[Scriptum compendiosum Psalterii intentionem declarans]

With a song to God, this book is called the book of psalms, that is, the book of divine praises, because whatever is contained in it is placed by way of divine praise; for this reason it is commonly posed by doctors, and it is said that it contains the whole of sacred scripture by way of divine praise. Commonly known as the Prooemium or Preface to a Psalter
Whence in this book are described by way of divine praise the rewards of the good, the punishments of the wicked, the foundations of wisdom, the progress of those advancing, the perfection of those arriving, the life of those active, and the contemplation of those who are contemplative. Here also it is taught what sin takes away, what penance restores, what the penitent conscious of sin says, and what one attains through penance.

Whence the grace of the aforementioned and the following. It is to be known that for a threefold reason the Church uses the psalms more in prayers than other canonical scriptures. First, because no canonical scripture has so many mixed prayers as the psalm. Also because prayers are made for attaining salutary effects, and no scripture has so many effects, as is evident in many scriptures and authorities speaking of the praise of the psalms. Also because the memory of David, who from such a great sinner was made such a great prophet, namely the most excellent of the prophets, most excites us to the elevation of our hope. Such elevation, moreover, is much

necessary for those praying, through whom it is shown that no one, however much he may have sinned, should despair of the pardon and mercy of God, the humility of repenting having been assumed. For when we see David, a homicide and adulterer, made a doctor and prophet through penance, no place of despair is left for anyone doing penance. Just as from the conversion of Saul and his promotion to an apostle, we are fully certified of the mercy of God. Whence, as the Church uses his epistles more than others, so it uses the psalms of David in its offices. By reason of the psalms, then, and by reason of their effects, and by reason of the author, they are assumed in prayers; hence it is that all ecclesiastical men, and especially religious ones, are to be exhorted and admonished with the highest study that, with the vanities of the world and useless curiosities postponed, they transfer themselves with diligent study to this book, namely of divine praises. For if men study with such diligence in vain and superfluous things to which they are not bound, how much more should they study in those things which they are bound to pray and sing daily, so that they may learn to understand them, and thus, by understanding, may taste with an interior taste the sweetness of this salutary wisdom, namely the book of divine praise.