SOURCE: “Aelfric the Catechist,” in De Ore Domini: Preacher and Word in the Middle Ages, Medieval Institute Publications, 1989, pp. 61-74.

[In the following excerpt, Green examines Ælfric's pre-Lenten and Lenten sermons, praising his organization, sensitivity to his audience, and use of common speech.]

Aelfric's homilies left a record of Christian education during the tenth and eleventh centuries that outdistances the efforts of anyone else for centuries on either side of his life.¹ In order that a congregation might listen to a homily twice monthly, he wrote a homily for approximately every second Sunday in a two-year cycle. To teach gospel truth or evangelical doctrine is the chief concern and motive force behind all of Aelfric's preaching and the chief explanation for its strong catechetical character. Aelfric's educational, catechetical goals and his orthodoxy are signalled strongly by his returning literally hundreds of times to the word lare (teaching); to preach on the scriptures is to teach divine doctrine. Within Aelfric's larger religious, educational plan, there exist subsets of sermons with a stronger than usual catechetical thrust. Such are the sermons for Rogationtide and the Lenten sermons. In this essay we will deal with the pre-Lenten sermons and the sermons for Lenten Sundays. We will consider how and why they can be studied as a unit, briefly survey the tradition on which they draw, elucidate their major catechetical themes, and compare them to other Old English sermons for the Sundays in Lent in order to learn further about Aelfric's commitment to systematic Lenten catechesis.

The Aelfric canon contains twenty-two homilies for the entire Lenten season. In the First Series of his Catholic Homilies, Aelfric composed five homilies for the Sundays in Lent (if we begin counting at Septuagesima and end with Palm Sunday). In the Second Series, Aelfric assigned eight homilies for the same liturgical period. In addition, there are two homilies in the Lives of the Saints: one for the beginning of Lent (Quinquagesima Sunday or Ash Wednesday) and one for Midlent Sunday. What remain are sermons for the five Fridays in Lent, one for the Third Sunday (not covered in either the First or Second Series), and one for the Wednesday after Midlent Sunday. Among these twenty-two Lenten sermons, something like sermon subsets emerge for the Fridays and Sundays in Lent; indeed, the Fridays of Lent have been variously studied as a group.²

During Aelfric's lifetime and shortly beyond, the Lenten homilies were variously grouped (in part, presumably, because of their catechetical usefulness). The manuscript tradition testifies to the special value Aelfric and his later editors saw in Lenten catechesis. No other season of the liturgical year enjoys the attention that Lent enjoys in these manuscripts.³

All of Aelfric's sermons, no matter how attentive to exegesis, are fundamentally catechetical.⁴ In the first Latin Preface, Aelfric expresses the hope that the moral, spiritual lives of his audience will be “emended” by his sermons: ad animarum emendationem, with “emendation” taking on the sense of “freedom from error.”⁵ In the English Preface, Aelfric says he undertook his preparation of the homilies because of the unsettling errors he found in many books already turned out in English: books which did not adequately reflect “gospel truth” (godspellican lare), texts tinged with gedwyld, that is, heresy, or at least foolish speculation. In line with the great apostolic and prophetic tradition, Aelfric regards orthodox Christian training as a matter of the greatest urgency; instruction in “gospel righteousness” (godspellican sothfaestnysse) derives from the divine imperative to “go, teach all nations” (Mt 28:19).⁶ Aelfric made available in the people's language Latin sermons of high quality and great authority. And while he translated, he shaped his patristic and early medieval sources to the understanding and needs of his countrymen. “Fortunate parish priests could rely on the cycles of sermons … ; the circulation and effort of his civil, gentle, and clear prose must have been considerable.”⁷

The backdrop of our inspection of the catechetical curriculum in Aelfric's Lenten sermons is the needful state of tenth-century liturgy and religious education. Medieval catechesis, what there was of it, was designed for an adult and largely illiterate audience. Adults, in their turn, were charged with transmitting the faith to their children and godchildren. Most English Christians during the age of Aelfric owned little more than “the veneer of Christianity.”⁸ The structured and systematic catechesis of the ancient catechumenate was long since dead and had not been replaced as such.⁹ Some form of comprehensive Christian education became all the more needed as liturgical rites grew more complicated and liturgical Latin less intelligible. Systematic preaching began to appear as an alternative form of religious education. Indeed, after the sixth century, catechetical preaching had begun to take on the characteristics of what today we might call continuing or on-going religious training.¹⁰ Children were being baptized, and neither adult nor child was being trained according to the more rigorous standards of the ancient catechumenate.

