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Old Testament Narratives PDF

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Old Testalllent Narratives Edited and Translated by DANIEL ANLEZARK 'DUMBARTON OAKS J{EDIEVAL oQ}RARY HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAM BRI DGE, MAS SAC HU SETTS LONDON, ENGLAND 20 II Contents Introduction Vl1 GENESI S I EXODUS 205 DANIEL 247 AZARI AS 301 Appendix JI7 Note onthe Texts JI9 Notes tothe Texts 121 Notes tothe Translations 325 Bibliography 333 Index 337 v Introduction The five Old English poems edited and translated in this volume survive intwo separate manuscripts. The first four- GenesisA, GenesisB, Exodus, and Daniel-are found inJunius XI in the Bodleian Library, Oxford; Azarias is found in the Exeter Book.' Another poem inJunius XI, Christ and Satan, was added to the manuscript in the decades after the Old Testament narratives were copied.2 BothJunius XI and the Exeter Book date from the latter part of the tenth century and were copied at a time when the Anglo-Saxons took a great interest in their culture's poetic tradition. The authors of these poems are not known, nor are the original dates of composition. In the centuries between the renewed interest in Anglo-Saxon literature during the Reformation and the development of modern philology in the nineteenth cen- tury, it was believed that the Anglo-Saxon cowherd Cced- mon, whose story istold in Bede's Ecclesiastical History, 3had composed these works. Ccedmon was in the employ of the great Anglo-Saxon monastery atWhitby in the late seventh century, where, asaresult ofhis reluctance to join in singing with others at alate-night party, he received both an angelic vision and a divine poetic inspiration. When he was pre- sented to the Abbess Hild, she recognized the gift, accepted him as a monk, and had him instructed in the scriptures and doctrine. The resulting corpus of biblical poems- Vll INTRODUCTION apparently still familiar two generations later-were, ac- cording to Bede, the first to incorporate Christian subject matter into Old English alliterative verse. While the Exeter Book has been kept at Exeter Cathe- dral since it was donated by Bishop Leofric in 1072, we do not know the exact whereabouts ofJunius XI before 1651, when it was given byJames Ussher, archbishop of Armagh, to the Dutch scholar FranciscusJunius.Junius published the first edition of all the poems in the manuscript in Amster- dam in 1655, with the traditional attribution to C:rdmon; the "C:rdmon manuscript" became Junius XI when it was bequeathed by him to the Bodleian Library.4 The attribu- tion to C:rdmon was current until Benjamin Thorpe's edi- tion of 1832,after which scholars established, on avariety of linguistic and stylistic grounds, that the poems could not have been written by one author, although critical opinion continues to favor an early date, probably before 800.5 The one exception is GenesisB, which probably dates from the tenth century. The Old Testament portion ofJunius XI was designed to be illustrated and presents the poems asacontinuous narra- tive in numbered sections. However, the cycle of illustra- tions isincomplete, and not allthe poems' sections (or fitts) have their numbers. Invarious places pages are missing from the manuscript, disrupting the text. The first of the poems, logically enough, isGenesisA. The author's treatment isgen- erally faithful to the course of the biblical narrative, with a tendency to eliminate repetitive passages. The poet also augments the story with material dr~wn from apocryphal sources, most notably concerning Lucifer's rebellion and the fall of the angels, which are not found in the book of viii INTRODUCTION Genesis. Other additions to the narrative derive from the biblical commentary tradition and commonplace medieval interpretations of certain episodes. At times t.hepoet's han- dlingofemotionally charged moments - such asCain's mur- der ofAbel and Abraham's expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael -suggests an interest in the characters' psychology beyond their theological import. Both in these additions and in the rendering of the Latin text, the poet fully incorporates the Old English heroic idiom, which serves to emphasize and draw out the martial aspect of the biblical source. The open- ing section of the poem (1-14) lauds the creator and closely echoes the preface to the Canon of the Mass, areminder for the modern reader that the medieval reader was most likely to encounter the Bible as a collection of texts used in the liturgy; the idea of the Bible as asingle book was unknown.1> In fact, it seems most likely that the structure of the Old Testament narrative and the selection of texts inJunius XI were guided by the series of readings set down for the Eas- ter Vigi1.7Junius XI is itself the earliest example in the En- glish language of a continuous narrative drawn