SOURCE: Mushabac, Jane. “Judith and the Theme of Sapientia et Fortitudo.” Massachusetts Studies in English 4, no. 1 (spring 1973): 3-12.

[In the following essay, Mushabac discusses the defining traits of heroism as embodied in the eponymous protagonist of Judith.]

The Apocryphal Book of Judith is adjudged to have been written during the last two centuries B.C. by a learned Jew¹ considerably influenced by Hellenistic style and motifs.² Since then the story it tells has been the subject for many interpretations and retellings which as we would expect reflect the concerns of the particular age in which they were written. Among religious commentaries and paraphrases beginning with early midrashim and patristic exegesis, Jerome and Ambrose, for instance, interpreted Judith's role tropologically as a type of Christian chastity marrying Christ.³ Similarly, Aelfric, in his paraphrase, made Judith “a pattern of virginity,”⁴ while later the Ancrene Wisse author saw Judith as emblematic of the power of confession to confound and behead the devil and disperse his forces.

Literary treatment of the story which, aside from a few Latin poems, begins with an early concentration in Germanic literature and specifically with the tenth century Anglo-Saxon poem we shall study here, by our own century shows a total of one hundred three versions that one critic, Edna Purdie, has traced in English and German literature alone. Over the centuries the story's treatment has progressed from a simple dramatic and usually religious conflict to a more complex psychological one as in, for instance, nineteenth century German tragedy; and the range of interpretation and emphasis is considerable. “If,” writes Purdie, “number and variety of versions, widespread and enduring popularity be any criterion of greatness, the tale of Judith, it must be conceded, is one of the great stories of the world's literature.”⁵

Studying, as I shall do here, the thematic concerns of the tenth century Anglo-Saxon poem's version of the Judith story has one major difficulty. We have only a fragment of Judith, 349 lines, which most critics gather is only about one fourth of the original, although some claim, on evidence which I will suggest is flimsy, that it is nearly the whole poem. Despite this difficulty, and in view of either estimate of the poem's original length, Judith as we know it is so rich with thematic indications, that in studying these we may make a fairly safe guess of what the poem as a whole is about and certainly at least understand the direction and the focus of the fragment we do have.

The poem is first of all and is generally agreed to be an epic treatment of the story. Judith is presented as a figure of great importance, one who embodies national, cultural and religious ideals, and who asserts herself in heroic battle deeds, directly in slaying Holofernes and indirectly in making it possible for the Jews to defeat the Assyrians. As Purdie points out, “The author's main interest is in the figure of the heroine. This is an epic trait.” Moreover, “Judith is characterized, in the epic manner, by fixed epithets.”⁶ The style generally is earnest and elevated, similar in many respects to that of Beowulf, and fittingly found in the same manuscript as that epic, MS Cotton Vitellius A XV, which Kenneth Sisam tells us may have been “planned with some regard to subject matter,” that matter being monsters. Although Sisam does not “attempt to bring Judith into the same design; Holofernes was no monster,” the seriousness of Judith's attack on the Assyrian general correlates well with that of Beowulf's attack on Grendel, and Sisam ultimately suggests that the poem was added to the collection possibly “because Judith was felt to be, like Beowulf, a savior of her country.”⁷ In his introduction to a text of Judith, B. J. Timmer also tells us the poem is an epic, but he makes a point of distinguishing between religious and heroic epic and of placing Judith in the former category.⁸ This distinction brings us to the issue I wish to discuss here, for while the main characteristics of epic can easily be seen to apply to Judith, it begins to be more open to question to name the particular ideals emphasized in this particular epic, and to analyze here the balance of religious and secular themes and the fusion of Hebraic, Christian and Germanic elements.