While the formal catechumenate of the first six Christian centuries was in existence, it had an agenda, a kind of syllabus that was fairly well defined. Both the Creed and the Lord's Prayer were normally taught through a careful explication of each phrase. The Ten Commandments, the capital sins, and the works of mercy were also regarded as central teachings. Teaching the Creed effectively was especially critical. Lessons were designed to explain the fatherhood of God, the relationship of the three persons in God to one another, God's creation of the world, and his plan for the salvation of humankind; the virgin birth of Christ was expounded, as was the story of Christ's suffering, death, and resurrection; the second coming featured importantly, as did sin, death, heaven, and hell.

Such a presentation of doctrine was based on an overview of Judeo-Christian history as had been recommended by Augustine and outlined in the De Catechizandis Rudibus, a guide for priests entrusted with the cura animarum. Evidence of a catechetical narratio such as Augustine recommends can be found much simplified in various of Aelfric's works: the Sermo de Initio Creaturae, the Hexameron, and the beginnings of his Letter to Sigeward and his Letter to Wulfgeat.¹¹ The Sermo de Initio Creaturae, the opening sermon for the Catholic Homilies, outlines the divine economy and its history, beginning with the creation and rebellion of the angels and ending with the assignment of men to heaven and hell.¹² At the opening of his sermon, Aelfric concentrates on the Trinity (as he does in the Letter to Wulfgeat, the Letter to Sigeweard, the Hexameron, and several of the Lenten homilies); just toward the end of the Sermo de Initio, Aelfric summarizes another theme that will be repeated and dilated in almost every Lenten sermon: “that no man can be saved except he rightly believe in God, be baptized, and adorn his faith with good works.”¹³ Inspection of the pre-Lenten sermons and the sermons for the Lenten Sundays reveals many of the themes typical of the ancient catechumenate.

In the pre-Lenten sermons, we discern a pattern of favorite themes united with fidelity to a tradition of instruction. At Septuagesima, Aelfric bases his homily on the parable of workers in the vineyard and centers on the universal history of religious teaching from Adam until the second coming of Christ.¹⁴ Here emerges a catechetical narratio—derived from Gregory through Haymo of Auxerre,¹⁵ germane to Lent, and comparable to Aelfric's Sermo de Initio Creaturae. In this Septuagesima homily and in the homily for the Second Friday in Lent,¹⁶ the image of vineyard is used to teach a catechetical lesson about Church unity.

In his Sexagesima sermon, based on the parable of the sower and his seed in Luke, Aelfric overviews the several chief vocations in the Church and recommends patience and chasity as good ground in which God's word can grow to its full potential.¹⁷ The vocations are also dealt with in another Lenten sermon and in a Rogation sermon.¹⁸ This theme of the vocations reflects the ancient catechesis's concern with the new believer's way of life and with the moral obligations appropriate to the various states.

At Quinquagesima or Shrove Sunday, Aelfric returns to the catechetical theme of Fall and Restoration.¹⁹ Basing his commentary on the narrative of the man born blind, Aelfric describes humankind blinded by Adam's sin, with sight restored by Christ; Lent is viewed as an opportunity for vision refreshed through fasting and almsgiving or good works. Comparable is Aelfric's sermon for the First Friday in Lent.²⁰ Based on the miraculous healing at the Bethesda pool, this homily speaks of humankind—blind, halt, and deaf through Adam's sin—now restored to health through Christ's coming as man. It returns, also, to the catechetical emphasis on fasting and good works.

