895. _as by the dignitee_, i. e. on account of the dignity of their office;
see note to 900.
'Satanas transfigurat se,' &c.; 2 Cor. xi. 14.
897-8. From 1 Sam. ii. 12 (in the Vulgate, _Liber primus Regum_). _Belial_
signifies worthlessness; and hence, lawlessness, or evil. But in the
Vulgate version of Judges, xix. 22, the word _Belial_ is explained to mean
'absque iugo'; which in O. French would become 'sans ioug.' Chaucer seems
to have met with this explanation, and perhaps misread it as 'sans iuge';
i. e. 'without Iuge.'
900. _misterie_, i. e. office, duty. As in 895 above, _misterie_ is here
short for _ministerie_, i. e. ministry, office, duty; in fact, the Selden
and Lansdowne MSS. actually have the spelling _mynysterie_. MS. Cm., by a
singular error, adds _mynystre_ again, and has the reading: 'kunne not
_mynystre_ the mysterie.' Tyrwhitt has wrongly introduced the extra
_mynystre_. Wright copied him; Bell copied Wright; and Morris copied Bell;
so that these editions vary from the Harl. MS., which _omits_ it! The
question is easily settled. 'The Book' means the Bible; and the Vulgate
version (1 Sam. ii. 12, 13) has 'nescientes ... _officium_ sacerdotum ad
populum.' Hence _conne_ means 'know.'
904. 'Adulter est, inquit [Xystus, in sententiis] in suam uxorem amator
ardentior,' &c.; S. Hieron. c. Iouinian. lib. i. (near the end)
906. There is no such passage in the E. version of the book of Tobit; but
it occurs in the Vulgate, Tob. vi. 17; and see Ayenb. p. 223.
908. _godsibbes_, i. e. his godmother or his goddaughter. Already, in the
Laws of Cnut (Eccles. § vii), we find that a man is forbidden to [472]
marry his godmother; and this rule was formerly stringent. Cf. Ayenb. p.
48.
915. This section has much in common with the Fr. text. 'We meet,' says Dr.
Eilers, 'with whole sentences in entire agreement.' See Ayenb. pp. 202-238.