192 Part Two: Epigrams in Context
always there, among His people, even when He had not yet manifested himself
as clearly as He did in the person of Jesus Christ. The poet uses a rather
unusual metaphor to indicate the presence of God throughout time. Before the
Incarnation we have the eÉsodoi, the “entrances” through which God manifest-
ed himself in the Old Testament. After the Incarnation we have the ™kb1seiß –
the “exits”, the fulfillment of God’s providential schemes^99. The abstruse met-
aphor of God’s “entrances” results from the poet’s desire to show that God
“came forth” (pro‰lqe) in this world not on one, but on two occasions: not only
when the Son was born, but also at the creation of man^100. The whole Bible is
a story of God’s presence. This is aptly illustrated, as the poet informs us, by
all the books of the Old and New Testaments. In his enumeration of these
books the poet introduces each separate entry by the word oŒtz(ß), “likewise”.
What he means to say by the repetitive use of this word, is that all books
together essentially tell the same story of how God provided for mankind, both
before and after the Incarnation^101.
Thus we see that the editorial note at the beginning of the Leo Bible on the
whole corresponds with the poet’s interpretation of the biblical stories. To
summarize: in the first two epigrams the poet writes that time began with the
creation of man and that the Bible presents the story of God’s providence and
loving care for mankind. The poet views the relationship of God and man from
a historical perspective. Although God’s benevolence toward fallen mankind
remains unaltered throughout (oŒtz, oŒtz, and once again oŒtz), the history of
mankind, as presented by the Bible, evolves within time’s brackets from the
expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise to the glorious moment when Christ,
by His redemptive death on the cross, reopened the gates of heaven for the new
Adam and the new Eve. The historical dimension of God’s providence splen-
didly accounts for the use of the words Wstor5a and Wstor0 in the editorial note.
However, there still remains the problem of what these words mean exactly.
Does the concluding sentence of the editorial note imply that the epigrams
reveal “the meaning of the historiated scenes” (as I translated) or does it mean
that they elaborate on “the meaning of the histories (that is, the books of the
Bible)”? This is not an easy question to answer, especially as much research has
(^99) MATHEWS 1977: 124, vv. 1–15. The syntax of these verses is somewhat complicated. The
object t2ß ™kb1seiß in v. 5 repeats the object construction of vv. 1–3. The relative
pronoun di\ ¢n in v. 10 refers back to the antecedent t2ß eœsödoyß in v. 6 (vv. 7–9 form an
adverbial clause: “as Genesis (...) and the book of Deuteronomy teach us with great
wisdom”).
(^100) See v. 10 (on God before the Incarnation) and vv. 32–34 (on God after the Incarnation).
(^101) MATHEWS 1977: 124, vv. 16–39. The epigram concludes with Leo’s dedication of the Bible
to the Holy Virgin and St. Nicholas: vv. 41–60. As for v. 40, I can only repeat the words
of PITRA 1864–68: I, 659: “Quid v. 40 sibi velit, me fugit”.