Equally catechetical in concern are the sermons for Lenten Sundays. The gospel for Lent's First Sunday recounts the temptations of Christ in the desert. Aelfric's First Series homily begins with Christ's response to the temptations themselves as a sign of Christ's dual nature. Not only does it provide Aelfric occasion to explain what the creed means by true god and true man, but it also allows him to look back to the beginning of the narratio and Adam's sin, now overcome through Christ's resistance to temptations of vainglory and covetousness. The Second Series homily shows further evidence of Aelfric's strong catechetical commitment to stressing good works. It recommends works of mercy in light of Christ's second coming and the final judgment; finding Christ among the needy is essential to salvation. “Mercy,” he says, “is the medicine of sins.”²¹

The Second Sunday of Lent draws upon the Canaanite woman's petition that Christ save her daughter to preach a message about faith, patience, and humility, especially faith.²² She becomes an image of baptism, for just as her daughter was saved through her faith, so infants are now saved through the faith of their parents and godparents. Like the Canaanite woman, the Samaritan woman in the homily for Lent's Third Friday²³ brings Aelfric to the catechetical theme of faith; the deep mystery of election and the need to hold fast what the Church teaches.

The Third Sunday of Lent comprises a grand mixture of assorted catechetical themes: the Ten Commandments, the deadly sins, and the doctrine of the Trinity.²⁴ On this Lenten gospel story of a man possessed, dumb, and blind, Aelfric preaches the continuity of Christ's healing work throughout history; believers rendered mad, dumb, or blind by sin can likewise be cured by Christ. This catechetical theme of spiritual healing, a favorite with Aelfric, also appears at Quinquagesima and the First Friday in Lent.

The Fourth Sunday of Lent, Laetare Sunday, has four homilies assigned to it, if we count each composite sermon as two.²⁵ Given the importance of this Sunday in the ancient catechumenate, such lavish homiletic attention is not so surprising.²⁶ The four Laetare homilies differ from one another in structure, in handling of scripture, and in message; all four, nonetheless, are catechetical. The first, based on the multiplication of the loaves, preaches God's provident care for humanity's material and spiritual needs as well.²⁷ Like the five loaves of bread, the Pentateuch and all of scripture nourish the human soul. The second and third of these four homilies, much like Aelfric's homily for the Third Sunday in Lent, take up large catechetical themes. Depending heavily upon scriptural paraphrase, the first of these two focuses largely on the Ten Commandments, while the second preaches the Deadly Sins. Both prosecute catechesis in the course of recounting the history of salvation from Abraham to the end of Exodus and onward through the settlement of the Promised Land. As Aelfric comprehensively exclaims in conclusion, “who may ever in life recount the great powers of God which he has shown forth from the creation of Adam until the present day,”²⁸ an exclamation close to Augustine's definition: “Narratio plena est, cum quisque primo catechizatur ab eo quod scriptum est in principio … usque ad presentia tempora ecclesiae.”²⁹ The fourth of these sermons for Midlent Sunday is likewise catechetical in the sense of narratio; its concentration on prayer and fasting is developed through a recapitulation of biblical narrative from Adam to Jonah.

Appropriately for Passion Sunday, Aelfric's sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent deals with the mortal conflicts between Jesus and the Jews.³⁰ A largely soteriological sermon, it catechizes its listeners to a deeper loathing of sin and a more profound appreciation of the price Christ paid to save humankind.

Finally, both Palm Sunday homilies recount the final week of Christ's life.³¹ The First Series sermon limits its attention to Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, explaining, as it goes, the typology of the donkey, the garments, the palms, and so forth. The longer Second Series sermon devotes its attention to the passion, death, and burial of Jesus. Because the gospel pericopes for these homilies are so strongly narrative and because the story told is so central to the larger catechetical narratio, Aelfric here is more simply expository than interpretive.

Taken as a group, these various sermons for the Lenten Sundays provide a comprehensive overview of the Church's central teachings in matters of faith and morals: “those things which have been accomplished among us (Lk 1:1),” as the Evangelist says. At the same time, they evidence Aelfric's fondness for such subjects as patience, good works, and spiritual healing: a fondness and perhaps even a principle of selection that he brought to reading his sources.

Something further can be learned about Aelfric's commitment to systematic Lenten catechesis from a comparison of his Lenten Sunday homilies with other Old English sermons for the Sundays in Lent: those of Wulfstan and the Blickling Homilist. The First Sunday provides a convenient point of reference; for that Sunday we have remaining to us sermons by Aelfric, Wulfstan, and the Blickling Homilist.³² Aelfric's is the longest; Wulfstan's the shortest. Unlike Aelfric's address (First Series), a homily derived from the assigned pericope (Mt 4:1-11), Wulfstan's address, though incomplete, is more sermon than homily. Designed for use on the First Sunday (or on Ash Wednesday), it refers to the Lenten season but does not depend on seasonal scriptural texts for its initiation or development. It urges all Christians to live a life of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving; it then calls specifically upon public sinners to be reconciled with the Church. Parallels to the Blickling Homilist and Aelfric are here predominantly thematic.

