T H E F O O TS T E P S O F I S RA E L
THE FOOTSTEPS OF ISRAEL
Understanding Jews in Anglo-Saxon England
Andrew P. Scheil
T H E U N IV E R S I T Y O F M I C H I GA N P R E S S Ann Arbor
Copyright © by the University of Michigan 2004 All rights reserved Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America @ Printed on acid-free paper 2007
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher. A CIP catalt�q record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Scheil, Andrew P. I 9 6 8 The footsteps o f Israel : understanding Jews in Anglo-Saxon England / Andrew P. Scheil. p . em. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN o-472-I I 4 o 8 -5 (cloth : alk. paper) 2. English literature r. Judaism-Controversial literature-History and criticism. Old English, ca. 4 5 0- I I Oo -History and criticism . 3 · Antisemitism in literature . 4 . Judaism (Christian theology)-History of doctrines-Middle Ages, 6oo- I 5 oo. 5· Judaism in literature. 6. Jews in literature . 7· Bede, the Venerable, Saint, 673 - 7 3 s -Views on Judaism. I. Title . 2004 BM5 8 5 . S 2 6 5 2 6 1 . 2'6'094209 0 2 I - dc22 "The Poems of Our Climate from The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens, copyright I 9 54 by Wallace Stevens and renewed I 9 8 2 by Holly Stevens. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.
Acknowledgments
his study saw its earliest form as a small unit on JElfric and the Jews written for a quite different dissertation project under the supervi sion of David Townsend at the University of Toronto . David was an ideal supervisor, and I owe a great deal to him as well as my other instructors in Toronto, including G . E . Bentley, Jr. , Alan Bewell, Patri cia Eberle, Peter Heyworth, Michael Herren, Heather Jackson, David Klausner, and Jill Levenson. I would like to thank most importantly Roberta Frank ( Yale University) for all her support over the years . Scott Westrem ( City University of New York [ CUNY ] ) , Ian Mc Dougall ( University of Toronto ) , and Suzanne Al(bari ( University of Toronto ) were perspicacious and diligent members of the dissertation defense committee . As the expanded version of the project took shape after my years in Toronto, it benefited from my participation in two National Endow ment for the Humanities (NEH ) programs . The first was a summer seminar at the State University of New York ( S UNY) Stony Brook in I 9 9 6 on "Absence and Presence : The Jew in Early English Literature," where the ideas were encouraged by Director Stephen Spector and the other members of the seminar, especially Alfred David and Seymour Kleinberg; I am doubly in debt to Steve Spector, who turned out to be one of the readers of the manuscript for the University of Michigan Press . He and the other reader ( Louise Mirrer, City University of New
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ACKN OWL E D GMENTS VI
York) pushed me to make the book accessible to as broad a readership as possible; I am grateful for their help . The second program took place in 1 999 when I was a participant in Paul Szarmach's NEH Summer Institute on Anglo-Saxon England at Western Michigan University. I would like to thank the faculty and fellow students of that seminar, including Professor Szarmach himself, Katherine O'Brien O'Keefe, George Brown, Simon Keynes, Timothy Graham, Catherine Karkov, Nicole Discenza, Alex Bmce, Jana Schulman, and William Nelles. My thanks to the National Endowment for the Humanities for its support. Other friends and colleagues who have read portions or commented on oral versions of the argument include : Malcolm Godden, Drew Jones, Haruko Momma, Jennifer Neville, Joaquin Martinez Pizzaro, Mary Ramsey, Fred C. Robinson, and the members of the Harvard Medieval Doctoral Conference . Karl F. Morrison was my mentor as an undergraduate at Rutgers University, and his influence is apparent in these pages . Nicholas Howe and Daniel Donoghue have been friends, intellectual models, and important sources of advice and solace over the past few years . Portions of the book were delivered to audiences at the Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies (SUNY Binghamton) , the International Congress on Medieval Studies ( Kalamazoo, Michigan ) , the meeting of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists ( ISAS ) ( University of Notre Dame, 1 9 99 ) , The Humanities Institute ( S UNY Stony Brook), and the Harvard Medieval Doctoral Conference . The libraries of the University of Toronto, the University of Rochester, S UNY Stony Brook, Trinity College ( Hartford) , Yale University, West ern Michigan University, Ohio State University, Brown University, and Harvard University have, at one time or another in my peripatetic post graduate-school wanderings, opened the door to their resources . My current colleagues and students in the History and Literature program at Harvard University have made the final preparation of the book a rewarding pleasure . At the University of Michigan Press Christopher Collins and Sarah Mann have been a delight. It is a pleasure to acknowl edge the support of the Medieval Academy in the form of a travel subvention to attend the 1 999 ISAS meeting, and to acknowledge the permission of Cambridge University Press to use portions of my article "Anti-Judaism in JElfric's Lives of Saints'' ASE 2 8 ( 1 999 ) : 6 5 - 8 6 . All errors that remain are my own responsibility. The man who began this book in Toronto in the mid-nineties is
Acknowledgments Vll
almost unrecognizable now, in all important ways, through the abiding love of Katherine West Scheil . When I try to express my debt to her in words, I can find in my heart, like Gabriel Conroy, only lame and useless ones. Instead, the best evidence for the moments of our life together is our young sons, William and David. This book is for all three of you.
Contents
Abbreviations Introduction
xi
I
PA RT O N E B E D E , THE J E W S , A N D THE E X E G E T I CA L IMAGINAT I O N
Introduction
23
Chapter One : Bede and Hate
30
Chapter Two : Bede and Love
66
PA RT TW O THE P O P ULUS ISRAHEL-M E TA P HO R , IMAG E , E X E M P L UM
Introduction: Excursus on Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Chapter Three : The Populus Israhel Tradition
III
Chapter Four : The Populus Israhel Tradition in Britain PA RT THR E E J E W S , F U RY A N D THE B O D Y
Introduction
IOI
I9 5
Chapter Five : Anti- Judaic Rhetoric in the Vercelli and Blickling Manuscripts 204
I43
CONTENTS X
Chapter Six : Anti-Judaism and Somatic Fiction
240
PA RT F O U R LE L F R I C , A N T I - J U D A I S M A N D T H E T E N TH C E N T U RY
Introduction
28 5
Chapter Seven: JElfric's De populo Israhel Chapter Eight: JElfric's Maccabees Conclusion Bibliography Index
3 65
33 I 34I
3I3
29 5
Abbreviations
ASE AS PR
Bosworth-Toller
CCSL CH I CH II CSASE CSEL EETS OS EETS ss ELN ES HE JEGP MGH
Anglo-Saxon England Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, ed. G. P. Krapp and E . V. K. Dobbie, 6 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, I 9 3 I - 4 2 ) . An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, ed. J. Bosworth and T. N. Toller ( Oxford : Oxford University Press, I 8 9 8 ) ; Supplement by T. N. Toller ( Oxford: Clarendon Press, I 9 2 I ) ; Enlarged Addenda and Corrigenda to the Supplement by Alistair Campbell ( Oxford: Clarendon Press, I 9 7 2 ) . Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina lElfric, First Series of Catholic Homilies lElfric, Second Series of Catholic Homilies Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum Early English Text Society, old series Early English Text Society, supplementary series English Language Notes English Studies Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Journal ofEnglish and Germanic Philology Monumenta Germaniae Historica
A B B REVIATIONS Xll
MP
N&Q NCHOEL
Neophil NM PL PQ RES RS SP
SN
Modern Philology Notes and Queries Stanley B . Greenfield and Daniel Calder with Michael Lapidge, A New Critical History of Old English Literature ( New York: New York University Press, 1 9 8 6 ) . Neophilologus Neuphilologische Mitteilungen Patrologia Latina) ed. Migne Philological Quarterly Review ofEnglish Studies Rolls Series Studies in Philology Studia Neophilologica
Unless otherwise specified, all biblical quotations are from the Douay Rheims translation of the Vulgate, with minor modifications. Transla tions from Latin and Old English are my own unless otherwise speci fied. With all primary sources, I occasionally make minor textual modi fications such as repunctuation and expanding abbreviations .
Introduction
My lyre is turned to mourning, and my pipe to the voice of those who weep .
To divine the tme, the latent sense , you need to be of the elect, of the institution. Outsiders must content themselves with the manifest, and pay a supreme penalty for doing so. -Frank Kermode, Genesis of Secrecy Who can distinguish darkness from the soul? -Yeats, "A Dialogue of Self and Soul"
n the
first chapter ofJohn's gospel, the disciple Philip invites his friend Nathanael to enter the service ofJesus ofNazareth, to which Nathan ael sarcastically replies, "Can any thing of good come from Nazareth?" ( John I :4 6 ) . Nevertheless, he becomes a faithful follower after Christ hails him as "an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile" ( John I :4 7). In his exegetical exposition of this scene, the Venerable Bede ( 673-73 5 C.E . ) notes that Jesus had seen Nathanael previously under a fig tree, before Philip called him; this is glossed as the "electione spiritalis Israhel, id est, populi Christiani" [choosing of the spiritual Israel, that is, the
I
THE f O O T S T E P S Of I S RA E L 2
Christian people] ( Homeliae I . I 7 . 20 3 - 4 ) . 1 In response to Nathanael's good fortune, Bede exclaims joyfully: quam magna nobis quoque qui de gentibus ad fidem uenimus in hac sententia nostri redemptoris spes aperitur salutis ! Si enim uere Israhelita est qui doli nescius incedit, iam perdidere Iudaei nomen Israhelitarum quamuis carnaliter de Israhel quotquot doloso corde a simplicitate patriarchae sui degenerauerunt, et adsciti sumus ipsi in semen Israhelitarum qui quamlibet aliis de nationibus genus carnis habentes fide tamen ueritatis et munditia corporis ac mentis vestigia sequimur Israhel. ( Homeliae I . I 7 . I 72- 8 o ) 0
[ O h what a great hope of salvation i s opened by this statement of our Redeemer to those of us who have come to the faith from the gentiles! For if he is truly an Israelite who walks as one ignorant of deceit, the Jews, although physically descended from Israel, already lost the name of lsraelites, as many have by their deceitful hearts degenerated from the simplicity of their patriarch. And we have been admitted among the descendents of the Israelites, since, although according to the flesh we have our origin from other nations, nevertheless by the faith of truth and by purity of the body and mind, we follow in the footsteps of Israel. ] The vestigia Israhel) "the footsteps of Israel" : Bede uses this phrase elsewhere in his corpus, and it calls to mind his well-known description of his own work as following in the vestigia patrum ( "the footsteps of I . Cf. also Bede's De Tabernaculo I . 2 3 6- 4 o : "Cuncta haec quae dominus sibi a priore populo ad bciendum sanctuarium materialiter offerri praecepit nos quoque qui spiritales fi lii Israhel . . . esse desideramus spiritali intellegentia de bemus offere" [All these things that the Lord directed to be offered to him in a material bshion f()r the making of a sanctuary by the people of earlier times should also be offered with spiritual understanding by us who desire to be the spiritual children ofisradj ; emphasis mine . References to Bede's works are by short title and parentl1etical reference: De Tabernaculo, by book and line numbers; De Templo, by book and line numbers; De temporum ratione, by page and line numbers; Explanatio Apoca�vpsis, by volume and column number in the PL; Expositio Actuum Apostolorum, by chapter and verse of Acts, and line numbers of commentary; Historia Ecclesiastica, by book, chapter, and page num ber of Latin text (translations from facing page ) ; Homeliae, by book, homily, and line num bers; In Epistolas VII Catholicas, by page and line numbers; In Genesim, by book and line numbers; In Habacuc, by line numbers; In Regttm XXX Q;taestiones, by question number and line numbers; In I Samuhelem, by book and line numbers; In Tobiam, by chapter and verse of Tobit, and line numbers of commentary; Retractatio in Actus Apostolorum, by chapter and verse of Acts, and line numbers of commentary.
Introduction 3
the fathers" ) . 2 Both formulas bespeak a way of relating the past to the present, an understanding of those who have gone before, even as ground is broken for the road ahead and eyes trained upon the distant horizon of the future . In Anglo-Saxon England, a land without Jewish communities, "following in the footsteps of lsrael" encompasses a vari ety of Christian apprehensions of Judaism, ranging from vehement denunciation and rejection to subtle embrace .
The Footsteps of Israel takes as its subject the understanding of Jews and Judaism in pre-Conquest England. Absent from Anglo-Saxon England in any real physical sense, Jews were nevertheless present as imagina tive, textual constructs, manifest only in the distorted shadow cast by the Christian tradition. "Jews" and "Judaism" will thus stand ( sans quotation marks hereafter) for, in essence, a nexus of rhetorical effects, a variety of representational strategies built into the very structure of medieval Christianity. If "strategies," to what end? No simple or uni versal answer exists : Jews were a meditative vehicle for exegesis; an exemplum of the direction of God's shaping hand throughout history; a record of the divine patterns of the historical imagination; a subject for epic and elegy; an outlet for anger and rage; a dark, fearful image of the body; a useful political tool-all in all, a variform way of fashioning a Christian populus in England and continually redefining its nature . In Anglo-Saxon England, Jews and Judaism signify not image, but pro cess; not stable concept, but complex negotiation. Throughout The Footsteps of Israel I will be referring to "the dis course of anti-Judaism," "anti-Judaic rhetoric," and similar formula tions. I intend these shorthand expressions to designate a plurality of related practices . Averil Cameron performs the necessary qualifications in her definition of the term " Christian discourse" : "Rather than a single Christian discourse [in late antiquity] , there was rather a series of overlapping discourses always in a state of adaptation and adjustment, and always ready to absorb in a highly opportunistic manner whatever might be useful from secular rhetoric and vocabulary. 3 One fundamen2. On the "footsteps of the fathers" phrase in Bede see Meyvaert, "Bede the Scholar," 42; Bonner, "Becie and Medieval Civilization, " esp . 7 5 ; Davidse , "Sense of History," 6 5 5 - 5 6 . 3 . Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire, 5 .
THE f O O T S T E P S Of I S RA E L 4
tal point will arise from this study: anti-Judaic discourse in Anglo Saxon England denotes a syncretic, flexible , mobile system of rhetoric; it is part and parcel of Christian discourse in the time and place under examination, but is not a monolithic construct. What we will be defining is one element in the vast system of assump tions about the world and humanity's place in it, held both consciously and unconsciously. Northrop Frye explains the function of literary representation in the great enclosing context of lived experience : "Man lives, not directly or nakedly in nature like the animals, but within a mythological universe, a body of assumptions and beliefs developed from his existential concerns. "4 Frye's "mythological universe," seen from a somewhat different perspective, could also describe the work ings of ideology: a set of assumptions, often held unconsciously, that mediate the individual's relationship to culture and its material impera tives . 5 Yet to define a study of this sort as simply or solely an exercise in ideology "debunking" is, I think, to miss the mark. To be sure, no other subject is better open to the argument that textual ideologies and their long-enduring afterlives have dark effects upon real human beings than a study of the discourse of anti-Judaism, as Gavin Langmuir's History> Religion> and Antisemitism so powerfully and movingly demonstrates . But the oft-imposing power of cultural traditions does not, I believe, in the end reduce all to a hopeless determinism . The Footsteps of Israel will work under the conviction that what Jameson calls the "priority of the political interpretation of literary texts" is not what he and so much contemporary criticism claim-whether explicitly articulated or held as a tacit assumption-namely that "the political perspective . . . [is] the absolute horizon of all reading and all interpretation . " 6 My added em phases are important: literature is surely, to cite with approval Jame son's phrase, "a socially symbolic act"; such acts must be defined, catalogued, arranged, interpreted-all noble acts of criticism and schol arship . Yet I cannot escape the strong evidence that there is more at stake in a book like The Footsteps of Israel> a study that tackles such an obviously politically charged subject matter. It is simply too easy to read the history of Christian hatred of Jews 4 · Frye, Great Code, xviii. 5 . Note the acknowledged debt ( often overlooked) of Jameson's seminal work on ideol ogy and narrative to Frye ( Political Unconscious, 6 8 - 7 4 ) . For a lucid discussion of the defini tions of ideology see Eagleton, Ideology. 6. Jameson, Political Unconscious, I ? ; emphasis added.
Introduction 5
found in Anglo-Saxon texts and then safely write another chapter in the grand recit of Oppression. Ultimately, there is something far more human, in all senses of the word, at work here . To deny the human element, the capacity of human beings-individual lives-to move beyond the textual chains that in part define them hews, in a strange fashion, too closely to an irrational view of life profoundly implicated in the pages that follow. To experience delight, fear, tragedy, awe , despair, the flu sh of power and pride ; to feel the working of the cre ative imagination and respond with words drawn out of desire and spun into the aesthetic shapes of the imagination-in short, to love and be human: all these emotions and human responses find their way into expressions of hatred for Jews in Anglo-Saxon England. It is imperative to move beyond the sheerly political horizon, however much it may seem difficult when caught in the darkness of anti-Judaic discourse. It is easy to be a cynic: the difficult task is to search out, touch, and apprehend the humanity revealed in these often painful words from pre- Conquest England. And perhaps, in the final analysis, such an apprehension might be far more disturbing. The Footsteps of Israel illustrates, through the example of Anglo Saxon England and in all its complexity, the process Hayden White calls "ostensive self-definition by negation. "? This is a pervasive habit of human thought, the source of much recent theorizing and analysis of "the Other" in texts and cultures of various sorts . As imprecise as the term "the Other" can be, it is perhaps better to think of it in a general way as what Frye termed "the dialectical habit of mind that divides the world into those with us and those against us. " 8 What is at stake in dividing the world in this fashion? Pointing the finger at the embodi ment of alterity in the cultural landscape is one strategy by which a culture regulates its boundaries, its cohesiveness and integrity: when antipathy to an "external group" ( even if, or perhaps especially if, lacking an empirical basis and thus essentially fictive in nature ) ossifies into commonplace assumptions, the tradition it forms renders the "we" more assured, more cohesive a social unit. Tradition, as Karl Morrison notes, "unifies the faithful and separates them from men outside the 7. White, Tropics of Discourse, I 5 1 - 5 2 . 8 . Frye, Great Code, I I 4 . Stallybrass and White call this process the "law of exclusion" in The Politics and Poetics ofTransgression, 2 5 , and Mellinkoff describes it as "who was included in the great feast of life and who was excluded" ( Outcasts I , li ) . For general theoretical orienta tion on the subject of alterity see J. Smith, "Difference" and Green, "Otherness Within. "
THE f O O T S T E P S Of I S RA E L 6
religious body. Tradition exists only among the faithful; only they have the doctrine of salvation. But, like a Damoclean sword, there always hangs over believers the danger that even they may lose or corrupt the words of truth and life, and thus suffer the fate of the infidel. "9 But traditions and ideologies are protean subjects, forever changing, shifting, contracting and expanding even as they maintain, in general, a definable shape. In Nicholas Howe's study of the Anglo-Saxon "migra tion myth," he notes the durability of tradition as it responses to various stimuli: "Through its power to capture the repeated order of the past, a myth of cultural identity endures and accommodates the new into an established yet still meaningful pattern. " I o As we track the understand ing ofJews and Judaism in Anglo-Saxon England, it will become appar ent that while in the broad outlines these rhetorical tropes have a similar texture, a common genealogy, they also exhibit a diversity of essence when placed and studied in their particular local contexts . This contin ual dialectic between the conservatism of tradition and the relentless dynamics of change is an element integral to Christian tradition in the early Middle Ages. I I Jews and Judaism are not, therefore, static motifs or images in the imagination of Anglo-Saxon England; they are also not simply an unchanging, universally despised, unproblematic "Other." Like any number of other elements in the fabric of humanity's "mytho logical universe," these words denote changing, fluctuating factors in the living mass of tradition produced by and for human beings. In the course of discussing Bede's England, Peter Brown notes that Anglo-Saxon Christian culture, though to a degree sui generis, was still part of a larger Mediterannean community: "It [i.e . , Anglo-Saxon En gland] shared with the many 'micro- Christendoms' which stretched, like so many beads on a string, from Iona across Europe and the Middle East to Iran and Central Asia, a common pool of inherited images and attitudes inherited from ancient Christianity."1 2 Jews are an important element in this "common pool of inherited images" found across early medieval Europe; The Footsteps of Israel will look deeply into that pool and examine what lies beneath.
9. ro. rr. r2.
Morrison, Tradition and Authority, 8 . Howe, Migration and Mythmaking, 2 . Morrison, Tradition and Authority, 6- 7. P. Brown, Rise of Western Christendom, 3 7 8 .
