[In the following essay, Rice defends the importance of the creative expression in Cynewulf's Fates of the Apostles, particularly in the depiction of spiritual atonement.]

In the past few years a real advance has been made in the appreciation of Cynewulf's shortest signed poem, the Fates of the Apostles, extant in the Vercelli Book. For most of the century and more since this poem was first published critical opinion has been almost unanimously unfavourable about its literary merit¹ and until recently scholarly attention has been limited mainly to textual and source investigations. Today, however, illuminating studies, such as those by James L. Boren and Constance B. Hieatt,² have made us aware of the poem's subtleties of image and structure. In particular, now that we have begun to apprehend the depth of the poem's meaning, I believe that we can use this understanding to gain further insight into the thematic concerns of Cynewulf's other three signed poems. This can be achieved, I suggest, through recognizing how the basic theme of the Fates reappears as a motif linking Cynewulf's epilogues.

The paradox central to the Fates is that of Christ's words to his disciples (Matthew XVI.24-5): 'Si quis vult post me venire, abneget semetipsum, et tollat crucem suam, et sequatur me. Qui enim voluerit animam suam salvam facere, perdet earn: qui autem perdiderit animam suam propter me, inveniet eam.' The apostles in giving up their lives gained eternal life, in losing all received everything, and in suffering ignominiously achieved glorious beatitude. Cynewulf presents these paradoxes as the clear logic of the faith. He declares that the praise of the twelve and of their glorious deeds, power and fame, has spread throughout the earth (66-8). The manifestation of their might and glory which he chooses to expound, however, is what seems, to the eye unenlightened by faith, proof of their weakness and defeat. He begins with the chief pair of apostles, Peter and Paul:

                 Sume on Romebyrig,
frame, fyrdhwate,    feorh ofgefon
þurg Neorones    nearwe searwe,
Petrus ond Paulus.    Is se apostolhad
wide geweorðod    ofer werþeoda!
(Ilb-15)

To all but the faithful, the juxtaposition of the death of the saints at Nero's command with the statement that apostleship is widely honoured among the nations could be nothing but maliciously ironic. But to the Christian imagination the irony is reversed: those who sought to defeat the apostles were the cause of their victory. And so the exemplum proceeds: choosing (physical) death for the sake of Christ the apostles gain the reward of (eternal) life and endless glory:

Dus ða æðelingas    ende gesealdon,
XII tilmodige.    Tir unbræcne
wegan on gewitte    wuldres þegnas.
(85-7)

What relationship is there, then, between this paradox and the personal note of sadness which is imbedded within the conventional epic heroic formula at the beginning of the Fates? As Stanley B. Greenfield has noted, this introduction is elegiac rather than heroic in tone:³

Hwæt! Ic þysne sang    siðgeomor fand
on seocum sefan.
(1-2a)

The poet has composed his song while weary of journeying and sick at heart.⁴ Constance Hieatt's suggestion that only after examining the journeys of the apostles can the poet contemplate his own sio without feeling siogeomor⁵ just begs the question. Weltschmerz is hardly so common to Anglo-Saxon poets that we should not inquire into its cause. In a poem on the fates of the apostles we might have expected something rather like the opening of Andreas:

Hwæt! We gefrunan    on fyrndagum
twelfe under tunglum    tireadige hæleð,
þeodnes þegnas.

The opening with the personal and elegiac ic, however, points to a purpose profoundly associated with the poet's own spiritual condition which has led him to a meditation on the journeys of the apostles from this life to their heavenly reward.

His sadness is not the Bernardine grief for the sufferings of the saints; it is the self-centred sorrow of the man weighted down by the consciousness of sin while contemplating the inevitability of death and the judgement it brings. Contemplation of death, especially one's own, was a prominent feature of medieval penitential exhortation, no less in the Old English than in the Middle English period. It is a constant theme in the penitential homilies, which often vividly describe the decay and wormy gore of the grave as well as the fearful state of the soul in the interim between death and doomsday (Vercelli homily IV and Blickling homily X, for instance). Fear of dying in sin was the object of such homilies, as it was of a number of Old English poems. In the Vercelli Book, for example, Soul and Body I provides an explicit meditation, in dramatic form, on the separate fates of the sinful and the righteous after death. (The poem could well stand as an immediate, thematically related sequel to the Fates, though in fact thirteen homilies separate the two.) The opening lines of Soul and Body I direct the reader to thoughts which could produce the very sorrow expressed by Cynewulf:

Huru, ðæs behofað    hæleða æghwylc
þæt he his sawle sið    sylfa geþence,
hu þæt bið deoplic    þonne se deað cymeð,
asyndreð þa sybbe    þe ær samod wæron,
lic ond sawle!    Lang bið syððan
þæt se gast nimeð    æt gode sylfum
swa wite swa wuldor,     swa him on worulde
  ær
efne þæet eorðfæt    ær geworhte.⁶
(1-8)

