Bellarmine on Psalm XLIV: Verses 8-9

Verse 8

Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a sceptre of uprightness.

Sedes tua, Deus, in saeculum saeculi; virga directionis virga regni tui.

He now comes to the supreme dignity of the Messiah and openly calls Him God and says that the seat of His kingdom is eternal; and St. Paul in Hebrews i. cites this text to prove Christ is so superior to angels as a master is to his servants and God is to created things. He therefore says : “Thy throne,” O Christ “God,” will not be transient, as was that of David and Solomon, but will endure “for ever and ever. And the sceptre of thy kingdom,” that is, Thy sceptre, will always be most upright and most just : the Hebrew phrase is a sceptre of uprightness instead of a most upright sceptre; like having God of all knowledge[1] instead of all-knowing God.

[1] Thy kingdom is a kingdom of all ages: and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations. The Lord is faithful in all his words: and holy in all his works. Regnum tuum regnum omnium saeculorum; et dominatio tua in omni generatione et generationem. Fidelis Dominus in omnibus verbis suis, et sanctus in omnibus operibus suis. [Ps. Cxliv. 13]

Verse 9

Thou hast loved justice, and hated iniquity: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.

Dilexisti justitiam, et odisti iniquitatem; propterea unxit te Deus, Deus tuus, oleo laetitiae, prae consortibus tuis.

This text can be understood in a twofold sense, like the words in verse three (of this Psalm), therefore hath God blessed thee for ever. For the word propterea can mean effect, so that the sense is, because “Thou hast loved justice, and hated iniquity,” being obedient unto death and death on the Cross, “therefore God, … hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness,” that is, He hath glorified Thee and “hath exalted Thee (on His right hand), and hath given Thee a name which is above all names: that in Thy name every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.”[1] This glory is rightly called “the oil of gladness” because through it all pain comes to an end. It also rightly says “above thy fellows,” since even though angels are also glorified and men are to be glorified, no-one is or will be exalted at the right hand of the father, and no-one has been given or will be given a name above all names, Christ only excepted, 

who is at the head of men and angels, and is at once God and man. But the word propterea can also mean cause, and can be translated as because, or because of which, so that the sense is: “Thou hast loved justice, and hated iniquity,” because of which God  hath anointed thee with the oil of spiritual grace above thy fellows, because He hath anointed thee with the grace of hypostatic unction, and from this it has come to pass that the spirit is poured forth in Thee without measure, and all others have received thy measure in abundance; this explanation follows St. Augustine and seems to follow St. Basil who, commenting on this text, says that it is in Christ’s nature to have a  love of justice and a hatred of iniquity, since He had this from His birth, or rather from His conception and from an interior principle: but others acquire virtues through practice and hard work. St. Augustine, countering the Hebrews and the heretics who deny Christ’s divinity, notes that in the repetition, Deus, Deus tuus / God, thy God, the first case is in the vocative and the second in the nominative, which is how St. Jerome explains the text in his epistle ad Principiam. And so the sense is: God the father hath anointed Thee, O Christ God, with the oil of gladness; and Augustine affirms that the same thing appears more clearly in the Greek text, which may be judged to be in the (other) Greek texts we now have, by the negligence of the libraries an omega changed into an omicron. When it says God hath anointed God, we do not understand God anointed in reason of His divinity but in reason of His humanity; for God the Father hath anointed God the Son, because God the Son was made man, and in reason of His humanity H10]e accepted the grace of unction, because that man who was anointed, the Son of God, is also God.

[1] For which cause God also hath exalted him, and hath given him a name which is above all names: Propter quod et Deus exaltavit illum, et donavit illi nomen, quod est super omne nomen : That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth: ut in nomine Jesu omne genu flectatur caelestium, terrestrium et infernorum, [Philipp. ii. 9-10]

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.