The Library
1577 works catalogued century by century, from the literature the Bible was written among to the present — each with a note on what it is, why it lasted, and where to read it.
100–1 BC
1 work
c. 63–40 BC
Hebrew, surviving in Greek
Anonymous
Eighteen psalms written after Pompey took Jerusalem, mourning a sanctuary trampled by Gentiles and a throne usurped by men with no right to it — and asking God to raise up the son of David to purge Jerusalem, shatter unrighteous rulers with a rod of iron, and gather a holy people.
201–300
1 work
c. 245–250; recovered in Munich in 2012
Greek
Origen of Alexandria · c. 185 – c. 253
Twenty-nine sermons on the Psalms, preached at Caesarea and read for centuries as the work of someone else. On Psalm 36 he tells his congregation that the man who is angry and does not sin is rarer than the man who does not become angry at all.
301–400
3 works
c. 364–367
Latin
Hilary of Poitiers · c. 310–367
Expositions of selected psalms written after his return from exile, applying Greek exegetical method to the Latin psalter.
c. 367
Greek
Athanasius of Alexandria · c. 296–373
Advice on how to use the psalter, arguing that the psalms are unique in scripture because in reading them you speak the words as your own.
c. 375–390
Greek
Diodore of Tarsus · d. c. 390
A reading of the Psalms that begins by refusing allegory outright: the historical setting comes first, and a psalm about David is about David. Where a further sense is admitted it is theoria, a heightened view of the same events, never a meaning that dissolves them.
401–500
1 work
392–418
Latin
Enarrationes in Psalmos
Augustine of Hippo · 354–430
The only complete patristic commentary on all one hundred and fifty psalms, mostly preached, reading them as the voice of the whole Christ — head and body — speaking together.
501–600
1 work
c. 540–548
Latin
Expositio Psalmorum
Cassiodorus · c. 485–c. 585
A commentary on all one hundred and fifty psalms that pauses constantly to identify figures of speech, treating the psalter as a textbook of rhetoric as well as prayer.
1401–1500
1 work
c. 1450–1465
Latin
Denys the Carthusian · 1402–1471
A verse-by-verse commentary gathering the whole patristic and scholastic tradition on the psalter and adding a contemplative application to each psalm.
1501–1600
1 work
completed 1562
French
Clément Marot and Theodore Beza
All one hundred and fifty psalms in French metrical verse with tunes, sung in unison and unaccompanied by whole congregations.
1601–1700
1 work
1640
English
Richard Mather, John Eliot, and Thomas Weld
The psalms turned into metre for singing, with a preface admitting the verse is rough because fidelity to the Hebrew mattered more than polish.
10 of 1577 works