei, Christus, cives Galilaei, / Sumptus ut a vobis abit et sic arbiter orbis / Judicii cura veniet dare debita jura.” (Tell us what you are standing and looking at in Heaven. This Son of God, Christ, o ye citizens of Galilee, being taken from you, goes; and so He will come as the judge of the world, with right judgment to give all their due.)

We may note here that St Gregory cites the Prophet Habacuc according to the text of the Old Latin version of the Bible, the translation made from the Greek text of the Seputagint, while the citations from the Song of Songs are taken from St Jerome’s version, which we now call the Vulgate. Just as several of Jerome’s Biblical commentaries explain both versions of the text, so also the Church Fathers continued to use both, and of course, there are many text throughout the liturgy, in the Mass, Office and elsewhere, which still use the Old Latin to this very day. Likewise, the first citation from the Song of Songs, (or “Canticle of Canticles” as it is traditionally called in the Vulgate), follows St Jerome’s version, but the second mixes the two, “Draw us” instead of “Draw me.” St Gregory also takes it for granted, as do all the Fathers, that the Song of Songs is a dialogue between Christ and the Church; many early printed Bibles actually contain notes added into the text which explain “This is the voice of the Church speaking to Christ”, or “Christ here says to the Church” etc.

From a Breviary according to the Use of Bamberg, Germany, printed in 1501, part of the Office for the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary. In the left column, a bit below the middle, begin the Matins readings from the Song of Songs, with the interpretive notes, “The voice of Christ to the Church”, “The voice of the bride to the young women”, etc.

Our thanks to Fr Joseph Hearty for sharing with us these photographs of the Solemn Mass which he celebrated on the feast of the Ascension at the church of the Sacred Heart of Mary in Boulder, Colorado. (Photos by John Barton.)

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Book Notice: St. Thomas Aquinas's Commentary on Job

Back in November 2013, I offered NLM readers an update on the progress of the Aquinas Institute's massive project of producing a first-ever complete bilingual (Latin/English) hardcover edition of the OPERA OMNIA of St. Thomas Aquinas. At that time, I noted that we had published 17 volumes out of a projected 57 volumes (see here for a complete listing of the contents of each volume), and all of these, of course, are still in print: Summa theologiae (8 volumes), Commentaries on the Letters of Paul (5 volumes), the Commentaries on Matthew and John (4 volumes; also available separately).

The good news, and the main reason for this post, is to announce the publication of another volume in the series, namely, St. Thomas's majestic Commentary on the Book of Job. The Aquinas Institute's policy with respect to scriptural commentaries is always to include a critical edition of the biblical text in Greek (either Septuagint or NT), the Latin Vulgate, and the English Douay-Rheims. The translator, Fr. Brian Thomas Becket Mullady, OP, has also contributed a fine introduction.

My colleague at Wyoming Catholic College and co-worker for the Aquinas Institute, Dr. Jeremy Holmes (who has also contributed guest posts to NLM), wrote up an informative piece about the theological originality and importance of this commentary. Here is an excerpt:

It is commonly said that Thomas Aquinas wrote commentaries on Scripture. But the claim is liable to misunderstanding: in our day, biblical scholars write commentaries on Scripture while theologians write monographs about theology. St. Thomas would have found this division of labor interesting in theory but odd in practice, because his job as a medieval university master was to teach theology to the most advanced students by lecturing on a book of the Bible. He lectured on Scripture in class, wrote theological treatises at home, and did theology all the time.
       When St. Thomas was named lector for the priory at Orvieto, he was expected to expound a book of Scripture for the brethren. He had already begun work on Book III of the Summa contra gentiles, on divine providence, so to keep his work focused he looked for a book of Scripture that would allow him to lecture on divine providence.  Where to turn?
       His clue came from Maimonides, who devoted two chapters of his Guide of the Perplexed to the book of Job.  According to this venerable Jewish teacher, Job was written to explain the various opinions people hold about divine providence. Literal exposition of the book of Job was rare in the Christian tradition, but St. Thomas saw this as an opportunity to fill a gap. And so he set out to teach his fellow Dominicans about divine providence via the book of Job, declaring that “The whole intention of this book is directed to this: to show that human affairs are ruled by divine providence using probable arguments.”
       For today’s students of St. Thomas, this was a stroke of luck. Everyone knows that the artist flourishes under constraint: the poet’s creativity is unlocked, not diminished, by a rigid sonnet structure; the architect’s brilliance emerges especially under the demands of an unusual terrain; the painter’s genius rises to the challenge of a fresco where ceiling and walls dictate the contours. The same is true of a theologian. It is one thing to compose a treatise on divine providence in the open spaces of unshackled speculative reason; it is quite another thing to teach about divine providence through respectful engagement with the complicated, pungent, and often obscure poetry of Job.
       The result is one of St. Thomas’s most lyrical works, a book Jean-Pierre Torrell describes as “beautiful.” The dramatic situation and the nooks and crannies of the poetry elicit insights from St. Thomas that might never have come up any other way. 