R. E. Kaske, in his article “Sapientia et Fortitudo as the Controlling Theme of Beowulf,”⁹ provides a vocabulary for discussing a theme which I think is as applicable to Judith as it is to Beowulf. In Kaske's reading, Beowulf is a poem essentially about heroism and one in which heroism is consciously defined as the sapientia et fortitudo ideal. Kaske traces this ideal back to, among other sources, Homer, Vergil, Isidore of Seville, and the Old Testament, and suggests it is operative in other Anglo-Saxon poems. Essentially and traditionally fortitudo is physical might and courage, and sapientia a combination of cleverness, skill, knowledge and the ability to choose and act rightly. In Kaske's view Beowulf displays his fulfillment of the two ideals of heroism by destroying Grendel, Grendel's mother and the dragon, monsters which are directed by or emblematic of malitia, a state of being in which sapientia is “put to sleep by pride.” Malitia, thus, in an Augustinian sense, is “the final absence of sapientia” which grows out of the folly of avarice and pride “the final overt aspects” of which destroyed Heremod as a king, as we are told in Hrothgar's “sermon.” A fourth element, then, crucial in the Beowulf poem is wealth or treasure, the main threat of which is that it may incite the pride and avarice that in turn produce malitia. One of the characteristics of sapientia is the ability to deal with treasure. Hence Beowulf “wisely exults over treasures not for themselves but for the glory of which they are the token”; the poem suggests that only Beowulf can face the spiritual danger of acquiring the hoard, and therefore it should be no surprise that the gold is buried with him. In Kaske's view the poem builds essentially from a series of conflicts between sapientia and malitia and of contrasts between characters who have only either sapientia or fortitudo and Beowulf who has both. “One great theme hovering over the poem rather than active in it,” Kaske concludes, is “that of the infinite Sapientia et Fortitudo of God as the source of all finite sapientia et fortitudo.”

The emphasis on sapientia in Judith is clear on three levels. On the first is the frequency of the epithets of wisdom which accompany a reference to or naming of Judith. Several times we are told Judith is beautiful, several times that she is blessed or holy, but most frequently that she is wise or clever. As Timmer says, “She is white and shining (beorht, aelfscinu), with curly hair (wundenlocc); she is noble and holy but courageous (ides ellenrof), and above all wise (gleaw, snotere, searothoncol, gleawhydig, gearthoncol).”¹⁰ On the second level are the actions which make Judith worthy of the epithets of wisdom, namely her ability to do the right things at the right moment both in slaying Holofernes and in advising her people. “Then did the Saviour's glorious servant ponder deeply how she might most easily spoil the monster of life, before he awoke with foul lust. Then the Creator's handmaiden with curling tresses grasped a sharp sword hardened in the storms of battle and with her right hand drew it from the scabbard.” (Section X)¹¹ Whether the poem varies here from the Vulgate story's suggestion that Judith knew in advance what she had planned to do (“Strengthen me O Lord God … that I may bring to pass that which I have purposed,” 13.7¹²), or R. K. Gordon's “ponder deeply” is not fair to thearle gemyndig which Timmer glosses as “very mindful,” the point is clear. Judith seizes the moment wisely; she acts quickly and effectively, not only in killing Holofernes with the necessary double stroke but in taking his head back as a trophy to inspire her people. Her speeches to them are perhaps most revelatory of her wisdom, however. She neither boasts of her achievement nor assumes a false modesty. She is simply grateful to God and encouraging to her people whom she addresses before the battle and yet with no incongruity as “victorious heroes” because her achievement, as she views it, is only one part of a community response.

