Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
…says, is a certain amulet for routing and driving off demons: a conciliator of angelic protection, a shield of security amid nocturnal fears, rest of daily labours, tutelary protection of infants, glory and ornament of those in the flower of age, solace of the old. Finally it is a most fitting ornament for adorning women.” And some words later: “A psalm is the tranquillity of souls, the arbiter of making peace, at whose nod overflowing and tumultuous thoughts contract and are quiet, etc. A psalm is the work of Angels, a spiritual incense.” And, to pass over many others, St. Ambrose, Preface to the Psalms: “A psalm,” he says, “is the blessing of the people, the praise of God, the commendation of the multitude, the applause of all, the speech of all, the voice of the Church, the tuneful confession of faith, devotion full of authority, the joy of liberty, the cry of gladness, the echo of joy. It mitigates anger, banishes anxiety, relieves sorrow. Arms by night, masters by day. A shield in fear, a feast in holiness. An image of tranquillity, a pledge of peace and concord: like a harp, from diverse and unlike voices producing one song. The rising of the day echoes a psalm, the setting resounds a psalm.”
For this cause Eliseus, preparing himself to receive prophecy from God, ordered a minstrel to be brought, that by his psalmody his mind might be raised to God, and fitted for divine illumination, 4 Kings 3.
The natural force, then, of the music and harp of David, soothing the melancholy of Saul, consisted in two things: first, that it diverted his fancy from the thought of sad things, to attend to the pleasant sounds and songs of music; secondly, that the very pleasure of the song cheered him, and so drove away or lessened the melancholy. So Lyranus, Abulensis, Valesius, Sanchez, Serarius and others.
But the more powerful force of this harp was supernatural, namely that David by the playing of the harp roused his mind (as Eliseus did, as I said), that he might pray more fervently to God for the salvation of Saul: whence God, hearing him, on account of David’s fervent prayers and merits, drove the demon from Saul, and restored Saul to himself and to his mind. So Josephus (who adds that David, playing the harp, recited psalms), Theodoret, Lyranus, Abulensis, Serarius. In like manner St. Francis calmed the minds of the Sienese, stirred up by a demon into mutual hatreds, by the Canticle of the Sun (which I recounted on Ecclesiasticus 43, verse 2), and brought them back to their former concord.
Allegorically, the harp represents the cross of Christ; for as the strings are stretched upon the harp, so Christ was stretched upon the cross. Hear Angelomus: “For it was not so great a power of his, but the mystery of the cross of Christ was mystically borne by the extension of the sinews over the wood, in which the passion also was sung.” So also Prosper, part 2 of the Predictions, chap. 25. Nay, Angelomus, Eucherius and Bede think that the evil spirit was driven from Saul by the virtue of the cross of Christ to come, of which the harp of David was the type: as the Hebrews were freed from the striking Angel in Egypt by the blood of the Paschal Lamb, which was the type of the blood of Christ to be immolated on the cross. Hence St. Augustine, sermon 3 On the Season, teaches that the harp represents the flesh of Christ. Hear him: “Look still at the harp, how, to render musical melody in sweet sounds, three things seem to be present together: art, hand and string; and yet one sound is heard: art dictates, hand touches, string resounds.
The three work together, but the string alone gives forth what is heard, and neither art nor hand renders the sound; but they work together with the string: so neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit took flesh; and yet they work together with the Son: the string alone strikes out the sound, Christ alone takes flesh; the operation is in the three, but as the rendering of the sound belongs to the string alone, so the taking of flesh belongs to Christ alone.”
The same Augustine on Psalm 36, on that: Arise, psaltery and harp: “In the psaltery,” he says, “the strings receive the sound from above, but in the harp from the lower part; so through His flesh He wrought two kinds of deeds, miracles and sufferings. The miracles were from above; the sufferings were from below: for the miracles which He did were divine, but He did them through the body, He did them through the flesh.
The divine flesh working, then, is the psaltery: the human flesh suffering is the harp. Let the psaltery sound, let the blind be enlightened, the deaf hear, the paralytics be strengthened, the lame walk, the sick rise, the dead rise again; this is the sound of the psaltery. And let the harp sound, let Him hunger, thirst, sleep, be seized, be scourged, be mocked, be crucified, be buried.”
Hence the saints also, who either underwent martyrdom, or mortified the flesh and crucified it with its vices, play the harp to God on their harps, Apoc. 14, 2. See what is said there.
Symbolically, Rupert takes the harp for the sweetness of the preaching of the Gospel: for this by its sweetness drew all nations to itself. “Amphion moved stones by singing;” much more did Christ break stony hearts by preaching.
Tropologically, the spiritual harp is gentle and soothing speech; likewise a learned and pious discourse or exhortation; also psalmody and prayer, by which the hard, proud, wrathful and avaricious minds of men are soothed and bent to piety, according to that of Proverbs 15, 1 and 4: “A mild answer breaketh wrath: a peaceable tongue is a tree of life.” A meek man is the physician of the heart. And Ecclesiasticus 6, 5: “A sweet word multiplieth friends, and appeaseth enemies.” So of the Jews hearing Christ Luke says, chap. 4, verse 22: “They wondered at the words of grace that proceeded from his mouth.” So Angelomus: “When the mind of the powerful,” he says, “is turned by pride into fury, it is fitting that for the salvation of the mind it be recalled by the tranquillity of our speech, as by the sweetness of a harp.” Eucherius has the same in the same words.
Finally he who praises God and gives Him thanks in adversity as in prosperity plays the harp to God and men. Hear St. Augustine on Psalm 32: “Confess to the Lord on the harp: whether something abounds to thee, give the more thanks to Him who gave it; or whether something is wanting to thee, or perhaps is taken from thee by loss, play the harp securely. For He is not taken from thee who gave, though that which He gave be taken from thee. Even so, I say, play the harp securely, sure in thy God, touch the strings in thy heart, and say as on a harp sounding well on its lower part: The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away; as it hath pleased the Lord, so is it done, blessed be the name of the Lord.”
FOR THE EVIL SPIRIT DEPARTED FROM HIM.—See, then, the demon, who before, at the stroke of David’s harp, had relaxed somewhat of his cruelty in vexing Saul, by the same stroke often repeated and continued was at last plainly vanquished, and departed from Saul. For instead of “departed” the Hebrew and Greek have, “departed,” and therefore Saul, now healed, sent David back home to his father Jesse. Whence in the next chapter Saul did not recognise David coming to him; but after the victory won by David against Goliath, hearing the people acclaim him: “Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands;” burning with envy and hatred against him, he began again to be agitated by the demon, as is plain chap.
because he could no longer bear David, as a rival, and his harp.
Moreover David, dismissed by Saul, returned to his father and his sheep; not because war from the Philistines threatened Saul, as Josephus and Abulensis say, but because Saul, now cured, had no need of David, and David loved the sheepfold more than the court, that is, the private life more than the courtly. Then truly, says Chrysostom, homily on Psalm 50: “David, a youth, fleeing indeed cities and crowds, but philosophizing in the desert, having nothing in common with seculars, no business dealings, no lending at interest, nothing of the difficulty of this world, even in his tender age dwelt in the desert of silence; and as in a tranquil harbour, sitting in the wilderness and having the care of the sheep, he meditated on the heavenly kingdom: and not by strength of body, but by virtue of faith, he slew the bears and lions that attacked his flock;
18, 10; nor afterwards is he read to have been freed from him,