The sentence genre emerged from works like Prosper of Aquitaine's Sententia, a collection of maxims by Augustine of Hippo.

Many other contemporary theologians were compiling glossaries, such as Robert of Melun's Sententiae and Hugh of Saint Victor's De sacramentis christianae fidei.

[1]: 55 In addition to Lombard's Magna glossatura and the Glossa Ordinaria, the Sentences relied heavily on the works of Augustine, citing him over 1,000 times.

[14]: 1985–7  Editorial choices like including a table of contents made Peter's book a much more helpful reference than other glossaries.

[15] In this form, the book was widely adopted as a theological textbook in the high and late Middle Ages (the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries).

In 1170, Pope Alexander III instructed William of Champgane to "convoke your suffragans at Paris" and renounce the "vicious doctrine" (pravae doctrinae) of Peter Lombard.

[16] The Pope was accusing Lombard of espousing Christological Nihilianism: the idea that Christ's human nature was nothing and his sole identity was divine.

[17] The concerns centered on Book III of the Sentences where Peter Lombard discusses the hypostatic union from a variety of angles.

All the major medieval thinkers in western Europe relied on it, including Albert the Great, Alexander of Hales, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Marsilius of Inghen, William of Ockham, Petrus Aureolus, Robert Holcot, Duns Scotus, and Gabriel Biel.

Even the young Martin Luther still wrote glosses on the Sentences, and John Calvin quoted from it over 100 times in his Institutes.