Origen of Alexandria (ca. 184-253)

Origen’s writings on the Psalms include two commentaries, a number of homilies, and scholia prepared near the end of his life.  Scholarly literature is still debating how to organize all the fragments which remain, and whether to continue to attribute to Origen all that has been attributed to him in Migne's PG 12 and PG 17 (cf. Evagrius with PG 12).  Some scholars have also made the case that later Fathers may have produced works on the Psalms that were little more than translations of Origen into Latin.  For instance, Vittorio Peri (Omelie origeniane sui Salmi: contribute all’ identificazione del testo latino) has argued that works by Jerome should essentially be attributed to Origen (cf. ACC volume 1), as well as several extensive psalm fragments from the 1941 Tura discoveries, including Psalms 125, 129-133.

Following Heine ("Restringing Origen's Broken Harp"), Origen composed a commentary on Psalms 1-25 while still living in Alexandria (cf. First Principles 2.4.4; Jerome, Letter 33; Eusebius, Church History 6.24).  Shortly after moving to Caesarea, he preached a number of homilies on the Psalms.  Nine of these are accounted for in a Latin translation by Rufinus.  Others may be accounted for in a 2012 discovery of 29 Greek homilies in Codex Manacensis Graceus 314 (cf. below).  Origen also wrote a second, more extensive commentary on the Psalms while in Caesarea, as well as scholia on the Psalms.  Heine, following others, suggests that the the Palestinian catenae preserves fragments of the Caesarean commentary, while the scholia are preserved in manuscript Vindobonensis 8.  Again, this is only one way to account for the fragments.  For an alternative view, cf. John A. McGuckin, “Origen’s Use of the Psalms in the Treatise On First Principles,” in Meditations of the Heart: The Psalms in Early Christian Thought and Practice; Essays in Honour of Andrew Louth (ed. Andreas Andreopoulos, Augustine Casiday, and Carol Harrison; Studia Traditionis Theologiae 8; Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2011), 97-98.

In the 2019 publication by Cordula Bandt, Franz Xaver Risch, and Barbara Villani, on the prologue texts on the Psalms of Origen and Eusebius, Risch has argued that Heine relies too much on conjecture in his understanding of the evidence (xiii). In the editors estimation the following prologues can be parsed out:

• The Catholica in psalmos (Origen)
• For a long time, this text was assigned to Pseudo-Hippolytus (see Achelis, 1897), and was included under Hippolytus in Lagarde's edition (125.6) [see PG 10:711-21]
• Pitre (1884) was the only one to assign it to Origen
• The sections assigned to Ps-Hippolytus in Achelis (VII, IX, XI, XII) can be read together
• They believe this is original to Origen. It was passed on in the Greek tradition starting with Eusebius, and in the Latin tradition starting with Hilary of Poitiers (p. 70)
• The De divisone psalterii apud Hebraeos (Origen)
• This is often attributed to Eusebius
• It is ahort paragraph that highlights how the Hebrew text is divided into five parts
• The De divisione psalmorum (Origen?)
• This is a list of the psalms by author in the Hebrew Bible, with a listing of authors, situations, and other information contained in the LXX
• A summary list is preceded by how many psalms are attributed to different authors or are anonymous
• The first line of the text matches verbatim the first line of Eusebius's De divisione, so there must be some relationship between the two texts; given the differences, however, it must come from a different author
• 
  
• A prologue written by Hippoltus, but attributed to Eusebius (PG 23:72D-73B)
• A prologue written by Origen, but attributed to Eusebius (PG 23:66A)
• 
  

Origen's Commentary on Psalms 1-25

Jerome’s Letter 33 to Paula (385AD) notes that Origen wrote a Commentary on Psalms 1-25 early in his career (ca. 222-225), but it only survives in fragments.  Cf. Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica 6.24.2 [SC 42.123-25].

Heine (cf. above) speculates that the preface Nautin assigned to the Caesarean commentary should actually be the preface to this original commentary on Psalms 1-25.

Pierre Nautin, Origène: Sa Vie et son Oeuvre (Paris: Beauchesne, 1977), 262-275, 371.

This has been translated into English in Joseph Trigg, Origen (New York/London: Routledge, 1998), 69-72.

While other fragments of this commentary may still exist, it seems much has been lost.  Most of the fragments which remain likely came from Origen's later works on the Psalms in Caesarea.

Origen's Homilies

The homilies of Origen are much easier to keep track of than his commentaries and scholia. 

Homilies on Psalms 36-38

A series of nine homilies given on Psalms 36-38 (LXX; MT 37-39) were translated into Latin by Rufinus.  These have been translated into English.  A number of critical editions exist:

Origen.  Homiliae de Psalmis.  PG 12:1319-1410.

CSEL 54:257-258.

