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OLD ENGLISH POETICAL MOTIVES

DERIVED FROM

THE DOCTRINE OF SIN

A DISSERTATION

PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOR
THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR
OF PHILOSOPHY

ig00

BY
C. ABBETMEYER

THE H. W. WILSON COMPANY
MINNEAPOLIS

LEMCKE & BUECHNER
NEW YORK
1903

 

 
OLD ENGLISH POETICAL MOTIVES —

DERIVED FROM |

THE DOCTRINE OF SIN

A DISSERTATION

PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOR
THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR
OF PHILOSOPHY

-1900

BY
C. ABBETMEYER

THE H. W. WILSON COMPANY
MINNEAPOLIS

LEMCKE & BUECHNER
NEW YORK

1903
WN

ENV.
 

TO
PROFESSOR THEODORE BUENGER
Director of

CONCORDIA COLLEGE
SAINT PAUL, MINN.
PREFATORY NOTE

I take pleasure in acknowledging my many obligations to Professor
Frederick Klaeber. He has at all times shown the most kindly interest in
the development of this dissertation. His suggestions and corrections
have been invaluable. Besides placing at my disposal from his own
library books otherwise inaccessible, he has also been instrumental in
obtaining for me other library courtesies and given me his friendly assist-
ance in seeing my booklet through the press.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

INTRODUCTION

Chapter I-THE FALL OF THE ANGELS ; 9
« II_THE FALL OF MAN ; ‘ 21
“  ITI-SATAN, THE FALLEN ARCHANGEL ae:
“© TV-FALLEN MAN. 35
GENERAL. SUMMARY = ; , . . 41

fi www, h.
Paces i
INTRODUCTION.

The hoary enigma of evil, hovering over life like a mysterious
shadow, is a theme of perennial interest. It is well-nigh impossible,
however, to ascertain just how it impressed the Teutonic conquerors
of England. The Norse mythology, with its Loki, its giants, its Baldr-
myth, its sublime vision of Ragnarok, “when Woden shall meet the
wolf”, and its Nastrond punishments for perjurers, murderers, and
adulterers, is, indeed, a magnificent confession of a deep-seated con-
viction of guilt; but, even if it were a record of heathen beliefs
without a trace of Christian influence, it would still be too far removed,
both as to time and place, from the Anglo-Saxons to be used save with
the utmost caution in determining the views of the latter.1 The rem-
nants of the ancient creed imbedded in the language, the laws, the
customs, the literature of the Anglo-Saxons, indicate a belief arrested
in the early stages of development. The dualism of supernatural good
and evil is distinctly marked. Thus to the Beowulf-folk the repre-
sentatives of moral evil appear personified as workers of physical
evil. Superstitious practices were employed to a late date to ward off
baleful influences. Also the beginnings of ethical principles are observ-
able. The utilitarianism of the heathen code appears in the senti-
ments of Ccifi (Bede, H. H. II. 13). In Widsid the only blameworthy
qualities spoken of are faithlessness, niggardliness, and sloth: haughti-
ness seems rather a virtue. The non-Christian ethical concepts of Beo.
are simple and egoistic: Man must offer sacrifices to the gods to ob.ain
their help, 175ff.; if a lord, he must not be niggardly or wrathful
1169f., 1709ff.; if a retainer, he must not be cowardly, 590ff., 2845ff.;
he must not murder his kinsmen, his natural protectors, 107ff., 587ff.,
2166ff., 2742; he should not be a swearer of false oaths, 2736ff., and a
breaker of treaties, 1100, nor practice falsehood and treachery, 1018tf.
Breach of loyalty was, indeed, the unpardonable sin of the Teutonic
ethics.2 The Teutonic mind had, of course, no conception of innate
moral weakness. King Eadwine was reluctant to bow to Christ, be-
cause, proud of his moral integrity, he felt no need of a Redeemer
(Bede, H. E. II. 12). Here, then, we find a predisposition of the
Anglo-Saxon mind to hold in later times to the tenet of free will in
matters theological. The heathen bowed to sovereign Wyrd, but did

18. Bugge, Studien weber die Entstehung der nordischen Goetter-u. Hel-
densagen; K. Muellenhoff, Deutsche Altertumskunde.

*To understand the abhorrence with which this most infamous of vil-
lainies was regarded, see’'Gnom. Exon. 37, 162-4; Beo. 2884ff.; Byrht.; An. 405-
414; Aldhelm’s Letter to Wilfred’s Clergy, H. & S. III. 255; Earle, Land Char-
ters, e. g., p. 44: “Sit sub anathemate Iudae, proditoris domini nostri.”’ A
beautiful instance of loyalty is Eadwine’s refusal to be the first to break the
covenant when apprised of Redwald’s defection, and the high-minded be-
havior of Redwald’s queen in dissuading her husband from a dishonorable
transaction, Bede, H. E. 11:12. Cf. also the duty of redressing injuries by
means of the blood-feud, e. g., Beo. 2020ff.
6

 

not regard it as eternal justice. Wyrd did not determine men to do
right or to do wrong. Sal. 442ff. is clearly a Christian passage, in which
Wyrd is discredited by being identified with Satan.

In reviewing the doctrine of sin as held on the continent prior
to Augustine’s mission to England, we must bear in mind that besides
the simple narratives and statements of Scripture there also passed
current many fanciful views derived from such apocalyptic, apo-
eryphal writings as The Book of Enoch, The Gospel of Nicodemus, The
Celestial Hierarchy of Pseudo-Dionysius. The majority of the Greek
fathers had rather failed to grasp the deep significance of the doc-
trine. It remained for Augustine to “boldly sound the dark abyss of
grace, predestination, free will, and original sin” (Gibbon). In oppo-
sition to Manichaeism (which made evil co-eternal with good and
hence necessary and ineradicable) and in conflict with Pelagianism
(the theory that the individual, unscathed by Adam’s fall, possesses
free choice and the capacity to do good or evil) he became the
apostle of grace. While the Greek Church had represented a syner-
gism of the human will and divine grace, and Pelagius had taught
human monergism, Augustine was the pious exponent of divine
monergism.3

The Synod at Carthage, A. D. 411, excommunicated Coelestius, the
friend of Pelagius. and drew up eight or nine canons against Pelagian-
ism (Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, 11.104ff.) The Church accepted the
Carthage decision. While neither the Council of Nicaea, A. D. 325,
nor that of Constantinople, A. D. 381, had established anything as to
the doctrine of sin, that of Ephesus, A. D. 431, suspended and excom-
municated from church fellowship the bishops that agreed with
Coelestius (canons 1 and 4), and that of Chalcedon, A. D. 451, in-
cluded these acts in its sanction of the canons of all previous coun-
cils (can. 1).. Augustinianism became the adopted belief of the
Church (Acts of the Councils of Orange and Valence, A. D. 529, in
Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, II. 724-740). Soon, however, Pelagianism,
rendered more acceptable in Semi-Pelagianism: by the intermingling of
its beliefs with Augustinian ideas, reasserted itself and quietly held
sway throughout the Middle Ages. While the doctrine was thoroughly
canvassed and determined in the controversies of the early fifth cen-
tury, the fancy of poet and preacher and philosopher eagerly seized
those of its features that most invited imaginative amplification. Both
cleric and laymen brooded over the fall of the angels, the transgression
of the first human pair, the capital vices, the influence of the devil,
Satan’s defeat by Christ and his fearful sufferings in the abyss, the
image of Antichrist, and the like. Thus Prudentius composed a
Hamartigenia and a Psychomachia; Avitus treated De Initio Mundi, De
Originali Peccato, De Sententia Dei; etc., etc. The various streams
of thought met in Gregory the Great (A. D. 590-604), who, not a gréat
original thinker himself, absorbed, without the least compunction, both
the Scriptures and the Apocrypha, Pelagius together with Augustine.
He was the father of the O. E. theology.

Already the early Christians of Britain had taken a noticeable in-
terest in the theological discussions of the continent and, upon the

 

*K. R. Hagenbach, History of Doctrines, I; W. Cunningham, S. Austin
and His Place in the History of Christian Thought. Hulsean Lecture 1885:
Phil. Schaff, ‘“fhe Pelagian Controversy,’’ Bibliotheca Sacra and Theol. Re-
view, May, 1848; Bede, H. E. 1.10. ;

‘Ebert, Lit. des Mittelalters im Abendlande, I.

& a G. J. Th. Lau, Gregor I. der Grosse nach seinem’ Leben and _ seiner
ehre.
wd

 

whole, were held to maintain the orthodoxy of the Western Church.
Yet it was Britain that sent forth Pelagius (Bede, H. £.1.10); Coelestius
was an Irishman (Jerome, Prol. ad. L. 3 in Jerem.). Whatever influ-
ences may have shaped the opinions of Pelagius, his-tenets found will-
ing acceptance among some of the wealthier British laymen, and it
was only by the energetic intervention of the Gallican clergy that the
heresy was finally stamped out (Bede, H. H. 1.17). While the Teutonic
invaders established themselves in the island, the British Church
shrank before their ruthless sword into the western portions cf the
island. At the same time Ireland also was becoming the Isle of Saints
and planting missions in Scotland. In the conversion of the heathen
Anglo-Saxons the Irish-Scottish Church took a prominent part, and its
influence was felt until the day of the Whitby decision, A. D. 664. But
we may safely assume that its hamartiology was above reproach, or
Augustine of Canterbury would have charged the Welsh bishops with
heresy, and Aidan would never have been accepted as a saint by Rome.

The Teuton, however, bowed his head not to these British saints,
but to the.sceptre of Rome. The work of the Italian missionaries con-
sisted in establishing in the island a church subject to the Pope in
matters of doctrine and polity. When Augustine first preached before
Aethelbert, he presented to the heathen mind of the Kentish king the
conception of “this guilty world” and: its salvation (Aelfr. Hom. IL.
128). The subject of men’s sin and guilt would inevitably form one
of the most frequent topics in every discourse to the people. But when
the mission had become an established church and its bishops vegan
to assemble in synods and councils, they were mainly concerned about
its organization, administration, and expansion, and discussed ques-
tions more directly connected with church polity. Hence the island
church has left no original, independent dogmatical definition of the
doctrine of sin. Nor was this necessary, since the doctrine was settled.
All that remained for the church of Olid England to do was to declare
itself part and parcel of ‘the Catholic Church’ by adopting its doctrinal
norms. It is for asserting this identity that the Council at Hatfield,
A. D. 680, is memorable. This council, led by Archbishop Tnecdore,
accepted the decrees of five synods, viz., those of Nicaea, A. D. 325,
Constantinople, A. D. 381, Ephesus, A. D. 431, Chalcedon, A. D. 451,
Constantinople, A. D. 553, and those of the Council of Rome, A. D.
649 (Bede, H. HE. IV. 17, 18; H & S. III. 141ff.; Bright, #. E. Ch. H.
316ff.).. By adopting the canons of Ephesus and Chalcedon the English
Church officially condemned Pelagianism and accepted Augustinian-
ism.

The English Church, predisposed from heathen times to insist on
individual freedom of choice, and falling heir to Gregory’s curious
blending of extremes, remained Semi-Pelagian to the end in spite of its
official Augustinianism. The Venerable Bede, it is true, broke a lance
for the latter view in the introduction to his commentary on the Song
of Songs (Migne 91.1065-1077), where he controverts the opinions of
Julian of Eclanum, who, having been a friend of Augustine, aposta-
tised to Pelagius, and, being a skilful dialectician, first presented the
Pelagian doctrine systematically and attacked Augustine.: Here and
often elsewhere Bede is a good Augustinian; still even he finds room
in his system for the merit of works. “Sicut enim ille qui tentatus
superat, praemia vitae meretur, ita nimirumque qui concupiscentiis
suis illectus a tentatione superatur, merito ruinam mortis incurrit”
(Bede, “Expos. sup. Ep. Cath. Ep. Jacobi, Migne 93.15). Aldhelm’s
view is far more superficial than Bede’s, since he regards sin chiefly
as a wound, a blemish, an infirmity. The entire system of the ‘Reme-
dia Peccatorum’ is, of course, more or less Pelagian. Aethelbald grants
8

 

a privilege to Mercian churches and monasteries “pro redemptioné
animae meae,” “ut eam per bona opera liberam efficerem ab omni vin-
culo delictorum” (H. & S. III. 247; ef Bede, H. E. Ill. 24, 29; IV. 22;
etc.). Hammerich, Aelteste Christliche Epik, p. 110, notices the undue
emphasis laid by Cynewulf and in the Phoenix on works. | Eduard Die-
trich, “Abt Aelfrik. Zur Literatur-Geschichte der angelsdchsischen
Kirche,” Z. f. hist. Theol. 4-Heft 1855, finds that Aelfric does not follow
Augustine altogether (p. 559), e. g., in teaching creationism (Dp. 560);
that moral evil according to Aelfric was not due so much to heredity
as to man’s own choice (p. 561); that Aelfric describes man’s corrup
tion and the moral capacities left him in rather Semi-Pelagian terms
(p. 562); and that he is even less Augustinian in his soteriology (p.
564). If, therefore, Soames, An Inquiry into the Doctrines of the A.-8.
Church. p. 84, says of the Anglo-Saxons: “They firmly maintained
the corruption of the human nature,” this statement is to be taken with
a grain of salt.

Whether, however, the Anglo-Saxons were Augustinians or Pelagi-
ans, it is clear that the doctrine of sin made a profound impression on
their minds. They not merely preached and legislated against it, but
sang about it in their hymns and made it the subject of some of their
most important poems. In the following chapters those Old English
poems will be considered for which portions of the doctrine of sin have
furnished the motives.
CHAPTER I.
THE FALL OF THE ANGELS.

A. A BRIEF OUTLINE OF POPE GREGORY’S DOCTRINE.

Gregory had taught that the devil, impatient of dependence on
God, sinned through pride, and by his arts of persuasion had induced
one-half of all the higher spirits to follow him (Evang. II Hom. 34).
The apostate angels, deprived of their concreated goodness and blessed-
ness and expelled from heaven and the presence of God, can never
hope to obtain forgiveness, because as pure spirits they had not the
weakness of the flesh and fell without teing tempted (Mor. IV. c. 3;
IX. c. 50). The void caused by the expulsion of the rebels is to be
-filled by an equal number of redeemed children of men (Mor. XXX.
c. 49; Evang. Il Hom. 34). It may be observed here that the con-
trast between “pure spirits” and “the weakness of the flesh” is a
thought cccurring also in The Book of Enoch, c. 15 and passim. The
repeated mention in that book of the angels soiling themselves with
“the daughters of men” indicates an ascetic note that despised the
flesh as such. Cyprian, likewise, clearly after “Enoch,” believed that
the fallen angels, “ad terrena contagia devoluti,” taught the arts of
luxury (Migne 4.466).

