Scriptural Glosses
Glossa Ordinaria of Strabo | Glossa Interlinearis of Anselm | Postilla of Lyra | Additions of Brugensis

Biblical texts were rarely reproduced alone, without commentaries. By the High Middle Ages readers expected to have the cumulative commentaries of the Church fathers and of recent scholarship immediately available, as a guide to each passage. By the eleventh century this circumstance resulted in a special layout of biblical manuscripts. The commentaries in glossed Bibles for professional (university or clerical) use were intentionally clearly separated from the biblical text itself.

Two types of glossed Bibles were the most popular: the Glossa Ordinaria, thus called from its common use during the Middle Ages, and the Glossa Interlinearis.

The Glossa Ordinaria of Walafred Strabo
Twelfth-century -  Nine or ten volumes with marginal annotation - Quoted as a high authority by Aquinas - "the tongue of Scripture."

(On John 2)
"Et die.  Significat tertia die id est tempore gratiae, post est ante legem et sub lege Christum ad nuptias ecclesiae per carnem venisse.

["And on the (third) day."  Means that on the third day, i.e. at the time of grace, after the time, that is, before the law and under the law, Christ came to the wedding of the Church by means of the flesh."  (Glossa ordinaria, Jn. 2)

(On turning water into wine)
Portuit quidem vacuas implere vino, qui cuncta creat ex nihilo: sed maluit de aqua vinum facere, ut doceret se non solvere legem, sed implere nec in evangelio alia facere vel docere quam quae prophetia praedixit.

[He could indeed have filled empty (water vessels) with wine, he who creates all things from nothing, but he preferred to make the wine from water, to teach that he was not dissolving the law, but fulfilling it, nor was he doing or teaching anything other than those that prophecy foretold.]

(On John 4:7)
Venit.  In figura ecclesiae de gentibus, quae prius hauriebat aquam id est voluptatem de profundo seculi, cuius fidem sitit Iesus et petit ab ea potari.

["There come" (Jn 4:7).  In the figure of the Church from the Gentiles, which first drew the water, i.e. desire out of the depths of the age, whose faith Jesus thirsted for and sought to be drawn from it."]

WHAT OTHERS HAVE SAID

David Ortiz
"The Ordinary Gloss, known as the Glossa ordinaria, is an important witness to the position of the Western Church on the status of the Apocrypha because it was the standard authoritative biblical commentary for the whole Western Church. It carried immense authority and was used in all the schools for the training of theologians. The New Catholic Encyclopedia describes its importance:

A designation given during the Middle Ages to certain compilations of 'glosses' on the text of a given MS. The earliest Glossa ordinaria is that made of the Bible, probably made in the 12th century...Although glosses originally consisted of a few words only, they grew in length as glossators enlarged them with their own comments and quotations from the Fathers. Thus the tiny gloss evolved into a running commentary of an entire book. The best-known commentary of this type is the vast Glossa ordinaria of the 12th and 13th centuries...So great was the influence of the Glossa ordinaria on Biblical and philosophical studies in the Middle Ages that it was called 'the tongue of Scripture' and 'the bible of scholasticism'.¹¹⁹

Karlfried Froehlich summarizes the importance, authority and influence of the Glossa ordinaria on the Middle Ages:

For medieval Christians this tool was supremely necessary, indispensable for the reading of the sacred book which could not be understood without it. In their preface of 1617, taking up Peter Lombard's remark about the Gloss as the 'tongue' of Scripture, the Douai theologians gave voice to this sentiment. Many generations, they suggested, 'thought of this collection of scriptural interpretation so highly that they called it the "normal tongue" (glossa ordinaria), the very language (lingua) of Scripture, as it were. When Scripture speaks with it, we understand. But when we read the sacred words without it, we think we hear a language which we do not know.'¹²⁰

Alister McGrath adds these comments:

…the Glossa Ordinaria may be regarded as a composite running commentary upon the text of the bible, characterized by its brevity, clarity and authoritativeness, drawing upon the chief sources of the patristic period…So influential did this commentary become that, by the end of the twelfth century, much biblical commentary and exegesis was reduced to restating the comments of the gloss.

The original Glossa ordinaria began as a marginal gloss on the Bible and was attributed to Walafrid Strabo in the tenth century. Over time the interlinear gloss was added which most likely originated in the twelfth century with Anselm of Laon. Margaret Gibson confirms this:

To this extent the old heresy is not without foundation: that Walafrid Strabo (a Carolingian) wrote the marginal gloss, whereas Anselm of Laon (the early scholastic) wrote the interlinear. The dating is sound enough.¹²²

The work consisted of standard commentaries on the books of the Bible by major Church fathers and theologians from the Carolingian period. The principal Church fathers and theologians who provided authoritative commentary in the Gloss are described by Margaret Gibson:

