Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/722

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DAVID


644


DAVID


epoch in the history of Israel. He was the real found- er of the monarchy, the head of the dynasty. Chosen by God "as a man according to His own heart", David was tried in the school of suffering during the days of exiie and developed into a military leaiJer of renown. To him was due the complete organization of the army. He gave Israel a capital, a court, a great centre of religious worship. The little band at OdoUam became the nucleus of an efficient force. When he became King of all Israel there were 339,600 men under his command. At the census 1,300,000 were enumerated capable of bearing arms. A stand- ing army, consisting of twelve corps, each of 24,000 men, took turns in serving for a month at a time as the garrison of Jerusalem. The administration of his palace and his kingdom demanded a large retinue of servants and officials. Their various offices are set down in I Par., xxvii. The king himself exercised the office of judge, though Levites were later appointed for this purpose, as well as other minor officials.

When the Ark had been brought to Jerusalem, David imdertook the organization of religious wor- ship. The sacred functions were entrusted to 24,000 Levites; 6000 of these were scribes and judges, 4000 were porters, and 4000 singers. He arranged the various parts of the ritual, allotting to each section its tasks. The priests were divided into twenty-four families; the musicians into twenty-four choirs. To Solomon had been reserved the privilege of building God's house, but David made ample preparations for the work by amassing treasures and materials, as well as by transmitting to his son a plan for the building and all its details. We are told in I Par. how he ex- horted his son Solomon to carry out this great work and made known to the assembled princes the e.xtent of his preparations.

The prominent part played by song and music in the worship of the temple, as arranged by David, is readily explained by his poetic and musical abilities. His skill in music is recorded in I Kings, xvi, 18 and Amos, vi, 5. Poems of his composition are found in II Kings, i, iii, xxii, xxiii. His connexion with the Book of Psalms, many of which are expressly attri- buted to various incidents of his career, was so taken for granted in later days that many ascribed the whole Psalter to him. The authorship of these hymns and the question how far they can be considered as sup- plying illustrative material for David's life will be treated in the article Psalms.

David was not merely king and ruler, he was also a prophet. " The spirit of the Lord hath spoken by me and his word by my tongue" (II lungs, xxiii, 2) is a direct statement of prophetic inspiration in the poem there recorded. St. Peter tells us that he was a prophet (Acts, ii, 30). His prophecies are embodied in the Psalms he composed that are literally Mes- sianic and in " David s last words" (II K., xxiii). The literal character of these Messianic Psalms is in- dicated in the New Testament. They refer to the suffering, the persecution, and the triumphant de- liverance of Christ, or to the prerogatives conferred on Him by the Father. In addition to these his direct prophecies, David himself has always been regarded as a type of the Messias. In this the Church has but followed the teaching of the Old Testament Prophets. The Messias was to be the great theocratic king; David, the ancestor of the Messias, was a king accord- ing to God's own heart. His qualities and his very name are attributed to the Messias. Incidents in the life of David are regarded by the Fathers as fore- shadowing the life of Christ; Bethlehem is the birth- place of both ; the shepherd life of David points out Chris-t, the Good Shepherd; the five stones chosen to slay Goliath are typical of the five wounds; the be- trayal by his trusted counsellor, Achitophel, and the passage over the Cedron remind us of (Jhrist's Sacred Passion. Many of the Davidic Psalms, as we learn


from the New Testament, are clearly typical of the future Messias.

VON HuMMELAUER, Cursus ScripturcB Sacrce: In libros Sam- uelii (Paris, 1SS6); Id., In I Parol. (Paris, 1905); Hetzenauer, Theologia Bihlica: Vetus Testamentum (Freiburg. 1908), 179- 214; AlANGENOT in Vigouroux, Dictionnaire de la Bible, s. v.; WiEsMANN in Lexicon Biblicum (Paris, 1907); Schenz and Kaulen in Kirchenlex. The subject, with the bibliography, is treated in all the recent Biblical dictionaries. See also Gigot, Outlines of Jewish History (New York, 1897) ; Meignan, David, Toi, psalmiste, propkete (Paris, 1889); Weiss, David UTid. seine Zeit (Miinster, 1880).

John Corbett.

David of Augsburg (de Augusta), medieval Ger- man mystic, b. probably at Augsburg, Bavaria, early in the thirteenth century; d. at Augsburg, 19 Nov., 1272. He entered the Franciscan Order probably at Ratisbon, where a monastery of this order was in ex- istence as early as 1226; the Franciscan monastery at Augsburg was not erected until 1243. At Ratisbon David filled the position of master of novices and wrote for the spiritual benefit of the latter his cele- brated "Formula Novitiorum". Whether the distin- guished Franciscan preacher Berthold of Ratisijon (q. V.) was one of his pupils is at least very doubtful. In 1240 Berthold and David were appomted inspec- tors of the convent of Niedermilnster at Ratisbon. From about 1250 David accompanied Berthold on his missionary tours and most probably took part in the preaching himself ; he also had a share in the proceed- ings of the Inquisition against the Waldenses. On the day of David's death it is said that Berthold, who was preaching in a distant place, stopped in the midst of his sermon and quoted, in reference to his friend who had just passed away, the following lines of the hymn, "Iste Confessor": —

Qui pius, prudens, humilis, pudicus,

Sobriam duxit sine labe vitam — etc. David wrote both in Latin and German. For along period his Latin works were attributed to others, at times to St. Bernard of Clairvaux and St. Bonaven- ture, a proof of the high esteem in which they were held. The most striking case of this mistaken ascrip- tion is that of the "Formula Novitiorum" which in addition to two letters of David form three books: (1) "De Compositione hominis exterioris" (treats of the external life of the member of an order) ; (2) " De Reformatione hominis interioris"; (3) "De septem processibus religiosorum ". This work, of which the different parts often appeared separately, is a rational and progressive introduction to monastic and mysti- cal life. It was first published under the name of St. Bonaventure (Brescia, 1485; Venice, 1487; Antwerp, 1591; Cologne, 1618); it appeared also in the edilio Vaticana of the works of St. Bonaventure (Rome, 1588-96), and consequently in all of the reprints of this edition. It also appeared in the "Magna Biblio- theca veterum Patrum" (Cologne, 1618), vol. XIII, in the "Maxima Bibliotheca vet. Patr. " (Lyons, 1675), vol. XXV, and, in part, among the doubtful works of St. Bernard of Clairvaux in Migne, P. L., CLXXXIII, col. 1189. The Latin edition published at Augsburg in 1596 was issued in German at the same place in; 1597. The latest and by far the best edition is thatl which appeared at Quaracchi (1889), in the introduc-j tion to which the work is positively ascribed to Brother David of Augsburg; a list of 370 manuscript; is also given. David's treatise " De hajresi paiiperum ; de Lugduno" was erroneously issued, in an ineom-i- plete form, by Martene and Durand (Thesauruf : novus anecdot., V, 1777 sqq.) under the name of the Dominican Yvonnet; but it has been proved by Pfeif fer and Preger to be one of David's writings anel thi full text was edited by Preger for the first time. ICx tracts from David's " Expositio ReguUe", an explaiia tion of the monastic rules of St. Francis of Assisi, havi been edited by E. Lempp.

Attention was first called to David's German writ ings by Pfeiffer, who in 1845 published the follow in;


I