There is nothing in it savouring of the old bards or their poetry, nor having references to Merlyanisms, but a bare and sober relation of matter of fact.
II. As to the description of the Passion and Resurrection of our Saviour, I cannot again but admire, that it is so unpolluted with the Arian or Pelagian heresies. There are, it is true, some inoffensive and harmless traditions, and a word may be let slip of the Virgin Mary; and in those traditions you may observe the concurrence of others.
And, first, concerning this Longis: it is to be inquired whether he be not that Longinus mentioned in our Calendar on the fifteenth of March, or that Longinus on the first of December; for of Longinus there is the same history to be found in Picinellus his Mundus Symbolicus;[26] whose words are, D. P. Comestor ad Longinum vitiosos et caligantes fuisse oculos, cum vero fluentem in Christi latere sanguinem casu illis admovisset, videndi acumen recepisse. In eandem Septentiam canit S. G. Nazian-zenus.[27]
Ubi fixit hastam, defluentis sanguinis
Tinctam liquore, et ecce! ut utraque manu
Hausit, oculosque hoc ungit hinc ut scilicet
Detergat oculum nocte, que cera legit, &c.
When into Christ he thrust his tainted spear,
Lo! unto both his hands the blood flow’d there,
Wherewith he anoints his eyes and then saw clear,