The consideration of the future state expressed in these lines and exemplified in the body of the poem is that eternal justice is based upon the acts of man during his earthly sojourn. For the soul who in the flesh did ill and did not atone through penance, both the 'long time' before the Last Judgement and the eternity following will entail grief and torment.⁷ It will be noted that there is no indication of purgatorial cleansing in Soul and Body I; the soul is either saved or damned and will await Doomsday accordingly. As in the Blickling and Vercelli homilies, the emphasis is on the either/or aspect of the soul's fate after death, while the doctrine of purgatorial atonement with the aid of the living remains largely hidden in the background. Though Cynewulf, in his epilogue to the Fates of the Apostles as well as in his other epilogues, takes a pessimistic stance concerning his fate after death, he also pleads for the prayers of men to aid him in the afterlife—a plea which presupposes the belief in purgatory.⁸ However, as we may see from Bede's story of Drihthelm, for example, the terrors of purgatory appear no less severe than those of hell for those who died in repentance though without the fruits of penance.

Bede relates that Drihthelm, led in the spirit by an angel to the region of purgatory, observes the horrors of that place and is told by his guide:

Vallis illa, quam aspexisti flammis feruentibus et frigoribus horrenda rigidis, ipse est locus in quo examinandae et castigandae sunt animae illorum, qui differentes confiteri et emendare scelera quae fecerunt, in ipso tandem mortis articulo ad paenitentiam confugiunt, et sic de corpore exeunt; qui tamen, quia confessionem et paenitentiam uel in morte habuerunt, omnes in die iudicii ad regnum caelorum perueniunt. Multos autem preces uiuentium et elimosynae et ieiunia et maxime celebratio missarum, ut etiam ante diem iudicii liberentur, adiuuant.⁹

Therefore, being returned to the body, Drihthelm endures the most rigorous penitential exercises in order to preclude having to endure those torments:

Cumque tempore hiemali defluentibus circa eum semifractarum crustis glacierum, quas et ipse aliquando contriuerat, quo haberet locum standi siue inmergendi in fluuio, dicerent qui uidebant: 'Mirum, frater Drycthelme' (hoc enim erat uiro nomen), 'quod tantam frigoris asperitatem ulla ratione tolerare praeuales', respondebat ille simpliciter (erat namque homo simplicis ingenii ac moderatac naturae): 'Frigidiora ego uidi.' Et cum dicerent: 'Mirum quod tam austeram tenere continentiam uelis', respondebat: 'Austeriora ego uidi.' Sicque usque ad diem suac uocationis infatigabili caelestium bonorum desiderio corpus senile inter cotidiana ieiunia domabat, multisque et uerbo et conuersatione saluti fuit.¹⁰

I have quoted thus at length because these passages vividly exemplify the purgatorial and penitential doctrines current in Bede's—and in Cynewulf s—time. We see that purgatory, as well as hell, was feared, and that the intercession of the living was believed to be effective in ransoming the penitent soul from purgatorial torments. However, Drihthelm's severe asceticism was beyond the capability of most men, and hence the desire for the help of friends as intercessors would be the greater.

The anxiety and sorrow exhibited by the poet-persona (whom we may call Cynewulf) may be based on such considerations or on a fear of compounding his sins before death without being able to do sufficient penance in this life. We may compare this with the sentiments expressed by the lamenting soul to its body in Soul and Body I.

Eardode ic þe on innan.    Ne meahte ic ðe of
  cuman,
flæsce befangen,    ond me fyrenlustas
þine geþrungon.    þðt me þuhte ful oft
þæt hit wære XXX    þusend wintra
to þinum deaðdæge.    A ic uncres gedales
  onbad
earfoðlice.
(33-8a)

The soul was, like Cynewulf, weary of the journey of life, though a ghastly fate awaited him in the grave. That the poet's fate might be likewise grim creates his anxiety for the future.

The uncertainty of the poet's fate is a prominent feature of the Fates epilogue, in striking contrast to the certainty of the apostles' salvation.

                Hu, ic freonda beþarf
liðra on lade,    þonne ic sceal langne ham,
eardwic uncuð,    ana gesecan.…
                     Ic sceal feor heonan,
an elles forð,    eardes neosan,
sið asettan,    nat ic sylfa hwær,
of þisse worulde.    Wic sindon uncuð,
eard ond eðel,    swa bið ælcum menn
nemþe he godcundes    gastes bruce.¹¹
(91b-3 and 109b-14)

This melancholy uncertainty is suggestive of Hamlet,¹² but the poet implies that it is an almost necessary condition for the penitent living in hope of the divine mercy though profoundly aware of his own unworthiness. The precise sense of godcund gast is uncertain. If it means a 'holy spirit' in the sense of being righteous and of good conscience, it may be considered attainable under the Christian dispensation; but if it means 'divine spirit' in the sense of being superhuman, then, of course, it is unattainable. In either case, the poet means to convey that for him, at least, it is beyond his power to know what God may judge him worthy of.

Bede's Death Song'¹³ seems to indicate that such uncertainty is proper to the human condition and part of the divine plan:

For ðam neodfeore    nænig weorðeð
ðances snotora    ðonne him ðearf sy,
to gehycgenne,    ær his heonengange,
hwæt his gaste,    godes oððe yfeles,
æfter deaðe heonen    demed weorðe.¹⁴

Perhaps it is implied that the mind's uncertainty as to its desert, if not leading to despair, prevents a dangerous over-confidence or inflated self-image—conditions which are reflected in the Old English terms for the capital sin of pride: ofermedu, ofermod and oferhygd. It is this delicate line between despair and over-confidence which Cynewulf treads in his epilogue.

