Ælfric’s ‘Catholic Homilies’
In a pastoral letter issued by Bishop Wulfsige of Sherborne in 998, Ælfric instructs English priests to interpret the gospel reading to the people in English on Sundays and massdays, as well as the Pater Noster and Creed:
1 Canon XVII of the Council of Tours in 813 instructed priests to translate homilies into rusticam romanam linguam aut Thiotiscam (‘the rustic Romance language or German’); see Roger Wright, ‘Late Latin and early Romance: Alcuin’s De Orthographia and the Council of Tours (813 A.D.)’, Papers of the Liverpool Latin Seminar 3 (1981) 343–61, at 355–8. For the possibility that it was Ælfric himself who initiated this practice of explaining the gospel pericope during mass, see Milton McC. Gatch, ‘The Achievement of Ælfric and his Colleagues in European Perspective’, in Old English Homily and its Background, ed. Szarmach and Huppé, pp. 43–73; Mary Clayton, ‘Homiliaries and Preaching in Anglo-Saxon England’, Peritia 4 (1985), 207–42, repr. in Old English Prose: Basic Readings, ed. Paul E. Szarmach, with the assistance of Deborah A. Oosterhouse, Basic Readings in Anglo-Saxon England 5 (New York: Garland, 2000), pp. 151–98.Se massepreost sceal secgan Sunnandagum and mæssedagum þæs godspelles angyt on Englisc þam folce. And be þam Pater Nostre and be þam Credan eac, swa he oftost mage, þam mannum to onbryrdnysse, þæt hi cunnon geleafan and heora Cristendom gehealdan. Warnige se lareow wið þæt, þe se witega cwæð:
Canes muti non possunt latrare, ‘þa dumban hundas ne magon beorcan.’ We sceolon beorcan and bodigan þam læwedum, þe læs hy for larlyste losian sceoldan. Crist cwæð on his Godspelle, be unsnoterum lareowum:
Cecus si ceco ducatum prestet, ambo in foueam cadunt, ‘Gif se blinda mann bið þæs oðres blindan latteow, þonne befeallað hy begen on sumne blindne seað.’ Blind bið se lareow, gif git he þa boclare ne cann and beswicð þa læwedan mid his larleaste.
2 Bernhard Fehr, ed. Die Hirtenbriefe Ælfrics, Bibliothek der angelsäschsischen Prosa IX (Hamburg, 1914), reprinted with a supplementary introduction by Peter A. M. Clemoes (Darmstadt, 1964), 14, 64; I have modified punctuation and capitalisation and added italics. For discussion of the letter, see Joyce Hill, ‘Wulfsige of Sherborne’s Reforming Text’, in Leaders of the Anglo-Saxon Church: From Bede to Stigand, ed. Alexander R. Rumble, Publications of the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies 12 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2012), pp. 147–64.[The masspriest must explain the meaning of the gospel on Sundays and massdays in English to the people. And also the Pater Noster and the Creed, as often as he can, to inspire the people, so that they might know how to believe and to keep their Christian faith. The teacher warns against that, as the prophet said: Canes muti non possunt latrare, ‘the dumb hounds cannot bark.’ We must bark and preach to the unlearned, lest they should be lost for lack of instruction. Christ said in his gospel, concerning unwise teachers: Cecus si ceco ducatum prestet, ambo in foueam cadunt, ‘If the blind lead the blind, then they will both fall into a hidden ditch’. The teacher is blind, if he does not know book-learning and deceives the unlearned with his lack of instruction.]
In the late tenth century, Ælfric provided these same masspriests with the materials they needed to interpret the gospel for the unlearned through his two series of
Sermones Catholici, now commonly known as the
Catholic Homilies.
3 See James Hurt, Ælfric, Twayne’s English Authors Series (New York: Twayne, 1972), pp. 42–59; Milton McC. Gatch, Preaching and Theology in Anglo-Saxon England: Ælfric and Wulfstan (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), esp. pp. 40–59. Aaron J Kleist dates the first series to 989–91, and the second to 991–92 (The Chronology and Canon of Ælfric of Eynsham, Anglo-Saxon Studies 37 [Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2019], pp. 71, 78). Each series comprises forty homilies arranged in sequence to follow the feast days of the liturgical calendar for use in alternating years. The survival of a large number of manuscript witnesses from the late tenth to the thirteenth centuries attests to the immense popularity of the
Catholic Homilies over a long period.
4 See Elaine Treharne, ‘Making their Presence Felt: Readers of Ælfric, c. 1050–1350’, in A Companion to Ælfric, ed. Hugh Magennis and Mary Swan, Brill Companions to the Christian Tradition 18 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), pp. 399–422, at 399–400. The earliest witness to the first series is London, British Library, Royal MS 7 C XII (Ker §257), from c. 990, with corrections in Ælfric’s own hand; this is the text used by Clemoes for his edition. Both series are included in Cambridge University Library Gg.3.28 (1493) (Ker §15), c. 1000, which serves as the base text for the editions of Liuzza (CH I) and Godden (CH II) cited here (with some modifications of spelling and punctuation), and before them Benjamin Thorpe, ed. and trans., The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church: The First Part, Containing the Sermones Catholici or Homilies of Ælfric in the Original Anglo-Saxon, with an English Version, 2 vols (London: The Ælfric Society, 1844). Moreover, as Wilcox notes, the use of the
Catholic Homilies in ‘virtually every church, minster and monastery throughout England’ constitutes ‘the beginning of a form of mass communication that must have played a significant part in defining a sense of English identity at the turn of the millennium’.
5 Jonathan Wilcox, ‘Ælfric in Dorset and the Landscape of Pastoral Care’, in Pastoral Care in Late Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Francesca Tinti, Anglo-Saxon Studies 6 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005), pp. 52–62, at 62. On the connection between biblical translation and national identity, see above, pp. 20–1, and below, pp. 150, 244–53. While roughly a third of the items across the two series are narratives, such as saints’ lives or biblical paraphrases, or sermons on more general themes, the remaining two thirds are homiletic in the sense in that they focus on the exegesis of a gospel pericope, that is the gospel reading excerpted for use in the mass.
6 Gospel translations in Ælfric’s homilies are printed in Pope, Biblical Quotations, pp. 137–226. The primary purpose of the
Catholic Homilies was thus to ensure the orthodox interpretation of the Gospels throughout the
Angelcynn and the avoidance of error or heresy (
gedwyld), as he explains in the Old English Preface to the first series:
7 Malcolm Godden argues that Ælfric uses the term gedwyld here to refer to ‘sensational narratives which were clearly fictitious and in some cases of dubious morality’ found in anonymous homilies, examples of which are preserved in the Blickling and Vercelli collections: ‘Ælfric and the Vernacular Prose Tradition’, in Old English Homily and its Background, ed. Szarmach and Huppé, pp. 99–117, at 102. Mary Clayton suggests that Ælfric disapproved of such texts because prior authorities had dismissed them as spurious: Cult of the Virgin Mary, p. 262. Scott DeGregorio comments that in Ælfric’s biblical translations, ‘the question of gedwyld goes beyond issues of sensationalism and authority to encompass the spiritual and cultural impact texts could have on the audiences that would have received them’: ‘Þegenlic or Flæsclic: The Old English Prose Legends of St. Andrew’, JEGP 102 (2003), 449–64, at 462.Þa bearn me on mode – ic truwige ðurh Godes gife – þæt ic ðas boc of Ledenum gereorde to Engliscre spræce awende, na þurh gebylde mycelre lare, ac forðan ðe ic geseah and gehyrde mycel gedwyld on manegum Engliscum bocum, ðe ungelærede menn ðurh heora bilewitnysse to micclum wisdome tealdon, and me ofhreow þæt hi ne cuðon ne næfdon ða godspellican lare on heora gewritum, buton ðam mannum anum ðe þæt Leden cuðon, and buton þam bocum ðe Ælfred cyning snoterlice awende of Ledene on Englisc, ða synd to hæbbene.