Aelfric shares more with the Blickling Homilist than with Wulfstan. Both wrote homilies properly so called, that is, expositions of the assigned Gospel pericope—the account in Matthew of Christ's temptations in the wilderness. Both drew upon Gregory the Great's homily for the first Sunday in Lent,³³ and both revealed a hearty catechetical interest. Yet Aelfric wrote a more tightly structured exposition of the Gospel narrative, worked his borrowings from Gregory into a more logical pattern, and used the Gospel, along with Gregory and his own remarks, toward clearer catechetical goals. For instance, Aelfric attractively defines a catechetical context for his homily at the very beginning. Everything subsequent will develop around the theme of universal and personal salvation. “Jesus came to mankind,” says Aelfric, “because he would overcome all our temptations by his temptations and overcome our eternal death with this temporary death.”³⁴ There exists no such overarching statement in Blickling, and even the analogous passage in Gregory is less imposing.³⁵ The Blickling Homilist, instead, wanted to connect Christ's desert fast with his baptism and Christian baptism with Lent,³⁶ before moving into an explanation of the temptations and their spiritual significance; the homiletic form here is more loose than Aelfric's. Unlike Gregory, who examined each point in great detail and illustrated every idea with scriptural citations, the overall impression in the Blicking Homilist is more diffuse.

The structure of Aelfric's homily is clear and concentrated. Having explained in turn each of the three wilderness temptations, Aelfric then explicates the three ways in which temptation arises, the three ways in which Satan tempted Adam, and finally the three parallel ways in which Christ was tempted but proved victorious.³⁷ Aelfric's return at the end to his original notion of Christ's ultimate victory allows him to preach a lesson about avoiding greediness, vainglory, and covetousness: the three vices he has been talking about from the start and with which he now concludes. With sharper focus than either Gregory or the Blickling Homilist, Aelfric concentrates on the contrast between the Savior and Satan, then between Satan and the soul.³⁸ Aelfric's rhetorical commitment to opposition and contrast surely buttressed his catechetical goals. Much shorter than Gregory's homily, much better organized than the Blickling, Aelfric's homily teaches its lesson lucidly, economically, and forcefully.

In conclusion, Aelfric's homilies have left an unparalleled record of Christian education during the tenth and eleventh centuries. His hope that his sermons might serve to free the souls of his audience from error (ad animarum emendationem) is especially evident in his Lenten sermons. Lent, as well as Rogationtide, provided the early English preacher with special occasions for gathering together reflections and admonitions designed to assist the spiritual growth and development of his spiritual charges. Aelfric's pre-Lenten sermons and his sermons for the Sundays in Lent are readable as a set. They demonstrate a self-conscious commitment to sound doctrine and a comprehensive catechetical content. In addition, there is manuscript evidence of their use as a set. These Lenten sermons have a formal and ancient catechesis as their ancestor. Aelfric regularly returns to major catechetical themes such as: the three persons in one God, God's creation of the world, humanity's fall from grace, the promise of a redeemer, the two natures in Christ, the inevitability of death, the finality of judgment, and the ultimate importance of good works. Aelfric's commitment to Lenten catechesis is further clarified by a comparison of his homily for the First Sunday in Lent with those of Wulfstan and the Blickling Homilist, and with the common source for Aelfric and the Blickling homilist: Gregory the Great's homily for the First Sunday in Lent. Aelfric's exposition of the Gospel narrative is more tightly structured and is directed towards clearer catechetical goals. Notable is his use of a rhetorical contrast that sharpens his presentation. Aelfric's homilies demonstrate his concern for orthodox Christian training in an age when liturgy and religious education were in a needful state. His homilies and his own good works stand as a sturdy milestone along the pilgrim path of Christian catechesis.

Notes

1. See Milton McC. Gatch, “The Achievement of Aelfric and His Colleagues in European Perspective,” in The Old English Homily and Its Backgrounds, ed. Paul E. Szarmach and Bernard F. Huppé (Albany, NY, 1978), pp. 60-61.

