entered winchester, 971 act. 16 remained at a till 984 act c. 29

Elfheal send him to Serne 87 Cornelis corne near

Returned i

winchester 989

completed Homilias vd I 990

994)

Grammar 995

Lions y Saints 996

SELECTIONS FROM ELFRIC

Jonna Pentateuch & Canons 498-1001

Ælfric, the foremost representative of English culture in the tenth and early eleventh centuries, was born not far from 955 A.D., and died after 1020. He was educated under Ethelwold in the Old Minster at Winchester, having probably entered it about 971. Here he remained until after the death of Ethelwold (984). By Ethelwold's successor, Ælfheah (more commonly known as Alphege), he was sent to the monastery of Cernel, or Cerne, five miles north of Dorchester, where he probably remained from 987 to 989. From Cerne he returned to Winchester, first having begun his Homilies, and at Winchester completed both volumes of these (990-994), his Grammar (995), Lives of Saints (996), his translation of the Pentateuch and Joshua, and his so-called Canons (998-1001?). In 1005 his friend Æthelmær, a wealthy and prominent thane, founded a monastery at Eynsham, five or six miles northwest of Oxford. Ælfric was probably its first abbot, and remained in office till the end of his life, composing various other works in his leisure, and being cheered by the presence of Æthelmær, who had decided to pass the remainder of his life in the monastery. Elfric was alive in November, 1020, we are almost certain; the date of his death is conjectural. His character and temper may be inferred from the extracts given below. For further details, see Cook, Biblical Quotations in Old English Prose Writers, Series I (London and New York, 1898), pp. lxiv ff., and White, Ælfric (New York, 1898). The Homilies have been printed, with a translation, by Thorpe (London, 1844-6).

1. PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATION OF GENESIS

Elfric the monk sends greeting in all humility to Æthelweard the earl.

When you desired me, honored friend, to translate the book of Genesis from Latin into English, I was loth to

grant your request; upon which you assured me that I should need to translate only so far as the account of Isaac, Abraham's son, seeing that some other person had rendered it for you from that point to the end. Now I am concerned lest the work should be dangerous for me or any one else to undertake, because I fear that, if some foolish man should read this book or hear it read, he would imagine that he could live now, under the New Dispensation, just as the patriarchs lived before the old law was established, or as men lived under the law of Moses. At one time I was aware that a certain priest, who was then my master, and who had some knowledge of Latin, had in his possession the book of Genesis; he did not scruple to say that the patriarch Jacob had four wives

two sisters and their two handmaids. What he said was true enough, but neither did he realize, nor did I as yet, what a difference there is between the Old Dispensation and the New. In the early ages the brother took his sister to wife; sometimes the father had children by his own daughter; many had several wives for the increase of the people; and one could only marry among his kindred. Any one who now, since the coming of Christ, lives as men lived before or under the Mosaic law, that man is no Christian; in fact, he is not worthy to have a Christian eat with him. If ignorant priests have some inkling of the sense of their Latin books, they immediately think that they can set up for great teachers; but they do not recognize the spiritual signification, and how the Old Testament was a prefiguration of things to come, and how the New Testament, after the incarnation of Christ, was the fulfilment of all those things which the Old Testament foreshadowed concerning Christ and His elect. Referring to Paul, they often wish to know why they may not have

wives as well as the apostle Peter; but they will neither hear nor know that the blessed Peter lived according to Moses' law until Christ came to men and began to preach His holy gospel, Peter being the first companion that He chose; and that Peter forthwith forsook his wife, and all the twelve apostles who had wives forsook both wives and goods, and followed Christ's teaching to that new law and purity which he himself set up. I say in advance that this book has a very profound spiritual signification, and I undertake to do nothing more than relate the naked facts. The uneducated will think that all the meaning is included in the simple narrative, while such is by no means the case. I dare write no more in English than the Latin has, nor change the order except so far as English idiom demands. Whoever translates or teaches from Latin into English must always arrange it so that the English is idiomatic, else it is very misleading to one who does not know the Latin idiom. . . . Now I protest that I neither dare nor will translate any book hereafter from Latin into English; and I beseech you, dear earl, not to urge me any longer, lest I should be disobedient to you, or break my word if I should promise. God be gracious to you for evermore.

ALBERT S. COOK

2. ENGLISH PREFACE TO THE GRAMMAR

Grammar, ed. Zupitza, pp. 2–3

I, Ælfric, after translating two books of eighty homilies, wished to translate into the English tongue this little book of grammar, since grammar is the key that unlocks the meaning of those books. And I thought that this book might help young children in beginning that art, until

they have attained to greater knowledge. It behoves every man who has any good talent to make that talent useful to other men, and to commit unto others the pound which God hath entrusted unto him,1 in order that God's money may not lie idle, and lest he be called a wicked servant, and be bound and cast into darkness, even as the holy gospel saith. It is fitting that young men should acquire knowledge, and that the old should teach their youth wisdom, since, by means of learning, faith is kept, and every man who loveth wisdom is happy; whereas the mind of him who will neither learn nor teach, if he can, becomes cool toward holy lore, and thus, little by little, he turns from God. Whence shall come wise teachers for God's people unless they learn in youth? And how can faith increase if learning and teachers fail? Wherefore God's servants and monks must now zealously take care that holy lore neither become cool nor fail in our days, as was the case among the English a few years since, so that no English priest could either write or understand a letter in Latin,2 until Archbishop Dunstan and Bishop Æthelwold again established learning in monastic life. Hence I say, not that this book may help many to knowledge, but that, if it pleases them, it may be, as it were, an opening to every language.

3. ENGLISH PREFACE TO HOMILIES I

I, Ælfric, monk and priest-though unequal to such offices was sent by Æthelwold's successor, Bishop Ælfheah, in the days of King Ethelred, to a monastery called Cernel, at the request of Ethelmær the thane, whose lineage and goodness are everywhere known. Then it 2 Cf. p. 101.

1 Matt. 25. 14 ff.; Lk. 19. 12 ff.