Revue celtique - National Library of Scotland

I De
on S. Martin of Tours. 385
infirinne 7 naructais nachfuigcll anfircn fornech triabitha. Sermoadreges,
LB.p. 1,-jb.
« Dilighe, etc. Love ye justice, that is deliver righteous judgments,
kings of the world. For Solomon greatly feared the Lord when he was
judging the people and passing sentences upon them. For one day he
was before the high king, David, his father, when hc was judging the
people, and he upbraided David for his tardiness and hésitation in giving
doom. Whereupon his father said to him : « Corne thou, my son, today
upon the throne, and search into and détermine the questions and the
causes of the people in some way quicker than that which I follow. For
thou art shrewder and sharper of wit and understanding, as is said in
the proverb the younger thorn is always the sharper. «
Then went Solomon upon the throne according to his father's order.
And there appeared to him the Arm of the Creator with a two-edged
Sword above his head, and suddenly an awfuldeath was threatened unto
him should he deviate little or much from the just décision. And when So-
lomon beheld the Arm and the Sword he trembled greatly, and his blood
turned to bone for fear of the one God ; and then he besought his father
to beseech the Lord for him, and to forgive him for the annoyance that he
had caused him through ignorance. So then they both besought the Lord
that justice might be maintained and that they might not ever passan unjust
judgment on any one. «
The homily now for the first time published is No. 9 in the foregoing
list, and was probably written in the thirteenth century. After the eight
introductory paragraphs, itfollows closely Sulpicius Severus' well-known
beati Martini Vita Liber, andtowardsthe endtakesfouror five incidents
from his second dialogue De Virtutibus B Martini (§§ III, IX) and from
the third dialogue de eâdem re (§g VII, XVII, XX). I refer tothe édition
by Hornius, Lugd. Bat. 1647, for a loan of which I am indebted to
D' Reeves.
The text has been transcribed, not from the original ms., but from
the lithographie facsimile of the first half of the Lebar Brecc, published by
the Royal Irish Academy in 1872. Whether the corrupt latin in § 6
and the corrupt Irish ïn^^ 15 and 28 are due to the facsimilist or (as is
possible) to the scribe, I cannot say. Perhaps Mr. Hennessy will be
good enough to examine the original ms. and communicate the resuit to
the readers of the Revue Celtique.
Calcutta, June 1874.
W. S.