Introduction 7
Jews were of course living in northern Europe in considerable numbers in the early Middle Ages. r 3 But Jews migrated to England in substan tial numbers only in the later eleventh century; anti- Judaic discourse existed in Anglo-Saxon England, therefore, without the presence of actual Jewish communities. r4 The understanding of Jews and Judaism in Anglo-Saxon England is thus solely a textual phenomenon, a matter of stereotypes embedded in long-standing Christian culmral tradi tions. rs Thinking about Jews in Anglo-Saxon England was an act of individual imagination, always conditioned and bounded by the pon derous weight of tradition, as can be said of almost any medieval creative act: the powerful fusion of local intention and the overarching power of the auctor-defined past. What Jeremy Cohen compellingly terms the "hermeneutically and doctrinally constructed Jew" comes into being as ideologies, genres, authorial intentions, and any number of other factors ( except, apparently, the physical presence of Jews in England) clash, rebound and combine, and move into the depths of tradition and myth . 16 Through an understanding of the hermeneutics implicated in anti-Judaic discourse, we actually set foot into the terrain of deep fears, desires, and joys of Christian Anglo-Saxon culture; as I 3 . For nearby continental communities see Encyclopedia ]udaica, vol . 7, cols. 7- I4 ( "France : Roman <md Merovingian Periods, " esp. the map cols . I I - I 2 , and Golb, jews in Medieval Normandy, I - I I o . See Chazan, Medieval Stereotypes and Modern Antisemitism, I - I 8 , for background on Jewish settlement in northern Europe before the eleventh century. I 4 . Scholarly consensus maintains that Jews settled in England only after the Norman Conquest: see tl1e Encyclopedia ]udaica, vol. 6, col. 7 4 7; Jacobs, jews ofAngevin England, ix; Hyamson, History of the jt'IVS in England, I - 6; Calisch, Jew in English Literature, 3 3 ; Mi chelson, jew in EarZv English Literature, I 2- 2 I ; Baron, Social and Religious History ofthe ]ervs, vol. 6, 76; Roth, History ofthe jews in England, 2; Ben-Sasson, History ofthe jewish People, 3 9 4 ; Poliakov, Histo ry ofAnti-Semitism, vol. I , 77; Little, Religious Poverty and the Profi t Economy, 4 5 ; Pollins, Economic History of the Jews in England, I 5 ; Stow, Alienated Minority, 4 I ; Golb, Jews in Medieval Normandy, I I 2- I 4 ( but cf. I I 3 ). On Jews in Roman Britain see Applebaum, "Were There Jews in Roman Britain? " I 5 . Thus, tl1is smdy deals with an understanding o f Jews little influenced by actual Jewish culmre. Mellinkotf suggests in "Round, Cap-Shaped Hats" tl1at tl1e observation of real Jews could be responsible for the iconographic innovation of round hats on Jews (as opposed to pointed ones) in the illustrations of London, British Library, Cotton Claudius B. iv. For possible knowledge of Hebrew in Anglo-Saxon England see Keefer and Burrows, "Hebrew and the Hebraicum." Such bits of evidence do not argue for a substantial impact of Jewish culmre in Anglo-Saxon England. Any influence of Hebrew literan1re on Anglo-Saxon literary culture was probably through an intermediary text: see Biggs and Hall, "Traditions concern ing Jamnes and Mambres, " 8 5 - 8 6 . I 6. Cohen, Living Letters, 2; for tl1e genealogy of his development of tl1e term see Living Letters, 3 , note 3 .
THE f O O T S T E P S Of I S RA E L 8
Cohen notes, "Christian culture had crafted a Jew in keeping with the needs of its doctrine, as a foil for its interpretation of the Bible, as an instructive antithesis of its own self-image ." 17 The features of early medieval anti-Judaism are well-known : that the Jews are the killers of Christ, guilty of deicide; that they committed their act because they are "spiritually blind" or in some fashion deficient of mind, hence their rejection of Jesus : their carnal nature entails an insuf ficient understanding that prevents them from recognizing the divine presence of Christ in the offering from God; that this carnal nature leads them to a literal interpretation of the Bible, while the Christian mind sees through the base text to the animating Spirit within; in keep ing with this strongly dualistic hermeneutic, that the Old Law of the Jews is also superseded by the New Gospel of Christ, ancient covenant replaced by a new promise to a new chosen people; and that the histori cal dispersion of the Jews-their long tale ofwoe in the ancient world constitutes God's punishment for killing Jesus. r s These beliefs comprise what Gavin Langmuir calls the "core of Christian anti-Judaism . "r9 Throughout The Footsteps of Israel I follow Langmuir's distinction be tween the anti judaism of the early Middle Ages, characterized by "logi cal" ( albeit nonrational) conclusions about the Jews that are derived from empirical thinking, and the antisemitism of the centuries following I I oo, characterized by more fantastical, irrational suppositions . 20 In Langmuir's analysis, the traditional rhetoric of anti-Judaism proceeds from extrapolations based on observable, verifiable fact: for example, Jews do not accept Jesus Christ as the Messiah; they also do not read the I 7. Cohen, Living Letters, 3 9 I . r 8 . Cohen convincingly sees these elements as all belonging to Augustine's tremendously influential doctrine of "Jewish witness," itself an extension of Pauline doctrine ( Living Letters, 20). 19. Langmuir, History, Religion, and Antisemitism, 2 8 5 . 20. In addition to History, Religion, and Antisemitism, 27 5 - 3 0 5 , see Langmuir's Ttrward a Defi nition ofAntisemitism, 5 7- 1 3 3 , and "The Faith of Christians and Hostility to Jews. " See further Little, R eligious Poverty and the Profi t Economy, 42- 5 7 ; Moore, Formation ofa Persecut inJJ Society, 2 y- 4 5 , and "Anti-Semitism and the Birth of Europe. " Trachtenberg, Devil and the jews is still a useful survey of medieval antisemitism. Cohen notes, "By the thirteenth century, prominent churchmen perceived the European Jew as one who no longer fulfilled the role that Augustine had given him, as one who had deviated from the letter and life of the biblical text that it was his purpose to maintain" ( Living Letters, 3 9 4 - 9 5 ) ; Cohen's important study, The Friars and the J ews, analyzes these later developments. Elisabeth Young- Bruehl character izes anti-Judaism as an ethnocentrism, and antisemitism as an "ideology of desire" or an "orecticism" ; see her analysis infclrmed by psychoanalysis and sociology in The Anatomy of Prejudices, 1 8 4 - 9 9 , passim.
Introduction 9
Hebrew Scriptures in the same way Christians do-as the "Old Testa ment," fulfilled only by the writings of the New Testament. Therefore, charges of anti-Judaism, e . g . , that the Jews reject Christ, that the Jews follow the "Old Law" and not the new covenant prescribed in the New Testament, have a basis in verifiable reality, even if they are extrapolated beyond measure and couched in emotionally vehement terms. This anti- Judaic rhetoric should be distinguished from the fantasti cal, irrational suppositions of the High and Late Middle Ages: in "antisemitic discourse" (again, Langmuir's term) Jews are accused of doing things that were never verified empirically; poisoning wells, kidnapping and murdering Christian children, desecrating hosts, bear ing demonic body parts ( e . g . , tails, cloven hooves ) , etc. These charges belong to a discourse fundamentally different in both cause and effect from the anti-Judaism of the early Middle Ages. The grim irrationality of antisemitism finds its culmination in Auschwitz and Bergen-Bel sen; anti-Judaism, while certainly reinforcing Christian hatred of Jews as it complemented the fantastical charges of antisemitism, must be ap proached on a different basis. Looking ahead, an important finding is that we do not have one dominant mode of understanding Jews in Anglo-Saxon England, or even one clear arc of development in the image of the Jew: there is no simple story to tell here . Instead, we have a variety of discursive prac tices, sometimes distinct, sometimes overlapping each other-em bedded and tangled; at times meshing with perfect symmetry, at times residing in strange contradiction.2I The Footsteps ofIsrael defines a num ber of distinct modes of thinking about Jews, and sketches the broad outlines of hermeneutic strategies that shift and change in response to various contexts. Studies of early medieval attitudes toward Jews are few when compared to the number treating the later Middle Ages; to my knowledge, no one has taken an extensive, in-depth look at representa tions of Jews in pre - Conquest England. This study thus outlines an important "pre-history" and context to later persecutions in England. However, the book moves beyond a summa of anti- Judaic discourse to a more nuanced understanding of the role Jews and Judaism play in the construction of social identity and the shaping of the literary imagina tion in Anglo-Saxon England. 2 1 . Cohen comes to a similar conclusion concerning the complex role of "the Jew" in medieval culture ( Living Letters, 3 9 2 ) .
THE f O O T S T E P S Of I S RA E L IO
The conflict between Church and Synagogue is as old as Christianity itself, and inextricably connected to the early histories of Christian com munities . From the important formation ofPauline doctrine in the New Testament to the influential codification of anti-Judaic hermeneutics by Augustine, late antiquity was of fundamental significance in shaping the understandings of Jews that would obtain in Anglo-Saxon England. 22 The paradigm for the Christian understanding of Jews in the early Middle Ages was established by Augustine . According to Augustine , the Jews were once God's chosen people, but, due to their spiritual blindness, they kille d Christ and were thus forever cast out from God's grace . However, the Jews had an important place within Christian cos mology; they provided proof of God's divine plan as witnesses to the figural potential of the Christian New Testament latent within the Ju daic Old Law, and thus they were reserved for conversion at the end of time . 23 For Augustine , historical events proved his case; the Jews existed as a scattered and defeated people : Iudaei autem, qui eum occiderunt et in eum credere noluerunt, quia oportebat eum mori et resurgere, uastati infelicius a Ro manis funditusque a suo regno, ubi iam eis alienigenae domina bantur, eradicati dispersique per terras ( quando quidem ubique non desunt) per scripturas suas testimonio nobis sunt prophetias nos non finxisse de Christo . . . . 24 2 2 . As Young states, "[In the second century] Christian identity was being formed by diflerentiation from Jews on the one hand, pagans on the other, and Gnostics within the gates" ( Biblical Exeg es is, 24 I ) . For a concise discussion of New Testament anti-Judaism see Cohen, Living Letters, 6 - 9 , as well as Neusner and Frerichs, eds. "To See Ourselves as Others See Us," chapters 4, 5 , 6 (pp. 9 3 - I 6 I ) . On the early ChristiaJLmd patristic background of anti-Judaism see A. L. Williams, Adversus Judaeos; Berdyaev, Christianity and Anti-Semitism; Runes, Jew and the Cross; Ladner, "Aspects of Patristic Anti-Judaism"; Abel, Roots rrfAnti-Semitism, esp . r I 23 8 ; Ruether, Faith and Fratricide and "Adverstt s Jttdaeos Tradition"; Cohen, Friars and the Jews, I 9 - 3 2, "Jews as the Killers of Christ," Living Letters, 9 - I 5 (for a succinct overview) ; Maccoby, Sacred Executioner, I 3 4 - 62; Gager, Orwins ofAnti-Semitism; Neusner and Frerichs, eds. "To See Ourselves as Others See Us"; Stow, Alienated Minority, 6-40. For a collection of cmcial studies see Cohen, ed. , Essential Papers on judaism and Christianity in Conflict. 2 3 . This understanding informed the official policy toward Jews in the kingdoms of Europe in the Middle Ages and contributed to the relative stability ofJewish life in the period when compared to the later Middle Ages: see Bachrach, Early Medieval J ewish Policy, and the legal evidence collected in Linder, ed. , jews in the Legal Sources of the Early Middle Ages, esp . "Index of Subjects: Protections of Jews" ( 7 1 4 ) and "Violence: against Jews" ( 7 1 7 ) . 24 . Augustine, De civitate Dei I 8 -4 6. I 3 - I 8 , by book, chapter,
sedimus)· flevimus>flentes)· salicibus> salictis) salicum)· suspendi mus m:gana nostra>suspendimus m:gana nostra)) but the tone shifts in subtle ways , playing off the inspiration of the source-text. Interesting changes abound. Prudentius seems to be behind Paulinus's "cruel wa ters of Babylon" [ dirae Babylonis ad amnes] ( cf. Prudentius, line 90, above ) and the description of the entire situation as an "exile" [ exilium] (ibid. ) . However, Paulinus has moved back into the first-person plural; singing no longer of the gens Hebraeorum) Paulinus instead uses a whole line to define the collective speaker ( "captive," "weeping miser ably" ) , and, in something of a diminution from the gens Hebraeorum) they are a "band ofJews" [ Iudaea manus] . There is an affective develop ment of the psychology of exile here ; Paulinus adds that these are "unknown" [ wnotos] waters . The place of exile is further specified as within the walls of the "Assyrian city," enhancing the notes of exile with a subtle strain of imprisonment. Paulinus also builds a contrast between the beauty of the natural setting and the misery of the Jews
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not found in the psalm or in Prudentius : Paulinus's willow branches are not bitter; they are "delightful" [ lentis] , affording pleasant shade to visiting travelers . But not for the Jews : this is an exile justified by the anger of God (meritum iusta . . . ab ira). In a telling change, the Jews of Paulinus's poem do not "remember Sion" [ recordaremur Sion] ; instead they ultimately "forget" [ obliti] the joyous songs as they hang up their harps. Again, there is interpretation encoded here in this image, drawn from the vast storehouse of the populus Israhel mythos; these Jews have brought this fate upon themselves, because of their own sins, and have thus lost their cultural heritage (i.e., the "songs of their nation" ) . Psalm I 3 6 , bearing in miniature much of the populus Israhel matter, becomes a common figure for exile of all sorts . In a later example the Carolingian Latin poet Gottschalk of Orbais ( ca. 8oo-ca. 8 6 8 C.E . ) uses Psalm I 3 6 in his poem on exile, "Ut quid iubes? " Gottschalk's speaker in the first stanza asks Ut quid iubes pusiole, quare mandas, filiole, carmen dulce me cantare, cum sim Ionge exul valde intra mare? 0 cur iubes canere? 3 7 [Why ever are you commanding, little boy, Why, little son, are you telling me To sing a sweet song, Although I am in exile, far away On this sea? 0 why are you telling me to sing? ] Gottschalk employs the mournful populus Israhel of Psalm I 3 6 to de velop the imagery of exile in his poem: Scis captive plebicule Israheli cognomine praeceptum in Babilone 3 7. Gottschalk, "Ut quid iubes? " I ( Carolingian Poetry, ed. and trans. Godman, p p . 2 2 8 3 3 , by stanza numbers ) .
The Populus Israhel Tradition 1 39
decantare extra Ionge fines Iude . 0 cur iubes canere? Non potuerunt utique, nee debuerunt itaque . Carmen dulce coram gente aliene nostri terre resonare o cur iubes canere? 3 8 [You know that the captive little people Called Israel Was ordered to sing In Babylon, far away From the bounds of Judah. 0 why are you telling me to sing? They simply couldn't And so they didn't have to . 0 why do you command me To sing a sweet song Before the people of a land Foreign to ours? ] As Godman notes, Gottschalk uses the captivity imagery of Psalm I 3 6 as a "figure for spiritual exile"; again, the populus Israhel mythos is flexible, open to a range of adaptations . 3 9 I n Carmen 9 Paulinu s paraphrases the end o f the psalm i n the follow ing lines: 3 8 . Gottschalk, "Ut quid iubes?" s - 6. 3 9 · Godman, Carolittqian Poetry) 2 3 0 . See Godman's commentary on the poem, 3 9 - 4 2 ( esp . 4 I ) and 2 2 8 - 3 2. For another poetic use of Psalm I 3 6 , very different i n nature , see the opening of Milo ofSaint-Amand's poem on sohrietas in Godman, Carolingian Poetry) 3 I O - I 3 . Although outside the scope of this study, it is worth noting the self conscious "biblical cast" of the Carolingian Renaissance : e.g., Charlemagne's kingdom is a "New Israel," with Charle magne himself cast as David at Aachen : see Godman, Carolingian Poetry) 5 , I 2 , and God man's selection from Theodulf 's poetry, I 50- 6 3 , esp. lines 29 - 3 2; and more generally, ]. M. Wallace-Hadrill, Earzy Medieval Histor)\ I 8 I - 2oo, and Early Germanic Kingship) 99- I oo, I06, and especially the excellent study by Garrison, "Franks as the New Israel? "
THE f O O T S T E P S Of I S RA E L I40
Infelix miserae Babylonis filia, felix qui tibi pro nobis in nos tua gesta rependet. Nee minus ille beatus erit, qui parua tenebit et simul elidet solidae tua pignora petrae .
( Carm. 9 . 4 6-49 ) [Unhappy daughter of wretched Babylon, happy will be the one who for us repays your deeds in kind. Not less happy will be the one who seizes your little ones and smashes them against the mas sive rock. ] As the final grim image of the psalm hangs in the air, Christian interpre tation follows . In an allegorical reading of the psalm, the "little cher ished ones" of Babylon represent sins, and the rock symbolizes Christ: Si cupis extincta Babylonis stirpe beari, in te ipso primis gliscentia crimina flammis frange fide . lam propter adest petra Christus; in ipso uipeream sobolem ualidis elide lacertis . ( Carm. 9 · s o- 5 3 ) 4° [ If you wish to be happy when the line of Babylon has been destroyed, shatter the growing sins within you with your faith, before the onset of the flame . For now Christ the Rock is here : with strong arms smash those serpent's children upon him . ] I n this scheme, Babylon's children represent the flesh and its seductive dangers : "Nam Babylon nomen confusio, filia cuius I est caro peccatis mater, quae turba saluti I noxia corporeis ducit mala semina fibris" [For the name "Babylon" means "confusion," and her daughter is the flesh, the mother of sin, that horde which blights salvation and brings evil seeds into the body's internal matter] ( Carm. 9 · 5 4 - 5 6) Y As the poem concludes, it takes on a violent note, surely cued from the ending of the psalm itself, but now fused with a Christian allegory: Ne parcas igitur talem mactare cateruam. non tibi crimen erit nocituram perdere gentem 4 0 . See Walsh, Poems ofPaulinus of Nola, 3 63 note 3 ("Poem 9 " ) . 4 1 . O n the etymology see Walsh, Poems ofPauJimts of Nola, 3 63 note 4 ( "Poem 9 " ) .
The Populus Israhel Tradition I4 I
ultricemque malo perfundere sanguine petram; gaudet enim iustus, si concidat inpia proles; nam magis atque magis pius ista caede piatur, si perimat peccata suis dominantia membris et fracta in Christo uitiomm plebe triumphet. ( Carm. 9 · 6 s - 7 I ) [Therefore do not hesitate to kill this mob . It will not be a sin for you to exterminate a race trying to kill you, and to submerge the avenging Rock in their evil blood. Indeed, the righteous man rejoices if his wicked progeny dies; for by this sort of slaughter a man increases in piety if he kills the sins dominating his body, and exults over the mob of vices destroyed by Christ's power. ] Here text and interpretation mesh within the populus Israhel mythos; the imaginative design spreads far out from the original elegiac topos of Psalm r 3 6. One cannot read the bloody language of Paulinus's interpretation, given the tradition of early medieval anti-Judaic ideol ogy, and not feel a foreboding about the delicate line between calls to exterminate sins of the flesh and analogous invective against human, Jewish flesh.42 " [T]he elegiac is often accompanied by a diffused, resigned, melan choly sense of the passing of time, of the old order changing and yielding to a new one " : Frye's words ring tme .43 In Carmen 22 Pan linus tells us that: Tempore namque uno tellus communis habebat Iudaeos, quae sola deo tunc lecta fuit gens; et tamen illa dei grauis hostibus ira superbis permixtos inter populos discreta cucurrit. ( Carm. 22.94- 9 7 ) [For there was a time when the Jews had a common land; at that time they were alone God's chosen people . But the anger of God 4 2 . Paulinus's poem also reflects its political context; according to Walsh; he chooses this psalm because "this Old Testament theme seemed to have a pressing relevance to the age. The Jews, the chosen people of old, had been the victims of persecution by Babylon. Now in the Christian imagery, pagan Rome is called the daughter of Babylon, and as such is contrasted by Christian apologists with the new Jerusalem, the civitas Dei" (Walsh, Poems ofPaulinus of Nola, r 9 ) . 4 3 . Anatomy of Criticism, 3 6- 3 7 .
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weighs heavily upon proud foes, and they have now been sepa rated and have scattered away among intermingled races . ] Thus, we see in Paulinus of Nola the flexibility o f the populus Israel mythos, the way it can be deployed in various ways, reacting to new cultural situations. The interacting tropes of judgment upon the once chosen people, exile and supercession of the old by the new, all play about the image of the populus Israhel in a profound rhythm of history and elegy. Like many literary traditions, this combination of image, metaphor, rhetoric, and narrative displays a remarkable longevity and basic integrity, even as it responds and changes in the hands of different authors and eras, changing political and social contexts . Its expression in Anglo-Saxon England is no exception.