For ðisum antimbre ic gedyrstlæhte, on Gode truwiende, þæt ic ðas gesetnysse undergann, and eac forðam ðe menn behofiað godre lare, swiðost on þisum timan þe is geendung þyssere worulde, and beoð fela frecednyssa on mancynne ærðan þe se ende becume […].
[Then it came to my mind – I trust through God’s grace – that I should translate this book from the Latin language into English speech, not from the presumption of great learning, but because I saw and heard great error in many English books, which unlearned people in their simplicity have taken for great wisdom, and I regretted that they did not know or did not have the gospel teaching among their writings, except only for those who knew Latin, and except for those books which King Alfred wisely translated from Latin to English, which are available.
For this reason, I presumed, trusting in God, to undertake this task, and also because people need good instruction, especially at this time which is the ending of this world, and there will be many perils among humanity before the end comes […].]
8 CH, I, pp. 6–7. (Emphasis added).
Although Ælfric composed his
Catholic Homilies primarily for priests to read aloud to the laity, as Malcolm Godden comments, he also expected them to be read and studied by ‘more learned’ individuals, including members of the laity who could read English as well as his fellow monks and nuns, some of whom would have had a poor command of Latin.
9 Godden, ed. Introduction, Commentary and Glossary, pp. xxi–xxix.Ælfric’s main source for this ambitious project was Paul the Deacon’s
Homiliary, a collection of some 250 Latin homilies by patristic authors including Augustine, Gregory and Bede, commissioned by Charlemagne and completed
c. 797.
10 Ælfric’s use of Paul the Deacon’s Homiliary was first noted by Cyril L. Smetana, ‘Aelfric and the Early Medieval Homiliary’, Traditio 15 (1959), 163–204. In the Latin Preface to the first series, Ælfric acknowledges his debt to Augustine, Jerome, Bede and Gregory, as well as the Carolingian writers Smaragdus and Haymo. For a discussion of Ælfric’s exegetical approach to Scripture in the Catholic Homilies as a means for instructing the laity in the basic tenets of faith focusing on his Lenten homilies, see Robert K. Upchurch, ‘Catechetic Homiletics: Ælfric’s Preaching and Teaching During Lent’, in Companion to Ælfric, ed. Magennis and Swan, pp. 217–46. However, as James Hurt notes, Ælfric’s collection differs from Paul’s
Homiliary in two crucial areas: first, in the remarkable freedom he took in rearranging, excerpting and paraphrasing material from Paul’s collected homilies; and second, in his use of the vernacular.
11 Hurt, Ælfric, p. 46. For detailed discussion of the sources of the Catholic Homilies, see Malcolm Godden, ed., Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: Introduction, Commentary and Glossary, EETS s.s. 18 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. xxxviii–lxii. On Ælfric’s use of his sources more generally, see Joyce Hill, ‘Authority and Intertextuality in the Works of Ælfric’, Proceedings of the British Academy 131 (2005), 157–81. As Ælfric explains in the Latin Preface to the first series, he made these choices because he wanted to provide a body of orthodox preaching materials ‘for the edification of the unlearned’ (
ob ædificationem simplicium).
12 CH I, Latin Preface, p. 173. In order to achieve this goal, Ælfric favours the use of ‘plain English’
(simplicem Anglicam) rather than the deliberately complex ‘hermeneutic style’ that had recently come into vogue for the writing of both Latin and the vernacular.
13 CH I, Latin Preface, p. 173. In his Latin Preface to his Life of St Æthelwold, Ælfric makes a similar commitment to write breui quidem narratione meatim sed et rustica (‘after my own manner in a brief and unpolished narrative’) (text from Michael Lapidge and M. Winterbottom, eds, Wulfstan of Winchester: The Life of St Æthelwold [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991], Ælfric’s Vita S. Æthelwoldi, ch. 1, p. 71; translation from Jonathan Wilcox, Ælfric’s Prefaces, Durham Medieval Texts 9 [Durham: University of Durham, 1994], p. 132). On Ælfric’s avoidance of the hermeneutic style in his Latin writings, see Christopher A. Jones, ‘Meatim sed et rustica: Ælfric of Eynsham as a Medieval Latin Author’, The Journal of Medieval Latin 8 (1998), 1–57; Rebecca Stephenson, ‘Ælfric of Eynsham and Hermeneutic Latin: Meatim Sed et Rustica Reconsidered’, The Journal of Medieval Latin 16 (2006), 111–41; Stephenson, Politics of Language, pp. 135–87. See also Ann Eljenholm Nichols, ‘Ælfric and the Brief Style’, JEGP 70 (1971), 1–12.In the Old English Preface to the first series, Ælfric seems to imply that there were no scriptural translations available in English at the time of writing except for those which had been commissioned by Alfred:
14 On the translation of Scripture into English in the age of Alfred, see above, Chapters 1 and 2. On Alfred’s reputation as a biblical translator after the Norman Conquest, see Conclusion, pp. 249–51.and me ofhreow þæt hi ne cuðon ne næfdon ða godspellican lare on heora gewritum, buton ðam mannum anum ðe þæt Leden cuðon, and buton þam bocum ðe Ælfred cyning snoterlice awende of Ledene on Englisc, ða synd to hæbbene.
15 CH I, Old English Preface, p. 174.[and I regretted that they did not know nor had the evangelical doctrines among their writings, except for those people who knew Latin, and except for those books which King Alfred wisely translated from Latin into English, which are to be had.]
Non-Alfredian vernacular versions of the Gospels were in fact in circulation, as we have seen, in the form of the
Wessex Gospels and the corpus of anonymous homilies which included (often inaccurate) translations of pericopes. Like the
Wessex Gospels, the anonymous homilies tend to lack any substantial exegetical framework to guide the laity in the interpretation of the Gospels.
16 Cf. Godden, ‘Ælfric and the Vernacular Prose Tradition’, pp. 108–9: ‘Biblical exegesis figures little in other Old English homilies: there is a little in the Blickling collection but virtually none in the Vercelli Book (except for XVI and XVII) or other anonymous homilies.’ With his
Catholic Homilies, Ælfric provided a series of accurate translations of gospel pericopes accompanied by authoritative exegesis, effectively replacing the need for rival translations. Ælfric signals his selective approach to gospel translation in the Latin Preface:
Nec tamen omnia euangelia tangimus per circulum anni, sed illa tantummodo quibus speramus sufficere posse simplicibus ad animarum emendationem, quia saeculares omnia nequeunt capere, quamvis ex ore doctorum audiant.
17 CH I, Latin Preface, p. 4.[Yet we have not touched on all the gospels throughout the year, but only those which we hope will be sufficient for the improvement of the souls of simple people, because laypeople cannot understand everything, even if they hear it from the mouth of teachers.]
In summarising the content of the Gospels in his later
Treatise on the Old and New Testaments, Ælfric would point the reader who wishes to gain greater understanding of this text to the
Catholic Homilies:
18 On the Treatise, see Chapter Five.Ic secge þis sceortlice, forðan þe ic gesett hæbbe of þisum feower bocum wel feowertig larspella on Engliscum gereorde, and sumne eacan ðærto. Þa þu miht rædan be þissere race on maran andgite ðonne ic her secge.
19 Marsden, ed. Heptateuch, I, pp. 220–1, ll. 579–82.[I say this briefly, because I have written about these four books around forty homilies in the English language, or a little more. There you may read about this story with greater understanding than I might provide here.]
