medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
A few days ago, I was seeking help with on-line searches of Vulgates in my
research of what is proving to be a fairly elusive inscription. Many thanks to all
those who steered me in the right directions. Having spent hours of fun on
Vulsearch, and other on-line Bible texts, as well as on the on-line Patrologia Latina,
I have not yet found any leads as to where this inscription comes from. But I have
continued to work on this and, once again, seek the advice of this august electronic
collective.
The inscription, which reads "FILIIS HOMINU[M] P[AR]S ERIT IN E[TERNO]" is, I
now believe, faulty, which explains why any literal translation is a bit tortured. What
I perhaps should have mentioned last time is that the inscription is in a small panel
of stained glass of c.1500, perhaps from southern Germany, and accompanies
images of God the Father and the dove of the Holy Spirit. It probably occupied a
small tracery light above the main fields of the window. A similar arrangement can
be seen in a larger composition of stained glass in the Schnutgen Museum in
Cologne, where God the Father and the dove, accompanied by an inscription, are
located above a scene of the Baptism of Christ. In that case, the inscription is
clearly biblical: "Erit filius meus delectus". And it relates directly to the Baptism
below. As in my inscription, the verb "erit" crops up, even though Luke 9:35, inter
alia, has "Hic est filius meus delectus" (is the change to "erit" some sort of
inscriptional rhetoric?).
I would similarly imagine that my small panel accompanied a Christological scene,
such as the Crucifixion or Ascension, and as in the Schnutgen Museum piece, the
inscription would represent the "speech" of God the Father. If this is the case, it is
easy to imagine "filiis hominum" being an incorrect version of "filius hominis", giving
the sense of "The Son of Man will be part of the altar forever". Does such a
sentiment remind anyone of anything? Any other comments or leads? Certainly,
any input would be welcome, for which I thank you in advance.
Cheers,
Jim Bugslag
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