Other ecclesiastical writings are not entirely original, being frequently translated from the Latin; but they are valuable as examples of the best Anglo-Saxon style of the period, and even more so as decisively proving that the Anglo-Saxon Church did not hold the doctrine of Transubstantiation in Aelfric's time. Translations of the sermon on Easter Sunday, where this point is more particularly developed, have been frequently issued, especially by Archbishop Parker and other bishops in 1566, under the title of A Testimonie of Antiquitie. Aelfric's homilies are further noticeable for their avoidance of apocryphal narratives. The following passage on the birth of the Virgin is characteristic of his mode of thought: "What shall we say in regard to the time of Mary's birth, save that she was begotten by her father and mother like other people, and was born on the day that we call sexta idus Septembris? Her father was called Joachim and her mother Anna, pious people according to the ancient law, but we will write no more of them lest we fall into some error. The Gospel itself for this day is very hard for laymen to understand; it is, for the most part, filled out with the names of holy men, and these require a very long explanation of their spiritual meaning. Hence we will leave it unsaid." Evidently Aelfric preferred the shallows where the child can wade to the deeps where the elephant can swim, and considering the times in which he wrote and the people whom he addressed, his sobriety was eminently judicious. He embodies the best traits of the national character, sturdy veracity and homely common-sense. Qualities so valuable made Aelfric acceptable to the leading men of his age. He was made Abbot of Cerne, and afterwards of Ensham; he composed discourses for Archbishop Wulfstan of York, and other great ecclesiastics; and after translating the book of Job, he rendered the first seven books of the Old Testament into the vernacular to gratify his chief patron, the Ealdorman Ethelweald. Part he only gave in abridgment, fearing lest his countrymen should conform themselves too literally to the example of the patriarchs. He also incorporates an older version of the earlier portion of Genesis. He further composed in 996 a volume of homilies on the Passions of the Saints, in which, as in some portions of his Biblical translations, he employs an alliterative prose hardly distinguishable from verse. In Latin he produced a valuable life of his original patron, Bishop Ethelwold; a Latin grammar on the model of Donatus and Priscian, dedicated to the youth of England; and a Colloquium or exercise in speaking Latin, at the present day the most interesting of all his works for its descriptions of the daily life of men of various classes of society. He was living as late as 1014, when he wrote a pastoral letter, or a portion of one, for Archbishop Wulfstan. Wulfstan himself has been reckoned among English authors on the strength of a collection of fifty-three homilies composed or translated about the end of the tenth or beginning of the eleventh century, and edited by Professor Napier. Only four are undoubtedly by an author of Abra podlice par spyde pely ongolde jonreolere, Jonopipe, Jon sereldü.rpapp land number aberanthi begen, he ploth o Sædere punedon heopa aha papon menig féalde. Juemihoon puman di gedepe Peard eac danh pone mengan racu berpux abramer hýrde mann locher Ondaue ce punedon chana neur. per exeur onda laine Abra kacpad coloche de bidde bat nan rácu nefy berpux meene be cpux minü hypoū. -Bum hypoű pýt pýnd gebrodu; Erne nú eallréo corde tid apopande. iebrode par pra me Gyrðu papst copone poleran healre ic healde pappyoran healre.syrpa donne pappy pan healpe gecyft fe pare copie pyn fan healpe Loch da behold geono eall, gereah teall pe cand pida ea topdanen pdf myp. se mid potenie gemenged pappa goder neonxna pang pagpa egyptaland becumendum to regop appanpe god copende da bunga fodomam go mop ran:~ ANGLO-SAXON GOSPELS 61 the name of Wulfstan, and his identity with the Archbishop does not seem certain. Among other theological productions of the age may be named a version of the Gospels, afterwards published by Archbishop Parker, and commencing that grand series of mediæval translations of the Scriptures in which England surpasses every other country. There is also a version of the apocryphal RIST PASACN omne pimer mee peodemece idumhagon From a copy of the Saxon Chronicle in the British Museum Gospel of Nicodemus. Aldred's invaluable Northumbrian gloss on the Durham Gospels was probably written about the middle of the tenth century. In didactic literature we have a translation of the distichs of Valerius Cato, and two dialogues in verse and two in prose between Solomon and "Saturn." The origin of these is Hebraic; they belong to the extensive class of writings, founded on the history of the Queen of Sheba's visit to Solomon, in which the wise king is represented in friendly contest with visitors who come to make trial of his wisdom. One of these in the earliest form of Hebrew tradition is Hiram, King of Tyre, whose place at a later period is taken by "Marcolis," no other than Mercurius, whether the Gentile Danish conquest of England Saxon deity or the Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus. Entering Europe, Marcolis became the German Marcolf or Morolf, and by a stroke of genius was, transformed into the prototype of Eulenspiegel and Sancho Panza, plain coarse common-sense mocking divine philosophy, and low cunning winning. an apparent triumph over lofty but unpractical wisdom. There is nothing of this profound double-edged irony in the Anglo-Saxon pieces, where "Saturn"-how coming by that appellation is hard to tell-manifests no trait of Morolf or Sancho, but is simply a propounder of queries sometimes encountered by meet replies, sometimes by a recital of the wildest imaginings of the Rabbis. While Aelfric was labouring to instruct the laity and raise the character of the clergy, England was suffering the most grievous calamities from the second series of Danish invasions, which, after many preliminary incursions, Coin of Canute commenced systematically about 991, and continued until the general submission of the kingdom to Canute in 1017. The new affliction, however, was more tolerable than the old. The Danes were no longer mere freebooters, but aimed at conquest, and the victory they sought did not, like the subsequent conquest by the Normans, involve the enslavement of the Saxon people, much less their expulsion. Canute, a monarch even greater as statesman than as warrior, sought the fusion of the races under his sceptre, and while retaining his hold upon his hereditary dominions, always regarded England as the chief of his possessions, and himself as before all things King of England. The general conversion of the Northmen to Christianity had removed the chief barrier between the nations, and Canute's piety, which seems to have been no less sincere than politic, won the clergy to loyalty, and contributed to the peaceful establishment of his power. He appears to have been a real patron of ecclesiastical learning, and even more so of minstrelsy and poetry; he was, indeed, himself a poet, and the initial stanza of a lay composed by him has come down to us :— Merrily sang the monks in Ely All the words of the original but two are good modern English. Notwithstanding Canute's literary tastes, his reign was unproductive of literature. One work of great value, indeed, was slowly growing up, which, beginning under Alfred, lasted on until Norman times. We must not wait until the Conquest before speaking of the Saxon Chronicle. It is an honourable distinction of England that, while the rude annals of other modern nations have, during the primitive stages of their culture, been usually written in Latin, she possesses her first national history in her |