Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1996, Blaðsíða 149
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is striking; and the faet that the figure is attributed to Augustine is puzz-
ling. In a recent study of the metaphor baptismum lacrimarum in early
Anglo-Saxon sources, it is noted that although ‘penitential tears were a
commonplace motif throughout the universal church, ... the idea of de-
scribing penance as a baptismum lacrimarum is Greek and appears in
the West only in a highly restricted group of texts: Isidore’s De eccle-
siasticis officiis, the Whitby Vita S. Gregorii, Theodore’s Indicia, the
pseudo-Bedan Collectanea and the pseudo-Alcuinian Li her de divinis
officiis',w This list, in faet, gives a somewhat too restrictive impression
of the dissemination of the figure in western tradition, for Augustine
does use the metaphor at least once in a paschal sermon. Commenting
on Le 22:61-62, Augustine notes that it was necessary for Peter to wash
away the sin of denying Christ ‘with a baptism of tears’ (Opus erat ergo
Petro ad abluendum negationis peccatum baptismo lacrimarum).M It
may be a passage such as this which the Icelandic author recalls at Spec.
Pen. 10-14; or the attribution of the figure in question to Augustine may
simply be false. At any rate, no reference to a ‘fountain of tears’ as a
form of baptism appears in the most recently compiled data-base of the
canonical works of Augustine.12
wegian Homilybooks (unpubl. PhD dissertation, London Univ., 1983), p. 441. Compare,
for example, Gamal norsk homiliebok. Cod. AM 619 4°, ed. G. Indrebø (Oslo, 1931; rpt
1966), p. 99, line 26; p. 143, lines 6-7; Lorvaldur Bjarnarson, ed., Leifar, p. 167, line 16;
Jons saga postula II, c. 4, in C.R. Unger, ed., Postola Sogur (Christiania, 1874), p. 451,
line 27. Cf. Georg Manz, Ausdrucksforrnen der lateinischen Liturgiesprache bis ins elfte
Jahrlumdert, Texte und Arbeiten hsg. durch die Erzabtei Beuron, Abt. I, Beiheft 1. 1941
(Beuron in Hohenzollem, 1959), p. 194, no. 363: flumina lacrimarum. On the same figure
in the writings of Augustine see, for example, Enarrationes in Psalmos XXI.ii.l, Corpvs
Christianorvm Series Latina (CCSL) 38 (Turnhout, 1956), p. 122; De civitate Dei XIX.6,
CCSL 48 (Turnhout, 1955), p. 670; Contra mendacium xviii, par. 37, ed. J. Zycha, Corpus
Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 41 (Leipzig, 1900), p. 521, line 8; Contra epist.
Parmeniani Il.vii. 13, ed. M. Petschenig (Leipzig, 1908), p. 58, line 11.
10 T. O’Loughlin and H. Conrad-O’Briain, ‘The “baptism of tears” in early Anglo-Saxon
sources’, Anglo-Saxon England 22 (1993), pp. 65-83 at 73-74.
11 D.G. Morin, ed., Sancti Augustini sermones post Maurinos reperti, Miscellanea Ago-
stiniana I (Rome, 1930), ‘Sermo XVIT, p. 496, 16-17.
121 have found no reference to baptism associated with the locution/ons lacrimarum in
the database of the Cetedoc Library of Christian Latin Texts (CLCLT), ed. Paul Tombeur
(Turnhout, 1991), which includes the canonical works of Augustine, together with a good
deal of pseudo-Augustinian material and the sermons of Caesarius of Arles. Nor have I
been able to find reference to this figure in connection with baptism in the recently pro-
duced microfiche concordance of the complete works of Augustine: Thesaurus Patrum
Latinorum. Series A, Formae. ThesaurusAugustinianus, curante CETEDOC, Universitas —»