In honor of Easter, I'm publishing below my research paper on Psalm 22 that I did for church history class. Psalm 22 is the famous Messianic Psalm that Jesus quoted on the cross when he said, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"
Psalm 22
as Interpreted by Augustine of Hippo, Martin Luther, and John Calvin
Various
theologians over the ages have endeavored to write extensively on the exegesis
of the Psalms. Worth studying are Augustine, Martin Luther, and John Calvin who
all wrote tomes on the longest book of the Scriptures. Their methods and
emphases differed based on their context, translation of scripture used, and theological
background which influenced their hermeneutical methods and conclusions. The
Church Father Augustine lived from 354-430 and was made Bishop of Hippo, North
Africa in 391. His writings and doctrines of grace and church would come to be
the basis for much church thought over the next millennia.[1]
Martin Luther was the iconoclastic German monk who in 1517 is credited with
starting the Protestant Reformation with the 95 Theses.[2]
John Calvin, who lived from 1509-1564, is the Father of Reformed theology whose
works still influence theology today.[3]
As all wrote extensively on Psalm 22, it is a good case study of their
hermeneutic that can edify modern readers. Therefore, the focus of this paper
will be a comparison between Augustine, Luther, and Calvin’s interpretation of key
Christological verse in Psalm 22. Because of the richness of this Psalm, a full
exegetical study on the entire passage is beyond the scope of this paper and
only Psalm 22:1 and 16-18 will be explored, as follows:
My God, my God, why
have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my
groaning?... For dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me; they have
pierced my hands and feet— I can count all my bones— they stare and gloat
over me; they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they
cast lots.[4]
Augustine on Psalm 22
Saint Augustine’s
exegetical method was influenced by his Latin educational background, which
included studying the rhetoric of Cicero and other Roman philosophers.[5]
He had no studies in Hebrew and only rudimentary studies in Greek and used the
Latin Bible of the day.[6]
This is how Augustine interpreted the Bible according to his own words: “The
sayings of the prophets are found to have a threefold meaning, in that some
have in mind the earthly Jerusalem, others the heavenly city, and others refer
to both.”[7]
Hill describes Augustine’s hermeneutic of the Psalms as “piecemeal,”
“ingenious,” and with a “preference for figurative or isolated meanings.”[8]
He followed other theologians of this day who emphasized the allegorical or
mystical meanings that were given by God above the original authorial context.[9]
Augustine treats
Psalm 22 in his Expositions of the Psalms and in his sermon based on Psalm 22
delivered as a Good Friday sermon. Of note for comparison with the Reformers is
that Augustine’s Expositions on the
Psalms were translated by Erasmus in 1529, which while during the lifetime
of both Reformers, may have been published too late to be used by Luther.[10]
It is more likely that they used the original Latin translations of his works. In Augustine’s sermon on Psalm 22, he
describes the Psalm as “almost another gospel,” saying “[i]t tells of Christ’s
passion and what it has achieved for the whole world.”[11]
In his background information in the commentary, Augustine states that it is
“The Crucified” who is the speaker of this Psalm.[12]
In his commentary on verse one, he states that the famous “My God” statements
are the words of the Lord recorded on the cross (cf. Matt 27:46, Mk 15:34). However,
Augustine’s Latin translation of “words of my groanings” was “words of my sins/crimes,”
which because of their implications of sin, could not be ascribed to Christ.
According to Augustine’s hermeneutical method, “Those
things…which appear to the inexperienced to be sinful, and which are ascribed
to God…are wholly figurative, and the hidden kernel of meaning...”[13] Thus he
allegorizes it, stating that it was not Christ’s cry of protest, but the “old
man nailed to the cross,” connecting it to Romans 6:6 which states, “[O]ur old self was crucified with him.”[14]
In his sermon, he similarly identifies this man as “the Church, the body of
Christ…crucified.”[15]
Therefore while it was the literal words of Christ, it was not really Christ
speaking, but those future sinners who are in the Church represented by Christ.
In fact, Augustine regularly interpreted the Psalms as “the body of
Christ…crying out to God” or Christ calling out to the church.[16]
Augustine identifies
the “dogs” and “council of the malignant” or “evil-minded” in verse 16 in the
literal “earthly” sense as those in the Sanhedrin who sent Jesus to Pontius
Pilate.[17]
He similarly interprets the next two verses as a literal prophecy of the
passion account: “They pierced my hands and feet,” and “They numbered
distinctly all my bones.” “A foul sight, the sight of one crucified; but that
foulness produced beauty…of the resurrection.”[18]
However, along with a
literal meaning, he also finds a figurative meaning to v. 19: “They divided my
garments among them and over my garment they cast lots.” The divided garments represent sacraments,
which can be divided by heresy, but the singular garment that cannot be divided
is the charity and unity of the Catholic Church.[19]
As a brief contextual note, this interpretation of the verse and the rest of his
Good Friday sermon was written against the Donatists, thus the particular
interpretation of unity versus disunity.[20]
Donatists posited that those bishops who had burned certain texts under
persecution could not be reconciled to the church and that anyone that they had
baptized were not truly baptized.[21]
Augustine disagreed, stating that the sacrament’s validity did not depend on
the person administering it, but on Christ. The church cannot be divided as it
is unified in Christ, even if heresies divide people out of the Church.
