Denis the Carthusian's Commentary on the Psalms (Vol. 6—Psalms 126–150): Nisi Dominus

Nisi Dominus

“Read the entire Psalter.”

Nisi Dominus is the sixth and final volume of Denis the Carthusian’s (1402–1471) monumental Commentary on the Psalms, completing the English translation of his exposition of the Davidic Psalter. This volume contains Denis’s commentary on Psalms 126 through 150.

Denis the Carthusian, known to posterity as the Doctor Ecstaticus, stands near the culmination of the medieval exegetical tradition. His commentary gathers together the great inheritance of patristic and medieval interpretation while bearing the distinctive marks of his Thomistic education and his contemplative Carthusian vocation.

For Denis, however, the Psalms are never merely texts to be explained. They are to be prayed, interiorized, and lived. Their words instruct the mind, govern the affections, awaken compunction, strengthen virtue, and lead the Christian soul toward contemplation and union with God.

Scripture in its multiple senses

Denis explains the Psalms according to the traditional interpretative inheritance of the Church. The historical or literal sense remains the foundation, while the spiritual senses disclose Christ, the Christian moral life, and the soul’s final destiny.

Hearing the Voice of Christ in the Psalms

The dominant weight in Denis’s interpretation is Christological. Although he recognizes the Psalter’s Jewish pedigree, historical context, and the voice of David, Denis continually looks beyond the sign to the reality signified. David is for him preeminently “the Prophet,” because through the Psalms the mystery of Christ is proclaimed with extraordinary fullness.

Within the Psalter Denis hears not simply the vox David, the voice of David, but above it the vox Christi: the voice concerning Christ, the voice of Christ to the Father, and the voice of Christ addressed to us.

Scripture explaining Scripture

Denis deliberately avoided an excessively elaborate scholastic apparatus in this commentary. Instead, his purpose was to explain the Psalms, “to the degree able,” with the most sound Scriptures of both Testaments.

Yet his method remains unmistakably shaped by St. Thomas Aquinas. Denis entered the via Thomae during his studies at the University of Cologne and carried that intellectual formation into the Charterhouse at Roermond.

The Psalms are to be lived and prayed

Denis places a strong emphasis upon Christian practice. The Psalms are intended to school the Christian in a manner of living—the conversatio or imitatio Christi. His individual commentaries repeatedly move from exposition toward application, often ending with a peroration calling the reader to embody the Psalm’s teaching.

Each Psalm also concludes with prayer. Exegesis therefore does not terminate in understanding alone: understanding turns toward petition, conversion, virtue, and the grace necessary to put the sacred text into practice.

Tractate on the Method of Devoutly Reciting the Psalms

The Commentary on the Psalms fittingly concludes with a seven-article Tractate devoted to the practical and interior use of the Psalter in the Christian life.

Its concern is not simply how the Psalms are pronounced but how they are interiorized. The person praying the Psalms must learn how to order and vary his affects, concepts, intentions, and considerations according to the sacred text—in short, to form himself according to the mind of the Psalms, which is the mind of Christ.

The affects of the heart

Denis focuses especially upon the affects—the emotive states, conditions, moods, inclinations, desires, and longings of the heart supportive of the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. These interior movements are to be enkindled and inflamed by the proper recitation of the Psalms.

Purgative · Illuminative · Unitive

The Psalms, Denis teaches, accompany the Christian throughout the traditional stages of the spiritual life. The same Psalter follows the soul as it is purified, illuminated, and finally drawn toward contemplative union with God.

The Gregorian scrutinies

Drawing upon Pope St. Gregory the Great, Denis identifies four objects of compunction through which the disciple of Christ examines himself before God. The Psalter thereby becomes an instrument not merely of praise but also of conscience, repentance, and interior conversion.

Exposition of the Seven Penitential Psalms

As an added boon, this volume contains Denis’s separate Exposition of the Seven Penitential Psalms, a work written at the request of Prospero Cardinal Colonna (ca. 1410–1463).

This is an independent work rather than a repetition of Denis’s treatment of these Psalms throughout the six-volume Commentary. Its method also differs somewhat from that of the principal work, drawing more extensively upon the patristic and medieval exegetical tradition.

The Seven Penitential Psalms had long occupied a privileged place in Christian devotion, particularly during the penitential seasons and in preparation for or thanksgiving after Confession. Denis relates them to the interior purification of the Christian and to the ordered ascent toward the pure and contemplative life.

The Completion of the Commentary on the Psalms

With Psalms 126–150, the concluding Tractate on devout recitation, and the separate Exposition of the Seven Penitential Psalms, Nisi Dominus brings Andrew M. Greenwell’s six-volume English translation of Denis the Carthusian’s great commentary on the Psalter to its completion.

Andrew M. Greenwell

Andrew M. Greenwell is a married Catholic layman, with three children and thirteen grandchildren. He is a civil trial and appellate lawyer based in Corpus Christi, Texas. He has written articles for Catholic Online and for a number of years wrote a blog on the natural moral law called Lex Christianorum.

Book Details

The Psalter interpreted according to Christ, formed into prayer, and carried into the interior life of the Christian.