A study of Peter Comestor's method in the 'Historia Genesis'

摘要

This thesis examines Peter Comestor's method of using the Bible, glosses on the Bible, and other sources (notably the biblical Glossa ordinaria and Peter Lombard's Sentences) in the Historia Genesis. I show that Comestor produced a summa-like work which, although sui generis and different in essential respects from traditional biblical commentaries, was nevertheless fundamentally a commentary. I also show that Comestor's method, while pragmatic and eclectic, was ordered to production of a cogent narrative history based on but not defined by the Bible and faithful to but not bound by the preceding tradition of literal commentary. Finally, I examine problems Comestor's method posed for two commentators, Stephen Langton and Hugh of St. Cher.