In previous posts in this series (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), I have looked at the history of numbering the psalms. The jumping off point has been Acts 13:33, where Psalm 2:7 (as we call it) was cited as coming from “the second psalm.” I have also looked at the few manuscripts that say in Acts 13:33 “the first psalm.” In this post, I expand that latter point, not looking at manuscripts of Acts but early Christian statements about Acts or about the psalms.

So let’s return to the reading of Acts 13:33, “first psalm” or “second psalm.” We have seen that almost all extant manuscripts of Acts have “second psalm,” but one of the standard editions of the Greek New Testament indicates some doubt that “second psalm” is the correct text. (It prints “second psalm” in the text, but it assigns this a “B” rating, indicating some doubt as to the correct reading. An “A” rating would indicate full confidence.) Actually, this is true of previous editions of this Greek New Testament, up through the fifth edition (2014); I’m not sure what the about-to-be-released sixth edition will show. But I do note that there is no discussion of this textual difficulty in Houghton’s textual commentary (2025), though its predecessor by Metzger (1994) had an extensive and helpful discussion (pp. 363–65). Moreover, Ropes (1926: 263–65) argues that “first psalm” is original in Acts 13:33.

Thanks for reading Gallagher! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

(Since Houghton’s commentary “covers all of the 1,008 variation units selected for UBS6,” I take it that UBS6 will not contain any reference to the ancient evidence for the reading “first psalm” at Acts 13:33.)

If almost all manuscripts of Acts—and early ones!—have “second psalm,” why would there be any doubt that “second psalm” is the correct reading? As Metzger says, the patristic evidence for “first psalm” is “very impressive.” What he means is that some early Christian writers in the second through fourth centuries talk about Psalm 2:7 as coming from the first psalm, and they say that Paul in Acts says that the verse comes from the first psalm. In other words, these early Christian writers must have had manuscripts of Acts with the reading “first psalm,” though these manuscripts—most of them, at least—have been lost to time.

What is this patristic evidence?

Patristic evidence for “first psalm” at Acts 13:33

This evidence is surveyed in several places: the works by Metzger and Ropes already cited, and Willgren (2016: 163–67), whose main concern is whether Psalms 1–2 function as a preface to the Psalter (on which see also Gillingham 2018: 11–43) and, an old article by John Willis (pp. 387–91) on whether Psalms 1–2 should be considered a single psalm or two separate psalms. Willis himself regarded Psalm 1 as a composition separate from Psalm 2, and he also provided patristic testimony to the same effect. So, the early Christians who report traditions about the two psalms being combined in Hebrew manuscripts, or who otherwise indicate that Acts 13:33 says “first psalm,” do not represent the totality of the patristic evidence bearing on this question. For the patristic evidence for “second psalm” in Acts 13:33, see Willis, and take a look at Gillingham (2013). Since “second psalm” is the expected reading (at least, for us) in Acts 13:33, I will not cover it here.

Now I survey the patristic evidence for “first psalm” in Acts 13:33, or patristic evidence that could be cited in support of this reading.

Justin Martyr, First Apology 40 quotes the first two psalms without any break. Did he consider them a single psalm? In that case, what we think of as the second psalm would count for Justin as part of the first psalm.

Tertullian, Against Marcion 4.22.8, introduces the words of Psalm 2:7 as “in the first psalm.” The manuscripts of Tertullian seem to be consistent on this point, though the printed editions differ. Evans (OUP, 1972) prints “first psalm,” while Kroymann’s older edition (p. 494, line 4) prints “second psalm.” (But on Kroymann’s edition, see this note from Kilpatrick.)

Origen has an interesting comment in his Selecta in Psalmos 2:1

“Why do the heathen rage, the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his anointed,” etc. Reading two Hebrew manuscripts, in one we found these [words] as the beginning of Psalm 2, in the other they were combined with Psalm 1. And in the Acts of the Apostles, the saying “You are my son, today I have begotten you” is said to belong to the first psalm. “For as it is written,” it says, “in the first psalm: you are my son, today I have begotten you.” Now, Greek manuscripts indicate that it is the second psalm. But this should be understood, that in the Hebrew, a number is placed beside none of the psalms, whether first, or second, or third. (PG 12.1100c–d; on Origen, see also this work, pp. 9–10)

Cyprian, Ad Quirinum 1.13; 2.8; 2.29; 3.20; 3.56; 3.112; 3.119—at these passages (according to Willis, p. 388) some Latin manuscripts of this work have the reading “first psalm” for citations of our Psalm 2, whereas other manuscripts read “second psalm.” Willis cites an article by C. H. Turner in JTS 6 (pp. 264–65).