The third level on which sapientia operates in Judith is perhaps just outside Kaske's definition, but ought to be mentioned here. It is the narrator's voice of foreknowledge especially significant because of its contrast with the ignorance of Holofernes who, as a leader of men, should have sapientia as well as fortitudo. Specifically, the narrator in Section X introduces this voice which I note with italics: “Daring shield warriors doomed to death, laid hold on them, through the leader, the dread master of men, had no thought of his fate” and the voice is sounded at almost regular intervals that a higher wisdom than Holofernes had was already seeing to his destruction. A little later in Section X the poet invents an unspoken debate between Holofernes' will and the fate that a sapient Being has already decreed for him; the “debate” does not occur in the Vulgate. Three times in these sixteen lines (57-73) we are told of Holofernes' jubilantly lecherous intentions to “pollute” Judith, and three times that “the Prince of Majesty was not minded to let that come to pass.” The statements alternate as in an argument but the third time the counter-remark is just a phrase, nehstan sithe, tacked on at the very end as if to show who has the last word: “The warriors passed out of the chamber with utmost haste, men sated with wine, who had brought the traitor, the hateful tyrant, to his bed for the last time.” The knowing narrator also knows that after Holofernes was killed he fell “under the deep cliff” to a gloomy hell-fire home, and later (Section XII) that the general's eldest thanes were also “doomed to perish.” This voice of foreknowledge is naturally related to God's Sapientia which I will discuss in detail later, but in itself, without reference to God, it adds an underlying intensity to the emphasis on sapientia in the poem.

The ideal of fortitudo is also of focal importance in Judith; we see it most of all on the level of the killing of Holofernes and the triumph in battle over the Assyrians. The poem expands and dramatizes both of these actions, particularly the latter, from the material provided in the Vulgate. In the first case the Vulgate confines itself to “And she struck twice upon his neck, and cut off his head.” (13.10) The poem expands this to, (Section X) “Then the maiden with curling tresses struck the hostile foe with gleaming sword, so that she cut his neck half through; and, drunken and stricken, he lay in a swoon. He was not yet dead, wholly lifeless; the undaunted woman once again fiercely smote the heathen hound, so that his head rolled forth on the floor.” When she has completed this deed and set out toward home with her trophy, she is described for the first time in the extant poem with the double epithet, “the maiden of wisdom, the woman of valour,” as if by her deed she has achieved the twin ideal to her wisdom.

In the second case the poem expands a simple chase in the Vulgate to a full-fledged battle in which the Hebrews, inspired by Judith's leadership, slaughter the Assyrians. “Sternly they stepped forward; stout of heart, they harshly aroused their ancient foes overcome by mead. The men with their hands drew from the sheaths the brightly adorned blades with trusty edges; fiercely they smote the Assyrian warriors.” (Section XI) Here the fortitudo of the warriors is suggested by all the traditional elements of Germanic battle poetry ranging from the armor to the method of fighting to the wolf, raven and eagle to all the epithets for brave warriors. It even reaches a pitch of “gusto and exuberance,”¹³ probably in large part because the Hebrews were motivated by vengeance, the spirit of which was familiar and appealing to the Anglo-Saxons, particularly, one would guess, during the tenth century when the Scandinavian assaults were increasing and increasingly unavenged. Also, the odds were against the Hebrews; therefore the fervor with which they retaliated could be that much more intense. In the Vulgate we are told specifically of the great numerical disadvantage of the Hebrews against the Assyrian forces; it seems likely that the Anglo-Saxon poet would have in the lost earlier portions of the poem focused on this seeming weakness just as he focuses on the seeming weakness of Judith by calling up the image of her curling tresses just at the moment when she slays Holofernes. Both Judith and her people, the former as a woman and the latter as a numerically handicapped group, would appear doomed to destruction. That, on the other hand, it is the mighty Holofernes who is doomed, is a sign that there is a higher Lord who can give fortitudo to his faithful thanes as secular lords give rings and treasure to theirs; this dynamic is essential here to the fortitudo ideal.