B. TREATMENT OF THE MOTIVE BY THE ANGLO-SAXON POETS.

This thought-group was well rcunded off when it was presented
to the O. HE. mind. According to the bent or purpose of the writer
it was sometimes described with full and loving breadth of detail,
sometimes concisely stated as a matter of doctrine, and again only
alluded to; it was at all times the stock example to warn men against
pride and its baleful consequences. A single reading of the poetry
left by the Anglo-Saxons shows that the Fall of the Angels was one
of their favorite themes. I give a preliminary list of the pcems to
be examined:

1. Gen. A. 12-77, 78-186.

2. Gen. B 246-337, 338-353, 733-750.

3. Aldhelm, De Lucifero, ed. Giles, p. 248; De Laudibus Virginum,
ib., p. 211.

4. Crist and Satan (Sat.).

5. Gudlac (Gu.) 529-656.

6. Bi Manna Mode (Mod.) 57-67.

7. Andreas (An.) 1185-1194, 1376-1385.

8. Cynewulf: EI. 759-771, 939-952; Jul. 418-429.

9. Prayer IV. 54-57.

0. Sal. and Sat. (Sal.) 442-474.
10

 

In the following sections I shall present:

I. Critical notes on Sat.; :
II. A comparative study of the “Fall” poems as to contents,
III. A classification of the same into groups.

I. CRITICAL NOTES ON SAT.

Critics appear to agree in regarding the Sat. poems, in their pres
ent condition, as a compilation from previously existing material. Sat.
366-664 is an amplification of the second half of the second Article of
the Creed. It was only natural to conjecture that this was perhaps 4
fragment of an exposition of the whole second Article. Hence Gros-
chopp (Anglia 6.248) assumes an original “Heiland” or life of Christ,
and would fain ascribe this to Caedmon. He bases his plea for the
original unity of Sat. on the assumption of a clumsy restorer, and
fortifies it by a rearrangement of the matter. But Gr.’s mode of pro-
cedure is too arbitrary, and most of his conclusions are untenable.
Thus, e. g., by assigning lines 20-33 to his restorer, he ignores the fact,
demonstrated below, that these very lines show numerous correspond-
ences to other sections of Sat., to Gu., to Jud., etc., and thus evidently
belong to the oldest redactions of the poem. His rearrangement is no
more felicitous than are his excisions. For the Lord’s ‘ante mortem’
life Gr.’s theory rests on nothing save the story of the temptation
(Sat. 665 ff.) and a few lines on Judas (Sat. 574-579), surely a frail
enough support. That the story of Judas, however, is not a misplaced
remnant of a biography of Christ, but always stood where it now
stands, is almost certain from the fact that it was derived from Acts
1.16ff., where, as in the poem, it immediately follows the account of
the Ascension. The fragmentary homily on the temptation, more-
over, evidently was not placed in our manuscript because it treated
cf Christ, but because it described some of the sufferings of Satan;
for these form the real subject of the Sat. poems. Gr. correctly as-
signs Sat. 1-365 to the Lord’s “post mortem” life, and hence he wouid
willy-nilly sandwich the speeches and exhortations found there between
the various sections of Sat. 366-664. Now it will be observed that in
Sat. 366-664 Christ’s descent into hell (366-379-516) receives much
broader treatment than the other items (i. e., the resurrection, as-
cension, sitting at the right hand of God, return to judge the quick
and the dead); and that by bunching around it the bulk of Sat. 1-365
the already disproportionate preponderance of the descensus theme is
only accentuated. Gr.’s ‘“Heiland’” would thus treat chiefly of the
devil. It seems clear, then, that Sat. consists of a collection of pcems
describing mainly the sufferings of Satan after the descent of Christ.

Confining our attention, for the present, to Sat. 1-365, we observe
that this part consists of three sections, ending respectively at lines
224, 315, 365, each with an exhortation. These sections seem to Brooke
(History of Early English Literature, pp. 326 ff.) “like three lyrical
poems sung at different times to the same theme, and placed in the
manuscript one after the other.”

The claim of the first of these songs, viz., Sat. 1-224, to be con-
sidered a distinct poem, can be substantiated. A poem on the same

1It may be noted that Brooke speaks of ‘‘the first three parts of the first
poem,’’ whereas he counts only three parts in all; that he calls the exhorta-
tions at the end of these parts “hymns of praise’; and that he yields too
much to Groschopp’s theory of ‘‘a general paraphrase of the history of re-
demption.”’
11

 

subject is interwoven in the narrative of Gu., which contains so many
correspondences to Sat. 1-224 as to be, if not the same poem, at least
a very similar variant.

Gu. 22, 246f., 578f., etc.: Creation. .
534; paet atule hus............

Sat. 1-20: Creation.
“ 26: paet atole scref; cf. 73,129.

“

535: niper under naessas neole
STUNGAS. «sic csciack casees ses
554-7: Nu pu in helle scealt
deope gedufan, nales dryhtnes
leoht habban in heofonum,
heahgetimbru, seld on swegle.

569f.: se eow gehynde and in
haeft bidraf under nearone
clom.

6302684 days picgsitds tow Geayeiag sweet

635-9: Wendun ge and woldun
wiperhycgende, paet ge scyp-
pende scedldan gelice wesan
in wuldre: eow baer wyrs ge-
lomp, da eow se waldend
wrade bisencte in  paet
swearte susl, baer eow siddan
waes etc.

“

31: nidaer under nessas in done
neowlan grund. cf. 91, 135.
28-30 rales swegles leoht hab-
ban in heofnum heahgetim-
brad, ac gedufan sceoldun in
done deopan waelm.

190-3, 201f.

68-70.

22-7: duhte him on mode, paet
hit mihte swa, paet hie weron
seolfe swegles brytan, wul-
dres waldend. Him paes wirs
gelamp, da heo in helle ham
stadeledon an aefter odrum,
in paet atole scref, paer heo
brynewelme bidan sceolden.

644: brynewylm haebben...... “«« 27: brynewelme bidan.
640: ad inaeled attre geblonden “ 40: attre onaeled.
« 129: attre geblonden.
641: dream afyrred........... “ 67-8: Crist heo afirde, dreamum
bedelde.

“ 753-790: The admonition...... “194-224: The admonition.

In connection with this secticn, Groschopp says, Anglia 6.252: “Die
eigentliche verurteilung scheint nach der jetzigen fassung von Cr.-St.
erst v. 190 stattgefunden zu haben. An gleicher stelle heisst es, dass
der teufel mit seinen jiingern (gingran!) in die hdlle einzog; aus den
versen 34, 102 u. a. aber wissen wir, dass sie langst dort weilten.”
But the whole matter is righted if we place lines 190-193 after line 33.
The scribe had evidently overlooked them, and then inserted them
later. In line 20, Gr. finds his restorer unwittingly guilty of false
doctrine; but, as Prof. Bright has shown, Mod. Lang. Notes, 18.129,
aerest is there predicated of both men and angels. Lines 40-42 (Nis nu
ende feor) Gr. transfers to the descensus section in Sat. 366-664, per-
haps correctly. They might, however, also be a late addition alluding
to the nearness of Judgment Day.

After we have thus disengaged lines 1-224 from Sat. 1-365, the gen-
eral similarity of subject matter and treatment as well as the hortatory
endings lead us to posit in the remaining lines two other similar
poems, viz., lines 225-315, 316-365.

From Sat. 1-224 I also detach lines 75-189. This section consists of
three monologues, a) 75-125, b) 126-159, c) 160-189. These are alike
in being spoken by the same fire-breathing (spearcade, Sat. 78: 128;
162) demon; alike, of course, also as to contents, and very similar in
phrase. They are variants of the same theme. Perhaps Sat. 75-125
was the first to be made after Sat. 1-74, 190-224; then it in turn pro-
duced Sat. 126-159 and Sat. 160-189. Verbal correspondences show the
dependence of this set on Sat. 1-74, 190-224: cf. 22-24, 84-87, 173-5;
—26, 125, 141, 175; —26, 129; —31, 91, 185; —-28, 115ff., 138ff., 18ff.
12

 

The three monologues are also very closely related to one another:
cf. 78, 128f., 162; —81.83, 151-156, 164-172; —84-7, 173-5, 187; —91,135;
—91, 180; —93-6, 166f.; —138-140, 169-171; —100-102. 136f. These
three monologues must obviously be taken out cf Sat. 1-224. When
this is done, the latter poem shows only the crdinary amount of varia-
tion and agrees well with Sat. 225-315, Sat. 316-365, and Gu. 529-656.

The next question is, what are we to do with Sat. 366-6642 Taken
as a whole, it may be regarded as a parallel to the three longest poems
of Sat. 1-365. Lines 444-456 seem to be a variant of the monologues
contained in lines 75-189, as appears from the following correspond-
ences:

444: wites clommas ............. 103: wites clom.
454: wites clom ................ 103: wites clom.
445: feondum odfaested ........ 104: feste gebunden. ;
446: in paet neowle genip........ 102: in dissum neowlan genipe.
448f.: earm aglaeca and pa atolan 161f.: atol aeglaeca ut of helle,

mid him, witum werige. witum werig, cf. 51, 73.
449f.: nalles wuldres  leoht 28ff.

habban moton, ah in helle

grund.
ANDO Bie 5 itis a, ait eae ae aah nSID lin re re 30, 48ff., 115ff., 137; Gu. 605-8.
455: dimne and deorene......... 105: dimme and deorce.

The intrcductior to the description of Christ’s descensus, lines
866-379, contains echoes of Gen. A:

Sat. 369: wrohte ............... Gen. 83: wroht.
“370: paet he oferhyda agan “29: oferhygd.

WOIDE. sae es dans ead ee bee “34: agan wolde. :
“372: on heofonum hehseld... “33: heahsetl heofena rices.
“ 373: ealdor heora ...... peebee “20: heora aldor.

“ 374: yfeles ordfruma ....... “13: heora ordfruman.
“ 374: him paet eft gehreaw... “29: Him paer sar gelamp.

“49: him seo wen geleah.

It would seem that Sat. 366-664 did not originally beleng to the
same cycle as the other Sat. poems. It may have been a brief treatise
on Christ’s state of exaltation, or a fragment of an exposition of the
second article, or even of the whole Creed. In this original draft the
descensus section was presumably of the same length as the other parts.
In the course of time this topic received numerous amplifications from
various sources, ameng others, as has been shown, from Gen. A and
Sat. 1-365. When once this theme predominated, the remaining sec-
tions would be regarded as in a way, an exhortation, and thus the whcle
poem, Sat. 366-664, was embodied in our manuscript as a parallel or
variant of Sat. 1-224, 225-315, 316-365.

Sat. 665-733, fina'ly, is a homily on the temptation of Christ, em-
phasizing especially the sufferings of the devil; the closing lines seem
to be the beginning of another plaint of the demons.

Sat. consists, then of the following poems: 1) Hi. 1-33, 190-193,
34-74, 194-224; 2) I. 225-315; 3) 11. 316-365; 4) ll. 75-125; 5) ll. 126-159;
6) ll. 160-189; 7) Il. 366-664; 8) 11. 665-733.

To conclude with Groschopp, Anglia 6.263: ‘Die dichtungsart war,
nach den resten zu schliessen, die der hymne mit vorwiegend didak-
tischer tendenz. Die ermahnungen machen ganz den eindruck, als
wenn sie vor einer menge vorgetragen worden wiren.”
13

IT. COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE CONTENTS.
1. Pristine Bliss in Heaven.

Gen. A begins with a hymn of praise to the Almighty, which is
gradually keyed down to a description of the felicity of the angels,
1-12-21, and still further to that of their fall. Sat. 1-21 seems to be
a variant of this. In other poems the description takes the form of
reminiscences of heavenly glory by the fallen angel, e. g., Sat. 233-246;
328-330, 349-355; 81-83. 93-95, 107, 121-128, 138-148, 150-156; 164-172.
In Sat. 245f., the devil dcscribes men as being in heaven with him,
whereas men were not created until after the fall of the angels and
were not permitted to reach heaven until after Christ’s descensus.
The matter is clear if we assume that it is the descensus devil who is
speaking and embracing in one rueful look conditions past and pres-
ent. To some extent these descriptions of heavenly glory, esp. Ge. A
1ff. may also rest on some Communion Preface, even as Cri. 385-415,
El. 725-753, An. 863-891 seem to be based on such prefaces, in which
the saints are pictured as being in heaven with the angels praising
Ged.

2. The rebel leader and his following.

The ten orders ct heavenly beings are found in Tre Book of
Enoch, c. 6, 7, also in The Book of the Secrets of Enoch, c. 20-21.
Gregory, commenting on Luke 15.8ff., enumerates nine angel choirs
(Lib. II. Hom. 34; Migne II. 1249). Of the devil he says, ib.: “Hecé
novem dixit [Ezechiel] nomina lapidum, quia profecto novem sunt
ordines angelcrum. Quibus nimirum ordinibus ille primus angelus
ideo ornatus est et opertus exstitit, quia dum cunctis agminibus an-
gelorum praelatus est, ex eorum comparatione clarior fuit.” With
this passage we may compare Aldhelm, 7. c., p. 211: “Jamque novem
lapidum forma phaleratus amoena, contra Creatorem frustra turges-
cere coepit.” This prince of angels, again, grew into the tenth choir
when he had gathered about himself the host of his loyal ‘adherents
from the ranks of the other choirs. In Sat. 366, Lucifer alone is catied
paet engelcyn. While according to Sal. 454 the presumptuous angel
rebelled with the tenth part, Gen. B 246-248 says that God ‘created
ten engelcynna.

Gregory had said that one-half of all the angels fell; Aldheim,
from Rev..12.4 one-third; Sal. 454, only one-tenth. Throughout the
poems the impression is that it was a vaSt Multitude (cf. Mark. 5.9;
Luke 8.30). Witness such expressions as werod, Gen. 67; strange
geneatas, Gen. 284; peos menego, Sat. 262; folca maest, Gen. 747;
helwarena heap, Cri. 731, ete.

It is of course only natural that in conformity with the Germanic
conception the leader is the liegelord and the other angels are his
vassals.2

3. Pride is the chief incentive of Lucifer’s rebellion. ie
Passages of Scripture furnished the idea, e. g. 1 Tim. 3.6; Luke
10.13; Jude 6; Ecclus. 10.14. This was the common teaching of the
Fathers. Bede, e. g., speaks of the devil’s pride, “qua se contra Deum
erigit et esse vult similis Altissimo” (in Marc. XI, Migne 92.248).

 

2Cf. Ferrell, Teutonic Antiquities in the Anglo-Saxon Genesis, p. 17f£.;
Price, Teutonic Antiquities in the generally acknowledged Cynewulfian Poe-
try, p. 26.
14

 

Envy is, indeed, mentioned as the motive together with pride, aefst,
Gen. 29; nip, Gen. 32; also greed seems implied in gracdige and gifré.
Sat. 32, 192. But ordinarily it is oferhygd, Gen. 22, 29, 328; Sat. 50;
Gu. 606; Jul. 424; Mod. 58; gielp, Gen. 25; Gu. 633f.; anmedla, Sat.
74; mod, Gen. 29, 538; baelc. Gen. 54; galscipe Gen. 341; ofermetto,
Gen. 332. Satan is ofermod, Gen. 262; Sal. 450; cf. Gen. 272; oferhydig.
Gen. 66; Pray. IV.55; se fraetga, Jul. 284.

The primal beauty and power of the rebel leader are dwelt on not
without psychological insight, inasmuch as from his glory and power
was engendered pride, presumption, and scorn of service, Sat. 59, 251;
Gen. 259-291. The moral change from humility to pride wrought a
change in his intellectual condition; he fell into megalomania. De-
ceived by his glory, he imagines himself to be like God, Gu. 636; de
siring to’ be like Him, he deems it possible to be God, Sat. 22f.; Gen.
283. The thought was no doubt derived from Gen. 3.5. He despises
God’s power, Gen. 25f.; Gu. 603; Sat. 252; Pray. IV.54f; Mod. 61; he
regards the Lord’s power as idel gylp, Sat. 254; hence his gylpword,
Gen. 264, 278-291, 47f.. He tells his followers that he is the creator
himseif, Sat. 55f.: 124; and that God is (merely) his son (or subject),
Sat. 63f. But all this was error and folly, Gen. 23, 46-49; 295, 340; and
hence the angels upbraid their leader with lying, Sat. 53f.