Eusebius of Caesarea (Comm. Psal., PG 23.73b) and Athanasius (Argumentum in Psal., PG 27.56) both say that the first and second psalm are combined in Hebrew (κατὰ τὸ Ἑβραϊκόν).

Jerome, Commentarioli in Psalmos, comments on Psalm 1 as follows.

(1a) Blessed is the man who did not depart in the counsel of the ungodly. Some say this psalm is a kind of preface of the Holy Spirit and therefore has no superscription; others that, because it is the first of its order, it has the first place and that it is an error of superfluity to say it is the first before which there is nothing. Otherwise: among the Hebrews both the first and the second are one psalm, which is proved in the Acts of the Apostles. In fact, because it began with a blessing, it closes with a blessing, saying, “Blessed are all who put their trust in him” [Psa 2:12]. (translated from Risse 2005; Latin also at PL 26.823)

What is clear from the patristic testimony is the widespread nature of the reading “first psalm” in Acts 13:33, or at least the idea that our Psalm 2 may be regarded as, in some way, the first psalm. Indeed, some of these church fathers who mention the reading “first psalm” in Acts 13:33 seem unaware of any textual problem with the passage, under the assumption that the reading “in the first psalm” is undisputed. This is true of Tertullian, Origen, and Jerome, and also Hilary, as we observe next.

Hilary of Poitiers

Because his discussion is long, I allot to Hilary of Poitiers (Latin writer, fourth century) a section of his own.

In his Commentary on the Psalms Hilary goes to great lengths to explain the meaning of Paul’s comment in Acts 13:33, specifically, how the apostle could have attributed to “the first psalm” the statement “You are my son, today I have begotten you.” The problem, for Hilary, is that in the Greek and Latin manuscripts of the Psalter that he has seen, this statement is in the second psalm. Why would Paul say it was in the first? He develops an elaborate theory to explain this problem, but it never occurs to Hilary to question the accuracy of his copy of Acts. He never thinks that maybe Paul actually did say “second psalm”; apparently he has never seen a copy of Acts with any other reading than “first psalm.” He thinks it more likely that the book of Psalms is mis-ordered than that his copy of Acts has suffered textual corruption. Hilary also is familiar with evidence among the Jews that the second psalm was considered the first—and, Hilary reasons, the apostle Paul was a Jew.

Hilary of Poitiers discusses the issue in his Commentary on the Psalms 2.1 (pp. 37–38):

Apostolic authority makes many of us unsure whether they should consider this psalm to belong to the first as if the last part of the first, or whether it comes later and they should count it rather as the second. For in the Acts of the Apostles we are taught in the oration by the blessed Paul that this psalm was considered to be first: “and we proclaim to you that promise which was made to the fathers, God has accomplished for our sons, raising our Lord Jesus, as also it is written in the first psalm [sicut et in psalmo scriptum est primo], ‘You are my son, today I have begotten you,’ when he raised him from the dead never to return to destruction.” So, because of this apostolic authority, it is believed to have been a scribal error that that psalm is enumerated as second in order, since it is known by the testimony of the teacher of the gentiles that it is first. Therefore that reason should be recognized why it should be understood by us to be second and it is shown by the apostle to be first.

The next part of the passage is a rather complicated bit on the authority of the LXX, a section of Hilary’s commentary that has formed the basis of an excellent article by my teacher Adam Kamesar. Hilary returns to the main point halfway through §3, where he is talking about the Seventy translators who (are reputed to have) produced the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint:

Thus, these men, in the course of translating the Psalms among the other books, also numbered them, set them in order, and set divisions within them with diapsalmata; whereas all of the Psalms were and are in a confused state in the Hebrew text. (Kamesar’s translation, p. 272)

