Aquinas’s Exegesis of Ps. 51(50) as a Tool of Christian Education

The main hypothesis presented and examined in this paper is that St. Thomas Aquinas had written the commentary on Ps. 51(50) (“Have mercy on me, o God”, miserere mei, Deus ) mainly for educational reasons. It is argued that he did it not only to collect useful notes to teach about the Psalm’s content and understanding, but also, above all, to have a well-designed tool to teach Christian theology. This argumentation is based on external (context) and internal (content) analysis of Ps. 50 conducted in this article. It is also shown that this hypothesis has an additional explanatory power, as it helps us to understand the strategy adopted by Aquinas when composing the commentary and sheds some light on his pedagogical practice.