Ten Brink (Gesch. d. Engl. Lit. I, p. 103), and Groschopp (Anglia
6.252f.) and Brooke (1. c., p. 328) after him, speak of the devil’s son
es a counterpart to Christ in being meotod moncynnes, Sat. 631. 1
regard this interpretation as too fanciful. If the devil like God had
only one son, this comparison would have point; but it is clear from
Jul. 312, 325ff. (cf. An. 1828) that he has many sons. Were compari-
son with Christ intended, then in 1.63 din very probably would re-
ceive the principal stress, which from the alliteration is .mpossible.
According to this view the devil contradicts himself, for, Sat. 55ff.,
he has called himself God. Not a parallel passage has been adduced to
illustrate the méaning here proposed. Everywhere else the devil is
the feond moncynnes, while the meotod moncynnes is God. I con-
strue the clause pbaet—moncynnes, Sat. 63f., a3 a simple inversion
and interpret: Daet meotod moncynnes din sunu waere. This removes
the contradiction and explains the emphasis on sunu. We are per-
mitted to take sunw here in the sense of “subject,” Degn, since the
devil’s children or followers are otherwise called his Degnas, An. 43;
Sal. 117; and the devil himself is called both their faeder. Jul. 321,
522, and their frea, Jul. 328. Here, then, the devil, instead of voic-
ing so fantastic a notion, simply utters one of his gielp words and
declares that the meotod moncynnes is his subject.

4. The rebellion.

In some of the poems the rebellion is against God, e. g., Gen. A:
Gen. B; Sal. 449ff.; Mod. 57ff. In these poems, on the contrary, in
which the devil is represented as lamenting or as being upbraided
with his sin, the rebellion is against Christ, the Son of God, Sat.
10, 67, 195, 217; 243, 289; 346; 86, 119; 143, 153; 173; Pray. IV.54f.
Gu. 570 seems to have the same view, Jul. 420 certainly has. The
reason obviously is that the situation thought of in these poems is
that after the descencus. An. 1185ff.; 1376ff.; El. 759-771, 939-952 are
doubtful.

The general aim of the conspiracy is the same in all the poems,
viz., to dethrone and dispossess God and Christ, and to occupy the
whole or a part of His kingdom: Sat. 23, 55, 56, 59, 60; 85-87, 124; 173f.,
187; 257; 346£.; Mod. 62-65; Gen A 25-28, 32-34, 47-48; Gen. B 272-276;
15

Sal. 452f. The rebe] angels aim to raise up their own throne in the
North, “ex Aquilone,” Aldhelm, 1. c., 211; on norddaele, Gen. A. 32; west
and nord, Gen. B 275; cf. Gen. B 667. : This may be the blending of
similar ecclesiastical and heathen conceptions. According to Grimm,
Christians prayed looking to the East; the heathen facing the North
(D. M. 1.30; R. A. 808). It had been Gregory’s beliet (Mor. XVI. c.
24), drawn from Isa. 14.13, that the devil and his angels had inherited
the North as their special quarter. Bouterwek (Caedmon's des An-
gelsachsen biblische Dichtungen, p. 291) points out “dass auch in den
Propheten des alten Bundes ‘Land des Nordens’ allgemeiner Name fir
alle diejenigen ist, welche Israel in der Fremde Ungliick brachten, S.
Sacharja 2.6; Hes. 1.4.” The North is the abode of the wicked also
in The Book of the Secrets of Enoch, c. 10, the “Enoch” literature be-
ing the great reservoir of apocryphal notions. The thought of the
“North” has lived through the Miracle Play, and even Shakespeare, 1
Henry VI.5.iii, calls the devil “the lordly monarch of the norta.”

The rebellion in heaven is regarded as disloyalty, the breaking
of the fealty relation, Gen. 246ff.; ete.; El. 766f.: He pinum widsoc
aldordome.3

5. The encounter.

In Sat. 67,195ff.; Gu. 570; Jul. 421 Christ expels the apostate host,
in the other pcems God does. Terms of war cluster around the ex-
pulsion: Gen. 45-6, 49-64, 77, 85; 303, 312, 323, ete.; Sat. 232, 261, 282,
323, 347; Gu. 569; 622; Mod. 59; 65f.; An. 1386; Sal. 452. A tacen and
the curse are mentioned Sat. 89. The only passages that approach a
somewhat vivid description of a battle are Mod. 57-66 and Gen. A
34, 45-72. In the latter we see God in His wrath lifting up His hand
against the grim host, shearing them of power and hurling them into
the pit.—Michael, accordingly, is not as yet at the head of the angels
to battle with the dragon (Rev. 12.7ff; cf. Cursor Mundi, ll. 469ff.)

6. The punishment.

The rebel angel and his host are condemned. This is brought
out in epithets like awierged, An. 1299; Cri. 158; Gu. 226, 883; Jul.
617; se awyrgda, Whale 67; Sat. 316, 416, 676, 691, 699; se awyrgda
wulf, Cri. 256; se awyrgda gaest, Cri. 1690; faege gaestas, Cri. 1534;
fan, An. 1705; El. 768, 924.

Lucifer is since called Satan: Gen. 345; Sat. 371; An. 1193; ail are
changed into devils, Gen. 305, 309. “Factus est diabolus,” says Bede
(John 8, Migne 92.752), “de archangelo in diabolum est versus” (I
John 3, Migne 92.101), “in abyssi profunda sunt rapti” (2 Pet. 2, Migne
93.75). The fallen angels are now exiles: wraecea, Jul. 351; Gen. 39;
wraecnmaecg, Gu. 100, 292, 234, 536; Jul. 2603 Cri. 368. This touch
may be derived from Gen. 4.11, where Cain is made “a fugitive and a
vagabond in the earth.” Cf. Sat. 112f.; 120f., 188, 262-272; Gu. 176-196.

God had also created hell and filled it with punishments, Gen.
34-45, 318; Jul. 422; Gu. 649f.; Sal. 466. The moribund thecry that
the Anglo-Saxon hell is strongly “redolent of.heathenism,” since it
contains both fire and-extreme cold, serpents, etc., is still repeated
by Brincker (Germanische Aliertimer in dem ags. Gedichte “Judith.”
p. 11f.). The Enochic literature, however, is evidence that the -he'l

,

 

2 See Ferrell, 1. c., pp. 16ff.
16

 

of the Anglo-Saxons is redolent rather of Oriental influences.t This
is also the view of Becker's suggestive study (The Medieval Visions
of Heaven and Hell, pp. 11, 159). But when Becker (J. c., p. 60) dis-
covered, in the collocation of heat and cold in Gen. B 313ff., another
(quite superfluous) proof of Sievers’s “interpolation” theory and the
later date of Gen. B, he overlooked Gen. A. 43, where also both heat
and cold are mentioned. It appears, too, that Becker did not become
aware of a difference between Gen. A, on the one hand, and the Sat.
poems, Cynewulf. and Gen. B, on the other, a difference that Ferreli
(1. e. 21-25) and Price (J. c. 29-32) likewise failed to observe, that,
namely, in Gen. A the devil is net bound, while in the other poems
he is. The fetters in the latter poems, which, with the exception of
Gen. B, together with their derivatives emphasize the sufferings of
the devil, are explained by the belief that Christ bound Satan in His
descensus (cf. Jude 6; 2 Pet. 2.4; Rev. 20.1ff.).

7. Man in the place of the fallen angels.

Then was peace in heaven Gen. 78-83; but the heavenly seats
were vacant, 89, to be filled with a better people, 92-96; so God created
the earth and man, 103-168-186. In Sat. the devil laments the fact
that men now occupy the place of angels near the Son of God, 143-5,
and men are urged to seek heaven.

III. CLASSIFICATION INTO GROUEFS.

Both as to contents and form our poems fall into two chief groups,
the epical and the semi-dramatic.

I. Epical Group:

The oldest of these is prebably Gen. A by reason of its simplicity.
There is a rebel leader, but he is littie individualized, and almost lost
in the multitude. The encounter is portrayed most vividly in this
poem. The rebelion is not against Christ but against God. Hell is
dark, cold, and hot, but has neither fetters nor serpents. It thus
clearly differentiates itself from the descensus poems. Lines 366-379
of Sat., however, are based on Gen. A.

Mod. 57-67 is short, epical, individual. Though treating the same
subject as Gen. A. it has no real verbal correspondences. It men-
ticns no rebel leader, no hell.

Gen. B is, of course, the most highly developed of this group.
The devil has borrowed only his fetters from the descensus litera-
ture; for the rest he is a strong, majestic, idealized being.

2. Semi-dramatic Group, or Plaints of Lucifer.

It is characteristic of this group that the glory, pride, rebellion,
and expulsion of the apostate angels are touched but lightly. while
the torments and the utter hopelessness of hell form the constant
theme. The enormity of ‘Lucifer’s crime could be adequately punished
only in an eternity of woe. He can not repent or be forgiven. Man’s
sin is curable, Satan’s is not; because Satan originated sin, and man
was deceived (Interr. Sigew. 60.31f.).

It is peculiar to these poems that they do not describe the con-
dition of the angels immediately after their fall, but that after Christ’s
descent into hell. Not only is the devil represented as bound (Sat.
49; 324; 103; 157f.; 444; Gu. 570; An. 1192; 1378; El. 770-1; Cri. 562,

4Cf. Sandras, De Carminibus Anglo-Saxonicis Caedmoni Adjudicatis Dis-
quisitio, p. 51.
17

 

1539) and his followers as having permission to rove about (Sat.
262-272; Gu. 176-196; cf. Jul. 325ff.; El. 899; An. 1168); but the devil
deplores the fact that men are now in heaven (Sat. 46ff.; 143ff.). In
this cycle, too, the rebellion is quite uniformly conceived as being di-
rected chiefly against the Son of God.

The story is mostly told in dialogue or monologue, and the didac-
tic purpose, while not wanting in the other group (Gen.°B 297-299;
Mod.), is yet far more pronounced here.
' These poems form a special department in Old English litera-
ture, and I call them the Plaints of Lucifer.

The following poems belong to this group:

1. Plaints:
1. Aldhelm’s De Lucifero and De Laudibus Virginum.
2. Sat. 1-33, 190-193, 34-74, 194-224;

3. “ 225-315;
4. “ 316-365;
5. “ 366-664;
6. “ 665-733;
7. “75-125;
8. “ 126-159;
9. “ 160-189;
10. Gu. 529-656.

2. Incidental allusions to the Fall in the manner of the Plaints:
1. An. 1185-1194, 13876-1385;
2. El. 759-771, 939-952:
3. Cri. 558ff.; cf. 1520ff.;
4. Jul. 418-424;
5. Prayer IV.54-57.

The earliest poems in the vein of the Plaints seem to be those otf
Aldhelm. He has a riddle De Lucifero, 1. c., p. 267, in which Lucifer
says: <
“O felix olim servata lege Tonantis!

Heu post hoc cecidi proterva mente superbus,
Ulitio quapropter funestum perculit hostem.”

His description of the Fall of the Angels (De Laudibus Virginum, ib.,
p. 211) is also informed with the “plaint” spirit. The highest angel
had been the prince of the angels, Lucifer, the day-star of heaven.
He was adorned with the delightful beauty of nine precious’ stones,
i. e. the angel hosts. (The stones were also sometimes fancied to be
set in the crown of Lucifer.5) But in his black heart he revolved a
terrible crime, since he began to be puffed up against his Creator and
in his audacity desired to raise up his own tribunal in the North
(“ex Aquilone’’), deceiving himself into the belief that he was like
God and could equal Him with his own powers. With his venom he
corrupted the battalions of heaven. The rebellion of Lucifer and the
other proud heaven-dwellers is unsuccessful, and they now, having
fallen headlong, fill black hell (%b.. p. 211). Together with his so-
dality of parasites and apostate satellites he is deprived of happy
heavenly companionships and contemplation of God and hurled into
the abyss (De Laude Virginitatis, ib., p. 10f.). A third portion of the
stars has deserted the clime of heaven, only two hosts of bright con-

5Cf. Max Dreyer, Der Teufel in der deutschen Dichtung des Mittelal-
ters, p. 7.
18

 

stellations remain above (De Laudibus Virginum, ib., p. 211; the early
chapters of Yhe Book of Enoch [ed. Lods, and Charles] repeatedly
speak of the fallen stars). :

Next comes the poem of which the Gu. A insertion and the firet
Sat. poem (Sat. 1-33, 190-193, 34-74, 194-224) are redactions. The cor
respondences are from compact sections in the latter poem, while in
Gu. A they are scattered over many lines; hence the first Sat. poem
should be the older text. It was no doubt often recited and probabiy
much varied, still the correspondences show that it retained some of
its oldest features. esp. 11.20-38. Gu. A dates itself approximately ;
in 11.724ff. the poet says:

Hwaet! we pissa wundra gewitan sindon:
eall pas geeodon in ussera

tida timan; forpon paes tweogan ne pearf
aenig.

If, then, Gu. A was written shortly after the death of the saint. one
took place A. D. 714, the first Sat. poem must be earlier. It contains
quite a number of correspondences to the “Fall” section in Gen. A.

Sat. 21: engla ordfruma ........ Gen. 13: heora ordfruman.
“ 22-24: duhte him on mode, “48: swa eade meahtan.
paet hit mihte swa, paet hie “ 49: waldend. . ;
weron seolfe swegles bry- “  95f.: Haefdon gielp micel,
tan, wuldres waldend. Him paet hie wid drihtne daelan
paes wirs gelamp. meahton wuldorfaestan wic

werodes prymme, sid and
swegltorht. Him paer sar
gelamp.
25: ‘AtOlE SCGTEf 2 cee cae eenes “  wraeclicne ham.
« 39: witehus.
“« 144: raedlease hof.
91: hearmlocan.

“ 28: saran sorge ............. “75: sar and sorge.

“ 30f.: ac gedufan sceoldan in “ 90f.: siddan wraecstowe wer-
done deopan waelm, nidaer ige gastas under hearmlo-
undaer nessas in done can heane geforan.

neowlan grund.
37: pis is deostrae ham dearle “76: pystrum bepeahte pearl

gebunden. aefterlean.
“41: susel prowian .......... “75: susl prowedon.
“ 42: wean and wergung (Gr.) “94: werige wunodon and

wean cudon.

Some of the correspondences are striking and can hardly have been
fortuitous. I assume, therefore, that the Gen. A hymn was very gen-
erally known and recited when the first Sat. poem was composed, the
latter, as it were. growing out of the former. The date of the. first
Plaint may thus be about A. D. 700. I am inclined to ascribe it to
Aldhelm, who handled the “Fall” theme in Latin hexameters. wrote a
Latin Plaint cf Lucifer, and was thoroughly imbued with the spirit
of the national poetry.