The next element that we should look at is malitia which is the opposite of sapientia, and our first observation is that epithets suggesting Holofernes' malitia are as common as the epithets suggesting Judith's wisdom and those suggesting her warriors' strength. Once again, however, the epithets are only embellishments to the thematic essence of Holofernes' malitia which is dramatized in the drinking scene, another original part of the poem, and one for which it is famous. Malitia is not just evil or violence; it is a manifestation of an absence of sapientia. What better way would there be to demonstrate it than in a fully realized drinking spree? I think, then, that there is more involved here than simply the traditional Germanic drinking hall, or a reflection of the Danes' ferocious drinking habits at a time when they were persecuting the English. We should recall that Kaske identified pride and avarice as two inciting forces to malitia; whereas in the Vulgate these forces are but soberly suggested, we find them here in full strength. The Vulgate says merely that “Holofernes was made merry on her occasion, and drank exceeding much wine, so much as he had never drunk in his life.” (12.20) The Anglo-Saxon poet, on the other hand, lets the Assyrian's malitia intoxicate the very poetry of the description. “Then Holofernes, gold-friend of men, grew merry with the pouring out of wine; he laughed and called aloud, clamoured and made outcries, so that the children of men could hear from afar how he of stern mood stormed and shouted; proud and fevered by mead, he often urged the guests on the benches to bear themselves bravely … he drenched his officers all day in wine …” (Section X)

The dramatization here stresses the braggadocio and mindlessness of Holofernes' spree, as does the description when it is over; Holofernes “fuddled with wine” “as if he had not wits in his mind” falls into sleep, the last—or perhaps next to last—stage of his progressing loss of sapientia. It is a perfect touch of Anglo-Saxon grim irony that, also, “There was a fair curtain all golden, hung round the leader's couch so that the evil man, the prince of warriors, could look through on each of the sons of men who entered there, and no man on him, unless the proud man bade one of his mighty warriors draw nearer him to hold council.” (Section X) The fleohnet which is only “his canopy” in the Vulgate is expanded here to suggest, it would seem, the shallowness of Holofernes' wisdom. He appears to be wise, much like a God, perhaps, to see others when they cannot see him, but this wisdom is proved farcical later when his thanes cannot see through the curtain and have to part it uninvited to find that he can in fact see nothing because Judith has cut off his head. The seeming wisdom suggested here in addition by the reference to holding council is further undermined later in the poem by the thanes' embarrassment about disturbing their lord when he is busy with Judith, suggesting thus that their lord's curtain is for privacy in his lecherous adventures.

The fleohnet is emblematic then in two respects of malitia, of a false wisdom, and a violence of spirit. While I don't wish to exaggerate its importance, it is appropriate that behind that curtain the general who, in contrast to the sapient narrator, has been ignorant of his fate meets it, and that that fate is beheading. We should notice also that the poet makes a point of letting Holofernes' head, which should be worth much but is worth little, roll forth along the floor. (The Vulgate merely says Judith “rolled away his headless body.” 13.10)

The Assyrians, moreover, are after their leader's death headless in two senses, leaderless and mindless. While the connection between such words as heofod (head) and heofodweard (head or chief guardian) may not imply a conscious pun, it clearly reflects the crux of the Assyrian situation, that they have been led by a leader who lacks wisdom. Their essential plight is revealed and realized by Judith's act. Even they themselves are sensitive to this; as soon as they learn their chief is dead, they tremble with dread and fear. As Timmer points out, the comitatus ideal is invoked in name only, and there seems little expectation here that the men will fight for the cause in which their leader was killed.¹⁴ But perhaps the poet's point is that they know all too well that fortitudo without sapientia is meaningless. “Then, sad of soul, they cast their weapons down; despairing they hastened to flee,” the narrator tells us after one of the thanes has announced “Here lies our ruler, headless. (beheafdod healdend ure)” (Section XII) They tremble all the more because they know by Judith's deed that in contrast to themselves, the Jews not only have a leader, but have one with both sapientia et fortitudo, even though this leader is a woman.

If the Anglo-Saxon poet, as seems likely, included in some form or another in the opening section as the Vulgate does, the history of the Jews which indicates that their God would protect them as long as they were faithful to him, all the more reason for the Assyrians to tremble, because in addition to Judith, those people had a far more powerful leader, their God, whose Sapientia et Fortitudo must be supreme. A final thought in this discussion of malitia is that if Kaske's definition of it rounds out the meaning of the Anglo-Saxon monsters, then perhaps Sisam's theory alluded to above about the monster subject matter uniting the selections in the MS Cotton Vitellius A XV might, after all, be seen to include Judith.

