Folio 45r - the vulture, continued.

Translation

by his ascension made a place in heaven for our fleshly body, which he assumed? Christ is also fittingly represented by the word 'vulture'. The fact is, if a vulture, in flight, sees a corpse, it sets itself down to feed on it, and is often overtaken by death when it descends to the dead animal from a great height. It is right, therefore, that Christ, who was God's mediator and our redeemer, should be signified by the name 'vulture'. While remaining in the heights of his divinity, like the vulture flying on high, he saw the corpse of our mortality below and descended from heaven to the earth beneath; he deigned, indeed, to become man for our sake; and when he sought man, the living thing that had no life, he who in himself had eternal life, met his death at our hands. But the aim of this vulture, Christ, was our resurrection, because when he had been dead for three days, he delivered us from eternal death. For the treacherous people of Judea saw Christ as a mortal man, but little thought that by his death he would destroy ours. They, indeed, saw the vulture, but paid no attention to its eyes. They would not consider the ways of Christ's humility, by which he raised us to the heights, and so were like the bird that knows not the path. For they gave no serious thought to the fact that Christ's humility raised us to heaven and the purpose of his death was to restore us to life. Thus 'the fowl does not know the way, the eye of the vulture has not seen it', means that even if the Jews saw Christ, whom they put to death, they were unwilling to see how far the glory of our life would follow from his death. They were, in consequence, incensed to commit cruel acts of persecution, they refused to hear the words of life, they rejected the preachers of the kingdom of heaven by arresting them, treating them savagely, putting them to death. The preachers, rejected, left Judea where they had been sent and were dispersed among the Gentiles. Such is the nature of the vulture, that the sinner can also be represented by it. The vulture follows the army to fill itself with corpses, as the sinner follows the evil men of the Devil's army, modelling himself on their ways. The vulture feeds on the corpses of the dead as