Psalms of the Faithful

Luther's Early Reading of the Psalter in Canonical Context

Brian T. German

• Publisher: Lexham Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781683590491
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Estudios bíblicos

The Psalms forced Martin Luther to change how he read the Bible.

In Psalms of the Faithful Brian German shows us Luther's reappraisal of the plain sense of Scripture. By following the canonical shaping of the Psalter, Luther refined his interpretive principles into a more finely grained hermeneutic. Luther inspires us to read the Psalms empathetically with ancient Israelites and early church fathers. He stirs us up to join the "faithful synagogue" in praying to and praising the Lord our God.

According to many scholars, Luther established his approach to biblical exegesis on the claim that Jesus Christ is Scripture's content and speaker. While Luther used this formulation in prefaces, how did he really read the Bible?

German applies pressure not only to how Luther scholars understand Luther's interpretive method, but also to how modern biblical exegetes approach their task—and even to how we read the Bible.

1

A Fresh Look at a Fresh Luther

It is a strange irony that those examples of biblical interpretation in the past which have truly immersed themselves in a specific concrete historical context, such as Luther in Saxony, retain the greatest value as models for the future actualization of the biblical text in a completely different world.

—Brevard S. Childs

Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments, 88.

INTRODUCTION

In a careful study of Origen’s (d. 254) exegetical procedure, Karen Torjesen noticed a phenomenon in Origen’s work that can occur in any serious and sustained project of biblical inquiry: a distance between what one says they are going to do and what one actually ends up doing. On paper, as it were, Origen recognized the importance of identifying a series of a priori governing perspectives for the task of biblical interpretation, a set of “First Principles” within which sound exegesis was to be undertaken. He held, for example, that “just as a man consists of body, soul and spirit, so in the same way does the scripture.”1 But as Origen began to wrestle firsthand with the way the psalms do their work—once his hands were found to be on a moving plowshare—the search would be in vain for locating his body-soul-spirit hermeneutical principle being deployed in any sort of mechanical or predictable way. In due course it would become apparent that something about his encounter with the text itself changed his course of action. Something about the discrete landscape of the Psalter called for a handling of a different kind. In short, the literal sense of the psalms for Origen was often found to be sufficient in itself for the type of edification that he was seeking.2

Centuries later and in vastly different historical circumstances, a new professor of Bible at the University of Wittenberg would find himself needing to hand over his own set of “first principles” to his students before embarking on his first professional lecture series. He had taken the time to draft a preface for the course material—three of them, actually (see the discussion below)—he reminded those gathered of some key exegetical principles instilled in them by their mutual training, and he took great comfort in the common expectation that his primary goal as instructor was to pass along nothing but the best from the sacred past. But over the course of this two-year lecture series, through rigorous study of the biblical text and much prayer of the same, this new Lectura in Biblia would find himself carrying out his project with a growing distance between what he once declared about the task at hand and what he in fact ended up doing. Much like Origen of long ago, something about his encounter with the text itself uncovered a more edifying path. The following study takes a close look at what happened.

SETTING THE STAGE

Upon receiving his doctor of theology degree on October 19, 1512, a twenty-eight-year-old Martin Luther would lecture first on the one book of the Bible he undoubtedly knew better than any other: the Psalter. For several years before his faculty appointment, whether it was because of a requirement for living in the bursae at the University of Erfurt, a remedy for spiritual Anfechtungen flaring up as early as 1505, or as a part of the solemn rituals of the Augustinian monastery, Luther had been reciting the psalms fervently. By this stage in his life, he had them all memorized.3

But given such an intense devotion to the Bible in general and to its Psalter in particular, a rather unexpected caveat made its way into Luther’s opening remarks as the new incumbent of the Wittenberg Lectura in Biblia: “I confess frankly that even to the present day I do not understand many psalms,” he admitted, “and, unless the Lord enlightens me through your help, as I trust He will, I shall not be able to interpret them.”4 He had heard the psalms read aloud along with the notes of Nicholas of Lyra (1270–1349) while eating meals back in Erfurt. He spent years wearing out the pages of his first Bible as the only book permitted for a new monk other than the order’s rule. He had poured over Saint Augustine’s (354–430) homilies on the psalms, consulted the Quincuplex Psalterium (1509)—the latest textual resource from the French humanist Faber Stapulensis (d. 1536)—and took scrupulous notes on summaries and superscriptions in preparation for his course. It is even possible that Luther’s mentor and now predecessor, Johann von Staupitz (d. 1524), handpicked Luther out of several aspiring Augustinian Hermits to be Lectura in Biblia because of his aptitude with the biblical text.5 But in all of this, Luther himself was not yet satisfied.

