The Divine Office - Edward J. Quigley (popular ebook readers .txt) 📗

Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts, who is and who was and who is to come"; let us listen as they sing to us, for we are fellow citizens with them, and where they are we also must be if we remain faithful to the end. What do they sing, "O come let us praise the Lord with joy; let us joyfully sing to God, our Saviour" (Sing ye to the Lord, pp. 94-95—Rev. R. Eaton).

The authorship of this psalm—which is said daily in Matins—is attributed to David in the Septuagint and Vulgate. Its Latin form in the invitatory differs slightly from the Vulgate text. The Breviary retains here the text of St. Jerome's revision and the Vulgate contains the second and more correct revision.

Hymns. The hymn is an answer to the invitation given to us in the invitatory, to praise God and to rejoice with Him. It is a song of joy and praise. Hymns were introduced into the Divine Office in the Eastern Church before the time of St. Ambrose (340-397). To combat the Arians, who spread their errors by verse set to popular airs, St. Ambrose, it is said, introduced public liturgical hymn-singing in his church in Milan, and his example was followed gradually through the Western Church. (See Note A, infra.)

The final stanza of a Breviary hymn is called the doxology ([Greek: doxa] praise, [Greek: logos] speech), a speaking of praise. Hymns which have the final stanza proper, the Ave Maris stella, Lauds hymn of the Blessed Sacrament, Matins hymn for several Martyrs, the first Vesper hymn of the Office of Holy Cross, and the Vesper hymns of St. Venantius and St. John Cantius, never change the wording of the stanza.

But, where the metre of the hymn admits such a change as possible in the last stanza.

(a) From Christmas to Epiphany Jesu tibi sit gloria, Qui natus es de Virgine is inserted in all hymns, even on saints' offices.

(b) From Epiphany till end of its octave, Jesu tibi sit gloria, Qui apparuisti gentibus.

(c) From Low Sunday till Ascension Thursday, on Pentecost Sunday and its octave, all hymns end in Deo Patri sit gloria, Et Filio qui a mortuis.

This is the ending for all hymns of saints' feasts in Paschal times, excepting those hymns mentioned above.

(d) From Ascension to Pentecost (except in the hymn Salutis humanae Sator) the doxology is Jesu tibi sit gloria, Qui victor in coelum redis.

(e) Feast of Transfiguration has Jesu, tibi sit gloria, Qui te revelas parvulis.

In all other hymns the doxology is read as it is printed in the
Breviary.

Antiphons. Antiphon, coming from Greek words meaning a re-echoing of the sound, is a chant performed alternately by two choirs, and was used in pagan drama, long before the Christian era. At what date it was introduced into Church liturgy it is difficult to determine. Some say it was introduced by St. Ignatius, second Bishop of Antioch. It is certain that it was used by bishops and priests to attract, retain and teach the faithful during the Arian heresy. In church music, the lector ceased to recite the psalm as a solo and the faithful divided into two choirs, united in the refrain Gloria Patri.

With us, the antiphon generally is a verse or verses from Scripture, recited before and after each psalm. "The verse which serves as the antiphon text contains the fundamental thought of the psalm to which it is sung and indicates the point of view from which it is to be understood. In other words, it gives the key to the liturgical and mystical meaning of the psalm, with regard to the feast on which it occurs" (Cath. Encycl., art. "Antiphon").

Psalms. In the Breviary, before the recent reform, twelve psalms were recited in the first nocturn of Sundays and on ferias. This recitation of twelve psalms was, Cassian tells us, caused by the apparition of an angel, who appeared to the monks and sang at one session twelve psalms, terminating with Alleluia. The event was mentioned at the Council of Tours, In the new reform, nine psalms are recited at Matins; they should, the old writers on liturgy tell us, remind us of the nine choirs of angels who without ceasing sing God's praise.

In the new Psalter, the Psalms have been divided into two large divisions, Psalms I.—CVIII. being assigned to the night Office, Matins; and Psalms CIX.—CL. for the day Offices, Lauds to Compline. From this latter division has been made:—

(1) a selection of psalms suitable by their character and meaning to Lauds (vide infra, psalms at Lauds);

(2) a selection of psalms suitable to Compline;

(3) the psalms long used in the small Hours of Sunday's Office;

(4) the first psalms assigned by Pope Pius V. to Prime on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

The remaining psalms are divided into seven groups, in simple numerical order. The psalms of Matins generally come first, and are followed immediately by the groups of psalms for the day Hours.

In the new Breviary, seven new canticles are added to the ten, which stood in the older book. The ten taken from the old and from the new Testament are Audite coeli (Deut., chap. 32) in Lauds for Saturday; Benedicite (Daniel, chap. 3) Sunday's Lauds; Cantemus (Exod., chap. 15) Thursday's Lauds; Confitebor (Isaias, chap. 12) Monday's Lauds; Domine audivi (Habacuc, chap. 3) Friday's Lauds; Ego dixi (Isaias, chap. 38) Tuesday's Lauds; Exultavit (I. Kings, chap 2) Wednesday's Lauds. From the new Testament we have Benedictus, Magnificat, Nunc dimittis. To these are now added Audite verbum (Jeremias, chap. 31), Benedictus es (I. Paralip., chap. 29), Benedictus es (Daniel, chap. 3), Hymnum cantemus (Judith, chap. 16), Magnus es (Tobias, chap. 13), Miserere nostri (Ecclus. 36), Vere tu es Deus (Isaias, chap. 45). (Cf. The New Psalter, Burton and Myers, pp. 51-52).

