In the Western Church there were many names as great: Tertullian, Cyprian, Hilary, Ambrose, Leo the Great, Gregory the Great; most famous of all, Augustine and Jerome. Of these two the former was marvellously acute in penetrating the sense of God's word, and most fertile in the use that he made of it for the promotion of Catholic truth. The latter has received from the Church, by reason of his pre-eminent knowledge of Scripture and the greatness of his labors in promoting its use, the name of the "Great Doctor."
From this period, down to the eleventh century, although biblical studies did not flourish with the same vigor and with the same fruitfulness as before, they nevertheless did flourish, and that principally through the instrumentality of the clergy. It was their care and solicitude that selected the most fruitful of the things which the ancients had left behind them, placed these in digested order, and published them with additions of their own--as did Isidore of Seville, Venerable Bede, and Alcuin, among the most prominent. It was they who illustrated the sacred pages with "glosses," or short commentaries, as we see in Walafrid Strabo and Anselm of Laon, or who expended fresh labor in securing their integrity, as did Peter Damian and Lanfranc.
In the twelfth century many took up with great success the allegorical exposition of Scripture. In this Bernard is easily pre-eminent. His writings, it may be said, are Scripture all through. With the age of the scholastics there came fresh and fruitful progress in the study of the Bible. That the scholastics were solicitous about the genuineness of the Latin version is evident from the _Correctoria Biblica_, or list of emendations, which they have left behind them. They expended, however, more of their study and of their industry on interpretation and on explanation. To them we owe the accurate and clear distinction, such as had not been given before, of the various senses of the sacred words; the weight of each word in the balance of theology; the division of books into parts, and the summaries of the various parts; the investigation of the purpose of the writers, and the unfolding of the necessary connection of one sentence with another. No man can fail to see the amount of light which was thus shed on the more obscure passages. The abundance of their Scriptural learning is to be seen both in their theological treatises and in their commentaries. In this Thomas of Aquin bears the palm.