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Common motifs in the Old English Ascension homilies

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Notes

  1. All references to the four homilies cite page and line numbers from the following editions:The Blickling Homilies, ed Richard Morris, Early English Text Society o.s. 58, 63, 73 (London: Oxford University Press, 1874– 1880; rpt. as one volume 1967), pp. 114–131;The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church: The First Part, Containing the Sermones Catholici or Homilies of Ælfric, ed. Benjamin Thorpe (London: The Ælfric Society, 1844; rpt. New York: Johnson Reprint Co., 1971), vol. I, pp. 294–311;Vier alt-englische Predigten aus der heterodoxen Tradition mit Kommentar, Übersetzung und Glossar sowie drei weiteren Texten im Anhang ed Hildegard L. C. Tristram (Kassel: privately published, 1970), pp. 162–172; andOld English Homilies of the Twelfth Century, Second Series, ed. Richard Morris, E.E.T.S. o.s. 53 (London: Trübner, 1873; rpt. Milwood, NY: Kraus Reprint Co., 1975), pp. 108–115.

  2. The sources of this homily are discussed in J. E. Cross, “On the Blickling Homily for Ascension Day (No. XI),”Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 70(1969), pp. 228–240. See also R. MacG. Dawson, “Two New Sources for Blickling Homilies,”Notes and Queries N.S. 14(1967), pp. 130–131. Editions of the major sources are: Gregory,Homilia XXIX in Evangelia, “In Ascensione Domini” (Migne, PL 76: 1213–19);Bede Expositio Actuum Apostolorum et Retractio, ed. M. L. W. Laistner (Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1939); and Adamnan,De Locis Sanctis, ed. Denis Meehan, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae III (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), 1958.

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  3. On the sources of this homily see Max Förster, “Uber die quellen von Ælfrics exegetischenHomiliae Catholicae,”Anglia 16(1894), p. 7; Cyril L. Smetana, “ Ælfric and the Early Medieval Homiliary,”Traditio 15(1959), p. 190; and J. E. Cross, “More Sources for Two of Ælfric'sCatholic Homilies,”Anglia 86(1968), pp. 67–78. Editions of the minor sources are: Gregory,Homilia XXVI (Migne, PL 76: 1202); Bede,Homilia II: 15 (CCSL 122: 280–89); Haymo of Auxerre,Homilia XCVI (Migne, PL 118: 542); and pseudo-Hilary,Expositio VII epistulas catholicas inSpicilegium Casinensi III, ed. A. Amelli, 1(1897) (Montecassino: Typis Archicoenobii Montis Casini), p. 216.

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  4. Cross, “On the Blickling Homily for Ascension Day (No. XI),” p. 229.

  5. On the sources of C, see Tristram, pp. 284–302. See also Peter Clemoes, “Cynewulf's Image of the Ascension” inEngland Before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources Presented to Dorothy Whitelock, eds. Peter Clemoes and Kathleen Hughes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), p. 302, note 7. The most convenient editions of the sources are: Theodore Silverstein,Visio Sancti Pauli: The History of the Apocalypse in Latin together with Nine Texts, Studies and Documents 4, eds. Kirsopp Lake and Silva Lake (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1935);The Old English Vision of St. Paul, ed. Antonette diPaolo Healey, Speculum Anniversary Monographs 2 (Cambridge, MA: Mediæval Academy of America, 1978);The Gospel of Nicodemus, ed. H. C. Kim, Toronto Medieval Latin Texts 2 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1973); the Ascension prayer inThe Leofric Collectar, ed. E. S. Dewick, Henry Bradshaw Society XLV (London: Harrison & Son, 1913), col. 175, andThe Portiforium of Saint Wulstan, ed. Anselm Hughes, Henry Bradshaw Society LXXXIX (London: The Faith Press, 1956), p. 64.

  6. For the sources of T, see Jerome Oetgen, “The Trinity College Ascension Sermon: Sources and Structure,”Mediaeval Studies 45(1983), 410–7. The most convenient editions of the sources are: Gregory, “In Ascensione Domini” (Migne, PL 76: 1213–19); Ambrose, “Veni Redemptor Gentium” (Migne, PL 16: 1474);The Gospel of Nicodemus, ed. H. C. Kim; and Bede, “Ascension Hymn” (CCSL 122: 420–422).

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  7. SeeThe Christ of Cynewulf, ed. Albert S. Cook (Boston: Ginn & Co., 1900; rpt. with a new preface by John C. Pope, Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1964), pp. 116–169. All references toChrist II are to this edition.

  8. The relationship between the Ascension and the Nativity is established with varying degrees of emphasis by Leo the Great (PL 54: 399B); Augustine (PL 38: 1208 and 1211); Bede (Expositio Actuum Apostolorum, ed. Laistner, 8: 26–28); and Rhabanus Maurus (PL 110: 232). The Judgment Day motif appears in Leo the Great (PL 54: 399B); Augustine (PL 38: 1207, 1208, 1219); Caesarius of Arles (CCSL 104: 837–38); Bede (CCSL 122: 289); and Rhabanus Maurus (PL 110: 43C and 232C).

  9. See Colin Chase, “God's Presence through Grace as the Theme of Cynewulf'sChrist II and the Relationship of this Theme toChrist I andChrist III,”Anglo-Saxon England 3(1974), pp. 97–98.

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  10. On the history of the Ascension liturgy see Mario Righetti,Manuale di storia liturgica, 3rd ed. (Milano: Editrice Ancora, 1964), vol. II, pp. 301–308; Fernand Cabrol, “Ascension (Fê te)” inDictionnaire d'archéologie Chrétienne et de liturgie (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1924), vol. I, pp. 2934–43; Theodore Klauser,A Short History of the Western Liturgy, trans. John Halliburton (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 86; Ludwig Eisenhofer and Joseph Lechner,The Liturgy of the Roman Rite, trans. A. J. and E. F. Peeler, ed. H. F. Winstone (New York: Herder and Herder, 1953), p. 261; and Archdale A. King,Liturgy of the Roman Church (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1957), p. 197. The earliest reference to a universal celebration of the feast of the Ascension is by Augustine in Epistle LXVI (Migne, PL 33: 200).

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  11. See Augustine'sSermo 264 (PL 38: 1212), Gregory'sHomilia XXIX (PL 76: 1218D), and Bede'sHomilia II: 15 (CCSL 122: 282).

  12. See the Ascension homily of Maximus (PL 57: 370A), Haymo of Auxerre (PL 118: 547C), and the pseudo-Augustine Ascension sermon found in the homiliary of Alan of Farfa (ed. Jean Leclercq inRevue Bénédictine 57(1947), 125: 87–90).

  13. In his Ascension Hymn Bede implies that humanity is exalted through the harrowing (CCSL 122: 420, stanza 7). Bede's Hymn may have been the immediate source of this English homilists' references to the harrowing of Hell within the context of the Ascension. The harrowing is only rarely mentioned in the continental Ascension literature. See Maximus,Sermo 45 (PL 57: 626C).

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  1. English Dept., Seton Hill College, 15601, Greensburg, PA, USA

    Jerome Oetgen

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Oetgen, J. Common motifs in the Old English Ascension homilies. Neophilologus 69, 437–445 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02001055

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