Notes on Medieval Biblical Studies, Part 3

Commentaries and Catenae

(avg. read time: 3–5 mins.)

Another notable aspect of medieval biblical scholarship is what they left commentaries and homilies about. While plenty of NT commentaries were written, particularly on the Pauline Epistles, there was more of a propensity to write OT commentaries and homilies, as one can see in the case of Hugh of St. Victor. He and fellow Victorines that emphasized the literal sense were drawn to the Octateuch (the Torah plus Joshua, Judges, and Ruth) or some portion thereof, as well as other texts in the OT. Perhaps most famously, Bernard of Clairvaux composed eighty-six sermons on the Song of Songs, but this was not a complete exposition of the book. It was left to his fellow Cistercian monks Gilbert of Hoyland and John of Ford to compose 167 more, which finally completed the book with a total of 253 sermons. The Psalms, crucial as they were to other aspects of worship and devotion, were prime subjects for homilies and commentaries. With the fourfold sense that many medieval commentators used for biblical exposition, the OT was considered the Testament in greater need of such exposition because the literal sense was less directly related to what God revealed in the NT, although, as noted previously particularly with Bede, the NT was also exposited in this way.

But the most distinctive aspect of medieval commentary was once again its exemplification of the propensity to preserve in the genre known as the catenae. These were collections of exegetical excerpts addressing a given passage pulled from various patristic authors. Procopius of Gaza, who lived in the fifth and sixth centuries, appears to have been the first to compose a catena, but he was simply taking to the conclusion a habit that had already become prevalent of expounding Scripture by frequent reference to patristic exegetes. Smalley notes:

To study the commentaries of Alcuin, Claudius of Turin, Raban Maur and Walafrid Strabo his pupil, to mention outstanding names, is simply to study their sources. The few scholars who have undertaken this complicated and ungrateful work have shown that the compilers of the Carolingian period were less scientific than Bede, their ‘master’. They worked in a more mechanical, less critical way. Instead of taking their quotations from the original patristic writers, they were apt to enlarge existing sets of extracts, or their memories of oral teaching derived from the Fathers, or to employ pupils to collect extracts for them. (37–38)

Even more independent writers like Bede were inclined to compile catenae so as to preserve the wisdom of earlier generations. This type of work eventually culminated in the development of the Glossa Ordinaria, a standard reference work that covered the entire biblical canon, wherein patristic comments are noted in the marginal glosses and other notes are made in between the text (interlinear glosses). Each book also had a prologue, including prefatory material from Jerome. Many more of these catenae were made than we currently have, since the library of Caesarea that contained most of them was destroyed in the Arab conquest in 638. (Smalley 13)

This is not to say that such reproduction of tradition defined every medieval commentary. As noted already, Bede engaged in detailed grammatical work beyond his references to patristic sources. Peter Abelard was also known for independent commentary, finding merely citing authorities to be insufficient, and for posing more questions than the typical commentary of his era. Abelard, as well as the schools of Auxerre and St. Victor were also known for their emphases in returning to the original languages, including for purposes of textual criticism. Of course, this ad fontes (“to the source”) approach that would also later characterize the Renaissance was easier to apply to the OT, as knowledge of Hebrew was better maintained in Europe through regular contact with European Jews, as opposed to knowledge of Greek, which was not as widespread, not least since Greek manuscripts of the Bible, and Greek scholars who could teach about them, were still in the East. Smalley thus observes, “The little that is known of Byzantine exegesis suggests a different emphasis and points to a close connection between the study of the Bible in Greek and the predominance of the New Testament in Bible studies.” (361)

Andrew of St. Victor captures well both the acknowledged indebtedness to the patristic era and the need to explore further than they did in his prologue for Isaiah (translated here by Smalley 124):

He [Jerome] did not judge it idle, rash, or presumptuous, to apply himself to the same quest as the Fathers, who labored before him to explain the Scriptures, or never would he, that wise, good, industrious man, who minded the proverb: ‘be sparing of time’ have toiled so hard and made it his life work.

Ah yes! he knew, the learned man, he knew, full well he knew, how hidden is truth, how deep she dwells, how far she screens herself from mortal sight, how few she receives, how laboriously they seek her, how few (they are almost none) may reach her, how partially and piecemeal they drag her forth. She hides, yet so as never wholly to be hidden. Careful seekers find her, that, carefully sought, she may again be found. None may draw her forth in her completeness, but by degrees. The fathers and forefathers have found her; something is left for the sons and descendants to find. So always: she is sought; something is still to seek; found, and there is something still to find….

It is not disrespectful, nor presumptuous, nor redundant, nor unnecessary, nor idle, for us lesser men to labour in the exposition of Scripture, because our elders have done so before us. So we follow the venerable Jerome in the same quest for truth as his, though with unequal step, rightly setting his explanation before ours, and leaving to the reader’s judgement, whether, where we have put forth all our strength, we have not, by our labour, something progressed.