Evidently, Ælfric saw the Catholic Homilies as a more suitable means of conveying the meaning of the Gospels for laypeople than either the more comprehensive Wessex Gospels or the less reliable efforts of rival homilists.
Ælfric’s Homily on ‘The Annunciation of St Mary’
Ælfric’s highly selective and exegetical approach to the Gospels is well represented by his homily on ‘The Annunciation of St Mary’ (
CH I.13), which revolves around the pericope of Matthew 1.18–25, on the Virgin Birth. This is the same passage discussed above in relation to the Lindisfarne and Rushworth glosses, the
Wessex Gospels and the
Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, allowing us to compare the translation strategies employed by each author.
20 CH I.13, pp. 230–47. Drawing on two homilies by Bede included in Paul the Deacon’s
Homiliary, one on Luke 1.26–38 (Homily 1.3) and the other on Matthew 1.18–25 (Homily 1.5),
21 For the Latin text, see David Hurst and Jean Fraipont, eds, Beda Venerabilis: Opera homiletica. Opera rhythmica, CCSL 122 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1955), ‘Homeliarum euangelii libri ii’, CPL 1367; for translations, see Bede the Venerable: Homilies on the Gospels, Book One: Advent to Lent, trans. Lawrence T. Martin and Dom David Hurst OSB, with contributions by Sister Benedicta Ward SLG (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2010), pp. 19–29, 44–51. For full discussion of the sources of Ælfric’s homily on the Annunciation of Mary, see Godden, ed. Introduction, Commentary and Glossary, pp. 101–9. as well as a range of other sources, Ælfric uses here the technique known as the ‘continuous gloss’, a form of exegesis where the gloss is interspersed with the text on which it is based. The Vulgate text describes how Mary was found to be with child before her marriage to Joseph (Mt. 1.18), his intention to keep the matter secret (Mt. 1.19), and the angel’s revelation that the child is conceived of the Holy Ghost (Mt. 20–1). This miracle is then interpreted by Matthew as the fulfilment of the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament (Mt. 1.22–3). Ælfric simplifies this complex chronology and begins instead with a careful and thorough exposition of how God, the
ælmihtiga scyppend (‘almighty creator’, l. 2), out of pity for the Fall, made known through signs and prophecies his intention to redeem mankind by sending his own son.
22 CH I.13, pp. 230–2. The fontes database notes that Ælfric may have made use of Alcuin’s commentary In Genesim in this section. In order to establish an Old Testament context for the gospel pericope, Ælfric then provides a typological interpretation of Isaiah’s prophecy (Is. 7.14), which is itself cited in Mt. 1.23:
‘Efne sceal mæden geeacnian on hire innoðe and acennan sunu, and his nama bið geciged Emmanuhel,’ þæt is gereht on urum geðeode, ‘God is mid us.’
[‘Behold, a virgin shall conceive in her womb and bring forth a son, and his name shall be
Emmanuel,’ that is interpreted in our language, ‘God is with us’.]
23 CH I.13, pp. 232–3.Ælfric clarifies the meaning of the angel’s statement to Joseph that ‘all this was done so that it might be fulfilled which the Lord spoke by the prophet’ (
ut adimpleretur id quod dictum est a Domino per prophetam, Mt. 1.22) by introducing Ezekiel’s prophecy of the closed gate in the house of God (Ez. 44.2). This typological interpretation of the paradox of the Virgin Birth is then made intelligible to Ælfric’s ‘unlearned’ audience through simple and plain expository language, revolving around a series of clauses beginning
that signifies/
that is:
24 According to fontes, Ælfric probably draws this interpretation of Ezekiel from a sermon by Pseudo-Augustine.Þæt beclysede geat on Godes huse getacnode þone halgan mæigðhad þære eadigan Marian. Se Hlaford, ealra hlaforda Hlaford, þæt is Crist, becom on hire innoð, and ðurh hi on menniscnysse wearð acenned, and þæt geat bið belocen on ecnysse; þæt is, þæt Maria wæs mæden ær ðære cenninge, and mæden on ðære cenninge, and mæden æfter ðære cenninge.
[
That closed gate in God’s house
signified the holy virginity of the blessed Mary. The Lord, Lord of all lords,
that is, Christ, entered her womb, and through her was brought forth in human nature, and that gate is shut for eternity;
that is, that Mary was a virgin before the birth, a virgin at the birth, and a virgin after the birth.]
25 CH I.13, pp. 232–3. (Emphases added).
Deepening this typological reading of Matthew, Ælfric then gestures to many other prophecies of the Virgin Birth that appear in the
ealdan æ (‘Old Law’, i.e. the Old Testament) before turning to other books of the New Testament, citing St Paul’s statement that God sent his son in the fulness of time for the redemption of mankind (Galatians 4.4–5) and paraphrasing the Gospel of Luke 1.26–38, from which he derives the name of the angel sent by God to Joseph. At this juncture, Ælfric paraphrases Bede’s Homily on Luke 1.26–38, explaining that God sent the angel to Mary as recompense for the Fall –
Us becom ða deað and forwyrd þurh wif, and us becom eft lif and hredding þurh wimman (‘Death and destruction came to us through a woman, and later, life and salvation came to us through a woman’) – as well as clarifying the meaning of the angel’s name,
þæt is gereht “Godes strengð” (‘which is interpreted, “God’s strength”’).
26 CH I.13, pp. 234–7. Still following Bede’s homily on Luke, this reference to God’s strength prompts Ælfric to make yet another link back to the Old Testament, this time in the form of a psalm citation:
þe se sealmsceop mid þisum wordum herede: ‘Drihten is strang and mihtig on gefeohte’ (Ps. 23.8) – on ðam gefeohte, butan tweon, þe se Hælend deofol oferwann, and middangeard him ætbræd.
[which the psalmist praised with these words: ‘The Lord is strong and mighty in battle’ (Ps. 23.8) – no doubt in the battle in which the Saviour overcame the devil, and took the world from him.]
27 CH I.13, pp. 236–7, with modifications of punctuation and capitalisation; biblical citation supplied.This rich interpretive context is absent from Matthew’s Gospel, which, as we have seen, does not name the angel or provide any detailed exposition of the relationship between the Virgin Birth and the Fall, save for the angel’s declaration to Joseph, enim salvum faciet populum suum a peccatis eorum (‘For he shall save his people from their sins’, Mt. 1.21). Nor does Matthew offer an interpretation of the miracle of the Virgin Birth as a manifestation of God’s strength. By bringing a wealth of references to other parts of the Bible to bear on the gospel pericope from Matthew, as well as Bede’s homily on Luke, Ælfric is thus able to spell out the full spiritual significance of the biblical account of the Virgin Birth for his ‘unlearned’ audience.
