mainly a compilation of expositions, selected from the writings of
grammatical remarks of a very elementary character. The interpretations given are often of a contradictory nature, and therefore mutually exclusive; and in many cases it is left to the reader, with an aliter, or potest etiam intelligi, to choose between them. The Glosses of Walafrid Strabo were invested with high authority.
2. THE CATENAE, of which the most famous were those of Procopius of Gaza in the East, and those of Thomas of Aquinas in the West. In these we find a collection of patristic interpretations strung together like a chain. Their value naturally depended on the sources from which they were derived.
3. THE LIBER SENTENTIARUM of Peter Lombard. This work is mainly a compilation of expositions, selected from the writings of Hilary, Ambrose, and Augustine. But it differs from the works named above in being more than a compilation. While Peter the Lombard was careful not to transgress against the established authority on the side of independence, yet, within the prescribed limits, he raised questions, made distinctions, and even added comments of his own. In the immediately following centuries, his work was studied more diligently than the Bible itself.
While the fourfold sense of Scripture was generally accepted at this time (literal, tropological, allegorical, and anagogical), some at least began to see the incongruity of such a view. Even Thomas Aquinas seems to have felt it vaguely. It is true, he allegorizes constantly, but he also, at least in theory, regarded the literal sense as the necessary foundation for all exposition of Scripture. But it was especially Nicolas of Lyra that broke the fetters of his age. Ostensibly he did not abandon current opinion, even in its acceptance of a fourfold sense, but in reality he admitted only two senses, the literal and the mystic, and even so founded the latter exclusively on the former. He urged the necessity of referring to the original, complained about the mystic sense being "allowed to choke the literal," and demanded that the latter only should be used in proving doctrine. His work
influenced Luther profoundly, and insofar also affected the Reformation.
QUESTIONS: What did the Church of the Middle Ages mean, when it spoke of tradition? What authority was ascribed to this tradition? What was the relation of Dogmatics to Exegesis in this period? What objections are there to this position? On what did the Church base its prerogative of determining the sense of Scripture? How did the theory of the fourfold sense originate?
LITERATURE: Diestel, Geschichte, pp. 149–229; Farrar, History, pp. 245–303; Gilbert, Interpretation, pp. 146–180; Immer, Hermeneutics, pp. 36, 37; Davidson, Sacred Hermeneutics, pp. 155– 192.
C. The Period of the Reformation
The Renaissance was of great importance for the development of sound Hermeneutical principles. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, dense ignorance prevailed as to the contents of the Bible. There were doctors of divinity who had never read it through. And the only form in which the Bible was known at all was in the translation of Jerome. The Renaissance called attention to the necessity of going back to the original. Reuchlin and Erasmus—called the two eyes of Europe—came under its spell, and urged upon the interpreters of the Bible the duty of studying Scriptures in the languages in which they were written. Moreover, they greatly facilitated such study: the former by publishing a Hebrew Grammar and a Hebrew Lexicon; and the latter, by editing the first critical edition of the New Testament in Greek. The fourfold sense of Scripture was gradually abandoned, and the principle established that the Bible has but one sense.
The Reformers believed the Bible to be the inspired Word of God. But, however strict their conception of inspiration, they conceived of it as organic rather than mechanical. In certain particulars, they even