Ultimately the principal contributor to the Gloss-the giant who bears it on his shoulders-is Jerome. He was responsible for the text of the Bible, for many of the explanatory prefaces to individual books, and for the learned and comprehensive exegesis of most of the Old Testament and part of the New. Behind Jerome stands Origen, whose work was known directly to Jerome but to later scholars indirectly (and partially) in Rufinus' translation. Augustine contributed to Genesis and Ambrose to Luke; Cassiodorus to the Psalms, and Gregory the Great at least to Job and perhaps to Ezekiel and the Gospels. The next great figure is Bede. He is the leading player in Ezra-Nehemiah, Mark, the Acts of the Apostles and the Canonical Epistles. The basic material from Jerome to Bede, was edited in the ninth century by Rabanus Maurus, who commented the entire Old Testament (except Baruch) and much of the New. Paschasius Radbertus supplied a commentary on Lamentations and revised Jerome's commentary on Matthew.¹²³

The importance of the Glossa ordinaria relative to the issue of the Apocrypha is seen from the statements in the Preface to the overall work. It repeats the judgment of Jerome that the Church permits the reading of the Apocryphal books only for devotion and instruction in manners, but that they have no authority for concluding controversies in matters of faith. It states that there are twenty-two books of the Old Testament, citing the testimonies of Origen, Jerome and Rufinus as support. When commenting on the Apocryphal books, it prefixes an introduction to them saying: 'Here begins the book of Tobit which is not in the canon; here begins the book of Judith which is not in the canon' and so forth for Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom, and Maccabees etc. These prologues to the Old Testament and Apocryphal books repeated the words of Jerome. For example, the following is an excerpt from the Prologue to the Glossa ordinaria written in AD 1498, also found in a work attributed to Walafrid Strabo in the tenth century, under the title of canonical and non-canonical books. It begins by explaining the distinctions that should be maintained between the canonical and non-canonical or Apocryphal books:

Many people, who do not give much attention to the holy scriptures, think that all the books contained in the Bible should be honored and adored with equal veneration, not knowing how to distinguish among the canonical and non-canonical books, the latter of which the Jews number among the apocrypha. Therefore they often appear ridiculous before the learned; and they are disturbed and scandalized when they hear that someone does not honor something read in the Bible with equal veneration as all the rest. Here, then, we distinguish and number distinctly first the canonical books and then the non-canonical, among which we further distinguish between the certain and the doubtful. The canonical books have been brought about through the dictation of the Holy Spirit. It is not known, however, at which time or by which authors the non-canonical or apocryphal books were produced. Since, nevertheless, they are very good and useful, and nothing is found in them which contradicts the canonical books, the church reads them and permits them to be read by the faithful for devotion and edification. Their authority, however, is not considered adequate for proving those things which come into doubt or contention, or for confirming the authority of ecclesiastical dogma, as blessed Jerome states in his prologue to Judith and to the books of Solomon. But the canonical books are of such authority that whatever is contained therein is held to be true firmly and indisputably, and likewise that which is clearly demonstrated from them. For just as in philosophy a truth is known through reduction to self-evident first principles, so too, in the writings handed down from holy teachers, the truth is known, as far as those things that must be held by faith, through reduction to the canonical scriptures that have been produced by divine revelation, which can contain nothing false. Hence, concerning them Augustine says to Jerome: To those writers alone who are called canonical I have learned to offer this reverence and honor: I hold most firmly that none of them has made an error in writing. Thus if I encounter something in them which seems contrary to the truth, I simply think that the manuscript is incorrect, or I wonder whether the translator has discovered what the word means, or whether I have understood it at all. But I read other writers in this way: however much they abound in sanctity or teaching, I do not consider what they say true because they have judged it so, but rather because they have been able to convince me from those canonical authors, or from probable arguments, that it agrees with the truth.¹²⁴

The Prologue then catalogues the precise books which make up the Old Testament canon,¹²⁵ and those of the non-canonical Apocrypha,¹²⁶ all in accordance with the teaching of Jerome. Again, the significance of this is that the Glossa ordinaria was the official Biblical commentary used during the Middle Ages in all the theological centers for the training of theologians. Therefore, it represents the overall view of the Church as a whole, demonstrating the emptiness of the claims of Roman apologists that the decrees of Hippo and Carthage officially settled the canon for the universal Church. We come back again to the New Catholic Encyclopedia which states that the canon was not officially settled for the Roman Catholic Church until the sixteenth century with the Council of Trent.

-- David Ortiz (cyberpunk1986@hotmail.com), June 30, 2004

Answers

119 New Catholic Encyclopedia, Glossa Ordinaria; Glosses, Biblical, pp. 515-516.

120 Karlfried Froehlich and Margaret Gibson, Biblia Latina Cum Glossa Ordinaria, Introduction to the Facsimile Reprint of the Editio Princeps Adolph Rusch of Strassborg 1480/81 (Brepols- Turnhout, 1992) Karlfried Froehlich, The Printed Gloss, p. XXVI.

121 Alister McGrath, The Intellectual Origins of the Reformation (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), p. 126.

