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circa pullos suos impios esse. Nam cum viderint eos posse tentare volatus,
nullas eis praebent escas: sed verberant pennis et a nido praecipitant, atque
teneros compellunt ad praedam, ne forte adulti pigrescant. Accipiter interdum
sanctum virum significat, utpote rapiens regnum Dei4S. De quo scriptum ést in
Job: Nunquid in sapientia tua plumescit accipiter expandens alas suas ad
austrum (Job XXXIX)? id est, nunquid cuilibet electo tu intelligentiam contu-
listi, ut flante sancto Spiritu cogitadonum alas expandat, quatenus pondera
vetustae conversationis abjiciat, et virtutum plumas in usum novi volatus
sumat. Potest etiam per hunc accipitrem renovata gendlitas designari44.
The similarity between the description stating the relation accipiter/
sanctus and the OIP seems obvious. Moreover, the hypothesis of a
literary dependence of the text on a Patristic source is strengthened by a
precise syntactic as well as lexical analogy, which is evident when one
compares Hrabanus Maurus with the gieda section.
Accipiter interdum
sanctum virum Andliga menn
significat tacnar \hon)
utpote rapiens regnum Dei. himna rike gripendr.
To enter the complex problem of style is to go beyond the scope of
the present paper; a few hints concerning it will be sufficient for our
purpose. The use of the appositive participle as an equivalent of a
relative clause (here: gripendr = rapiens) is a feature of the ‘learned style’
which is common in the translations from Latin, whereas the use of a
whole sentence is typical in the ‘popular style’45. This word-for-word
43 The same allegorical interpretation of accipiter is attested in the Clavis S. Melitonis
Codex Claromontanus, Pitra, Analecta II, p. 87, no. 30: »Accipiter, sanctus, regnum Dei
rapiens« (cf. Heyse, p. 102) and in Papia’s Lexicon: »Accipiter interdum significat sanctum
rapientem regnum dei, interdum raptorem«, Papiae Elementarium. Littera A, ed. by V.
de Angelis, 3 vols., Milano 1977-80, I, p. 49).
44 PI 111, col. 253. Hrabanus Maurus draws the first part of his chapter from Isidore
(Etym. XII, VII, 55-56) and the second one from Gregory the Great, Moralia in lob,
Books I-XXXV, ed. by M. Adriaen, Tumhout 1979-85 (Corpus Christianorum Series
Latina, 143-143B), pp. 1613-14. Cf. Heyse, p. 102.
45 See on the subject: Kulturhistorisk Leksikon for Nordisk Middelalder, 22 vols.,
København 1956-78 (repr. 1981), XI, cols. 118-129, with references.