349. #iwis#: see 32/40 note. There is nothing in T. corresponding to ll.
347-349; the writer had probably in mind, ‘Ut quid cogitatis mala in
cordibus vestris?’ S. Matt. ix. 4.
350. #legeð# &c., lies not, misleads not in this; so, ‘Iff iosephus ne
legeð me,’ GE 1281.
351-354. ‘Herodesque fuit, qui christum querere jussit, | Credere se
simulans, perdere dissimulans,’ T.; comp. S. Luke, xiii. 32. #herodes#:
Orm has Herode in his English text. #fox ⁊ flerd#: nouns used as
adjectives: for the former comp. 29/15; #flerd#, deceit, occurs in Orm,
‘falls ⁊ flærd,’ 12177: OE. #fleard#: see Björkman, 160.
354. #fordon#: ‘Futurum est enim ut Herodes quaerat puerum ad perdendum
eum,’ S. Matt. ii. 15.
356. #Seftes# &c.: comp. 2/2. #sene--werlde#, it is seen in the case of
the world; parenthetic; but Mätzner takes #ðing# as subject of #is#.
With #on# comp. ‘þat was on Tristrem sene,’ Sir Tristrem 1205; ‘On þe
hit is wel eþ sene,’ OEH ii. 255/5; ‘Ful soth it was apon vs sene,’ CM
24333.
357. #leiðe#, hateful: OWScand. leiðr = OE. #lāð#: lodlike, OE. #lāðlic#
is synonymous. #ðus#: either, as has already been said, that the Creator
made these loathly things, or, as follows, that He made them to this
end, for the instruction of men generally. The latter is a common
medieval idea; men, says Gilbert of Hoyland, contemplate God ‘in speculo
creaturarum et scripturarum aenigmate,’ S. Bernardi Opera, ii. 170.