The Commentary on Job is available from Amazon.

Chance for NLM Readers to Get Free Scott Hahn Book, and Up to 50% Off Emmaus Road Publishing Books

I have just been told about the news that Scott Hahn’s St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology has merged with Emmaus Road Publishing. They are also partnering with Lighthouse Catholic Media, whom many will know for the recorded talks sitting in racks at the back of churches. Lighthouse will serve as their distributor for their products.

I am a fan of all of Scott Hahn’s books. He has a great gift for articulating what can ordinarily be quite dry and abstract subjects in a way that is accessible and interesting. His book the Lamb’s Supper - the Mass as Heaven on Earth was a revelation (if you’ll forgive the pun). It was the first time that the Book of Revelation had made any sense to me, and it changed dramatically my whole idea of what the liturgy is in an exciting way.

The St. Paul Center was founded by Dr. Hahn to promote Scripture Study from the heart of the Church’s tradition. Similarly, Emmaus Road publishes authentically Catholic books covering, as they put it, ‘everything from sacraments to social issues, Church history to arts and culture.’

I am happy therefore to give this project my support, and wish it every success in its work for the Church.

In order to attract attention to what they are doing at this early stage, EmmausRoad.org is offering all books at discounted prices, up to 50%. Their catalog includes books by Mike Aquilina, Ralph Martin, Dan Burke, Emily Stimpson, Ted Sri, and many other popular Catholic writers. They are also giving away a free Scott Hahn book (Understanding “Our Father”), and will give you free shipping on one order.

He tells you about it here:

Where Have All the Good Preachers Gone?

January 27 is the feast of St. John Chrysostom,
Patron of preachers,
in the traditional Roman calendar

It’s no secret that preaching in the Catholic Church today is of a generally abysmal quality. There are shining exceptions, no doubt, and if you are fortunate to be part of a community with one or several competent preachers, count your blessings.

Most Catholics have to endure superficial, long-winded, random, vague, and social-justicy homilies week after week—sometimes even heretical ones. Something has gone wrong. Pope Benedict XVI knew it, and offered the world a stunning example (and corpus) of beautiful, profound, clear, concise, nourishing, orthodox preaching. While it is doubtful that any pope will equal Benedict’s preaching for many a decade or century, Pope Francis, for his part, has a vigorous homiletic style that gets his points across loud and clear, often by means of the Jesuit tactic of “three words.” 

What we need, evidently, is for the internal memo to make the rounds: Priests and deacons everywhere, work hard on your preaching! It seems to me, on the basis of conversations with many priests, listening to a lot of preaching in my lifetime, and studying classic homilies as a theologian, that there are a few key principles to success. I offer a summary of these principles in a spirit of genuine appreciation for the demanding work of preachers everywhere and with a hope that something in these reflections may be found helpful.

I

First, preachers should follow St. Augustine’s rule that we need to interpret Scripture by Scripture, and so they should be using concordances to deepen their understanding and enrich their preaching. (A software program like BibleWorks is an amazing tool.) The most powerful homilies I’ve heard are not the ones sprinkled with cartoons, newspaper stories, personal reminiscences, self-help lingo, and so forth, but rather, the ones shot through with the Word of God, which “is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb 4:12)

St. Paul tells us: “All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16-17). Why don’t we get genuine teaching? And reproof and correction? As for training in righteousness, when’s the last time you heard a strong call to holiness, righteousness, integrity of faith and purity of conscience? And yet that is the persistent message of Scripture to us.