In his interpretation
of these Messianic verses in Psalm 22, Augustine clearly interpreted the
passage as a foretelling of Christ’s death in a literal sense, but with many
allegorical meanings pointing to the nature of man as sinful and as Christ’s
death as substitutionary for that sinful man as well as unity among the church.
Martin Luther on Psalm 22
Luther’s background
as an Augustinian monk, academic professor, and Reformation leader led to his
hermeneutic.[22]
Luther held the Scriptures in highest authority as the source of truth and
utilized the Greek Septuagint, Latin Vulgate and Hebrew Scriptures on hand,
such as Jerome’s “Psalterium juxta Hebraeos” to come to his exegetical
conclusions.[23]
He interpreted the Psalms as he did the rest of Scripture: with a
Christological emphasis. He emphasized two aspects of the Psalms: their
prophecy towards the coming Christ and their everyday application for believers,
while ignoring the immediate Israelite context.[24]
Referencing Church Fathers such as Augustine, he also accepted many allegorical
readings of the Psalms.[25]
He lectured on the Psalms as early as 1513 at the University of Wittenberg and
worked on his Commentary on the First Twenty-Two Psalms referenced in this
essay during 1519 to 1521.[26]
Along with Augustine, Luther also affirms the
prophetic utterances in Psalm 22:1 as pointing to Christ’s words on the cross.[27]
He explores the tension of Christ’s humanity and divinity with this verse,
while affirming both: “It is sometimes the divinity, and sometimes the humanity
of Christ that is here speaking.”[28]
Christ’s cry that God forsook Christ was not blasphemous or sinful, but a
reflection of his true fragile human nature on the one hand and of being made
sin and a curse for all under the law at the point of crucifixion on the other
(Gal 3:13).[29] The
believer can have hope against “the pains of death and hell” from this “victorious
infirmity.”[30] While
an Augustinian monk, Luther corrected Augustine’s interpretation of 22:1b as
“words of my faults,” stating that it was likely a translation error and that
“we are to take heed that Christ not be called a sinner.”[31]
Instead he translates it as “words of my roaring,” stating that it represented
Christ’s human nature feeling that God was far off even as salvation was near.[32]
Turning to vv. 16-18,
Luther agrees with Augustine that these verses are prophetic utterances about
the passion of the Christ, starting with the trial. In v. 16, “Christ calls
those dogs, who… accused him before Pilate…” Luther notes the translation
issues with v. 16, where “they pierced” could be translated as “like a lion,” ultimately
citing the New Testament usage, Hebrew grammar, and Augustine to argue that the
best reading would be “pierced.”[33]
“For, before the fact took place, and the prediction was fulfilled, who would have understood that the piercing of
the hands, and the feet, and the numbering of the bones, had reference to
crucifixion?“[34] While Luther gives space in his commentary to
speculate on possible deeper meanings, he ultimately writes that 22:17-18
simply showed the mockery and anger of the Jews during the passion as they
looked upon Jesus and the Roman soldiers as they divided up his garments.[35]
Luther’s superior
knowledge of the Biblical languages, access to materials, training, and era
gave him a clearer lens for interpreting this passage in a Christological
sense, leading to more clarity on the humanity and divinity of Christ. While
coming from an Augustinian background, he did not allegorize this Psalm in a
similar manner to Augustine, instead interpreting this passage on the whole as
a prophetic passage prophesying key details of the Lord’s crucifixion.
John Calvin on Psalm 22
According to the
research of Serene Jones, John Calvin’s French humanist background lent itself
to a hermeneutic closest to the modern evangelical among the three theologians.
