The Glossa Ordinaria as a Witness Against the Apocrypha

J. Neil Daniels

Introduction

The Glossa Ordinaria, or Ordinary Gloss, stands as one of the most authoritative biblical commentaries of the medieval Western Church. Compiled during the 12th and 13th centuries and used extensively throughout the scholastic centers of Europe, the Glossa not only shaped theological education but also reflected the prevailing convictions of the Church. As William Webster has pointed out (especially here), among these convictions was a clear and repeated distinction between canonical Scripture and the Apocryphal writings. Far from embracing the Apocryphal books as inspired Scripture, the Glossa explicitly affirms the Jewish canon of twenty-two books, following the lead of Jerome and other early authorities. As such, the Glossa Ordinaria serves as a significant historical witness against the inclusion of the Apocryphal books in the Old Testament canon, countering later Roman Catholic claims about the canon’s uniformity prior to the Council of Trent.

The Authority and Method of the Glossa Ordinaria

The Glossa Ordinaria was regarded as a foundational tool for interpreting the Bible throughout the Middle Ages. The New Catholic Encyclopedia affirms that it was so influential it was called “the tongue of Scripture” and “the bible of scholasticism.”¹ Karlfried Froehlich describes it as “supremely necessary, indispensable for the reading of the sacred book which could not be understood without it.”² For medieval theologians, Scripture was not read in isolation, but alongside the interpretive tradition embedded in the Gloss. Alister McGrath notes that by the end of the twelfth century, “much biblical commentary and exegesis was reduced to restating the comments of the gloss.”³

According to Ulrich Leinsle, the Glossa Ordinaria became so foundational that later commentaries assumed it as a point of departure, with the glossator acquiring near-authoritative status. The Gloss offered a scholarly apparatus drawn from patristic and medieval sources, systematically arranged according to the catena method: extracting, comparing, and harmonizing the Church’s most important interpretations of each biblical verse.⁴ Leinsle explains that this technique relied heavily on auctoritas, limiting ratio to weighing and organizing authorities. The result was a unified exegetical voice that formed the textbook of medieval theology.⁵

Composite Origins and Patristic Foundations

Though attributed in part to Walafrid Strabo, the Glossa Ordinaria is a collective work. The earliest glosses, on Wisdom and Sirach, are traced to Strabo († 894), but the text took its final shape in the school of Laon, particularly under Anselm, Radulfus, and Gilbertus Universalis.⁶ As Leinsle points out, while authorship of specific sections remains uncertain, the contribution of figures like Rabanus Maurus, Bede, and Jerome remains foundational.⁷

Margaret Gibson summarizes the patristic heritage embedded in the Gloss, noting that “the giant who bears it on his shoulders is Jerome,” whose influence extended not only to the biblical text itself but also to prefaces, commentaries, and canonical distinctions.⁸ Behind Jerome stand Origen, Augustine, Ambrose, Gregory, Bede, and others, woven into a harmonized and ordered voice by glossators like Rabanus and Paschasius Radbertus.

The Canon According to the Glossa

The Glossa Ordinaria includes prologues to the Old Testament which explicitly distinguish between canonical and non-canonical (Apocryphal) books. These prefaces repeat Jerome’s conviction that only twenty-two books, according to the Hebrew alphabet and Jewish reckoning, are canonical. “Whatever is outside of these,” the Gloss declares, “should be placed in the Apocrypha.”⁹ It adds, “The Church reads them and permits them to be read by the faithful for devotion and edification,” but they are not suitable “for confirming the authority of ecclesiastical dogma.”¹⁰

Jerome’s Prologus Galeatus is central in these statements, as the Glossa preserves his canonical list and his sharp distinction between divine Scripture and ecclesiastical writings. Thus, the Apocryphal books—Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, Maccabees, and others—are introduced with remarks such as, “Here begins the book of Tobit, which is not in the canon.”¹¹ These prologues explicitly warn readers not to treat all biblical books with equal reverence, lest they appear ridiculous before the learned.¹²

Augustine, Jerome, and the Authority of the Canon

While some, such as Augustine, are sometimes cited as granting authority to the Apocryphal books, the Gloss places his remarks in a subordinate framework. The preface to the Glossa Ordinaria quotes him affirming, “To those writers alone who are called canonical I have learned to offer this reverence and honor: I hold most firmly that none of them has made an error in writing.”¹³ Other authors, by contrast, must be judged by how well they conform to the canonical authors or to reason.

