Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/41

Rh P S A P S A 29 Essays on Scriptural Subjects (1753), contributed various articles to the Ancient Universal History, and completed Palmer's History of Printing. He died in Ironmonger Row, Old Street, London, 3d May 1763. His memoirs appeared in 1764 under the title Memoirs of * * * commonly knoim by the Name of George Psalmanazar, but do not disclose his real name or the place of his birth. PSALMS, BOOK OF, or PSALTER, the first book of the Hagiographa in the Hebrew Bible. Title and Traditional Authorship. The Hebrew title of the book is D^nijl, tehilllm, or D^fi "IDD, "the book of hymns " or rather " songs of praise." x The singular n?nn is properly the infinitive or nomen verbi of ??!"!, a verb employed in the technical language of the temple service for the execution of a jubilant song of praise to the accompaniment of music and the blare of the priestly trumpets (1 Chron. xvi. 4 sq., xxv. 3 ; 2 Chron. v. 12 sq.). The name is not therefore equally applicable to all psalms, and in the later Jewish ritual the synonym hallel specially designates two series of psalms, cxiii.-cxviii. and cxlv.-cl., of which the former was sung at the three great feasts, the encaenia, and the new moon, and the latter at the daily morning prayer. That the whole book is named " praises " is clearly due to the fact that it was the manual of the temple service of song, in which praise was the leading feature. But for an individual psalm the usual name is "liDtp (in the Bible only in titles of psalms), which is applic- able to any piece designed to be sung to a musical accom- paniment. Of this word ^aA/xd?, "psalm," is a translation, and in the Greek Bible the whole book is called ^aA/zoi or if/aXrt'ipior.- The title ^aXfj.oi or /3i/3Aos if/aX/j.wi' is used in the New Testament (Luke xx. 42, xxiv. 44 ; Acts i. 20), but in Heb. iv. 7 we find another title, namely "David." Hippolytus tells us that in his time most Christians said "the Psalms of David," and believed the whole book to be his ; but this title and belief are both of Jewish origin, for in 2 Mac. ii. 13 TO, rov Aavt'8 means the Psalter, and the title of the apocryphal " Psalter of Solomon " implies that the previously existing Psalter was ascribed to David. Jewish tradition does not make David the author of all the psalms ; but as he was regarded as the founder and legislator of the temple psalmody (1 Chron., ut sup. ; Ezra iii. 10; Neh. xii. 36, 45 sq. ; Ecclus. xlvii. 8 sq.), so also he was held to have completed and arranged the whole book, though according to Talmudic tradition 3 he incor- porated psalms by ten other authors, Adam, Melchizedek, Abraham, Moses, Heman, Jeduthun, Asaph, and the three sons of Korah. With this it agrees that the titles of the psalms name no one later than Solomon, and even he is not recognized as a psalmodist by the most ancient tradition, that of the LXX., which omits him from the title of Ps. cxxvii. and makes Ps. Ixxii. be written not by but of him. The details of the tradition of authorship show consider- able variation ; according to the Talmudic view Adam is author of the Sabbath psalm, xcii., and Melchizedek of Ps. ex., while Abraham is identified with Ethan the Ezrahite (Ps. Ixxxix.). But, according to older Jewish tradition attested by Origen, 4 Ps. xcii. is by Moses, to whom are assigned Pss. xc.-c. inclusive, according to a general rule that all anonymous pieces are by the same hand with the nearest preceding psalm whose author is named ; and Ps. ex., which by its title is Davidic, seems to have been given to Melchizedek to avoid the dilemma of Matt. xxii. 41 sq. 1 Hippol., ed. Lag., p. 188; Euseb., II. E., vi. 25, 2; Epiph., Mens. et Pond. , 23 ; Jerome's preface to Psalt. juxta Hebrasos. 2 Similarly in the Syriac Bible the title is "mazmore. " 3 The passages are collected in Kimhi's preface to his commentary on the Psalms, ed. Schiller-Szinessy, Cambridge, 1883. 4 Opp., ii. 514 sq., ed. Rue ; cp. Hippol., ut supra; Jerome, Ep. CXL. (ad Cypr.), and Praef. in Mol. Origen's rule accounts for all the psalms except i. and ii., which were sometimes reckoned as one poem (Acts xiii. 33 in the Western text ; Origen ; B. Berakhoth, f . 