He saw the Scriptures as “a lens which we put on” to interpret everything else
in life.[36]
He used a few tools to understand the meaning of Scripture: the
historical-grammatical context, Church Fathers such as Augustine, a systematic
theological viewpoint, typology, and application points for daily life. Calvin
wrote The Commentary on the Psalms (including
a commentary on Psalm 22) between
1553 and 1557 in Latin from lectures delivered in his time in Geneva.[37]
Unlike the other two
theologians, Calvin starts with David’s context, stating that Psalm 22 was
about a testing time in David’s life. Similar to an allegorical interpretation,
he points to David as a “type of Christ, who he knew by the Spirit of prophecy
to be abased…”[38] “[A]lthough
David here bewails his own distresses, this psalm was composed under the
influence of the Spirit of Prophecy concerning David’s King and Lord.” [39]
He spends a lot of time developing the application of v. 1 on the life of the
believer as told by David – to have belief in God despite our feelings of
despair.[40]
Calvin does not condemn David or Jesus for feeling despair, but commends both
for their use of “My God” as proof that they have faith in God despite being
“tormented to the highest degree.”[41]
Calvin accepts “words of my roaring” as the translation, stating that it is a
metaphor David uses to describe himself as a beast who is howling in anguish.[42]
According to Calvin, Christ uttered this on the cross without sin, “although
subject to human passions and affections” as our “representative” before God
the Father.[43]
Turning to the second
passage in Psalm 22, Calvin also tackles the translation issue with “pierced”
versus “like a lion,” basically stating that the Jews who state that it is like
a lion are only doing it to fight against Christian belief, not out of true
concern for rightly interpreting the Scriptures and that the proper way to
interpret it is as a metaphor in David’s case and the true facts in the case of
Jesus Christ on the cross.[44]
He similarly interprets v. 17 in a double sense: “David complains that his body
was so lean and wasted, that the bones appear protruding…” and Christ appeared
in a similar way on the cross.[45]
Again, Calvin interprets v. 18 in a metaphorical sense in David’s case, stating
that it was as if David’s enemies took as spoils “his ornaments, riches, and
all that he possessed,” but that in Christ’s case it was “without figure” and
literally referred to the Roman soldiers dividing his clothing.[46]
Calvin’s historical-grammatical
approach in this Psalm lends gravitas and meaning to David’s original context
while affirming the typology within that is used in prophecy of Christ’s
passion. David is a shadow of the fuller meaning that is in Christ. At the same
time, Calvin pulls out the humanity of both and applies the meaning to the
Christian life.
Conclusion
Augustine, Luther,
and Calvin all attest to Psalm 22 as a prophetic passage foretelling the
passion of Jesus Christ, which is the clear reading based on the New Testament.
Each theologian had their own strengths. Augustine’s strength was in pointing
to the simple prophetic ties between the passages and in applying them to the
universal church, Luther’s strength was in exploring the nature of the humanity
versus divinity in his text, while Calvin’s strength lay in his
historical-grammatical approach that emphasized the original Davidian context.
Because of their sources and methods of interpretation, however, their
conclusions on different details varied. Each grappled with the seemingly
sinful statements of Christ in v. 1 and grammatical inconsistencies in the
manuscripts in v. 16 while affirming the authority and inerrancy of Scripture. Augustine’s
use of the Latin text may have influenced him to go too far in stating that the
sinful man or Church in Christ cried out to the Lord in “words of sin.” Luther
corrected that course with the better translation of the original verse as
“words of roaring” and Calvin followed suit. Christ in his humanity uttered
those words without sin. It makes the question “Why have you forsaken me?” that
much stronger in showing that even our perfect Lord has experienced the pain of
despair. We can learn from all these theologians about the sacrifice of our
Lord for our sake that was prophesied by David around 1000 B.C. in Psalm 22 and
fulfilled in 33 A.D. for the salvation of the world through the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ.[47]
Augustine. “Exposition on Psalm 22.” In Expositions on the Psalms. New Advent.
Accessed November 19, 2018, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1801022.htm.
Augustine. Nine Sermons of Saint Augustine on the
Psalms. Translated by Edmund Hill. London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1958.
Augustine. Christian Doctrine, Book III. Accessed
November 26, 2018, http://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/augustine/ddc3.html.
Cahn,
Walter. “Illuminated Psalter Commentaries.” In Psalms in Community: Jewish and Christian Textual, Liturgical, and
Artistic Traditions. Edited by Harold W. Attridge and Margot E. Fassler,
241-264. Society of Biblical Literature
Symposium Series 25. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003.
Daley,
Brian. “Finding the Right Key: The Aims and Strategies of Early Christian
Interpretation of the Psalms.” In Psalms
in Community: Jewish and Christian Textual, Liturgical, and Artistic Traditions.
Edited by Harold W. Attridge and Margot E. Fassler, 189-205. Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series
25. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003.
Gillingham,
Susan. Psalms Through the Centuries: A
Reception History Commentary on Psalms 1-72, Volume 2. Wiley Blackwell
Bible Commentaries. Edited by John Sawyer, Christopher Rowland, Judith Kovacs,
and David M. Gunn. Singapore: John Wile & Sons, 2018.
González,
Justo L. The Story of Christianity, Vol. 1: The Early Church to the Dawn of
the Reformation. Rev. Edition. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 2010.
Kindle.
Lauer,
Edward Henry. “Luther’s Translation of the Psalms in 1523-24.” In The Journal of English and Germanic
Philology 14, no. 1 (1915): 1-34.