from books spread widely across the Old Testament, and as such has an important place in the historical development both of the idea of the Bible as abook and of the Bible in English. The narrative proper begins with an account of the fallof the angels-Lucifer's envy and arrogance are answered by God's anger and fury.The reason for the creation of the hu- man race emerges in this context, as the thrones of heaven vacated by the fallen angels must be filled; this idea draws on a medieval theological commonplace. The poem often explains motivation where this is not found in the biblical original. The sixdays of creation are described (103-2°5), al- ix INTRODUCTION though the passage is curtailed by the loss of Old English text. The creation is followed by a description of the four rivers flowing from Eden (206-34), after which the text is disrupted, probably by the loss of manuscript leaves. When it resumes, it does so abruptly midsentence, and in the in- terpolated GenesisB, which is discussed below: The transi- tion back to GenesisA issosmooth at the narrative level that it reveals the work of an editor splicing the two texts to- gether. The action resumes with God's visit to paradise af- ter the sin of Adam and Eve, now aware of their nakedness (852-71). In a substantial addition to the biblical narrative (939-66), the poet explains to his audience (the poet's gen- der isassumed rather than known) that this sin and the con- sequent banishment are the source of current misery in the world and, in an equation of paradise with heaven (which is implicit throughout), explains that no guilty man may jour- ney there. This homiletic commentary also balances the ac- count of God's wrath with the observation that God did not abandon the human race but gave it a rich and beautiful world to livein, even ifit includes suffering and death. Such commentary is more characteristic of the earlier parts of the poem than of the later account of the wanderings of Abraham. Another homiletic expansion follows soon after, in the description of the malignant tree that grows from Abel's innocent blood and the poet's recollection that all this misery is ultimately to be blamed on Eve (982-IOOI). The tree of sin is undoubtedly included to recall the Fall, but it also reveals the poet's knowledge of the motif from Aldhelm's Carmen de Virginitate, written in the early eighth century for the nuns of Barking Abb~yHThe emotion of the "downhearted" Cain's banishment is more intense in the x INTRODUCTION Old English, and his exile matches a familiar experience in the Anglo-Saxon warrior life and its poetry. Anglo-Saxon taste isalsoevident inthe poetic expansion of the genealogy ofGenesis 4:17-26 (1055-1247), which considers not just the passing ofgenerations but also the transmission of heredi- tarynobility and ancestral wealth. With the arrival ofNoah the pace of the narrative in both the biblical source and the poem changes, and the propaga- tion of the human race gives way to its threatened extinc- tion, alongwith allother earthly life. In the development of the poem's ideas athreat becomes apparent to the royal line ofAdam through Seth, atheme enhanced by the martial lan- guage inwhich the story of the Flood iscast. The rising wa- ters are depicted as a menacing army (1375-86), but Noah and his family are protected in the towering fortress that is the ark. Noah is a holy man obedient to God, but also a prince and a father of princes. One recurrent element of the biblical narrative that the poet emphasizes is sacrifice: Noah's sacrifice (1497-1510) recalls Abel's, and the poet ob- serves that Noah's virtues date from his youth and merit the grace God has given him, though he removes the direct ref- erence to the sacrifice of animals (Gen 8:20). That this isno accident isindicated by the fact that the poet does the same thing by omitting animal sacrifice from his description of Abraham's sacrifice at Gen 16:9-17. His primary interest ap- pears to lie in providing an English version of the historical narrative of Genesis, and such omissions suggest alay audi- ence for whom the example set by the patriarchs might have been confusing. The poet's fondness for genealogy does not equate with afondness for lists, and almost all the names found in Gen- Xl INTRODUCTION esis IO are omitted. However, this is balanced by a contin- ued interest in the royal line that will lead to Abraham and the passing on of family wealth (1598-1648). The account of Abraham's wandering life takes up about one third of the poem as it survives. From the outset, the poet includes new thematic emphases while developing motifs running through the biblical story: Abraham's nobility and his place within a family order; Abraham's desire for a son and heir; the favor shown by God to faithful Abraham; Abraham's need of ahomeland; the formation of alasting covenant be- tween God and Abraham. The result, when