F O UR
The Populus Israhel Tradition in B ritain
Gildas he influence of the populus Israhel mythos in Anglo-Saxon England comes from many quarters . An important conduit was Gildas's De excidio et conquestu Britanniae ( mid- sixth century; hereafter DEB) , a lament for the destruction of Roman Britain by invading Germanic pagan tribes in the mid-fifth century. r Like Salvi an, Gildas uses the populus Israhel mythos as a way to denounce his own people, the native Romano-British population. 2 The calamities that overtake the Britons, in the form of the invading and rampaging Saxons, constitute a test of the Britons as a latter-day Israel. Once again, the repetitive cycle of the chosen race locks into place for another Christian nation. Gildas's pref ace to the DEB details how he formerly read of the tribulations of God's chosen people in the Old Testament; a people that had been
T
I . On the importance of Gild as as a model for later historians of Britain, see Hanning, Vision of History, 44- 62; and Howe, Migration and Mythmaking, 8 - 4 9 , passim. For a caveat concerning Hanning's promotion of Gildas's text as a model for Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica see Ray, "Bede, the Exegete, as Historian," 1 3 9 note 47· Perhaps the best introduction to Gildas is the collection of essays edited by Lapidge and Dumville, Gildas: New App roaches; see also Sims-Williams, "Gild as and the Anglo-Saxons. " 2. On the similarity of Gildas and Salvian, see Higham, English ConqTtest, 8 - 9 .
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"very dear to God" [ deo carissimum] had broken his laws and command ments .3 In Gildas's hermeneutic, the Old Testament functions as a mirror: "Ista ego multa alia veluti speculum quoddam vitae nostrae in scripturis veteribus intuens" [I gazed on these things and many others in the Old Testament as though on a mirror reflecting our own life ] ( L 7, trans. I 4 ) .4 When he turned to the complementary New Testa ment, he received enlightenment: "ibi legebam darius quae mihi forsi tan antea obscura fl1erant, cessante umbra ac veritate firmius inlucescente" [ I read there more clearly what had previously, perhaps, been dark to me : the shadow passed away, and the truth shone forth more boldly] ( I . 7- 8 , trans . I 4 ) . Driven by this mimetic imperative , history seems to repeat itself, and Gildas cannot help but compare British events with the Old Testament turmoil of the Jews . 5 And in an analogous fashion, Gildas will place himself in the company of the Old Testament prophets, using their words against his own countrymen. As he declares, "Respondeant . . . vates . . . contumacibus superbisque huius aetatis principibus" [Let them, the prophets, reply to the proud and stubborn princes of this age ] ( 3 7 · 3 , trans. 3 6 ) . 6 Gildas saw himself as a latter-day prophet in the Old Testament mode; as Patrick Sims Williams describes him, Gildas was a "fearless critic of the present age who refers to past events and past prophecies only insofar as they reveal the pattern of history, the origins of the present order, and the inevit able consequences of disregarding the moral laws of God."7 The native Britons, abandoned by the withdrawal of the Roman legions, fall into corruption; as Orosius, Salvian, and Eusebius before him, and Bede after, Gildas narrates the fate of a native folk as they feel the wrath of divine retribution: a foreign people serves as God's ham mer. 8 If God did not spare his chosen of old, Gildas muses, what will he do to a latter-day, lesser populus Dei ? 3 . DEB r . 3 , trans. I 3 . Citations from the DEB are from the edition of Winterbottom, by chapter and section numbers inserted parenthetically in the text. The translation is by Win terbottom ( occasionally with my own changes), cited by page number. 4 · Neil Wright detects an echo of Cicero's In Pisonem here : see "Gildas's Prose Style, " I I I ; see also Higham, English Conquest, 8 I - 8 2 . 5 . For example, Gild as compares Alban's "parting" of the Thames with the crossing of the Jordan by the Israelites ( 1 1 . 1 , trans. I 9 - 20 ) ; on this moment see Hanning, Vision uf History, 5 3 · Cf DEB 24 .2, trans. 27. 6. On the influence of ]eremiah on Gildas see Higham, English Conquest, 67- 8 9 . 7 · Sims-Williams, "Gildas and the Anglo-Saxons," 2 . 8 . O n Gildas's use of Orosius (with a fine overview o f the issue) see Neil Wright. "Did Gildas Read Orosius ? " ; Wright treats Gildas's use of Rufinus in the same article, 4 I - 4 2 .
The Populus Israhd Tradition in Britain 14 5
Haec igitur et multo plura quae brevitatis causa omittenda de crevimus cum qualicumque cordis compunctione attonita mente saepius volvens, si, inquam, peculiari ex omnibus nationibus populo, semini regali gentique sanctae, ad quam dixerat: "primo genitus mens Israel," eiusque sacerdotibus, prophetis, regibus, per tot saecula apostolo ministro membrisque illius primitivae ec clesiae dominus non pepercit, cum a recto tramite deviarint, quid tali huius atramento aetatis factums est? Cui praeter ilia nefanda immaniaque peccata quae communiter cum omnibus mundi sce leratis agit, accedit etiam illud veluti ingenitum quid et indelebile insipientiae pondus et levitatis ineluctabile . ( I . I 3 , trans . I 5 ) 9 [For ( I said to myself ) when they strayed from the right track the Lord did not spare a people that was peculiarly his own among all nations, a royal stock, a holy race, to whom he had said: "Israel is my first-born son," [Exodus 4 : 2 2 ] or its priests, prophets, and kings, over so many centuries the apostle, minister, and members of that primitive church . What then will he do with this great black blot on our generation? It has heinous and appalling sins in common with all the wicked ones of the world; but over and above that, it has as though inborn in it a load of ignorance and folly that cannot be erased or avoided. ] Note that to better chastise the Britons, Gildas exalts the qualities of the Jews . They are a "people that was peculiarly his ( i . e . , God's) own among all nations, a royal stock, a holy race." This is one of the intrigu ing aspects of the populus Israhel mythos : in drawing these comparisons with the Jews-whether by contrast or similitude-the Jews often come across as a worthy model. Admittedly, they are perhaps most often a model by contrast: "Do not be like them"; however, whether they are the Jews of old and thus noble, or the ravaged, once-proud remnant now serving only as an example of bygone power and sover eignty, their paradigmatic function necessitates a measure of empathy, simply by virtue of the structure of the traditional comparison. Gildas describes the Britons in terms quite similar to anti-Judaic rhetoric . The Britons are willfully intransigent: "Haec erecta cervice et 9 · membrisque illius primitivae ecclesiae is an echo of John Cassian's Collationes 1 7 . 2 0 , "omnesque illius ecclesiae primitivae praecipui principes"; the expression is common in Cas sian's work (Wright, "Gildas's Reading," 1 3 7 ) .
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mente, ex quo inhabitata est, nunc deo, interdum civibus, nonnum quam etiam transmarinis regibus et subiectis ingrata consurgit" [ Ever since it was first inhabited, Britain has been ungratefully rebelling, stiff necked and haughty, now against God, now against its own country men, sometimes even against kings from abroad and their subjects ] ( 4 . 1 , trans . 1 7 ) . 10 When the Britons decide to invite the Saxons into their land, Gildas calls them blind: "Tum omnes consiliarii una cum superbo tyranno caecantur" [Then all the members of the council, to gether with the proud tyrant (i.e . , the native British king Vortigern) , were struck blind] ( 2 3 . 1 , trans . 2 6 ) . In response to the fatal British decision to invite the Saxons into the country, Gildas can only exclaim, "0 altissimam sensus caliginem ! [ How utter the blindness of their minds ! ] ( 2 3 . 2 , trans. 2 6 ) . 11 Given the dominant hermeneutic of Gil das's outlook-reading the history of his own times and people as replicating the misfortunes of the Old Testament populus Israhel-these descriptions of the Britons as stiff-necked, blind, and stubborn reso nate perfectly with other common anti-Judaic tropes of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. 1 2 The repetitive pattern of chastisement and restitution even seems to influence Gildas's perception of the fortunes of the British as the Saxon storm breaks. The leadership of Ambrosius Aurelianus (a proto- King Arthur figure ) temporarily holds the line : "Ex eo tempore nunc cives, nunc hastes, vincebant, ut in ista gente experiretur dominus solito more praesentem Israelem, utmm diligat eum an non" [ From then on victory went now to our countrymen, now to their enemies: so that in this people the Lord could make trial ( as he tends to ) of his latter-day I O . Gildas echoes here Jerome, Epistola 2 2 . I 3 and 6o.I 6, and perhaps Job I 5 : 26 ( "erecto collo et pingui cemice armatus est" : see Neil Wright, "Gildas's Reading, " I 4 3 ) . Cf DEB 47 . I , trans . 4 2 . I I . Lapidge cites this and similar exclamations, comparing them to parallels in Cicero, as evidence for Gildas's education in rhetoric: see "Gildas's Education," 4 5 - 4 6 . Howe com ments on this passage in M(qration and Mythmaking, 4 2-4 5 , observing, "By referring to their blindness, Gildas opposes their perception of the Saxons as saviors with his perception of them as destroyers" ( 4 3 ) . I 2 . Gildas also describes the Britons with a selection of beast imagery: see Sutherland, "Imagery of Gildas's De Excidio Britanniae," I 5 8 - 62 . Such imagery, which denies the Britions "the capabilities peculiar to, and constitutive of, humanity-the power of speech and of social organization-[ capabilities] which uphold the distinction between bn1te and ra tional beings" (Sutherland, "Imagery of Gild as's De Excidio Britanniae," I 6 2) parallels similar descriptions of the Jews as possessed by a bestial madness.
The Populus Israhd Tradition in Britain 147
Israel to see whether it loves him or not] ( 2 6. I , trans . 2 8 ) . I 3 For Gildas, the Britons are the praesens Israel) the latter-day, or current and present people of Israel; he later chastises the British priests for not doing enough "ad constabilitionem spiritalis Israel" [for the establish ment of a spiritual Israel] ( 70. I , trans . 5 5 ) . For Bede also, following in Gildas's footsteps, the native Britons seem all too close to the blind, stubborn, sinning Israel, left after their sins to wander the rocks of exile and mourn their lot by strange waters . As Nicholas Howe notes, Gildas's influence on later Anglo-Saxon authors extends to the "elusive qualities of vision and tone."I4 In Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo Saxon England Howe convincingly details the cultural myth of the "migrating Anglo-Saxons," the animating memory of the exodus of the Germanic tribes in England; here we have a similar, overlapping model. What this model implies is that if the Britons "are" the Old Israel, the former chosen, then of course the Anglo-Saxons are the New Israel, the present-day chosen, but subject now to the same cycle of apostasy and restitution.
Alcuin Alcuin of York ( ca. 740- 804 C.E . ) was an important figure in ninth century intellectual history. An Anglo-Saxon by birth and education, he was brought to Charlemagne's court and became one of the archi tects of the Carolingian Renaissance . Alcuin thus serves as a representa tive of high culture in early medieval Europe and Anglo-Saxon En gland, one whose finger would be on the pulse of Christian cultural issues such as the understanding of Jews . In his long epic poem on the history ofYork (�rsus de patribus regibus et sanctis Euboricensis ecclesiae)) which details the history of the city, including the Anglo-Saxon inva sion period, the Saxons are no longer simply the barbaric sword of a wrathful God. Before the Anglo-Saxons inhabited Britain, the "lazy race of the Britons" [gens pigra Britonum] held sway. I 5 In contrast, the I 3 . This is an imitation of Judges 3 : 4 , " ut in ipsis experiretur Israhelem utmm audiret mandata domini . . . an non" ( see Neil Wright, "Gildas's Reading," I 27 ) . On the praesens Israel in this passage see Hanning, Vision of History, 5 5 ; and Howe, Migration and Mythmak ing, 4 5 - 4 6 . 1 4 . Micqration and Mythmaking, 4 7 . I 5 . Alcuin, Versus de patribus, 4 I ( Alcuin: The Bishops, Kings, and Saints of Yiwk, ed . Godman), citations by line number.
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Saxons are a people "antiqua, patens bellis et corpore praestans" [an cient, powerful in war, superior in body] ( 4 6 ) . Here is history written from the victors' perspective . No longer simply the barbaric sword of a wrathful God, Alcuin's ancestors now take their place, in his encomium to the civilized ideal ofYork, as the New Israel. These righteous Saxons drive the Britons from England, becoming the true populus Dei: Hoc pietate Dei visum, quod gens scelerata ob sua de terris patrum peccata periret intraretque suas populus felicior urbes, qui servaturus Domini praecepta fuisset. Quod fuit affatim factum, donante Tonante iam nova dum crebris viguerunt sceptra triumphis et reges ex se iam coepit habere potentes gens ventura Dei. [ In his blessedness God saw to it that the accursed race should lose the lands of their ancestors by their own sins; and that a more fortunate people should enter their cities, a people that would keep fast the commands of the Lord. This came to pass quite well, with the consent of God Almighty. For a new power then grew to prosperity in abounding victory; and God's race of the future now began to bring forth powerful kings from its own people . ] The pattern here is clear: the "accursed/criminaljdefiled people" [gens scelerata] gives way to God's race of the future (gens ventura Dei)-the Anglo-Saxons . Details are familiar from the long tradition we have been outlining, such as the old race bringing about its own destruction ( ob sua . . . peccata) ; what is lost to the ancient race is their ancestral land (de terris patrum . . . periret))· the distinguishing factor of the new chosen people is their commitment to God's commands (servaturus Domini praecepta fuisset) and their vast, unbounded potential for the future . We can also turn to Alcuin for an example of the elegiac texture of the populus Israhel mythos. In his poem on the sack of the Lindisfarne monastery by Viking raiders in 79 3 C.E. (De clade Lindisfarensis mona sterii)) he consoles the survivors with an elegy on the transitory nature of the present world. He opens the poem by mourning the sad turning of fortune, the great fluctuating patterns of joy and sorrow: "Prospera
The Populus Israhd Tradition in Britain 1 49
conturbat sors tristibus impia semper, / Alternis vicibus ut redit unda maris" [ Impious chance always afflicts the good things in life with sorrow; like the waves of the sea, it always goes back and forth in varying changes] . I 6 Imposing a rhythm and pattern of events upon the world's chaos is a shaping act of imaginative design, providing in miniature a reflection of the wider historical forces at work in Alcuin's conception. From generalized statements of the unstable world, Alcuin moves to specific examples of kingdoms, once great, now thrown down by the grinding movement of history-Babylon, Persia, Rome, and so forth. In a moving apostrophe, Alcuin sings of Jerusalem, a symbol of the lost magnificence of the populus Israhel: Quid te, sacta, canam, David urbs inclita regis, In mundo m1llis aequiperanda locis? In te templa dei, cultus, laus, gloria, virtus, In te mansit ovans sancta propago patrum. Dum tua, quis teneat lacrimas, nunc ultima cernit: Gens inimica deo iam tua tecta tenet. Hen, Iudea, tuis habitator in urbibus errat Rarus in antiquis, laus tua tota perit. Nobile nam templum toto et venerabile in orbe Quod Salomon fecit, Caldea flamma vorat. Deicit hoc iterum Romana potentia bellis, In cineres solvens moenia, tecta simul. Ecce, relicta domus Siloe per secla remansit, In qua sancta dei area potentis erat. [What will I sing of you, holy, renowned city of King David, without compare in the world? In you dwelt the temples of God, worship, praise, glory, virtue; in you dwelt the triumphant holy children of the patriarchs . Who can hold back tears when he sees your final end: a race hateful to God now holds your dwellings . Alas Judaea, the population of your city of old wanders scattered. Your glory has passed away completely. The Chaldean flame de vours the noble temple, venerated throughout the world, that I 6. Alcuin, De clade Lindisfarensis monasterii, I s - I 6; citations are by line numbers. I 7. Cf Alcuin's prose letter to the monks of Lindisfarne on the same subject ( Two Alcuin Letter-Books, ed. Chase, 5 0 - 5 2 , 3 8 - 4 7 ) .
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Solomon wrought. The might of Rome crushed it again in war, reducing its walls and roofs to ashes. Behold the home at Siloam, abandoned and left behind through the ages, in which stood the holy ark of God's power. ] In a gnomic statement familiar from any number of Old English po ems, Alcuin concludes: "Sic fugit omne decus, hominis quod dextera fecit, /Gloria seclorum sic velut umbra volat" [Thus passes all the glory made by the hand of man; the splendor of the earthly world disappears like a shadow] ( 5 5 - 5 6) . Alcuin's lament for Jerusalem is, of course, simultaneously a lament for Lindisfarne; in this rhetoric the Jews are equated with the English monks, the Chaldeans and Romans implicitly finding their counterparts in the Vikings. Once again, when the populus Israhel mythos is deployed in a specific historical and cultural context, it tends to paint the Jews in a worthy light. The play of similitude fimc tions as consolation in Alcuin's poetic lament. As Alcuin notes, a rational explanation of these dire events of world history and their reflection in the vicious sacking of the monastery can only go so far: "Talia, cur, Iesu, fieri permittis in orbe / Iudico occulto, non ego scire queo" [ I cannot know why, Jesus, in your hidden judg ment such disasters are allowed to happen in the world] ( 8 5 - 8 6 ) . All he can muster is the notion that suffering purifies the soul and readies it for the next life; thus God's chastisement is a manifestation of his love, the ultimate end and reason knowable only to him : Aurum ut flamma probat, iustos temptatio mundat, Purior utque anima sidera celsa petat. Quemque pater natum caro complectit amore, Saepius huic tristi dura flagella a dabit. [ Just as the flame tests gold, so temptation cleanses righteous men; and so the purer soul may seek the heavenly stars . . . . The father embraces with love the child whom later he will mournfully strike with hard blows . ] The loving application of chastisement to a chosen people, a populus Dei known and esteemed of old but now fallen: this prevailing and
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enduring image, built up through a long tradition of history and poetic image , from Eusebius to Alcuin and beyond, provides a context, a significant background, for the understanding of certain Old English poems .
Old English Scriptural Poetry: Genesis A and Judith It is a commonplace in the criticism of the Old English scriptural poetry-especially on those poems based in the main on Old Testa ment sources, Genesis) Judith) Exodus) Dan iel-that the Old English compositions tend to present the biblical past in a distinctly Germanic light. r s As Howe states in a discussion of the Exodus-poet's ability to cast the Israelites as Germanic warriors : "These Jews are not distant figures from biblical history, rendered accessible only through figural identification; they are warriors who belong in the heroic world cele brated by the secular poems of the language. " r 9 Thus in Genesis A) for example, Abraham is a Hebrew eorl) as is Lot.20 Abraham, like a Ger manic hero-king, is also the "friend of the Hebrews" [ wine Ebrea] and the "chief of the Hebrews" [Mago Ebrea] ( 2 8 r 7a, 29 1 7a) . The Ger manic "beasts of battle" motif follows Abraham's martial exploits, and many scenes of the poem correspond to other topoi of Old English battle-poetry ( e . g . , Genesis A r 9 8 2- 20 1 7; 203 9 - 9 5 ) . Certainly this Germanic-heroic coloring of the Old Testament is not to be disputed: such a melding of cultural forms gives these Old English poems their distinctive power. However, one might go further in appreciation of this mode of poetic composition, beyond the deployment of Old Enr 8 . See, inter alia, Kennedy, Cedmon Poems, xxvii- xxxix; Raw, Art and Background, 8 2 3 ; Clemoes, Interactions, 229 - 7 2 (chapter T "Vernacular Poetic Narrative in a Christian World" ) . On the Germanic "coloring" of Genesis A see Doane, Genesis A, 40- 4 1 , 70- 7 3 ; Godden, "Biblical Literature," 209- r o ; on Exodus see Irving, Exodus, r 6 3 0 - 3 r ; Lucas, Exodus, 64 - 6 5 ; on judith see Godden, "Biblical Literamre," 220- 22; Griffith, judith, 6270. judith is found in the Bemvulf manuscript (British Museum, Cotton Vitelli us A.xv; see Griffith, Judith, r - 8 ) ; Genesis, Exodus, and Daniel are found in the so-called Junius manu script ( Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Junius XI) . For a thorough introduction to the poems of the Junius manuscript, with comprehensive reviews of scholarship , sources and contexts, paleography and codicology see Remley, Old E7tqlish Biblical Verse, r - 9 3 , and Karkov, Text and Picture in Anglo-Saxon England. 1 9 . Howe, Migration and Mythmaking, S o ; see also his "Falling into Place. " 20. Genesis A 202 1 , Genesis A 2 4 4 6 , respectively ( Genesis, The fTmius Manuscript, ed . Krapp, ASPR r , r - 8 7 ) , by line numbers. I have also regularly consulted the edition by Doane, adopting his readings and interpretations in several instances. ,
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glish rhetorical formulas and the distinctive use of poetic vocabulary and type-scenes. What is the animating impulse behind this poetry? What context might apply to its understanding? As Shepherd notes, the Junius poems "deal mainly with the collective destiny oflsrael and the Church."2I If one keeps in mind the vastly perva sive tradition of the populus Israhel mythos as developed in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages-its poetic complexity and power-as one reads the Old English Old Testament biblical poetry, such a context can bring added nuance and understanding to the achievement of these po ems and what they meant as cultural statements, both to their authors and to their possible readers and auditors, as difficult as these may be to determine . The Genesis A-poet tells us ofthe origin ofthe Hebrews : many descen dants sprang from Cam, including Shem and his son Eber, the epony mous founder of "unrim peoda, pa nu eedelingas, / ealle eordbuend, Ebrei hatad" [ multitudes of people, whom princes and all the earth's inhabitants now call Hebrews ] ( I 64 7-4 8 ) . Calling to mind the bold mythic origins of any number of northern tribes, these people are "strong heroes" [ roft rincas] ( I 6 5 I a) who move resolutely to seek a new homeland upon the plain of Shinar : Gewiton him pa eastan eehta leedan, feoh and feorme . Folc wees anmod; rofe rincas sohton rumre land, odpeet hie becomon cordrum miclum, folc ferende, peer hie feestlice eedelinga bearn, eard genamon. Gesetton pa Sennar sidne and widne leoda reeswan leofl1m mannum heora geardagum grene wongas, feegre foldan, him fordwearde on deere deegtide dugude weeron, wilna gehwilces weaxende sped. [They left the east, bringing all their possessions, cattle and goods. They were a determined people; bold warriors , they 2 I . Shepherd, "Scriptural Poetry," 22.
