SOURCE: Colish, Marcia L. “Peter Lombard as an Exegete of St. Paul.” In Ad litteram: Authoritative Texts and Their Medieval Readers, edited by Mark D. Jordan and Kent Emery, Jr., pp. 71-92. South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992.

In the following essay, Colish explains why Lombard's exposition of the Pauline Epistles was the most acclaimed commentary of its kind in the twelfth century.

There is no doubt that medieval Christian thinkers saw the Bible as the book of books and its study as the discipline of disciplines. Nor is there any question of the privileged position they gave to the Pauline Epistles. In the twelfth century, as before, the Epistles of Paul received more sustained attention than did any other part of the New Testament. They now also did so from more than one quarter. The twelfth century continued to witness interest in Paul on the...