Wouldn’t it be galvanizing to hear, during the Christmas season, a homily preached on these two verses: “Your all-powerful word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne, into the midst of the land that was doomed, a stern warrior carrying the sharp sword of your authentic command, and stood and filled all things with death, and touched heaven while standing on the earth” (Wis 18:15-16). The Church has always applied this text to the coming of Jesus—and yet there is such a paradox: the helpless child lying in a manger...a stern warrior? How does he fills things with death—didn’t he come to bring life? Right away, one begins to see all the wonderful things that could flow out of this theme.

The virtual abandonment of seriously Scripture-based preaching is the single greatest defect in Catholic homiletics today. Look at any Father or Doctor of the Church, or the greatest teaching popes, and you will see that their homilies are literally woven out of strands of Scripture. St. Augustine and St. Bernard of Clairvaux furnish some of the best examples of this.

II

Which leads into a second key principle. In order to understand the Word of God they are to expound, preachers should be leaning heavily on the greatest theological sources after Scripture: the Fathers of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas (e.g., the Catena aurea on the four Gospels [online or book form], or the Commentaries on Matthew and John, the Commentaries on the Letters of Paul—what a treasure-trove!), and the writings of the mystics, like the Carmelite doctors. I was so delighted when I saw, some time ago, an American bishop take Blessed Columba Marmion, a sublime spiritual writer, as a basis for his Lenten preaching. That’s what we need to see: rich fare for the minds and hearts of the People of God.

As Catholics, we believe that Divine Providence has raised up for us twenty centuries of holy men and women who illuminate for us the wisdom of Scripture. We do not try to do it all on our own—and when we do, the results are usually bad. Look at the preacher who speaks “off the cuff” about the day’s Gospel. Such homilies, as we all know, are some of the worst, very often straying into confusion, randomness, and false doctrine, all for lack of suitable guidance. It is an act of humility and a spiritual work of mercy towards the faithful to seek such guidance and to rely upon it. In Book IV of On Christian Doctrine, St. Augustine even says: If you don’t know how to preach, start by adapting stuff from the Fathers. Don’t be worried about “copying”; you could hardly do better than to copy them!

Clergy and religious are bound to the Liturgy of the Hours, part of which is the daily Office of Readings. Why, then, do we so rarely hear the Office of Readings enter into preaching? Are the clergy actually reading it? So often there are perfect passages that illuminate the readings from the lectionary, and you would think that universally we would be hearing constant use being made of this Office. But it struck me recently, when our chaplain made several references to the Office of Readings, that he’s the first one I’ve ever noticed who’s done that. Is this Office some great secret that only the clergy are supposed to know about, that they are not allowed to share with the faithful for some reason? Clergy out there: Can someone enlighten me as to why this is not a much more common influence on preaching than it appears to be?

III

Above I spoke of finding and leaning on reliable authorities. But who is reliable? And can we ever be certain of the truth of what we are preaching? For Catholics, there is always a third key principle: the Magisterium of the Church. Preachers should be taking in a steady diet of magisterial wisdom, for instance the Catechism and papal encyclicals, and making use of them. If a priest needs to preach on married love, where better to look than Pius XI’s Casti Connubii? If on the duties of Christian citizens towards their country and its government, Leo XIII’s Sapientiae Christianae? If on the nature of the sacred liturgy and the holy sacrifice of the Mass, Pius XII’s Mediator Dei? The list could go on. With such a wealth of profound and eloquent teaching given to us by the Church, it seems incongruous that it is so rarely shared with the people.

Pope Benedict XVI comes to mind once again. His papal preaching is exemplary in every respect: in its lucid doctrinal content, in its eloquent and concise style, in its reliance on the best sources, in its pulsing spiritual vitality and conviction. If we are looking for a model to learn our preaching from, we will not find a better one.