2. See, for example, Ann Eljenholm Nichols, whose chief concern is stylistic: “Methodical Abbreviation: A Study in Aelfric's Friday Homilies for Lent,” in The Old English Homily, ed. Szarmach and Huppé, pp. 158-80. See also John C. Pope, ed., Homilies of Aelfric: A Supplementary Collection, 2 vols. (New York, 1967), 2:160, who notes that homilies for the Fridays in Lent “are very rare” and that the only two Latin sets he has encountered are in Haymo and in the Migne version of Paul the Deacon.

3. For example, from among the first recension manuscripts, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College (CCCC) MS 162 contains sermons for all Sundays in Lent, beginning at Septuagesima. All Sundays have a sermon by Aelfric, while some, presumably to provide choice, have a second sermon by an author other than Aelfric. CCCC MS 303 collects one sermon each for all nine Sundays, with four by Aelfric. With some of the homilies by Aelfric, all nine Lenten Sundays are grouped together in three remaining manuscripts, one of which (CCCC MS 302) has, in addition, sermons for Ash Wednesday and three Lenten ferials. For more information on the manuscript tradition, see Malcolm R. Godden, Aelfric's Catholic Homilies: The Second Series (London, 1979) pp. xx-lxxviii.

4. See Milton McC. Gatch, “Basic Christian Education from the Decline of Catechesis to the Rise of Catechisms,” in A Faithful Church: Issues in the History of Catechesis, ed. John H. Westerhoff III and O. C. Edward, Jr. (Wilton, CT, 1978), p. 94.

5. “… nec tamen omnia Evangelia tangimus per circulum anni, sed illa tantummodo quibus speramus sufficere posse simplicibus ad animarum emendationem, quia seculares omnia nequeunt capere, quamvis ex ore doctorum audiant” (Benjamin Thorpe, The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church. The First Part, containing the Sermones Catholici or Homilies of Aelfric, 2 vols. [London, 1844-46, rpt. New York, 1971], 1:1-2). See also Malcolm Godden, “Aelfric and the Vernacular Prose Tradition,” in The Old English Homily, ed. Szarmach and Huppé, pp. 99-101; and Eleven Old English Rogationtide Homilies, ed. Joyce Bazire and James E. Cross (Toronto, 1982), pp. xvii-xxv.

6. Thorpe, 1:2-8.

7. Michael Alexander, Old English Literature (London, 1983), p. 188.

8. Jill N. Claster, The Medieval Experience: 300-1400 (New York, 1982), p. 165.

9. On the formal catechumenate of the first six Christian centuries, see Josef Jungman, Handing on the Faith: A Manual of Catechetics (New York, 1953), pp. 1-19, and The Early Liturgy: To the Time of Gregory the Great, trans. Francis A. Brunner (South Bend, IN, 1980), pp. 74-86, 247-52.

10. “Religious training” is here used in the sense defined by Jungman: “This term indicates that catechesis does indeed deal with instruction, but instruction which not only inculcates correct doctrine but also makes possible a genuine religious education. And this religious education implies more guidance as its natural correlative” (Handing on the Faith, p. xiii).

11. The narratio, attributed to Boethius and his De Fide Catholica, is found importantly in Martin of Bracara's De Correctione Rusticorum and in Pirmin of Reichenau's Scarapsus. See Virginia Day, “The Influence of the Catechetical narratio on Old English and Some Other Medieval Literature,” in Anglo-Saxon England, 3 (Oxford, 1973), pp. 51-61.

12. Sermo de Initio Creaturae, Thorpe, 1:8-28. Vercelli 19, assigned in some manuscripts to Rogationtide, discusses Trinity and creation in relation to the Three Persons. See Paul E. Szarmach, ed., Vercelli Homilies IX-XXIII (Toronto, 1981), pp. 69-76. Wulfstan relies significnatly on Sermo de Initio. See The Homilies of Wulfstan, ed. Dorothy Bethurum (Oxford, 1957), pp. 293-98.

13. “… nán man ne mæg beon gehealden, buton he rihtlice on God gelyfe, and he beo gefullod, and his geleafan mid godum weorcum geglenge” (Thorpe, 1:26).

