Preachers' keys to the Bible

In a treatise on the art of preaching devised by a Dominican in the late Middle Ages nine methods of expanding the subject-matter of a sermon are suggested: concordance of authorities, discussion of words, explanation of the properties of things, multiplication of senses, the use of analogies with things in the natural world, pointing out opposites, making comparisons, interpretation of names, multiplication of synonyms. These are all, as we have seen, techniques in common use in exegesis and their adaptation for the purposes of preaching underlines the exegetical nature of preaching as it had developed on patristic models in the earlier Middle Ages. The homilies of Augustine and Gregory the Great were systematic, if highly varied, commentaries on selected books of the Bible. Guibert of Nogent and Bernard of Clairvaux took the book of Genesis or the Song of Songs in a similar way and interpreted it for their listeners piece by piece. Gregory the Great had made much of the comparison of one text with another drawn from elsewhere in Scripture, the examination of the variety of meanings a word may have, the use of analogies with the natural world, the multiplication of senses – many of the devices our Dominican author recommends, but used freely as they seemed to be needed.

A glance at the advice given by Humbert of Romans earlier in the history of the Order on the materials with which the preacher should familiarise himself, gives a picture of the variety of matter which proved to be relevant and at the same time the academic pressure which the preaching purpose of their studies put on mendicant students of the Bible: