Satan Unbound: The Devil in Old English Narrative Literature 9781442679580

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SATAN UNBOUND The Devil in Old English Narrative Literature

The devil is perhaps the single most recurring character in Old English narrative literature, and yet his function in the highly symbolic narrative world of hagiography has never been systematically studied. Certain inconsistencies characteristically accompany the nebulous devil in early medieval narrative accounts - he is simultaneously bound in hell and yet roaming the earth; he is here identified as the chief of demons, and there taken as a collective term for the totality of demons,- he is at one point a medical parasite and at another a psychological principle. Satan Unbound argues that these open-ended registers in the conceptualisation of the devil allowed Anglo-Saxon writers a certain latitude for creative mythography, even within the orthodox tradition. The narrative tensions resulting from the devil's protean character opaquely reflect deep-rooted anxieties in the early medieval understanding of the territorial distribution of the moral cosmos, the contested spiritual provinces of the demonic and the divine. The ubiquitous conflict between saint and demon constitutes an ontological study of the boundaries between the holy and the unholy, rather than a psychological study of temptation and sin. PETER DENDLE is an assistant professor of English at Pennsylvania State University, Mont Alto.

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SATAN UNBOUND The Devil in Old English Narrative Literature

Peter Dendle

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

www.utppublishing.com © University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2001 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-4839-0 (cloth) ISBN 0-8020-8369-2 (paper)

(o^ Printed on acid-free paper

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data Dendle, Peter J. (Peter Jonathan), 1968Satan unbound : the Devil in Old English narrative literature Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-4839-0 (bound) - ISBN 0-8020-8369-2 (pbk.) 1. Devil in literature. 2. English literature - Old English, ca. 450-1100 - History and criticism. I. Title. PR173.D452001

820'.93823547'09021

C2001-900831-7

Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the Medieval Academy of America. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

For my father, Brian J. Dendle

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He that has Satan for a friend, an evil friend has he. The Quran 4:38

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Contents

Acknowledgments xi Abbreviations

xiii

1. Introduction 3 The Evolution of the Anglo-Saxon Devil 8 Literature and Cultural Archaeology 12 2. The Devil as Tempter 19 Demonic Instigation in Patristic Theology 20 Demonic Instigation in Narrative Literature 28 The Vercelli Book and the Devil's Arrows 33 ^Ifric 35 3. The Role of the Devil 40 The Range of Narrative Functions 42 The Life of Nicholas: The Accidental Devil 43 The Lives of Margaret: The Devil as Saint-Maker 45 The Devil as Observer 57 4. Exterior Evil and the Landscape of Old English Narrative The Devil in Hell 66 The Devil of the Air 70 The Liturgical Devil 73 The Devil of the Homilies 77 Space and Poetry 78 Mise-en Scene in Elene and Andreas 81

62

x Contents 5. The Devil and the Demons 87 Bede's Ecclesiastical History 94 Cynewulf 96 The Guthlac Cycle 103 6. Conclusion 115 Dialogue and Demonology: Defining the Opponent Open Registers of Demonic Representation 118 Appendix: The Devil as Idiom 123 Notes 125 Bibliography 165 Index 187 Illustrations follow p. 90

117

Acknowledgments

I am most indebted to David Townsend, Toni Healey, and Roberta Frank, whose recommendations and insights were invaluable since the earliest stages of this project. If memory serves, I am additionally indebted to Roberta for the book's title. For proofreading the entire manuscript and providing thoughtful suggestions, I would also like to thank Brian Dendle, David F. Johnson, Karen L. Jolly, Paul Szarmach, and Miriam Skey. For additional research assistance, advice, and encouragement, I am thankful to Lisa Fox, Richard Raiswell, Elizabeth Schoales, Brian Catlos, David McDougall, Ian McDougall, Steve Heiner, Amy Goff-Yates, Richard Kane, Johanna Ezell, Sandra Gleason, Daibhi 6 Croinin, and JoAnn Turner. The University of Toronto, the University of Kentucky, and Pennsylvania State University have been generous with me in supporting this book. Publication has been supported in part with grants from the Director of Academic Affairs' office and the Professional Development Fund (Penn State Mont Alto), and a Research Development Grant (Commonwealth College). I am also grateful to the Medieval Academy of America for contributing substantially toward publication subsidies. Lalana Powell, Danice Nutter, Lisa White, Rebecca Harris, J.P. Poling, Ruth Ann Wert, Janet Layman, and Barbara Hale have been especially helpful. For copyright permission, photo duplication, and general support, I gratefully acknowledge the help of the Oxford Bodleian Library (especially B.C. Barker-Benfield and Tricia Buckingham), The British Library (especially S. Powlette), Hirmer Verlag of Munich, Columbia University Press, Cambridge University Press, and the Council of the