The meaning of treasure seems to reflect an interpretation here similar to the one Kaske gives it in Beowulf, although most of the references to treasure would have appeared naturally in the earlier lost passages of the poem, which if it followed the Vulgate would have explained the amount of booty which the Assyrians had collected by the time we meet them in the extant poem. In the poem as in the Vulgate it is natural that the Assyrians in their dread should run for their lives leaving behind them the spoils they had won from innocent conquered nations. But it is not just the mores of vengeance that make the Hebrews exult in all their booty; it is that the Assyrians had been incited to pride and hence malitia by their victories, and that the Hebrews, like Beowulf, possess the sapientia et fortitudo to withstand the spiritual dangers of treasure. The poet-narrator explains in a line not directly taken from the Vulgate although the same spirit to a certain degree seems to be operative there, “The warriors won all that by courage, bold in battle under the banners by the wise counsel of Judith, the valorous virgin.” (Section XII) Similarly what could be more fitting, than that as the poem concludes the people deliver to Judith all the treasure which had belonged to the Assyrian general in whom treasure had incited malitia, Holofernes?

The final element in Kaske's reading of Beowulf is, as the others, helpful in reading Judith, but in addition helpful in locating the main difference between these two Anglo-Saxon epics. The theme of the infinite Sapientia et Fortitudo of God, while only “hovering over” Beowulf,¹⁵ is directly active in Judith. As Edna Purdie writes from a different perspective, “The heroic activity of the epic commonly implies the assertion of individuality—as in Beowulf … in Judith we find this activity made powerful by the surrender of the personal will to the will of God.”¹⁶ To understand Judith fully, however, we need to say more than that God and his will are active in the poem; we need to examine specifically the role of God here, and how that role helps determine the effect of the poem as we know it.

Several critics such as Bernard Huppé,¹⁷ who have maintained that the extant poem is nearly all of the original, do so partly on the basis of the similarity of the opening and closing lines of the extant version. These sections both praise God for the gifts he has given to Judith in particular and to mankind as a whole. While it might seem coincidentally significant that these lines should be similar, one must recognize that the lines between also continually express similar feelings. Specifically, we see that the first lines we have are, “She did not lose faith in His gifts on this far-spreading earth; then truly she found protection there in the famous Prince when she most needed the favour of the highest Judge, that He, the Lord of Creation, should guard her against the greatest danger.” In Section X we are told as I mentioned above, in reference to the silent argument between Holofernes' ignorant will and the sapient voice of foreknowledge, “The glorious Judge, the Prince of Majesty, was not minded to let that come to pass, but He, the Lord, the Master of warriors, kept him from that thing.” Shortly after, in the same section, we hear Judith directly call upon God, and then we are told indeed that “the highest Judge straightway inspired her with courage.” In Section XI the first sentence credits God with making possible Judith's victory, as does Judith's wise speech to the populace. Similarly, later, she spurs them on with the same argument to defeat the whole Assyrian army, “with God's help I reft him of life … your enemies are doomed to death and you shall gain glory, fame in the fight, as the mighty Lord has shown you by my hand.” In Section XII, when the Hebrews are in the midst of their victorious battle, made resplendent in the Germanic manner, we are reminded “the Lord God, the Almighty Prince, gave them fair help.” We need not be surprised then that the final lines of the poem also ring with tribute to God; there is hardly a moment when the poet lets us forget that Judith and he himself ascribe all glory to the Lord of Hosts.

