Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1991, Síða 136
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2) The author of the OIP did not work exclusively with a Latin
Physiologus at hånd: the gieda section attests the conveyance into the
work of well defined passages, direcdy drawn from Biblical exegesis or
from a Besdary. Moreover, the quotation from Matthew 11, 12 A die-
bus autem lohannis Baptistae usque nunc regnum coelorum vim patitur et
violenti rapiunt illud, Himna rike polir ajl, stresses once more the
concept of the conquest of heaven by righteous and virtuous men70.
This stands as a further sign of the author’s way of connecting what
were, as far as we know, originally different items sharing the same
theological theme.
In order to give a clear idea of the complexity of the text, it is
convenient to bring forth the most significant parallels which have
emerged from the present research71:
I Hebreo finsc
glepu hus.
En glepa gripr
brop snarpiega
oc slitr.
Eucherius: In psalmo
secundum Hebraeum: milui
abies domus est, (Hrabanus
Maurus: in Psalmo secundum
Hebraeos: Milvi abies
domi ejus).
Aviarium: Silvester accipiter
captas volucres et rapit et
devorat, or Bestiary, Ms. Douce
88, II: Milvus...semper
domesticis avibus insidiator
ut rapiat et devoret, or
Aviarium- Milvus... insidiatur
pullis ut eos rapiat, et...
velocius necat.
70 For an interpretation of the verse see S. Hieronymi Presbyteri, Commentariorum in
Matheum Libri IV, ed. by D. Hurst & M. Adriaen (Corpus Christianorum Series Latina
77) Tumhout 1969, p. 80: ‘Grandis est enim uiolentia in terra nos esse generatos et
caelorum sedem quaerere possidere per uirtutem quod non tenuimus per naturam’.
Cf. also Sancti Hilariiin Matthaeum,ed. byj. Doignon, Paris 1978 (Sources Chrétiennes
254), p. 258; Bede, In Matth. Evang. Expositio, PL 92, col. 57; Hrabanus Maurus,
Comment in Matth., PL 107, cols. 911 ff.; Walafrid Strabo, Glossa Ordinaria, PL 114,
col. 121; Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Matth., PL 120, cols. 440 ff..
71 The parallels from the Bestiary deriving from the exegetes I quo te have been left
out.