The Kathismata, Psalm 151, and the Nine Odes

Beyond its 150 psalms, the Orthodox Psalter carries three structural features that shape how it is prayed: it is divided into twenty kathismata, each subdivided into three stases, for reading through in the weekly cycle; it contains a supernumerary Psalm 151, “outside the number,” on David and Goliath; and it has appended to it the Nine Biblical Odes — the scriptural canticles on which the canons of Matins are modelled.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

The Twenty Kathismata

For liturgical reading the Psalter is divided into twenty sections called kathismata (Greek kathisma, “a sitting,” from the Slavonic/Greek custom that the faithful may sit to listen while the psalms are read; singular kathisma, plural kathismata). The whole Psalter is read through in the course of a week in the standard Typikon, and twice each week during Great Lent (see Reading the Whole Psalter and the Cell Rule). The division is fixed and universal in the Byzantine books; the standard arrangement (Septuagint numbering) is:

Kathisma Psalms Kathisma Psalms
1 1–8 11 77–84
2 9–16 12 85–90
3 17–23 13 91–100
4 24–31 14 101–104
5 32–36 15 105–108
6 37–45 16 109–117
7 46–54 17 118
8 55–63 18 119–133
9 64–69 19 134–142
10 70–76 20 143–150

(The division as printed in the Orthodox Psalter and Horologion; see The Psalter According to the Seventy, Holy Transfiguration Monastery, and A Psalter for Prayer, Jordanville, 2011.) Several kathismata have a distinct liturgical character. The first kathisma (Pss 1–8, “Blessed is the man”), is appointed at Great Vespers on Saturday evening, opening the Sunday celebration. The seventeenth kathisma is Psalm 118 (119) alone — the immense acrostic on the law of God, called in Slavonic the Nepórochny (“The Blameless,” from its first word) — which forms the heart of the Midnight Office on weekdays and of the Orthodox funeral and memorial services. The eighteenth kathisma (Pss 119–133) gathers the fifteen “Songs of Ascents,” sung by the pilgrims going up to Jerusalem, and is read at Vespers through most of the year. The ninth kathisma (Pss 64–69) replaces the seventeenth at the Saturday Midnight Office (see Orthodoxy: The Daily Cycle, on the Midnight Office).

The Stases and the “Glory”

Each kathisma is itself divided into three parts called stases (Greek stasis, “a standing,” plural staseis), sometimes called “Glories” in English because each is marked off by the doxology “Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, both now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.” After each stasis follows a threefold “Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, glory to Thee, O God,” and (in full practice) the sedalen or “sessional hymn” appointed for that point. This threefold subdivision means the Psalter as prayed is punctuated everywhere by the Trinitarian doxology — the psalms of the Old Covenant taken up explicitly into the confession of the Trinity, so that David is made to praise the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The stasis structure is what allows the kathisma to be a genuine unit of prayer rather than a mere quantity of text: three movements, each sealed with glory to the Trinity.

Psalm 151

The Orthodox Psalter contains a 151st psalm, absent from the Hebrew Masoretic Text and from Protestant Bibles but present in the Septuagint. Its superscription in the Greek marks its special status: “This psalm is a genuine one of David, though supernumerary [idiographos], composed when he fought in single combat with Goliad [Goliath].” In it David sings of his humble youth as a shepherd, his being taken from the sheepfolds and anointed, and his victory over the Philistine giant (Ps 151; text in Rahlfs, Septuaginta, and in the Orthodox Psalter). Its authenticity as an ancient composition rather than a late Greek confection was confirmed by the discovery among the Dead Sea Scrolls of a Hebrew form of the psalm in the great Psalms scroll from Cave 11 at Qumran (11QPsª / 11Q5), which contains this and other “apocryphal” psalms alongside the canonical ones (see Sanders, The Psalms Scroll of Qumrân Cave 11, DJD IV, Oxford, 1965; and the discussion in Pentiuc, The Old Testament in Eastern Orthodox Tradition, 2014).

Psalm 151 stands “outside the number” of the 150 and is not counted in any kathisma; it is printed at the end of the Psalter (traditionally at the close of the twentieth kathisma) and is not part of the regular cursus of psalmody in the same way as the numbered psalms. Its presence is one more mark of the Church’s fidelity to the Septuagint: the Orthodox Psalter is the Greek Psalter, and it keeps what the Greek keeps.

The Nine Biblical Odes

Appended to the Psalter in the Orthodox liturgical books are the Nine Biblical Odes (or Canticles) — nine songs drawn from elsewhere in Scripture that the tradition ranks with the psalms as the Church’s canticles and that formed, historically, the biblical backbone of the morning office alongside the psalter. They are:

  1. The (First) Song of Moses — the song at the crossing of the Red Sea, “Let us sing unto the Lord, for gloriously is he glorified” (Exodus 15:1–19).
  2. The (Second) Song of Moses — the song of witness before his death, “Attend, O heaven, and I will speak” (Deuteronomy 32:1–43). This ode is penitential and severe and is appointed only in Great Lent; canons on other days pass from the first ode to the third.
  3. The Prayer of Hannah — the song of Samuel’s mother, “My heart is established in the Lord” (1 Kingdoms/1 Samuel 2:1–10).
  4. The Prayer of Habakkuk — “O Lord, I have heard thy report and was afraid” (Habakkuk 3:1–19).
  5. The Prayer of Isaiah — “Out of the night my spirit waketh early unto thee, O God” (Isaiah 26:9–20).
  6. The Prayer of Jonah — from the belly of the fish, “I cried in my affliction unto the Lord my God” (Jonah 2:3–10).
  7. The Prayer of the Three Holy Children — the prayer of Azariah in the furnace (Daniel 3:26–56, LXX).
  8. The Song of the Three Holy Children — the Benedicite, “Bless the Lord, all ye works of the Lord” (Daniel 3:57–88, LXX).
  9. The Song of the Theotokos (the Magnificat, “My soul doth magnify the Lord,” Luke 1:46–55) together with the Song of Zacharias (the Benedictus, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,” Luke 1:68–79).

(The Nine Odes as printed in the Horologion and Psalter; see Taft, The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West, 2nd ed., 1993, on the canticles of the morning office.)

These nine canticles are the scriptural template on which the great hymnographic form of the canon is built: each of the canon’s odes takes its cue from the corresponding biblical ode, its irmos (the model stanza) originally linking the sung poetry back to the scriptural song — which is why a canon has nine odes (or eight, omitting the second, on non-Lenten days). The historical relationship between the biblical odes and the hymnographic canon, and the canon’s development under St. Andrew of Crete and St. John of Damascus, belong to the study of hymnography and are treated there; this collection notes only the psalmodic and biblical foundation (see The Akathist & Orthodox Hymnography; The Books of the Office). Ninth ode’s Magnificat survives in every festal Matins as “More honourable than the Cherubim,” the Church’s daily magnification of the Theotokos.

See Also

References

  • The Psalter According to the Seventy. Boston: Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 1974; rev. ed. (Kathismata, stases, Psalm 151, and the Nine Odes as printed.)
  • A Psalter for Prayer. Trans. David James. Jordanville, NY: Holy Trinity Publications, 2011.
  • Rahlfs, Alfred, ed. Septuaginta. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft. (The Greek text of the Psalter, including Psalm 151.)
  • Sanders, James A. The Psalms Scroll of Qumrân Cave 11 (11QPsª). Discoveries in the Judaean Desert IV. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965.
  • Pentiuc, Eugen J. The Old Testament in Eastern Orthodox Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
  • Taft, Robert F. The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West. 2nd rev. ed. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1993.