PsalterMark

We have seen time and again that Psalm 51 was The Psalm of Psalms in the medieval period. After the Reformation the importance of Psalm 51 and the other penitential psalms ever so gradually receded. There are many reasons for this, some of which we explored in the previous post.

Psalm 51 was part of the Books of Hours which were literal best sellers. Psalm 51 was central to the piety of the likes of Dante, Donne, Fisher, Hull, and Luther as we have seen. By the twentieth century interest in Psalm 51 as the chief of the penitential psalms had waned. As far as I am aware the 1960s, hence our heading, saw the last two popular books that introduce these psalms and their chief, Psalm 51, for personal devotion. These two books are:

L. J. Baggott, The Seven Penitential Psalms: a book of Lenten studies, London: A. R. Mowbray, 1963.

Norman Snaith, The Seven Psalms, London: Epworth, 1964.

Each one has something to say that helps our journey with Psalm 51. Firstly, Snaith introduces Psalm 51 in this way:

This psalm has been, for well over a thousand years, the most used of all psalms. It was repeated seven times a day, every day except at Christmas time and in Lent, and it marked the conclusion of hourly prayers. Luther uses this psalm to show that sin, a great and innate evil, can be dealt with only by being born again by faith in Christ. The contrast is born in sin, and born again in Christ. Godly men in all ages have written on this psalm, some of them to the extent of a thousand pages. In the Greek and the Vulgate—that is, in all Bibles used by Christians up to the Reformation this psalm was the fiftieth, as it still is in Roman Catholic Bibles: Vulgate Douay, and so forth. This gave commentators great scope, with references to the many fifties which occur in the Old Testament and in the New: the width of the Ark, the breadth of Ezekiel’s Temple, the freedom from service of the Levites after fifty years, the year of Jubilee. The extensive use of this psalm, and its aptness for our condition, has led to the very frequent use of certain couplets: ‘Create in me a clean heart . . .’ and ‘O Lord, open thou my lips . . .’, and so forth. [Snaith, p.47]

There seems to be little doubt that Snaith would be sympathetic to the claim that this is the Psalm of Psalms. However, he might be exaggerating regarding the ‘thousand pages’ claim. I have found no evidence of any treatment of this length. Baggott has a different, and it must be said more sobering, point of departure:

In European history this psalm has had a remarkable influence. When Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, who championed the cause of English liberty by winning Magna Charta from King John, passed to his rest, it was with this psalm upon his lips. When Savonarola’s power came to an end on Friday, April 7th, 1498, he turned to the Psalms for comfort. Two days later, on Palm Sunday, he was tortured so severely that the only bones in his body that were left unbroken was his right arm, in order that he might sign his so-called Confessions; but instead he wrote a meditation on this psalm, which Luther published in 1523. On July 6th, 1535, Sir Thomas More, ‘the Gentleman of the Reformation’ as he has been called, was executed on Tower Hill. Kneeling at the scaffold and repeating Psalm 51, which had always been his favourite prayer, he placed his head upon the low log that served as a block, and received the fatal stroke. So, too, was it the prayer of Lady Jane Grey, and the song of John Bunyan. And not of these alone, for this psalm has been the hope and comfort of countless believers who have found in its classic phrases an ideal expression of their own penitence and worship. In all ages the saints of the Church have come to this Hebrew psalm and found in it a peerless liturgy. [Baggott, p.44]