"The psalms retain the accentuation of the Latin words, which was inserted at the request of Pius V. in the Reformed Breviary of 1568; and also the asterisk, which was introduced to mark the division of the verses of the Psalms in Urban VIII.'s Reform in 1632." The verse division of the psalms do not, in the Breviary, always coincide with those of the Vulgate—e.g., Psalm X.:—

PSALTER VULGATE

Dominus in templo sancto suo Dominus in templo sancto suo
Dominus in coelo sedes ejus Dominus in coela sedes ejus:
(v.4). Oculi ejus in pauperem respsiciunt;
                               palpebrae ejus
                               interrogant filios hominum
                              (verse 5).

The present verse divisions of the Vulgate were introduced by a Calvinistic printer of Geneva, who used them in an edition of the Greek new Testament published in 1561. Formerly, biblical chapters were, for sake of reference, divided into seven sections denoted by letters of the alphabet a, b, c, etc. In the older breviaries, the reference to the little lesson at Compline stood, I. Pet. v.c. The new Breviary has adopted the modern form of reference, and we now read I. Pet. v. 8-9. It is sometimes confusing to find reference made to the psalms by non-Catholic writers. This arises from the different method of numbering which is used by them. In the Greek version of the old Testament—the septuagent—the Psalter is arranged differently from the Hebrew. Psalms 9 and 10 are counted as one and so are Psalms 114 and 115, but 116 and 117 are divided into two, leaving the complete number 150, as in the Hebrew version. The Vulgate and the Douay version follow the Greek, and Psalm 9 contains 21 verses, not 38 as in the English Authorised Version. The English revised version follows the numbering of the Vulgate.

"Our Latin version of the Psalms is that of the old Itala; it was not made directly on the Hebrew original … it is then a translation (the Greek). By the time of St. Jerome, it had become very faulty, owing to the very many transcriptions which had been made of it; and this great scholar revised it, about 383 A.D., on the request of Pope Damascus. His corrections were not very numerous, because, he feared to upset, by too many changes, the habits of the faithful, most of whom knew the psalms by heart. This first version is known as the Roman Psalter. It was soon deemed insufficient. St. Jerome once more set to work between 387 and 391, and published a second edition, more carefully and more extensively corrected, of the Italic version of the Psalms; it is called the Gallican Psalter, because it was adopted by the churches of Gaul. When he, later on, translated the Old Testament from the Hebrew, he published his third edition of the Psalms, the Hebraic Psalter. This version was a good one, but the faithful were so familiar with the old Itala psalter that the Church, in her wisdom, thought best to keep it in the editions of the Vulgate according to the Gallican form…. Our official version of the psalms is then in many ways defective. It is frequently incorrect and barbarous in style, obscure in places, and even fails at times to give the exact sense of the original. Although our Vulgate is not perfect, it possesses admirable strength and conciseness, joined to an agreeable savour which gives it the greatest value and causes the words of the sacred singers, under this form of the Latin spoken by the people, to strike the mind and become engraved upon the memory much better than if they were clothed in all the elegance of a modern tongue" (Vigouroux; Manuel Biblique, tom. ii., 663-664).

The following replies by the Biblical Commission (May, 1910) may not be deemed out of place:—

I. Whether the appellations, Psalms of David, Hymns of David, Davidical Psaltery, employed in the old collections and in the Councils themselves to designate the Book of the one hundred and fifty Psalms of the Old Testament, as well as the opinion of many Fathers and Doctors who held that absolutely all the psalms of the Psaltery are to be ascribed to David alone, have so much force that David must be regarded as the sole author of the entire Psaltery?

ANSWER: In the negative.

II. Whether it may rightly be argued from the concordance of the Hebrew text with the Alexandrine Greek text and other ancient versions, that the titles prefixed to the Hebrew text are older than the version known as the Septuagint, and that therefore they have been derived if not from the authors themselves of the Psalms at least from the ancient Judaic tradition?

ANSWER: In the affirmative.

III. Whether the said titles of the Psalms, as witnesses of Judaic tradition, may be prudently called into question when there is no grave argument against their genuineness?

ANSWER: In the negative.

IV. Whether, considering the not unfrequent testimonies of the Sacred Scripture concerning the natural skill of David, illumined by the gift of the Holy Ghost, in the composition of religious canticles, the institutions laid down by him for the liturgical chant of the Psalms, the attribution to him of Psalms made both in the Old and New Testament and in the very inscriptions which have been prefixed to the Psalms from antiquity, and in addition to all this the agreement of the Jews and the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, it can be prudently denied that David is the principal author of the canticles of the Psaltery, or that it can be affirmed that only a few of the canticles are to be attributed to the Royal Psalmist?

ANSWER: In the negative to both parts.

V. Whether, specifically, the Davidical origin can be denied of those psalms which both in the Old and the New Testament are cited expressly under the name of David, among which are specially to be reckoned Psalm II., "Quare fremuerunt gentes"; Psalm XV., "Conserva me Domine"; Psalm XVII., "Diligam te, Domine fortitudo mea"; Psalm XXXI., "Beati quorum remissae sunt iniquitates"; Psalm LXVIII., "Salvum me fac, Deus"; Psalm CIX., "Dixit Dominus Domino meo"?

ANSWER: In the negative.

VI. Whether it is possible to admit the opinion of those who hold that among the Psalms of the Psaltery there are some, either of David or of other authors which on account of liturgical or musical reasons, the carelessness of amanuenses or other unknown causes, have been divided or united; and also that there are other Psalms such as the "Miserere mei, Deus," which in order that they might be better adapted to the historical circumstances or solemnities of the Jewish people have been slightly revised or modified, by the