# Medieval Hermeneutic



## Ravens (Aug 29, 2007)

Found this in Jaroslav Pelikan's third volume on the history of doctrine, The Growth of Medieval Theology (600 - 1300), pg. 123:

I thought this was an interesting summary that shows the Reformed, Christological reading of the Old Testament to be truly Christian and catholic, and not just Protestant.



> As the inspired word of God, Scripture was true and was consistent throughout. If something in one book of the Bible appeared to diverge from what was said in another, "they must all be understood as setting forth a single message, through the unity of him who is speaking in all of them, the Holy Spirit." This unity brought together the New Testament and the Old Testament as the word of Christ. The very first verse of the very first psalm spoke "about the blessedness and the holiness" of Christ, as did many other portions of the Old Testament. It was suggested that originally the readings at the Christian liturgy had consisted only of the epistles of the apostle Paul, but that eventually other lessons were added, not only from the New Testament but also from the Old. So central was the witness to Christ in the Old Testament that "Isaiah, as Saint Jerome says, should be called not so much a prophet as an evangelist and an apostle." The Song of Songs became "the book which was most read, and most frequently commented in the medieval cloister" because it, as "a nuptial song," was suitable to the celebration of Christ and of his saints. Sometimes, it seems, the devotion in the medieval cloister to the Book of Psalms and related books was so intense that when the monks heard the reading of the Gospels, they exclaimed, "Stop it, and go back to the Psalms!"
> 
> "Law and prophecy are recapitulated in the one gospel," because the words and deeds of Christ in the Gospels gave meaning to Moses and Isaiah. A prophet was not only one who predicted the coming of Christ as something in the future, but one who interpreted Scripture properly. Therefore John the Baptists was a prophet because he predicted what was to come, but "more than a prophet because with his finger he pointed at Him whom the other prophets has predicted as yet to come, and he said: 'Behold, the Lamb of God.'"


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