The 'Hortus Deliciarum' of Herrad of Hohenbourg (Landsberg) by Herrad of Landsberg

Webb suggests that Moralia in Job was the most widely read book outside the scriptures throughout the early Middle Ages. It was transmitted most fully in the Latin west by Gregory. From Jerusalem to Cappadocia, from Syria to northern Italy, it was widely drawn upon in the writings of Christian apologists.

185-254), and was in common currency from the 3rd century. The theory was developed by the Alexandrians, including Origen (c.

For, being thus deceived, the Devil, in lusting after the flesh, was emboldened to attack Incarnate God, and was therefore hooked on the hidden barb of unrecognised Divinity. This was to be accomplished, as they said, through the self-deception of the Devil and his refusal to acknowledge the fact of Christ's incarnation in Jesus. To Christian apologists, it had been connected with the idea of the death of Death. The notion of redemption in terms of payment of a ransom has a long history, deriving from Biblical texts and Jewish apocryphal works. The death of Christ was a ransom sacrifice, paid to the Devil. Christ took on mortal form so that, through his suffering and death, humanity would be freed from the burden of inherited sin. The Ransom Theory was an attempt by the early church in Alexandria to explain why God became incarnate. The literary source of these carvings, Webb concluded, is the early Christian Ransom theory - particularly the version expounded by Pope Gregory I in his lengthy commentary on the Book of Job, the Moralia in Job, completed shortly before he sent the Roman mission to Canterbury. Many of the carvings examined by Mary Curtis Webb depict the furious battle in Hades between the winged Christ and Leviathan (an image of Death and the Devil from the Book of Job).

The 'Hortus Deliciarum' of Herrad of Hohenbourg (Landsberg) by Herrad of Landsberg