The sorrows of Satan were manifestly a useful subject for monk
‘and priest and missionary, while they were not uninviting to the mere
entertainer. The original Plaint would be repeatedly rehearsed, varied,
expanded, abbreviated; as occasion demanded, it would be recited by
itself (Sat. 75-125. 126-159, 160-189), made the basis of pious exhoria-
19

 

tion (Sat. 1-224, 225-315, 316-365), used to set off the descensus story
(Sat. 444-456), or woven into other poems (Gu... An. El, Cri., Jul.,
Tud.). As a result, numerous variants of the old Plaint arose. On
this supposition we can explain the Sat. poems as applying the prin-
ciple of variation on a grand scale (cf. ten Brink, 1. c.. 1.102). If ten
Brink (iv. 103) thinks that an early age could not have spoken as do
these poems, it suffices to refer to so early a Plaint as Aldhelm’s
De Lucifero, and to ask how the late age that produced Gen. B could
speak as do these poems. Moreover. while Cynewulf: gives the Fall
of the Angels only a passing notice, he is deeply impressed with the
stock ideas of the Plaints. His devil is that of the Plaints, and so is
his hell. It will suffice to compare EI. 759-771 with Gu. A 603-608,
638-652 and the Plaints. Cynewulf’s sio werge sceclu, £1. 762 is the
scyldigra scolu, Gu. 175, the earm sceada in fyrlocan feste gebunden,
Sat. 57f., the gnornende cynn, Sat. 134. Fah. El. 763 reminds of Sat.
97; heolstorhofu, El. 763 of Sat. 101; in dracan faedme. El. 765 of aet
helle duru dracan eardigad, Sat. 98. Cf. El. 942 with Sat. 91; El.
946-7 with Sat. 68f.; wergdu, El. 951 with Sat. 89; widerhycgende, El.
951 with Gu. 635; bescufed. El. 942 with Gu. 605, 647; Sat. 445; in pam
bystram ham, Jul. 683 with pis is deostrae ham, Sat. 38: to dissum
dimman ham, Sat. 111} pam neolan scraefe, Jui. 684 with paet atole
scraef, Sat. 26, 73, 129; in pis neowie genip, Sat. 180, cf, 446, 102.—An.
1185-1194 shows correspondences to the descensus Plaints. especially to
Sat. 75-124. Hart du fag wid god, An. 1188; ic eom fah wid god, Sat.
97;—heolstor. An. 1191; @ces heolstres, Sat. 101.—clamme. An. 1192;
wites clom, Sat. 103;—Satan. An. 1198; Satanus, Sat. 371, ete—Jud.
112-121 is also manifestly built up out of the Plaints.

The great number of Plaints preserved in Sat. attests the favor
in which they continued to be held. The idea of the fettered devil in
Gen. B probably arose independently of the Plaints; but the short
narrative of the fall of the angels, Gen. 736-750, seems to show their
influence: cf. on heofonrice heahgetimbro, Gen. 739; in heofonum
heahgetimbrad, Sat. 29; hnigan mid heafdum halgum drihtne, Gen. 237,
742; to paem aepelan hnigan him sanctas, Sat. 240. Sal. 449-474 de-
scribes hell in the manner of the Plaints and would seem to be based on
these and on Gen. B.

In conclusion, I venture the suggestion that in Sat. 1-365 we may
have a collection and arrangement of Plaints made for the purpose of
dramatie recitation. A priest probably recited the introduction and
exhortations, some other ecclesiastic or some layman might take the
role of Satan, and a choir the parts cf Satan’s followers. Practically
the same material later makes up some of the Miracle Plays.

C. PERSISTENCE OF THE MOTIVE.

The theme of the Fall of the Angels can be traced to the very
dawn of the Elizabethan age. The two currents we have observed, viz.,
the epical narratives and the plaints of woebegone Lucifer, in the
course of time form one stream, which is not very materially modified
by later affluents. Aelfric, indeed, in his treatment of the subjects
seems to follow the Gen. poems;7 yet when speaking of the devil, he
also makes abundant use of the language of the Plaints. The Wulf-
stan homilies combine the epical type and the plaint type of the “Fall”

 

De Vet. Test., ed. Grein, p. 2; Hexaemeron, ed. Nort » §§ 4 s ;
Hom. [:10f., 31, 173. 3422. 540. RESO nan eRe T ene

7™Cf. Hammerich. 1. c., 43 note.
20

 

story, pp. 8, 145. The Cursor Mundi s has a very circumstantial ac-
count of the Fall of Lucifer and his fellows. It seems almost certain
that the author knew Gen. B; but he also speaks of the fallen angels
as being condemned to dwell, some in earth, some in air, bearing great
torment, 491ff., and introduces the new feature that it is Michael who
rises to fight against the rebel and casts him out, 469ff. According to
the Cursor, the distance Satan. fell is, as “bede sais,” 7700 years at 40
miles a day, 507ff. Turning to the religious drama, we find in the
York Mystery Plays, edited by Miss Lucy Toulmin Smith, the Barkers’
Play of “The Creation; and the Fall of Lucifer.’ In the first scene,
Lucifer, being very glorious, grows proud, and immediately sinks into
the abyss; the second scene presents the devil’s “plaints” in hell; and
in the third scene, God creates man to take the place left vacant by
the apostate angels. To mention only one more instance, we find Sir
David Lindsay handling our motive in lines 865ff. of “The Monarchie;’
Lucifer, growing proud of his glory, would set his seat into the North
and incurs God’s ire. Many fall with him, of whom some are in hell,
some in the sea, some in the earth, some in the air.

814.c., ed. Morris. ll. 411-510.
CHAPTER II.
THE FALL OF MAN.

A. A BRIEF OUTLINE OF POPE GREGORY’S DOCTRINE.

Gregory adopted the literal interpretation of the Genesis account
(Mor. XXXII). Moved by envy (Mor. XXX. c. I), the devil, by the
lying tongue of the serpent, sought to deprive man of his immortaiity
(Mor. IV. c. 9). He tempted our first parents to “gula,” “vana gloria,’
“avaritia” (Evang. I. Hom. 16): In the act of sinning Gregory dis-
tinguished “suggestio,’”’ “delectatio,” “consensus,” “defensionis audacia”
(Mor. IV. c. 27). Thus sin arose from Satan’s deception (Mor. XXXIII.
ce. 25). Yet Adam’s sin was voluntary, for he possessed the “liberum
arbitrium” (for. III. c. 14; XVII. c. 30), and yet consented to pride
(Mor. XIX. c. 1, 8; XXIX.c. 8; VIil. ¢. 32). Still man’s fall was not so
grievous as that of the angels, inasmuch as he was tempted.

Bede also has very much to say concerning the fall of man. Man’s
body was created out of the dust of the ground, but his soul ‘de nihilo,”
both on the sixth day of the world (De Rerum Natura, c. 2), “decima
Kalendarum Aprilium die” (De Temp. Rat., c. 66), March 23. As
quite generally in Latin calendars,1 Bede makes the 18th day of March
the “dies primus saeculi,” on the supposition that the world was cre-
ated in spring, and that the vernal equinox, March 21, fell not on the
first day of the world; but on the fourth, “quo luminaria sunt facta”
(De Temp. Rat., c. 6; De Divisionibus Temp., c. 9). The parallel be-
tween Adam’s fall and Christ’s work of redemption serves to mark the
chronology of Adam’s stay in Paradise. Adam fell on the day of his
creation in the sixth hour, the hour in which Christ and the penitent
malefactor entered Paradise (Piper, J. c., p. 9; Bede, Hexcemeron, I. ad
Gen. 3).—In answer to the question why God permitted man to be
tempted, whom he knew ready to yield to temptation, Bede, quoting
Augustine, says that it would have been but little laudable had man re-
mained good without being tempted; before he submitted to the tempt-
er, a certain “elatio comprimenda” had preceded in Adam’s mind; the
devil came through the serpent, because he could come in no other
guise than was permitted him (Hexaem, Lib. I, Migne 91.53). Adam
was both mortal and immortal: mortal by nature; immortal by the
grace of God, had he not sinned, but obeyed the commandment of God
(De Sex Dierum Creatione Liber, Migne 93.217). Man is mortal, be-
cause God withdraws from him (Hexaem. I. Migne 91.48). It was
not the case that there was any evil inherent in the forbidden tree;
the evil consisted in man’s despising the divine precept; thus man
learnt the good of obedience, and the evil of disobedience, of pride,

 

1 Piper, Kalendarien. p. 4.
22

 

contumacy, and perverse imitation of God (Hexaem. I, Migne 91.47).
Satan, filled with envy (J John 3, Migne 93.102), used the serpent as
his instrument. filling it as the vates of old was filled by a demon
(Gen. 3, Migne 91.211). He approached man with three temptations,
to “gula,” “vana gloria,” “avaritia” (Matth. 4, Migne 92.20). Guilt
is laid on the man, because he sinned wittingly, preferring to offend
with his wife to persevering in the okedience of God (Aliquot Quaes-
tionum Liber, Migne 93.470). As a punishment of the sin of the pro-
toplasts, their eyes were opened, i. e., the sensual nature awoke, hence
they sought to cover their nakedness with fig leaves. In the Ascetica
Dubia (Migne 94.547) Adam is said to have lived in Paradise fifteen
years. Eve fourteen. A quaint analysis of Adam’s transgressicn is
given, ib.. 556: ‘“Haec sunt peccata Adae, quae et originalia sunt.
Primum peccatum fuit superbia, quia dilexit eam in sua potestate plus
quam Dei; secundum, sacrilegium, quia Deo non credidit; tertium,
homicidium, quia semetipsum peecando occidit; quartum, fornica-
tionem spiritaliter habuit, quia integritatem mentis corrupit; quin-
tum, furtum, quia cibum prohibitum attigit; sextum, avaritia, quia
pius quam debuit appetivit; septimum, gula, quia vetitum fructum
comedit.”

Numerous Scripture passages could, be drawn on for this sub-
ject: Gen. 2; 3: Wisd. 10.1; 2 Cor. 11.3; Rev. 12.9: 20.2; Col. 2.15; Ro.
16.20: 1 John 3.8; John 8.44: 1 Tim. 2.14; Ecclus. 10.18; ete.

Latin models, treating the Fall of Man, also were numerous. Am-
brese treats of the Fall of Man in De Paradiso Liber Unus (Migne
14.275ff.) and has a hemily De primo Adam et secundo (Migne 17.691),
in which the two trees are coutrasted,—a favcrite subject. In the In-
Structiones of Commodian (Migne 5.227) we find a composition De
ligno vitae et mortis, a verse to each letter of the alphabet, contrasting
Adam and his tree with Christ and the tree of the Cross. Cf. Aldhelm’s
De Malo Arbore. A Metrum in Genesin, ascribed by some to Hilarius cf
Arles, treats of creation, paradise, the fall, its consequences, e. g., hail,
tempests, wars, ete. (Migne 50.1287-1292). The Commentcricrum in
Genesin Libri Tres of Cl. M. Victor (Migne 61.937ff.) a poem describing
paradise, the fall, etc., belongs here. Avitus is perhaps best known
fer his De Initio Mundi, De Originali Peccato, De Sententia Dei
(Migne 59). Prudentius, Hamartigenia (Migne 59), and Juvencus,
Liber in Genesin, c. 1-3 (Migne 19.345f.), also deserve mention.

B. TREATMENT OF THE MOTIVE IN THE POETRY.

I THE LATIN POEMS OF ALDHELM AND ALCUIN.

Aldhelm and, later, Alcuin wrote a few verses on the fall of man.
Gregory had found that Satan tempted Adam and Eve to “gula,” “vana
gloria.” “avaritia.” Aldhelm’s conception is similar. He says the proto-
plast fell into the whirlpool of gluttony (“gastrimargia,” De Laudibus
Virginitatis, I. c.. p. 11); again the pestiferous dragon gluttony, here
perhaps identified with Satan, brings the first earth-dwellers to their
fall (ib.. p. 12). As to covetousness, Aldhelm quotes St. Paul that it
is the root of all evil (De Octo Prine. Vitt.. ib., p. 207.7). Of vain glory
he says: ‘“Haec protoplastum pellexit fraude colonum” (ib.. p. 209.30).
There is a marked poetic touch in the riddle in which he describes the
leading facts of the “prisca ruina,” viz., the first parents succumbing to

2Cf. Werner. Beda der Ehrwuerdige, p. 156.
23

the arts of the wicked one and accepting from the forbidden tree its
“dulcia mala,” as well as the return of blessedness by the expiatory
death of the Lord of the world on the tree; it is a dream of the Holy
Rood in embryo (De Malo Arbore, 1. c., p. 260). For the idea A. was
probably indebted to Ambrose or Commodian (see above). I append
the poem from Giles:

Fausta fui primo mundi nascentis origo
Donec prostratus succumberet arte maligni:
Ex me tunc priscae processit causa ruinae,
Dulcia quae rudibus tradebam mala colonis.
En iterum mundo testor remeasse salutem,
Stipite de patulo dum penderet arbiter orbis,
Et poenas lueret soboles veneranda Tonantis.

The following verses are found among Alcuin’s Carmina (Migne
101,737):

De Peccato EVAE.

Evam viperea vetitum decerpere pomum
Invidus arte parat, tentataque nescia fraudis,
Credidit infelix sacro [or so¢io?] peritura marito.

Dre PoENA PrimoruM PARENTUM.

Pellibus accinctis peccati signa ferentes.
Poenarum famuli, linquunt felicia regna:
Semper amica piis, peccantes respuit, aula.

Il. THE OLD ENGLISH POETRY.
The Old English poems on the Fall of Man fall into two groups:
1. Tue EpicaL Group.

i. Gen. A 169-234, 852-964;
ii. Gen. B 338-851.

2. Tue HOMILETICAL GROUP.

i. Gu. B 791-850, 947f., 953-969;
ii. Phoen. 393-423;

iii. Cri. 1380-1419:

iv. Sat. 410-421, 478-488;

v. Jul. 494-505.

1. THE EpicaL GROUP.”

Gen. A. 169-234 describes the creation of Eve, and Paradise. Ex-
cept in the recital of the perfections of the first parents, 187-191, and
their blissful abode, 206-215, the poet narrowly paraphrases the Bible.
The story of the temptation and fall is missing. In 11.852-964, the con-
sequences of the fall are portrayed in close connection with Gen.
38-24. Were the section that treated of the fall of man still extant,
it would probably be found (to judge from what remains of the poem)
to have been less a metrical homily of the type represented by Gu.,
Phoen., and Cri. than a poetical paraphrase similar to Gen. B and ear-
lier Latin metrical stories of the fall of man, e. &., Juvencus, Liber in
Genesim, c.1-3.

