Andrew Of Saint-Victor And His Franciscan Critics

Chapter Summary

The twelfth century witnessed a growing interest in Jewish exegesis among Christian scholars. This chapter explores the tensions inherent in the Christian reading of the Old Testament according to its literal sense, and provides understanding of what it was that made the thirteenth-century exegetes suspicious of the way that some of their twelfth-century predecessors had read the Old Testament. One of the most widely recognized Hebraists of the twelfth century was Andrew of Saint-Victor, who made extensive use of Jewish exegesis in his commentaries on the Old Testament. Guillelmus Brito, the thirteenth-century English Franciscan author of an influential Correctorium Bibliae, for instance, cites Andrews authority on almost every Bible verse. The late thirteenth-century Franciscan Oxford Master Roger Bacon, in his Compendium studii philosophiae, even complained about the excessive popularity that Andrews Hebrew learning enjoyed. Clearly, Andrews exegesis gave the interpretation of Scripture in the thirteenth-century schools a new direction.

Keywords: Andrews exegesis; Christian scholars; Franciscan; Hebraists; Jewish exegesis; Old Testament; Saint-Victor; scripture