Before summarizing Hilary’s argument, let me explain the term diapsalmata. It’s a Greek word (adopted into Latin), a plural term, and the singular is diapsalma. It is a mysterious term translating a mysterious Hebrew term. The Hebrew term is selah (סֶלָה), and you’ve probably seen this term while reading the book of Psalms in English. It appears 71x in the Hebrew book of Psalms, the first time at Psalm 3:2, which is translated in the KJV as “Many there be which say of my soul, There is no help for him in God. Selah.” Translators of the English Bible usually don’t translate selah, they just give the Hebrew word, becomes no one knows what the word means. Prominent guesses are that it marks places where the singer is supposed to sing louder, or maybe it marks a “rest.” But one of the standard ancient Hebrew dictionaries says about this word only “perhaps a musical term.” At any rate, the ancient Greek translators apparently didn’t know what it meant either, and they rendered it by the term diapsalma, which has something to do with the word “psalm,” a stringed instrument. (Muraoka gives “musical interlude”; NETS has “interlude on strings.”)

Anyway, Hilary says that the LXX translators inserted these diapsalmata into the Psalter, apparently unaware that the word selah appears in the Hebrew Psalter. But Hilary is right that there are more passages in the LXX Psalter with diapsalmata than there are passages with selah in the Hebrew Psalter—the Hebrew Psalter does not have selah at the end of Psalm 2:2, but the LXX Psalter (at least, Rahlfs-Hanhart edition) does have diapsalma there. Maybe Hilary means that the LXX translators added in some extra appearances of diapsalma. (At any rate, those early Christians who paid some attention to the Hebrew text—such as Origen (pp. 11–12) and Jerome (Epist. 28)—were aware that the Hebrew text had an equivalent for diapsalma.)

Back to Hilary’s argument. The implication of Hilary’s view is that in Acts 13 Paul cited a Hebrew manuscript that was out-of-order, so that’s why he gives the label Psalm 1 to what for us is Psalm 2 (as the Seventy have correctly ordered the psalms). He goes on to say (§4):

So then the blessed apostle Paul, according to his own confession a Hebrew of Hebrews, also according to his Hebrew knowledge and faith said that this psalm was the first, he did not use the division of the translators; he had a great deal of enthusiasm in preaching to the leaders of the synagogue, to show from the teaching of the law that our Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, born, suffered, rising, reigns forever. So he preserved this manner, when preaching to Hebrews, to follow the custom of the Hebrews. But we need to follow the authority of the translators, who rendered the law not by the ambiguity of the letter but by the understanding of the doctrine.

So Paul cited the disordered psalm number, because he was a Jew talking to Jews, and the Jewish manuscripts of the Psalter are disordered, whereas the Seventy translators brought order to the Psalter. (For further comments on Hilary’s theory of psalm ordering, see Kamesar, pp. 281–84.)

Hilary had already introduced this idea in the introduction to his commentary (Instructio Psalmorum 8). Here he comments on the lack of any numbers at all in the Hebrew manuscripts of the Psalms.

We should not be ignorant that the number of the psalms is indistinct among the Hebrews, but they are written without the indication of order. For there, no first or second or third or fiftieth or hundredth is prefixed, but they are mixed together without any mark of order or number. For Ezra, as ancient traditions relate, collected and restored them in one volume, though they were disorganized and dispersed because of the diversity of authors and times. But the Seventy elders, remaining in the synagogue for the supervision of the teaching of the law in accord with the tradition of Moses, after the concern for translating the entire law from Hebrew to Greek was commanded them by king Ptolemy, understanding the significance of the psalms by their spiritual and heavenly knowledge, they rendered them in number and order, arranging the order of the perfect and effective psalms, all the individual numbers having been accomplished in accord with their own efficiency and completeness.

Hilary refers to a tradition, first attested in 4 Ezra 14, that the Old Testament Scriptures were collected and organized by Ezra after the exile. (Because of the exile, the Scriptures were scattered and in some cases destroyed.) But when Ezra collected the psalms, he did not set them in order. It was, again, the Seventy translators that brought order to the psalms, which means that only the Greek Psalter has the proper order.

Conclusion

With all this patristic evidence for the reading “first psalm” in Acts 13:33, we can understand why there might be at least a little doubt about the reading among modern textual critics, even if almost all of the early manuscripts Acts with “first psalm” have by now been lost.

Were there, indeed, Hebrew manuscripts displaying what is for us Psalm 2 as the first psalm? There are some, not many and not easily accessed. Besides that there is some rabbinic testimony to be considered. Next time.

Thanks for reading Gallagher! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmongallagher.substack.com