122 Karlfried Froehlich and Margaret Gibson, Biblia Latina Cum Glossa Ordinaria, Introduction to the Facsimile Reprint of the Editio Princeps Adolph Rusch of Strassborg 1480/81 (Brepols- Turnhout, 1992), The Glossed Bible, pp. VIII.

123 Ibid., pp. VIII-IX.

124 Quoniam plerique eo quod non multam operam dant sacrae Scripturae, existimant omnes libros qui in Bibliis continentur, pari veneratione esse reverendos atque adorandos, nescientes distinguere inter libros canonicos, et non canonicos, quos Hebraei a canone separant, et Graeci inter apocrypha computant; unde saepe coram doctis ridiculi videntur, et perturbantur, scandalizanturque cum audiunt aliquem non pari cum caeteris omnibus veneratione prosequi aliquid quod in Bibliis legatur: idcirco hic distinximus, et distincte numeravimus primo libros canonicos, et postea non canonicos, inter quos tantum distat quantum inter certum et dubium. Nam canonici sunt confecti Spiritus sancto dictante non canonici autem sive apocryphi, nescitur quo tempore quibusve auctoribus autoribus sint editi; quia tamen valde boni et utiles sunt, nihilque in eis quod canonicis obviet, invenitur, ideo Ecclesia eos legit, et permittit, ut ad devotionem, et ad morum informationem a fidelibus legantur. Eorum tamen auctoritas ad probandum ea quae veniunt in dubium, aut in contentionem, et ad confirmandam ecclesiasticorum dogmatum auctoritatem, non reputatur idonea, ut ait beatus Hieronymus in prologis super Judith et super libris Salomonis. At libri canonici tantae sunt auctoritatis, ut quidquid ibi continetur, verum teneat firmiter et indiscusse: et per consequens illud quod ex hoc concluditur manifeste; nam sicut in philosophia veritas cognoscitur per reductionem ad prima principia per se nota: ita et in Scripturis a sanctis doctoribus traditis veritas cognoscitur, quantum ad ea quae sunt fide tenenda, per reductionem ad Scripturas canonicas, quae sunt habita divina revelatione cui nullo modo potest falsum subesse. Unde de his dicit Augustinus ad Hieronymum: Ego solis eis scriptoribus qui canonici appellantur, didici hunc timorem honoremque deferre, ut nullum eorum scribendo errasse firmissime teneam; ac si aliquid in eis offendero quod videatur contrarium veritati, nihil aliud existimem quam mendosum esse codicem, vel non esse assecutum interpretem quod dictum est, vel me minime intellexisse, non ambigam. Alios autem ita lego, ut quantalibet sanctitate doctrinave polleant, non ideo verum putem quia ipsi ita senserunt, sed quia mihi per illos auctores canonicos vel probabiles rationes, quod a vero non abhorreat, persuadere potuerunt (Biblia cum glosa ordinaria et expositione Lyre litterali et morali (Basel: Petri & Froben, 1498), British Museum IB.37895, Vol. 1, On the canonical and non-canonical books of the Bible. Translation by Dr. Michael Woodward).

125 There are, then, twenty-two canonical books of the old testament, corresponding to the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, as Eusebius reports, in book six of Ecclesiastical History, that Origen writes on the first Psalm; and Jerome says the same thing more fully and distinctly in his Helmeted Prologue to the books of Kings: All the books are divided into three parts by the Jews: into the law, which contains the five books of Moses; into the eight prophets; and into the nine hagiographa. This will be more clearly seen shortly. Some, however, separate the book of Ruth from the book of Judges, and the Lamentations of Jeremiah from Jeremiah, and count them among the hagiographa in order to make twenty-four books, corresponding to the twenty-four elders whom the Apocalypse presents as adoring the lamb. These are the books that are in the canon, as blessed Jerome writes at greater length in the Helmeted Prologue to the books of Kings. In the first place are the five books of Moses, which are called the law, first of which is Genesis, second Exodus, third Leviticus, fourth Numbers, fifth Deuteronomy. Secondly follow the eight prophetic books, first of which is Joshua, second the book of Judges together with Ruth, third Samuel, i.e. first and second Kings, fourth Malachim, i.e. third and fourth Kings, fifth Isaiah, sixth Jeremiah with Lamentations, seventh Ezekiel, eighth the book of twelve prophets, first of which is Hosea, second Joel, third Amos, fourth Obadiah, fifth Jonah, sixth Micah, seventh Nahum, eighth Habakkuk, ninth Zephaniah, tenth Haggai, eleventh Zechariah, twelfth Malachi. Thirdly follow the nine hagiographa, first of which is Job, second Psalms, third Solomon's Proverbs, fourth his Ecclesiastes, fifth his Song of Songs, sixth Daniel, seventh Paralipomenon, which is one book, not two, among the Jews, eighth Ezra with Nehemiah (for it is all one book), ninth Esther. And whatever is outside of these (I speak of the Old Testament), as Jerome says, should be placed in the apocrypha (Biblia cum glosa ordinaria et expositione Lyre litterali et morali. Basel: Petri & Froben, 1498. British Museum IB.37895, vol. 1. Translation by Dr. Michael Woodward. See also Walafrid Strabo, Glossa ordinaria, De Canonicis et Non Canonicis Libris. PL 113:19-24).

