Commentary on the Psalms

Tractatus super Psalmos · Hilary of Poitiers · c. 360-367 (his last years as bishop; the work is unfinished and covers only part of the… · commentary

Latin · domain: latin-patristic-fourth-century · researched 2026-11-14

no English translation located. No published English translation of this text was located in the catalogues and series checked. Where only a non-English rendering or a translation of a daughter version exists, it is recorded below and does not close the gap. Treat this as a gap candidate, not as proof that no translation exists; the evidence names every source checked.

Why this is in the register

A HOLLIS Primo query for 'Hilary of Poitiers Psalms commentary' (https://hollis.harvard.edu/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Hilary%20of%20Poitiers%20Psalms%20commentary&tab=Everything&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&vid=01HVD_INST:HVD2&offset=0 returns 13 records, none of them an English translation of the Tractatus: the modern editions listed are the Sources chrétiennes 'Commentaires sur les psaumes' (Paris: Cerf, 2008-2024, Latin with French, ed. Jean Doignon and R. Demeulenaere, trans. Patrick Descourtieux) and the Italian 'Commento ai salmi' (Rome: Città nuova, 2005-2006), together with the CSEL 22 Latin text of 1891. The English items returned are secondary studies (Paul C. Burns, 'A model for the Christian life: Hilary of Poitiers' Commentary on the Psalms', Catholic University of America Press, 2012, record https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/990134047870203941) and the InterVarsity 'Psalms 51-150' (2007), a catena of short excerpts rather than a translation. The Sources chrétiennes contents note shows that even the French edition is still incomplete, with the first five tomes covering Psalms 1-14, 51-69, 91 and 119-133. No volume of the Fathers of the Church, Ancient Christian Writers or Brepols Corpus Christianorum in Translation devoted to the work was located.

The largest untranslated Latin patristic commentary on the Psalms: roughly 190,000 words of sustained exegesis in which Hilary works out a Christological and baptismal reading of the Psalter and, through the prologues, sets out one of the earliest Latin theories of scriptural interpretation. English readers of Hilary know his Trinity and his Matthew commentary (Fathers of the Church 125) but have no access to the work in which his exegesis is most fully displayed. The verse-by-verse commentary survives for only part of the Psalter, which makes a complete English version a bounded and feasible project.

Existing translations recorded

Edition / series
Commentaires sur les psaumes · Sources chrétiennes · Patrick Descourtieux (ed. Jean Doignon, R. Demeulenaere) · 2008 language: fr · Latin text with facing French translation; six tomes projected, five published 2008-2024, so the French corpus is itself incomplete
Commento ai salmi · Collana di testi patristici 185-187 · 2005 language: it · Complete Italian translation with Latin text (3 vols, Rome: Città nuova, 2005-2006)

Electronic text

Source and licence
corpus-corporum · TEI · public domain edition (CSEL); the Corpus Corporum file header states "Available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License" CSEL 22 (1891), Zingerle
corpus-corporum · TEI · Migne edition (Patrologia Latina, Paris 1844-1866) is public domain; the Corpus Corporum transcription carries no explicit licence and should be attributed Patrologia Latina 10 (Tractatus super psalmos)

Scanned witnesses

Scan search: not checked. Not searched in the scan pass: this dossier was outside the 121-work scan target set.

Harvard Hollis

Hollis query: Hilary of Poitiers "Commentary on the Psalms" — 1 record(s); match basis author_title.

Record	Citation
A model for the Christian life : Hilary of Poitiers' Commentary on the Psalms Burns, Paul C · 2012 · eng	Burns, Paul C. "A model for the Christian life : Hilary of Poitiers' Commentary on the Psalms." Washington, D.C. : Catholic University of America Press, c2012. https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/990134047870203941

Sources checked

Cite: Tergwame, “Commentary on the Psalms” (latin gap dossier), 2026. https://naxiai.com/christian/gaps/latin-hilary-tractatus-super-psalmos