Abstract

Devout Christians of the high and later Middle Ages were caught in a terrible predicament about reading Scripture. Countless authorities urged them to ponder God's word as often and searchingly as possible. St. Augustine deemed Scripture the closest approach to God on earth, teaching “the difference between day and night.” For Cassiodorus, Scripture was “the object of ever-increasing desire, the endless sufficiency [for which] the blessed hunger.” For Peter the Chanter it was the “vessel to transport us across life's boundless sea.” Those who contemplated Scripture with pious intention could never be blamed, not even were they to find new truths in it, for, as Augustine said, “What could God have more generously and abundantly provided in the divine writings than that the same words might be understood in various ways?” Nonetheless, despite those encouragements, canon law ruled severely that “whoever interprets Holy Scripture in a way other than the Holy Spirit demands can be called a heretic even if he does not separate himself from the Church.”