The Psalms: Poetic Prayer of Ascent

chapter 2 The Psalms: Poetic Prayer of Ascent The psalms are undoubtedly the highest and most frequently employed prayerful texts in the Judeo-Christian tradition. They are a collection of 150 prayerful songs that constitute one of the Books of the Bible. Taken together, they contain the complete teachings of Jewish faith and, joined with the Law and the Prophets, they make up the triad shaping the Hebrew Bible. Dante himself refers to this tripartite division in Par. 24.136, when he speaks of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms, at the moment he is being questioned about Faith and quotes the division of the Old Testament that Jesus himself had pre- sented in Luke 24:44.1 The Psalms are primarily musical, poetic texts that the Christian liturgy adopted from the Jewish bible as its own canonical prayers.2 All current exegetical studies follow the Jewish tradition of dividing the 150 psalms in five separate sections, which turn the biblical book of psalms into a specular image of Pentateuch, the five main books of the Hebrew Bible, of which they maintain certain spiritual and theological qualities.3 According to this schematic taxonomy, Psalms 1–41 feature a confrontation between the just believer and an impious man (the good and evil of Genesis); Psalms 42–72 ex- press the people’s desire for God while still in the exile of the desert (equaling the Exodus); 73–89 are a meditation on the past and a longing for the future coming of the Messiah by rediscovering, once the homeland is finally reached, the importance of rituals and ceremonial prayers (Leviticus); 90–106 celebrate God’s power and his role as shepherd of the nation (Numbers); and finally the last sequence, Psalms 107 through 150 praise and glorify God, who blesses those who obey the Law (as in Deuteronomy).4 Even though this division is the fruit 1 “And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.” Luke 24:44. 2 The Divine Office was reformed at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, in an attempt to stan- dardize the practice of daily prayer throughout the Western Church (Salmon 1967, 147). Salmon also emphasizes the role played by Franciscans in the innovations brought to the Divine Office (153–70). 3 Such comparison with Pentateuch already appears in the Midrash or Commentary of Psalm 1, which “tells us that David gave to the Jews five books of psalms to correspond to the five books of the Law given them by Moses.” (Catholic Encyclopedia, n.d.) 4 For this division and for the various qualities of the psalms, see Enzo Bianchi and also Benoît Standaert, who maintains the same division, but offers a slightly different and more poetic © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004405257_004 48 chapter 2 of more recent scholarship, it makes perfect sense that Dante would use at least one psalm from each of the sections, as follows: Psalms 30 and 31 from Section 1 (Psalms 1–41) Psalm 50 (three times) from Section 2 (Psalms 42–72) Psalm 78 from Section 3 (Psalms 73–89) Psalms 91 from Section 4 (Psalms 90–106) Psalms 113, 117, 118 from Section 5 (Psalms 107–150) Given the context of purgatory as the kingdom of the saved, who are still toil- ing to acquire perfect bliss in heaven but can already enjoy its anticipation, the poet gives preference to the joyous last section of the psalms by using three of them scattered throughout the whole canticle. It is also worth mentioning that there is a discrepancy in the numbering of the psalms in the different traditions that have used them as canonical prayers through the centuries. The difference derives from the splitting of some texts in two sections and can be summarized in the following chart:5 Hebrew Texts Septuagint (Greek translation) and Vulgate Psalms 1–8 Psalms 1–8 Psalms 9–10 Psalm 9 Psalms 11–113 Psalms 10–112 Psalms 114–115 Psalm 113 Psalm 116 Psalms 114–115 Psalms 117–146 Psalms 116–145 Psalm 147 Psalms 146–147 Psalm 148–150 Psalms 148–150 The Hebrew numbering is also followed by the Reformed Christian Churches and has been adopted by theologians for scientific purposes; but, since Dante quotes the Latin texts of the Vulgate, the numbers in this study refer to the Septuagint/Vulgate tradition. interpretation of the various steps the Israelites and the soul follow from the beginning to the end of the book of psalms; according to Standaert’s interpretation, the five books represent Night, Dawn, Midday, the Kingdom, and finally Apotheosis, which consists of Little Hallel, Great Hallel, and Final Hallel (Bianchi 1982, 12–14 and Standaert 2002, 51–53). 5 This chart is taken from I salmi (Ravasi 1993, 8)..

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