Latin Reference: Sunt igitur libri canonici Veteris Testamenti viginti duo, ad numerum viginti duarum litterarum Hebraeorum, ut scribere Origenem super primum psalmum refert Eusebius libro sexto Ecclesiasticae Historiae, et copiosius distinctiusque dicit beatus Hieronymus in prologo galeato super librum Regum, quod omnes in tres partes ab Hebraeis dividuntur: In Legem, id est quinque libros Moysi; in prophetas octo, et hagiographa novem; ut statim clarius patebit, quamvis nonnulli librum Ruth separent a libro Judicum, et Lamentationes Jeremiae a Jeremia, et inter Hagiographa computent, ut sint viginti quatuor libri. Hanc divisionem probant Hebraei qui Biblia sua ob id appellant , id est, viginti quatuor.] ad numerum viginti quatuor seniorum quos Apocalypsis inducit adorantes Agnum. Isti sunt libri qui sunt in canone, ut latius scribit beatus Hieronymus in prologo galeato qui est super libros Regum. Et primo quinque libri Moysi, qui appellantur lex, quorum primus est Genesis, secundus Exodus, tertius Leviticus, quartus Numeri, quintus Deuteronomium. Secundo sequuntur octo libri prophetales, quorum primus est Josue, secundus liber Judicum cum Ruth, tertius Samuel, id est, primus et secundus Regum, quartus Malachim, id est, tertius et quartus Regum; quintus Isaias, sextus Jeremias cum Lamentationibus, septimus Ezechiel, octavus liber duodecim prophetarum: quorum primus est Osee, secundus Joel, tertius Amos, quartus Abdias, quintus Jonas, sextus Michaeas, septimus Nahum, octavus Habacuc, nonus Sophonias, decimus Aggaeus, undecimus Zacharias, duodecimus Malachias. Tertio sequuntur Hagiographa novem, quorum primus est Job, secundus Psalterium, tertius Salomonis Proverbia, quartus ejusdem Ecclesiastes, quintus ejusdem Canticorum, sextus Daniel, septimus Paralipomenon, qui apud Hebraeos est unus liber, non duo; octavus Esdras cum Nehemia (est enim totus unus liber), nonus Esther. Quidquid autem extra hos est (de Veteri Testamento loquor) ut dicit Hieronymus, inter apocrypha est ponendum (Biblia cum glosa ordinaria et expositione Lyre litterali et morali. Basel: Petri & Froben, 1498. British Museum IB.37895, vol. 1. See also Walafrid Strabo, Glossa ordinaria, De Canonicis et Non Canonicis Libris. PL 113:19-24).

126 These are the books that are not in the canon, which the church includes as good and useful books, but not canonical. Among them are some of more, some of less authority. For Tobit, Judith, and the books of Maccabees, also the book of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, are strongly approved by all. Thus Augustine, in book two of De Doctrina Christiana, counts the first three among canonical books; concerning Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, he says they deserved to be received as authoritative and should be numbered among the prophetic books; concerning the books of Maccabees, in book 18 of the City of God, speaking of the books of Ezra, he says that, although the Jews do not consider them canonical, the church considers them canonical because of the passions of certain martyrs and powerful miracles. Of less authority are Baruch and Third and Fourth Ezra. For Augustine makes no mention of them in the place cited above, while he included (as I have said) other apocryphal works among the canonical. Rufinus as well, in his exposition of the creed, and Isidore, in book 6 of the Etymologies, where they repeat this division of Jerome, mentioned nothing of these other books. And that we might enumerate the apocryphal books in the order in which they appear in this Bible, even though they have been produced in a different order, first come the third and fourth books of Ezra. They are called Third and Fourth Ezra because, before Jerome, Greeks and Latins used to divide the book of Ezra into two books, calling the words of Nehemiah the second book of Ezra. These Third and Fourth Ezra are, as I have said, of less authority among all non- canonical books. Hence Jerome, in his prologue to the books of Ezra, calls them dreams. They are found in very few Bible manuscripts; and in many printed Bibles only Third Ezra is found. Second is Tobit, a very devout and useful book. Third is Judith, which Jerome says in his prologue had been counted by the Nicene Council in the number of holy scriptures. Fourth is the book of Wisdom, which almost all hold that Philo of Alexandria, a most learned Jew, wrote. Fifth is the book of Jesus son of Sirach, which is called Ecclesiasticus. Sixth is Baruch, as Jerome says in his prologue to Jeremiah. Seventh is the book of Maccabees, divided into first and second books…Further, it should be known that in the book of Esther, only those words are in the canon up to that place where we have inserted: the end of the book of Esther, as far as it is in Hebrew. What follows afterward is not in the canon. Likewise in Daniel, only those words are in the canon up to that place where we have inserted: The prophet Daniel ends. What follows afterward is not in the canon (Biblia cum glosa ordinaria et expositione Lyre litterali et morali (Basel: Petri & Froben, 1498), British Museum IB.37895, Vol. 1. Translation by Dr. Michael Woodward. See also Walafrid Strabo, Glossa ordinaria, De Canonicis et Non Canonicis Libris. PL 113:19-24).

