Medieval Latin Reception

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the nature of medieval Latin reception of early Christian biblical interpretation, proposing that ancient exegesis served as an ‘omnipresent foundational force’ undergirding and guiding medieval engagements with the sacred text. The first part of the chapter broadly sketches several characteristic examples from the dawn of the Middle Ages to the twelfth century, including the reception of Jerome’s Vulgate as the authoritative version of Scripture, the enormous debt that early medieval scholars such as Bede and Alcuin owed the fathers, and the form and function of the Glossa ordinaria. The second part, in contrast, offers a detailed analysis of the reception of early Christian interpretations of 1 Timothy 2.4 by considering the readings that high scholastic masters such as Bonaventure and John Duns Scotus set forth in their Sentences commentaries.