In Gen. B 338-851, the story of the fall is told with epic breadth
and dramatic force. The source, though much looked for, has not
24

 

been found. Sievers (Der Heliand u. d. ags. Genesis, p. 18-21) notes
parallel touches in Avitus, De Origine Mundi, but (p. 22) concedes him-
self nonplussed for an exact Latin source. Hénncher, too, (Anglia
8.41-84) and Jovy (Bonner Beitr. zur Anglistik, Heft V) offer tne Vul-
gate and nothing more. Hence the author of Gen. B, though of course
conversant with the traditional views on the great transgression, €V1
dently produced his work, not as a direct translator or paraphrast, but
as a poet. While the contents of the fragment are too familiar to be
given again’ without apology, a few details claim our notice. Thus
not Satan, but his emissary tempts the inhabitants of paradise, a de-
vice which already Sandras (J. c., p. 67) traced to Gregory and Rabbinic
lore. Ferrell (1. c., p. 20) observes that the devil’s minion equips him-
self like an A.-S. warrior. There is, of course, no ground for suspecting
heathenism (as Ferrell does, 7. c., p. 20) in the manifestly Biblical
touch of the fiend’s twining himself arcund the tree of death in the
guise of a serpent. It should be noted also that Adam does not sur-
render at last to Eve, as Merlin to Vivien, “half from love and half
from weariness,’ as Brooke would have it (1. c., p. 311), nor was it
desire that caused Eve to stumble, but both erred in an apparent con-
flict of duties. The devil’s messenger representing himself as God’s
envoy and corroborating his claim, as it seemed, by endowing Eve
with superior power to hear and see, the woman first and at last her
spouse were convinced that the fiend spoke the truth and, for fear of
being disloyal to God, became so. The poet, it thus appears, selected
the Teutonic conception of loyalty to account for the disloyalty of the
first parents. Ferrell (1. c., p. 39) speaks of this motive as one “to
which Sievers (1. c., p. 22) was the first to call attention.” But al-
ready Sandras had done this (J. c., p. 74).

2. THE HoMILETICAL Grovur.

The author of Gu. B, taking up a suggestion in his Latin source
(Felix, Vita sancti Guthiaci, c. 5), introduces into his work a recital
of the creation and fall of man, 791-850. Wanley (Catal. p. 281) men-
tions this section separately from Gu. proper and says it treats “de
creatione hominis et lapsu ejus.” Lefévre (Anglia 6.228) mentions this
section under “Erweiterungen der quelle gegeniiber”.

In Phoen. 393-423, the narrative of the Fall is found as an intro-
duction to the allegorical improvement of the Phoenix story, and is
no more closely related to the main story than in Gu.

In Cri. 1380-1419, Christ at the Judgment confronts the unjust with
the story of their sin including the Fall.

In Sat. 410-421, 478-488, Eve and Christ refer to the Fall, after the
latter has appeared in hell to deliver the saints.

In Jul. 494-505, the devil at the heroine’s bidding narrates his
wicked doings on earth and among other things confesses that he de-
ceived Adam and Eve.

a. Thought Analysis.
i. Comparison of Cri., Gu., Phoen.

The sequence of thoughts is the same in these poems.

1. Praise of the perfections of man and his surroundings in the
unfallen state. _

Cri. 1380-1392: God made man with his hands of clay, gave him
a living soul and endowed him with intellect, honoring him above all
other creatures. In appearance man was the image of God, who gave
25

him an abundance of good things and dominion over aJl nature. Dark
woe was unknown, man was placed in the fair earth to enjoy the rich
luxuriance of neorznawong. :

Gu. 791-813: It is well known that God, the almighty King, formed
first man of the purest earth. That was the beginning of human kind,
a beautiful creation, fair and, pleasant. Adam our father was first
made, by the grace of God, in neorznawong. There was no want, no
loss of life or joy or plenty, no death; but there man might live with-
out any fault, and long enjoy the new delights. There in that radiant
home he need never expect life and felicity to end; but after a time
both body and soul were to enter the fairer bliss of heaven, and there
dwell without death in the presence of God in pleasures forevermore.

Phoen. 393-398: We have heard that the Almighty made man and
woman and placed them in the fairest region on earth, called by the
children of men neorznawong, where there was no lack of anything
that promoted happiness. (The entire first part of the poem, esp.
111-84, contains a picture of the land of innocence, the sunzy land-
scape first clouded by man’s transgression.)

2. The condition of the continuance of this blissful state.

Cri. 1393-6 implies that the Creator had given a commandment, to
keep which meant life.

Gu. 814-816 gives the condition, “if they would keep the Holy One’s
word and commandment”,

Phoen. 398-400: So long as they kept the word of the Eternal and
Holy One. That the commandment was to refrain from eating a cer-
tain fruit only comes out later in Gu. and Phoen.

3. The temptation by the devil. :

Cri. 1394-1396, 1405; Gu. 818, 822; Phoen, 400-2, 413-5.

4. Man’s disobedience and fall.

Cri. 1393-1405: Man would not do God’s bidding, but broke His
commandment, listening to his enemy rather than to his Creatcr;
though he had received good things in abundance, he yet through
pride was not content therewith, but yearned to possess power equal
to that of God.

Gu. and Phoen. merely mention the disobedience and the outward
act, looking more to the consequences.

Gu. 816-822: They wearied too soon of doing the Ruler’s will. The
man’s wife took the forbidden fruit, plucking it from the tree contrary
to the word of the King of glory, and gave her husband the death-
bearing fruit.

Phoen. 402-404: They both unwisely against the grace of God took
the forbidden apple.

5. The punishment. : :
Cri. 1404-1414: Then man was far removed from that joy. Mourn-

ful in mind, he needs must give up the beauty of neorznawong, both
bad and sad be shorn of all excellence and joy, and then driven into the
dark world, where he since endured many hardships, pain and sore
distress, black death; and after his departure must fall headlong to
hell. There was none to succor. 2

Gu. 822-850: With the first sin death entered the world, Paradise
was lost to Adam and Eve and all their offspring, and the devil reigned
throughout the earth. That was a bitter drink that Eve, young bride,

sented to Adam.
es ree 404-420: Then came misery tc them after that sorry feast,
and to their descendants likewise, their sons and daughters, God's
anger was upon them, dire sorrow. Their children since pay the pen-
alty, because they took the food contrary to God a word. Hence
through the serpent’s envy they must give up the joy of their home,
26

 

and sojourn in this valley cf death in sadder abode. The better life
was concealed, and the holy plain was fcr many years fast enclosed.

6. Hope.

Cri. 1415ff.: It grieved Christ that his handiwork should remain
in the power of the fiends. He became man, etc.

Gu. 85Cff.: Guthlac and others nevertheless lived as saints though
subject to death.

Phoen. 420-423: The King of glory, by His coming to meet the
saints, again revealed the joy cf men; He is the comforter of the sor-
rowful, their only hope.

ii. Sat. 410-421, 478-488.

With these three poems should be compared Sat. 410-421, 478-488,
which will be feund to differ only in slight details and the sequence
of ideas. Christ by his power first created Adam and his noble spouse.
Ze set in neorrnawong a tree whose branches bore apples. The first
parents ate the bright fruit, as the wicked one, the attendant of hell,
bade them. The terrible one gave them both wicked thoughts. ‘hey
disregarded the Savior’s word, eating the terrible thing. For this cause
they received the burning pit, 478-488. LEve’s description of the fall
is virtually the same. She says that she one time offended the eternal
Lord, when she and Adam took the apples through the serpent’s envy.
as they should never have done. The terrible one taught them that
they would own giory, a holy home, heaven. They believed the words
ef the accursed one, and with their hands took of the holy tree the
bright fruit. They were bitterly requited when they were compelled
to suffer in that hot den many thousand years, 410-421. Eve beseeches
the Lord to fead her and her kindred up out of that place, 422-425, and
Christ declares that it grieved him tc see His handiwork suffering
prison fetters. Neither man nor angel was able to succor, hence He
became man, etc., 489ff. © 6

iii. Summary.

These four versions cbviously represent a type of the “Fall” story
distinct from that of Gen. B. They are neither far removed from, nor
paraphrases of, the Scripture narrative. In all, the delights of
neorznawong are detailed with evident relish. In all, the disobedient
heart, led by the tempter’s guile, is briefly but emphatically sketched.
while the ccnvenient story of the two trees and the serpent’s inter-
view with the woman are barely alluded to. In all, God’s visit to the
garden, the hiding cf Adam and Eve through fear, the curses, are
wanting, while the loss of Eden and the reign of death and the devii
are described at large. In all, finally, the hope is held out of salvation
through Christ. Certain differences of course, there are. Thus, Cri.
1380ff., the description of Paradise is nearer to the Bible than in the
other cases. Gu. 794f., man is fermed out of the purest earth. Sat.
481ff.. the story of the tree is most plainly told. Phoen. 400, 401, 413
bring out distinctly the idea of the serpent’s envy, mentioned also Sat.
457. Cri. 1400ff. man’s desire for godlikeness is described. Gu. 840ff..
Eve presents to Adam a bitter drink. Still these are minor ditferences.
and I repeat that in all the versions the same ideas occur in much the
same order and rounded off in the same way. The treatment is lyric
and didactic. Clearly the purpose is nct a picturesque portrayal of the
Fall such as that of Gen. B.
Gu.

Gu.

b.

27

Verbal Correspondences.

A more detailed comparison of these sections reveals very close
verbal correspondences, surprisingly close between Gu. B. and Phoen.
In these the poet in each case refers to common report, and in the nar-
rative the thoughts are the same, their sequence is the same, often the
words are the same.

791f.: daet is wide cud wera
cneorissum, folcum ge-
fraege.

paette frympa god pone
aerestan aelda cynnes
of paere  claenestan,
eyning aelmihtig, fol-
dan geworhte.
on neorxnawong

792-5:

799:

799f.: baer him naenges waes

willan onsyn.

Phoen.

“cc

393: Habbap we geascad.

393-7: paet se aelmihtiga
worhte wer and wif purh
his wundra sped and hi pa
gesette on pone selestan

foldan sceata, pone fira
bearn nemnad neorxna
wong.

397f.: paer him naenges
waes eades onsyn.

Phoen. then says no more of the plenty and bliss of Paradise, but
continues to 1.813, enlarging on its pleasures, the absence of death,
the leohtan ham, where man might live until body and soul together
should go to heaven to be ever in the Lord’s presence.

The two come together again when speaking of the condition under
which this blissful state was to be continued.

Gu. 814-6:

gif hy halges word healdan
woldun beorht in breostum
and his bebodu laestan aefnan

on edle. Hy to aer apreat,
paet hy waldendes wilfan
laesten.

805: niwra gefeana ........
SIS BODE Sapien sen daces an SOS
S22850e acana ewan sera
820: ofer word godes........
798: purh est godes ........

819: blede forbodene and of
beame ahneop

826: hyra bearnum swa, eaf-
erum aefter

833f.: ongyldan godscyldge

gyrn.
822: gyfl

With Gu. B and Phoen. I next

1399:
da ic pe on pa faegran foldan
gesette
1391: to
wonges

neotenne neorxna-

Phoen.

compare

Phoen.

Gu. 804f.: longe

398-400: benden eces word,
halges hleoporewide heal-
dan woldan on bam niwan
gefear.

400: niwan gefean.
400-404.

404-420.

403: ofer est godes.
492: beames blede.

404: byrgdon forbodene.

405f.: hyra eaferum swa
sarlic symbel, sunum and
dohtrum.

410: gyrne onguldon.
410: gyfl.

Cri.:

395:

and bi pa gesette on bone
selestan foldan sceata.
neotan niwra

gefeana.
 

“ 1393f.: da du lifes word laes- “ 814ff.
tan noldes ac min bibod Phoen. 398f.:

braece. .

“ 1407: agiefan geomormod .... “ 412: geomormode ofgiefan.
“  1409f.: bidrifen wurde on pas Gu. 828f.: scofene wurdon on ge
peostran worulde ........... winworuld. :

“ 1415: da mec ongon hreowan, Sat. 489: pa me gereaw, paet min

paet min hondgeweorc, etc. handgeweorc, etc.

Even the Jul. passage, though short, shows connection:

Cri. 1392: beorhtne blaedwelan.. Jul. 503: beorhtne boldwelan.

Phoen. 404f.: paer him bitter “ 503f.: paet him baem geweard
weard yrmbpu aefter aete yrmpu to ealdre and hyra
and hyra eaferum swa. eaferum swa.

c. Results.

The correspondences between these poems both in thought and
phrase compel the conclusion that they are related. They do not seem
to be mutually dependent, but to rest on the same source, namely some
very familiar story of the Fall. This probably was not the Scripture
narrative alone, although that was well kriown. Lections from Gene-
sis, including the story of the Fall, were appointed for January already
in the Comes of Jerome (Migne 30.490). The source, in all probability,
was a well-known vernacular homily on the Fall,or Bible story with com-
ment, that was taught to the catechumens, recited before the congre-
gation, and otherwise told. At all events a poem on the subject must
have existed before either Gu. B. or the Phoen. was written. The au-
thor of Phoen. quoted from this poem 11.393-423 to prepare for the
allegory. Gu. 791-850 is so loosely connected with the main story, that
already Wanley (see above) treated it as a separate poem. There was
a hint in the Latin Vita, c. 5, for the poet to elaborate. But that hint
was amply improved, Gu. 953-969. If indeed 11.791-850 are the work
of the auther of Gu. B, I can account for them only in this way: The
author had read the Vita, c. 5, and composed among other things 11.953-
969, and while his mind was still dwelling on the thought of man’s
inevitable death, the wages of his sin, he expanded this thought into
11.791-850, using once more the figure of the cup Eve gave to Adam.
But it is far more likely that he bethought himself of an old homily or
hymn, and, when he began to write down his musings, commenced with
that, put into it at 11.837-844, a touch of his own from 953ff., and
shaped the close so as to lead over to the Gu. theme.

C. PERSISTENCE OF THE MOTIVE.

The motive of the Fall of Man is, of course, kept alive in the O. E.
homilists (Cf. Aelfric. De Vet. Test.. p. 3; Hexaem. §.17; Hom. I, 16, 18,
176;—Bl. Hom., p. 23;—Wulfstan, p. 9, 69). The Cursor Mundi de-
scribes Satan’s scheme to ruin man. The devil is envious, because
Adam is to occupy the vacant place in heaven, and sends a messenger,
who chooses the adder to assail Eve and through her Adam, ll. 711-754.
When Adam had left Eve alone a little while, the tempter approached
her; she yields, Adam likewise, and the fiend rejoices, ll. 755-822. In
the Towneley Picy on “The Creation” Lucifer, after the creation of Adam
and Eve, speaks of the tenth order that fell from heaven through pride,
whose place man is to take, etc. The play on “The Fall of Man” is lost.
Sir David Lindsay, too, U. c., Il. 857-1186 speaks ‘‘of the miserabyll trans-
gressioun of Adam.”
CHAPTER III.
SATAN, THE FALLEN ARCHANGEL.

A. A BRIEF OUTLINE OF GREGORY’S DOCTRINE.

The Satan dogma was practically fixed in the writings of Pope Greg-
ory. He calls the evil one Behemoth, Leviathan, devil, Satan, the old
enemy, the malign Spirit, the apostate angel, a stupid animal, the
wicked dragon, a swift bird. The devil was the first created, most
eminent of angels (Evang. Il. Hom. 34; Mor. XXXII. c. 23). Through
pride he loses reverent fear, aims at independence and dominion for
himself, and thus loses all his former dignity (Mor. XXI. c. 2; XXXIV.
c. 21). He can not rise from his darkness to the light of repentance,
and can not hope to be forgiven (Mor. IV. c. 4; XXXII1. c. 23). Yet his
angelic nature towers above that of men (Mor. XXXV. c. 20), he has
lost the blessedness, but not the greatness of his nature (Mor. XXIV.
e. 20; XXXII. c. 12, 15). He is the originator of all wickedness among
angels and men (Fvang. Il. Hom. 16). He takes pleasure in tempting
men by lying promises (Mor. IV. c. 9). He is the murderer from the
beginning (Hvang. II. Hom. 25). Only the elect, since the death of
Christ, can resist him by humility, patience, and penitence (Mor. IV.
c. 5). He exercises his power under God’s permission only (for.
XXIXIT. c. 24; XIV. c. 38).

