ABSTRACT
The Old Testament shows humanity awaiting the Law, the New Testament shows the Law incarnate, and the Acts of the Saints shows man's endeavour to conform to the Law. The works of Isidore of Seville gave definite form to the mystical commentaries on the Old Testament. The allegorical interpretations of the Fathers, henceforth sacrosanct, were repeated for centuries by mediæval writers. Some medallions in a window at St. Denis, for which the Abbe Suger furnished both the subjects and the inscriptions, summarise in striking fashion the theological teaching of the Middle Ages with respect to the Old Testament. Although the entire Old Testament had been translated by the university of Paris at the beginning of the thirteenth century, one can understand that the Church had never specially commended the reading of it to the faithful.
