Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1991, Blaðsíða 127

115
Milvi, rapaces, aut elati. In Esaia. Illuc congregati sunt milvi alter [ad]
alterum37.
Most interesting for us, the same contrasting allegorical values are
recorded in some patristic passages which, in addition, mention Psalm
103,17. In Eucherius we read:
Miluus significat, ut puto, rapacem uel elatum; inpsalmo secundum Hebraeum:
milui abies domus estss.
This same statement is included in one of the sections of Hrabanus
Maurus’s De Universo:
Milvus mollis et viribus et volatu, quasi mollis avis. Unde et nuncupatus, rapa-
cissimus tamen, et domesticis semper avibus insidiatur. Milvus significat
utpote rapacem vel elatum hominem utest illud in Psalmo secundum Hebraeos:
Milvi abies domi ejus39.
The similarity of both Eucherius’s and Hrabanus Maurus’s sentence
to the initial one of the gieda chapter is striking. These two examples
stand as a clear evidence of the faet that the Psalm was also quoted in
Patristic works that were not exelusively Psalm commentaries. Most
interesting to our purpose is the insertion of the above mentioned
sentence into a Bestiary Manuscript, namely Oxford, Bodleian Li-
brary, Bodley 764 (s.c. 2543; 13th century) which, as far as the milvus
chapter is concerned, seems to derive its text from Hrabanus
Maurus.
37 J. B. Pitra, Analecta Sacra Spicilegio Solesmensi, 6 vols., Paris 1876-91 (repr. 1966),
II, p. 88, no. 38.
38 C. Wotke, Sancti Eucherii Lugdunensis, Formulae Spiritalis Intellegentiae, Vienna,
Prague, Leipzig 1894 (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticomm Latinorum, 31), p. 23. Cf.
also Formularum Eucherii, in Pitra, Analecta II, p. 523, no. 19: ‘Milvus significat
rapacem elatum. In Job secundum Hebraeos: Milvi abies domus est’, and Papias
vocabulista,\enezia 1496 (repr. Torino 1960), p. 205: ‘Milvus dicitur quasi mollis avis et
viribus et volatu rapacissimus tamen domesticis insidiatur avibus significat rapacem
elatum’.
39 PL 111, cols. 252-53. For the source of the passage see E. Heyse, Hrabanus Maurus’
Enzyklopadie »De rerum naturis«. Untersuchungen zu den Quellen und zur Methode der
Kompilation, Miinchen 1969, p. 102.