It is his sin and need for atonement which cause him sorrow, and for this reason he implores his readers—those who love the drift (the deeper meaning) of his song—in a repeated appeal (88 ff. and 107 ff.) to be his friends and intercessors with the saints, about whose victory over death Cynewulf has given a record and who are in a special position to bring aid to the sorrowful. With hope in such aid, the poet then declares that we are to tum all the more earnestly to imploring God for grace to reach the heavenly home:

Ah utu weþe geornor    to gode cleopigan,
sendan usse bene    onþa beorhtan gesceaft,
þæet we þæs botles    brucan motan,
hames in hehðo,    þær is hihta mæst,
þær cyning engla    clænum gildeð
lean unhwilen.
(115-20a)

The picture Cynewulf has drawn of his spiritual condition and uncertain end, so starkly contrasted with the apostles' sanctity and glorious martyrdoms, operates, I believe we can now see, as a penitential exemplum. 'See the glory of the apostles', Cynewulf says in effect, 'and see my sinful sorrow. Pray for me, but consider my condition as a reflection of your own, and let us both cry out to God in prayer for the salvation we both so urgently need.' By the structural interlace of poet and reader, Cynewulf draws the concerned Christian out of pure passivity into an active rôle of involvement in the poet's fate, and by that involvement the reader takes up the apostolic injunction to bear one another's burdens, 'and so you shall fulfil the law of Christ' (Galatians VI.2). Furthermore, Cynewulf has in effect confessed his sinfulness to his audience, and by example implicitly urges the reader likewise to confess. I would suggest, then, that Cynewulf's penitential purpose is fulfilled through his admission of spiritual need and his example to his audience in requesting prayer and intercession, in accord with the principle expressed in the Epistle of James (V.16 and 19-20) and repeated in many of the penitential books: 'Confitemini ergo alterutrum peccata vestra, et orate pro invicem ut salvemini … Fratres mei, si quis ex vobis erraverit a veritate, et converterit quis eum: scire debet quoniam qui converti fecerit peccatorem ab errore viae suae, salvabit animam eius a morte, et operiet multitudinem peccatorum."¹⁵

To sum up, the Fates, I suggest, is a penitential meditation in which the glory of the apostles is used as a bright background against which the darkness of the poet's—and, by extension, the reader's—spiritual condition and uncertain fate stand out in painful clarity. It is a meditation on approaching death and judgement, and, as such, linked with Soul and Body I, Homiletic Fragment I and several of the Vercelli homilies, especially no. IX, 'On death, its terrors and suddenness'.¹⁶ The subject is intensely personal—one's eternal destiny—yet by focusing on the apostles the poet achieves distance and objectivity. Further, his concern is not merely his own soul's need but that of everyone who may read his 'song'. Thus he both objectifies and universalizes a theme—ure sawle ðearf, 'our soul's need', as the homilies and penitentials express it—which at first, in the opening, he introduces unobtrusively and subjectively, as if only in passing. Not until the epilogue does the reader discover the significance and source of the poet's melancholy. He is siðgeomor, weary of the trials of life's pilgrimage and dejected by the prospects of that last journey to the grave and beyond: to the lang ham and the eardwic uncuð. He is on seocum sefan, sick at heart, because of the soul's infirmity and his consequent fear of the judgement. Therefore he turns to those who 'love the course of this song' (88-9 and 107-8), that is, those who are moved by the example of the apostles, for intercession with the saints for help, peace and spiritual succour. Roused to a sense of the soul's need for the medicine of penance, both poet and reader may then hope for the ultimate reward of joining the holy company of the pure (clwne) with the apostles in the presence of God.

In a similar way the personal focus of each of Cynewulf's other epilogues draws the reader into the sphere of penitential meditation. They reiterate most of the same penitential motifs: the personal sense of sin, the fear of death and judgement, the need for intercession of the saints and of the living and the final hope in the mercy of God and the reward of the heavenly homeland.

The epilogue to Juliana is similar to that of the Fates in that the runic signature leads to a specific request for the prayers of all who recite the poet's song; but even as its request for prayers is more general, so is its emphasis on his need for intercession more strong. The epilogue begins by alliteratively and thematically linking the þeodscipe of the a-verse with the þearf of the b-verse (695), while focusing on the poet's personal need:

                 Is me þearf micel
þæt seo halge me    helpe gefremme,
þonne me gedælað    deorast ealra,
sibbe toslitað    sinhiwan tu,
micle modlufan.    Min sceal of lice
sawul on siðfæt,    nat ic sylfa hwider,
eardes uncyðgu;    of sceal icþissum,

secan oþerne    ærgewyrhtum,
gongan iudædum.¹⁷
(695b-703a)

Cynewulf then employs his runic signature to point to the Last Judgement, in anticipation of which the soul, stained with sins (synnum fah, 705b), will sorrowfully recall and bewail his misdeeds:

                 Sar eal gemon,
synna wunde,    þe ic siþ oþþe ær
geworhte in worulde.    þæt ic wopig sceal
tearum mænan.    Wæs an tid to læt
þæt ic yfeldæda    ær gescomede,
þenden gæst ond lic    geador siþedan
onsund on earde.
(709b-15a)

It is possible that here we have the specific reason for the poet's sense of his urgent need for saintly intercession and the prayers of 'monna gehwone / gumena cynnes'. He indicates that the time was too late when he repented of his sins. Cynewulf is perhaps suggesting, as he does in the epilogue to Elene (1236 ff.), that only after many years of sinful living did he turn to the remedy of penance, and that now, in his old age, he has not years enough left to perform all the penance which a strict use of the libri poenitentiales might impose upon a scrupulous penitent. There is no need to consider this as autobiographical, however. The topos of proclaiming oneself the greatest of sinners goes back at least to St Paul (cf. I Timothy 1.15), and we have the record of the Anglo-Saxon confessional prayers to prove the often hyperbolic nature of such admissions of guilt.¹⁸ Furthermore, the poet's didactic purpose is probably the determining factor in the choice of detail.

What we have in each of Cynewulf's epilogues, and especially in that to Juliana, is a statement of ostensible sorrow for and a general acknowledgement of sin perhaps reminiscent of the confiteor or similar penitential prayers. The closing lines of Juliana's epilogue,

                Forgif us, mægna god,
þæt we þine onsyne,    þælinga wyn,
milde gemeten    on þa mæran tid,
(729b-3 1)

are typical of many a penitential and confessional prayer. For example, a prayer in London, British Library, Arundel 155 closes with the words 'tribue mihi gratiam tuam, ut merear tibi mundus assistere et placere conspectui tuo (syle me gyfe þine þæt ic geearnige þe clæne wiðstandan and gelician gesihðe þinre)'. And another, entitled 'Oratio sancti Gregorii', pleads in like manner, 'Te deprecor, domine, deus omnipotens, ut dimittas mihi omnia peccata mea, antequam moriar, ut non gaudeat inimicus meus de me (þe ic bidde, drihten, god æmihtig, þæt ðu forgife me ealle synne mine ærþam ic swelte, þæt na geblissige feond min be me).'¹⁹

Thus we see in the epilogue to Juliana the same kind of exemplary focus on the penitential needs of the poet, which is then expanded to a broader appeal to the reader in a request for intercession followed, as in the Fates, by a general exhortation to prayer or, as in Juliana, by a specific prayer for general forgiveness. The object of turning the reader to penance is approached indirectly, the penitential aspects in the epilogue resting primarily on the poet's personal reflections on his own sinfulness and on the four last things: death, judgement, heaven and hell. The overtly didactic elements, however, play a larger rôle in the epilogues to Christ II and Elene.

Following the runic signature in Christ II, which dwells primarily on the Last Judgement and the dissolution of the world in fire, Cynewulf makes a statement which could be taken as expressing the central theme of all his extant poems—and the sententia of all his epilogues:

Forþon ic leofra gehwone    læran wille
þæt he ne agæle    gæstes þearfe,
ne on gylp geote,     þenden gode wille

þæt he her in worulde    wunian mote,
samod siþian    sawel in lice,
in þam gæsthofe.    Scyle gumena gehwylc
on his geardagum    georne biþencan
þæt us milde bicwom    meahta waldend
æt ærestan    þurh þæs engles word.
Bið nu eorneste    þonne eft cymeð,
reðe ond ryhtwis.
(815-25a)

Cynewulf urges each of his readers not to neglect the gwstes kearf but to be ready for the dreadful judgement at the Lord's second coming. This soul's need is what the Old English penitential homilies and libri poenitentiales refer to as the sawle kearf i.e. the need of the soul for the medicine of penance.²⁰ For the doctrine taught in the homilies and penitentials and reflected in much of the poetry is that, after baptism (paenitentia prima), it is penance (paenitentia secunda) which cleanses the soul from the stains of sin, heals its wounds and releases it from spiritual bondage; and only thus freed and purified may the soul stand without fear before the judge on the last day.²¹ This is Cynewulf's twin theme: let us attend to the soul's need (i.e. penance) in this life so that we may endure the judgement in the next.

We see the penitential impetus of the epilogue to Christ II reinforced as Cynewulf further emphasizes the terrors of the Last Judgement for the sinful:

                 þær bið æghwylcum
synwyrcendra    on þa snudan tid
leofra micle    þonne eallþos læne gesceaft,
þæ he hine sylfne    on þm sigeþreate
behydan mæge,    þonne herga fruma,
æþlinga ord,    eallum demeð,
leofum ge laðum,    lean æfter ryhte,
þeoda gehwylcre.    Is us þearf micel
þæt we gæstes wlite    ærþm gryrebrogan
on þas gæsnan tid    georne biþencen.
(840b-9)

The gæstes wlite is the beauty which only the blessed soul can have at the Last Judgement.²² Our need to fix our minds on this spiritual objective now in this life receives similar expression in Christ III, the next poem in the Exeter Book:

                     Ær sceal geþencan
gæstesþearfe,    seþe gode mynteð
bringan beorhtne wlite,    þonne bryne costað,
hat, heorugifre,    hu gehealdne sind
sawle wið synnum    fore sigedeman.
(1056b-60)

The adjective beorht reflects an idea that at the judgement the souls of the blessed, as a result of penance or of the purgative fire, will shine brighter than the sun (1240-1), while those of the wicked will be black with sins (1104-6). The brightness of the blessed is analogous to that which they will see in Christ himself (914b). In Vercelli homily VIII the motif of the blessed soul's brightness, alluded to obliquely in curiously meteorological terms, is specifically linked to the necessity for confession in this life:

Men ða leofestan, ne læn we us næfre þa synne to þon swiðe micele ne to þan swiðe hefiglice þyncan, þæt we afre forscamien, þæt we hi ne andetton, forðanpe selre is, þæt man beforan anum men his gylta scamige þonne he eft on domesdaege beforan Gode sylfum 7 beforan his englum 7 beforan eallum þam heofencundan weorode. He ðonne se æðela lareow, sanctus Paulus se apostol spræc 7 þus cwæð: 'Men þa leofestan, us gedafena6, þæt we syn ætywde ealle on domesdaege beforan Godes heahsetle.' 7 þonne þær nænig man his sylfes gewyrhta behydan ne mæg, ne man his agenne andwlitan on liohte wedere oððe on sunnansciman becyrran ne mæg.²³

The gœstes wlite on Doomsday, which, Cynewulf tells us, we have great need to think of, depends on our deeds in this life. Our soul's need is to be cleansed, healed and purified in preparation for the judgement by the action of penance, i.e. contrition for past sins, acknowledgement of guilt and works of expiatory satisfaction with or without intercessory aid. This need of the soul is Cynewulf's central theme, and the message his poems convey may be summed up in the first recorded words of Christ's ministry: 'Poenitentiam agite: appropinquavit enim regnum caelorum' (Matthew IV. 17).

In the epilogue to Elene, Cynewulf's most optimistic statement concerning the state of his own soul, he speaks of having been bound by sins in his youth, but of having been released from this bondage in his old age when Gp d revealed to him the wisdom of the cross. The wisdom of the cross is the renunciation of the world and the acceptance of suffering and penance which lead to forgiveness and absolution granted through the power of the church to 'bind and loose'. It is because of this release from the bondage of sin that Cynewulf has hope of final salvation on the day of judgement.

Following his runic signature, which again leads into the motif of judgement, Cynewulf enunciates a doctrine of the division of the souls into three groups. On the last day, when the world is destroyed by fire, God will place all souls into that fire: the righteous (sodfceste (1289b), dugud domgeorne (1291a)) will be placed in the upper part of the flames, where they will find it but pleasantly warm; the sinful (synfulle (1295b), hceled higegeomre (1297a)) will be placed in the middle to be punished and purged; but the damned (awyrgede womsceaðan (1299a), lease leodhatan (1300a)) will be forever bound in the flames' grip to be eternally punished in hell for their sins and final impenitence.

The purgatorial doctrine expressed here is placed in the context of the end of the world, though it need not be seen as precluding belief in the existence of a purgatorial interim between death and Doomsday. Indeed, Cynewulf's pleas in the Fates and Juliana for prayers for his soul from all who read his works assume the existence of a state after death wherein one may find solace from the intercession of living men and saints. The middle fire of the last day should be seen as the final purgatory, especially for those who did not see death until the last day. In any case, the doctrine of a purification by fire, which awaits those who were sinners in the world but through penance maintained friendship with God so as to be worthy of final salvation, is clearly present in these lines:

           Synfulle beoð,
mane gemengde,    in ðam midleþread,
hæleð higegeomre,    in hatne wylm,
þrosme beþehte.…    Hie asodene beoð,
asundrod fram synnum,    swa smæte gold
þæt in wylme bið    womma gehwylces
þurh ofnes fyr    eall geclænsod,
amered ond gemylted.    Swa bið para manna
  ælc
ascyred ond asceaden    scylda gehwylcre,
deopra firena,    þurhþæs domes fyr.
Motonþonne sioþan    sybbe brucan,
eces eadwelan.    Him bið engla weard
milde ond bliðe,    pæs ðe hie mana gehwylc
forsawon, synna weorc,    ond to suna
  metudes
wordum cleopodon.²⁴
(1295b-8a and 1308b-19a)

The men in the middle category, neither saints nor hardened sinners, are described by Cynewulf as higegeomre, 'sad in mind', which is much the same as his self-description in the Fates. They are depicted as sad, we can now see, not so much because they must endure the just but merciful purgation of the domes fyr as because they know themselves to be guilty and unclean in the presence of God. Cynewulf, in his epilogue to Christ II, seems to say as much concerning himself:

                   Huru ic wene me
ond eac ondrede    dom ðy relran
ðonne eft cymeð    englaþeoden,
þe ic ne heold teala    þast me hæslend min
on bocum bibead.
(789b-93a)

But in the final lines quoted above from Elene (1316b-19a) Cynewulf indicates the remedy for his sins and shortcomings—in effect, repentance and confession. What differentiates the synfulle from the awyrgede womsceaðan is not so much the degree of sinfulness or the number of sins committed as contrition and penance. The sinful men who are saved and purified are those who renounced their synna weorc and who called to Christ with words, i.e. were penitent and confessed their sins.