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sought a more spacious land, until finally that wandering race, the children of princes, arrived in great hosts where they could se curely settle a homeland. The leaders of that people and all their esteemed men settled far and wide throughout Shinar. In their bygone time the green fields fair upon the earth were a constant blessing to them in their days, growing prosperity in all their desires. ] This is a familiar dynamic : the Hebrews reach their destination, and achieve a measure of glory that begins to dim even as it glows at its brightest in Shinar's green and pleasant land. This passage begins by completely endorsing the migrating Hebrews; yet notice how the populus Israhel narrative pattern of rise and fall merges seamlessly with the migrating dynamic : D a p;rr mon m;rnig b e his m;rgwine , oderne bxd xdeling anmod, p;res hie him to mxrde, ;rr seo mengeo eft geond foldan bearm tofaran sceolde, leoda m;rgde on landsocne burh geworhte and to beacne torr up arxrde to rodortunglum. "Pxs pe hie gesohton Sennera feld, folces rxswan, swa pa foremeahtige pa yldestan oft and gelome larum sohton lidsum gewunedon; weras to weorce and to wrohtscipe, odpxt for wlence and for wonhygdum cyddon crxft heora, ceastre worhton and to heofnum up hlxdrx rxrdon, strengum stepton stxnenne weall ofer monna gemet, mxn)a georne, hxled mid honda. ( r 66 r - 7 8 a) [There many a man, every resolute prince among his kin, urged one another that for their own honor and before their number their unity of tribes-should again scatter among the sons of men in search of new land, they should found a city and raise up
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a tower unto the stars of the firmament. And so they then sought the fields of Shinar, just as the mighty past heroes of their people, their ancestors, had often dwelt in happiness. They searched for men with skills to do this work and evil act; and finally it came to pass that in their pride and folly they proclaimed their skill, estab lished their city, raised the many stories of the tower to the heav ens in their power, and erected a stone wall beyond the measure of mankind-they did all this with their own hands, those men so eager for glory. ] The Tower of Babel is built not only as a sign of unified glory and power before their kin should scatter over the earth, but also to com memorate their mighty heroic ancestors who had dwelt there in joy ( r 664- 7oa) . These "proto-Hebrews" of Genesis A are the Jews of the populus Israhel tradition; noble, powerful, and united, their pride, how ever, is exemplified in the height of the vainglorious Tower of Babel. Poised, almost literally, at the pinnacle of success, the Hebrews in this passage shift without warning from the noble seekers of a homeland to boastful criminals, mighty men terrible in their day, but ready now for the inevitable fall, the entire arc mirrored by the movement from lin guistic unity to the crashing chaos of tongues in the post-Babel world. When unity is sundered by linguistic diversity, the rhythmic process begins again, and the people go four separate ways . The rise of Abra ham's line is described in suitably noble, amplified terms : Weox pa under wolcnum and wrioade mxgburh Semes, oopxt mon awoc on pxre cneorisse, cynebearna rim, peawum hydig. pancolmod wer, ( 1 702- 5 ) [Then the line of Shem prospered and grew under the skies, until one was born among the number of the noble children of that tribe, a wise man, prudent in habits . ] This "wise man" []Jancolmod wer] is Abraham's father, Thare, here unnamed; his advent is afforded a nobility and mystery akin to Scyld's, arriving as the savior of the Danes in the beginning of Beowulf. As the populus Israhel begins its upward arc it is led by heroic leaders who arise
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not alone, but in the context of a whole lineage of noble "ring-givers. " The tone and movement o f the passage reflect not only the established tradition of the nobility of the Old Testament Jews in general, but of the pre-Mosaic patriarchs in particular: this man's sons, Abraham and Aaron, are "leaders, heroes bold of courage" [frumgaran) I h.ele/J hige rof] ( I 7o8b-9a) . Abraham and his nephew Lot shine in the glory of renown : Da magorincas metode ge}:mngon, Abraham and Loth, unforcuOlice, swa him from yldrum x3elu wxron on woruldrice; for3on hie wide nu duge3um dema3 drihtfolca beam. [Then the warriors, Abraham and Lot, prospered nobly in the Lord, as the lineage in the kingdom descended to them from their elders; because of this, among the heavenly hosts they now widely judge the children of men. ] The "lineage" [ te/Jelu] that fell upon these two heroes is the great bur den of being the populus Dei. Even as he describes their prosperity within the ambit of the Lord's power on earth, the poet shifts to the time nu) projecting this former vanguard of the populus Israhel into the future, enjoying their bliss in heaven after the te/Jelu has been passed to a latter-day generation. Once again, this represents the upward move ment of the populus Israhel> the establishment of the chosen race and their righteousness. The force of the populus Israhel mythos, however, shadows this glorification with the inevitable sense that a downward turn must be in the future . Perhaps the way to think of this fusion of ancient tradition and Old English idiom is that the populus Israhel mythos structure demands that, at this point in the "historical cycle," the populus Israhel be pre sented in as positive terms as possible . Hence in the Old English poetic idiom Abraham must lead, and exemplifY, the best of peoples. For example, after Abraham's victory over the forces of Sodom, the de feated king of the sinful city comes forth to ask for the return of his once-captive women, but he offers to let Abraham keep the booty he has won. Abraham returns the treasure (excepting a share for a few of
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his comrades) and in a grim speech the "halga . . . /Ebrea leod arna gemyndig" [ holy lord . . . /of the Hebrew people, mindful of honor] ( 2 r 6 3 b - 4 ) concludes: Gewit ]:m ferian nu ham hyrsted gold and healsma:geo, leoda idesa. l>u pe laora ne pearft ha:leoa hildpra:ce hwile onsittan, noromanna wig. Eacne fuglas blodige sittao, under beorhhleo]:mm peodherga wa:le piece gefYlled. [ Go now and bear home the ornamented gold and the beloved maidens, the women of your people . You do not need to fear for some time the attack of the enemy soldiers, the war of the north men. Gorged, the birds of prey sit bloody under the mountain cliffs, sated with the slaughter of the host. ] This is a spirited adaptation of the biblical Abraham . As the strongest and most resolute of races at this point in the populus Israhel cycle, the Hebrews are portrayed in Genesis A) through Abraham, as the fiercest of tribes . The populus Israhel mythos provides an additional context for under standing a subject thought to be so "typically Anglo-Saxon" in Old En glish poetry as exile . Again in Genesis A Abraham explains to Abimelech why during his travels he has deceptively told people Sarah was his sister, rather than his wife . Again, the biblical source verses are very spare, and the Old English poetic expansion is revealing; Abraham explains : Ac ic me, gumena baldor, guobordes sweng leodmagum feor lare gebearh, siooan me se halga of hyrde frean, mines fa:der fYrn alxdde . Ic fela siooan folca gesohte, wina uncuora, and pis wif mid me, freonda feasceaft. Ic pxes fa:res a 2 2 . Following Doane's edition, I retain the manuscript
eacne
(line 2 r 59b )
.
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on wenum sxt hwonne me wraora sum ell]xodigne aldre beheowe, se oe him pxs idese eft agan wolde . Foroon ic wigsmioum wordum sxgde sweostor wxre pxt Sarra min pxr wit earda leas xghwxr eoroan winnan sceoldon. mid wealandum [But I, far from my people, 0 prince of men, protected myself against the clash of the warlike shield with cunning, after the holy one long ago led me from the household of my lord, of my father. I, and that woman with me-both deprived of companions sought afterward many races, many strange friends . I have always expected this danger, that an enemy, one who wished to possess this woman for himself, would cut short my life-me, a foreign stranger. Therefore I told the warriors that Sarah was my sister anywhere the both of us, deprived of our homes, had to stmggle among foreign nations. ] Abraham and Sarah's predicament calls to mind the elegiac paths of protagonists in poems such as The Wanderer and The Seafarery as well as the mournful ebb and flow of Beowulf-a sad, desolate tone often thought a singular feature of Old English poetry. I concur, but should we not also see the populus Israhel mythos working behind these particu lar lines? The mythos was so pervasive , such a commonplace of Chris tian thinking at the most basic level, that regardless of the special circumstances of composition and reception involving Genesis A ( or any of the poems under scrutiny here ) we should duly place the longer patterns of the populus Israhel mythos-moving in the background of the subject matter-into the critical repertoire necessary for an effec tive reading of Old English biblical poetry. 2 4 As expressed in an Old 2 3 . Cf. Genesis 20: I I- I 3 : "Abraham answered: 'I thought with myself, saying "Perhaps there is not the fear of God in this place; and they will kill me for the sake of my wife . " Howbeit, otherwise also she is truly my sister, the daughter of my father, and not the daughter of my mother, and I took her to wife . And after God brought me out of my father's house, I said to her, "Thou shalt do me this kindness: in every place to which we shall come, thou shalt say that I am thy brother.""' 24 . Frank asserts that the Genesis-poet's proclivity for wordplay "had peculiar power to express a mood of cyclic inevitability and timelessness" ( "Some Uses of Paronomasia," 2I 5 ) .
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English poetic idiom, the populus Israhel mythos would acquire a fur ther depth, a deeper nuance, as the vernacular rendering could point to the English appropriation of historical tradition as the new, Anglo Saxon, Israel. The historical character of the poem is brought out by Nina Boyd; she does not see the poem, as Ruppe and Doane do, as completely permeated by patristic learning and exegesis; instead, Gene sis A "is a version of history on which the poet has superimposed a framework of moral values which is restricted to a purely secular con cept of propriety and nobility."25 Her reading perhaps goes too far in simplifying the poem as, therefore, a "moral poem, in which 'good' deeds are rewarded."26 I do not doubt that secular (i.e., "Germanic" ) concepts of morality are superimposed upon the narrative's historical framework to some degree, but I would add that other influ ences are also at work: the populus Israhel mythos, powerfully so . The same can be said for Judith) a poem its most recent editor aptly describes as "a work of historical fiction which illustrates God's special relationship with the Israelites. "27 When the Hebrews and Assyrians clash in battle after Judith's execution of Holofernes, the two opposed enemies are described in terms of territory and ancient confli cts : H<eleO w<eron yrre, landbuende, laOum cynne, stopon styrnmode, stercedferhoe, wrehton unsofte ealdgeniOlan 28 medowerige . [The heroes, the native inhabitants of the land ( i . e . , the He brews ) , were enraged against the hated race . Stern-hearted and determined, they advanced and ungently awoke their drunken ancient enemies. ] At 3 I4a the Hebrews are again called the "native inhabitants of the land" [ londbuendum] , while the Asyrians are "their ancient enemies" 2 5 . Boyd, "Doctrine and Criticism, " 2 3 7. Hill also concludes that Genesis A is "before all else a historical poem," by comparing the text with Latin historiographic f(mnulas noting the death or passing of various characters ( "Variegated Obit," r o r ) . 26. Boyd, "Doctrine and Criticism, " 2 3 7 . 2 7 . Griffith, judith, 5 I . 2 8 . All citations are from Griffith's edition, by line numbers.
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[ hyra ealdfeondum] ( 3 I 5 a ) ; the Hebrews are "the guardians of the homeland" [ eoelweardas] ( 3 2oa ) , while the Assyrians are their "persecu tors of old" [ ealdhettende] ( 3 2ob ) . 29 Like Abraham's line, or the "proto-Hebrews" who initially claim the plain of Shinar in Genesis A) the Jewish army is presented here as God's chosen. The Hebrews are successful in the stmggle against their foe :
Mxgen nealxhte, folc Ebrea, fuhton pearle heardum heoruwxpnum, hxfte guidon hyra fYrngcflitu, fagum swyrdum, ealde xf3oncan. Assyria wean) on oam dxgworce dom geswiorod, bxlc forbiged. ( 2 6 I b-7a)3° [The powerful force, the Hebrew people, drew closer; they fought vigorously with their hard swords; with the sword's edge, the stained blade, they avenged their ancient gmdge, the ancient strife. In that day's work the renown of Assyria came to an end, their pride humbled. ]
When one looks past the grim flash of blood and swords, the Orosian movement of rise and fall comes into focus : as the Hebrews draw closer into the foreground of this battle scene, the final result is that the Assyrians pass away. One people rises, another falls-the very essence of the populus Israhel mythos . The Assyrians, of course, were never God's chosen, per se, but the general stmctural pattern of the populus Israhel mythos leaves its telltale mark. In the climax of Judith) the populus Dei is at one of the peaks of its glory, owing all to the special designation and touch of the Lord . As the Hebrews triumph, the surviving enemy flees the battle :
2 9 . Griffith notes that "the Assyrians are the ancient enemies of the Hebrews; the same term is used of the Babylonians in Daniel 5 7 , 4 5 3 and, elsewhere, in the singular, of Satan or, in the plural, of his minions" (Judith, 1 4 2 , note on 3 1 5a). 30. I adopt Griffith's tentative definition of hefte as "sword-hilt, sword? " : see Griffith, Judith, 1 3 5 - 3 6, note on 263b, and glossary s.v. heft.
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him on laste for sweot Ebrea sigore geweor6od, dome gedyrsod. Him feng dryhten god fxgre on fultum, frea xlmihtig. [Exalted in glory, honored in victory, the army of the Hebrews moved on their trail ; the Lord God, almighty King, came to their aid. ] As the Hebrews advance on a stark, simple verb (for)) the Assyrians fade from the light with an equally simple movement: I>xr on greot gefeoll se hyhsta dxl heafodgerimes Assiria ealdordugu6e, la6an cynnes . Lythwon becom cwicera to cy66e . ( 3 o7b- r r a; emphasis mine ) [There in the dust fell the greatest part of the total number of the Assyrian nobility, of that hated race . Few reached their home alive . ] As the chosen, proud, triumphant race carries its booty to the home land, we sense, with the aid of the populus Israhel context, the workings of a great cycle, constant and terrible, glorious and doomed: I>a seo cneoris eall, mxg6a mxrost, anes mon6es fYrst, wlanc, wundenlocc, wxgon ond lxddon to 6xre beorhtan byrig, Bethuliam . [Then the entire race, most famous of nations, proud and curly haired, carried and led (treasures ) into that shining city Bethulia for a whole month . ] As the chosen people enter a gleaming city, laden with treasure, the medieval reader tuned to the populus Israhel mythos knows that such
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glory, indeed like all earthly renown and achievement, will one day pass away, the mantle passed on eventually to a new folic The Hebrews are commended for their justifiable pride , their wlanc in their victory; however, remember that it was for wlence that the inhabitants of Shinar built the Tower of Babel in Genesis AY
Old English Scriptural Poetry: Exodus In the Old English poem Exodus) a highly allusive , obscure adaptation of the Exodus story, the warlike Abraham makes another appearance ; within the knotted, enigmatic images o f the poem, the Exodus-Abra ham is no less Germanic than the Genesis A version. In Exodus the mass of the Hebrews enters the parted Red Sea, tribe by tribe ( cynn after cynne) 3 5 I a) : 3 2 Cude xghwilc mxgburga riht, swa him Moises bead, eorla xdelo Him wxs an fxder, leof leodfruma, landriht gepah, freomagum leof. frod on ferhde, Cende cneowsibbe cenra manna heahfxdera sum, halige peode, Israela cyn, onriht godes, swa ]:>xt orpancum ealde reccad ]:>a pe mxgburge mxst gefrunon, frumcyn feora, fxderxdelo gehwxs . ( 3 s r b- 6 r ) 3 3 3 I . Griffith notes, "The victory of the Hebrews over the Assyrians is viewed by the poet as the manifestation of their spiritual ascendancy" ( Griffith, Judith, 62 ) . Thus, Griffith goes on to suggest, this is why the poet expands the battle at the end of the poem so extensively from tl1e source. 3 2 . Exodus, as is well known, presents a host of textual and interpretative difficulties. I have used as my base text the edition by Krapp in The Junius Manuscript, ASPR I , 9 I - I07, but have consulted the editions of Tolkien, Irving, and Lucas, as well as Irving's supplements to his edition ( "New Notes" and "Exodus Retraced " ) . In general, I have adopted a conserva tive stance to the text and its problems. Citations are by line numbers. 3 3 . Tolkien notes that mtegbur;ga riht "probably means Israel as a group of kindreds, since the riht that Moses had declared to tl1em was common to all the Chosen People" ( Exodus, 64 , note on line 3 5 2 ) . Lucas disagrees and explains this as "the correct position for each tribe," i . e . , in the procession (Lucas, Exodus, I 22, note on line 3 5 2 ) . Irving sees eitl1er interpretation as a possibility: '"[ t ]he right of the tribes,' either the rights to which each tribe was entitled,
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[Each one knew the birthright of the tribe, the noble lineage of the men, just as Moses has proclaimed. There was one father of them all (i.e., Abraham ) , a beloved leader of his people, who had received the right to the land : wise in spirit, he was beloved by his noble kin. He, one of the patriarchs, brought forth a race of bold men, a holy people: the tribe of Israel, righteous before God, just as old men skillfully recount, those who most deeply heard tell of the tribes, the origin of men, and the paternal ancestry of each. ] The emphasis on epic origins in this passage is striking. As the tribes step forward the poet traces the deep lineage of the "tribe of Israel" [ Israela cyn] , kept immanent through the skilled living memory of men, and in poetry itself. The poet's establishment of right and lineage (mtegbur;ga riht) eorla teoelo) landriht) frumcyn flora) foderteoelo)) reflects the influence of the populus Israhel tradition, the mythology of a people "righteous before God" [ onrihtgodes] . Note the similarity to the Abra ham in Genesis A) were the "lineage/inheritance" [ t£0elu] descended to his line "in the world" [ on woruldrice] from their "ancestors" [from yldrum] ( I 7 I 6- I 7a) . The poetic emphasis on origins, land granted by God, chosen folc and a mighty ruler calls to mind-almost inevitably, once this broad context has been reconstructed-the complex of the populus Israhel mythos . 3 4 But again this triumph of the Hebrews, when or, more exactly, the position each tribe was to take" ( Exodus, 8 3 , note on line 3 5 2 ) . Tolkien translates onriht as "rightful, legitimate" : "The Israelites were the 'true/legitimate' people of God" ( Exodus, 6 5 , note on line 3 5 8 ; so also Irving, Exodus, 8 9 , note on line 3 5 8 ) . Following the suggestion of Robinson ( "Significance of Names," 19 3 - 94 ), Irving ( "New Notes," 3 r 3 , note on line 3 5 8 ) and Lucas explain that onrihtgodes is a translation ofJerome's etymology for Israel ( rectus Domini) . 3 4 · This section leads into the so-called patriarchal digression of the poem ( 3 62- 4 4 6 ) , following which there i s a lacuna in the manuscript; when the poem resumes, the E!,,'yptian army is drowning in the Red Sea. Once thought to be an odd interpolation, the integral place of this account of Noah, Abraham, and the sacrifice of Isaac (and other subject matter lost in the manuscript lacuna) has been clarified by the sequence of studies relating Exodus to the baptismal liturgy and to patristic learning : tl1e seminal study is Earl, "Christian Tradition"; see also the balanced discussion of the Christian doctrinal sources of the poem in Lucas, Exodus, s r - 6o (the liturgy on 5 9 - 60 ) . Hauer cogently presents the various arguments for the aptness of the digression in "Patriarchal Digression. " In his edition Irving dismissed the liturgical approach to understanding tl1e poem, but in "Exodus Retraced" he admitted tl1e possibility: "[I]t is probably tme, I now realize, that a liturgical model must have inevitably given the poem some of its shape, though we must be wary of simply transferring the full 'meaning' of the liturgy to the poem itself " (" Exodus Retraced, " 2 0 5 ) . My analysis here does not depend on an either/or choice between tl1ese ways of iliinking about tl1e poem; ilie
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set against the tempestuous background of the populus Israhel) has a fleeting q uality. 3 5 Hauer notes that one of the connections between the patriarchal digression and the main text of the poem is the digression's interest in establishing a genealogy: "the poet is presenting the pedi gree, as it were, of Israel as an insight to its national character."3 6 Aside from the stories of Noah, Abraham, and Isaac, the poet also pauses to look ahead, in one of his rapid shifts in temporal perspective, to the building of the temple. On the very ground of Sion, where God stayed Abraham's hand, the temple would later rise: wuldor gesawon, Wxre hie pxr fundon, halige heahtreowe , swa hxleo gefrunon. l>xr eft se snottra sunu Dauides, wuldorfxst cyning, witgan !arum getimbrede tempe! gode, eorocyninga alh haligne, se wisesta on woruldrice, heahst and haligost, hxleoum gefrxgost, mxst and mxrost, para pe manna bearn, fira xfter foldan, folmum geworhte . [And there (i.e., on Mount Sion ) , so men have heard, they found a covenant and a holy pledge; they saw God's glory. And, after ward, there the wise son of David, the glorious king, built with his wise teachings a temple to God. The wisest of all earthly kings in the world's realms established a holy shrine, the highest and "liturgical axis" of scholarly/critical work on the poem helps to explain the unity of the text ( or at least one aspect of its unity), through placing it in a specific intellectual tradition, and thus might suggest something about the use of the poem or its original context. Yet at the same time Exodus is not, after all, a liturgical text-it is a vernacular narrative poem, surely speaking ( at the very least) to somewhat diflerent desires in terms of composition and reception. As Irving so often lamented, the poetic texture of Exodus tends to be overlooked in the stampede to align it with the liturgy. 3 5 . Cf. also the contrast between the resounding triumph of the fourth and fifth acts of Shakespeare's Henr_y V and the sudden foreshadowing of the inevitable fall to come detailed in the Chorus's epilogue to the play. 3 6 . Hauer, "Patriarchal Digression, " 8 o . 3 7 · I follow Lucas in translating witgan larum ( 3 9ob) as "wise teachings"; but cf. Tol kien, Exodus, 66, note on line 390, and Irving, Exodus, s .v. wit(e)ga.