Emanuela Prinzivalli, Origene, Omelie sui Salmi [Biblioteca Patristica 18] (Firenze: Nardini Editore,1991).  Also includes in an Italian translation.

Origen.  Homélies sur les Psaumes 36 à 38.  Critical text established by Emanuela Prinzivalli.  Introduced, translated and edited by Henri Crouzel and Luc Bresard.  SC 411.  Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1995.  This is a reprint of the Prinzivalli edition, but without the critical apparatus and with a French translation.

"Homilies on Psalms 36-38."  Pages 88-311in "The Pedagogy of the Soul: Origen's Homilies on the Psalms."  Translated by M. Heintz.  PhD Dissertation: University of Notre Dame, 2008.

Further Homilies on Psalms 15, 31, 66, 73-77, 80-81.

Perrone, Lorenzo (Ed.), Antonio Cacciari, Marina Molin Pradel, et al. 2014. Band 13 The New Homilies on the Psalms. A Critical Edition of Codex Monacensis Graecus 314. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. Retrieved 5 Oct. 2014, from http://www.degruyter.com/view/product/331870

From the website:

The editio princeps of Codex Monacensis Graecus 314, the collection of Origen's Homilies on the Psalms was discovered by Marina Molin Pradel in April 2012. The Munich manuscript is the major text discovery on Origen, seventy years after the find of the Tura papyri in 1941. The 29 homilies provide the original Greek text of four Homilies on Psalm 36, translated by Rufinus into Latin at the beginning of the fifth century, together with twenty-five new sermons. Only parts of them were known through tiny excerpts preserved in the exegetical anthologies of the catenae. The list of the sermons essentially corresponds to the catalogue of Origen's Homilies on the Psalms in Jerome's Letter 33. It includes two homilies on Ps. 15, four on Ps. 36, two on Ps. 67, three on Ps. 73, one on Ps. 74, one on Ps. 75, four on Ps. 76, nine on Ps. 77, two on Ps. 80, and one on Ps. 81. Beyond recovering for us Origen as the great interpreter of the Psalms, the sermons throw new light on his life and thought, and provide insights into the situation of the Church in the third century CE.  The critical text has been edited by Lorenzo Perrone in cooperation with Marina Molin Pradel, Emanuela Prinzivalli and Antonio Cacciari.

According to a review on this volume by Peter Martens (Journal of Early Christian Studies 24/4 (2016):628-630), Joseph Trigg is preparing an English translation of these homilies for the Fathers of the Church Patristic Series.  Fingers-crossed that this will appear soon!

It's available!

Origen. Homilies on the Psalms: Codex Monacensis Graecus 314. Translated by Joseph W. Trigg. FC. Catholic University of America Press, 2021. ISBN: 9780813233192.

Homilies on the Psalms - CUAPress

Here are some preliminary translations from Joseph Trigg.

Origen's Caesarean Commentary and scholia on the Psalms

As noted above, Heine, following others, suggests that the Palestinian catenae preserves fragments of the Caesarean commentary, while the scholia are preserved in manuscript Vindobonensis 8.

The reconstruction of the contaminated fragments of Origen's treatments of the Psalms was undertaken by Pierre Nautin, Origène: Sa Vie et son Oeuvre (Paris: Beauchesne, 1977).  This reconstruction was an attempt to make sense of the following in Migne:

Origen.  "Selecta in Psalmos [dub.]." In Opera omnia.  Edited by J.-P. Migne.  PG 12, cols. 1053-1685.  Paris: Migne, 1862.  [TLG 2042.058]

Origen.  Libri in Psalmos (Praefatio).  PG 12:1053-1076.

Origen.  Excerpta in Psalmum I.  PG 12:1076-1084, 1092-1096.

Origen.  Libri in Psalmos (Fragmenta in diuersos Psalmos in catenis).  [spurious?] PG 12: 1085-1091, 1096-1319, 1410-1686; [spurious?] PG 17:105-149. [TLG 2042.074]

Origen.  Excerpta in Psalmum VI, XV, XVIII.  PG 17.

Origen.  Commentarii in Psalmos 1 and 4 = Philocalia 2-3, 26.

Sur les écritures: Philocalie, 1-20.  Edited and translated by Marguerite Harl.  SC 226.

Sur les libre arbitre.  Edited and translated by Éric Junod.  SC 302.

The Philocalia of Origen.  Translated by George Lewis.  Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1911.  Pp. 30-34, 214-224.

Origen.  "Fragmenta in Psalmos [dub.]." In Analecta sacra spicilegio Solesmensi parata.  Edited by Jean Baptiste Pitra.  Vol. 2, pp.. 444-483, and Vol. 3, pp. 1-364.  Venice: St. Lazarus Monastery, 1883.  [TLG 2042.044]