I have not given attention to Cynewulf's runic signatures as such because the interpretation of the runes gives rise to problems beyond the scope of this article. Nevertheless the general sense of the runic passages is clear. The import of the one in the Fates is that both the life of man and the goods of the world are transitory. The one in Elene elaborates this theme by focusing on the diminution of pleasure in worldly wealth as one grows old and all of life's joys pass away. The one in Juliana goes a step further by viewing the departure from this life of the whole human race at the end of time, when the world will pass away and all shall stand in terror before the judgement of God. And the one in Christ II describes more fully the judgement itself, in which each man shall receive reward or punishment according to his former deeds, and the ways of this world shall be no more. Though each of them emphasizes a different point, the principal effect of these passages is the same. They all direct the reader to eschatological considerations. Death, judgement, heaven and hell are the implied focus of each within the context of the Christian cosmos of the Anglo-Saxons—and the moral corollary of eschatology is penance, the reformation of one's life in preparation for the end.

Taken as a whole, the runic signatures recapitulate the theme of the epilogues. In each the penitential concern is paramount, for the runic signatures explicitly or implicitly call for prayers for Cynewulf's soul while telling of the transitoriness of life and earthly wealth, of the destructiveness of sin and of the uttermost need of the soul at death and at the Last Judgement. The reader is invited, indeed implored, to take part in the penitential act of intercession for the poet's soul, at the same time necessarily considering his own soul's need. In his ostensibly personal plea, then, Cynewulf universalizes the import of each of his Christian poems—short and long—directing us, indirectly, to do penance, as an Old English homiletic motif has it, 'while yet we may and can'.

Notes

¹ The poem was first published, under the title Fata Apostolorum, in 1858 (Bibliothek der angelsachsischen Poesie, ed. C. W. M. Grein (Göttingen) 2, 7-9). Grein published only the first ninety-five lines, and it was not until Arthur S. Napier re-examined the Vercelli manuscript in 1888 that the epilogue with Cynewulf's runic signature was noticed; see A. S. Napier, 'The Old English Poem The Fates of the Apostles, Academy 34 (1888), 153. My citations from the Fates and other Old English poems are, unless otherwise noted, from The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, ed. George Philip Krapp and Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie, 6 vols. (New York, 1932-53). Translations of the poetry are my own.

² James L. Boren, 'Form and Meaning in Cynewulf's Fates of the Apostles, Papers on Lang. and Lit. 5 (1969), 115-22, and Constance B. Hieatt, 'The Fates of the Apostles: Imagery, Structure, and Meaning', Papers on Lang. and Lit. 10 (1974), 115-25.

³A Critical History of Old English Literature (New York, 1965), p. 110.

⁴ G. P. Krapp, in his edition of Andreas and The Fates of the Apostles (Boston, 1906), p. 160, suggests that sidgeomor (Ib) has a figurative religious meaning rather than a literal sense, 'weary of travel'. And Kenneth R. Brooks, in his edition, Andreas and The Fates of the Apostles (Oxford, 1961), p. 119, notes the oddness of a literal interpretation in this context and suggests that it may mean 'sad as a consequence of my experience', i.e. 'weary of life'. Constance Hieatt, 'The Fates of the Apostles', p. 118, n. 10, demurs. However, considering the common patristic notion of earthly life as a pilgrimage, i.e. travel in a foreign land, it seems reasonable to interpret the nominal prefix sid in this context as 'pilgrimage' or, metaphorically, 'life's journey', thus yielding essentially the same interpretation as Brooks's. The poet's weariness with life, thus expressed, is consistent with his moumful condition (geomrum, 89b) and need for prayers when he finally seeks out alone his eardwic uncuð (see esp. 88-95). Alternatively the sið may be interpreted as his journey into the afterlife; siðgeomor then becomes 'sad on account of, or in anticipation of, the journey of death', which fits the theme of the poem perfectly.

⁵'The Fates of the Apostles', p. 118.

⁶ 'Indeed, it behoves each man that he consider for himself his soul's journey, how awful it will be when death shall come and sunder the association that once was one, body and soul! Long it will be until the spirit takes at the hand of God himself either torment or glory, just as his earthly vessel before deserved in the world.' The soul-and-body theme with its eschatological-penitential implications was widespread in both eastern and western literature from about the fourth century and throughout the Middle Ages. For studies on sources and distribution of the theme, with special reference to the Old English period, see T. Batiouchkof, 'Le Debat de l'ame et du corps', Romania 20 (1891), 1-55 and 513-78; Julius Zupitza, 'Zu "Seele und Leib" ', [Archivfur das Studium der neuren Sprachen und Literaturen] 91 (1893), 369-404; Louise Dudley, 'An Early Homily on the "Body and Soul" Theme', [Journal of English and Germanic Philology] 8 (1909), 225-53; Rudolph Willard, 'The Address of the Soul to the Body', [Publications of the Modern Language Association of America] 50 (1935), 957-83; and Cyril Smetana, O.S.A., 'Second Thoughts on Soul and Body I, [Mediaeval Studies] 29 (1967), 193-205.