Only now, having carefully positioned Matthew’s account of the Virgin Birth within the wider context of salvation history, does Ælfric finally return to the gospel pericope itself. A brief citation from the gospel reading, however, immediately prompts a long exegetical passage which moves from an account of Jewish law (the historical or literal level of exegesis) to a meditation on the Holy Trinity (the spiritual):
“Maria wæs beweddod Iosepe ðam rihtwisan” (Mt. 1.18–19). Hwi wolde God beon acenned of beweddodan mædene? For micclum gesceade, and eac for neode. Þæt Iudeisce folc heold Godes æ on þam timan; seo æ tæhte, þæt man sceolde ælcne wimman þe cild hæfde butan rihtre æwe stænan. Nu ðonne, gif Maria unbeweddod wære and cild hæfde, þonne wolde þæt Iudeisce folc, æfter Godes æ, mid stanum hi oftorfian. Ða wæs heo, ðurh Godes foresceawunge, þam rihtwisan were beweddod, and gehwa wende þæt he ðæs cildes fæder wære, ac he næs. Ac ða ða Ioseph undergeat þæt Maria mid cilde wæs þa wearð he dreorig, and nolde hire genealæcan, ac ðohte þæt he wolde hi diglice forlætan (Mt. 1.19). Þa ða Ioseph þis smeade, þa com him to Godes engel and bebead him þæt he sceolde habban gymene ægðer ge ðære meder ge þæs cildes, and cwæð þæt þæt cild nære of nanum men gestryned, ac wære of þam Halgan Gaste (Mt. 1.20). Nis na hwæðere se Halga Gast Cristes fæder, ac he is genemned to ðære fremminge Cristes menniscnysse forðan ðe he is willa and lufu þæs Fæder and þæs Suna. Nu wearð seo menniscnys þurh þone micclan willan gefremmed, and is ðeah hwæðere heora ðreora weorc untodæledlic. Hi sind þry on hadum, Fæder, and Sunu, and Halig Gast, and an God untodæledlic on anre godcundnysse. Ioseph ða, swa swa him se engel bebead, hæfde gymene ægðer ge Marian ge ðæs cildes (cf. Mt. 1.24), and wæs hyre gewita þæt heo mæden wæs, and wæs Cristes fostorfæder, and mid his fultume and frofre on gehwilcum ðingum him ðenode on ðære menniscnysse.
[“Mary was betrothed to the righteous Joseph” (Mt. 1.18–19). Why would God be born of a betrothed virgin? For a great reason, and also of necessity. The Jewish people held God’s law at that time; the law directed that any woman who had a child out of lawful wedlock should be stoned. Now, therefore, if Mary had been unmarried and had a child, the Jewish people, according to God’s law, would have killed her with stones. And so she was, by God’s providence, betrothed to that righteous man, and everyone thought that he was the child’s father, but he was not. When Joseph understood that Mary was with child he became sad, and would not approach her, but thought that he would privately abandon her (Mt. 1.19). While Joseph was considering this, God’s angel came to him and commanded him to take care of both the mother and the child, and said that the child was not begotten by a man, but by the Holy Spirit (Mt. 1.20). Yet the Holy Spirit is not Christ’s father, but he is named as the maker of Christ’s humanity because he is the will and love of the Father and the Son. Now his humanity was made through the great will, and yet it is the indivisible work of the three of them. They are three in persons, Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, and one indivisible God in one divine nature. Joseph then, as the angel had commanded him, took care both of Mary and the child (cf. Mt. 1.24), and was her witness that she was a virgin, and was Christ’s foster father and, with his support and comfort in all things, served him in his human state.]
28 CH I.13, pp. 236–7; biblical citations supplied.In keeping with his declared intention to translate only those parts of the Gospels that are required for ‘the edification of the simple’, Ælfric condenses two gospel verses into one, omitting any material that he felt might confuse the audience of the homily (material translated from the Latin is provided in italics):
Vulgate | Ælfric |
Mt.1.18 Christi autem generatio sic erat cum esset desponsata mater eius Maria Ioseph antequam convenirent inventa est in utero habens de Spiritu Sancto. 19 Ioseph autem vir eius cum esset iustus et nollet eam traducere voluit occulte dimittere eam. [1.18 Now the generation of Christ was in this wise. When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child, of the Holy Ghost. 19 Whereupon Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing publicly to expose her, was minded to put her away privately.] | Maria wæs beweddod Iosepe ðam rihtwisan [Mary was betrothed to the righteous Joseph.] |
The contrast with the Lindisfarne and Rushworth glosses, wherein every individual element of the Latin verses is faithfully translated, and the
Wessex Gospels, which render both verses into idiomatic English, could not be more striking. As a compensatory measure, in place of the word-for-word translation method followed by these earlier authors, Ælfric supplies an extensive commentary on the gospel passage, carefully drawing out its full spiritual meaning and clarifying many points of detail which otherwise might cause confusion. As we have seen, the glossators prevaricated over how best to translate
desponsata, offering a range of options to their monastic readers. With the unlearned auditors of his homilies in mind, Ælfric can afford no such ambiguity, and therefore opts for absolute clarity first in translating
desponsata as
beweddod (the first option provided by both Aldred and Farman and the same term used in the
Wessex Gospels)
and then in providing a detailed explanation for this paradoxical statement that God was born of a wedded virgin. As we shall see, in his
Preface to Genesis Ælfric would voice his concern that foolish (
dysig) and unlearned
(ungelæred) readers of scriptural translations, such as poorly educated priests and lay readers, not knowing the difference between the Old Law (
æ) and the New, might be misled into believing that it is permissible to have multiple wives on the grounds that the patriarchs did the same.
29 See below, pp. 158–60. On Ælfric’s disapproval of marriage among the secular clergy more generally, see Stephenson, Politics of Language, pp. 140–2. For such readers, the story of the Virgin Birth presents even greater potential for misunderstanding and confusion. In his exegesis of Matthew’s account of the annunciation, Ælfric therefore carefully explains how the Old Law relates to and is superseded by the New, moving from a succinct summary of Jewish law concerning the punishment for unmarried women derived from Bede’s homily on Matthew 1.18–25 to an exposition of the Holy Trinity which has no known source.
30 For comparison with Ælfric’s exegesis of the Holy Trinity in ‘De Initio Creaturae’ (CH I.I), and its reworking in his Treatise, see below, pp. 226–35. All of Ælfric’s writing on the Trinity is deeply indebted to Augustine’s De Trinitate. Ælfric then returns to the gospel pericope, paraphrasing Mt. 1.24 again with reference to Bede’s homily. Ælfric continues in this vein for the remainder of the homily, marshalling a wide range of scriptural citations and patristic authorities to provide a rich interpretive context for Matthew’s account of the Virgin Birth. This movement from the literal-historical interpretation of Scripture to the spiritual is entirely typical of Ælfric’s
Catholic Homilies, in which the aim is always to provide clear exposition of the Gospels rather than word-for-word or sense-for-sense translation.
Two Palm Sunday Homilies: A Comparison
We find the same interpretive process at work in Ælfric’s homily for Palm Sunday (‘On the Lord’s Passion’,
CH II.14), which contains an abbreviated translation and exegesis of Matthew’s account of the crucifixion, the passage discussed above in relation to its treatment in the
Wessex Gospels (Mt. 27.35–54).
31 See above, pp. 100–3. As Christopher A. Jones notes, readings from Matthew 26–7 are conventionally assigned for Palm Sunday in the Roman lectionary, while Luke 22–3 and John 18–19 comprise the readings for Good Friday.
32 Jones, ‘Early English Homiletic Treatments of Christ’s Passion’, p. 241. See further Ursula Lenker, Die westsächsische Evangelienversion und die Perikopenordnungen im angelsächsischen England, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Englischen Philologie 20 (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1997); Godden, ed. Introduction, Commentary and Glossary, p. 109. In order to illustrate Ælfric’s exegetical method, this section will compare his Palm Sunday homily with an anonymous homily for the same day, HomS 18 (Cameron no. B.3.2.18), which provides a much closer translation of Matthew 26–7 with only occasional use of John 18–19.