The three principles of this article can be summed up in a formula that will be familiar to students of the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum: (I) Scripture, (II) Tradition, and (III) Magisterium. It is hardly surprising, then, that the Joseph Ratzinger who assisted in the drafting of Dei Verbum during the Council should have given us, as Pope Benedict, a touchstone of what one might call “Dei Verbum preaching”—preaching of the Word of God, permeated with Sacred Scripture, richly endowed with Tradition, and informed throughout by the Magisterium.

A closing thought, again from St. Paul’s second epistle to Timothy:

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching. (2 Tim 4:1-2)

That’s a mighty and momentous charge; it is a charge given to every bishop, priest, and deacon. It is time that the clergy renew their dedication to preparing and delivering homilies that meet the desperate needs of the Church of our time, and so, become the evangelizers God has called them to be.

St. Thomas on Praising the Lord in Song (In Honor of St. Cecilia)

In honor of the November 22nd feastday of St. Cecilia, heavenly patroness of music, I am pleased to be able to share with NLM readers a fresh translation of a passage from St. Thomas Aquinas’ Commentary on the Psalms. Here he is commenting on verses 2-3 of Psalm 32 (33), “Give praise to the Lord on the harp, sing to him with the psaltery, the instrument of ten strings: sing to him a new song, sing well unto him with a loud noise.”

Commentary on Psalm 33 [Vulg. 32], vv. 2–3

Then when he [the Psalmist] says: “Give praise to the Lord [on the harp; sing to him with the psaltery, the instrument of ten strings]” (Ps 32:2), he states the manner of praise and delight [i.e., the manner in which they are to be taken]. Now, in the praise of God what is chiefly intended is that man’s affection [or feelings] should reach to God and be directed. Again, musical harmonies change man’s affective disposition.  Whence seeing that a young man was driven mad by the Phrygian sound, Pythagoras changed the mode [of the music], and thus rendered most tranquil the spirit of the raging youth, as Boethius says in the preface of his work On Music. Thus in all divine worship it is contrived that certain musical harmonies are employed to lift the spirit of man to God.

Yet such harmonies have generally been used in two ways: sometimes with musical instruments and sometimes in songs. First the Psalmist shows the first use: “Give praise to the Lord on the harp…” (Ps 32:2), then the second: “Sing to him…” (Ps 32:3). For man’s affection is directed through instruments and musical harmonies in three ways: sometimes it is established in a kind of rectitude and strength of soul; at other times it is carried off to the heights [rapitur in celsitudinem]; at still other times [his affection is established] in an agreeable and pleasant condition. Concerning this matter, three types of song have been established (as the Philosopher has it in Politics VIII.7): for the first, song in the Dorian, out of the first and second tone [toni], as some have it; for the second, song in the Phrygian, which is of the third tone; for the third, song in the Hypolydian, of the fifth tone and the sixth. Others were discovered later.

This division bears on instruments, as some, such as flute and trumpet, are suited to the first [mode], others, such as the organ, to the second, and others still to the third, for example the psaltery and harp: “Bring hither the . . . pleasant psaltery with the harp” (Ps 80:3). Since at this point in the Psalm the Psalmist intends to lead us to exultation, he mentions only the psaltery and harp. Yet as “all these things happened to them in figure” (1 Cor 10:11), these instruments are used not only for the aforesaid purpose, but also figuratively. The harp has a deep sound, and signifies praise which rises from the deepest places, that is, from the earth, while the psaltery [or ten-stringed lyre] has a higher sound, and signifies praise concerning heavenly goods. He adds “the instrument of ten strings” because through these are signified the ten commandments of the Decalogue, in which the totality of spiritual doctrine consists.

Then when he says “Sing [to him a new song, sing well unto him with a loud noise]” (Ps 32:3), he treats of the song of a human voice. Yet, speaking to the biblical text [secundum litteram], there are two types of singing: by simple song [i.e., a cappella] and with instrumental accompaniment. He refers to the first when he says “new song”; to the second, “with a loud noise.” Understood according to the spiritual sense, man ought to exult over two things: the good things of grace already received and the good things of glory awaited. By the first good things we are made new: “Be renewed in spirit of your mind” (Eph 4:23); “As Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4). Thus, he sings a new song who exults in God’s making us new by grace: “The saints sang a new song” (Rev 14:3).

