The New Latin Psalter

Extract

In writing about the new Latin translation of the Hebrew Psalter there is a temptation (to which I see some have yielded) to use , some such title as Psallite sapienter; then one can follow up the title with St Augustine’s commentary on these words: ‘David here teaches us to sing the psalms intelligently, to seek rather the heart’s enlightening than the sounds that strike the ear’. But under the circumstances I thought I had better first look up the 46th Psalm in the new translation, and there I found that I should have fallen at the very first fence. The phrase does not appear; it is psallite hymnum instead.

You see how warily we shall have to walk, if the new translation becomes official, both in quoting the psalms and the Fathers’ commentaries on the psalms. Not only that, but we shall have to say farewell to many of our favourite verses: such verses as have, rightly or wrongly, nourished the piety of the faithful ever since Latin became the common language of the Western Church. No longer will the priest be able to pour out his soul at the foot of the altar with the words Introibo ad altare Dei, ad Deum qui laetijicat juventutem meam.. There is no mention of anybody’s youth in that verse, apparently. And, horribile dictu, we may have to begin the canonical hours not with the gloriously resounding Dens in adjutorium meum intende but with the more modest if more correct Placeat tibi Deus ut eripias me.