The meaning of the parable, heard with ears unbesotted, is this:—“You, among hard and unjust men, yet suffer their claim to the return of what they never gave; you suffer them to reap, where they have not strawed.—But to me, the Just Lord of your life—whose is the breath in your nostrils, whose the fire in your blood, who gave you light and thought, and the fruit of earth and the dew of heaven,—to me, of all this gift, will you return no fruit but only the dust of your bodies, and the wreck of your souls?”
Nevertheless, the Parables have still their living use, as well as their danger; but the Psalter has become practically dead; and the form of repeating it in the daily service only deadens the phrases of it by familiarity. I have occasion to-day, before going on with any work for Agnes, to dwell on another piece of this writing of the father of Christ,—which, read in its full meaning, will be as new to us as the first-heard song of a foreign land.
I will print it first in the Latin, and in the letters and form in which it was read by our Christian sires. [[127]]
The Eight Psalm. Thirteenth Century Text.[7]
Domine dominus noster q̄m admirabile est nomen tuum in universa terra. Quoniam elevata est magnificentia tua super celos. Ex ore infantium t̄ lactentium p̄fecisti laudem p̄pter inimicos tuos ut destruas inimicū t̄ ultorem. Quoniam videbo celos tuos opera digitor. tuor. lunam t̄ stellas que tu fundasti Quid est h̥̊ quod memor es ejus, aū filius h̥ōis quia visitas eum. Minuisti eum paulominus; ab angelis, gloria t̄ honore coronasti eum t̄ cstituisti eum super opera manuum tuar. Om̄ia subjecisti sub pedibs ejus, oves t̄ boves univ̄sas, insuper t̄ pecora campi. Volucres celi t̄ pisces maris q̄ p̄ambulant semitas maris. Domine dominus noster quam admirabile est nomen tuum in univ̄sa terra.
[[128]]
I translate literally; the Septuagint confirming the Vulgate in the differences from our common rendering, several of which are important.
“1. Oh Lord, our own Lord, how admirable is thy Name in all the earth!
2. Because thy magnificence is set above the heavens.
3. Out of the mouth of children and sucklings thou hast perfected praise, because of thine enemies, that thou mightest scatter the enemy and avenger.
4. Since I see thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast founded,
5. What is man that thou rememberest him, or the son of man, that thou lookest on him?
6. Thou hast lessened him a little from the angels; thou hast crowned him with glory and honour, and hast set him over all the works of thy hands.
7. Thou hast put all things under his feet; sheep, and all oxen—and the flocks of the plain.
8. The birds of the heaven and the fish of the sea, and all that walk in the paths of the sea.
9. Oh Lord, our own Lord, how admirable is thy Name in all the earth!”
Note in Verses 1 and 9.—Domine, Dominus noster; our own Lord; Κύριε, ὁ Κύριος ἡμῶν; claiming thus the Fatherhood. The ‘Lord our Governour’ of the Prayer Book entirely loses the meaning. How admirable is Thy [[129]]Name! θαυμαστον, ‘wonderful,’ as in Isaiah, “His name shall be called Wonderful, the Counsellor.” Again our translation ‘excellent’ loses the meaning.
Verse 2.—Thy magnificence. Literally, ‘thy greatness in working’ (Gk. μεγαλοπρέπεια—splendour in aspect), distinguished from mere ‘glory’ or greatness in fame.