14. Thorpe, 2:72-88; and Godden, pp. 41-51.

15. Gregory's XL Homiliarum in Evangelia, No. 19 in PL 76:1154-59; and Haymo's Homily 21 in PL 118:154-63.

16. See Pope, 2:247-58.

17. Thorpe, 2:88-98; and Godden, pp. 52-59.

18. Under the rubric of love and good works, Aelfric's sermon in the Second Series for Monday of Rogationtide deals more expansively with the variety of vocations within the church: “Let everyone now consider what befits his state” [“Smeage nu gehwá hwæt his hade gedafnige …”] (Thorpe, 2:318, and Godden, p. 183). Also the sermon for Midlent Sunday in Lives of the Saints outlines forms of behavior appropriate to various individuals in terms of their state in life. See Sermon 13 in Walter W. Skeat, ed., Aelfric's Lives of the Saints, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1966), 1:282-305.

19. Thorpe, 1:152-64.

20. Pope, 1:226-46.

21. “Mildheortnyss is synna læcedóm” (Thorpe, 2:102; and Godden, p. 61). The first Lenten Sunday homilies are found in Thorpe, 1:166-80; Thorpe, 2:98-109; and Godden, pp. 60-66.

22. Thorpe, 2:110-16; and Godden 2:67-71.

23. Pope, 1:226-46.

24. Pope, 1:259-85. All of Aelfric's sermon for Wednesday in Rogationtide (First Series, Thorpe, 1:274-94) is dedicated to the Trinity, as is part of his sermon for Rogationtide Monday (First Series, Thorpe, 1:245-58) and part of his sermon for Friday in the fourth week of Lent (Pope, 1:303-32).

25. Thorpe, 1:180-92; Thorpe 2:188-224; and Godden, pp. 119-26.

26. On Laetare Sunday in the ancient catechumenate, see Jungmann, The Early Liturgy, pp. 257-59.

27. Aelfric's sermon (“On the Lord's Prayer”) for Tuesday in the First Series Rogationtide collection likewise deals with God's providential feeding of man: “He is your hand or your foot and cares for your needs. He is your eye and teaches you wisdom, bringing you along right paths. He who protects you like a father is, as it were, your head” … (Thorpe, 1:274).

    In the Monday sermon for the First Series Rogationtide set, Aelfric again returns to the theme of providential feeding: “Now, therefore, everyone should arise from that ignorance, and go to his friend, that is, he should incline to Christ with all fervour, and pray for the three loaves, that is, belief in the Holy Trinity” … (Thorpe, 1:248). He likewise compares the fish, egg, and bread of his gospel pericope with the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity.

28. … Thorpe, 2:224; and Godden, p. 126.

29. De Catechizandi Rudibus, 3.1, ed. I. B. Bauer, Sancti Augustini Opera, vol. 13, part 2, CCSL, 66 (Turnholt, 1969), p. 124.

30. Thorpe, 2:224-40; and Godden, pp. 127-36.

31. Thorpe, 1:206-18; Thorpe, 2:240-62; and Godden, pp. 138-49.

32. Bethurum, ed., The Homilies of Wulfstan, 14 (17), pp. 233-35; and R. Morris, ed., The Blickling Homilies of the Tenth Century (London, 1868; rpt. London, 1989), no. 3, pp. 27-39.

33. PL 76:1134-38.

34. … (Thorpe, 1:168).

35. “Justum quippe erat ut sic tentationes nostras suis tentationibus vinceret, sicut mortem nostram venerat sua morte superare” (PL 76:1135CD).

36. “But we must bear in mind that our Lord after his baptism fasted and was also tempted. It is needful then for us to fast, because we are often tempted by the devil after our baptism” … (Morris, Blickling, pp. 26-27).

37. “The old devil tempted our father Adam in three ways: that is with greediness, with vain-glory, and with covetousness; and then he was overcome, because he consented to the devil in all those three temptations. … With the same three things with which the devil overcame the first-created man, Christ overcame and prostrated him” … (Thorpe, 1:176-77).

38. “But the devil was overcome by Christ by the same means with which he had of yore overcome Adam; so that he departed from our hearts made captive by the entrance at which he had entered and made us captives” … (Thorpe, 1:176-79).