Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series B - 01.10.1968, Síða 28

XXVI
why the queen worshipped the tree. When he asks
her about this, she replies that the king in fact knows
this very well himself (“sapientia apud dominum
tuum latet, non ignorantur”). She relates further
that the tree will bring redemption to the succeeding
centuries and that on it will be hanged the Saviour
of the believers. Then she prophesies: “Judicii sig-
num tellus sudore madescet” etc.12. When Solomon
hears her words, he has the tree felled and places
it in the Temple. Later it is thrown into a pond,
the water of which every day receives healing powers
from an angel. The tree remains here until the
crucifixion of Christ.
Godfrey of Viterbo relates, in Pantheon (completed
c. 1186) 14th section, Historia in a considerably
expanded version13: Noah’s son Jonitus fetches three
rods from Paradise, abies, palma and cypressus14.
These grow together to form one tree with three types
of foliage (cf. p. xxiv). When King David is gathering
timber for the construction of the Temple, this tree
is found and brought to the king, who worships it.
God does not, however, desire that David, who is
“vir sanguinis”, shall build the Temple, but wants
his son Solomon to do it. When Solomon wishes to
make use of the tree for the Temple, it proves to
be now too short and now too long and is there-
fore placed before the Temple so that all may
worship it. A queen from the South, Nicaula15
12. This and the following 27 verses derive from the Tiburtine
sibyl’s prophecy, cf. p. lviii.
13. Scriptorum rerum germanicarum tomus II, ed. J. Pistorius,
1726, p. 242 ff.
14. Bernard of Clairvaux mentions in Vitis mystica, chap. 46,
that the cross was made of four ldnds of wood ■ de cypresso, de
cedro, de oliva and de palmis (Migne, Patrologia latina CLXXXIV,
col. 732).
15. Cf. W. Hertz, p. 25 ff.