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most sacred, famed among men, the greatest and most splendid of all things the children of men have built upon the earth . ] I t i s a s i f the poet, i n the instant o fpause at the climax o fthe Exodus, sees the flow of God's history, the history of the populus Israhel scroll out before him, in multiple perspectives. And yet as glorious and triumphant as the moment is, in the manuscript context (where the text of Exodus follows Genesis A and B and precedes Danie� the building of Solomon's temple appears to look back to the building of the Tower of Babel in Genesis A, and forward to the destruction ofJerusalem in the beginning of Daniel.3 8 Whether the compiler ofJunius XI did or did not intend this concatenation is irrelevant: the imaginative design of the populus Israhel provides a meaningfi1l pattern to sacred history, across the poetry of the codex. Just after the climax of the poem, once the Egyptians have drowned in the flo od, the poet pauses to tell us that on the shore Moses spoke to the Israelites in a "holy speech" [ halige spr£ce] , imparting to them "eter nal laws" [ ece r£das] and a "profound message" [ deop £rende] ( 5 r 8b, s r 6b, 5 l9a) . 3 9 However, Moses does not get to his speech until more than thirty lines later, at line 5 5 4; instead we have another effective moment of drawn-out anticipation. As we wait with an expectant ear to hear Moses' "profound message," the poet instead tells us that Dxgweorc ne mad swa gyt werdeode, on gewritum findad doma gehwilcne , para de him drihten bebead sodum wordum. on pam sidfate
3 8 . See Hauer, "Patriarchal Digression," 8 5 - 8 6 . On the figural dimensions of this pas sage see J. Hall, "Building of the Temple . " 3 9 · Tolkien translates ece rtedas a s "eternal counsels" ( Exodus, 3 1 , line 4 4 2 ) . Lucas notes that the phrase "probably refers to the content of the f(Jllowing reported speech" ( Lucas, Exodus, 1 4 1 , note tO line 5 1 6) . 4 0 . Following Tolkien and Lucas, I accept their retention of the manuscript reading dteg weorc as dttCJWeorc and accept their emendation of manuscript nemnaiJ to ne mao: see Tolkien, Exodus, 7 5 , notes to line 5 1 8 and lines 5 1 9 - 4 7 ; Lucas, Exodus, 1 4 2 , note to line 5 1 9 . Irving emended dtegweorc to dtegword ( Exodus, 97- 9 8 , note to line 5 6 1 ) but later retracted his stance and restored the manuscript reading ( "New Notes," 3 20- 2 1 , note on lines 5 1 9 - 20 ) . Thus, the reading Dtegweorc ne mao seems to have prevailed (for now). Also following Lucas , I tal(e dtegweorc as the subject of ne maO (Lucas, Exodus, s.v. dttqJveorc) . [O}n gewritum is glossed by
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[The deeds of that day did not remain concealed, just as nations still find in writings each decree that the Lord proclaimed to them on that journey in true words . ] Suddenly establishing a different temporal perspective, the poem opens out into a broader realm of hermeneutics and prophecy. The poet then presents an enigmatic digression stretching from lines 5 2 3 - 5 4 8 , which seems to call for some particular interpretative key, perhaps figural in nature : the poem tells us that the soul has the keys to unlock the understanding of the spirit; that as a result mysteries will be clarified, the darkness of ignorance dispelled; that this wisdom will lead to a realization of the ephemeral nature of the transitory world and to the joys of eternal life awaiting in the beyond; that the terrors of hell wait below, but the promise of final judgment and glory gives hope to exiled souls who will be led, in the end, on the final exodus to heavenly blissY In other words, in the expectant space before the delivery of Moses' words, the poet presents the issue of interpretation: we are to understand that the entire preceding Exodus narrative carries meanings other than the literal. As this space of interpretation is dramatically inserted, it colors our understanding of Moses' words when he finally does get to utter them, released from his moment of silence and slow time.42 The poet returns to the narrative and to Moses, reminding us of the gravity of the moment: Swa reordode manna mildost,
rxda gemyndig mihtum swided,
Tolkien, Irving, and Lucas as "in Scriptures, " but the simpler translation "in writings" (with the Scriptures implied, of course) perhaps preserves the typical riddling ambiguity of the poet's diction. 4 r . This "allegorical digression" has also occasioned a great deal of commentary: see Lucas , Exodus 3 2- 3 3 for a summary. Tolkien thinks that the poet has Moses' later sermoniz ing to the Hebrews in mind here, since no biblical account has Moses speaking to the people in this fashion on the shore ; but he adds that he believes the passage is an interpolation ( Exodus, 7 5 , note on lines 5 1 9 - 4 7 ) . Shippey notes that this digression may not necessarily be an encouragement to figural interpretation, per se: "However, one might also see the poet here as turning from his main subject to exhort his readers to apply the story to themselves, using a full apprehension of history to find solid faith . . . " ( Old English Verse, 1 4 2 ) . 4 2 . C f. Andersson's discussion of "suspended action" in the epic tradition, Earzy Epic Scenery, 3 0- 3 2 , 44 - 4 5 , and Auerbach's famous analysis of the suspenseful digression on Odysseus's scar in Mimesis, 3 - 7 .
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hludan stefne; here stille bad witodes willan, wundor ongeton, modiges muoh;rl [Thus, mindful of wisdom, the kindest of men spoke with loud voice, strengthened in might. Silently the host awaited the will of the ordained one; they perceived a wondrous thing: the spoken word of salvation from their valiant leader's mouth . ] I n a hushed, dramatic pause the assembled Israelites hang upon Moses' imminent words; and they are also, in this capacity, a proxy for the audience of the poem-Moses speaks to the assembled multitudes and to the reader/auditor: Micel is peos menigeo, mxgenwisa trum fullesta m;rst, se oas fare l;rdeo; hafao us on Cananea cyn gelyfed brade rice; burh and beagas, wile nu gel;rstan p;rt he lange gehet mid aosware , engla drihten, in fyrndagum fxderyncynne, gif ge gehealdao halige lare, p;rt ge feonda gehwone foro ofergangao, gesittao sigerice be s;rm tweonum, beorselas beorna. Bio eower blxd micel. [ Great is this company, strong the war-leader; he who leads this journey ( i . e . , God) is the greatest of supports . He has delivered unto us the tribe of Canaan, their city and treasures, a broad kingdom. He will now fulfill that which he, the Lord of Angels, long ago promised with sworn oath to the forefathers in days long ago : that if you preserve his holy teaching, you shall over come every enemy, shall reside in a realm of victory between the two seas, in joyful halls of men. Great shall be your glory. ] 4 3 · Following Irving and Lucas, I take 7Vitodes as genitive singular masculine ( "the or (lained one" [i.e . , Moses ] ) ; but cf. Tolkien, Exodus, 77, note to line 5 5 I ·
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[ G] ifge gehealdao halige !are: this is perhaps the key clause in Moses' address . The glorious triumph of the populus Israhel) fresh in the plunder and triumph of the Red Sea crossing, will endure if-only if-the Jews can "preserve his holy teachings. " Kruger identifies this moment, when the Egyptians are described as a drihtfolca m.est at the end of the poem ( calling to mind the same use of the epithet to describe the Israelites at line 3 22 ) , as part of the poem's subtle dual movement: while it estab lishes binary oppositions that move the poem (and reader) toward some form of allegorical interpretation, a simultaneous contrary movement undermines those oppositions, blurring them by means of, in Kruger's words, an "emphasis on process" and forcing the reader "back into the undecided historical 'now' of the poem."44 In this fashion, the distinc tions between the Egyptians and the Israelites begin to lose integrity: "The poet's undermining of strict oppositions allows us to see the common-human-ground connecting the two enemies. We see both nations together, as human actors playing out a human story."45 As Moses' words raise the inevitable conditional qualification ( "if" ) , they also open the poem, unfold its action so that its patterns provoke paral lels with the larger, ever-replicating rhythms of the populus Israhel mythos. Exodus is one of the most puzzling of Old English poems; reading it against the populus Israhel context certainly does not solve its manifold problems . However, it does allow us to understand somewhat better its overall shape and narrative rhythm. Exodus certainly appears to incorpo rate some sort of figural aspect; to what extent and purpose has long been a subject of debate . However, the poem has also always been recognized for its "historiographic dimension" : Tolkien notes that the poem "is at once an historical poem about events of extreme impor tance, an account of the preservation of the chosen people and the fulfillment of the promises made to Abraham; and it is an allegory of the soul, or of the Church of militant souls, marching under the hand of God, pursued by the powers of darkness, until it attains to the promised land of Heaven."46 Irving, the staunch defender of the poem 44· Kruger, "Oppositions," I 6 8 ; cf. Frank, "What Kind of Poetry Is Exodus? " I 9 5 - 9 6 . 4 5 . Kruger, "Oppositions," I 6 8 . 4 6 . Tolkien, Exodus, 3 3 · Shippey draws attention to the Exodus-poet's "natural bent towards history" ( Old English Verse, I 4 I ) and notes that " [ t ]he four poets of the earlier part of this manuscript [i.e., the authors of Genesis A and B, Exodus, and Danie{j seem more willing to allow their stories to speak for themselves, drawing only such conclusions from them as are
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qua poem, noted in his edition that the "impression the poet gives throughout [is] that he is soaked in the Old Testament atmosphere and is familiar with the somewhat primitive psychology of the earlier books of the Pentateuch. "47 In his work on "migration myth," Howe draws attention to the "ancestral history" found in the verses of Exodus)· he argues that " [ t ]he poet's sense of history was shaped by the practice of drawing parallels between events in the Old and New Testaments. The belief that events repeat themselves at different times and in different places enabled the poet to use the model of Exodus for envisioning the ancestral migration according to a central pattern in Christian his tory."4 8 What is common here in all this critical work is the sense that, as Irving put it, the "tme heroic protagonist of the poem is not in fact Moses, but a collective hero : the children of Israel. "49 The process of history, the shape it takes under the populus Israhel mythos, and the interpretation it requires, all define the true subject of Exodus. so most obvious from the events recorded. They are all 'devoted to the story as story,' concerned less with the 'Why?' of events than with the 'How? ' It is this quality which has made the poems resistant to allegorical or figural readings" ( Old English Verse, I 5 3 ) . Shippey is drawing on Irving's well-known dictum from his edition of Exodus: "Whether or not the poet was aware of the widespread allegorical interpretation of the exodus as man's progress to salvation-there is some definite evidence that he was-the effect of the poem as a whole almost inevitably suggests something of the kind. Yet what is perhaps more import a geseah i c p a gedriht in gedwolan hweorfan, Israhela cyn unriht don, wommas wyrcean. l>xt wxs weorc gode . ( 2 2- 24 ; emphasis added) [Then I saw that nation, the race of Israel, turning to error, doing evil and committing sins . That was a hardship to God . ] The Hebrews in Exodus inherited mtegburga riht and landriht) establish ing their claim to be a people onriht godes)· here the fallen Hebrews of Daniel turn to error and begin to do unriht. "l>xt wxs weorc gode" [that was a hardship to God] : echoing the brief pithiness of "pxt wxs modig cyn," but presenting the opposite sentiment, the populus Dei begins the familiar and inevitable downward spiral . God sends divine messengers to the Hebrews, but the people cannot deny the pleasures of this world ( eordan dreamas) 3 oa) . 5 6 As the poet describes the onslaught against Jerusalem leading to the 5 5 . Shippey, Old English Verse, 1 4 6 . 5 6. Earthly pleasure also overthrows the Babylonians at the end of Daniel, as it does the Assyrian forces of Holofernes in Judith.
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Babylonian captivity, he gives us a picture of the former exalted status of Israel. God becomes angry with the people to whom he had given a great "possession" [ tehte) 3 4b ] . The narrator explains that the Jews had been the Lord's chosen people : Wisde him a::t frymoe, oa oe on fruman a::r oon metode dyrust, wa:: ron mancynnes dugooa dyrust, drihtne leofost; herepoo to pa::re hean byrig, eorlum eloeodigum, on eaelland pa::r Salem stod seanvum afa:: s tnod, weallum geweorood. [ In the beginning he directed them-a foreign people who once, long ago, had been the most beloved by the Creator, the most loved of all nations, dearest to God-onto the road to the high city, into a homeland where Jerusalem stood defended skillfully and adorned with walls . ] The "race of the Chaldeans" [ Caldea cyn] surrounds Jerusalem; as the tempest builds, Nebuchadnezzar mulls over "hu he Israelum eaoost meahte / purh gromra gang gum an oopringan" [ how he could most easily capture and lead away those men from Israel by fierce attack] ( 42a; so- 5 I ) . The poet builds the tension in this section; within the imagina tive structure ofthe populus Israhel mythos the Jerusalem ofthe Jews is, as always, doomed. But, as the forces advance on the city, we have one last picture of gleaming Jerusalem, home of God's chosen, before the Jews are cast out: Gesamnode pa suoan and noroan wa:: lhreow werod, and west foran to pa::r e hean byrig. herigte ha:: oencyninga eoelweardas Israela penden hie let metod. ha::fdon lufan, lifwelan, [Then he gathered from the north and south a cruel army, and they advanced westward with a mass of heathen kings to the high
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city. The guardians of the homeland of the Israelites had love and prosperity as long as the Creator allowed them. ] As the enemy forces head west with fire and sword, the sun sets, metaphorically speaking, once again, as always and forever, on the populus Israhel.57 The destruction of Jerusalem echoes the accounts we have seen in Orosius and others. The poet begins a scene of plunder and chaos ( 5 77 8 ) with a summary statement that again sets the action in an epic, overheard past: ":Pa eac eoan gefrxgn ealdfeonda cyn jwinburh wera" [ I then heard tell that the race of ancient enemies smashed the capital city of those men] ( 5 7- 5 8a) . The unbelievers plunder Solomon's temple, stripping it of treasure and carrying away the "treasure of the hoard-guardians" [ hordwearda gestreon] ( 6 5 b ) and the Hebrews them selves to Babylon. The narrator tells us that the children of Israel, the "remnants of the sword" [ w,epna laft] ( 7 4a) were Nebuchadnezzar's slaves and that their divinely appointed land was given over to the forces of the enemy: Onsenda pa sima pegna worn pxs werudes west to feran, land geheolde, pxt him para Ieoda eone eoel, xfter Ebreum. [He ordered his own thanes, a large detachment of his host, to fare into the west and to take possession of the land of that nation, the desolate homeland, after the Hebrews . ] As Robert Finnegan notes, Daniel) "in a sense, i s a poem about cities, about Jerusalem and Babylon" ; s 8 the poem's energies lean toward "na tional" and "civic" history, universal chronicle, sweeping epic-not allegory or "typology." The transfer of treasures, the resonant sack of the temple, the displacement of the Israelites, an enemy now walking in the desolate Jewish homeland: the poet manipulates stock elements 5 7 . On the balanced symmetry of the beginning and end of Daniel ( opening with the fall of the Hebrews and ending with the fall of the Babylonians) , see Farrell, "Structure of Old English Daniel," 5 3 7, and Daniel, 3 r - 3 2 . 5 8 . Finnegan, "Old English Daniel," 204 .
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deriving from the populus Israhel mythos, experimenting with an adapta tion of the "Matter of Israel. " In the aftermath o f the great destruction, the conflict has left the Israelites only broken fragments of their former glory. After the sack, Nebuchadnezzar commands his retainers to search for learned young men "geond Israel a earme lafe" [among the wretched remnant of Is rael ] ( 8o ) . 59 Broken and at the nadir of its fortune, the populus Israhel finds a spokesman in Azarias, as he later in the poem prays to God: Siendon we towrecene geond widne grund, heapum tohworfene, hyldlease; is user life geond Ianda fela fracoo and gefrxge folca manegum, to pxs wyrrestan ]-,a us ec bewrxcon xhta gewealde, eorocyninga and we nu hxoenra on hxft heorugrimra, peowned poliao . l>xs pe pane sie, wereda wuldorcyning, pxt lm us pas wrace teodest. ( 3 00- 8 ) [We are dispersed throughout the wide world, scattered in groups and deprived of any mercy; in many lands our way of life is de spised and rumored abroad among many people who also exile us as property into the power of the worst of kings upon the earth, into the company of bloody men; and we now endure the oppres sion of heathens . For this, thanks be to you, glory King of Hosts, that you have devised this torment for us . ] Azarias's grim song of his people should remind us of Gildas's and Bede's tale of the native Britons, crushed and scattered into exile by the Anglo-Saxons-an "old Israel" replaced by a younger, mightier people functioning as God's agent of retribution. The cycle of the rise and fall of kingdoms continues near the end of the poem with the passing of Nebuchadnezzar. God takes him in death, and his kingdom eventually passes away : 5 9 · They are also the "remn<mts of the sword" [ mepna laft] ( 74a, above) . Later Daniel is described as the "chief of the wretched remnant" [ ordfruma earmre laft] ( r 5 2 ) .
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Siooan pxr his aferan ead bryttedon, welan, wunden gold, in pxre widan byrig, ealhstede eorla, unwaclice, heah hordmxgen, pa hyra hlaford lxg . Da in pxre oeode awoc his pxt pridde cneow. Wxs Baldazar burga aldor, weold wera rices, oopxt him wlenco gesceod, oferhyd egle . Da wxs endedxg oxs oe Caldeas cyningdom ahton. Da metod onlah Medum and Persum aldordomes ymb lytel fxc, let Babilone blxd swiorian, pone pa hxleo healdan sceoldon. [Afterward his descendants well enjoyed prosperity there, happi ness and spun gold, an enormous treasure in that mighty city and stronghold of men when their lord lay dead. And then a third generation arose among that people. Balthazzar held the city, ruled the kingdom of men until arrogance and overweening pride grew within him . That was the end of the Chaldean rule over the kingdom. Then for a little while the Creator granted the royal power to the Medes and Persians; he allowed the glory of Baby lon to vanish, which those heroic men should have held. ] We then have a description of the greatness of Babylon as the translatio imperii begins again. 60 The mighty transfer of power among history's great peoples continues . 61 The end of Daniel is missing in the manu script, but one might speculate, as J. R. Hall does, that the return to 6o. Compare the wealth of Babylon with the hard-won wealth of Scyld at the beginning of Beowulf: his death ship is laden with the "wealth of nations" [peodgestreonum] (44a) . As the Babylonians t:a wxs eft swa ;rr pryoword sprecen, sigefolca sweg . . . .
inne on healle oeod on s;rlum,
[Then, as before, brave words were again spoken there in the hall ; the people were happy, the sounds of a victorious people . . . . ] Light following darkness, defeat moving relentlessly in the track of victory: these are the well-defined narrative rhythms of Beowulj; and of the populus Israhel tradition.79 Andersson aptly summarizes : "The orga nizing principle in operation throughout the poem is mutability . . . . No sooner is one mood established than it is superseded by its opposite . Hope gives way to disappointment, joy to grief, and vice versa. It is not just a question of occasional tonalities; the main lines of the poem as a whole can be analyzed according to this alternation."80 Hrothgar's cen7 9 . Cf. Beowulf's prediction of failed alliance between the Danes and the Heathobards ( 2029b- 3 I ) . 8 o . "Tradition and Design," 2 2 5 ; see 2 2 5 - 3 4 for further analysis of this rhythm, esp . the summary of scholarship on this aesthetic, 22 5 , note I 9 .
