Christian writers. Here his attitude is not unlike that of the apologetic Greek critics. But his interpretations are apt to differ from theirs as well as from our own. For his symbolism tends to abandon the broadly human, and to become, like the mediaeval Biblical interpretations, figurative of the tenets of the Christian Faith.
There is an interesting example of this in the sermon for Septuagesima Sunday, which was written on a somewhat blind text from the twenty-eighth chapter of Job. Honorius proceeds expounding it through a number of strained allegories, which he doubtless drew from Gregory's Moralia; for that great pope was the recognized expositor of Job, and the Book of Job was simply Gregory through all the Middle Ages. Perhaps Honorius felt that this sermon was rather soporific. At all events he stops in the middle to give a piece of advice to the supposed preacher: "Often put something of this kind in your sermon; for so you will relieve the tedium." And he continues thus:
"Brethren, on this holy day there is much to say which I must pass over in silence, lest disgusted you should wish to leave the church before the end. For some of you have come far and must go a long way to reach your houses. Or perhaps, some have guests at home, or crying babies; or others are not swift and have to go elsewhere, while to some a bodily infirmity brings uneasiness lest they expose themselves. So I omit much for everybody's sake, but still would say a few words.
"Because to-day, beloved, we have laid aside the song of gladness and taken up the song of sadness, I would briefly tell you something from the books of the pagans, to show how you should reject the melody of this world's pleasures in order that hereafter with the angels you may make sweet harmonies in heaven. For one should pick up a gem found in dung and set it as a kingly ornament; thus if we find anything useful in pagan books we should turn it to the building up of the Church, which is Christ's spouse. The wise of this world write that there were three Syrens in an island of the sea, who used to chant the sweetest song in divers tones. One sang, another piped, the third played upon a lyre. They had the faces of women, the talons and wings of birds. They stopped all passing ships with the sweetness of their song; they rent the sailors heavy with sleep; they sank the ships in the brine. When a certain duke, Ulysses, had to sail by their island, he ordered his comrades to bind him to the mast and stuff their
ears with wax. Thus he escaped the peril unharmed, and plunged