⁷ For the pervasiveness of this orthodox doctrine in Old English poetry, the following studies may be consulted: C. Abbetmeyer, Old English Poetical Motives Derived from the Doctrine of Sin (Minneapolis, 1903); Waller Deering, The Anglo-Saxon Poets on the Judgment Day (Halle, 1890); L. Whitbread, 'The Doomsday Theme in Old English Poetry', BGDSL (Halle) 89 (1967), 452-81; and Graham D. Caie, The Judgment Day Theme in Old English Poetry, Publ. of the Dept of Eng. Univ. of Copenhagen 2 (1976). M. R. Godden, 'An Old English Penitential Motif, [Anglo-Saxon England, henceforth abbreviated ASE] 2 (1973), 221-39, traces in detail the appearance of a specific Old English verbal formula expressing the relation of confession and penance to the soul's condition on the day of judgment, which appears in Christ III and in certain Old English homilies and libri poenitentiales.

⁸ A settled term for purgatory, i.e. for a place where souls are purified by expiation after death in preparation for heaven, was not current in Old English, though the concept and the belief were far advanced in the west by the seventh century. See, e.g., Gregory the Great, Dialogorum Libri IV, Migne, Patrologia Latina 77, cols. 393-6. See also Bischof Weerferths von Worcester Ubersetzung der Dialoge Gregors des Gross en, ed. Hans Hecht (Hamburg, 1907; repr. Darmstadt, 1965), p. 327, where purgatory is referred to as 'w t clwnsiende fyr'. In Ælfric's 'Sermo ad Populum in Octavis Pentecosten Dicendus', based on Julian of Toledo's Prognosticon Futuri Saeculi, it is 'jwt witniendlice fyr' (Homilies of Ælfric, ed, John C. Pope, Early Eng. Text Soc. 259-60, no. XI, line 226). The vividness of the belief in monastic circles is evident from Bede; see esp. the vision of Drihthelm, discussed below.

⁹ 'The valley that you saw, with its awful flaming fire and freezing cold, is the place in which those souls have to be tried and chastened who delayed to confess and make restitution for the sins they had committed until they were on the point of death; and so they died. But because they did repent and confess, even though on their deathbed, they will all come to the kingdom of heaven on judgement day; and the prayers of those who are still alive, their alms and fastings and specially the celebration of masses, help many of them to get free even before the day of judgement.' Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford, 1969), pp. 494 (Latin) and 495 (translation). Commutation, or the application of penances to the souls of the departed, was an Irish practice approved by Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury (668-90). See Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland, ed. Arthur West Haddan and William Stubbs (Oxford, 1871) III, 183, item xii. A number of forms of commutations for 'rescuing a soul out of hell' appear in 'The Old-Irish Table of Commutations' in The Irish Penitentials, ed. Ludwig Bieler and D. A. Binchy, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae 5 (Dublin, 1963), 277-83. Cf. the similar commutations in two Anglo-Saxon penitentials in Medieval Handbooks of Penance, ed. John T. McNeill and Helena Gamer (New York, 1938), pp. 32-3, 231-3 and 236.

¹⁰ 'When in winter time the broken pieces of ice were floating round him, which he himself had had to break in order to find a place to stand in the river or immerse himself, those who saw him would say, "Brother Dryhthelm,"—for that was his name—"however can you bear such bitter cold?" He answered them simply, for he was a man of simple wit and few words, "I have known it colder." And when they said, "It is marvellous that you are willing to endure such a hard and austere life", he replied, "I have seen it harder." And so until the day he was called away, in his unwearied longing for heavenly bliss, he subdued his aged body with daily fasts and led many to salvation by his words and life.' Ibid. pp. 498 (Latin) and 499 (translation). Penances of similar severity, and some rather bizarre, may be found prescribed in 'The Old-Irish Table of Commutations' (see reference in preceding note).

¹¹ 'Indeed, I have need of gracious friends on the journey, when I must seek alone the long home, the unknown dwelling … I must [go] far hence, [fare] forth elsewhere alone, I myself know not whither, from this world. Unknown are the habitations, land and home; thus it will be for every man unless he enjoys a holy spirit.'

¹² It is interesting to note that Sidney Lanier, Shakspere and His Forerunners: Studies in Elizabethan Poetry and Its Development from Early English (New York, 1908), pp. 33-41, compares the lamenting soul of Soul and Body I with Hamlet's ghost and contrasts 'the unquestioning faith of the poem and the uneasy scepticism of Hamlet' (p. 37). I do not mean to imply that Cynewulf was a sceptic, but there is a hint of doubt as to the efficacy of his penitence to bring him salvation. I am indebted to Stanley Greenfield for this reference, as I am, more generally, for his encouragement in the writing of this article.

