St. Bruno of Cologne: Commentary on the Psalms, Prologue
Introduction
St. Bruno (1030-1101) was from one of the leading families of Cologne; after being ordained as a priest in 1055, he was called to the college at Reims, which he led for eighteen years (1057-1075). After being chancellor of the Archdiocese of Reims for a few years, he began to feel a monastic vocation. After a brief time considering the solitary life with St. Robert of Molesme (1028-1111), later founder of the Cistercians, he instead turned to the coenobitic life and lived in an oratory in Chartreuse with a few companions: the first Carthusians. His life of retirement was shattered when his former pupil, now Pope Urban II (1035-1099, r. 1088-1099), dragged him to Rome to act as his advisor. He was able to refuse the pope's push to make him an archbishop, but he was not allowed to leave Italy, so he and his companions started a new oratory in Calabria, which is where he lived until his death.
Alongside his teaching work, his founding of an order, and his role as a papal advisor, Bruno also wrote a few Scriptural commentaries. Below is the prologue to his Commentary on the Psalms.
Commentary on the Psalms
Prologue
The psaltery is a kind of musical instrument that resounds from its upper hole. And, since the melody of the psalms was played on such an instrument, this whole work rightly receives its name from its instrument. For as the psaltery resounds from the upper [hole], so, too, this whole work resounds from the upper, that is, from the praise of God. But the intention of this work is shown to be manifold, through the diversity of the individual titles. For now it intends to prophesy the Incarnation, Birth, Passion, Resurrection, and other acts of Christ, now the salvation of the good and the damnation of the evil, in all of which God’s praises are aimed for. For in His passion and other works, and in the salvation of the just by His humility and mercy, in the damnation of the impious through [His] justice, praises are found to be there. Therefore, for good reason, this book is called by the Jews “Book of Hymns,” that is, the praise of God. For “hymns” were, properly speaking, praises of God set in verse, but “psalms” were composed in lyric verse; so Arator1 says, The Psalter is composed of lyric feet.
So three things are to be considered, in divine as well as secular books. For, just as secular [books] tend partly to the physical, partly to the ethical, and partly to the logical, so, too, divine [books tend] towards the physical in some spots, so that physical figures are noted in it, such as the origin of the world in Genesis, and, in Ecclesiastes, many natural things are treated mystically. And, in some places, logical things tend toward the ethical, like the Book of Job, and Blessed the spotless (Ps 119), and some other psalms. And in some places, logical and ethical things tend towards the theorical,2 that is, towards contemplation, namely, those which contain God’s mysteries, sublime in themselves, and far from common thought, as in the Song of Songs. In which God is introduced as speaking to the Church, like a groom to a bride, by a miraculous mystery. So even if, in some places, this book seems to tend towards the ethical, yet it principally tends towards the theorical, especially when it tends toward the mysteries of the Incarnation, Nativity, and other acts of Christ.
Indeed, it should be understood that there are many kinds of prophecies. For some prophecies are through deeds, like the exodus of the sons of Israel, and their other deeds, “all” of which (so says the Apostle) “occurred to them in figure” (1 Cor 10:11). Others, through speech: as it is said that God spoke to Moses and many other prophets, through angels, of things to come. Others, through revelation, as many things were said to have been revealed to Ezekiel and Daniel in portents of dreams. Others, too, through the hidden inspiration of the Holy Spirit, as David [and] the prophets were intimate with the mysteries of the Lord’s Passion and other acts, not through deeds or acts or some other revelation, but through the hidden inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
It should be noted, too, that, through the excessive agility of the Holy Spirit, the prophets spoke of future things as well as present and past things. For every future thing is present to the Holy Spirit, and is known as if it were past. It should also be noted that, when, in the psalms, Christ is sometimes introduced as praying and acting humbly, it is to be accepted in accord with His humanity, and, when [acting] sublimely, in accord with His divinity. It should also be noted why the first psalm lacks a title, when the others are seen to have titles, namely, because it is to be considered as the title of all the other psalms. For when, in this psalm, there is the intention of praising Christ, it intimates that, in all the others, He is to be treated of in various ways. For the intention of this psalm is how Christ removed those three deaths by which the first man came to death, and, on the other hand, to praise Him because of His threefold obedience, which the first man lacked. And it is the voice considering the prophet’s damnation of the human race, because of Adam’s disobedience, and foreseeing his future reparation through Christ. And so it says this:
[Therein follows the commentary on Psalm 1]
1 Arator was a 6th-century Latin poet from Liguria, best-known for a versified history of the Apostles. Remigius of Auxerre (841-908) also quotes this line of Arator's in his Explanations of the Psalms (PL 131:148A).↩
2 St. Bruno is using is a neologism based on the Greek θεωρια (theōria), commonly used by the Greek Fathers to mean “contemplation.” Since logical and ethical originally derive from Greek roots, it seems St. Bruno wanted to continue the Grecian trend.↩
Source: PL 152:637B-639C.
Translation ©2024 Brandon P. Otto. Licensed via CC BY-NC. Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the translator.
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