Original Douay–Rheims AnnotationsPsalms 8

Presses.

^[1] Most Hebrew Doctors say the word Gittith, may either signify the place, where this Psalm was made, or the musical instrument, on which it was sung. But most Christian Doctors expound it literally of Christ's Passion, who was stretched on the Cross, and all his sacred blood pressed, and drawn out of his body. Which Metaphor Isaias also useth, demanding of Christ ^[2]: Why is thy clothing red, and thy garments as theirs that tread in the wine press? and answereth in Christ's person: I have trodden the Press alone. S. Augustine also applieth it morally to the Church ^[3], where Christ is the vine, the Apostles are the branches, & spreaders (that is preachers) of the Gospel, Christians are the grapes, Christian virtues are the wine. Namely patience, and fortitude in afflictions. Whereby the good are purified, & severed from amidst the reprobate, as wine is pressed out of the grapes, barreled, and laid up in cellars, and ^[4] the husks and kernels cast to hogs, or other beasts.

• 1 Presses signify Christ's Passion.
• 2 Isa. 63.
• 3 Morally it signifieth the travails of the Church militant.
• 4 vinacia.