Lawson,
Steven J. Holman Old Testament Commentary:
Psalms 1-75. Edited by Max Anders. Nashville: Holman Reference, 2003.
Luther,
Martin. Martin Luther’s Complete
Commentary on the First Twenty-Two Psalms, Vol. 2. Translated by Henry
Cole. London: W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 1826.
[1]
Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, Vol. 1: The Early Church to
the Dawn of the Reformation, Rev. Ed, (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco,
2010), 241-250.
[2]
Bruce L. Shelley, Church History in Plain
Language, 4th ed (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2013), 250.
[3]
Alister E. McGrath, Historical Theology:
An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought (Malaysia: John Wiley
& Sons, 2013), 137.
[4]
ESV. Other Bible references are from theologians’ translations in primary
sources.
[5]
Shelley, Church History in Plain Language,
134-135.
[6]
Augustine, Nine Sermons of Saint
Augustine on the Psalms, trans. Edmund Hill (London: Longmans, Green and
Co, 1958), 28.
[7]
McGrath, Historical Theology, 113.
[8]
Augustine, Nine Sermons of Saint
Augustine on the Psalms, 27.
[9]
Augustine, Nine Sermons of Saint
Augustine on the Psalms, 27.
[10]
Walter Cahn, “Illuminated Psalter Commentaries,” in Psalms in Community: Jewish and Christian Textual, Liturgical, and
Artistic Traditions, ed. Harold W. Attridge and Margot E. Fassler (Atlanta:
Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 246.
[11]
Augustine, Nine Sermons of Saint
Augustine on the Psalms, 48.
[12]
Augustine, “Exposition on Psalm 22,” in Expositions
on the Psalms, New Advent, accessed November 19, 2018, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1801022.htm,
22.1.
[13]
Augustine, Christian Doctrine, Book III,
accessed November 26, 2018,
http://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/augustine/ddc3.html , Ch. 12:18.
[14]
Augustine, “Exposition on Psalm 22,”
22.2.
[15]
Augustine, Nine Sermons of Saint
Augustine on the Psalms, 48.
[16]
Brian Daley, “Finding the Right Key: The Aims and Strategies of Early Christian
Interpretation of the Psalms,” in Psalms
in Community: Jewish and Christian Textual, Liturgical, and Artistic Traditions,
ed. Harold W. Attridge and Margot E. Fassler (Atlanta: Society of Biblical
Literature, 2003), 204.
[17]
Augustine, “Exposition on Psalm 22,” 22.17-19.
[18]
Craig Blaising and Carmen S. Hardin, Ancient
Christian Commentary, Vol 7, Psalms 1-50 (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity
Press, 2008), 173.
[19]
Augustine, Nine Sermons of Saint
Augustine on the Psalms, 53.
[20]
Susan Gillingham, Psalms Through the
Centuries: A Reception History Commentary on Psalms 1-72, Volume 2, Wiley
Blackwell Bible Commentaries, eds. John Sawyer, Christopher Rowland, Judith
Kovacs, and David M. Gunn (Singapore: John Wile & Sons, 2018), 140.
[21]
González, The Story of Christianity, Vol. 1, 248.
[22]
McGrath, Historical Theology, 127.
[23]
Edward Henry Lauer, “Luther’s Translation of the Psalms in 1523-24,” in The Journal of English and Germanic
Philology 14, no. 1 (1915): 5, 9.
[25]
Ibid., 9.
[26]
Ibid., 10.
[27]
Martin Luther, Martin Luther’s Complete
Commentary on the First Twenty-Two Psalms, Vol. 2, trans. Henry Cole (London:
W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 1826), 357.
[28]
Ibid., 358-359, 367.
[29]
Ibid., 362-365.
[30]
Ibid., 366.
[31]
Ibid., 368.
[32]
Ibid., 366.
[33]
Ibid, 404-410.
[34]
Ibid, 410.
[35]
Ibid. 410-412
[36]
Serene Jones. “Soul Anatomy: Calvin’s Commentary on the Psalms,” in Psalms in Community: Jewish and Christian
Textual, Liturgical, and Artistic Tradition, eds. Harold W. Attridge and
Margot E. Fassler (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 266.
[37]
Ibid., 265-268.
[38]
John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of
Psalms, trans. James Anderson (Grand Rapids: WM Eerdmans Publishing
Company, 1949), 356.
[39]
Ibid., 362.
[40]
Ibid, 358.
[41]
Ibid, 358-360.
[42]
Ibid, 360.
[43]
Ibid., 362.
[44]
Ibid., 373.
[45]
Ibid., 376.
[47]
Steven J. Lawson, Holman Old Testament
Commentary: Psalms 1-75 (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2003),
3.
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