Gregory distinguishes three periods of Satan’s dominion. Before
Christ he had a rightful claim upon all men, they all followed him free-
ly, being bound in sin and. guiit (Mor. II. c. 22). God from just cause
gave this dominion to the wicked one (Afor. II. c. 10).

The second period begins with Christ. Through Him the devil
loses his right in man and his power over him (Mor. I. c. 24, 26; III.
ce. 15, 16). God curbs his power (Mor. XXXII c. 15). He can no
longer rule over saints as his possession, but can only persecute them
outwardly (Mor. XVII. c. 32). But he still holds the hearts of unbe-
lievers. To this extent he is bound. ; ; ;

In the third period, at the end of the world, he will be loosed again
and return as Antichrist to attack men with all his fury (Mor. IV. c.
9). Antichrist is a man of the tribe of Dan (Mor. XXXI. c. 24), in
whom the devil fully dwells. He is thus the counterpart ef the in-
carnate Logos. He is therefore “‘reprobus, perditus, damnatus homo,
quem in fine mundi apostata angelus assumet” (Mor. XIII. c. 10). He
is the greatest of sinners, the personification of sin, the vessel of per-
dition (Mor. XIV. c. 21). He will appear in pride and power and per-
form many miracles; but men will not be able to refute him, because
he will come in the guise of holiness (Mor. XV. ¢. 38; XXXIT. c. 15).
wicked men he will set to rule over the world, especially over all those
who are of a carnal mind (Mor. XV. c¢. 61). Taking possession of the
souls of the reprobate, he will rage with exquisite cruelty against the
30

bodies cf the saints (Mor. XXXII. c. 15), and even Enoch and Elias,
returning in their mortal bodies, will now meet death (Aor. XIV. c.
23). The reprobate will be led to believe that they are serving God
(Mor, XXXIV. c. 2). Antichrist receives this great power on account
of men’s sins, whereby they serve him (Mor. XXV. ¢. 16). The Church
at that time will seem to be almost dead; yet this exaltation of the
devil is only for a season (Mor. XII. c. 43; XXXII. c. 15). At the
advent of the Judge he: will fall (Mor. XXX. c. 3). The Lord will slay
him by the breath of his mouth with the eternal death, and darkness
will be his habitation forever (for. XIV. c. 23; XXXII. ¢. 15). Satan’s
first punishment was the darkness of error, the last the darkness and
torment of hell (for. IV. ¢. 5). His punishment increases as his wick-
edness has increased (Mor. XXIX. c. 8). He will be committed to
eternal oblivion aud torment (Mor. IV. c. 4,5). Together with only his
angels and reprobate men he goes down, his power is completely broken
(Mor. IV. ¢. 8, 9). Then will he and all men recognize the superiority
of God (Mor. XXXIII. c. 20).

Aldhelm (1. c.. pp. 144, 210) and Bede (Luke 14, Migne 92.511)
agree with Gregory in asserting that during the first period of his his-
tory the devil was the ruler of the earth. .But Christ destroyed his
kingdom and power (Aldh., I. c., p. 144). By the death of Christ Satan
forfeited his claim on man (Pope Boniface in Bede, H. H. II. 11). In
His descensus Christ liberated the saints, bound Satan, and curtailed
his influence. The devil now has less power over Christians. Through
confession in Baptism little children are delivered from the devil (Bede,
Matth. 15, Migne £2.76), who desires to fell all, but can only tempt and
persecute outwardiy (Bede, Matth. 3, Migne 92.19). Like an atrocious
wolf he rages against the fold of Christ (Aldh., 7. c., pp. 135, 149, 181).
God suffers Christians to be tempted that they may be strengthened
through trials (Bede, Matth. 27, Migne 92.122). But the hearts of un-
believers still belong to Satan. The heathen idolaters of England were
in the power of Satan (Bede, H. #. iI. 1, 10, 20). His demons, being
half material, attack men, or, working through the forces of nature,
raise storms, etc. (Bede,-H. E. I. 17,19). They fight with the good an-
gels about human souls (ib., V. 13).

B. THE SATAN OF THE OLD ENGLISH POETRY.

The contributions of Grimm (D. M. c. “Teufel’”), Bode (Ken-
ninger), Sandras (Caedmon), Bouterwek (Caedmon), and of the Vilmar
school, Kent (Andreas and EHlene), Rau (Exodus), Ferrell (Genesis),
and Price (Cyneiculf), present a fairly definite general outline of the
A.-S. Satan. It is found, however, that there is a strongly marked dif-
ference between the so-called Caedmonian devil and that of Cynewulf
and the Plaints. The former is every way a lordly figure, the author
of the wars in heaven, the originator of evil, fhe successful tempter of
man, Lucifer (though not so styled in either Gen. A or B), beautiful,
majestic. defiant. The latter is Satan, a hideous, hateful, pitiable
wretch, who, being bound. by Christ, with his gnrornende cynn bewails
his lot or, under divine permission, tempts men. It seems ciear that
the O. E. pcets were familiar with Gregory’s three periods in Satan’s
history. Gen. 4 and B show the devil at the very beginning of his
mundane existence, when the lines of primeval glory are but just fading
from his countenance, a highly idealised being: while the fiend of
Cynewulf and the Plaints is the devil in his second (Gregorian) period,
the devil of popular fancy.
31

I. THE REBEL ANGEL.

In Gen. A and B the celestial eminence of the highest angel is de-
picted, inasmuch as it became the means of his fall. He is the peer-
less archangel, who in strength of intellect and transcendent beauty
eclipses all the heaverly host. In his pride and presumption (Gen. 66,
263, 272, 338), boasting of his own strength (265ff.) and that of his ad-
herents (284-6), he becomes a rebel (36, 52, 67, 64, 320, 442, 57, 306, 314,
etc.), whereupon God humbles him (305, 309, 345, 609, 647). Yet he re-
tains much power in hell. In Gen. A he is not even bound. He is de-
feated, but with spirit undaunted he returns to the attack. If he can
but thwart God’s purpose with man, he will be contented (3€3ff., 750ff.).
He thus becomes the enemy of God and man (489, 496, 592, G01, 711, 68,
488, 101, 631, 686, 547, 725, 763, 606, 694, 688). His method is deceit
(496, 588, 601, 630, 647, 699, 632, 443). It is true the punishment of
the devil is described in both Gen. A and B (39, 51, 69, 74, 90, 312, 76);
but many of the most characteristic epithets of the cther poems are
missing here. At all events the emphasis lies on Satan’s strength rath-
er than on his suffering. His messenger haefde hyge strangne, 447,
and, having betrayed man, goes on his way rejoicing, 726ff.

‘

II. THE DEVIL IN BONDS.

In the Plaints and by Cynewulf the punishment of the angels is
described, their fall is cnly ailuded to in a few random epithets (An.
1294; Gu. 1044; Pride: Jul. 284; Sal. 450; Prayer IV. 55; the Rebellion:
Jul. 269; Gu. 265; Cri. 564; An. 1195;—An. 1172; Bl. 951; Gu. 635;—
Gu. 181, 204; Sat. 191, 269, 280, 340, 719;—An, 613, 1297; Whale 37;
Jul. 455; Gu. 269, 595. 883;—Jul. 351;—Sat. 97; An. 1188; Beo. 811;
Phoen. 595; An. 1846). In his first period, “feond rixade geond mid-
dangeard”, Gu. 836f.: but after the harrowing of hell by Christ (cf.
Panth. 58-61) he is the dethrened monarch, deprived of power, HI.
295-7, and of every right, Hl. 909, and shut up in hell, Hl. 920, while
his companions are a gnornende cynn, Set. 134. The devil and his
band are together in torments, in hell, in darkness (EL. 956, 900; An.
1298; Jul. 629;—An. 1171;—An. 1342; Sal. 126; Jul. 246;—Jul. 322,
437, 544: Ori. 731;—Jul. 457, 615;—Sat. 631;—Cri. 364; Jul. 157;
Byrht. 180;—Sat. 133;—Gu. 1042;—Sat. 485;—Jul. 558; Gu. 697;—
Jul. 419;—Gu. 668). They are the poor vanquished ones, hopeless, joy-.
less, mournful, care-worn, sick and weary (Gu. 623, 878; Sat. 159;—
Gu. 364, 549; Jul. 529. 586; Sat. 189;—Sat. 394;—Jul. 457, 615; Sat.
120;—Jul. 616, 633; Sat. 87, 120; Gu. 884;—Gu. 181; Sat. 57; Sat. 73,
448, 579, 713; Phoen. 442; Gu. 547; Jul. 430;—Gu. 268, 310, 376, 408,
490, 658, 876;—Jul. 418;—Gu. 226; Prayer IV. 57; Sat. 126, 630, 731;
Gu. 422; Ori. 363; Sat. 162, 343, 449; Sat. 669, 711; Jul. 429; An. 615,
1169; Gu. 183;—El. 762;—Sat. 275;—Gu. 208, 651; Sat. 134). :

As to his character, Satan is above all and absolutely the sinful
one (El. 955; 943; 939; 957; 954;—Sal. 128; Sat. 33; Gu. 175;—Sal.
148:—Whale 72; 39; Phoen. 595;—Cri. 259; Sat. 484; 682; 721;—G@u.
522: Sat. 160;—Gu. 646; Sat. 52; Cri. 1533; Sal. 171;—Sat. 65;—Gu.
881:—Jul. 244; 445;—Sat. 110, 128, 156, 180, 186; Cri. 1535; Jul. 211);
the wrathful and malicious one (Cri. 16, 185, 595, 1535; Sal. 112;
Gu. 530; An. 613, 1297:—Gu. 529;—621; 176; 377;—Cri. 762;—Jul. 628:
Cri. 781, 734; Gu. 346. 541; Gu. 519); the greedy one (Sal. 145; Sat.
32, 192). For this reason he is regarded as the enemy of mankind
(El. 207; Panth. 58: An. 20, 49, etc.; 1341; Phoen. 441; Sal. 172;—
Cri. 567; Gu. 112, 174. 189, 336, 361, 446; Phoen. 401, 449;—Jul. 317,
32

 

523, 630;—Sal. 87;—Jul. 151, 245;—243, 345; 555; 348); the originator
of evil for mankind (El. 771; Jul. 362, 347; El. 838; Sat. 374; Panth.
58; El. 957; An. 1170; Jul. 346; El. 941; An. 1313; Jul. 546). Hence
he becomes the thief and the murderer of the human race (Aldh.
135.20; 181.22; 210.30; 65.37:—Prayer IV. 14;—Sat. 57, 72. 633; Sal.
116, 128; Cri. 775, 13896; An. 1291; Hl. 761; Gu. 98:—Panth. 33;—An.
1346;—El. 956:—Cri. 364; Jul. 157; Byrht. 180; Cri. 273; —Gu. 622,
881;—Jul. 211;—Cri. 761, 1896; Gu. 375;—Herrow. 88, 97; Beo. 1743;
Gu. 58, 400; Cri. 264, 1394; Sat. 468; Sal. 131; An. 616. 1702; 1293;—
Cri. 264;—Whale 41;—Sat. 640;—Beo. 177 (cf. Matth. 10.28; Hebr.
2.14);—Gu. 622; An. 1170; Bl 941; An. 1318; Jul. 546;—Phoen. 441;
Gu. 496; 505; An. 1314; Gu. 867; Cri. 257). As regards his work,
Satan is the tempter (Jul. 557; Cri. 763; Gu. 877, 176). His method
is to deceive by lying (Sat. 727; El. 898; Whale 71; Cri. 1395; Whale
24; An. 1294; Gu. 1044; 58; Jul. 421, 351; Whale 37; Jul. 455; Gu. 269,
595, 883; An. 613, 1297).

It is chiefly through the demons that the devil works. He sends
them out to de mischief on earth and meets tnem with hot displeasure, if
they return unsuccessful (Jul. 321ff.). They are mainly instrumental
in turning men from God to idolatry, and hence “omnes dii gentium
daemonia”’. “sindon ealle haedenu godu hildedeoful’, Ps. 95.5.

Strobl, Z. f. d. A. $1.59, seems to have found the solution of Gnom.
f#xo0n. 133: “Woden worhte weos, wuldor alwalda rume roderas’, in
a mistranslation of Ps. 95.5: “Omnes dii gentium daemonia. dominus
cutem coelos fecit’). Thus Woden (Grom. Exon. 133) and Wyrd (Sal.
442-6) become devil’s kin. Devils appear in An. and Jul. to save the
devil worship; cf. Beo. 175ff.

The demons are regarded either as fallen angels or as the wicked
Grood sprung from the intercourse cf angels with ‘‘the daughters of
men” Gen. 6.1-4. The daughters of men, traditionally of Cain’s kin,
bore fearful giants. The notion is derived from the Book of Enoch.
c. 6ff. cf. Bouterwek, (l. c., p. CXIL); H6nncher (Anglia 8.60ff.). The
demons that appear to Andrew, to Juliana, to Cyriacus in £1. are
fallen angels. In the Vita, Guthlac calls the demons “semen Cain,”
ce. 2. Grendel is of Cain’s race, Beo. 107, 1262ff. Bouterwek says the
Beo. poet wanted to represent Grendel and his mother as “teuflische
Wesen” (ib., CX). These demons are represented as Satan’s sons or
as-his subjects. The devil in Jul. calls the devil his father, 321, 522,
and speaks of his brothers, 312; the devil is also his frea. 328; ealdor,
329, who sends his sons or subjects out to do evil. He is deofla cempa,
Cri. 563; feonda forespreca, Cri. 733; Gu. 236; feonda aldor. Sat. 76,
323, 373, They are his folgad, .El. 903; his pegnas. e. g., Sal. 117;
gesidas, Cri. 1522; gingran, Sat. 191; hired. Sat. 376. The devil’s mes-
senger is deofles strael, An. 1189 (cf. Z. f. ad. A. 30.185). As these
demons are like Satan in nature and identified with him in his wicked
work, so are they also described in the same terms (Bouterwek, ] é
CX).”1 And since evil men were regarded as devil's thanes An “43.
devil’s children, An. 1328, devil’s limbs (Bede, Luke 4, Migne 92 ey
it was only natural that leading features of the master ‘should be (eans
ferred also to human miscreants, as Foster, in his study cf Judith,
p. 86, has pointed out for Helisaeus (Jul.) and Holoferres iguay,
Gregory had also taught that the evil, unclean spirits were to roam
between heaven and earth (Mor. Il, c. 47). This vagabond life y,
ceives expression Sat. 112; 262ff.; and particularly Gu. 176-196. The

1 See on Grendel and his mother, Karl Schemann, Die Synonyma im Beo
wulfsliede, pp. 7-12, 44-58. =
33

 

wretched spirits have their miserable abode in the mountain and moor,
and long for an end of their existence.

