century. Few works of
Mystical Theology exercised a greater influence on the writers of the
Middle Ages.[30] A word must also be said about the _Gloss_ to which S.
Thomas so often refers, and which he quotes as an authority. The term
"Gloss" was applied to the brief running commentaries on the Bible which
were in vogue in the Middle Ages. These brief paraphrases were also
known as _Postillae_, and they were frequently written in between the
lines of the text of the Bible, whence the name _Interlinear Gloss_; or
in the margins, whence the name _Marginal Gloss_. The _Glossa
Ordinaria_, as it is called, is the best known of these commentaries. It
is usually attributed to Walafrid Strabo, a monk of the Abbey of S.
Gall, who died in 849; but it is probable that Strabo took down his
Commentary from the lips of Rabanus Maurus, a monk of the Abbey of
Fulda, and afterwards its abbot. Rabanus was a most prolific writer, and
has left Commentaries on nearly all the Books of the Bible. Even when
Abbot he reserved to himself the Chair of Scripture;[31] he had had the
great advantage of living for a time in Palestine. Another Biblical
scholar to whom the _Glossa Ordinaria_ of S. Thomas's time apparently
owed much, was Hugo a S. Caro, the Dominican Provincial in France, and
afterwards Cardinal-Priest of S. Sabina. It was under his direction that
the first Concordance of the Bible was formed, in which task he is said
to have had the assistance of five hundred Friars.[32] He owes his title
of Glossator to his well-known _Postillae_, or Brief Commentaries on the
whole Bible. The _Glossa Interlinearis_ is due to Anselm, a Canon of
Laudun, who died in 1117. Another famous Glossator was Nicolas de Lyra,
a Franciscan who died in 1340--some sixty-six years, that is, subsequent
to S. Thomas. Lastly, we should mention Peter the Lombard, commonly
known as _The Master of the Sentences_, from his four books of
_Sentences_, in which he presented the theological teaching of the
Fathers in Scholastic fashion. This treatise became the Scholastic
manual of the age. To him is due a Gloss on the Psalter and on Job, as
well as a series of brief notes on the Epistles of S. Paul taken from
the writings of the chief Fathers, S. Ambrose, S. Jerome, S. Augustine,
etc. And the authority accorded to these Glosses in general is due to
the fact that they constituted a running Commentary taken from the
writings of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church.

THE BREVIA