Expositions of the Psalms, 1-32 (review)

Saint Augustine Expositions of the Psalms, 1-32 Translated by Maria Boulding. Introduction by Michael Fiedrowicz The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, pt. 3, vol. 15 Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2000 Pp. 462. $24.95.

Maria Boulding provides a readable translation of Augustine's expositions of the first thirty-two psalms that is much more faithful to the Latin text than that published in the Ancient Christian Writers series (no. 29) forty years earlier. Overall, Boulding's translation is quite reliable, although I have reservations concerning three relatively minor points. First, in expositions aimed against certain heretical groups, some of the rhetorical effect of the polemic is lost when the name of the group is supplied. For example, although attacking Donatist positions in the exposition of Psalm 10, Augustine never deigns to name them; nonetheless "the Donatists" are specified several times in the translation (165). Second, on numerous occasions throughout the volume the translator supplies "the psalmist" to verbs whose subjects Augustine does not specify. While such a manner of speaking makes sense in the discourse of contemporary biblical scholarship, it is alien to Augustine. For example, iudicium minatur is rendered, "the psalmist is threatening them with judgment" (177). It would be better to simply say, "the psalm threatens judgment," rather than to introduce another person to the exposition--especially since identifying the speaking subject (as God the Father, Christ, the Church, the Christian soul, etc.) is central to Augustine's method. Third, one must be wary of constant attempts to use gender-neutral language. For example, in two subsequent lines, hominum, hominum, and homo are rendered "of men and women," "of humankind," and "an ordinary person like ourselves" (143). In such instances the beauty of Augustine's rhetoric is lost, the meaning is obscured, and the reader of the translation has no idea that the same Latin word is being used.

Michael Fiedrowicz provides an excellent introduction (in 54 pages) both to Augustinian biblical interpretation in general and to the Enarrationes in particular, in which he synthesizes a vast body of knowledge on Augustine's hermeneutic principles and methods of exegesis. According to Fiedrowicz, in the Enarrationes Augustine sought "to unlock the meaning of the biblical words for the present day, through theological reflection and an interpretation applied to actual circumstances" (24). In other words, Augustine strove to "actualize" the psalms in his own life and that of his reader or auditor. His key tool for doing so was his concept of the psalms as the voice of "the whole Christ" (Christus totus), both Head and Body. Through Augustine's exegetical application of this principle, Fiedrowicz claims, the Church "gained personality, to an extent it had never done in earlier ecclesiological tradition" (56).

Fiedrowicz rightly insists upon the importance of the Enarrationes as an "encyclopedia" or a "microcosm" of Augustine's thought. Working on them provided Augustine with an opportunity to "recapitulate and focus the experiences of [his] personal life, his theological reflections and his pastoral concerns as Bishop of Hippo" (64). Whether one is interested in Augustine's christology, ecclesiology, Trinitarian theology, soteriology, moral theology, or even his polemics against Donatists, Manicheans and Pelagians, the Enarrationes contains illuminating material. It is unfortunate that reading through them is such a laborious task! Boulding's translation makes that task easier, and the sub-headings she adds are particularly helpful for locating material of interest more quickly. If the completed set of translations--which will probably occupy nearly three thousand pages--is to become a truly handy research tool, one might hope for a topical index at the end of the final volume.

The footnotes are largely confined to scriptural allusions, explanations of Latin words, cross-references, and occasional variant readings Dekkers and Fraipont pointed out in their critical edition (CCSL 38). The text is followed by an index of scripture references and an index of notable words.

 

Daniel Van Slyke , Saint...