¹³ Text from Three Northumbrian Poems, ed. A. H. Smith (London, 1933, p. 43). In its brevity, Bede's Death Song is rather complex and enigmatic in thought and expression, defying adequate translation. But see B. F. Huppe, Doctrine and Poetry (New York, 1959), pp. 78-98, where Huppe relates its theme to the penitential poems, De Die Judicii and Be Domes Dwege. On doubt as to Bede's authorship, see, e.g., Gerald Bonner, 'Bede and Medieval Civilization', ASE 2 (1973), 81, n. 3.

¹⁴ 'Before the need-peril [or, necessary journey, death] no one becomes more wise in thought than is necessary for him in considering, before his departure, what good or evil may be adjudged for his spirit after death henceforth.'

¹⁵ This process reflects five of the twelve modes of remission of sin which appear in the Paenitentiale Cummeani and in the Confessionale Pseudo-Egberti. They include the fifth mode, 'criminum confessio (andetnys fyrena)', the sixth, 'adflictio cordis (geswencednys heortan)', the seventh, 'abrenuntiatio vitiorum ('peawas bete for gode)', the eighth, 'intercessio sanctorum (haligra gebede for 'one fyrenfullan)', quoting James v.14-16, and the tenth, 'conversio et salus aliorum (jxt man o'perne hwyrfe fram fyrenum to godes willan)'. See Irish Penitentials, ed. Bieler and Binchy, pp. 108-10; Das Altenglische Bussbuch (Sog. Confessionale Pseudo-Egberti), ed. Robert Spindler (Leipzig, 1934), pp. 174-5; and Die Altenglische Version des Halitgar'schen Bussbuches, ed. Josef Raith, 2nd ed. (Darmstadt, 1964), p. xlvi.

¹⁶ Though the question of audience cannot be treated here, the character of the Vercelli Book suggests that it was prepared by and for monks, containing, as it does, twenty-two homilies largely devoted to the themes of penance, death and the Last Judgement, six poems of a religious nature, also with a predominant concern for penance and the four last things, and a prose vita of St Guthlac. For a recent study of the manuscript's origin, see D. G. Scragg, 'The Compilation of the Vercelli Book', ASE 2 (1973), 189-207. Milton McC. Gatch, 'Eschatology in the Anonymous Old English Homilies', Traditio 21 (1965), 145, states: 'the penitential system or, at the very least, a penitentially-oriented monasticism in the traditions of John Cassian and of the Irish is implicit on almost every page of the codex'. The Vercelli Book thus appears to be a devotional collection designed for clerics, probably monks, especially suitable for Lenten penitential reading. Cf. the Benedictine Rule, ch. 48, on reading a single book 'straight through' during Lent.

¹⁷ 'It is greatly necessary that the saint [Juliana] grant me help when the united pair [body and soul], greatest in affection, shall be parted in twain. My soul must depart from the body on a journey—I myself know not whither—to an unknown land [or, state of being]; from this [world] I must seek another according to my previous works, journey according to my earlier deeds.'

¹⁸ See, e.g., the confessional prayers in Henri Logeman, 'Anglo-Saxonica Minora', Anglia 11 (1889), 97-120, and in Lars-G. Hallander, 'Two Old English Confessional Prayers', Studier i Modern Sprakvetanskap 3 (1968), 87-110. The attempt to be all-inclusive in these confessions obviates their strict adherence to the actual sins committed by any given penitent.

¹⁹ Ferdinand Holthausen, 'Altenglische Interlinearversionen Lateinischer Gebete und Beichten', Anglia 65 (1941), 234 and 240.

²⁰ This sense is evident from its exclusive use in penitential contexts. See, e.g., The Blickling Homilies, ed. R. Morris, EETS o.s. 58, 63 and 73 (rept. as one vol., 1967), pp. 25, 97, 99, 101 and 103; also Die Vercelli-Homilien, ed. Max Forster (Hamburg, 1932; repr. without homily IX, Darmstadt, 1964), pp. 51 and 53; Das Altenglische Bussbuch, ed. Spindler, pp. 170 and 175; and Die Altenglische Version des Halitgar'schen Bussbuches, ed. Raith, pp. xli and 9.

²¹ The necessity of penance in preparation for the second coming is a major theme in a number of Old English homilies, including, e.g., Blickling I-V, VII, VIII, X and XI and Vercelli II-IV, VIII, IX and XV.

²² Cf. Colin Chase, 'God's Presence through Grace as the Theme of Cynewulf's Christ II and the Relationship of This Theme to Christ I and Christ III', ASE 3 (1974), 87-101, at 89.

²³Die Vercelli-Homilien, ed. Forster, pp. 150-1.

²⁴ 'The sinful, tainted with wickedness, men sad in mind, will be punished in the middle, covered with smoke in the hot surge.… They shall be purified, sundered from sins, as refined gold that in the flames is completely cleansed of every blemish through the oven's fire, purified and purged. Thus will each man be set free and cleansed of every guilt, of profound crimes, through the fire of judgement. They might then enjoy happiness thereafter, eternal blessedness. To them the guardian of angels will be mild and gracious, because they renounced every wickedness, each work of sin, and turned with words to the Son of God.'