33 HomS 18 is attested in three manuscripts: Cambridge Corpus Christi College MS 198 (eleventh/twelfth century), which is the most complete version and forms the basis for the edition cited here (Ker §48); Oxford Bodley 340 and 342 (early eleventh century) (Ker §309); and Cambridge Corpus Christi College MS 162 (early eleventh century) (Ker §38). For the texts, see Kenneth Gordon Schaefer, ed., ‘An Edition of Five Old English Homilies for Palm Sunday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, 1972). This homily, together with six other anonymous Palm Sunday homilies, is now available in an online edition together with manuscript images via Winfried Rudolf, Thomas N. Hall, et al., eds, ECHOE Online: Electronic Corpus of Anonymous Homilies in Old English, https://echoe.uni-goettingen.de, accessed 2 November 2024. The most detailed study of the homilist’s translation technique is R. D. Fulk, ‘The Refashioning of Christ’s Passion in an Anonymous Old English Homily for Palm Sunday (HomS 18)’, JEGP 116 (2017), 415–37. Don Scragg observes that this anonymous text is one of a group of Easter homilies associated with Canterbury, each of which relates the events of the Easter period ‘almost verbatim’ and in which ‘homiletic comment is sparse’.
34 Donald G. Scragg, ed., The Vercelli Homilies, EETS o.s. 300 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 1. Another of the homilies in this group is Vercelli Homily I, which translates the gospel pericope for Good Friday, John 18–19, while incorporating material from Matthew 26–7 as well as the other gospels. As Scragg comments, the homily termed ‘Vercelli I’ is attested in two versions, one (in the late tenth-century Vercelli Book) sticks closely to the Vulgate text of John 18–19, the other, attested in the eleventh-century manuscript Bodley 340/342 (where it is appears as a supplement for Ælfric’s Palm Sunday Homily, as he did not provide a homily for Good Friday) as well as two other manuscripts, ‘moves away from a literal translation to give a more fluent rendering, substituting indirect for direct speech and modernizing the language’ (Vercelli Homilies, p. 1); for the text and commentary, see Scragg, ed., Vercelli Homilies, pp. 1–47. Indeed, as Aidan Conti notes, HomS 18 ‘lacks any exegetical treatment of its subject, and thereby violates the pastoral directive’ of Ælfric and Wulfsige that priests should explicate the
angyt (‘meaning’) of the gospel on Sundays and massdays.
35 Aidan Conti, ‘An Anonymous Homily for Palm Sunday, The Dream of the Rood, and the Progress of Ælfric’s Reform’, N&Q n.s. 48 (2001), 377–80, at 377. Hence, in rendering Matthew 27.39–42, the anonymous homilist sticks closely to the Vulgate source:
and ða forðbigferendan hi yfelsacodon on hine and hrysedon heora heafod and cwædon, ‘Uah! Ær ðu towurpe Godes templ and æfter þreora daga fæce eft getimbrodest; gif ðu sy Godes Sunu, hæl þe sylfne and astig of þisse rode and we gelefað on þe.’ And gelice hi on bismer cwædon, ‘Manige oðre he hale gedyde, and hine sylfne he ne mæg gehælen. Gif ðu si Cyning Iudea, astih nu of þisse rode.’
36 Schaefer, p. 30, ll. 168–74.[and those passing by blasphemed on him and shook their heads and said, ‘Look! Before you destroyed God’s temple and after three days you rebuilt it; if you are God’s Son, save yourself and come down from this cross and we will believe in you.” And similarly they said in mockery, ‘He saved many others, and he cannot save himself. If you are the King of the Jews, come down now from this cross.’]
Although the anonymous homilist also omits Matthew’s reference to the chief priests, scribes and moneylenders (27.41), on the whole, HomS 18 presents a close rendering of the gospel pericope in idiomatic Old English, with small but regular modifications of syntax and occasional omissions. Certainly, the approach of the anonymous homilist is much more faithful to the biblical source than the sense-for sense, functional equivalence approach taken by Ælfric, who as we shall see below compresses the two mocking speeches addressed to Christ into one. Moreover, in marked contrast to Ælfric’s learned deployment of patristic authorities in his strictly orthodox exegesis of Matthew 27–9, the anonymous homilist appears to have supplemented their (often imperfect) knowledge of the scriptural narrative by borrowing certain imagery and phrasing from the popular Old English poem
The Dream of the Rood.
37 Two passages absent from the gospel accounts, namely an account of the cross bowing down to Joseph and Nicodemus and the carving out of tomb from beorhtan stane (‘bright stone’) for Christ, have direct parallels in The Dream of the Rood and it has been suggested that the homilist drew on this popular poem as a source: see Dorothy Horgan, ‘The Dream of the Rood and a Homily for Palm Sunday’, N&Q n.s. 29 (1982), 388–91; Conti, ‘An Anonymous Homily for Palm Sunday’; and Fulk, ‘Refashioning of Christ’s Passion’, 427–33. Although the precise dating of the anonymous homily is unknown, linguistic evidence certainly places it before Ælfric, possibly in ninth-century Mercia.
38 Schaefer, p. 47; Paul E. Szarmach, ‘The Earlier Homily: De Parasceve’, in Studies in Earlier Old English Prose, ed. Szarmach, pp. 381–99, at 382; Fulk, ‘Refashioning of Christ’s Passion’, 416–19; Jones, ‘Early English Homiletic Treatments of Christ’s Passion’, p. 243. Table 2 below compares the anonymous homilist’s translation of Matthew 27.35–42 with the more faithful rendering of the same passage in the
Wessex Gospels:
Table 2. Comparison of Matthew 27.35–42 in Vulgate, Wessex Gospels and HomS18.
Vulgate | Wessex Gospels | HomS 18 |
35 Postquam autem crucifixerunt eum, diviserunt vestimenta eius, sortem mittentes: ut impleretur quod dictum est per prophetam dicentem: ‘Diviserunt sibi vestimenta mea, et super vestem meam miserunt sortem.’ [And after they had crucified him, they divided his garments, casting lots; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying: ‘They divided my garments among them; and upon my vesture they cast lots.’] | 35 Soþlice æfter þam þe hig hyne on rode ahengon hig todældon hys reaf: and wurpon hlot þærofer þæt wære gefylled þæt ðe gecweden wæs þurh ðone witegan and þus cwæð: ‘Hig todældon heom mine reaf, and ofer mine reaf hig wurpon hlot.’ [Truly after they had hanged him on a cross they divided his garments, and they cast lots thereover that it might be fulfilled that which was spoken by the prophet, and thus said: ‘They divided my garments among them, and upon my garments they cast lots.] | 35 Þa he ahangen wæs, þa wæs se cwide gefulled þe wæs þurh þa witegan gecweden, ‘Diuiserunt sibi uestimenta mea, et super uestem meam miserunt sorten: Hi todældon him mine reaf, and ofer min hrægl hi sændon hlyt.’ [When he was hanged, then the prophecy was fulfilled that was spoken by the prophet, ‘Diuiserunt sibi uestimenta mea, et super uestem meam miserunt sorten: They divided my garments among them, and upon my garments they cast lots.’] |
36 Et sedentes servabant eum. [And they sat and watched him.] | 36 And hig beheoldon hyne sittende: [And they beheld him sitting.] | 36 And hi þær sæton and hine heoldon, [And they sat there and beheld him.] |
37 Et imposuerunt super caput eius causam ipsius scriptam: ‘Hic est Iesus Rex Iudaeorum.’ [And they put over his head his cause written: ‘This is Jesus the King of the Jews.’] | 37 and hig asetton ofer hys heafod hys gylt þuss awritene: ‘Ðis ys se Hælynd Iudea Cyning.’ [And they put over his head his charge thus written: ‘This is the Saviour, King of the Jews.’] | 37 and setton ofer his heafod on bismer, ‘Þis is Cyning Iudea. [And they put over his head in mockery, ‘This is the King of the Jews.’] |
