help!

So, I've been ploughing my way through an actually quite bad intro to the Chanson de Roland by one Jean Maurice, for the reason that it's introductory and I need to acquire, quickly, an introductory vocab for the CdR and for medieval studies generally.

I cannot read this sentence, and I think I need to (underlined bits. Italics are in the book, I think it's quoting a translation of some 16th century dude. Non-italic non underlined bits are for context.):

... pas plus que les saints, les personnages de la chanson de gest ne sauraient appartenir à l'humanité moyenne. Ils ne s'appréhendent que dans une rupture assumée et nécessaire avec les réalités de la vie pratique la plus banale, rupture que le lecture moderne doit accepter lui aussi.

Tarimanveri? Fahye? Bron? Anyone else? I can't find a definition for s'apprehender, although apprehender seems to mean 'comprehend'. My Wife is too tired to be of any use. Also the sentence doesn't seem to hang together properly- I can't find the verb in the subordinate clause beginning after the first 'que'.

I gather that it's about someone not understanding the rupture between the text and the realities of practical life? Which sounds like something I need to understand, since I'm supposed to be talking about the supernatural in the text.