The outward appearance of Satan and his demons harmonizes well
with their unhappy lot. They are no longer the shimmering ranks
of heaven, but black, uncanny, ugly things. Satan is often called a
gest, a spirit, but he has nevertheless a material body. Early belief

‘had endowed the angels with a refined ethereal body. That of the
Jul. Satan is so tangible that Juliana is able to clutch him, Jul. 284ff.
Whatever his form, however, it is brutish and monstrous. He is called
“se aglaeca,” Whale 52; Jul. 268; 319; earm aglaeca, Phoen. 442; Gu.
547; Jul. 430; Sat. 73, 448, 579, 713; atol aglaeca, An. 1312; Sat. 161;
El. 901. The term aglaeca was also applied to Grendel, e. g., Beo.
159, 592; and the dragon, Beo. 2534, 2905, neither of whom is a spirit
purely. Satan, then, is a monster, cr rather a monstrosity, whose
body is not confined within rigid outline, but able to melt into vari-
ous fantastic shapes.2 He is therefore called a phantom, scin, Sat.
72; Sal. 101; Whale 31; dyrne gast, Beo. 1357; dyrne deofies boda.
Gen. 490.3 The same aerial nature is characterized by the epithets
lacende feond, El. 899; and lyftlacende, Jul. 281; Gu. 117; flygereow,
Gu. 320. He is able to rise and hover in air. This peculiarity is
ascribed to his possessing the federhoma of angels, Gen. 417, 670; Sal.
151. Gu. 877-884, there is a noisy host of demons, who appear as
men, or as serpents spewing venom, declaring they will destroy the
hermit’s dwelling with their feet, Gu. 256. Felix, the author of the
prese Vita. speaks of their vast heads with lean faces, horse teeth, big
lips, shaggy ears, dirty beards, sour and truculeni looks, stinking
mouths, and raucous voices, of their narrow chests, rough thighs, etc.
(Vita, c. 2). His “gutture flammivomc” reminds one of Seat. 78, 128,
162, where, also, the devil is a fire-breathing demon.—The demons that
pester Guthlac are hiwes binotene, Gu. 872, of beauty bereft, cf. wann
and wliteleas, An. 1169. Their appearance was horrid and loathsome,
inspiring both terror and disgust. This loathsomeness of form is
designated by the epithet atol as applied to Satan. “Atol is pin
onseon,” his angels say to him, Sat. 61, cf. 681, 728; He is se atola,
Sat. 383, 418, 448, 487, 718; atol deofol, Cri. 1279; atol aglaeca, Sat.
161; An. 1312; El. 901; se atola gast, An. 1296; Gu. 87; Sat. 51.—Like
Hephaestos and perhaps Loki (Grimm, D. M. 1.299) the devil and his
angels are lame (Ax. 1171; Gu. 884). He is _tired (An. 1169; Sat.
35f.). Like the giants (Grimm. D. M. II.941, 956) he is old (Sat. 34;
Panth. 58; El. 207; Phoen. 401, 449; Gu. 112, 174, 189, 336, 361, 446;
Harrow. 89; Ori. 567). He is swarthy-skinned (Sat. 105; Sat. 52;
Gu. 597, 623; Cri. 269, 898; Sal. 149, 486; Sat. 71, 721; 196; Cri. 897). —
Enough has been said to show the corporeity of Satan, monstrous,
mutable, loathsome. His appearance in the illustrations of the Caed-
mon MS. is only a modification of the human form. The wings con-
nect him with the angels, the tail degrades him to the brutes.+

III. SATAN AS ANTICHRIST.

The third and last period of Satan’s history is reached when
he returns as Antichrist; but aside from a few incidental remarks
af Aldhelm (e. g&., 7. ¢., D- 143.34), A-S. poetry had not as yet taken

ee ete
2Cf. Prose Sal. and Saturn, ed. Kemble, pp. 144-148.
3 Cf. Vilmar, Deutshche Altertuemer im Heliand, pp. 8ff.

«Cf. Henry Ellis, Account of Caedmon’s Metrical Paraphrase of Scripture
History, an Illuminated MS. of the Xth century, etc. London, 1833.
34

up this subject. The homilies, however, esp. the Wulfstan group,
amply illustrate the growth of this theme.

C. PERSISTENCE OF THE CONCEPTION.

The Satan of Gregory reappears in Aelfric’s devil, who snapped
at the bait of Christ’s humanity and bit into the hook of His divinity,
being bound at Christ’s descent and deprived of all that believe in
God, Hom. I. 216. He appears, e. g., as an immense Ethiop, with sharp
visage and ample beard. His locks hang to his ankles, his eyes scat-
ter fiery sparks. sulphureous flame stands in his mouth, he is fright-
fully feather-clad, and his hands are bound to his back. St. Bartholo-
mew bids this evil spirit go to the waste, where no bird flies, no hus-
bandman ploughs, nor voice of man sounds, Hom. I. 464-6. The Blick-
ling and the Wulfstan groups of homilies voice the same views. in
the former, Hom. 7, there is a gnornung of the evil spirits in hell
after the descent of Christ, Bl. H., pp. 85-7. The story of Antichrist,
well-known to Aelfric and Bl. H., is most fully told in the Wulfstan
homilies. Adrian and Ritheus (ed. Kemble, p. 200) says that Enoch
and Elias are sad and weep in paradise, because they must return
to earth and suffer death against Antichrist. The Cursor Mundi treats
of Antichrist’s coming in the seventh age of the world, pp. 1258ff.
CHAPTER IV.
FALLEN MAN.

A. A BRIEF OUTLINE OF GREGORY’S DOCTRINE.

Through man’s disobedience the devil acquired a right over him
(Mor. II. c. 22). Since man once yielded to Satan, the latter now
draws man with him even though he resist; he now almost kills by
violence whom once he overcame by lust (Mor. XV. c. 15). Man is
now in subjection to the body, whose peace and immortality was lost
(Mor. IX. c. 5). Out of the fleshy lusts sins proceed (Mor. XXVIII.
c. 19; Evang. I. Hom. 2; Ezech. Il. Hom. 4.) Man’s free will inclines
to sin on account of “luxuria” and “superbia” (Mor. XXVI. ¢. 17), or
“superbia” and “gloria inanis” (Mor. XIV. c. 53). From pride, how-
ever, the chief root of evil, spring the seven deadly sins, “inanis
gloria,” “invidia,’ “ira,” “tristitia,’ “avaritia,’ “ventris ingluvies,”
“luxuria,” each with a brood of similar sins, and all easily growing
out of each other (Mor. XXXI. c. 45).

Gregory locates sin both in the soul and in the body; in the soul,
since Adam died as to the soul and we through him (Lib. VI. Epist.
14; VII. Epist. 34); in the body, for the flesh (either the bodily na-
ture of man or the fleshly desires) resists the spirit; man experiences
in himself “carnis contumeliam” (Mor. XVIII. c. 44). This explains
the statement of Gregory that four things work together to bring about
sin, viz., the devil, the flesh, the spirit, and pride (Mor. IV. c. 27).
Sin is committed in the heart in a fourfold manner: from the devi!
comes the “suggestio,” from the flesh the “delectatio,” from the spirit
the “consensus,” and from pride the “defensionis audacia”; for it is
the common sin of mankind to sin secretly, to deny the offence, and
to increase it by defending it (Ezech. IL Hom. 9). In Gregory’s an-
swers to the questions of Augustine (Bede, H. E. 1. 27.9), also in
Cura Past., ed Westhoff, c¢. 29, only “suggestio,” “‘delectatio,” and
“consensus” are menticned, the first through the devil, the second
through the flesh, the third through the spirit. _ Where only “sug-
gestio” is, there is not yet sin; but in it already lies the “semen pec-
cati,” in the “delectatio” the “nutrimentum,” in the “consensus” the
Be ks heredity of man’s moral corruption Gregory thought that

auld transmit only such qualities as he himself possessed.
ce ide man lcst the image of God, therefore that which is be-
Through pride mi! impure (Mor. XI. c. 52; XXXII. c. 14). In his
gotten can oe fiesh,. therefore, man has temptation in himself de-
present eae origin. For this reason only Christ could be free from
rived from hi ras conceived without carnal lust and not born

Bor si ince he w
en teed (Mor. XVIII. ¢. 52; Bzech. II. Hom. 4). Hence the
36

 

holiness of the celibate life. Although matrimony in itself is not sin-
ful, yet there is no conjugal embrace without guilt (Lib. XI. Ep. 64).

Original sin Gregory regards as loss of freedom, i. e., of that con-
dition wherein man was free from sin (Mor. XV. ¢c. 15). Free will,
however, the faculty to will the good or the evil, is not altogether
destroyed, it is only weakened (Mor. XXI. c. 7). Gregory calls man
only “aegrotus,” he ever speaks of an “infirmitas” merely of the hu-
man nature through the fail (Mor. XVIII. c. 45).

B. MOTIVES DERIVED FROM THIS DOCTRINE.

Aiready the very large percentage of O. E. words denoting sin or
sinful states or acts presuppose a deep sense of man’s moral perversi-
ty, which may also be inferred from a goodly number of figurative
expressions relating to things evil. In accordance with John 8.44 sin-
ners are termed the devil’s children (iJfod. 47; cf. An. 1328; Cri. 1566;
Jud. 61). Evil men are the devil’s thanes (An. 48). Over against
“the members of Christ” (1 Cor. 6.15) they are the devil’s limbs (Cf.
M. Forster, Herrig’s Archiv. 91.180). Life being regarded as a sea
voyage, sin is likened to the perils besetting such a voyage (Cri.
851-867; cf. Cook’s ed., p. 167). The sinful conditions under which
men live on earth are a prison or bondage (Cri. 25ff., 68, 117; Ei.
1243). Fallen mankind is a house lying waste beneath the roof
(Cri. 13f.). The security of sinners is depicted Cri. 871-875, where
Cook refers to 1 Thess. 5.2; 2 Pet. 3.10. Sin is sown and grows (An.
767f.: cf. the parable of the tares, Matth. 13.24ff.). The sinful heart is
a hard heart (Cri. 641, 1506; Jul. 315), blind, enveloped with a mist
of error, steeped in ignorance and folly (An. 814; Cri. 1127, 1188;—
Metr. XXI1.33; XXIIL5; Cri. 29, 344, 640; EL. 310f.; Whale 70; Dan. 22;
Gen. 30, 700, 982, 1682, 1937); it is sick (Jul. 65; ef. Cri. 1330).
Darkness as a synonym of sin is familiar from Scripture (e. g., Matth.
6.23; Luke 11.34; 1.79; Col. 1.13; Acts 26.18; 1 John 2.9) and fre-
quent in the O. E. poetry (Gen. 685; Cri. 116-118; Sat. 371; Jul. 313;
467f.: 505; 460). On the terms for light and darkness and the de-
velopment of their meanings see Gummere, A.-S. Metaphor, pp. 54-62.
Again, sin is viewed as rust (Cri. 1321), as a burden (Cri. 1300; Gen.
1293; Whale 74; cf. Matth. 11.28), as enmity, < feud, against God
(Cri. 368f.; 1527), as a drink followed by death (Gu. 840-842; 953-966).
The figure mest frequently used and perhaps hardly felt as such is that
of a spot or blemish (Sat. 609: Cri. 1017, 1310, 1316: 333; 1007, 1093,
1098. etc.; Gen. 723; 1294; 2681; cf. Jud. 59; Cri. 1232, 1484; Jud. 76;
Cri, 1231; 1483; Hl. 768; Leas. 16; Jul. 571; Rood 13; Sat. 156; 180;
186; Cri, 1001, 1633; Beo. 1001; Jul. 59; Whale 66; Cri. 830, 1539;
Beo. 978; An. 1599; El. 1242; Sat. 128; Cri. 1083).—For the devil’s
assaults there are numerous figures, the most beautiful being per-
haps that found Jul. 393-409, where the soul is conceived as a fortress.
We know “the fiery darts of the wicked” from Eph. 6.16. These ar-
rowshafts whir through many an O. E. poem (Beo. 1745; Cri.
761-765; 779-781; Mod. 27ff.; Jul. 384; An. 1189). The devil is the
poisonous reptile (Panth. 58). Besides darts and poison, the net of
temptation is mentioned (An. 943); Boniface asks the English clergy
to pray for his mission, that he may be freed “a laqueo venantis Sa-
tanae,” (H. & 8S. III.313). Familiar terms for the devil and his as-
sistants are the compounds of “smith” (An. 917; 1220; Gu. 176; 877).
Even as Christ is the Good Shepherd, so Satan is shepherd of sin
(Beo. 750); but he is also the wolf making inroads into the flock (Cri
256; cf. Wulfstan 191.6-17). E
37

I. MOTIVES DRAWN FROM THE INFLUENCE OF THE DEVIL.

2 Without rising quite to the dignity of a theme, unregenerate man-
kind’s subjection to the devil, feondum peowian, Gen. 488, yet serves
as a background to set off in bright relief the saintly glory of Judith.
Elene, Juiiana, Andreas. Holofernes is se deofulcunda, Jud. 61 and
se haedena hund, Jud. 110. It was the old enemy that led the Jews
to crucify the Lord, El. 207ff., and kept them in unbelief, Hl. 1118.
Idolatry in Jul. is deofolgield, 52, 150; the devil himself appears, to
goad on the perscutors, 619ff. The Mermedonians as a people, sorcer-
ers and cannibals, are the devil’s thanes and children, in An.

The poem on the Whale is an allegorical representaticn of Satan’s
artful allurements. Seafaring men come upon the fierce and dangerous
swimmer, his body is like a rough stone. Taking it for an island, the
sailors land on it. Then the weary seamen encamp without suspect-
ing danger; desirous of rest they build a fire. Then he dives down.
drawing both ship and shipmen after him. Thus the devil deceives
men through secret craft, enticing them to wickedness, so that they
seek help from the fiends and finally live in security with the faith-
less one. When he knows them fast bound in his chain, he becomes the
murderer, feorgbona, 41, of all that do his bidding. Suddenly, heolop-
heline vepeaht, he sinks with them to the misty gloom of the bot-
tomless pit——Or, again, when he is hungry, he opens his mouth, and
out of it a sweet fragrance proceeds. Enticed by it, other fish swim
into his mouth, and when that is filled, he snaps his jaws together.
Thus the devil beguiles men with carnal pleasures, until he has closed
hell-doors behind them, and they have never a hope to return thence.
Therefore let us resist the devil and seek the Lord in time, that we
may live in glory with Him world without end.

If with Ebert (Anglia 6.246) we regard the bird following the
Whale in the O. E. Physiologus as the Partridge, we have in it an-
other type of the devil in his role of thief of souls, whom, however,
he ultimately loses, in this case, through Christ’s mercy.