38 Tunc crucifixi sunt cum eo duo latrones: unus a dextris, et unus a sinistris. [Then were crucified with him two thieves: one on the right hand, and one on the left.] | 38 Ða wæron ahangen mid him twegen sceaþan, an on þa swiðran healfe and oðer on þa wynstran. [Then were hanged with him two thieves, one on the right side and the other on the left.] | 38 And hi ða ahengon mid him twegen sceaðan, oðerne on þa swiðran healfe, oðerne on ða wynstran healfe. [And then they hanged with him two thieves, one on the right side, the other on the left side.] |
39 Praetereuntes autem blasphemabant eum moventes capita sua, [And they that passed by, blasphemed him, wagging their heads,] | 39 Witodlice þa wegferendan hyne bysmeredon and cwehton heora heafod [Indeed, those that passed by mocked him and shook their heads] | 39 And ða forðbigferendan hi yfelsacodon on hine and hrysedon heora heafod [And those passing by blasphemed on him and shook their heads] |
40 et dicentes: ‘Vah! qui destruis templum Dei, et in triduo illud reaedificas: salva teme- tipsum: si Filius Dei es, descende de cruce.’ [And saying: Vah, you who destroyed the temple of God, and in three days rebuilt it: save your own self: if you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.] | 40 and cwædon: ‘Wa! þæt ðes towyrpð godes templ, and on þrim dagum hyt eft getimbrað. Gehæl nu þe sylfne: gyf þe sy Godes Sunu, ga nyþer of þære rode.’ [and they said: ‘Look! You that destroy God’s temple, and in three days afterwards rebuild it, now save yourself: if you are God’s son, come down from the cross.’] | 40 and cwædon, ‘Uah! Ær ðu towurpe Godes templ 7 æfter þreora daga fæce eft getimbrodest; gif ðu sy Godes Sunu, hæl þe sylfne 7 astig of þisse rode 7 we gelefað on þe.’ [and said, ‘Look! Before you destroyed God’s temple and after three days you rebuilt it; if you are God’s Son, save yourself and come down from this cross and we will believe in you.’] |
41 Similiter et principes sacerdotum illudentes cum scribis et senioribus dicebant: [In like manner also the chief priests, with the scribes and ancients, mocking, said:] | 41 Eac sacerda ealdras hyne bysmerdon mid þam bocerum and mid þam ealdrum and cwædun: [Also the chief priests mocked him, with the scribes and the ancients, and said:] | 41 And gelice hi on bismer cwædon, [And they mocked him in the same way saying,] |
42 ‘Alios salvos fecit, seipsum non potest salvum facere: si Rex Israel est, descendat nunc de cruce, et credimus ei.’ [‘He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the king of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.’] | 42 ‘Oþere he gehælde. and hyne sylfne gehælan ne mæg. Gyf he Israhela Cyning sy ga nu nyþer of þære rode and we gelyfað hym.’ [‘He saved others, and he cannot save himself. If he is the king of Israel, come down from the cross and we will believe him.’] | 42 ‘Manige oðre he hale gedyde, and hine sylfne he ne mæg gehælen. Gif ðu si Cyning Iudea, astih nu of þisse rode.’ [‘He saved many others, and he cannot save himself. If you are the King of the Jews, come down now from this cross.’] |
While the
Wessex Gospels provide a complete translation of Matthew 27.35–42, the anonymous homilist freely edits his source, omitting, for example, the reference to Jesus in verse 37. The homilist also opts for a plainer prose style, lacking stylistic flourishes such as the repeated front-placement of
Soðlice/
Witodlice that we noted above in the
Wessex Gospels (e.g. Mt. 27.35, 39). On the other hand, the homilist does include the Latin text of Isaiah’s prophecy before providing the translation in verse 35, whereas the
Wessex Gospels only supplies the translation. As previously noted, the
Wessex Gospels appear to have been prepared for a reader who did not need access to the Latin. The presence of the Latin quotation in the anonymous homily, by contrast, reflects how this text served as a supplement to the liturgical reading of the Latin gospel pericope. By supplying the Latin quotation, the homilist anchors the translation in the scriptural source, underlining its status as an adjunct to the Vulgate text used in the liturgy. Although the anonymous homilist occasionally misconstrues the Latin source, for the most part the remainder of the pericope is faithfully translated up to the end of Matthew 27.66, the final verse in the chapter, which describes the placement of Christ’s body in a sepulchre which is to be guarded for three days.
39 Schaefer, p. 44, notes that in Mt. 27.64 the homilist mistakes the Latin fors (‘chance’) as a form of the noun fortis (‘strength’), producing the reading þaet nane strange ne cuman (‘that none should come forcefully’); see also Conti, ‘An Anonymous Homily for Palm Sunday’, 378; Fulk, ‘Refashioning of Christ’s Passion’, 420–3. The homily is then rounded off with a brief doxology, a conventional expression of praise used to end a hymn or sermon, typically devoted to the Trinity, as is the case here:
27.66 and him þærofer gesæton and hæfdon þæron gebroht þæs Hælendes lichaman,
þe nu leofað and rixað mid Fæder and mid Sunu and mid ðam Halgum Gaste, a in ealra worulda woruld soðlice buton ende. Amen.40 Schaefer, p. 33, ll. 212–15. Vercelli Homily I concludes with a similar doxology, though here the homilist directly addresses the audience with an exhortation to men ða leofestan (‘most beloved people’) (Scragg, ed., Vercelli Homilies, pp. 40–3). [and they placed him thereover and they had brought therein the Saviour’s body, who now rules with the Father and with the Son and with the Holy Ghost, eternally throughout all the world of worlds, truly without end. Amen.] (Emphases added).
This brief passage is the nearest the anonymous homilist comes to a spiritual exegesis of the Passion, though as Fulk notes, the statement that Christ rules
mid Sunu (‘with the Son’) is ‘nonsensical’, reflecting the author’s limited training in the study of the Gospels.
41 Fulk, ‘Refashioning of Christ’s Passion’, 424–5.Following his directive for priests to clarify the gospel reading during Mass, and in sharp contrast to the anonymous homily, Ælfric’s extensive Palm Sunday homily weaves together various passages from Matthew 26–7 with extracts from all four gospels, creating a unified ‘gospel harmony.’ This synthesis is further enriched by extensive references to Bede’s Commentaries on Mark and Luke, along with works by Smaragdus and Haymo.
42 Fontes notes that Jerome’s Commentary on Matthew and Augustine’s Tractates on John lie behind these sources and suggests that both may have been used by Ælfric. In the opening words of his homily, Ælfric signals his goal of providing priests with a single, condensed version of the Passion together with an interpretation of its spiritual meaning in plain language:
Drihtnes ðrowunge we willað
gedafenlice eow secgan on Engliscum gereorde,
and ða gerynu samod. Na swa ðeah to langsumlice, gif we hit swa gelogian magon.
43 CH II.14, p. 137.[We will suitably relate to you the Lord’s Passion in English speech, and the mysteries together. Not, however, at too great a length, if we can arrange it.] (Emphases added).
Ælfric meets the challenge of relating Christ’s Passion in a fittingly brief manner through combining or arranging (
gelogian) a translation of elements of all four gospels into a single, coherent paraphrase, a practice to which he will return in his treatments of Joshua, Judges and other parts of the Bible.
44 See below, Chapter Five. For example, the Vulgate text of Matthew 17.1–5 describes how Jesus took Peter, James and John with him into a high mountain (17.1), where he was transfigured, his face shining like the sun and his garments as white as snow (17.2), and the prophets Moses and Elias stood talking with him (17.3), before Peter asks Jesus if he wishes them to make three temples, for him and the two prophets (17.4); while Peter was speaking, a bright cloud overshadows them and a voice says:
hic est Filius meus dilectus, in quo mihi bene conplacuit: ipsum audite (‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye him’) (17.5).