Latin Reference: Isti sunt libri qui non sunt in canone, quos tamen Ecclesia ut bonos et utiles libros admittit, non ut canonicos, inter quos sunt aliqui majoris auctoritatis, aliqui minoris. Nam Tobias, Judith, et Machabaeorum libri, Sapientiae quoque liber atque Ecclesiasticus, valde ab omnibus probantur; ita quod Augustinus libro de doctrina Christiana tres superiores numerat inter canonicos, et de Sapientia atque Ecclesiastico dicit, meruisse illos recipi in auctoritatem, et inter propheticos debere numerari. Et de libris Machabaeorum libro decimo octavo de Civitate Dei loquens, et de Esdrae libris dicit quod quamvis Hebraei non habeant eos pro canonicis, tamen Ecclesia habet illos pro canonicis propter quorumdam martyrum passiones vehementes atque mirabiles. Minoris autem auctoritatis sunt Baruch, et tertius et quartus Esdrae: nam Augustinus in loco supradicto nullam de his facit mentionem, cum tamen, ut dixi, alios apocryphos canonicis annumerat. Rufinus quoque in expositione Symboli, et Isidorus in libro sexto Etymologiarum, ubi hanc Hieronymi divisionem referunt, horum nihil meminerunt. Et ut numeres eos eo ordine quo sunt in Bibliis, quamvis alio ordine fuerint editi, primo sunt tertius et quartus libri Esdrae, qui dicuntur tertius et quartus; quia ante Hieronymum Graeci et Latini librum Esdrae canonicum secabant in duos libros, sermones Nehemiae, secundum librum appellantes. Isti autem tertius et quartus inter omnes, non canonicos minoris, ut dixi, sunt auctoritatis. Unde Hieronymus in prologo Esdrae eos appellat somnia, et in paucissimis Bibliis manuscriptis inveniuntur, et in multis impressis invenitur solum tertius. Secundus est Tobias, liber valde devotus et utilis. Tertius est Judith, quem dicit Hieronymus in prologo fuisse a Nicaena synodo computatum in numero sanctarum Scripturarum. Quartus liber Sapientiae, quem scripsisse Philonem Alexandrinum Judaeum doctissimum, fere omnes tenent. Quintus est liber Jesu filii Sirach, qui Ecclesiasticus dicitur: Sextus est Baruch, ut dicit Hieronymus in prologo Jeremiae. Septimus est Machabaeorum liber, in primum et secundum divisus.