9b), and appear to have been ascribed to David (Acts iv. 25). The opinion of Jerome (Prsef. in Ps. Heb.} and other Christian writers that the collector of the Psalter was Ezra does not seem to rest on Jewish tradition. Nature and Origin of the Collection. Whatever may be the value of the titles to individual psalms, there can be no question that the tradition that the Psalter was col- lected by David is not historical ; for no one doubts that some of the psalms date from after the Babylonian exile. The truth that underlies the tradition is that the collection is essentially the hymn-book of the second temple, and it was therefore ascribed to David, because it was assumed, as we see clearly from Chronicles, that the order of worship in the second temple was the same as in the first, and had David as its father : as Moses completed the law of Israel for all time before the people entered Canaan, so David completed the theory and contents of the temple psalmody before the temple itself was built. When we thus under- stand its origin, the tradition becomes really instructive, and may be translated into a statement which throws light on a number of points connected with the book, namely, that the Psalter was (finally, at least) collected with a liturgical purpose. Thus, though the Psalms represent a great range of individual religious experience, they avoid such situations and expressions as are too unique to be used in acts of public devotion. Many of the psalms are doxologies or the like, expressly written for the temple ; others are made up of extracts from older poems in a way perfectly natural in a hymn-book, but otherwise hardly in- telligible. Such ancient hymns as Exod. xv. 1 sq., Judges v., 1 Sam. ii. 1 sq., are not included in the collection, though motives borrowed from them are embodied in more modem psalms ; the interest of the collector, we see, was not his- torical but liturgical. Again, the temple, Zion, the solemn feasts, are constantly kept in the foreground. All these points go to show that the collection was not only used but actually formed for use in the temple. The question now arises, Was the collection a single act or is the Psalter made up of several older collections 1 And here we have first to observe that in the Hebrew text the Psalter is divided into five books, each of which closes with a doxology. The scheme of the whole is as follows : Book I., Pss. i. -xli. : all these are ascribed to David except i., ii. , x. (which is really part of ix.), xxxiii. (ascribed to David in LXX.) ; doxology, xli. 13. Book II., Pss. xlii. -Ixxii. : of these xlii. -xlix. are ascribed to the Korahites (xliii. being part of xlii.), 1. to Asaph, li.-lxxi. to David (except Ixvi., Ixvii., Ixxi. anonymous; in LXX. the last two bear David's name), Ixxii. to Solomon ; doxology, Ixxii. 18, 19 followed by the subscription "The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended." Book III., Pss. Ixxiii. -Ixxxix. : here Ixxiii.- Ixxxiii. bear the name of Asaph, Ixxxiv., Ixxxv. , Ixxxvii. , Ixxxviii. that of the Korahites, Ixxxvi. of David, Ixxxviii. of Heman, Ixxxix. of Ethan ; doxology, Ixxxix. 52. Book IV., Pss. xc.-cvi. : all are anonymous except xc. (Moses), ci., ciii. (David), LXX. gives also civ. to David ; here the doxology is peculiar, " Blessed be Jehovah God of Israel from everlasting and to everlasting. And let all the people say Amen, Hallelujah." Book V., Pss. cvii.-cl. : of these cviii.-cx., cxxii., cxxiv., cxxxi.,cxxxiii., cxxxviii. - cxlv. are ascribed to David, and cxxvii. to Solomon, and cxx.-cxxxiv. are pilgrimage psalms ; LXX. varies considerably from the Hebrew as to the psalms to be ascribed to David ; the book closes with a group of doxological psalms. The division into five books was known to Hippolytus, but a closer examination of the doxologies shows that it does not represent the original scheme of the Psalter; for, while the doxologies to the first three books are no part of the psalms to which they are attached, but really mark the end of a book in a pious fashion not uncommon in Eastern litera- ture, that to book iv. with its rubric addressed to the people plainly belongs to the psalm, or rather to its liturgical exe- cution, and does not therefore really mark the close of a