But if God is presented here as the supreme giver of treasure we should recognize also the implicit contrast between Him and another treasure giver, Holofernes. I would suggest that it is something more than the literary tradition of kennings that repeatedly gives the same epithets for what amounts to the real God and a false God. See, for instance, thearlmod theoden gumena which appears in lines 66 and 91 where neither time the epithet is capitalized to distinguish, as we do, between lord and Lord; for reasons unclear to me, Gordon translates these same words “unsparing sovereign of men” the first time, and “stern Prince of men” the second time. Timmer points out that in Judith “the kennings for God are those known from other religious epics, frmytha Waldend, dugetha Waldend, swegles weard, etc.: for ‘lord’ we find gumena baldor, wigena baldor, rinea baldor, etc., all known from heroic poetry.”¹⁸ I would want to go one step further, however, to suggest a conscious overlapping of these kennings specifically to draw attention to the contrast between the leader of the Jews and the leader of the Assyrians. We may see along these same lines that the poet's selectivity and concentration on the highlights and main characters of the Vulgate story intensifies the juxtaposition of the lord (dryhten) of earls (1.21) and the Lord (dryhten) of hosts (1.61 et al), of the giver (brytta) of treasure (1.30) and the Giver (brytta) of Glory (1.93).

I am encouraged to consider these contracts deliberate particularly because they seem the Germanic means of dramatizing a theme which in my interpretation is central in the Vulgate story, the superiority of the Hebrew God of might and right over the false pretenders. We should recall from the Vulgate Holofernes' anger at Achior's tale that the Jews as long as they are faithful to their God will be protected by Him. Holofernes asserts angrily that “Nabuchodonosor is god of the earth, and besides him there is no other,” (5.29) but nonetheless later is so impressed by Judith's tongue-in-cheek story that the Jews have indeed sinned and will be punished, that he considers converting to her God's religion: “And if thy promise is good, if thy God shall do this for me, he shall also be my God.” (11.21) Judith's clever reply to Holofernes' request htat she dwell with him is also suggestive of a deliberate contrast between lord and Lord, “And Judith answered him: Who am I, that I shall gainsay my lord? All that shall be good and best before his eyes, I will do. And whatsoever shall please him, that shall be best to me all the days of my life.” (12.13-14) We know from Judith's piety that she certainly does have intentions to please God all the days of her life, hence we know that in the guise of answering respectfully the eunuch who has come to fetch her, she is praying to her true Lord to sustain her in her bold mission so that both she and her people may continue seeking to please God all the days of their lives. That she and her people are rewarded with victory is, of course, the ultimate sign not only that God is on their side, but that their God has great might. Achior in the Vulgate story, like Judas in Elene, and King Edwin's alderbishop Cefi in Bede's History, is so impressed that he converts; and Holofernes, as we saw, ironically is tempted to convert even before the fact of his own destruction.

Whether or not this reading of the Vulgate story is appropriate and suggestive for the understanding of the role of God in Judith, we see that the God figure in Judith is the combination of might and right that makes a complete fool of the bragging, inebriated Holofernes. The Hebrew God here is essentially a Germanic God conceived of in the same terms as the Germanic lord whose characteristics are, in the typical medieval manner of treating myth, anachronistically applied to the Assyrian. Basically He, the Lord of Hosts, is a mighty being who knows when and how to take vengeance, and when and how to reward his faithful followers with treasure. He is swift in his actions, thorough in his triumphs and generous in his giving. As Wardale tells us of this poem, “While it owes its theme to the widened knowledge introduced with Christianity, the old Germanic spirit is to be detected in the choice of that subject and its manner of treatment. Judith is no Christian martyr and, as far as it is possible to tell from a fragment, the main story is as warlike as any Germanic epic could have been.”¹⁹ Purdie identifies this Germanic spirit here with Hebraic values; “The ideal of personal consecration, an essential part of the Hebraic conception of life, is portrayed [in Judith] in the heroic terms of the Germanic epic.”²⁰ It is helpful also that Kaske explains in reference to the sapientia et fortitudo ideal in Beowulf that, “the poet has used this old ideal as an area of synthesis between Christianity and Germanic paganism … [he] seems to emphasize those aspects of each tradition that can be made reasonably compatible with the viewpoint of the other. Hence from a Christian point of view the strangely Old Testament tone of the poem, since the Sapientia of the Old Law is more nearly compatible with the wisdom of Germanic paganism than is the Sapientia of the New.”²¹ I think the same can be said of Judith despite several incidental mentions of the Trinity or the Savior.

