Psalms, then history, for its part, shows that such a reading is hardly a Christian innovation. Because they were songs, because they were poems, the Psalms served as the most useful means of transmitting culture. They were memorable, and so they were easily quotable. Philo of Alexandria, the great Jewish biblical scholar of the first century A.D., quotes the Psalter more than any other book in the Old Testament, except for the books of the Law. In the New Testament, references to