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tral speech to Beowulf is provoked by the sword brought back in victory from Grendel's lair; on its hilt is depicted the fall of a race of giants alien to God, destroyed by a divine cataclysm-an outline of the populus Israhel mythos. The cycle of glory and destruction is presented through the eyes of one ruler, standing alone, surveying the fate of nations, and speaking the wisdom and sadness of history. Hrothgar speaks : Wundor is to secganne, hu mihtig God manna cynne snyttru bryttad, lmrh sidne sefan eard ond eorlscipe; he ah ealra geweald. Hwilum he on lufan l.:Eted hworfan monnes modgeponc m.:Eran cynnes, selea him on eple eorpan wynne to healdanne hleohburh wera, gede5 him swa gewealdene worolde d.:Elas, side rice, p.:Et he his selfa ne m.:Eg his unsnyttrum ende gepencean. [ It is a wonder to say how almighty God grants wisdom, nobility, and a homeland to mankind in his magnanimity: he has the power over all things . Sometimes he allows the mind of a man born to a noble race to revel in delights, gives him a stronghold of men to hold, joys of the earth to possess in his homeland, gives him such power, a part of the world, a broad kingdom, with the result that he himself in his folly cannot imagine the end of it all . ] Perhaps the Beow u?fpoet ' s unique talent and originality reside in the way he depicts human actions caught in the play of history. Some of his characters, placed on the borderline between history and myth, can almost see the movement of history as it works about them, reaching deep into their lives and actions, the past feeding the present, the present guiding the shape of the future . 8 I Only the wisest of the characters ( such 8 I . Alter notes a similar purpose in the skill of the author of the "David Story" ( I and 2 Samuel) : "The story of David is probably the greatest single narrative representation in antiquity of a human life evolving by slow stages through time, shaped and altered by the pressures of political life, public institutions, ±:unily, the impulses of body and spirit, the eventual sad decay of the flesh. It also provides the most unflinching insight into the cruel
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as Hrothgar) can look deeply enough into the nature of things to see clearly the patterns at work; yet once able to see, through the wisdom of age and time spent in the world, his ability to impact wyrd has left him, rendering him only an observer and sad commentator, like the voice of the poetic narrator himself. In a complex use of character, the poet pulls down the focus from sweeping historical actions to the lives of human beings alive to the press of history. It is when Beowulf, bleeding out his life in Wiglaf 's arms, turns to gaze on the wall of the dragon's barrow that we also sense the deep structure of the populus Israhel mythos the poet has captured in the lives of Hrothgar and Beowulf: Da se x6eling giong, pxt he bi wealle wishygende gesxt on sesse; seah on enta geweorc, hu Da stanbogan stapulum fxste; ece eor6reced innan healde .
( 27 r s a- r 9 ) [Wise in thought, the nobelman then moved so that he sat down on a seat by the wall. He looked upon the work of giants, saw how the ancient earth-hall held up the stone arches with pillars . ] As he looks upon this image of ruined, corrupted civilization, it reflects his rapidly approaching end and, by extension, the end of the Geats as a chosen populus: he knows that his brief time in the world is over ( 27 2 5 b- 2 8 ) . It has generally been recognized that the long, drawn-out passing of Beowulf in this part of the poem represents more than the death of one man . In his constant juxtaposition of Beowulf 's death with digressive historical events, the poet lets us know that there is more at stake : an entire way of life is passing away, the Geats to be changed forever. Beowulf, near death, recounts the glories of his race, but after his death, as the poem extends its moment of anguish to digress further on the Geat-Swede wars, Wiglaf and the Messenger both explain that a processes of history and into human behavior warped by the pursuit of power" ( David Story, ix) ; and further: " [T]he writer brings to bear the resources of his literary art in order to imagine deeply, and critically, the concrete moral and emotional predicaments of living in history, in the political realm" ( xvii- xviii) .
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time of darkness approaches for the Geats, a period when they too shall mourn the passing of their world. Wiglaf berates the cowardly retain ers, who had abandoned Beowulf in his moment of need: Nu sceal sincpego ond swyrdgifu, eall eoelwyn eowrum cynne, lufen alicgean; londrihtes mot p;rre m;rgburge monna ;rghwylc idel hweorfan, syooan ;roelingas feorran gefricgean fleam eowerne, domleasan dxd.
[Now the rece1vmg of treasure and the g1vmg of swords, joy in a homeland, all beloved things must vanish for your people ; each man of that tribe must wander deprived of land-right, once princes from afar learn of your fli ght, your infamous deed. ] The loss of their londriht links this judgment to the similar emphasis on inherited riht ( expressed in various compounds) we have seen in the Old English biblical poetry. Wiglaf 's voice blends almost without dis tinction into the long grim report of the messenger. After digressing on the history of the Geat-Swede conflict, and predicting the resumption of those times of trouble, the Messenger's speech ends in a focus on the fate of the treasure, the hard-won riches of a nation-a common motif in the populus Israhel mythos. What will become of this tainted wealth? The Messenger explains that the treasure will be burned and buried with their noble leader, and he ends his report with a striking collage of Images: :Pa sceall brond fretan, xled peccean, nalles eorl wegan maooum to gemyndum, ne m;rgo scyne habban on healse hringweorounge, ac sceal geomormod, golde bereafod elland tredan, oft nalles xne nu se herewisa hleahtor alegde, gamen ond gleodream. Foroon sceall gar wesan
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mundum bewunden, monig morgenceald nalles hearpan sweg hxfen on handa, wigend weccean, ac se wonna hrefn fus ofer fxgum fela reordian, hu him xt xte speow, earne secgan, wxl reafode . penden he wi6 wulf [The flame must devour it, the fire engulfit-no man will wear the treasure as a remembrance, no maiden possess a ring-ornament around her neck. Instead, sad of mind, bereft of gold she must walk-not once, but often-in a foreign land now that the war leader has put aside laughter, joy and happiness . Thus many a spear, cold in the morning, must be grasped in fingers, lifted in hand; the song of the harp shall not at all wake the warriors, but rather the dark raven, eager for slaughter, shall speak many things, ask the eagle how he fared at the feast while he plundered corpses with the wolf. ] The cold image of this maiden, walking alone in the paths of exile and diminished hope, is the poet's concrete figure for the fate of the populus Israhel. He embellishes and deepens the image of national loss and the cycle of change by adding mournful details : silent hall-joys, forgotten songs, the cold grasp of the spear, and the greedy chatter of the gath ered beasts of battle. The poet seems to take the sweeping outlines of historical forces at work and give them concrete form in personal im ages: Scyld's death-ship sliding forth into the great unknown; Hroth gar raising the gabled roof of Heorot and filling it with song, Grendel splashing it in blood and filling it with the cries of torment; Beowulf arriving as the unlooked-for agent of change; Hrothgar bent over the inscribed hilt of the giant sword, reading the history of a doomed race; Beowulf, prone before the ruined wall, gazing at the treasures of a long-forgotten people ; and the maiden, walking alone-all stand for a land and a people whose way of life has fallen into the sere . These "characters," and the images they etch so indelibly upon our minds, represent the rhythms of history. Roberta Frank notes that the poet has taken care, in the construc tion of the poem's hero, to generate a man who stands for more than himself: "The Beowulfpoet does his best to attach his pagan champion
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to as many peoples as possible-Danes, Geats, Swedes, Wulfings, and W;:egmundings-as if to make him the more authentically representa tive of the culture and traditions of central Scandinavia: an archetypal Northman." 82 The characters might thus, in a sense, be abstract, styl ized personifications, northern "archetypes" representing in their singu larity peoples, time, and the process of history under God's hand-a God distant and unknown to the participants in these earthly strivings . Stanley Greenfield senses this feeling of great design in Beowulj; the idea that vast forces are at work beyond the ken of most of the mortals fighting and dying in the poem: For the Messenger's harangue has something in it of vatic wis dom which, coupled with the poet's foreshadowings of Beow ulf 's wyrd and the accretion of historical dooms, impresses us with a sense of destinal force . Although all epics do not present an identical relationship between man and cosmic forces, they real a hero who, however much he may, like Gilgamesh and Adam, rebel, is conscious of his bond with and sometimes bondage to those forces. Destiny seems to brood over the vast abyss of epic life and subsume human will to its purposes. 8 3 Andersson likewise rightly argues that in the poem the "mood is always at the center of the poet's preoccupation. Indeed, the mood becomes the substance of the work and when we explore the structure of the narrative, we should focus not on the sequence of events, but on the construction of atmosphere. " 8 4 Beowulf is, in part, a meditation upon the populus Israhel mythos-a new addition to that ancient tradition, but employing it to inform a history of the heroic North ingeardagum. 8 2 . "The Beowulfpoet's Sense of History, " 64 ; Virgil employs a similar method in the Aeneid: "Both the Aeneid and Beowulf are in some sense historical novels, mythically pre sented, philosophically committed, and focused on the adventures of a new hero" ( "The BeowulFpoet's Sense of History," 64 ) . Andersson similarly describes the poem as "heroic biography," also citing the Virgilian parallel (Andersson, "Tradition and Design," 2 2 5 ) . 8 3 . Greenfield, "Beowulj' and Epic Tragedy," 9 5 - 9 6; further, "The many historical allu sions and digressions contribute, furthermore, to the impression of historical destiny that binds human activity to its wheel" ( 9 6 ) . Frank makes a related point, when, by quoting Bloomfield's essay "Chaucer's Sense of History, " she notes: "The sadness, the poignancy, the lacrimae rerum we associate with Beowulfcome from the epic poet's sense of duration, of how 'time condemns itself and all human endeavor and hopes'" ( "The Beowulfpoet's Sense of History," 64 ) . 8 4 . Andersson, "Tradition and Design," 224.
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Yes, we have some of these stories i n other forms, fragments of heroic lays, and so on. But do we have another example of this northern material pulled into such a vast canvas of time and place, such a scale of time and cycle? The poem is, in this sense, an experiment. 8 5 I also do not wish to claim too much: at best, the populus Israhel mythos was part of the informing intention behind the poem's design, or part of the way in which the poet understood history; but it also at least provides a provocative context for an Anglo-Saxon reception and understanding of the poem.
Conclusion We began with Bede, who described the fifth age of the world in this manner: Quinta quasi senilis aetas a transmigratione Babylonis usque in aduentum domini saluatoris in carnem, generationibus et ipsa XIIII, porro annis DLXXXVIIII extenta. In qua ut graui senec tute fessa, malis crebrioribus plebs Hebrea quassatur. 8 6 [ Likewise the fifth age, the old epoch, from the Babylonian captiv ity to the advent of the Lord Savior in the fle sh, consisted of fourteen generations and extended over 5 89 years; in which, as if exhausted by age, the Hebrew people were afflicted by a succes sion of evils . ] The plebs Hebrea stand in the foreground of the stage of their era, an important but doomed player, fated to function as metaphor, image , and exemplum in the mythological imagination of the Christian West. Southern notes that one of the important themes of medieval historiog raphy was "the lesson that the destiny of nations is the noblest of all historical themes"; for the nations of the Christian West, the Jews provide a primary model for the understanding of historical destiny. 8 7 In its Anglo-Saxon manifestation, the populus Israhel mythos was adapted seamlessly to the Germanic inheritance of the Anglo-Saxon 8 5 . As Frank suggests, in the later tenth century, " [n]ew syntheses were becoming pos sible. " ( "The Beowulfpoet s Sense of History," 63 ) . 8 6 . Bede, De temporum ratione 4 64 . 3 6- 4 0 . 8 7 . Southern, "Aspects," r 8 8 . '
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Weltanschauung, to the extent that the Jews become simply another people buffeted by the harsh reality of the world. Thus, along with the Scots, Picts, and Scridefinnas (and many other races and nations ) , it is not surprising to find the Jews folded effortlessly into the catalog of peoples and places in the short Old English poem Widsith: ond mid mid Lidwicingum ic w;rs ond mid Leonum Longbeardum, mid hxanum ond mid hxlelmm ond mid Hundingum. Mid Israhelum ic w;rs ond mid Exsyringum, mid Ebreum ond mid Indeum ond mid Egyptum . Mid Moidum ic w;rs ond mid Persum ond mid Mygmgum 0 . . . 88 [ I was with the Lidwicingas and with the Leondas and with the Longbeardan, with the Hcrthenas and with the Hcrlethas and with the Hundingas . I was with the Israelites and with the Assyri ans, with the Hebrews and with the Indians and with the Egyp tians. I was with the Medes and with the Persians and with the Mygingas . . . The act of inscribing the Jews into the northern context of the early Middle Eages is a powerful testament to the desire to see the past in terms of the present, and the ability of texts to reformat tradition in a new shape, giving it new life : as Frye notes, the "written word is far more powerful than simply a reminder: it re-creates the past in the present, and gives us, not the familiar remembered thing, but the glittering intensity of the summoned-up hallucination. " 8 9 The past can have meaning only if we see it through the lens of analogy and appre hend the self in that "glittering intensity" of the other. And the Chris tian tradition of seeing the self in the ancient tales of the ever-chastised Jews had a long life in England; it opens Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel: 8 8 . Widsith, 8o- 84 ( The Exeter Book, ed. Krapp and Dobbie, ASPR 3 , 149- 5 3 ) . At line 8 3 a the manuscript reads Indeum ( "Indians"), but many editions, assuming a common minim error, print Iudeum ( "Jews " ) . I have retained the manuscript reading, but either option seems to be equally possible : see the note to lines 8 2 - 8 7 in J. Hill, Old English Minor Heroic Poems, 2 8 - 29 . For an excellent recent essay analyzing Widsith and its construction of the past see Niles, " Widsith and the Anthropology of the Past. " 8 9 . Frye, Great Code, 227.
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But Life can never be sincerely blest: Heaven punishes the bad, and proves the best. The feJvs) a Headstrong, Moody, Murmuring race, As ever try'd th' extent and stretch of grace; God's pamper'd people whom, debauch'd with ease, No King could govern, nor no God could please .9° The urge to build Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land was a powerful one, an important body of thought and source of ideological narrative . For what we have been calling a "mythos," or perhaps the "Matter of Israel," also bears all the features of an ideological "master narra tive . " To use the populus Israhel as a metaphor, an image, or an exemp lum, while its inner dynamics are in essence literary, is also to deploy an ideology, a founding narrative for societies in the Christian West.9I To shape the past is to also write the fi1ture and to pull the world into shape around the present moment; in Frye's words, to "draw a circum ference around a human community and look inward toward that community."92 What is at stake in the use of the populus Israhel mythos is nothing less that the authenticity of the religious self in the early Middle Ages: "No one in the Judea- Christian tradition can ignore history, and the claims of Christianity and Judaism as religions rest upon the historicity of certain happenings in the past."93 As we have seen, like ideology the mythos provides a stable core of assumptions, an inherited lexicon, while it also adapts itself to a variety of conditions .94 All in all, the populus Israhel mythos displays the intersection of the earthly and the divine, the temporal and the timeless, in a lofty poetics of blood and fear: 9 0 . Absalom and Achitophel: A Poem, lines 4 3 - 4 8 . 9 r . Howe notes the ideological use o f the populus Israhel mythos : "The belief that the history of the Israelites stood as model for the history of the Anglo-Saxons provided the necessary biblical warrant for the migration myth throughout its long history. At times, as in the Sermo ad Anglos, this conjunction lies beneath the work's articulating theme; at others, as in the OE Exodus, it becomes the animating subject. Whether implicit or explicit, this vision of the English as a new Israel redeemed the migration myth from mere insularity" ( Migration and Mythmaking, 2 2 ) . 9 2 . Frye, Great Code, 3 7 · 9 3 · Bloomfield, "Medieval Idea of Perfection," 5 2 . 9 4 . A s Toliver summarizes, "In brief, acts o f fictive making may reduce the ontological density of an actual world and still enable the imagination to seize upon it and rework it under new arrangements, classifications, relations" ( Past That Poets Make, 3 ) .
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And the Lord being angry against Israel delivered them into the hands of plunderers, who took them and sold them to their ene mies that dwelt round about. Neither could they stand against their enemies, but whithersoever they meant to go, the hand of the Lord was upon them, as he had said, and as he had sworn to them. And they were greatly distressed . ( Judges 2: I 4 - I 5 )
PA R T T H R E E
Jews) Fury) and the Body
Introduction
Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds Or memorize another Golgotha, I cannot tell. -Shakespeare, Macbeth "Rut I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked . "Oh, you ca'n't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here . I'm mad. You're mad. " "How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice. "You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here. " -Lewis Carroll, Alice)s Adventures in Wonderland
he philosopher John Scottus Eriugena's (fl. 8 5 0- 70 C.E. ) Latin poem Postquam nostra salus depicts a despondent Satan after the Harrowing of Hell; the proud Adversary bemoans (in tones not unlike the Satan of the Old English poem Genesis B) his dark: ruined kingdom and the sight of the blessed entering the heavenly paradise he had long ago lost. In his own words, Satan grasps at his only comfort:
T
Vnum confugium superest, solamen et unum: Est antiqua domus mortis noctisque profundae : Iudaicum pectus, uitiorum plena uorago, Fraudis et inuidiae semper possessio larga, I9 5
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Luminis exosi radios irata repellens. Illic sola patens ypocrisis perfida regnat; Illa putet nimium nimiaque putredine corda Carnalis populi corrumpit nescia ueri : Illuc confngiam gentilia pectora linquens, Odibilis Christo dominabor gentis auarae, Omne meum uims fundam blasphema per ora Ligna suspensum dominum regnare negando . I [A single refuge remains, a single consolation: there is an ancient house of death and deepest night-the heart of the Jew-a whirl pool filled with vice, ever a broad estate of fraud and envy, reject ing with rage the rays of hated light. There faithless hypocrisy rules unrivaled; it stinks to high heaven and corrupts with its foulness the hearts of a carnal race ignorant of truth. I shall quit the breast of the Gentile and take my refuge there; I shall lord it over a greedy race that is hateful to Christ; I shall spread all my poison through blasphemous lips and deny the rule of the Lord who was hanged on a tree . ] Somehow, one does not expect such virulently anti-Judaic emotion from the same hand that composed the great philosophical treatise De divisione naturae. One of the enduring questions of Christian anti Judaism is : How can a faith based on love and forgiveness incorporate such a tradition of powerful hate? How can a sophisticated philosophi cal mind such as Eriugena's sustain such irrational emotion? In the next two chapters we cannot, of course, begin to solve such a question of long-standing urgency. What we will do in the pages that follow is isolate the fiercest, most emotional aspects of the anti-Judaic tradition active in Anglo-Saxon England. Bede, as we saw, displays an extremely complex understanding of the Jews, ranging from anger to qualified sympathy. We have also seen the "positive" epic and elegiac tradition of the populus Israhel mythos. Now we descend to the more disturbing textures of early medieval anti-Judaism, selected moments bound to gether by a common web of associations, genres, images, and other concerns . One generally links the virulent, emotional expression of hatred I . Eriugena, Postquam nostra salus, 62- 73 ( "Poem 9," Carmina, ed. Herren, 90- 9 5 ) . Translation is by Herren, with minor modifications by me.
Introduction I97
toward Jews with the later Middle Ages and beyond; the texts under focus here cannot really compare with the later hair-raising European and insular expressions of antisemitism. However, the tradition we will define, trace, and analyze does take one aback in its intensity, once exposed to prolonged analysis. Take the example of two authors from late antiquity, the Christian Latin poets Avitus of Avienne (ca. 4 5 0 - ca. 5 1 8 C.E . ) and Arator (fl. 5 1 3 44 C .E . ) . Avitus and Arator (along with the similar poets Juvencus, Caelius Sedulius, and Prudentius ) were the Christian Latin poets par excellence in late antiquity; their works be came standard educational curriculum texts in the early Middle Ages and were widely known in Anglo-Saxon England.2 In book 4 of Avitus's epic versification of Old Testament history De spiritualis histo riae gestis ( "De diluvio mundi"), Noah releases the raven once the flo od-rains have subsided, in order to find dry land. The biblical verses simply tell us that Noah sent forth a raven "which went forth and did not return, till the waters were dried up upon the earth" ( Genesis 8 : 7 ) . In Avitus's hands, this becomes something rather different, charged with an unexpected interpretation: -
Tunc interposito producens tempore corvum Scire cupit senior vacuumque interrogat orbem. Ales ut extensis nitidum petit aera pinnis, Adspiciens plenis stipata cadavera terris, Carnibus incumbens et mox oblita reverti Rectorem placidum communi in sede reliquit. Sic nescis, Iudaee, fidem servare magistro, Sic carnem dimissus amas, sic gratia numquam Custodi vitae dominoque rependitur ulla. Mente vaga sic laxus abis, sic foedera legis Rupisti et primum violasti perfide pactum . 3 [ Mter an interval o f time had passed, the old man then brought out a raven, for he wanted to examine the empty earth and learn more about it. When the bird stretched its wings and made for the shining air, it looked down at the earth filled with corpses and, settling down on the fle sh, soon forgot about going back 2. See NCHOEL, 7. On the representation of Jews in Juvencus see Poinsotte, Jttvencus et Israel. 3 · Avitus, De spiritualis historiaegestis 4 . 5 6 3 - 7 3 ·
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and abandoned his patient master in their common home . In this same way, 0 Jew, you do not know how to keep faith with your master. In this way, although freed, you too love the flesh; in this way you render no thanks to the protector and lord of your life . In this way, weak in mind and distracted, you wander off; in the same way you have broken the covenant of the Law and violated perfidiously its pact. ] The sudden turn to anti- Judaic rhetoric catches the modern reader off guard; yet we shall see that this connection between Jews, flesh, glut tony, mental instability, and transgression constitutes a coherent early medieval tradition of understanding Jews, one that we must place next to the populus Israhel mythos.4 In his Latin versification of Acts of the Apostles, the poet Arator provides us with a similarly flamboyant example of this hermeneutic. In Acts 2 r - 2 3 Paul is held captive by the Jews in Jerusalem and beaten; the Romans take over and are about to torture the apostle, but they cease when they discover he is a Roman citizen. The Jews are enraged: "Some of the Jews gathered together and bound themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor drink, till they killed Paul" (Acts 23 : r 2 ) . Paul, however, escapes. Now compare Arator's versifica tion; he first begins with an exaggerated invocation: Agmina supplicii ferventia corpore Pauli Poenarumque graves evolvere versibus iras Causa monet, sed lingua pavet. Fugiamus ab ista Parte, dolor, veritique nefas tam triste premamus Eloquium, ne forte legens sua fletibus ora Compleat et largis humescat pagina guttis . [The occasion impels me to unfold in verses the ranks of torment burning on Paul's body, and the grave violence of the punish ments, but my tongue fears. Let us fle e from this part, 0 grief, 4 · In Genesis A 1 4 3 6 - 4 8 , Noah sends f(ni:h the raven, which does not return, alighting instead on a "floating corpse" [jleotende hreaw] ( 144 7b ); see Doane's excellent note on this tradition ( Genesis A, 2 1 7 , note on 1 4 3 8 b - 4 8 ) . The Genesis A-poet does not mention the interpretation of the raven as the Jews. Becl.e also does not interpret the raven and the dove as the Jews and Christians: see In Genesim 2 . 1 7 5 9 - 1 8 4 6 .
