Prison Meditations on Psalms 51 and 31 by Girolamo Savonarola

First published:Infelix ego and Tristitia obsedit me, 1498 (English translation, 1534)

Edition(s) used:Prison Meditations on Psalms 51 and 31, edited and translated by John Patrick Donnelly, S.J. Milwaukee, Wis.: Marquette University Press, 1994

Genre(s): Nonfiction

Subgenre(s): Devotions; meditation and contemplation; spiritual treatise

Core issue(s): Despair; fear; hope; repentance; trust in God

Overview

Written during Girolamo Savonarola’s final weeks in his Florentine prison, a term that would end with his fiery execution, these Psalm meditations, originally written in Latin, are his most-read works. He wrote these works after being tortured and signing a confession that recanted his faith, then regretting his weak will in the face of torture. His meditation on Psalm 51 is complete and offered in the form of a highly personal prayer to God who alone can provide hope as Savonarola faces his many enemies. His incomplete meditation on Psalm 31 presents only the first two verses and develops as a spiritual conversation between the writer and Sadness and Hope personified. Immediately popular, within two years Psalm 51 went through eight Latin editions and seventy-eight in Latin and vernaculars by 1600; Psalm 31 has seen more than eighty editions.

Each verse of Psalm 51 prompts a meditation. Sinful, Savonarola is abandoned by all but God, his only hope. Yet God is all, “the supreme reality . . . indescribable majesty,” how can he presume to approach God? However, God is also supreme mercy, and Savonarola asks that God take away his misery. By the blood of Christ his salvation is made possible, and so he asks that God turn him toward himself, forgive his sins, and “justify [him] through your grace.” As God’s mercy aided Peter, Mary Magdalene, and the penitent thief, so may God deign to aid Savonarola: “blot out my iniquity . . . wipe clean my heart.” The author has benefited from God’s mercy before, but his fear and love of self and the world assure him that he is still “imperfectly clean” and in need of further cleansing with tears, the Scriptures, and divine graces. His sin was against God and therefore against himself, and it sits before him always. His sin was love of a creature (unspecified, perhaps himself) that interfered with his love of God, and fear of humans (under torture?) before fear of God. His tormentors claim that God has withdrawn all help, and Savonarola begs that God prove them wrong. He admits that Original Sin has twisted him and therefore made him prone to iniquity and sin and in need of God’s mercy and kindness.

God is also complete and full of love, and Savonarola prays that by virtue of God’s boundless love for his creation, he will save him. God’s promise is contained in the stories of David and the prodigal son, and the promise is truth, and God loves truth. Savonarola is the prodigal son and relies only on the grace of Christ. The worldly philosophers do not understand the power of God’s promise as does Savonarola, to whom it has been revealed, and Savonarola begs that his hope will be fulfilled. God’s promise is the cleansing that will result in joy and peace. However, Savonarola’s “bones remain broken,” and God continues to count his sins. He prays that God see the divine image in him and not his sinfulness. Betrayed by his heart, the author prays that God will re-create it and renew it through grace “so that it may burn [him] with a heavenly love.” For whom has God denied or cast away? The Canaanite woman, despite her status, had faith and hope that were fulfilled (Matt 15). The fact that Savonarola calls out to Jesus, who is Lord, shows that the Spirit is in him, and he prays that the Spirit may not be taken away. He asks that “the joy of salvation” be returned with hope founded on God’s scriptural promises to answer the prayers of the faithful. He prays for a strengthening of his own spirit that he may do God’s will and work. He will “teach transgressors” God’s ways if his spirit is strengthened, so that just as Saul was converted while a great transgressor, so other miracles might be performed to God’s glory.

Still, his sins weigh him down, and he needs freeing as did Jonah, Lot, and Peter. He prays that God might open his lips that God be praised, as by the apostles, prophets, and saints, and in childlike humility and purity. God requires praise, not sacrifice, unless that be a broken spirit and contrite heart. Like Mary Magdalene, Savonarola offers tears and contrition as an acceptable sacrifice. Finally, he asks that God treat his Church with kindness, weak and shrunken as it has become. This will prompt a new spirit of justice to prevail, and sacrifice of justice will replace the “abomination” of the empty ceremonies offered in its place.

Savonarola’s meditation on Psalm 31 opens with his lament for his own Sadness, woe, and despair. He calls on Hope, who will bring joy and consolation and scatter his enemies. His hope is in God, and he reviews God’s goodness and power and love: “Throw yourself upon him and he will catch you and save you.” His hope is above all that God will forgive him his sins and make possible his salvation. Only Christ’s merits and divine grace make this possible, a fact that the “philosophers” ignore, and so they misunderstand true justice. He is consoled. However, Sadness returns with an army, mocking his lack of hope, challenging his faith. Divine aid is a myth, she mocks, rely on human help. Hope then appears and consoles him, reminding him to practice patience and to look for invisible rather than visible aid. Turning to divine help once again, Savonarola asks for forgiveness and spiritual strength. Sadness again mocks him, for he is still in physical fetters. Sadness reminds him pitilessly that God is just as well as merciful, and Savonarola cannot stand before divine justice. Hope then returns from Heaven and tells him that God’s justice is for the wicked, not the penitent and faithful. Savonarola is faithful and penitent and a one-time recipient of mercy, so why should he despair? He is heartened and soon prays for divine refuge from the hand of humankind. Sadness appears again with her mob and reminds the friar of his many acts of rebellion and ingratitude to God, which certainly must be punished. At this, Hope reappears and sets his mind at ease: God’s mercy is infinite. All people sin, but faith provides a guarantee of mercy and salvation, at least in the next world. The text ends with the words of verse 3.

Christian Themes

Savonarola’s meditations explore the relationship of humans and God, sin and divine mercy, and maintenance of faith and hope in the face of calamity and despair. Bolstered by Scripture in the first study and Hope personified in the second, Savonarola lays himself verbally before the omnipotent God without whose salvation he is nothing. In an Augustinian fashion, in the first meditation Savonarola explores God’s promises in Scripture and is reminded time and again that grace and forgiveness flow from Christ’s side and will wash him clean. Yet he remains dogged by uncertainty that his own penitence and faith are powerful enough, and he echoes the fear of the early Martin Luther that what God has provided him thus far is not enough. This lack of certitude also permeates the second meditation, as he allows himself to have his faith in God’s promises undermined by his own personified Sadness. Doubts continually assault him, and Hope has continually to reassure him of the falsity of his qualms. Like the philosopher Boethius’s Lady Philosophy, Hope provides a foundation of consolation whose full contours are clear even if the work was stopped abruptly.

Sources for Further Study

Erlanger, Rachel. The Unarmed Prophet: Savonarola in Florence. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987. An energetically written biography of Savonarola that emphasizes the intersection of moral and political reform in his writings and public activities.

Martines, Lauro. Fire in the City: Savonarola and the Struggle for the Soul of Renaissance Florence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Sympathetic discussion of the man and his influence as a religious reformer in Florence. Martines wraps his venerable expertise and sound judgments in vivid prose.

Savonarola, Girolamo. Selected Writings of Girolamo Savonarola: Religion and Politics, 1490-1498. Translated and edited by Anne Borelli and Maria Pastore Passaro. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2006. This is a significant collection of many of Savonarola’s major and minor works, most of which have not been published in English before, including sermons, biblical commentaries, and other moral guides essays.