Mirror of the Soul

No one would dare, Athanasius writes to Marcellinus, to take the words of the patriarchs, or Moses, or the prophets as his own.  No one would dare imitate the prophets by saying “As the Lord lives, before whom I stand today.”

The Psalms are different.  When someone reads, hears, chants, sings the Psalms, “he recognizes [these words] as being his own words.”  He is “deeply moved, as though he himself were speaking, and is affected by the words of the songs, as if they were his own songs.”  Thus, the words of the Psalms “become like a mirror to the person singing them” to enable us to name and perceive the “emotions of the soul.”

Scripture is sufficient – not only in telling us what to believe or in telling us what to do.  Scripture also is sufficient in modeling the proper response to its affirmations, and in training us in those responses.