This chapter examines three sixteenth-century controversies; the running conflict between Erasmus and scholastic theologians, the war in print between More and Tyndale, and the criticism by Catherinus of the commentaries of Cajetan all concerned the authority of scripture in Christian teaching and practice, and in particular the authority of the Vulgate. The common factor at the heart of the sixteenth-century debates were the principle that primacy of authority must be accorded to scripture in its original language rather than to a translation. Within a generation, however, sufficient theologians had learned the biblical languages to see off this challenge to the authority of the church's official interpreters by mere grammarians'. The revival in the early sixteenth century of the claim that it was the text in its original language that must govern interpretation also had serious repercussions for the interpretation of scripture.