#Manuscript:# As for piece x.
#Editions:# Morris, R., OEH i. 47-53, and Specimens, 21-25.
#Literature:# Cohn, O., Die Sprache in der me. Predigtsammlung der Hs.
Lambeth 487, Berlin, 1880.
#Phonology# &c.: See piece x, pp. 407, 410, 413.
#Introduction:# No source has been found for this singular piece, which,
in its treatment of Jeremiah in the pit as the type of the unshriven
sinner, differs from the usual mystical interpretations of this episode
in the life of the prophet. So Adam of Prémontré, ‘Pax tibi, o
sanctificate in utero, virgo et sacerdos Dei, o Jeremia sanctissime!
quem de lacu lutoso et funes et panni levant veteres, quia sanctos Dei
ab aeterno ad vitam ab ipso praedestinatos de sordido vitae praesentis
profundo et sacrae Scripturae praecepta et sancta elevant exempla,’ De
triplici genere Contemplationis, Migne, P. L., cxcviii., col. 824. So
for S. Gregory, the ropes are ‘praecepta Dominica,’ the old rags,
‘antiquorum patrum exempla,’ Moralia, xxv. 7, and the interpretation of
Hugh of S. Victor, ii. 256, is similar.
The homily consists of two parts, very dissimilar in style and
discordant in tone; the joint is plainly discernible at 81/76. The first
part is an earnest insistence on the necessity of sacramental
confession, a question much debated at the time of this sermon and
after, till it was finally disposed of by the fourth Lateran Council in
1215 A.D. The passages in Latin, like 81/64, do not necessarily imply a
Latin original, they are rather headings of the divisions of the
discourse, which is probably an effort of the writer’s own ingenuity in
support of his favourite contention. It contains no hint of the crabs
and other ‘wurmes’ of the pit. The second part reads like a translation;
it has all the vivacity and simple directness of the contemporary French
Sermo ad Populum. Its leading idea was probably suggested by the famous
apologue in the legend of Barlaam of the man who, pursued by a furious
unicorn, fell into a well tenanted by a dragon, a four-headed snake, and
two mice. This story was used by Eudes de Cheriton, p. 217, and Jacques
de Vitry, no. cxxxiv.
The thirty-third Homily in OEH ii. should be compared with this second
part: it is in the same style, if not by the same author.
1. The Latin is based on Jeremiah xxxviii. 6-13, but there is no
authority in that place for the second sentence and the first half of
the fourth. Comestor adds to the Scripture narrative, ‘et erat propheta
in luto usque ad guttur.’