GLORIA IN EXCELSIS, GLORIA PATRI. See
LlTTJRGICS, III.
GLOSSES, BIBLICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL.
Origin and Development of the Terms (§ 1). Glosses in the Greek World (§ 2). Transference to the West (§ 3). Influence on Encyclopedic Works (§ 4). Modern Use in Biblical Criticism (§ 5).
A gloss is a marginal note employed for explanation or illustration. The term is derived from the Greek glossa, " tongue, speech, dialect." The use of marginal notes can be traced to classical times when they were employed to explain for Greek students the meaning of obsolete, i. Origin provincial or foreign words, especially and Devel- such as occurred in the Homeric poems, opment of Indexes of the glosses were made tothe Terms, gether with their equivalents in the common speech, and thus began the work of lexicography. (On the question whether the New Testament phrase lalcin glossais, etc., " to speak with tongues," has any connection
RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Glass
Glosses
with this usage cf. Bleek in TSK, ii. 1. 1829; see Speaking with Tongues.) Glossa came to mean any word not in common use at any particular time or one used in a limited sense and so requiring elucidation. A synonym, glossema, came into use later when, especially in Alexandrian times, annotation of manuscripts was required because of the spread of the Greek language. Naturally this annotation developed from mere explanation of words to discussion of grammatical forms and then of subject-matter. The use of glosses passed to the Romans, by whom the term glossarium was coined.
The ready-made term glossa was applied to the marginal notes found in the Biblical manuscripts, such as the here of the Old Testament (see Keri and Kethibh) and the explanations of Hebrew terms used in the New Testament. The term Glosses sacrai was used of the collections of difficult
passages which occurred in the Bibles
2. Glosses in in various languages with the accom-
the Greek panying elucidations, and soon came
World. to be applied to the explanations alone.
How the glosses multiplied is understood when it is remembered that the earliest Christian teaching and preaching consisted in large part of rendering the Bible into the tongues used by the hearers. Naturally the difficult passages were annotated on the margin. The scope of the annotations was gradually enlarged, and came to embody the substance of oral and then of written tradition concerning the matter treated, especially matters which concerned the rendering of Hebrew terms. Such discussion and elucidation was particularly needed in the Greek world in connection with the Septuagint, where unusual Greek constructions were employed in the attempt to reproduce the Hebrew original, and with the renderings jf Symmachus and Aquila. In cases of differences af text the marginal notes came to embody the iifferent readings or at any rate to indicate them. From such collections as these, concerned in great Dart with the explanation of individual words, 3ontaining mainly excerpts from the most popular 3ommentaries, developed the so-called Glossce sacrm, }f which a good example is the lexicon of Hesychius, iither in its original or developed form. Others )f this kind are the Lexeon synagoge of Photius, the exicon of Suidas, the so-called Cyril-Glossarium, :he lexicon of Zonaras, the Etymologicum magnum, md the work of the sixteenth century compiled by ;he Benedictine Varinus Phavorinus (on these cf. I. C. G. Ernesti, Glossal sanctorum Hesychii, Suida t Phavorini, Leipsic, 1785-86; F. G. Sturz, Zonarce llossw, ib. 1818).
An activity, the exact analogue of that just described as applied to the Greek Bible, was exerted n the West upon the Latin, in which the necessities »vere of the same character. But as the marginal lotes consisted not only of explanations of individual words, but of longer remarks (cf. Tertullian, id v. Valentinum, chap. vi. ), the term glossa came ;o mean the " assigned meaning of the passage," is for example in the Etymologic (i. 30) of Isidore )f Seville and in a passage from Alcuin (MPL, n. 858), though this did not exclude the older neanimr of an elucidation of single words. But in
the case of Latin equivalents used to explain words in the text, it often occurred that they were written between the lines. From this the cus- 3. Trans- torn developed to reserve the margin ference to for the longer annotations which grew the West, into connected comment, to which in particular the term glossa in the singular was applied. Thus the word came to be equivalent often to " commentary," though it could still be used in its original sense of " explanation of obscure words." In the Middle Ages the word received a double connotation: it meant either explanation of single words or comment upon an entire work, such as the Bible. Some authorities used the term to designate the here of the Hebrew Bible, others included part at least of the Masoretic apparatus. Then it meant any collection of exegetical explanatory remarks, whether written between the lines or on the margin or interjected paragraphically into the text. As an example of the kind of work to which this name was applied the work of Walafrid Strabo may be mentioned, a compilation from the writings of Alcuin, Ambrose, Augustine, Bede, Cassiodorus, Chrysostom, Gregory the Great, Haimo, Hesychius, Jerome, Isidore of Seville, Origen, Rabanus, and others, which for six centuries was the vade-mecum of exegesis (see Catenas, § 8). The character of this work was, however, rather theological than philological. Mention should also be made in this place of the " Interlinear Gloss " of Anselm of Laon (d. 1117). From the fourteenth century on, many manuscripts of the Vulgate were enriched by the addition of these two works or of parts of them, together with the Postillce of Nicholas of Lyra and the Additiones of Paul of Burgos, written at the bottom and even so printed. But with these there were also interlinear glosses which dealt with matters philological, some of which originated in the schools of the monasteries. Of course this same kind of work was done on other books, like the writings of Homer, patristic works, canons, hymns, legends, monastic rules, and the like. And these interlinear glosses naturally developed into interlinear versions in the various tongues of the peoples to whom Christianity was conveyed.
In another direction these glosses developed into a kind of literature which anticipated the work of encyclopedia (see Encyclopedia, 4. Influence Theological), of which Isidore's on Encyclo- Etymologiarum libri viginti is a specipedic men (on this literature cf. S. Berger, Works. De glossariis el compendiis exegeticis, Paris, 1879, pp. 7 sqq.) and represents a large class of works. Other works of this character are the Glossal of Solomon III., bishop of Constance (d. 919), printed 1483; the Papice elementarium doctrine erudimentum, compiled c. 1050 and often reprinted since the fifteenth century; the Panormia of Osbern of Gloucester (c. 1150, in Mai, Classicorum auctorum tomi, Rome, 1836) ;
the Dictionarivs sive de dictionibus obscuris of John of Garlandia, often printed; the Repertorium vocabulorum and vocabulariam biblicum of Alexander Neckam (d. 1215); and the Breviloquus vocabularius, recast and edited by Reuchlin. That bilingual glossaries should develop is a matter of course.
Glosses Gnosticism