Introduction I 99
and hiding from so sorrowful a crime, let us suppress eloquence, lest perchance the reader fills his eyes with tears and the page be moistened with copious drops . ] Having gathered his poetic powers together and established the regis ter of high emotion, he then truly castigates the Jews and their plot to kill Paul : Nee tamen haec poterant animos satiare cruentos; Ardet amor scelerum cupiuntque in sanguine Pauli Sacrilegas versare manus. Quae dura malorum Vota ! Quarter deni vesanae stirpis alumni Imposuere sibi non ullum sumere potum Primitus atque cibum quam parta caede daretur; Hinc magis esse dapes. 0 pallida cordis imago ! Pocula sunt, Iudaea, tibi meliora cruoris Quam laticis, nullasque volens contingere mensas Esuris ad facinus saturamque cadavere iusti Quaeris habere famem. [But nevertheless these things could not satisfy their bloodstained minds; they were afire with love for crime and wished to lave their sacrilegious hands in the blood of Paul. What cruel vows of evil deeds ! Forty sons of insane lineage imposed (a vow) upon themselves not to take any food and drink until it was given first from this accomplished slaughter. 0 pale semblance of a heart! Cups of gore are better for you, 0 Judaea, than cups of water, and not wishing to come to the table, you hunger for crime and seek to have the hunger sated by the corpse of a righteous man. ] s Through the next two chapters these motifs and their connections will become familiar: Jews, madness, fle sh, hunger. We saw glimpses of this 5 . Cf. Bede's far less exotic interpretation of the same passage ( Expositio Actuum Aposto lorum 23 . r 2. 2 5 - 2 8 ) : "Cum dominus dicat: 'Beati qui esuriunt et sitiunt iustitiam,' isti e contrario iniquitatem esuriunt et sanguinem adeo sitiunt, ut cibos etiam corpori abdicent donee iusti morte satientur" [While the Lord said: "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice," these people on the contrary hungered for iniquity and thirsted as much for blood, so that they even gave up food for the body until they might be satiated by the death of a just man ] .
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tradition in Bede's exegesis, but in this section we shall see the full force of this tradition Lmfettered. We have already seen in the previous two chapters that one of the complex of images that would arise in Chris tian Anglo-Saxon minds at the mention of Jews would be the populus Israhel mythos and its tradition; in these chapters we trace another set of related images that would spring to mind-the insane , raging Jews and their link to the dreaded body. Moving to Anglo-Saxon England we find that the poet and ecclesias tic Aldhelm of Malmesbury ( ca. 640- 709 C.E. ), for example, has few references to Jews in his corpus . But in his poem on St. James the Lesser he accesses this image of the raging, bestial, insane Jews : Nee non Jacobus Christi matertera cretus Et consobrini felici nomine fretus Hanc aedem Domini de summo servat Olimpo; Quem plebs Iudaea scaevo bachante tumultu Pulsum de pinna fullonis sude necavit, Quod Christum populis scandens fastigia templi Concionaretur crebro sermone sacerdos. 6 [So too Saint James, who was born the son of Christ's aunt and who enjoyed the happy distinction of being Christ's cousin, pro tects from the highest heaven this house of God. The Jewish people , raging in insane fury, threw him from the battlements of the church, and he was killed by a laundryman's club-all because after climbing to the top of the roof of the temple, the priest ( i . e . , James) had preached Christ to the people with insistent words. ] We shall explore this cathexis-this concentration of emotional en ergy-upon the Jews in the chapters to follow. How does this process explore the boundaries of the human? In order to give shape to the study of this hermeneutic in Anglo Saxon England, this part concentrates in the main on the representa tion of Jews in two Old English manuscripts : the Vercelli Book and the Blickling codex.? Vercelli and Bliclding are both late-tenth-century 6 . Aldhelm, "In Sancti Iacobi Apostoli," I - 7 ( Opera, ed. Ehwald, 2 5 - 27 ) ; trans. by Lapidge and Rosier, Aldhelm: The Poetic Works, 5 4 · 7 · Vercelli, Biblioteca Capitolare, I I 7 ( Ker 3 9 4 ) , a on pam negonteo De populo Israhd 2 99
Nu wxron hi oflyste purh heora unlustas flxsclicra metta, un mxg6lice swapeah, for pam de se heofonlica mete hxfde xlcne swxc xlcere werodnysse pe xnig mete hxfa, and wxs eac wurali cor ponne aa wyrta wxron pe hi xt ham sudan on heora croccum mid flx sce . ( r 22- 2 7 ) [Now they were lusting after fleshy foods because of their sensual desires, and indeed out of all measure, because the heavenly food had any flavor, any sweetness, that any food has, and was also more honorable than the herbs which they boiled at home in their pots with meat. ] Or, as the somatic tradition of anti-Judaism would sign this : "their God was the belly." Preparatory to a later, more programmatic application of figural thinking in this homily, JElfric establishes the first of many binary oppositions : between earthly nourishment and heavenly nour ishment. The Jews were responding to the base urges of the body rather than following the noble desires of the spirit. JElfric feels there is something important to explain to his audience here, based on the illogicality of the Jewish complaint. This scene of Jews refusing to eat food from God creates an interpretative anxiety: How does he explain such blatantly foolish behavior? He begins by distinguishing between jltRsclicra metta and heofonlica mete) the earthly versus divine sustenance, which sets the terms for a more formal figural explanation. By drawing out the figural implications of the narrative, JElfric resolves the puzzlement and explains their strange behavior: Se heofonlica mete hxfde pa getacnunge ures Hxlendes Cristes, pe com ofheofonum to us, pe is engla bigleofa and ealra manna lifpe on hine gelyfaa, and hine nu lufiaa . I>one acwealdon sy66an pxt ylce Iudeisce cynn, and noldon hine habban heora sawlum to bigleofan; ac we gelyfaa on hine, and lif habbaa purh hine, and he is us inmeddre ponne aa estmettas, for pan ae we xfre habbaa ealle ping purh hine, ge on ayssere worulde ge on 6xre toweardan, and us nanre werednysse ne bya wana mid him, gif we hine xnne habbaa on urum geleafan. ( r 2 8 - 3 9 ) [The heavenly food had the signification of our Savior Christ, who came to us from heaven; he is the nourishment of angels and
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the life of all men who believe in him and love him now. After ward, that same Jewish people killed him and would not take him as a nourishment for their souls; but we believe in him, and have life through him, and he is dearer to us than those delicacies, because we ever possess all things through him both in this world and in the world to come, and there shall be no lack of sweetness with him, if we hold him alone in our belief. po The Old Testament Hebrew rejection of the manna prefigures the later New Testament Jewish rejection of Christ: the Hebrews do not recog nize the nourishment of the manna, just as the Jews do not recognize the nourishment of the Son. I I Remember that !Elfric wishes to "iron out" seemingly nonsensical elements of the narrative as well as deliver a simple message . The puzzle : if the manna changed in their mouths, giving them whatever taste they desired, then it does not make sense, on the literal level, that they would desire anything else . The solution: the rejection of the manna should not be understood literally, but rather figurally, as the later rejection of Christ by the Jews. The clus tered motifs of Jews as poor interpreters, the Jews as excessively bound to the fle sh, all serve to deliver a simple !Elfrician call to Christian piety: "If we hold him alone in our belief, there shall be no lack of sweetness with him." A similar scene of dietary revolt occurs in the last rebellion of the narrative . The Israelite misrecognition of the manna again leads to punishment. The people reach Edom and they again complain to Moses: "Hwi l�ddest }m la us of E gipta lande, p�t we her swulton on aysum westene? We nabbaa pone hlafpe us lyste etan, and us nu wlataa wia pysne leohtan mete" [Why did you lead us out of Egypt so that we suffer here in this wasteland? We do not have the loaf we are accus tomed to eat, and now this light fare is loathsome to us] ( 3 r o- r 3 ) . 1 2 As we hear them complain in the desert over the loss of their "accus1 0 . Cf Psalm 7T 24- 5 · I I . !Elfric's interpretation of the manna derives from Jesus' own words : see John 6: 3 03 3 , 4 8 - 5 2. Pope notes the possibility that !Elfric's reading of Isidore is partly behind his interpretation but generally acknowledges !Elfric's originality here ( Homilies of /Elfric, 66263 , note on lines 1 04- 3 9 ) . 1 2 . Eased on Numbers 2 1 : 5 : "Why didst thou bring us out of Egypt, to die in the wilderness? There is no bread, nor have we any waters : our soul now loatheth this very light food. " Note tl1at !Elfric does not tr<mslate Latin aquae ( "waters"), effectively keeping tl1e focus of his narrative specifically on the issue of food.
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tomed loaf," we call to mind Judas Cyriacus, starving in a pit in Elene) reflecting upon the significance of bread and stones; and we also re member the crazed hunger of the Mermedonians in Andreas: I>eod wxs oflysted, metes modgeomre, nxs him to maome wynn, hyht to hordgestreonum. Hungre wxron pearle gepreatod, swa se oeodsceaoa reow ricsode . ( I I I 2b- I 6a) [The people were filled with desire, sorrowfully thinking of food; there was no joy in wealth nor happiness in treasures. They were severely overcome by hunger, for that harsh ravager of nations ( i . e . , the devil) reigned supreme . ] The dietary rebellion in !Elfric's text again leads to a figural interpreta tion. God sends fiery serpents as punishment, killing many malcontents with poison and forcing the people to repent and crave forgiveness by beseeching Moses. God answers Moses' prayers for clemency and or ders the people to construct a large bronze serpent of brass; this serpent heals all who look upon it. !Elfric interprets this serpent figurally: Se Hxlend sylf sxde on sumum his godspelle hwxt peos deed getacnode on oam diglan andgyte, and we hit gesetton on Englisc on sumum oorum spelle . We wyllao swaoeah secgan sceortlice her nu pxt seo xrene nxddre, pe butan attre wxs, hxfde getacnunge ures Hxlendes deaoes, pe butan xlcere synne sylf prowode for us, and mid his unscyldigum deaoe us fram deaoe ahredde, fram pam ecan deaoe pe us purh Adam becom of oxre nxddran lare pe hine forlxrde. Da terendan nxddran, pe totxron pxt folc, syndon ure synna, pe us tosliton wyllao; ac we sceolon behealdan oxs Hxlen des prowunge mid sooum geleafan, and we beoo sona hale. Dxt folc on oam westene wxs pa gehxled purh oa xrenan nxddran fram pam andweardan deaoe; ac se Hxlend sxde pxt pa sceolon habban pxt ece lif mid him pe on hine gelyfao . Seo gehiwode anlicnys gehxlde oa hwilwendlice, and pxt sock ping nu sylo us pxt ece lif. ( 3 3 3- 52)
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[The Savior himself said in one of his Gospels what this deed signified in the hidden understanding, and we have set it down in English in another writing. Nevertheless, we shall here now briefly explain that the bronze serpent, which was without poi son, signified the death of our Savior, who without any sin him self, suffered for us, and with his innocent death saved us from death, from the eternal death, which came to us through Adam by the teaching of the serpent who led him astray. The gnashing serpents that tore into the people are our sins that shall wound us; but we should contemplate the suffering of the Savior with true belief, and we shall immediately be healed. The people in the desert were saved from earthly death by the bronze serpent, but the Savior said that those who believe in him shall have eternal life with him. The simulated likeness healed them temporarily, and the real thing now gives us the eternal life . ] 1 3 Thus, the conflict between the Jews and God over their food again leads to figural explanation. God's harsh punishment of the stubborn Israel ites affords LElfric an opportunity to apply the binary oppositions of a figural hermeneutic: the Jews must be content with the "simulated like ness" of Christ and temporary healing, while the Christian has access to the "real thing. " The somatic tradition of understanding the Jews drifts in the background here; they refuse to bite into and accept into their bodies something life- giving (the manna) , and so their punishment involves a representation of this rejection (the snakes) biting into them and injecting a life-threatening substance into their bodies. These di etary revolts are also focal points for the conflict of authority in De populo Israhel and serve as a way to open up and trace LElfric's use of figural thinking to understand the Jews . The analogy of Christians iSpirit, Jews iBody informs the somatic tradition of anti-Judaism. This analogy is the basis of LElfric's figural I 3 . Pope discusses LE!fric 's use of sources in this passage in Homilies rrf LElfric, 664 - 6 5 , note on lines 3 3 3 - 5 2 . The interpretation begins with Jesus' own words in John 3 : 1 4 - 1 5 : "And, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him may not perish, but may have life everlasting. " LElfric had previously explained this interpretation in CH 2 . 1 3 ( Dominica V Q;tadra;_qesima) , combining commentary by Augustine and Bede on this gospel passage . Pope concludes that this sum mary in De populo Israhel "is drawn . . . rather from his own homily than from these sources" ( Homilies ofLElfric, 664 ) .
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understanding of the entire narrative , how the story applies to the Christian populus. r 4 The mediating presence of figural understanding renders the Jews and their stories obsolete, a footnote to the overarch ing story of Christianity. Whether the Jews are right or wrong in their Old Testament struggles with God does not ultimately matter from the Christian perspective ; what really matters is that, for good or ill, those were the old ways, the old Law, the former people, while lElfric and his audience are the new chosen people of God: Hi w�ron fl� sclice menn, and underfencgon heora wite on Oyssere worulde, �fter Moyses �; we syndon gastlice menn under Godes gife nu, and ure sawul sceal, gifwe forseoO God, p�t wite underfon on p�re toweardan worulde, buton we swa ges�lige beon p�t we hit sylfe gebeton �r ure geendunge wiO Oone �lmihtigan God. ( 29 7- 3 0 3 ) - 1 5 [They were fleshly men and suffered their torment in this world, according to the Law of Moses; now we are all spiritual men under the grace of God, and our souls must, if we forsake God, undergo torment in the world to come, unless we thus are happy that we ourselves have repented ( our sins) against the almighty God before our death . ] Here, the distinction between Old and New, fle sh and spirit i s used to warn Christians that the consequences of their disobedience will be much greater than they were for the Hebrews ( as terrible as those punishments seemed to be ) . If Christians scorn God like the Jews, they will not just be punished in the here and now, but they will also suffer eternal punishment in the next life . The distinction between the two peoples here is used to show that with the greater rewards of life in Christ also comes the potential for even greater torments, a very ele mentary theme lElfric returns to at the end of the homily. 1 4 . Peter Clemoes notes the importance of figural interpretation of the Old Testament for !Elfric : "To !Elfric, as indeed to all Christians, the primary importance of the Old Testa ment was its preparation for the New. And this in two ways : in the typological relationship between much of its narrative and Christ's redemption of man, and in its numerous prophe cies of the redeemer. And so the exposition of its most significant events was a vital section of !Elfric's homiletic plan" ( "Chronolot,ry," 240 ) . 1 5 . Pope notes that this entire passage ( 274- 3 0 3 ) originates with !Elfric ( Homilies of LE!fric, 664 , note on lines 274 - 3 0 3 ) .
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In JElfric's closing comment, the distinction between Jew and Chris tian reveals the greater potential rewards Christians have for obedi ence. His comment above used the Jews and their difference from Christians to make a point about the negative consequences of disobe dience; this passage invokes the same distinction to illustrate the supe rior incentives awaiting obedience : Dam folce wcrs behaten J:mrh pone heofonlican God pert hi sceoldon habban soolice renscuras and eorolice wxstmas on wuda and on felda, ofxtan and ele, and eac swylce win, and heora fynd oferwinnan, gifhi wuroodon hine, and mid ealre heortan hine xfre lufodon. Ac Crist sylf behet us on his halgan godspelle pxt we sceolon habban, pxr pxr he sylf wunao, pxt ece lif mid him and mid eallum his hal gum, gifwe hine wuroiao on oysum andweardan life, and mid sooum geleafan hine lufiao xfre . He het us swyoost cepan pxs sopan lifes xfre, and cwxo pxt we sceoldon symle eac habban ure eorolican neode pxrtoeacan soolice. ( 3 7 6- 8 9 ) 1 6 [ It was promised to the people ( i . e . , the Hebrews ) by heavenly God that they would indeed have gentle rains and earthly fruits in the woods and fields, fruits, oil, and also wine, and they would overcome their enemy if they honored God, and ever loved him with all their heart. But Christ himself promised us in his holy gospel that we would possess eternal life with him where he himself dwells, with him and all his saints, if we honor him in this present life and ever love him with tme belief. He commanded us most firmly to ever seek true life, and said that in addition we shall ever truly have our eternal desire . ] The contract with the nation of Israel sounds appealing, but the con tract enacted through Christ exceeds it, making the earthly joys pale in comparison to eternal joy. In De populo Israhel narrative conundmms based on eating lead to figural interpretation, which in turn leads to rhetorical application. I 6. As Pope details in his notes to this passage, LElfric is generally indebted to several biblical texts here, including Deuteronomy 1 2 : 1 3 , 1 4 , 2 3 ; John 6 : 4 0 De populo Israhd 305
How does figural understanding and its use as rhetoric interact with historical contexts and imperatives? Such a contextualization suggests how interpretative and representational traditions can be put to a spe cific use in particular historical circumstances; figural interpretation of biblical narrative is not an exercise confined solely to the intellectual realm of the exegetical tradition. The interpretation of Jews in De populo Israhel allows JElfric to construct an ideological support for the acceptance of ecclesiastical and secular authority in England. JElfric draws a parallel between the Israelites and the English, emphasizing the punishment awaiting disobedience and rebellion. Mter an episode of fiery punishment from the heavens in De populo Israhel) JElfric suspends his narrative for a moment and inserts his own comment: Das race we secgad eow nu to rihtinge, pxt nan mann ne sceole ceorian ongean God mid dyrstigum anginne, ne his Drihten gremian, se pe xfre wyle wel pam de hit geearniad , and he da gefrefrad pe his fultumes biddad . ( 7 8 - 8 2 ) [We tell you these stories now as guidance that no man should complain against God with over-bold action, nor provoke his Lord, who always wishes well to those who earn it, and comforts those who await his aid. ] This general comment at the beginning of the text is a warning against crossing God's authority. Indeed, this comment is so universal in tone that it is easy to surmise that JElfric intended Drihten [ Lord] (not capital ized, of course, in the manuscript) to cover several forms of authority to wit, divine, monastic, and secular. JElfric builds De populo Israhel text and gloss-around authority and submission to authority. As the narrative progresses, the punishments inflicted upon the Israel ites grow steadily worse. As we have already noted, the Israelites fool ishly enter the land of Canaan without God's permission. Although warned by Moses, they are slaughtered by the inhabitants of the land and "hi mihton geseon pxt hi swuncon on ydel, swa swa xlc pxra manna ded pe ongean his Drihten wind" [they could see that they struggled in vain, just as any man does who strives against his Lord ] ( 2 I 5 - I 6 ) . After this brief warning, a portion of the Hebrew host, led
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by Korath, Dathan, Abiron, and Hon, questions the authority of Moses and Aaron : "Hi axodon 6a mid graman pa Godes pegnas, Moysen and Aaron, 'Hwi wylie ge swa mycclum eow sylfe ahebban ofer 6ysum folce?' And prafodon hi swy6e hwi hi sceoldon habban anweald ofer hi" [They then asked the thanes of God, Moses and Aaron, with anger, "Why must you so greatly extol yourself over this people? " And they pressed them greatly as to why they should have power over them] ( 2 2 r - 2 5 ) . 17 Moses tries to mollify this group , but they insist on challenging-before the holy tabernacle of God-his authority: Se Chore pa genam, pe we �r fores�don, and ealle his gegadan, Gode to forsewennysse, �lc his recelsf�t �tforan Godes getelde, and ontendon pone star, swa swa man steran sceal, swylce hi mihton hi sylfe gewyrcan Gode to sacerdon, buton he sylf hi gecure, swa swa Aaron w�s, se arwur6a bisceop, pone pe God sylf geceas, and gesette him to bisceope on pa ealdan wisan �fter Moyses �. ( 2 3 7- 4 5 ) 1 8 [Then Korath, who we mentioned previously, and all his compan ions held God in contempt, and each man held his censer before the tent of God, and kindled the incense, just as one should kindle it, and they attempted to establish themselves as priests of God, ex cept that he himself should have chosen them, just as Aaron was, the worthy bishop , whom God himself chose and established as a bishop in the old fashion according to the Law of Moses. ] When the narrative resumes, the rebels are swallowed up by the earth or incinerated by fire from the sacred tabernacle, because, as JElfric comments, in their foolishness "hi ongean Godes willan worhton hi to sacerdum, and pone forsawon pe he him geset h�fde" [they acted like priests against the will of God and rejected him who had established 1 7 . Based on Numbers 1 6: 3 : "Cumque stetissent adversum Moysen et Aaron, dixerunt: Sufficiat vobis, quia omnis multitudo sanctorum est, et in ipsis est Dominus : Cur elevamini super populum Domini?" [And when they had stood up against Moses and Aaron, they said , "Let it be enough for you, that all the multitude consisteth of holy ones, and the Lord is among them. Why lift you up yourselves above the people of the Lord? " ] . Note that LE!tric adds an extra summary sentence ( "And they pressed them greatly as to why they should have power over them") after the final question in the Latin, emphasizing the motives of the rebels and their (misplaced) zeal. 1 8 . Based on Numbers 1 6 : 1 6- 1 9 . See Pope, Homilies ofJElfric, 664 , note to lines 24 1 4 5 on the application of the term bisceop to Aaron.
