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and in a summary manner ; on scarcely any other account is it objectionable . Little was done in the fifth century for scriptural interpretation . It was facilitated , indeed , by some mechanical divisions of the text . Nevertheless , even Theodoret and Isidore of Pelusium retained allegorical interpretation .
Andreas , Bishop of Csesarea , in Cappadocia , wrote , at the beginning of the sixth century , a commentary on the Apocalypse , which abounds in mystical meanings . Still , his commentary is of some use in the criticism of the Bible , because it is accompanied with the text . In this century , as original commentators began to decrease , it became the fashion in the Greek church to make collections from former commentaries , and to arrange them under the portions of Scripture to which they belonged . These collections acquired afterwards the name of ^ eipai , or catenae , in which the individual writers were considered as so many links .
From the end of the sixth to the middle of the eighth century , the only Greek commentator of any note was Johannes Damascenus . In the ninth century we find Photius , Patriarch of Constantinople , whose writings , however , as far as we know them , contain but little of biblical interpretation . The tenth and eleventh centuries place before us CEcumenius and Theophylact as annotators on Scripture ; in the twelfth we meet with Euthymius , a Greek monk at Constantinople , as a commentator on the Psalms , the Gospels , and the Epistles ; and there are those who very highly extol him as
a judicious and accurate interpreter . * To these commentators may be added the unknown authors of the Greek Scholia f nor , in a history of interpretation , should we omit the Greek Glossaries , especially those of Hesychius and Suidas . J Returning to the Latin church , in the fifth century we find Tychonius , Vincentius Lirinensis , Eucberius , Gennadius ; and in the sixth century , Cassiodorius , Facundus , Vigilius Tapsensis , Fulgentius , Primasius , Junillius , Isidore of Seville , and Gregory the Great . But it would be a waste of time to examine their writings in the expectation of meeting with any thing useful for the interpretation of the Bible . " The original languages of Scripture were unknown to them , grammatical interpretation was consequently disregarded , and mystical meanings were adopted without control . §
The seventh century produced no biblical commentator in the Latin church : nor did Italy produce a biblical commentator during many ages . But in the eighth century , and in England , Bede published commentaries on the Latin Vulgate , which were principally derived from the works of Ambrose , Jerom , Augustine , and Gregory the Great ; while his good sense and solid judgment induced him to adhere , especially in the New Testament ,
to literal interpretation , though it must be admitted that he has sometimes deviated into mystical meanings . The works of Alcuin , a native of Yorkshire , contain various remarks on Scripture , which are chiefly taken from former writers . Rabanus Maurus , a disciple of Alcuin , wrote commentaries on the Latin Bible . But , like Origen , he maintained a four-fold , or more properly a two-fold , sense of Scripture .
* Pp . 30 , 33 . See Matthai ' s Greek Test , and Larduer ' s Works , [ 1788 , 1 V . 332 . L Jj t Specimens of which may be seen in Matthai's edition of the Greek Testament . X In this view , we should recommend to the student ' s care Alberti Glossariuui Grascum , 1735 . § Pp . 33 , 34 .
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250 Bishop Marsh ' s Lectures ,.
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1829, page 250, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2571/page/26/
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