psalms

from St. Ambrose, On the Mysteries and the Treatise on the Sacraments, Translations of Christian Liturature, Series III. Translated by T. Thompson, B.D., 1919, pp. 120-121.

Illustrations of the Blessings of Communion from Psalm 23 and from the Canticles

Therefore thou hast come to the altar, thou has received the body of Christ. Hear again what sacraments thou hast obtained. Hear holy David speaking. He too foresaw these mysteries in the spirit and rejoiced and said that he lacked nothing* Why? Because he that hath received the body of Christ shall never hunger.¹

How often hast thou heard the twenty-second Psalm² and not understood ? See how it is suited to the heavenly sacraments. The Lord is my shepherd; and I shall not want. In a green pasture, there hath he made me to lie down. He hath tended me by the water of comfort, he converteth my soul. He hath led me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they have comforted me.³ Rod is rule, staff is passion ; that is the eternal Divinity of Christ, but also his passion in the body. The one created, the other redeemed. Thou hast prepared a table before me against them that trouble me. Thou hast anointed my head with oil, and my inebriating cup how glorious it is.⁴

The Psalter According to the Seventy: The Use of the Septuagint by the Early Church
by Fr. A. James Bernstein
from AGAIN Magazine, September 1992

What Old Testament text did early Christians use when they prayed the Psalms? Many are surprised to learn that the official text was not the Hebrew or Masoretic text which forms the basis of most modern English translations today. In order to understand why, it is necessary to know something of the background of the text of the Old Testament. 

At the time of Christ, the Apostles, and the early Church, Hebrew had long since ceased to be the commonly spoken language, even among the Jews.  Although Jesus understood Hebrew, He would have spoken Aramaic – the common language of Palestine – with His disciples. Jesus and His disciples were probably familiar, at least to a certain extent, with Greek, the common language of the Roman Empire. 

Because Greek was the most widely spoken and read language of the empire at large, a translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek had been accomplished, according to tradition, by seventy translators, in the city of Alexandria, during the third century before Christ. The name Septuagint means “according to the seventy.” The Septuagint, or LXX, was without question the most common text of the Scriptures at the time of Jesus and the Apostles. It was the Old Testament of the early Church.