Within this synthesis of Old Testament and Germanic values it should not surprise us that Holofernes' thanes lament his death in an elegiac passage that calls to mind “The Wanderer.” In this case both lord and followers seem exiled, Holofernes from earth and heaven and his followers from the plain of victory. Moreover, if the thanes lament the loss of their leader, they as much seem suddenly aware of a greater loss or absence. “The men stood round their prince's pavilion, exceeding bold but gloomy in mind. Then all together they without God to believe in, began to shout, to call loudly and to gnash their teeth, grinding their teeth in sorrow.” (Section XII) Unlike the anhaga, the Assyrians have no belief in God to fall back on. They are lordless in every sense of the word.

But by and large, Judith is not a poem of lament. The lament of the Assyrians only serves to make the joy and celebration of the Hebrews more poignant. In sharp contrast to Holofernes whom we leave in his new dark home “empty of joy” (Section X) (hyhtwynna leas), Judith returns victoriously to “the fair city shining.” Similarly as we are told “heroes doomed to perish shook off sleep, and sad men pressed in crowds towards the pavilion of the evil one, Holofernes,” (Section XII), in the previous section, in another crowd scene (for which Wardale tells us the Judith poet shows remarkable mastery²²) we hear that “The people rejoiced, the host hastened to the fortress gate, men and women together, old and young, in troops and throngs, in swarms and crowds; surged and ran in thousands towards the maiden of the Lord.” One crowd scene's dreariness is a foil to the other's exultation which it appears finally is the essential emotion motivating the poem. In the framework of the traditional Germanic heroic epic, Judith illuminates and celebrates a Germanic-Hebraic God who gives his people vengeance on their foes, victory in battle and proof that He has supreme might and right, or sapientia et fortitudo. But God, the ultimate gold-friend of man, not only gives wisdom and fortitude; he gives all joy and that gold of golds, “the shining light from the east” (Section XI), that same light which continuously through Anglo-Saxon poetry makes the swords and corslets and cities gleam. Ultimately God's gift is as it is presented in the Caedmon hymn, the creation, “the wind and the airs, the skies and spacious realms, and likewise the fierce streams and the joys of heaven;” (Section XII) and Judith celebrates God's bounty.

Notes

1. Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, I (New York: Abington Press, 1962), p. 161. Note that The Macmillan Bible Atlas (New York: Macmillan, 1968) specifically suggests 108-107 B.C. as probable dates of authorship.

2. Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, II, p. 1024.

3. Bernard Huppé, The Web of Words (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1970), pp. 140-141.

4. Kenneth Sisam, Studies in the History of Old English Literature (Oxford: Clarendon,, 1953), p. 67.

5. Edna Purdie, The Story of Judith in German and English Literature (Paris: Bibliothèque de la Revue de Littérature Comparée, 1927), p. 23.

6. Purdie, pp. 28-29.

7. Sisam, p. 67.

8. B. J. Timmer, ed. Judith (New York: Appleton Century Crofts, 1966), p. 8.

9. R. E. Kaske, “Sapientia et Fortitudo as the Controlling Theme of Beowulf,” Studies in Philology, LV (July 1958), rpt. in An Anthology of Beowulf Criticism, ed. Lewis E. Nicolson (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1963), pp. 269-311.

10. Timmer, p. 13.

11. Modern English quotes from Judith are from R. K. Gordon, trans. Anglo-Saxon Poetry (New York: Dutton, 1970).

12. English quotations from the Vulgate are from Holy Bible, Douay Version (New York: John Murphy Company, 1914).

13. Timmer, p. 12.

14. Timmer, p. 12.

15. Kaske, p. 308.

16. Purdie, p. 28.

17. Huppé, p. 157.

18. Timmer, p. 11.

19. E. E. Wardale, Chapters on Old English Literature (New York: Russell & Russell, 1965), p. 217.

20. Purdie, p. 28.

21. Kaske, p. 273.

22. Wardale, p. 131.