[Ibid.] line 17.
þe Mayster of Scholys rehersiþ.
Peter Comestor, Chancellor of the Cathedral of Paris in 1164, and Author of the Historia Scholastica, is the Person here called Master of Schools. The Passage referred to occurs in the Hist. Schol. on the third Book of Kings, cap. viii. (not cap. v. as quoted by our Author), and is as follows[104]:—
Fabulantur Iudei ad eruderandos lapidei celerius habuisse Salomonem sanguinem vermiculi qui Tamir dicitur: quo aspersa marmora facile secabantur, quem invenit hoc modo. ¶ Erat Salomoni strutio habens pullum, et inclusus est pullus sub vase vitreo. Quem cum videret strutio, sed habere nequiret: de deserto tulit vermiculum: cuius sanguine liniuit vitrum, et fractum est.
The same Story with the very same mystical Application of it which is made by our Author, is given by Peter Berchorius in his Reductorium morale, who quotes from Gervase of Tilbury. This latter Writer, as we learn from Berchorius, took the Story from Peter Comestor, and being an Englishman, was most probably the immediate Source from which the Author of the Tract before us derived it, especially as Gervase wrote upwards of a Century before Berchorius, who died in 1362. The Editor has not had an Opportunity of consulting the Work of Gervase of Tilbury, but it is probable that Berchorius has done little more than extract his Words.[105]
De struthione mirabile quid ponit Geruasius, et videtur accipere de Historia Scholastica. Dicunt Iudæi (ut ait) quod cum Salomon templum ædificaret, ut lapides citius sculperentur, inclusit pullum struthionis in vase vitreo, quem cum struthio habere nequiret, ad desertum iuit, et exinde vermem qui Thamus dicitur, apportauit, cuius sanguine vitrum liniuit; fractoque statim vitro, pullum recuperauit. Quo agnito Salomon de sanguine illorum vermium lapides templi fecit liniri, et sic faciliter potuerunt imprimi vel sculpi. Idem verò Geruasius dicit Romæ in quodam antiquo palatio fialam liquore lacteo plenam, esse inuentam, quo liniti lapides facillimè sculpebantur. Talis vermis videtur fuisse Christus. Pullus enim Struthionis, i. homo (qui erat per creationem pullus, et filius Dei Patris) fuerat incarceratus, et carceri culpæ et pœnæ, a mundi principio destinatus. Struthio ergo, i. Deus Pater, a deserto paradisi, vermem, i. Christum hominem factum, adduxit, et ipsum per passionem occidit, vel occidi permisit, et sic cum isto sanguine portas carceris infernalis fregit, et pullum suum hominem liberavit. Zac. 9. Tu autem in sanguine testamenti tui eduxisti vinctos tuos de lacu. Igitur quicunque voluerit lapidem, quicunque cor suum durum et lapideum, per contritionem scindere, et per conversationem sculpere decreuerit, adhibeat sanguinem huius vermis, i. dominicæ passionis memoriam, et liquorem lacteum memoriæ suæ benedictæ, et sic nunquam erit ita durum aut obstinatum, quin recipiat contritionis scissuram, et correctionis sculpturam. Ezech. 36. Auferam cor lapideum de carne vestra, et dabo vobis cor carneum.
The same Story occurs in some Copies of the Gesta Romanorum[106], where the Artifice by which the Worm “thumare,” (as it is there called,) was detected, is ascribed to the Emperor Diocletian of Rome. See Swan’s Translation of the Gesta Romanorum, vol. 1. Introd. p. lxiv.