In this framework, even the Apocrypha are divided: some, like Tobit and Judith, are valued more; others, such as 3 and 4 Ezra and the additions to Esther and Daniel, are of lesser authority. Jerome referred to the former as ecclesiastical books, useful but uninspired, and to the latter as “dreams.”¹⁴ Thus, even among non-canonical texts, the Gloss applies nuanced criteria of discernment.

The Scholastic Consensus and Canonical Authority

The Glossa Ordinaria reflects a deep-rooted consensus in the Western Church prior to the Reformation. It does not represent an idiosyncratic or regional perspective but the prevailing standard in cathedral schools and theological faculties. Leinsle underscores its pervasiveness: the Gloss gave theologians immediate access to the “most important and advanced teachings” for any biblical verse.¹⁵ As a pedagogical tool, it shaped how generations of scholars understood Scripture’s authority and boundaries.

Its witness undermines any simplistic reading of patristic or conciliar tradition in favor of the expanded canon later dogmatized by the Council of Trent. Even the New Catholic Encyclopedia concedes that “the canon was not officially settled for the Roman Catholic Church until the sixteenth century.”¹⁶ The Glossa Ordinaria, drawing from Jerome and consistent patristic sources, confirms that Apocryphal books were not received as canonical in the authoritative sense.

Conclusion

Far from being a marginal or minority voice, the Glossa Ordinaria codified the medieval Church’s canon consciousness. It embedded Jerome’s distinction between canonical and Apocryphal texts into the very heart of Western theological formation. Built from a rich patristic inheritance and refined through scholastic method, the Gloss affirmed a canon that excluded the Apocrypha from binding doctrinal authority. It thus stands as an enduring witness not only to the Church’s tradition of interpretation but also to its fidelity to the Hebrew canon preserved by the Jews and affirmed by the early Fathers.

Notes

New Catholic Encyclopedia, “Glossa Ordinaria; Glosses, Biblical,” pp. 515–516.
Karlfried Froehlich and Margaret Gibson, Biblia Latina cum Glossa Ordinaria, Intro. to the Facsimile Reprint of the Editio Princeps Adolph Rusch of Strassborg 1480/81 (Brepols-Turnhout, 1992), p. XXVI.
Alister McGrath, The Intellectual Origins of the Reformation (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), p. 126.
Ulrich G. Leinsle, Introduction to Scholastic Theology, trans. Michael J. Miller (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2010), pp. 44–46.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 45; see also Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1983), p. 66.
Froehlich and Gibson, Biblia Latina, pp. VIII–IX.
Biblia cum glosa ordinaria et expositione Lyre litterali et morali (Basel: Petri & Froben, 1498), British Museum IB.37895, Vol. 1.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Leinsle, Introduction to Scholastic Theology, p. 54.
New Catholic Encyclopedia, “Canon of Scripture,” citing Council of Trent.

Bibliography

Biblia cum glosa ordinaria et expositione Lyre litterali et morali. Basel: Petri & Froben, 1498. British Museum IB.37895.

Froehlich, Karlfried, and Margaret Gibson. Biblia Latina Cum Glossa Ordinaria: Facsimile Reprint of the Editio Princeps Adolph Rusch of Strassburg 1480/81. Turnhout: Brepols, 1992.

Leinsle, Ulrich G. Introduction to Scholastic Theology. Translated by Michael J. Miller. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2010.

McGrath, Alister E. The Intellectual Origins of the Reformation. Oxford: Blackwell, 1987.

New Catholic Encyclopedia. 2nd ed. Detroit: Gale, 2003.

Smalley, Beryl. The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages. Oxford: Blackwell, 1983.

Swanson, Jenny. “The Glossa Ordinaria.” In Medieval Theologians, edited by G. R. Evans, 156–67. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001.

Webster, William. “The Old Testament Canon and the Apocrypha: Part 3: From Jerome.” Christian Truth. Accessed August 4, 2025. https://christiantruth.com/articles/apocrypha3/.

Webster, William. Roman Catholic Tradition: Claims and Contradictions. Battle Ground, WA: Christian Resources, 1995.