Bible or Lombard?

Much of the theology instruction in the high middle ages took the form of commentary on established texts, most importantly the Four Books of the Sentences by Peter the Lombard. Lombard’s triumph, though, was contested. As Deeana Klepper points out in her book on Nicolas of Lyra, one of the main opponents was the Oxford Franciscan Robert Grosseteste, whose disciples also insisted that theology should be taught from the Bible, not from a theologian.

Paris was the source of the alternative method of teaching from Lombard, and that method spread to England through theologians who had studied in Paris. The Dominican Richard Fishacre defended his use of the Sentences by insisting that it was “really a form of biblical exegesis. By introducing the study of the Sentences within the context of biblical lectures, Fishacre believed that he was rejoining two essential components of the study of Scripture: traditional moral instruction, lectio , and the exploration of doctrinal questions, disputatio .”

Richard Rufus was the first Fransciscan to use Lombard. His defense against Roger Bacon’s criticism was that “the Sentences may provide assistance to scholars in making clear things intentionally left obscure in Sacred Scriptre.” Theology per se doesn’t need the summae , but relies on Scripture alone. Rufus, in short, lectured on the Sentences while denying their place in theology as such.