So it was that, week after week, expounding one psalm after the other in the order of their canonical presentation, Luther sought to provide an interpretation of the Psalter that was edifying for both student and teacher. The class commenced early in the morning on August 16, 1513, and carried on for just over two years until (probably) the fall of 1515.6 Luther’s methodology in the lecture hall was thoroughly traditional; students were given a copy of the Latin text of the Psalter with wide margins and ample space between the lines for inserting numerous glosses. Quanbeck captures the scene well:

The lecturer in biblia first dictated the glosses to the text; these the student copied between the lines of his edition. In this way almost every word was paraphrased or explained, most frequently by a word or two, occasionally by longer phrases or whole sentences. In addition to the interlinear glosses, more extended comments on especially difficult or important words or phrases were inserted in the margins. Most of the material dictated by the lecturer was derived from standard helps and commentaries.7

The glosses (glossae) were twofold in type, then, as some were written between the lines of the text and others were relegated to the margins. Conveying the glossae, however, was only the first of two primary responsibilities for Luther. Quanbeck continues:

When the lecturer had completed his glosses on the text, he proceeded to more detailed comments on especially interesting, important, or difficult passages—the so-called scholia. Here the lecturer had more freedom. He could choose the passages for extended exposition and could comment at almost any length, provided his supply of helps held out. For here too the aim was to acquaint the student with the contributions of the accepted commentators rather than attempt a personal and creative approach to the text.8

In reproducing such material, the student was practically composing his own rich compendium of longstanding psalms commentary. Whether Luther was passing along the glossae or the scholia, he was expected to rely heavily upon the history of interpretation. The act of glossing a printed text with the exegesis of the past was stock-in-trade in Luther’s day,9 the massive Glossa ordinaria and Glossa interlinearis serving as prime examples of the time. Originality, it must be stressed, was not the objective: “The aim was rather an industrious reproduction of the accepted teachers of the Church.”10

How, then, would Luther balance a reverence for the tradition in one hand along with a personal uncertainty about the psalms in the other? If it was the case that Luther himself desired to become a more satisfied reader of the psalms, what did he nevertheless feel obligated to assert before undertaking such a noble task as lecturing formally on the Psalter? A brief look at Luther’s introductory preface(s) will not only set forth his own description of his interpretive approach but also convey, albeit in an oversimplified way, a helpful sense of the initial ambience pervading the earlier part of his Dictata super Psalterium.11

LUTHER’S “FIRST PRINCIPLES”

There are technically three prefaces to the Dictata: one for the glossae, one for the scholia, and one serving as a heading above the biblical text provided for Luther’s students. Here I will draw on all three of them interchangeably, though with a special focus on the last one.

Printed boldly at the top of each student’s Latin text of the Psalter was the headline, “Preface of Jesus Christ, Son of God and Our Lord, to the Psalter of David.”12 While espousing a christological reading of the psalms was hardly a novel undertaking in Luther’s day, depicting the Psalter as proceeding directly from the mouth of Jesus was a notable radicalization: “Luther here takes the unprecedented step of having Christ himself step forward to identify himself, via his New Testament self-witness, as the subject-matter and speaker of the whole Psalter.”13 As both content and speaker, Christ is thus the true literal sense of each and every psalm; “Christ is the text,” as Ebeling was known to say.14

In order to justify such a title, Luther begins by listing five scriptural passages in which Christ himself, on Luther’s ear, exhorts the very approach being advocated. Jesus has told us that he is the door (John 10:9), the key of David (Rev 3:7), the “roll of the book” (Ps 40:7), the beginning (John 8:25), and the “I” who speaks in Isaiah (Isa 52:6). A gloss is then added to ensure that no mistake is made about what he is getting at here: “If the Old Testament can be interpreted by human wisdom without the New Testament, I should say that the New Testament has been given to no purpose.”15 Luther then calls upon four “witnesses,” two prophets and two apostles, for further support of the christological interpretations above; Moses (Exod 33:14–15), Zechariah (Zech 9:1), Peter (Acts 3:24), and Paul (1 Cor 2:2) all vouch for Luther’s way of proceeding. On the basis of these nine total passages from Scripture, Luther establishes his overarching hermeneutical guideline for the Psalter: “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.”16

What immediately follows this assertion, however, is the first indication of a close dependence upon one or more of his predecessors. When Luther continues his opening remarks by presenting an alternative way of interpreting the psalms, he betrays a kind of vacillation on his part when it comes to the term “historical.” Consider first this remark of his:...