medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
I take Liber scriptus to be derived from Daniel:
Daniel 7:10
A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened.
Daniel 7:9-11 (in Context) Daniel 7 (Whole Chapter)
Tom Izbicki
Thomas Izbicki
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>>> [log in to unmask] 10/07/05 1:05 AM >>>
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Luca Ricossa wrote:
>>From Bill East:
>
>>it was originally written not for the funeral liturgy,
>>but for Advent.
>
> May be, but it has many textual and musical ties with the
> responsory Libera me, clearly not an Advent item. It seems
> a typical case of developement upon an earlier /prosula/
> built on an added "neuma" to this responsory (something
> like the well known /Inviolata/).
Well, yes; but I think we have to think ourselves into a different frame
of reference, where both what we regard as apocalyptic themes (Day of
Judgment, end of the world, sorting of sheep from goats) and individual
judgment themes are mixed and not particularly distinguished. For
instance, "liber scriptus" is for *us* usually regarded as one's
particular ledger of good and evil deeds, against which we render
account and receive our deserts; yet in Dies Irae it's the world's
account: "Liber scriptus proferetur, in quo totum continetur, unde
mundus judicetur ... [judex] nil inultum remanebit."
I don't think there was much of what I might call "imagination of the
future" that wasn't chiefly imagination of the future life, i.e. hereafter.
Which is to say that I think it's both general and particular, but
there's more general than particular; to which I would add that I think
that for many, perhaps not all, people of the medieval west, individual
salvation was attained by engaging yourself in a shared process, which
was something you did in association with other people on the same path
(and under right leadership, but that's another topic). And the flavour
of the more apocalyptic passages of the N.T. (which are probably the
outcome of the literary patterns at least as much of explicit apostolic
teaching) is that there will be catastrophe, from which the faithful
minority will be saved. If you weren't to be found among the sheep
("Inter oves locum praesta, et ab haedis me sequestra, statuens in parte
dextra") you had strayed into the wrong bunch, and now it was too late.
As for a connection with "Libera me", I think the parallel is rather of
motif or context than of text. The frame of reference is the same, so
while the words are different the thoughts overlap.
Hal Cain
Joint Theological Library
Parkville, Victoria, Australia
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