Gu. A and B, celebrating the trials and triumphs of the fen-country
hermit, describe with vivid realism, only less volubly minute than the
Latin Vita, the appearance as weli as the shifts and maneuvers of the
goblins that seek to accomplish the downfall of the sairt. -Guthlac
has resolved to forsake the world, “the lust of the flesh,-aad the lust
of the eyes, and the pride of life,” 135ff. (1 John 2.16). It is the pur-
pose of the fiends to induce him to‘return to all these, hence they ply
his soul with many temptations, 160. They threaten his life, 161ff.;
they promise him their favor, 251ff. They lift him in air and show
him the pleasures indulged in by men, 383ff. They carry him to the
door of hell and threaten him with its punishments, 529ff. All to no
er del occurs the allegory of man-soul besieged, like a fortress,

i as The son of the devil that visits. Juliana in her
by the evil spirit. ae

oe cell, urging her to offer sacrifices to the heathen gods, has the
prison , of an angel of light, Jul. 244, and represents himself as
ae nger, 261ff. Receiving counsel from above, the virgin seizes
God = et E ow appears as an infernal imp and confesses his many
him, and ae 9giff. He has instigated the soldier to open Christ's
mnledemene pehe2d John, Simon to oppose the apostles, Nero to
Sea and Paul, Pilate to crucify Christ, Egias to slay Andrew,
kill 1 By way. of apology, he adds that his father, the king of the
289-31 x mae pent on mischief even more than himself, sends his
Deana eae to pervert men’s minds, and if they fail in causing any
ee faithful to stumble, he is exceedingly wroth and has them
38

bound and soundly cudgelled, 321ff. He admits that he had come to
turn Juliana from salvation, 352f. Wherever he finds the mind stead-
fast, he arouses wanton pride by inspiring fallacious, delusive thoughts
(“‘suggestio”); he makes sinful lusts appear attractive, until the mind
obeys his teaching (“delectatio”); he sets it so on fire with sins that,
all ablaze, it will no longer tarry in the house of prayer for love of
vice, but do the devil’s will (“consensus”), 362ff. If he finds any well
equipped with the spiritual armor (ph. 6.11ff.), he is compelled to
withdraw, and receives his punishment, 382ff. Then he selects a less
courageous soldier whom to hinder in his warfare (2 Tim. 2.4) and
to arouse with his leaven. Although the man sets out to do good, the
devil carefully scrutinizes all his’ victim’s thoughts, how the mind is
fortified within, how its defences are erected. He opens the rampart-
gate by a bold assault purh teonan, 402. When a breach is made in
the tower, an entrance gained, he first with a flight of arrows sends
into the heart bitter thoughts by way of the various desires of the
mind (“suggestio”), so that it seems best to the man himself to
commit transgressions and carnal lusts contrary to the love of God
(“delectatio”). The devil being his willing teacher, man turns from
Christ’s law (“consensus”), his mind flounders into the slough of
sin under the devil’s power, who is more concerned about the destruc-
tion of the soul than of the body, 393ff. After this (Gregorian) de-
scription of his infernal strategy, so singularly ineffectual in his pres-
ent predicament, the imp bewails his ill-fortune, but is compelled by
Juliana to continue the tale of his trespasses. He caused the death
of many in divers ways, 468ff., wheresoever he found unwary ones
not protected by the sign of the cross, 491. He deceived Adam and
Eve, 500; kindled strife on earth, 507; and did so much mischief that
he could not relate it all, though he sat a summer-long day, 495. At
last the virgin releases him, and he departs, 553ff.

Last not least, the theme of a good and evil angel struggling for

‘possession of the human soul, a belief common to Jew and Moslem,

Greek and Roman, found expression also in the O. E. poetry. ‘rhe
belief in the guardian angel rests chiefly on such passages as Ps.
34.7; 90.11; Matth. 18.10; Hebr. 1.14. The earliest occurrence of the
theme in the Church seems to be in the Shepherd of Hermas, 6 Man-
date, 2 (J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, p. 428). This theme
is slightly touched by Bede (H. E..V. 18), but there good and evil
spirits contend rather for the soul ,that is about to die than for the
man still active. The motive, however, runs all through Gu.-A, being
especially pronounced Gu. 85-111. Two watchers guard Guthlac and
struggle with each other, the Lord’s angel and the loathsome spirit.
The one shows him the vanity of earthly things and praises the ever-
lasting possession, with the souls of saints, of glory and pleasures in
heaven. The other instigates him to seek by night the company of
evil-doers, and audaciously to strive for the world, as those wretches
do who regard not man’s life to obtain the spoil. Thus they exhort
him from both sides, until the Lord makes an end of the conflict in
favor of the good angel. The fiend is put to flight. Since then the
spirit of comfort lived in Guthlac. It is in this manner that the poet
accounts for Guthlac’s reckless early life, 79ff.

The same theme appears Sal. 485ff. Two angels accompany man,
one brighter than gold, the other blacker than hell, whence he comes.
The one teaches him to love God’s mercy and the counsel of God’s
children; the other incites him to wickedness, showing him the evil
record of wretched men, thereby whetting his mind, leading and allur-
ing him throughout the land (“suggestio’). Thus the fiend attacks
on feower gecynd, 497, until the man turns to the worse and does the
39

will of him who tempts him to do wrong. Then the good angel de-

Parts weeping and says: “I could not force from his heart the stone
of steel.” 5 aeee

Il. MOTIVES DRAWN FROM THE WEAKNESS OF THE FLESH.

The belief that the soul is governed by the body, the angel as
it were riding on the beast, is everywhere apparent. Thus Ps. 50
(Cott.) .14: we read: “pbaette godferhte gylt gefraemman purh lichaman
lene gedohtas.” Most striking expression this motive finds in The
Address of the Lost Soul to the Body: The body was born through
the flesh and sin, 44f. It is the eordfaet, 8, that sins. ‘lhe soul is
sent from God to steady the body, 45f. Sin is therefore inevitable.
“As the shield to the warrior, the spear to the robber, the bracelet to
the bride, the book to the student, the housel to the saint, so is sin
to the heathen,” Gnom. Exon. 132. Under these circumstances it re-
mains for the Christian to watch and pray and fight. Therefore Bi
Manna Mode warns against pride and drunkenness, by calling atten-
tion to the dire results of pride and the happy reward of the opposite
temper. Faeder Larcwidas warns especially against wambe fylle, from
which proceed all manner of vices, such as drunkenness, fornication,
gluttony, sloth. These are expelled by fasting and temperance, etc.
I would call attention to a pretty little composition in the Instructiones
of Commodian (Migne 5.249). entitled Bellum Cottidianum, as the pre-
sumptive source of Mod. and Larcwidas:

Belligerare quaeris, stulte, quasi bella quiescant.

Ex protoplasto die pugnatur in fine vobis.

Libido praecipitat, bellum est, pugna cum illo.

Luxuria suadet, abutere, bellum vicisti.

Vino copioso parce, ne per illum [illud?] aberres.

Maledicti retine linguam, unde Dominum adoras.

Compescere furorem: pacificum redde te cunctis.

Oppressos miseriis deprimere cave minores.

Tutorem accommoda tantum, et. noli nocere.

Tramite vos recto ducite sincero prae zelo.

In tuis divitiis comen te redde pusillis.

De labore tuo dona, nudum vesti: sic vinces.

Insidias nulli facias, qui Deo deservis. __

Aspice principium, unde periit invidus hostis.

Non sum ego doctor, sed lex. ee ipsa ee
is tanta vane, qui sub uno momento

pee oe quaeris otiosus tollere Christo.

- are approaching the domain of the capital
, pe BO a ates, which are usually ranged in lists of eight
sins, or ie e lists, it should be observed, were useful from at least
in O. E. ae oints ‘of view. As denominations of the grosser forms
two differen aoe properly the subject of ecclesiastical discipline and
al oy the fountain head of a vast Penitential Literature But
accordingly e also to be looked upon as elemental dispositions of
i ees roots of other sins, and thus really grew to be psycho-
e ’ a this latter view which, inviting allegorical im-
logical types. It was

SS .
c. Lea, A History of Auricular Confession and In-

See H. & 8.1; Gnurch, $ vols. Phila. Lea Bros. & Co. 1896.
Ct ae ‘Thomas B. Strong, Christian Ethics. Bampton Lectures™1895; note

to Lecture We
40

 

provement, received poetical treatment. No less a man than Ald-
helm was kindled by this theme, even as it had kindled Cassian
(Collationes patrum) and Gregory (Moralia) and Prudentius (Hamar-
tigenia and Psychomachia) before. In Aldhelm’s picture the Vices
attack, and the Virtues defend the soul. Both are, of course, traits or
qualities of the heart, pride alone reminding one of the devil. Ald-
helm fairly exhausts his opulent vocabulary in describing, from sover-
eign to sutler, the barbarous legions of sin, who incessantly attack the
virgin cohorts with showers of darts. The latter don the spiritual
armor and bear the ensign of the cross. against the hostile ranks.
There is charge and counter-charge, attack and retreat. Above the
fray there tower the impertunate dragon of gluttony, who must be
destroyed by abstinence and frugality, and the truculent serpent pride,
who is cast out by godly fear. The eager host of Pharaoh, destroyed
in-the Red Sea, symbolized gluttony. The seven nations of Canaan
were types of the cther seven vices. This is Aldhelm’s treatment ot
the theme in his prose work, De Laudibus Virginitatis, l. ¢. pp. 1ff.
The entire work, it may be observed, grows out of a corollary to the
doctrine of original sin, viz., insistence on celibacy, since human be-
ings cannot cohabit without sin—The metrical treatise De Octo Prin-
cipalibus Vitiis. (1. c. pp. 203ff.) really belongs to the longer work,3
De Laudibus Virginum (1. ¢., pp. 135ff.). The poetical handling of the
theme is far more systematic and elaborate, but also less poetical than
the prose. In the hexameters the portrayal! of the conflict lacks vivid-
ness. there is little for the eye of fancy. At the head of the virtues
stands “Justitia.” Then the vices are considered in due order. Each
is pictured as the parent cf a numerous progeny of misdemeanors
more or less heinous. Lastly the virgins are advised how, by employ-
ing the proper means, each vice may in turn be remedied and over-
come. It is all as clear as a crystal, but shows only occasional flashes
cf poetical fire. :

C. PERSISTENCE OF THE MOTIVES.

Good and evil angels of men are mentioned by Aelfric, Hom. I.66f.,
170; cf. Bl. H.. p. 209. Angels are sad when the devil is victorious,
Hali Meidenhad. E. E. T. S. 18.17; ef. the “aungel freende” and the
“aungil foo,’ Mirror of the Periods of Man’s Life, E. E. T. S. 24.58ff.
—Virginity dwells in a high tower, and Satan attacks it, Hali Meiden-
had, 1. c., 18.5, 15. The devil ever seeks to take the virgin’s “‘castel,”’
Ayenbite of Intoyt, E. E. T. S. 23.227. In The Castell of Persever-
ance. “humanum genus” is assailed by “malus angelus” and defended
by “bonus angelus” (Pollard, English Miracle Plays, Moralities, and
Interludes, pp. 64ff.).—The principal vices continue to be regarded as
roots of sin and to be treated with the appropriate remedies. For
a list of the works on these vices see Skeat’s Notes to Piers the Plow-
man, E. E. T. S. 67.102.

2See Boenhoff, Aldhelm von Malmesbury. p. 112.
GENERAL SUMMARY.

Although the O. BE. Church adopted Augustinianism at the Council
of Hatfield, A. D. 680, Semi-Pelagianism nevertheless continued to be
the doctrine of its theologians. The doctrine of sin, modified by nu-
merous conceptions derived, chiefly through Gregory the Great, from
apocalyptic and apocryphal sources, was very prolific of poetical mo-
tives.

In the treatment of the FaLt or THE ANGELS two groups.of poems
are to be distinguished: : =

1. The epical group, including Gen. A, Mod., Gen. B, lays stress
on the pride and rebellion of Lucifer. The scene is heaven.

2. The semi-dramatic group, including Aldhelm’s De Lucifero, the
Sat. poems, Gu. 529-656, and incidental allusions to the Fall in Avx.,
El., Cri., Jul., Prayer IV, lays stress on the punishment of Satan, for
his rebellion, after the descensus of Christ. The scene is hell.

The original “Plaint of Lucifer’ was probably written by Aldhelm
on the basis of Gen. A Iff. :

The oldest redaction of this poem extant is probably Sat. 1-224;
next to it comes Gu. 529-656. The correspondences between these two
sections and the exhortation closing Sat. 224 show that Sat. 1-224 is
a separate poem. :

Sat. does not consist of odds and ends left of an original “Heiland,”
as Groschopp claims, but is a fairly orderly collection of “Plaints of
Lucifer.” Sat. 1-365 consists of six Plairts, viz., 1) 1-33, 190-193, 34-74,
194-224; 2) 225-315; 3) 215-8365; 4) 75-125; 5) 126-159; 6) 160-189;
which received their present order in the manuscript probably for
the purpose of dramatic recitation.

Sat. 366-664 did not originally belong to the cycle of “Plaints,”
being a treatise on the second half of the second Article of the Creed;
but after numerous additions to the decensus topic had made that sec-
tion by far the longest and most important one, the remaining sections
were regarded as an exhortation, and thus the whole poem, or frag-
ment of a poem, found its way into the manuscript as a parallel to the
three longest poems in Sat. 1-365. .

Sat. 665-733 is a fragment describing the dolors of Satan and
breaking off in what seems the beginning of another Plaint of the
ne f eight “Plaints of Lucifer.”

at. consists of ei “Plaints ai zi

Tae of the “Plaints” may be estimated, in part, from ee
influence on the poetry of Cynewulf and his school, as seen In eo S
Cri., Jul.; on Prayer IV: on Jud. 112-121; and perhaps on Gen.
aoe Fat or Man was a topic familiar from the works of Gregory,

i and other theological writers.
es aa Gen. A, which was probably of the same type as Gen. B

(and that was a foreign product), the O. E. poetry on ahs Fall.of Man
42

 

_is didactic and homiletic rather than descriptive, in Gu., Phoen., Cri.,
Sat.

These four “Fall” sections are very loosely connected with the
poems in which they are found, especially Gu. and Phoen. The se-
quence of thoughts is practically the same in all, and verbal corre-
spondences abound. Between Gu and Phoen. the correspondences in
thought and phrase are so overwhelmingly strong as to make them
appear as almost the same poem. The inference is that underlying
these sections there was a very familiar metrical homily on the Fall
of Man.

In the life of Satan, the O. E. theologians and poets, as Gregory had
done, distinguished three periods: 1) before Christ; 2) after Christ’s
descent into hell; 3) the Antichrist period. Gen. A and Gen. B show
the devil at the very beginning of his mundane existence, though fallen,
still majestic. Cynewulf and the “Plaints” portray. the devil in bonds,
in his second period, emphasizing especially his malignity, his hideous-
ness, his sufferings. Satan’s third period is not treated in the poetry,
but later described in the homilies, etc., on Antichrist.

-The views obtaining as to the spiritual condition of FALLEN MAN
have not only left their impress on the O. E. vocabulary, but: have ais
turnished a number of extremely beautiful motives.

The first group consists of those drawn from the influence ana
power of the devil. The poem on the Whale is an allegorical repre-
sentation of Satan’s artful allurements. That on the Partridge seems
to be of a similar type. In Gu. A and Gu. B goblins seek to tempt a
saint to return to a life of worldliness. In Jul., occurs the allegory of
man-soul besieged, like a fortress, by the evil spirit. The theme of a
good and an evil angel contending for a human soul finds expression
in Gw. 85-111 and Sal. 485ff.

The second group consists of the motives drawn from the weak-
ness of the flesh. Here belong The Address of a Lost Soul to Its Body,
Mod., and Larcwidas, the two latter resting probably on Commodian’s
Béllum Cottidianum. The most noteworthy examples of this motive,
however, are Aldhelm’s pictures of the conflict of the Virtues and Vices.

In conclusion, I believe that the majority of these motives existed
in the form of short stories or homilies, which became a popular pos-
session and received metrical treatment. Repeated from generation
to generation, they were altered and expanded in their transmission,
sometimes embodied wholly or in part in larger compositions, yet al-
ways remaining the property of the people and surviving in the Miracle
Play and Morality, until they were superseded by new themes in the
dawn of the Renaissance and the Reformation.