good one, but the faithful were so familiar with the old Itala psalter
that the Church, in her wisdom, thought best to keep it in the editions
of the Vulgate according to the Gallican form.... Our official version
of the psalms is then in many ways defective. It is frequently
incorrect and barbarous in style, obscure in places, and even fails at
times to give the exact sense of the original. Although our Vulgate is
not perfect, it possesses admirable strength and conciseness, joined to
an agreeable savour which gives it the greatest value and causes the
words of the sacred singers, under this form of the Latin spoken by the
people, to strike the mind and become engraved upon the memory much
better than if they were clothed in all the elegance of a modern tongue"
(Vigouroux; _Manuel Biblique_, tom. ii., 663-664).

The following replies by the Biblical Commission (May, 1910) may not be
deemed out of place:--

I. Whether the appellations, Psalms of David, Hymns of David, Davidical
Psaltery, employed in the old collections and in the Councils themselves
to designate the Book of the one hundred and fifty Psalms of the Old
Testament, as well as the opinion of many Fathers and Doctors who held
that absolutely all the psalms of the Psaltery are to be ascribed to
David alone, have so much force that David must be regarded as the sole
author of the entire Psaltery?

ANSWER: In the negative.

II. Whether it may rightly be argued from the concordance of the Hebrew
text with the Alexandrine Greek text and other ancient versions, that
the titles prefixed to the Hebrew text are older than the version known
as the Septuagint, and that therefore they have been derived if not from
the authors themselves of the Psalms at least from the ancient Judaic
tradition?

ANSWER: In the affirmative.

III. Whether the said titles of the Psalms, as witnesses of Judaic
tradition, may be prudently called into question when there is no grave
argument against their genuineness?

ANSWER: In the negative.

IV. Whether, considering the not unfrequent testimonies of the Sacred
Scripture concerning the natural skill of David, illumined by the gift
of the Holy Ghost, in the composition of religious canticles, the
institutions laid down by him for the liturgical chant of the Psalms,
the attribution to him of Psalms made both in the Old and New Testament
and in the very inscriptions which have been prefixed to the Psalms from
antiquity, and in addition