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In the ninth century Walafrad Strabo * compiled a commentary on the Bible , which was called afterwards Glossa ordinaria , on account of its general adoption . Druthmar , too , a monk of Corbie , wrote a commentary on Matthew . Being well acquainted with the original , he was better qualified than most other Latin writers to investigate the grammatical sense ; and he forms a remarkable exception to the then prevailing taste for spiritual meanings . +
During the tenth and eleventh centuries , there arose no commentator in the West of Europe that is worthy of notice . In the twelfth century , the most distinguished writer was Petrus Lombardus , who , from the work which he composed , acquired the title of Magister sententiarum . He wrote observations on the Epistles of Paul , which were principally taken from Jerom and Augustine . In the thirteenth century we find Thomas Aquinas : he was
eminent as a scholastic divine , but contributed little to the interpretation of the Bible . Hugo de St . Caro , in the same century , adopted Origen ' s views of interpretation > and composed a Concordance , and divided the Vulgate into the chapters which are now in use . Albertus Magnus attempted to unite the Aristotelian philosophy with an allegorical interpretation of Scripture ; and Bonaventura was a most extravagant advocate of mystical senses and expositions .
The scholastic theology , so prevalent at that period , had a most unhappy effect on the interpretation of the Bible . " A theology which could establish points of doctrine by the aid of dialectics , necessarily tended to bring- the Bible into disuse ; and the church of Rome derived advantage from the substitution of dialectics , in proportion as doctrines were introduced , which had no support in the Bible . Thus , when Berengarius and his followers denied the doctrine of Transubstantiation , they were silenced by arguments derived from the scholastic theology /*
This statement is correct ; and we may apply the spirit of it to other churches than the church of Rome , and to other doctrines than the doctrine of Transubstahtiation . The substitution of ecclesiastical authority , of metaphysical creeds and formularies , countenances and even prescribes tenets which have no support , tends to bring the Bible into disuse , and impedes
the progress of truth and reformation in communions nominally Protestant . J While the subtleties of logic and the fancies of mysticism thus perverted Scripture , there existed in the South of Spain many learned Jews , who devoted their attention to the study of the Hebrew Bible . It will be sufficient to mention the names of Aben Ezra , David Kimchi , and Moses Mainionides .
In the fourteenth century Nicolaus Lyranus was , among all the Christian interpreters who either preceded him or lived at the same time with him , the most distinguished for his knowledge of Hebrew . The same century was likewise characterised b y the attempts put forth both in England and in Germany to make the Bible known to the people at large . Wickliffe
undertook soon afterwards to translate it into English . About the same period translations were made into the German language ; and , though they were only from the Latin Vulgate , they opened the Scriptures to the common people , who had long been kept in darkness . Those German translations were among the earliest books printed by Fust and Schaeffer . At the beginning of the fifteenth century the revival of literature prepared
* Poison ' s Letters to Travis , pp . 357 , &c . t P [> . 37 , 38 . J Pp . 38—41 .
Untitled Article
Bishop Marsh ' s Lectures . 251
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1829, page 251, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2571/page/27/
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