Neque aliquem moveat quod in Judith et Tobiae prologis dicitur quod apud Hebraeos inter hagiographa leguntur, quia manifestus error est, et apocrypha, non hagiographa, est legendum: qui error in omnibus quos viderim codicibus invenitur: et inolevit, ut puto, ex pietate et devotione scribentium, qui devotissimas historias horrebant annumerare inter apocrypha. Nam quod hic error multis retro annis codices occupaverit, ostendit magister in historia Judith, ubi dicit: Hic liber apud Chaldaeos inter historias computatur, et apud Hebraeos inter apocrypha, quod dicit Hieronymus in prologo, qui sic incipit: Viginti et duas litteras. Si ergo alicubi in prologo super Judith legitur inter hagiographa, vitium scriptoris est, quod in ipso titulo deprehendi potest. Ex quo miror quod dictus magister non adverterit eumdem esse errorem in prologo Tobiae, ubi ipse dicit: Hanc historiam Hebraei ponunt inter apocrypha. Hieronymus tamen in prologo suo dicit inter hagiographa: Glossa quoque super dicto prologo Tobiae dicit potius et verius dixisset inter apocrypha: vel large accipit hagiographa, quasi sanctorum scripta, et ita non est de numero illorum novem quae proprie dicuntur hagiographa, quae sunt de catalogo, id est, de numero viginti duorum librorum Biblicorum. Nam cum Hieronymus in prologo Galeato, post enumerationem canonicorum librorum, dicat: Hic prologus Scripturarum quasi galeatum principium, omnibus libris quos de Hebraeo vertimus in Latinum convenire potest, ut scire valeamus quidquid extra hos est, inter apocrypha esse ponendum. Igitur Sapientia, quae vulgo Salomonis inscribitur, et Jesu filii Sirach liber, et Judith, et Tobias, et Pastor, non sunt in canone:" quomodo credendum est, illum postea in illis prologis scripsisse eos inter hagiographa, et sibi ipsi contradicere? Si quis praeterea liberatiori examine Hieronymi verba in dictis prologis perpenderit, animadvertet illum scripsisse apocrypha, non hagiographa. Dicit enim in prologo Tobiae: "Exigitis ut librum Chaldaeo sermone conscriptum ad Latinum stylum traham, librum utique Tobiae, quem Hebraei de catalogo divinarum Scripturarum secantes, his quae apocrypha memorant, manciparunt." In Judith autem ait: Apud Hebraeos liber Judith inter apocrypha legitur, cujus auctoritas ad roboranda illa quae in contentionem veniunt, minus idonea judicatur. Cum itaque dicat Hebraeos secare Tobiam de catalogo divinarum Scripturarum, et Judith auctoritatem minus idoneam judicari, si inter Hagiographa numeraret, et non inter apocrypha, contraria videretur in eodem loco scripsisse. Sed, ut dixi, scriptores hoc nomen apocrypha horrentes, devotione ac pietate quadam rejecto apocrypha, hagiographa scripserunt. Rufinus vero ubi supra, enumeratis libris canonicis, in quibus cum Hieronymo concordat, infert: Haec sunt quae patres intra canonem concluserunt, ex quibus fidei nostrae assertiones constare voluerunt. Sciendum tamen est quod et alii libri sunt qui non canonici, sed ecclesiastici a majoribus appellati sunt, ut Sapientia quae dicitur Salomonis, et alia Sapientia quae dicitur filii Sirach. Et infra: ejusdem ordinis est libellus Tobiae, et Judith, et Machabaeorum libri: quae omnia legi quidem in ecclesiis voluerunt, non tamen proferri ad auctoritatem ex his confirmandam. Caeteras vero scripturas apocryphas nominaverunt, quas in ecclesiis legi noluerunt. Praeterea est sciendum quod in libro Esther illa duntaxat sunt in canone quae scribuntur usque ad eum locum ubi posuimus: Finit liber Esther, prout est in Hebraeo, quae postea sequuntur non sunt in canone. Similiter in Daniele, illa tantum sunt in canone quae sunt usque ad eum locum ubi posuimus: Finit Daniel propheta: quae post ea sequuntur non sunt in canone. Quamvis autem David, id est, Psalterium apud Hebraeos non ponatur inter prophetas, sed inter hagiographa, tamen ere omnes Latini eum non solum prophetam sed summum prophetarum, vel secundum vocant. Danielem quoque inter prophetas numerant.

Aliter quoque aliqui Latini diviserunt Vetus et Novum Testamentum, scilicet in libros legales, historiales, sapientiales et prophetales. Legales appellant quinque libros Moysi in Veteri Testamento: quibus in Novo faciunt respondere quatuor Evangelia. Historiales, Josue, Judicum, libros Regum, Paralipomenon, Esdra, Esther et Job: quibus in Novo correspondent Acta apostolorum. Sapientiales tres libros Salomonis, scilicet: Proverbia, Ecclesiasten, et Canticum canticorum: quibus in Novo correspondent Epistolae Pauli, et quae canonicae dicuntur. Prophetales faciunt David, id est, Psalterium, Isaiam, Jeremiam, Ezechielem, et duodecim prophetas et Danielem: quibus in Novo respondet liber Apocalypsis (Biblia cum glosa ordinaria et expositione Lyre litterali et morali (Basel: Petri & Froben, 1498), British Museum IB.37895, Vol. 1. See also Walafrid Strabo, Glossa ordinaria, De Canonicis et Non Canonicis Libris. PL 113:19-24).
[This excerpt from Holy Scripture: Ground and Pillar of Our Faith can be found at www.christiantruth.com]

The Glossa Interlinearis of Anselm of Laon
Twelfth-century -  Written over the Vulgate text

The Postilla of Nicholas of Lyra

The Additions of Paulus Brugensis

Scriptural Glosses

I. ETYMOLOGY AND PRINCIPAL MEANINGS

The modern English word gloss is derived directly from the Latin glossa, itself a transcript of the Greek glossa. In classical Greek glossa (Attic glotta) means the tongue or organ of speech and figuratively a tongue or language. In the course of time Greek grammarians, commenting on the works of Greek authors, used the word glossa to designate first a word of the text which needed some explanation, and next the explanation itself. And it is in this last sense that Christian writers have principally employed the word glossa, gloss, in connexion with Holy Writ. Among them, as among Greek grammarians, a gloss meant an explanation of a purely verbal difficulty of the text, to the exclusion of explanations required by doctrinal, ritual, historical, and other obscurities; and the words which were commonly the subject of their glosses may be reduced to the following five classes:

1. foreign words;
2. provincial dialectical terms;
3. obsolete words;
4. technical terms; or
5. words actually employed in some unusual sense or in some peculiar grammatical form.