augmented by a focus on Abraham's emotional response to his various ad- ventures, is a fuller human character than is found in the biblical text. The same is true of Sarah, and to an extent of Hagar aswell.The handling of the three-way relationship of these characters is complex and subtle, and reveals a poet mindful of the implications of the example of patriarchal sexual conduct for his Anglo-Saxon audience and aware of a Christian theological tradition which had long since devel- oped strategies for explaining the difficult moral detail of much of Genesis. Abraham, as might be expected, is never 9 condemned directly for his concubinage, and the poet re- moves any implication of polygamy, or ofAbraham's willing participation in Sarah's plan to gain him a son by the ser- vant woman. The overall result, enhancing the same themes found in the book of Genesis, is the presentation of Abra- ham and Sarah as a heterosexual married couple producing legitimate offspring alongside the sexual irregularity prac- ticed by the Sodomites and by Lot and his daughters, and the sexual incontinence of Pharaoh and Abimelech.lO The sacrifice of Isaac, the final episode of the poem, xii INTRODUCTION echoes the account of Cain and Abel in its emphasis on Abraham's intention of killing his "kinsman." More signifi- cant isthe poet's choice to end his epic at this P9int, reveal- ing an interest in the mystical significance of the Old Tes- tament text, informed by the commentary tradition. Isaac isatypological representation of Christ par excellence and illustrates the dominant Christian method of interpreting the events of the Old Testament as prefiguring Christ or the Church. The sacrifice ofIsaac thus foreshadows Christ's true sacrifice on Calvaryll The final passage, emphasizing Abraham's thanksgiving (2930-36), is not found in Genesis but shows apoet returning to where he began, recalling for his audience their link to these ancient events, through the lifeof Christ, by their participation in the Eucharistic sacri- fice of thanksgiving. The skillful inclusion of such learned theological perspectives in a poem which is most obviously interested in a historical narrative revealing God's provi- dence at work in human affairs, along with the lesson that those who call themselves God's people should obey his commandments, tells us something about the poet and his intended audience. The poet-translator enjoyed a Latinity that extended well beyond knowledge of the biblical text; in addition to revealing his awareness of biblical typology, he often develops bilingual onomastic puns.12 However, this learning iscarried lightly, and informs rather than dominates apoem probably intended for alay audience that valued an- cestry, power, land, and wealth aswell as the God who ruled over them all. It is not known why GenesisB was interpolated into Gene- sisA -whether it was part of the original design of the larger poem, orwas necessitated by the accidental loss of text from xiii INTRODUCTION GenesisA, or was the result of deliberate substitution at an earlier stage of transmission by acopyist who preferred the alternative account of Adam and Eve's sin.13 While text is missing at the transition to GenesisB, the transition back to GenesisA isseamless at the narrative level, which suggests an expert hand in placing the interpolation. Unlike GenesisA, which follows the Latin Vulgate, GenesisB is aclose transla- tion from an Old Saxon original, as Eduard Sievers deduced on philological grounds in 1875. His theory was confirmed bythe discovery of afragment of an Old Saxon Genesisin the Vatican Library, which corresponds precisely to lines from the Old English.14One striking difference between the two parts of the combined Old English Genesis(immediately ap- parent by the lineation in amodern edition) is found in the meter. GenesisA employs the normal two-stress alliterative line; it does not include a single hypermetric line.IS Bycon- trast, GenesisB carries over an abundance of long verse lines from the Old Saxon original, some of which may be normal verses with extra syllables, while others are well-formed hy- permetric half-lines. The Old English also reflects the in- fluence of the Old Saxon in its lexicon (for example, the unusual hearra for "lord") and orthography.16 Another conse- quence of the interpolation is areiteration of the fall of the angels, beside a thematically linked account of the fall of Adam and Eve. Among the most striking literary aspects of GenesisB beside GenesisA are its relative freedom with the biblical narrative and the originality of its treatment of both character and episode. The character of Lucifer/Satan is more fully developed than in Genesis1, asthe poem explores his arrogance ~nd insolence, both ofwhich remain intact af- ter his banishment to hell with his supporters. His attitudes, XIV

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