ical interpretation.
The autograph notes of his sermons, still preserved in his cell at San
Marco, show this abundantly. Thus we find him attaching to the creation
of grasses and plants on the third day an allegorical connection with
the "multitude of the elect" and with the "sound doctrines of the
Church," and to the creation of land animals on the sixth day a similar
relation to "the Jewish people" and to "Christians given up to things
earthly."(468)

(468) For Agobard, see the Liber adversus Fredigisum, cap. xii; also
Reuter's Relig. Aufklarung im Mittelalter, vol. i, p. 24; also Poole,
Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought, London, 1884, pp. 38
et seq. For Erigena, see his De Divisione Naturae, lib. iv, cap. v; also
i, cap. lxvi-lxxi; and for general account, see Ueberweg, History
of Philosophy, New York, 1871, vol. i, pp. 358 et seq.; and for the
treatment of his work by the Church, see the edition of the Index under
Leo XIII, 1881. For Abelard, see the Sic et Non, Prologue, Migne, vol.
iii, pp. 371-377. For Hugo of St. Victor, see Erudit. Didask., lib. vii,
vi, 4, in Migne, clxxvi. For Savonarola's interpretations, see various
references to his preaching in Villari's life of Savonarola, English
translation, London, 1890, and especially the exceedingly interesting
table in the appendix to vol. i, chap. vii.

The revival of learning in the fifteenth century seemed likely to
undermine this older structure.

Then it was that Lorenzo Valla brought to bear on biblical research,
for the first time, the spirit of modern criticism. By truly scientific
methods he proved the famous "Letter of Christ to Abgarus" a forgery;
the "Donation of Constantine," one of the great foundations of the
ecclesiastical power in temporal things, a fraud; and the "Apostles'
Creed" a creation which post-dated the apostles by several centuries.
Of even more permanent influence was his work upon the New Testament,
in which he initiated the modern method of comparing manuscripts to find
what the sacred text really is. At an earlier or later period he would
doubtless have paid for his temerity with his life; fortunately, just
at that time the ruling pontiff and his Contemporaries cared much for
literature and little for orthodoxy, and from their palaces he could bid
defiance to the Inquisition.

While Valla thus initiated biblical criticism south of the Alps, a much
greater man began a more fruitful work in northern Europe.