As these glosses consisted of a single explanatory word, they were easily written between the lines of the text or in the margin of manuscripts opposite the words of which they supplied the explanation. In the process of time the glosses naturally grew in number, and in consequence they were gathered in separate books where they appeared, first in the same order of succession as they would have had if written in the margin of the codices, and ultimately in a regular alphabetical order. These collections of glosses thus formed kinds of lexicons which gave the concrete meaning of the difficult words of the text and even historical, geographical, biographical, and other notices, which the collectors deemed necessary or useful to illustrate the text of the Sacred writings. A lexicon of the kind is usually called a glossary (from Lat. glossarium), but bears at times in English the simple name of a gloss. From a single explanatory word, interlined or placed in the margin, the word gloss has also been extended to denote an entire expository sentence, and in many instances even a sort of running commentary on an entire book of Sacred Scripture. Finally the term gloss designates a word or a remark, perhaps intended at first as an explanation of the text of Holy Writ, and inserted for some time either between the lines or in the margin of the Sacred Books, but now embodied in the text itself, into which it was inserted by owners or by transcribers of manuscripts, and in which it appears as if an integral part of the Word of God, whereas it is but a late interpolation.
II. GLOSSES AS MARGINAL NOTES

As is quite natural, the margin has always been the favourite place for recording explanatory words or remarks of various kinds concerning the text of the Bible. And in point of fact, marginal notes of varying nature and importance are found in nearly all manuscripts and printed editions of the Sacred Scriptures. With regard to the Hebrew text, these glosses or marginal notes are mostly extracts from the Masorah or collection of traditional remarks concerning Holy Writ. They usually bear on what was regarded as a questionable reading or spelling in the text, but yet was allowed to remain unmodified in the text itself through respect for its actual form. Thus, at times the margin bids the reader to transpose, interchange, restore, or remove a consonant, while at other times it directs him to omit or insert even an entire word. Some of these glosses are of considerable importance for the correct reading or understanding of the original Hebrew, while nearly all have effectually contributed to its uniform transmission since the eleventh century of our era. The marginal notes of Greek and Latin manuscripts and editions of the Scriptures are usually of a wider import. Annotations of all kinds, chiefly the results of exegetical and critical study, crowd the margins of these copies and printed texts far more than those of the manuscripts and editions of the original Hebrew. In regard to the Latin Vulgate, in particular, these glosses gradually exhibited to readers so large and so perplexing a number of various textual readings that to remedy the evil, Sixtus V, when publishing his official edition of the Vulgate in 1588, decreed that henceforth copies of it should not be supplied with such variations recorded in the margin. This was plainly a wise rule, and its faithful observance by Catholic editors of the Vulgate and by its translators, notably by the authors of the Douay Version, has secured the object intended by Sixtus V. Despite the explicit resolve of James I that the Protestant Version of Holy Writ to be published during his reign should not have any marginal notes, that version -- the so-called Authorized Version appeared in 1611 with such notes, usually recording various readings. The glosses or marginal notes of the British Revised Version published 1881-85, are greatly in excess over those of the Version of 1611. They give various readings, alternate renderings, critical remarks, etc., and by their number and character have startled the Protestant public. The marginal notes of the American Standard Revised Version (1900-1901) are of the same general description as those found in the British Revised Version of Holy Writ.
III. GLOSSES AS TEXTUAL ADDITIONS

