Collection Contents Period andlanguage Access and where to findit Best use
Philokalia
Anthology of
Greek monastic
and hesychast
spiritual texts, first
printed in 1782.
Fourth to
fifteenth
centuries,
Greek and
later
translations
Many editions and
translations, both print
and digital.
Relevant for
spiritual
interpretation
and biblical
reception, but it
should be kept
distinct from
verse-indexed
commentary
corpora.
Repertorium
Biblicum Medii
Aevi
Directory of all
Latin Bible
commentaries
written up to
1500, digitized
and searchable
online; around
12,000 numbers
and almost 24,000
commentaries.
Medieval
Latin
Free online through
Trier .
The
indispensable
medieval
counterpart to
patristic verse
indexes and
claves.
How to find material for a verse
A workable verse-search procedure has to begin by fixing the textual form of the verse. Patristic and
medieval authors do not all cite the same Bible text: they may reflect the Vulgate, an Old Latin form, the
Septuagint, a Greek New Testament form, or a later liturgical or catena tradition. BiblIndex and the Vetus
Latina Database are strong when the entry point is a verse number , while TLG and LLT become decisive
when the entry point is the wording itself.
Normalize the verse in more than one textual form.
Write down the reference in standard chapter and verse form, then note the likely Vulgate wording,
the likely Greek wording if relevant, and any major textual variants or shorter phrases that are
distinctive enough to search. This matters especially in Psalms, the Septuagintal books, and verses
often quoted in Old Latin form.
Start with a verse index, not with Migne.
Search BiblIndex first. Its function is precisely to move from biblical reference to patristic references,
and it inherits the massive Biblia Patristica dataset. It is the best free answer to the question, “Who
cites this verse at all?” rather than, “Where does this author say something about it?”
If the verse is Latin, check whether the wording is Old Latin or Vulgate.
If the citation looks pre-Vulgate or diverges from Jerome, go to the Vetus Latina Database, which is
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