Renewal in Christ: Athanasius on the Christian Life

Appendix 2 On the Psalms 1

For Athanasius, reading Scripture is an essential aspect of the Christian life. And while all Scripture is inspired by God and necessary for training in righteousness (2 Tim3:16), the Psalms are especially significant in the day-to-day lives of believers. This is a letter written by Athanasius to a Christian who is suffering from an illness and wants to know how to better understand the Psalms. Athanasius writes with a pastoral voice, discussing how to approach the Psalms and arguing for their importance in the Christian life. Athanasius makes three crucial arguments about the Psalms: (1) the Psalms are a microcosm of the whole Bible; (2) there is a

1 The full title is A Letter of Athanasius, Our Holy Father, Archbishop of Alexandria, to Marcellinus on the Interpretation of the Psalms . What follows below is a portion of Athanasius’s On the Psalms . This appendix is reprinted for Athanasius of Alexandria,, Letter to Marcellinus on the Psalms: Spiritual Wisdom from Today , trans. Joel C. Elowsky (New Haven, CT: ICCS Press, 2021).

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