45 Ælfric may also have had in mind here the equivalent passage in Luke 9.30–5, which shares many details with Matthew. In Ælfric’s homily, these five biblical verses are condensed into a short passage which provides the key elements of the scriptural source in terms that are easily understood:
Moyses and Elias eac swilce sædon his ðrowunge on ær uppon anre dune ðe se Hælend astah mid ðrim leorningcnihtum, and his ansyn ætforan him eal scean swa swa sunne, and his gewæda scinon on snawes hwitnysse. Þa wolde Petrus slean sona ðreo geteld, for ðære gesihðe, ac ðær swegde ða stemn ðæs Heofonlican Fæder healice of wolcne: ‘Ðes is min leofa sunu, on ðam me wel licað: gehyrað hine.’
46 CH II.14, p. 137 (with modifications).[Moses and Elias also previously spoke about his passion up on a mountain which the Saviour ascended with three disciples, and his countenance shone before them as the sun, and his clothes shone with the whiteness of snow. Then Peter wished to pitch three tents because of that vision, but the voice of the Heavenly Father sounded then from a cloud on high, ‘This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased: obey him.’]
By beginning his account of the Transfiguration with the Old Testament prophets, Moses and Elias, rather than Christ’s ascent of the mountain, Ælfric emphasises the typological significance of this event. The names of the three disciples are omitted for the sake of concision, though Peter’s name is subsequently supplied at the moment when he moves to make the three temples, rendered as geteld (‘tents’) in Ælfric’s domesticating translation. The shift from paraphrase into a word-for-word translation of God the Father’s direction to obey his son (Mt. 17.15) reflects the doctrinal importance of this biblical phrase. As we shall see, this theme of obedience – a moral lesson which Ælfric wishes to convey to his audience – will emerge as a key concern in the translation of the Heptateuch in which Ælfric would play a major role soon after he completed his two series of homilies.
Subsequent biblical passages from all four gospels are similarly abbreviated as Ælfric moves briskly through the story of the Passion by combining the accounts of Luke 22.1–5, Matthew 26.15 and Mark 14.11, which variously describe how the Jewish elders deliberated on how they might slay Jesus Christ and how Satan then entered into Judas Iscariot, who accepted their money to betray him. In paraphrasing Matthew 26.20 (
vespere autem facto discumbebat cum duodecim discipulis, ‘But when it was evening, he sat down with his twelve disciples’), Ælfric further domesticates his source by clarifying that these events took place
on ðam fiftan dæge, ðe ge ðunres hatað (‘on the fifth day, that you call Thursday’).
47 CH II.14, p. 138. The following passage, which describes how Christ washed the feet of his disciples, combines elements of Matthew 26.2 and John 13.4–5 and 12–15, to which Ælfric appends his own exegesis, again moving from the literal explanation that ‘externally’ (
wiðutan) Christ cleaned the mud from their feet, to the spiritual interpretation that Christ purged them ‘within […] of the dirt of deadly sin’ (
wiðinnan […]
fram eallum horwum healicra leahtra).
48 CH II.14, p. 138. A moral interpretation then completes the exegesis, as Ælfric describes how Christ commanded the disciples to wash each other’s sins and ‘to manifest humility with kind service to brothers’ (
eadmodnysse cyðan mid geswære ðenunge symle gebroðrum).
Having carefully explained to his audience how they should apply the lesson of this biblical episode to their own lives, Ælfric returns to his paraphrase of the four gospels, synthesising their respective accounts of how each of the disciples asked Christ which of them will betray him, and of how he blessed bread and wine signifying his body and blood and offered it to them. At this juncture, Ælfric again interrupts the biblical summary to provide another exegetical passage, this time derived from Jerome’s Commentary on Matthew, in order to clarify that Jesus’ statement that it would have been better for whoever should betray him to have not been born (Matthew 26.24) does not mean that such a man had been anywhere before he was born, but simply ‘that it were better for him that he had never been, than that he should be evil’ (
þæt him betere wære þæt he næfre nære, ðonne he yfele wære).
49 CH II.14, p. 139. Ælfric then draws a moral lesson from Haymo of Auxerre, who explained that those who imitate Judas in betraying truth for money will share his fate in the torments of hell. Through frequent moralising interjections such as this, Ælfric continually ensures that his ‘unlearned’ audience is made fully aware of the relevance of the gospel story to their own spiritual lives.
Further deepening the exegetical framework for the gospel narrative, Ælfric then turns to Smaragdus, from whom he draws the following typological interpretation:
Æfter gereorde Crist bletsode husel, for ðan ðe he wolde
ða Ealdan Æ ær gefyllan, and siððan ða
Niwan Gecyðnysse halwendlice ongunnon.
50 CH II.14, p. 139 (with modifications).[After the meal Christ blessed the Eucharist, because he first wished to fulfil the Old Law, and afterwards to begin the New Covenant in a salutary way.] (Emphases added).
As we shall see in the next chapter, Ælfric was greatly concerned that priests and their parishioners should know the essential difference between the Old and New Law. Throughout his Catholic Homilies, Ælfric constantly emphasises this difference by carefully explaining how individual gospel verses fulfil the prophecies of the Old Testament.
Returning to the scriptural narrative of the Last Supper, Ælfric provides a close, word-for-word translation of Matthew 26.31–5, Christ’s warning to Peter that he will deny him three times before the cock crows, before paraphrasing further passages from Matthew, John and Luke to produce a succinct account of Judas’ betrayal of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. Christ’s reproval of Peter, in which he states that he could have summoned twelve legions of angels to protect him, leads Ælfric into another exegetical passage, which quotes from Jerome’s Commentary on Matthew on the precise number of angels implied, and possibly Candidus Fuldensis’
Opusculum de passione Domini on how Christ did not desire the death of his disciples, but preserved them as teachers to all the nations. In the same manner, Ælfric continues to paraphrase the combined gospel accounts, with further reference to patristic and Carolingian exegetes, as the narrative progresses towards the climactic moment of the crucifixion itself. From Bede’s Commentary on Mark, Ælfric derives the interpretation of the soldiers’ mockery of Christ as signifying that they held him in scorn, that the red robe signified the blood of Christ’s death and that the sin of Adam is now forgiven because of Christ’s thorny crown. For the account of the crucifixion itself, Ælfric first paraphrases Mark 15.22–3, in which the soldiers offer Christ a bitter drink, to which he adds an interpretation derived from Jerome that the drink signified the bitterness of his death, which he quickly cast away with his resurrection. He then continues with John 19.18–20 and 23–4, describing the crucifixion of the two thieves alongside Christ while probably drawing on Sedulius’ interpretation of the four nails as signifying Christ’s redemption of the four regions of the earth.
51 Carmen paschale 5, ll. 188–95.Up until this point, Ælfric’s Palm Sunday homily has comprised short, translated excerpts from various gospels and paraphrases interspersed with homiletic exegesis. It is only at this advanced point in the homily that we encounter the first sustained passage of gospel translation, a substantial part of Matthew 27.39–42, which bears comparison with the equivalent section of the
Wessex Gospels (Table 3).
52 Cf. Luke 23.34, 39–43, which may have served as another source for this passage, though Matthew seems the more likely given Ælfric’s use in the same passage of Jerome’s Commentary on Matthew.Table 3. Comparison of Matthew 27.39–42 in Vulgate, Wessex Gospels and Ælfric’s Palm Sunday Homily.
