Homily on the Pslams

“[The book of Psalms] heals the ancient wounds of souls and to the newly wounded brings prompt relief; it ministers to what is sick and preserves that is in health; and it wholly removes the ills, howsoever great and of whatsoever kind, that attack souls in our human life; and this by means of a certain well-timed persuasions which inspires wholesome reflection.”

For when the Holy Spirit saw that mankind was ill-inclined toward virtue and that we were heedless of the righteous life because of our inclination to pleasure, what did He do? He blended the delight of melody with doctrine in order that through the pleasantness and softness of the sound we might unawares receive what was useful in the words, according to the practice of wise physicians, who, when they give the more bitter draughts to the sick, often smear the rim of the cup with honey. For this purpose these harmonious melodies of the Psalms have been designed for us, that those who are of boyish age or wholly youthful in their character, while in appearance they sing, may in reality be educating their souls. For hardly a single one of the many, and even of the indolent, has gone away retaining in his memory any precept of the apostles or of the prophets, but the oracles of the Psalms they both sin at home and disseminate in the market place. And if somewhere one who rages like a wild beast from excessive anger falls under the spell of the psalm, he straightway departs, with the fierceness of his soul calmed by the melody.

A psalm is the tranquility of souls, the arbitrator of peace, restraining the disorder and turbulence of thoughts, for it softens the passion of the soul, and moderates its unruliness. A psalm forms friendships, unites the divided, mediates between enemies. For who can still consider him an enemy with whom he has sent forth one voice to God? So that the singing of psalms bring love, the greatest of good things, contriving harmony like some bond of union and uniting the people in the symphony of a single coir.

A Psalm drives away demons, summons the help of angels, furnishes arms against nightly terrors, and gives respite from daily toil; to little children it is safety, to men in their prime an adornment, to the old a solace, to woman their most fitting ornament. It peoples solitudes, it chastens market places. To beginners it is a beginning; to those who are advancing, an increase; to those who are concluding, a support. A psalm is the voice of the church. It gladdens feast days; it creates the grief which is in accord with God’s will, for a psalm brings a tear even from a heart of stone.

A psalm is the work of angels, the ordinance of Heaven, the incense of the Spirit. Oh, the wise invention of the teacher who devised who we might at the same time sing and learn profitable things, whereby doctrines are somehow more deeply impressed up the mind!”

- St. Basil

c. 370 AD