MEDIÆVAL HYMNS.
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That perfect love should cast out fear,
And better life from death appear?
Death should the hook devour amain,
And self in self-made knots enchain?
The Life of all men should be slain,
That all men's life might rise again?
And better life from death appear?
Death should the hook devour amain,
And self in self-made knots enchain?
The Life of all men should be slain,
That all men's life might rise again?
So S. Hildebert, in his Epigrams (if we may so call them) named the moral interpretation of Scripture:
Fisher the Father is: this world, the sea;
Christ's Flesh the bait, the Hook His Deity,
The line His generation. Satan took
The offered bait; and perished by the hook.
And so Adam of S. Victor:
Sic hamum divinitatis
Occultat mortalitas:
Sic voracis Leviathan
Luditur voracitas;
Occultat mortalitas:
Sic voracis Leviathan
Luditur voracitas;
Qui dum capit glutiendum
Nostri vermen generis,
Ipse captus inescatur;
Pax est data posteris;
Nostri vermen generis,
Ipse captus inescatur;
Pax est data posteris;
where, however, observe that the metaphor is not exactly the same. In the former passage the bait applies more immediately to our Lord's Human Nature, considered relatively to the Hypostatic Union: in the latter Adam would rather take the whole human race as the bait, the Hook of Divinity being the same in both.
The poet refers to the mediæval interpretation of