Vulgate | Wessex Gospels | Ælfric |
39 Praetereuntes autem blasphemabant eum moventes capita sua, [39 And they that passed by, blasphemed him, wagging their heads,] | 39 Witodlice þa wegferendan hyne bysmeredon and cwehton heora heafod [Indeed, those that passed by mocked him and shook their heads] | 39 Ða reðan iudei beheoldon feorran. [Then the hateful Jews beheld at a distance.] |
40 et dicentes: Vah! qui destruis templum Dei, et in triduo illud reaedificas: salva temetipsum: si Filius Dei es, descende de cruce. [40 And saying: Vah, you who destroyed the temple of God, and in three days rebuilt it: save your own self: if you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.] | 40 and cwædon: “Wa! þæt ðes towyrpð godes templ and on þrim dagum hyt eft getimbrað. Gehæl nu þe sylfne. Gyf þe sy Godes Sunu, ga nyþer of þære rode; [and they said, ‘Alas! You that destroy God’s temple, and in three days afterwards rebuild it, now save yourself: if you are God’s Son, come down from the cross.] | and mid hospe clypodon to Hælendum Criste: “Gif ðu Godes Sunu sy, ga of ðære rode. [and with contempt shouted to the Saviour Christ: “If you are God’s Son, come from the cross.] |
41 Similiter et principes sacerdotum illudentes cum scribis et senioribus dicebant: [41 In like manner also the chief priests, with the scribes and ancients, mocking, said:] | 41 Eac sacerda ealdras hyne bysmerdon mid þam bocerum and mid þam ealdrum and cwædun: [Also the chief priests mocked him, with the scribes and the ancients, and said:] | |
42 Alios salvos fecit, seipsum non potest salvum facere: si Rex Israel est, descendat nunc de cruce, et credimus ei: [42 He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.] | 42 Oþere he gehælde, and hyne sylfne ne mæg. Gyf he Israhela Cyning sy, ga nu nyþer of þære rode and we gelyfað hym.” [He saved others, and he cannot save himself. If he is the King of Israel, come down from the cross and we will believe him.] | and we siððan swa on ðe gelyfað.”* [and then we will believe in you.”] |
* CH II.14, pp. 145–46.
As is evident from Table 3, Ælfric has considerably condensed these four verses from Matthew, omitting details deemed extraneous such as the Jews’ shaking of their heads (27.39), the repetition of their accusation that he had saved others (27.42) and the inclusion of the chief priests, scribes and ancients among his accusers (27.41). Further potentially confusing information, such as the Jews’ reference to Christ’s prior destruction and rebuilding of the temple (27.40), is similarly glossed over, resulting in a much more streamlined narrative that caters to the needs of an unlearned audience listening to a homily being read aloud in church.
By contrast with the anonymous homilist discussed above, Ælfric supplements his paraphrase of Matthew’s account of the mocking of Christ with a translation of Luke 23.39–43, in which one of the thieves asks Christ to prove his nature by saving him, only to be reproved by the second, who asks Christ to remember him when he comes into his kingdom. Following Jerome, Ælfric interprets the anagogical significance of this passage from Luke, explaining that the second thief passed happily to heaven and
se oðer gewende wælhreaw to helle (‘the other went bloodthirsty to hell’), while the two thieves together
getacnode (‘signified’) on the one hand the Jewish people, who would not believe in Christ and mocked him on the gallows, and on the other the heathens, who believed in him and reproved the others
mid geleafan (‘with faith’).
53 CH II.14, p. 146. Drawing on the authority of the Church Fathers and the Gospel of Luke, Ælfric thus presents a simple and clear moral lesson for the unlearned on the rewards of faith and the punishments of unbelief.
For the remainder of his Palm Sunday Homily, Ælfric takes the same eclectic approach to the exposition of the pericope from Matthew, freely paraphrasing and translating passages from the three other gospels and interspersing these translations with exegesis derived from Jerome, Smaragdus, Bede, Candidus Fuldensis, Augustine and Haymo. Indeed, the pericope of the day, Mt. 26–7, is not directly cited again in the homily until the closing lines, where Ælfric paraphrases Mt. 27.62–6, before adding his own Christological conclusion (indicated below in italics) and Trinitarian doxology:
Hwæt ða Iudei eodon to Pilate, bædon þæt he bude ða byrgene besettan mid wacelum weardum, þæt he ne wurde forstolen, and ðam folce gesæd þæt he sylf aryse. Þa geðafode Pilatus þæt hi hine besæton mid ymtrymincge, and ða ðruh geinnsegelodon;
ac Crist aras swa ðeah, of ðam deaðe gesund, on ðam ðriddan dæge æfter his ðrowunge, oferswiðdum deaðe. Sy him a wuldor mid his Heofonlican Fæder and ðam Halgan Gaste, on anre godcudnysse on ecere worulde. Amen.
54 CH II.14, p. 149.[Whereupon the Jews went to Pilate, asking that he would command the sepulchre to be beset with watchful guards, so that he might not be stolen, and it be said to the people that he had arisen himself. Then Pilate permitted them that they might watch him with a guard, and to seal up the sepulchre; but Christ arose, nevertheless, sound on the third day after his Passion, having overcome death. Glory be to him with his Heavenly Father and that Holy Ghost, in one Godhead for eternity. Amen.]
Whereas the anonymous homilist simply tacks on the Trinitarian doxology to the final verse of Matthew 27, Ælfric bridges the gap between the sealing up of Christ’s body in the tomb and him ruling in eternity by adding the crucial detail that Christ rose on the third day, defeating death.
55 Ælfric may have had in mind various scriptural passages here, including Luke 24.7: quia oportet Filium hominis tradi in manus hominum peccatorum et crucifigi et die tertia resurgere (‘The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and the third day rise again’), I Corinthians 15.4: et quia sepultus est et quia resurrexit tertia die secundum scripturas (‘And that he was buried: and that he rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures’); and I Corinthians 15.54–7: cum autem mortale hoc induerit inmortalitatem tunc fiet sermo qui scriptus est: absorta est mors in victoria. Ubi est mors victoria tua. Ubi est mors stimulus tuus. Stimulus autem mortis peccatum est virtus vero peccati lex. Deo autem gratias qui dedit nobis victoriam per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum (‘And when this mortal has put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? Now the sting of death is sin: and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.’) With this intervention, Ælfric achieves the goal he had set for himself in the opening of the Palm Sunday homily, to relate the essential mystery (
gerynu) of Matthew’s narrative of the Passion in plain English, leaving the laity in no doubt as to the full spiritual meaning (
angyt) of the gospel reading for the day.
Ælfric’s project
Comparison of Ælfric’s Palm Sunday Homily with the anonymous homily for the same occasion, as well as the corresponding passages in the Wessex Gospels, reveals a good deal about the variety of approaches taken to the translation, adaptation and interpretation of the Gospels in the late Old English period. The various errors and misunderstandings in the anonymous homily, as well as its use of vernacular poetry, provides a window onto the world of popular piety beyond the immediate influence of the Benedictine Reform, in which a priest might produce his own – at times faulty – translation of scriptural passages used in the liturgy in order to meet his own pastoral needs. Indeed, Ælfric set out to compose his two series of Catholic Homilies to correct the mycel gedwyld (‘great error’) contained in such English writings, supplying priests with a set of more accurate scriptural translations supplemented by orthodox interpretations. Equipped with such carefully constructed homilies, English priests should now be able ‘to bark and preach to the unlearned’ (beorcan and bodigan þam læwedum) in precisely the manner recommended by Ælfric and Bishop Wulfsige. In their exegetical approach, the Catholic Homilies anticipate Ælfric’s paraphrases of the first two historical books of the Old Testament, Joshua and Judges, as well as his Treatise on the Old and New Testaments discussed in the next two chapters.