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them ( as priests ) ] ( 2 5 9 - 60 ) . In these homiletic asides JE!fric lays the foundation for the ultimate rhetorical thrust of the homily: a direct exhortation to the English audience not to be like those Jews of old, rejecting divinely sanctioned authority; instead they should obey their rightful intermediaries between God and man, namely, the proper eccle siastical authorities descended from Moses and Aaron-the monks of the Benedictine reform. This slaughter of Korath and company creates an even more wide spread rebellion; Moses and Aaron must flee for their lives into God's tabernacle until an enormous divine conflagration finally ends the con fli ct. These events provoke an extended commentary by JElfric, directly applying the lesson of the homily to his English audience : On oysum mxg gehyran se oe hxfO xnig andgyt pxt hit byo swyoe hearmlic pam oe huxlice txlo bisceopas and sacerdas, pe syndon Godes bydelas, and to lareowum gesette to lxrenne Godes folc, ponne se lareow him sego Godes gesetnyssa and his beboda, him sylfum to pearfe, and he ponne forsyho, and to forsewennysse hxfO ge pone Godes bydel ge pa Godes beboda, be pam cwxo se Hxlend to his discipulum: Qui uos audit me audit) et qui uos spernit me spernit. Dxt is on urum gereorde, Se pe eow gehyro , he gehyro me purh oa gehyrsumnysse, and se pe eow forsiho , he forsyho me . Hi forsawon Moysen and pone mxron bisceop, Aaron his brooor, mid bysmorlicum hospe, ac God sylf gewrxc heora forsewennysse, for pan oe hi God txldon pa oa hi txldon hi. Swa deo xlc pxra manna pe his ealdor forsyho, pe byo Godes speligend on gastlicere !are, on pam ealdorscype pe him God geuoe; gif he hine forsyho, his sawul sceal prowian pxt ylce wite, buton he hit xr gebete, pe hi oa prowodon on heora lichaman. Hi wxron flxsclice menn, and underfencgon heora wite on oyssere worulde, xfter Moyses x; we syndon gastlice menn under Godes gife nu, and ure sawul sceal, gif we forseoo God, pxt wite underfon on pxre toweardan worulde, buton we swa gesxlige beon pxt we hit sylfe gebeton xr ure geendtmge wio oone xlmihtigan God. ( 2 7 4- 3 o 3 ) [ Concerning these events, he who has any understanding can perceive that it is very bad for the one who insultingly accuses bishops and priests, who are the preachers of God and are estab lished as teachers to teach the people of God, when a teacher tells
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him the decree of God and his commands as a help to him and he then rejects and holds in contempt both the messenger of God and the commands of God; concerning such a one the Savior said to his disciples, "Qui vos audit) me audit) et qui vos spernit) me spernit." That is in our language, "He who hears you, he hears me through obedience, and he who rejects you, he rejects me." They rejected Moses and Aaron, his brother the great bishop , with shameful blasphemy, but God himself avenged their contempt, because God blamed them when they blamed Moses and Aaron. So it happens to every man who scorns his leader who is the representative of God in spiritual teaching, in the authority God grants to him; if he rejects him ( i . e . , the priest or leader) , his soul must suffer the same torment, unless he repents what they previ ously suffered then in their bodies. They were fleshly men and suffered their torment in this world, according to the Law of Moses; now we are spiritual men under the grace of God, and our souls must, if we forsake God, undergo torment in the world to come, unless we thus are happy that we ourselves have repented ( our sins ) against the almighty God before our death . ] Many o f the strands we have been discussing so far come together in this original comment. The figural dichotomy between Old and New appears, but its primary purpose here is not only to clarify the relation ship between Old and New Testament events in a "disinterested," theo logical sense . Instead, LElfric uses this opposition in order to make an explicit connection between disobedient Israelites in the text and (po tentially) disobedient English. As Godden notes: "Both allegorically and literally, the Anglo-Saxon church saw itself in continuity with the priesthood of the Hebrews, similarly faced with reconciling a rebellious people to God. " r 9 LElfric again stresses that if it seems the earthly torments of the people of Israel were bad, imagine what might lie in wait after death for disobedient Christians . LElfric opens this comment by appealing to those who have "tmderstanding" [ andgyt] ; those who possess true understanding constitute true Christians, in contrast to the Jews . He who understands, obeys authority. LElfric then cites Paul to emphasize the behavior of the Jews in this story as a negative example to Christian men: I9. "Biblical Literature," 2 I 6 - I 7 .
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Paulus se apostol, ealra peoda lareow, manode pone leodscipe pe he to geleafan gebigde, and ealle Cristene menn, and cwxo pxt we sceoldon geornlice us warnian wio oa yfelan ceonmge, pxt we swa ne gegremion God !Elmihtigne nu mid urum yfelum peawum, swa swa pxt ealde folc clyde on pam westene pa, wioerrxdlice to swyoe. ( 3 90-96) [The apostle Paul, the teacher of all nations, warned the people he converted to belief, and all Christian men, and said that we must earnestly guard ourselves against evil rebellion in order that we do not now provoke God Almighty with our evil ways, as that elder nation did then so rebelliously in the desert. ] 2 0 To shun the ways of the "elder nation" and obey the spiritual representa tives of God: again, this citation of the Jews develops an application and injunction for everyday English life . !Elfric uses the "figural oppor tunity" to address what must be some sort of concern in his own community: Nu syndon manega menn pe secgao pxt hi nellao Godes lare gehyran, pelxste hi sceolon habban maran wita gifhi witon pa lare , and gif hi nellao don swa swa Drihten bebyt, hi sylfe gerihtlxcan purh pa sooan lare . Nu cweoe we pxrtogeanes, pxt gif se cyning asent gewrit to sumon his pegena, and he hit forsyho swa swyoe pxt he hit nele gehyran, ne his aseon, pxt se cyning ne byo na swyoe blioe him, ponne he geaxao hu he hine forseah. ( 4 o i - I o ) [Now there are many men who say that they do not wish to listen to the teaching of God, lest they shall have greater torment if they know the Law, and if they do not wish to do as the Lord com mands, they themselves can do well enough through the tme Law. Now we say, on the contrary, that if the Icing sent a written command to some of his thanes, and he ( one of the thanes ) just completely rejects it so that he does not wish to hear it or look upon any of it, the result shall be that the king shall not be very happy with him, when the king asks him why he rejected him . ] 20. I Corinthians I o : I o - I I : "Neither do you murmur, as some of them murmured and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now, all these things happened to them in figure ( in figura) ; and they are written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the world are come. "
THE f O O T S T E P S Of I S RA E L 3 10
In this comment, JElfric is responding to real or potential tenth -century social conflicts. 2 I Social ideology intrudes, in a sense, on the traditional figural motifs of anti-Judaism . We can see here the value of anti-Judaic rhetoric in the realm ofthe real, the everyday notions ofJElfric's worldly, practical imperatives: the presumed squabbling or murmuring against royal authority (with its connections to the Benedictine reform) is placed in a wider system, spread out upon a grid of ancient anti -Judaic rhetoric and related modes of Christian understanding. In a final twist at the very end of the homily, JElfric says a few words about ignorance of the laws of God and proper conduct. This concern springs from his comments above concerning those who think "ignorance is bliss," and thus a justification for disobedience : Se man pe hxfa lare on his leodscype genoge, and mxg Oa gehyran butan micclum geswince, and nele hi gehyran, ne Gode gehyrsu mian, nxfa he nane beladunge wiO Oone leofan Drihten. Se pe lare nxfO, ne lare ne gehyrO, se mihte habban sume beladunge; ac Paulus se apostol cwxO on his pistole pus : Qui sine lege peccabunty sine lege peribunt. Dxt is, on Engliscere sprxce, "Da pe buton Godes x synna gewyrcaO, pa eac butan Godes ;r on ende forwurOaO ." ( 4 1 6- 26 ) [The man who has enough knowledge i n his nation and can understand it without great trouble, and still will not listen to or obey God, he has no excuse against the beloved Lord. The man who does not possess lore, and does not obey, he could have some excuse; but the apostle Paul said this in his epistle: Qui sine lege peccabunty sine lege peribunt. That is, in the English language, "Those who commit sin without the Law of God, also die in the end without God's Law." Let the beloved Lord Christ correct us and ever draw us to his will who is the glory and love and power forever, amen. ] Anyone who hears or reads De populo Israhel is caught and now has no excuse for not acknowledging authority in its various manifestations, 2 I . Seth Lerer has discussed this passage, examining the "links between the written nature of divine and human law"; he sees this passage, and the entire homily, as a meditation upon JElfric's "ideals of a literate engagement with the world" ( Literacy and Power, I 5 3 , I 5 65 7 ) . See also Keynes, Diplomas, I 3 6- 3 7 for a discussion of the gewrit in this passage.
./Elfric�> De populo Israhd 3II
whether actual belief in God, adherence to his laws and the customs of the church, the personal authority of God's ministers on earth, or even secular rulers. Thus the emphasis of this homily is on authority: its nature and strength, the consequences of acting against authority and the mobility of authority. !Elfric saw the power of God and obedience to that power as important features of the Old Testament. As he explains in the begin ning of the Letter to Sigeweard) God the creator of all living things demands obedience from his creations : Se a:lmihtiga Scippend geswutelode hine sylfne lmrh pa micclan weorc oe he geworhte a:t fruman, and wolde pa:t oa gesceafta gesawon his ma:roa and on wuldre mid him wunodon on ecnisse on his underpeodnisse him a:fre gehirsume, for oam pe hit ys swioe wolic pa:t oa geworhtan gesceafta pam ne beon gehirsume pe hi gesceop and geworhte . 2 2 [The almighty Creator manifested himself through the great work which he wrought at the beginning, and desired that cre ation look upon his mighty works and dwell with him in eternal glory, ever obedient to him in subjection, because it is very shame ful that created things not be obedient to him who wrought and shaped them . ]
De populo Israhel explores how authority originates with God but can be passed on to surrogate figures like Moses and Aaron; further, how it can be passed down to latter-day ( i . e . , English) men; how the narratives of the Old Testament, with their explorations of God's authority over the Jews, still can have authority over tenth-century Anglo-Saxon Christians through proper interpretation. "Jewish eating" is one of a number of conflicts between the people and authority in De populo Israhel. This dietary conflict, so "natural" a link to somatic anti-Judaism, compels !Elfric to explain the question of the Jews to his audience . As expected, !Elfric utilizes a figural hermeneutic to resolve the problem, and this methodology spins off a number ofbinary oppositions . Since their repre sentation is so ambiguous, the Christian understanding of Jews and 2 2 . Letter to Sigeweard, ed. Cravvford, Old English Heptateuch 1 6 . 24 - 1 7 . 29 (page and line numbers ) .
THE f O O T S T E P S Of I S RA E L 3 I2
Judaism can be utilized for various ideological purposes. In De populo Israhel) Jews are caught up in iElfric's preoccupation with authority and its legitimacy. In the next chapter, Maccabees shows a similar pattern of representation and ideological appropriation.
EIGHT
LElfric's Maccabees
onored yet derided, repudiated yet ever-present, external yet inter nal, the Jews embody a rhetorical effect of Christian identity. By repudiating Judaism, defining it as lack, Christianity inexorably yokes itself into a tormented relationship with its sibling. This ambivalence gives the Jews a curious ideological mobility, a capacity to be deployed as sheer rhetoric in the flux of everyday life . The anti-Judaism of LElfric's homily Maccabees in the Lives of Saints exemplifies this capacity for the Christian understanding of the Jews to function as a mobile, all purpose political signifier in specific historical circumstances. I Maccabees is a translation and condensed adaptation of the Vulgate historical books r and 2 Maccabees; the story of Judas Maccabeus and his family's rebellion against the tyranny of the Seleucid king of Syria in the second century B . C.E. is arranged in an original order by LElfric and interspersed with brief commentary drawn from other parts ofthe Bible, LElfric's own reflections, and a few other sources . 2 At the beginning of
H
I . Cf the work of Sander Gilman, who describes his investigations of nineteenth- and twentieth-century antisemitism as an attempt to "understand how stereotypes are generated, how they are embedded in cultural artifacts (texts, in the widest sense of the word ) , and, most important, how once sanctioned in this arena they form the basis for action" ( Inscribing the Other, I I ) . 2. For the sources of the homily see Loomis , "Further Sources ofJElfi-ic's Saints' Lives," 2- 3 , and the more comprehensive discussion by Stuart Lee, "1Elfric's Treatment of Source Material in His Homily on the Books of the Maccabees. " 1Elfi-ic's Maccabees is extant in
3 13
THE f O O T S T E P S Of I S RA E L 3 I4
the narrative , Jewish dietary prohibitions provoke JElfric into an "an thropological" digression similar to the one in the Chair of Saint Peter)· here JElfric again explains the puzzling customs of Jewish culture to his audience. The first major episode of the homily is the "martyrdom" of Eleazar from 2 Maccabees 6: I 8 - 3 r . The heathens seize the old scribe Eleazar and "hi bestungon him on mup , mid mycelre 6reatunge, pone fulan mete pe moyses forbead godes folce to picgenne for pxre gastlican getacnunge" [they stuck in his mouth, with many threats, the foul food which Moses prohibited God's people to eat because of its spiritual signification] . 3 Before the narrative can move forward, JElfric inter rupts: "We moton nu secgan swutellicor be 6ysum, hwylce mettas wxron mannum forbodene on Dxre ealdan x pe mann ett nu swa6eah" [We must now speak more clearly about these things, which foods were forbidden to men in the old Law which men eat now nevertheless] ( 3 73 9 ) . JElfric then attempts to explicate Jewish dietary proscriptions in lines 3 7- 84, relying on Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Pseudo-Bede .4 He first defines the nature of the forbidden food, condensing material from Leviticus I I : 2 - 4 7 : under the Old Law, unclean beasts do not chew their cud and/or they possess uncloven hooves ( 40-4 5 ) . Having established what literally defines "unclean fle sh," JElfric next unfolds the hidden significance behind these distinctions . Clean beasts symbolize men who meditate on God's will and mull over his teachings, like the chewing of cud ( 4 6-49 ) . 5 Unclean beasts "getacnia6 pa De tela nella() ne nella() several copies. London, British Library, Cotton Julius E. vii ( Ker 1 62) is the base manuscript tor Skeat's edition in the Lives of the Saints. Other manuscripts include Cambridge, Corpus Christi College I 9 8 ( Ker 4 8 ) ; Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 3 0 3 ( Ker 5 7 ) ; Cambridge, University Library Ii. I. 3 3 ( Ker I 8 ; an acephelous copy, beginning at line 3 I 9 according to Skeat's edition) . London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius D . xvii ( Ker 222) lacks most of the homily due to fire damage, ending at line 29; Cambridge, Queen's College [Horne ] 7 5 ( Ker 8 I ) i s only a fragment, containing just the first eight lines o f the homily. See also J . Hill, "Dissemination of JElfric's Lives of Saints," 2 5 0- 5 2 . 3 . Maccabees 2, 2 5 . 3 4 - 3 6, hereafter cited by line numbers only. Based on I I Maccabees 6: I 8 : "igitur Eleazarus de primoribus scribarum vir aetate provectus et vultu decorus aperto ore hians conpellebatur carnem porcinam manducare" [Eleazar, one of the chief of the scribes, a man advanced in years and of a comely countenance, was pressed to open his mouth to eat swine's flesh] . Note that JElfric adds the clause "which Moses forbade God's people to taste because of its spiritual signification" to his source in the Vulgate; he immediately begins to explains why this particular meat is anathema to the Jews. 4 · Leviticus I I ; Deuteronomy I 4 : 3 - 2 I ; Pseudo-Bede, In Pentateuchum commentarii Leviticus PL 9 1 : 3 4 5 - 4 6 . 5 . Bede applies the same simile to Caxlmon i n the Historia Ecclesiastica. After displaying his miraculous poetic gifts, Cxdmon is taught sacred history, with the result that "at ipse
./Elfric�' Maccabees 3 I5
leornian hwxt gode leof sy, ne on heora mode wealcan pxs hxlendes beboda" [ signifY those who do not desire properly, neither to learn what may be pleasing to God, nor to revolve in their mind the commands of the Savior] ( 5 1 - 5 3 ) . Immediately, !Elfric overlays the binary opposi tion dean/unclean with an opposition between understanding and not understanding, or proper interpretation and improper interpretation. The Jews are not yet identified with either category in this passage, but !Elfric's binary logic begins to analogically replicate itself, establishing categories he later uses to define the Jews . !Elfric restates the distinction between clean and unclean in slightly different terms, elaborating the interpretation of these categories . Beasts that cleave their hooves and chew cud signifY faithful Christians who accept both the Old and New Testament and "ceowaa godes beboda symle mid smeagunge" [ always chew God's commands with refl e ction] ( 6o ) . Unclean beasts either do not chew their cud or do not cleave their hooves "for dxre getacnunge, pe aa towerd wxs pxt we tocleofan ure clawa on pam twam gecyanyssum, on axre ealdan and on axre niwan, pxt is x and godspel" [ for the signification, which then was still to come, that we cleave our hooves in the two testaments, in the Old and in the New, that is the Law and the gospel ] ( 64- 66) . !Elfric's explanation of the Jewish diet proceeds through three analogical binary oppositions . Why does Eleazar refuse to eat the food? The food is unclean because there are clean and unclean beasts . What do clean and unclean beasts signify? They signify those who understand the word of God and those cuncta, quae audiendo discere poterat, rememorando secum et quasi mundum animal ruminando, in carmen dulcissimum conuertebat" [he learned all he could by listening to them and then, memorizing it and ruminating over it, like some clean animal chewing the cud, he turned it into the most melodious verse] ( 4. 24 ·4 I 8 ) . On the monastic practice of ruminatio in Anglo-Saxon England, see the discussion and extensive summary of secondary scholarship in Crepin, "Bede and the Vernacular," I 7 2- 7 3 , and in Remley, Old En;_qlish Biblical Verse, 404 3. Cf. Faithful's judgment of Talkative in Bunyan's The Pilgrim 's Progress ( 66) : This brings to my mind that of Moses, by which he describeth the beast that is cbm. He is such xt pridde gefeoht pe of geflite cymo betwux ceastergewarum is swyoe pleolic; and pxt feoroe gefeoht pe betwux freondum bio is swioe earmlic and endeleas sorb. [ However, teachers say that there are four types of war: jttstu m, that is, just; injttstum, that is, unjust; civile, between citizens; plusquam civile, between relatives. Justum bellum is just war against the cruel seamen, or against other peoples that wish to destroy the land. Unjust war is that which comes from anger. The third war, which comes from strife between citizens, is very dangerous; and tile fourth war, that is between friends, is very miserable,
