| Summary: | A particularly obscure passage in the Bible (Lm. 4, 7) is the basis of a strange interpretation in the sermon Vigilie noctis sacratissime (LSI 1, 2). This work deals with some of the circumstances which might explain why an author of a good general level could fall into such error. Firstly, one reason is the problems concerning the biblical quotation from the Vulgate; the second reason is the use of an exegetical method of delicate use, because of the great possibilities that are offered to ingenuity and imagination, and their opposites. Lastly, the exegetic attempt is connected with a chain of commentaries on the same passage of Lamentations, which bring us from Gregory the Great (s. VI) to the authors who could read and use the sermon, at the end of the XIIth century or at the beginning of the XIIIth. The comparison permits us to see how the author of the Vigilie noctis is part and parcel of the interpretive tradition which, in its time, and perhaps to create commentaries such as his, was nearing its end.
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