Fathers

Psalms 8

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O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!

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What the Fathers say

Psalms 8:4

Eastern Fathers

Cosmas Indicopleustes

How by his teaching regarding the form of a servant which he took upon him, did he deign to show mildly glimpses of his divinity, to receive accusations preferred against him by his own creatures, and to answer them, not with anger but with mildness and forbearance? O the excess of his long-suffering! as David was privileged still further to make such prophecies, for he speaks also concerning his human nature in the same psalm from the passage: What is man that thou art mindful of him?

The Christian Topography, Book 5 ↗

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

"What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that Thou visitest him?" [Psalm 8:4]. It may be asked, what distinction there is between man and son of man. For if there were none, it would not be expressed thus, "man, or son of man," disjunctively. For if it were written thus, "What is man, that Thou art mindful of him, and son of man, that Thou visitest him?" it might appear to be a repetition of the word "man." But now when the expression is, "man or son of-man," a distinction is more clearly intimated. …

On the Psalms ↗

Thomas Aquinas

"What." Above the Psalmist marveled at the excellence of the divine majesty; and now he commemorates two benefits divinely bestowed upon men. Second, from this he concludes the Psalm in praise, at "Lord, our Lord," etc. Concerning the first he does three things. First he shows the clemency of God toward men by comparison with those things which are above men. …

Exposition on the Psalms of David ↗

Bonaventure

In the New Testament, after the universal scripture and the course of time, Christ was formed, as was man on the sixth day, that He may "have dominion over the fish of the sea," and "the birds of the air." As the Psalm says, "what is man that You should be mindful of him, or the son of man that You should care for him? You have made him little less than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honor. …

Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 16 ↗