As stated above, the word gloss designates not only marginal notes, but also words or remarks inserted for various reasons in the very text of the Scriptures. The existence of such textual additions in Holy Writ is universally admitted by Biblical scholars with regard to the Hebrew text, although there is at times considerable disagreement among them as to the actual expressions that should be treated as glosses in the Sacred Writings. Besides the eighteen corrections of the Scribes which ancient Rabbis regard as made in the sacred text of the Old Testament before their time, and which were probably due to the fact that marginal explanations had of old heen embodied in the text itself, recent scholars have treated as textual additions many words and expressions scattered throughout the Hebrew Bible. Thus the defenders of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch naturally maintain that the more or less extensive notices found in the Mosaic writings and relative to matters geographical, historical, etc., decidedly later than Moses' time, should be regarded as post-Mosaic textual additions. Others, struck with the lack of smoothness of style noticeable in several passages of the original Hebrew, or with the apparent inconsistencies in its parallel statements, have appealed to textual additions as offering a natural and adequate explanation of the facts observed. Some have even admitted the view that Midrashim, or kinds of Jewish commentaries, were at an early date utilized in the framing or in the transcription of our present Hebrew text, and thus would account for what they consider as actual and extensive additions to its primitive form. And it can hardly be doubted that by means of the literary feature known as "parallelism" in Hebrew poetry, many textual additions can be detected in the Hebrew text of the poetical books, notably in that of Job. All scholars distinctly maintain, however, and indeed justly, that all such glosses, whether actually proved, or simply conjectured, do not interfere materially with the substantial integrity of the Hebrew text. The presence of similar textual additions in the text of the Septuagint, or oldest Greek translation of the Old Testament, is an established fact which was well known to the Roman editors of that version under Sixtus V. One has only to compare attentively the words of that ancient version with those of the original Hebrew to remain convinced that the Septuagint translators have time and again deliberately deviated from the text which they rendered into Greek, and thus made a number of more or less important additions thereunto. These translators frequently manifest a desire to supply what the original had omitted or to clear up what appeared ambiguous. Frequently, too, they adopt paraphrastic renderings to avoid the most marked anthropomorphisms of the text before them: while at times the seem to be guided in their additions by Jewish Halacha and Haggadab. Glosses as textual additions exist also in manuscripts of the New Testament, owing to a variety of causes, the principal among which may be given as follows: copyists have embodied marginal notes in the text itself; at times they have supplemented the words of an Evangelist by means of the parallel passages in the other Gospels; sometimes they have completed the quotations from the Old Testament in the New. Finally, textual additions appear in the manuscripts and printed editions of the Latin Vulgate. Its author, St. Jerome, has freely enough inserted in his rendering of the original Hebrew historical, geographical, doctrinal remarks which he thought more or less necessary for the understanding of Scriptural passages by ordinary readers. He complains at times that during his own life copyists, instead of faithfully transcribing his translation, embodied in the text notes found in the margin. And after his death manuscripts of the Vulgate, especially those of the Spanish type, were supposedly enriched with all kinds of additional readings, which, together with other textual variations embodied in early printed copies of the Vulgate, led ultimately to the official editions of St. Jerome's work by Popes Sixtus V and Clement VIII. But however numerous and important all such glosses may actually be, they have never materially impaired the substantial integrity either of the Greek New Testament or of the Latin Vulgate.
IV. GLOSSES AS SCRIPTURAL LEXICONS

With regard to the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, most rabbinical commentaries are little more than collections of glosses, or "glossaries", as they are usually called, inasmuch as their chief object is to supply explanations of Hebrew words. A part of the Masorah may also be considered as a kind of glossary to the Hebrew Bible; and the same thing may be said in reference to the collections of Oriental and Western readings given in the sixth volume of the London Polyglot. As regards the Greek Bible texts, there are no separate collections of glosses; yet these texts are taken into account, together with the rest of the Greek literature, in a certain number of glossaries which afford explanations of difficult words in the Greek language. The following are the principal glossaries of that description:

1. the lexicon of Hesychius, a Greek grammarian of the fourth century of our era;
2. the "Lexeon synagoge" (collection of glosses) of the celebrated patriarch Photius (died 891);
3. the lexicon of Suidas, apparently an author of the tenth century;
4. the "Etymologium Magnum" by an unknown writer of the twelfth or the thirteenth century;
5. the "Synagoge lexeon" of the Byzantine monk Zonaras;
6. the "Dictionarium" of the Benedictine Varius Phavorinus, published early in the sixteenth century.

Most of the glosses illustrating the language of Scripture which are found in the works of Hesychius, Suidas, Phavorinus, and in the "Etymologium Magnum", were collected and published by J.C. Ernesti (Leipzig, 1785-86). The best separate gloss on the Latin Vulgate, as a collection of explanations chiefly of its words, is that of St. Isidore of Seville, which he completed in 632, and which bears the title of "Originum sive Etymologiarum libri XX". It is found in Migne, P. L., LXXXII.
V. GLOSSES AS COMMENTARIES

As Scriptural commentaries there are two celebrated glosses on the Vulgate. The former is the "Glossa Ordinaria", thus called from its common use during the Middle Ages. Its author, the German Walafrid Strabo (died 849), had some knowledge of Greek and made extracts chiefly from the Latin Fathers and from the writings of his master, Rabanus Maurus, for the purpose of illustrating the various senses -- principally the literal sense -- of all the books of Holy Writ. This gloss is quoted as a high authority by St. Thomas Aquinas, and it was known as "the tongue of Scripture". Until the seventeenth century it remained the favourite commentary on the Bible; and it was only gradually superseded by more independent works of exegesis. The "Glossa Ordinaria" is found in vols. CXIII and CXIV of Migne, P. L. The second gloss, the "Glossa Interlinearis", derived its name from the fact that it was written over the words in the text of the Vulgate. It was the work of Anselm of Laon (died 1117), who had some acquaintance with Hebrew and Greek. After the twelfth century copies of the Vulgate were usually supplied with both these glasses, the "Glossa Ordinaria" being inserted in the margin, at the top and at the sides, and the "Glossa Interlinearis" being placed between the lines of the Vulgate text; while later, from the fourteenth century onward, the "Postilla" of Nicholas of Lyra and the "Additions" of Paulus Brugensis were added at the foot of each page. Some early printed editions of the Vulgate exhibit all this exegetical apparatus; and the latest and best among them is the one by Leander a S. Martino, O.S.B. (six vols. fol., Antwerp, 1634).

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