While he “sings well with a loud noise” who sings of the good things of glory, and the song that man conceives in his heart he expresses in words—or in jubilation or jubilant melody [jubilo], according to Jerome. Such a jubilant melody is an ineffable gladness that words cannot express, but by the voice is given to be understood an immense breadth of joys. Now what cannot be expressed are the good things of glory: “No eye has seen, nor ear heard, [nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him]” (1 Cor 2:9). And therefore the Psalmist says “sing well unto him” with jubilation because they cannot be expressed with [ordinary] song.

But you may object that in the Old Testament there were musical instruments as well as songs with words. Why then does the Church relinquish the instruments, though she takes up the songs? Two reasons exist on the mystical side: first, those instruments were figurative; the second reason is that God should be praised with mind and voice, not with instruments. Another reason is had in the words of the Philosopher, who says it is against wisdom that men be instructed in lyric poetry and musical technique, because these [have a tendency to] preoccupy the soul in its activity. But music ought to be simple, that it may draw us away from bodily concerns, yielding us up to praises of divinity.

* * *

Jubilus [rendered above as “jubilation or jubilant melody”] is the name given in Latin antiquity to a joyful work song without text. First applied to melismatic Christian chant by Amalarius of Metz (9th century), it has customarily been defined narrowly by modern scholars as the long melisma on the final syllable of the refrain ‘alleluia’ in the alleluia chant. These melismas are often much freer in melody than the rest of the chant and have their own internal forms based on various patterns of repetition. (definition of jubilus courtesy of http://arts.jrank.org/)

Update on the Publication of the Opera Omnia of Thomas Aquinas

Although this post is not strictly related to liturgy, it fits in well with one of the general aims of NLM, namely, the need for a return to the great theological sources so that the new liturgical movement may remain firmly grounded in the Catholic Tradition. Indeed, one of the tragedies of the original liturgical movement, particularly as it entered its cancer phase in the 1960s, seems to have been an inadequate and inconsistent rootedness in dogmatic theology, as the craze for antiquity took over and blinded many to the profound contributions of the scholastics.

The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, located in Lander, Wyoming, embarked a few years ago on a monumental project to publish the complete works of Saint Thomas in a uniform edition. The text is given in parallel Latin-English columns (the Latin edition is the best one available and the English translations have been reviewed by an editorial team for accuracy). The volumes are hardcovers with sewn bindings and gold-stamped covers and spines. We have completed the first phase of our publishing project with the following sets:

Commentaries on Matthew and John (4 vols.)

Commentaries on the Letters of Paul (5 vols.)

The Summa Theologiae (8 vols.)

The masterful Scripture commentaries of the Angelic Doctor—greatly praised by Leo XIII and many other popes, acknowledged as the pinnacle of their genre, and yet bizarrely hard to come by until now, if available at all—are the first projects we took on, in recognition of the primacy of the Word of God in sacred theology. Future plans include all of Thomas’s Old Testament commentaries as well. Preachers, take note: rarely will you find more penetrating and useful comments on the Lectionary readings than what you get in the pages of St. Thomas!

Having published Matthew, John, Paul, and the Summa, we are now turning our attention to the rest of the Opera Omnia—and here is where we can definitely use your help! We keep the cost of our volumes low to make them widely available, but as a result, the only way we can manage the initial print run of volumes is to obtain funding through donations. Donors receive a complimentary copy of the volumes they help to fund.

Go to our website to use your donation as a vote for what will be printed next—and to be among the first to receive a copy of that set. Once a volume has been funded, this offer of a complimentary copy will cease for that volume, and we will then sell it via Amazon. (For multi-volume sets like the Sentences commentary, donors will receive each volume as it is printed. We are starting with Book IV, which contains Thomas's lengthiest treatment of the sacraments and the liturgy. Work on Book IV is, in fact, well under way.)

We have editors and translators lined up for most of the works of Aquinas, but we will focus our efforts on the works that are most funded by you, our readers. Please spread the word by sharing this article with any of your colleagues or friends who might be interested. (Below are some photos from the Summa and Pauline volumes.)

Ite ad Thomam!

The Aquinas Institute
www.theaquinasinstitute.org