This paper examines the contested use of selective quotation in the context of the condemnation of Meister Eckhart. In the theological controversies of John XXII's pontificate, the methodological legitimacy of selective quotation was indirectly under scrutiny. Eckhart insisted that the articles used to condemn him were lifted from their proper context, distorting his original meaning; John XXII in his Quia vir reprobus, complained of the same treatment by Michael of Cesena. Accusations of heresy ranged against the pope hinged upon allegations that he had 'misinterpreted' the nature and limits of papal power, and manipulated certain scriptural proof-texts to his own ends. The legitimacy (or otherwise) of selective and decontextualised quotation was also a feature of late-medieval disputes concerning scriptural interpretation. By the early fourteenth century, the realm of scriptural interpretation as a site of disputed authority had become increasingly fraught. Figures such as Nicholas of Lyra, in advocating for a serious approach to the literal sense of scripture, were beginning to establish the limits beyond which isolated sections of Bible should not be taken in defiance of their meanings ad litteram. At a moment of contested papal authority, the right (and wrong) uses of texts were front and centre. By examining approaches to selective quotation in the context of John XXII's papacy and Eckhart's condemnation, this paper explores how a broader crisis of ecclesial authority intersected with deeper anxieties over how textual fragments, especially biblical fragments, were to be deployed. The study has a twofold aim. First, it seeks to clarify late medieval concerns about the constructive and destructive potential of selective quotation. Secondly, and more fundamentally, it seeks to raise questions concerning the use (and abuse) of scriptural fragments, and how far the legitimacy of selective quotation could be made to stretch in the pre-modern Catholic tradition.