xii Acknowledgments Early English Text Society. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine. Biblical quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version (Metzger and Morphy, eds.). Mark W. Claunch prepared figure 7 (The Leofric Missal, fol. 50r). Finally, Kristen Pederson, Barbara Porter, and Ani Deyirmenjian of the University of Toronto Press have been a pleasure to work with, and have been instrumental in helping this project evolve into its present form.

Abbreviations

JECH ASE ASPR

Mlfric's Catholic Homilies Anglo-Saxon England Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records (ed. G.P. Krapp and E.V.K. Dobbie) CCSL Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina CSEL Corpus Scriptorum, Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum De civ Augustine, De civitate Dei (ed. E. Hoffmann) EETS Early English Text Society JEGP Journal of English and Germanic Philology MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica MGH, SRM MGH, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum NM Neuphilologische Mitteilungen NPNF A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers PL Patrologia Latina (ed. J.-P. Migne) PMLA Publications of the Modern Language Association of America RES Review of English Studies SC Sources Chretiennes

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SATAN UNBOUND

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1. Introduction

The devil is the most frequently appearing character in Old English poetry, and possibly in all Old English literature. Anglo-Saxon authors, poets, and translators evidently felt that reified representations of evil formed an integral component of mythological narrative, especially in such hagiographical works as the prose Life of Benedict and Life of Margaret and the poetic Juliana and Guthlac A. Understanding the responses of Anglo-Saxons to the devil of the Latin source texts, as well as recognizing the innovative uses of the devil in insular literature, allows us more fully to understand these enigmatic, and often quite alien, literary forms. This book explores the significance of the devil as a recurring character in Old English narrative literature. Doesn't the devil just tempt? Not until I abandoned that presupposition did the longest and most prominent narrative episodes begin to make sense. Occasionally he does, of course, but this is not his most frequent - and certainly not his most important - role: he performs a wide range of narrative and thematic functions that, more often than not, have nothing to do with human sin. He disrupts cosmic harmony and narrative equilibrium, comments on action from the sidelines, and problematizes character viewpoints with an alternative perspective. Because his role in human psychology is either unconvincing or altogether absent from these texts, I submit that the devil is above all an ontological symbol: his primary purpose is to challenge the saints in an ongoing debate that questions and strives to legitimize the justice of God's rule by force. These narratives thus provide extended enquiries into the construe-

4 Satan Unbound tion of reality (after their own fashion), far more obviously than they provide moral guidance for the spiritual aspirant. The orthodox traditions of the early Middle Ages left certain ambiguities in the conceptualization of the devil unresolved. These crucial loci of conflicting demonological paradigms allowed poets, homilists, and authors a certain latitude in portraying demonic participation in the human realm. Perhaps these tensions were never satisfactorily resolved in the early orthodox tradition precisely because they allowed a flexible range of explorations of the interaction between the human and the demonic. If indefinite anatomical and geographic boundaries were integral components of the devil, this might help explain why there are no pictorial representations of him in Christian art before the sixth century.1 Old English composers - especially poets - in many cases exploited these opportunities for creative demonology above and beyond the precedents found in the source works. Any conceptualization of 'the demonic/ of course, continually overlaps with other representations of evil (such as the demonization of non-Christian cultures, and of non-human or partly human monsters such as whales or Grendel). A more complete study of representations of evil would have to take into account both the evils that arise spontaneously without ostensible demonic instigation (by far the greater proportion of authorially censured actions do not mention demonic instigation), and the purely natural evils of wolf and storm, to whose harsh reality the speaker of The Seafarer, for instance, vividly attests.2 Here I will elucidate only those textual processes informing the literary representation of the strictly 'demonic' - that is, those evils explicitly attributed to demons, the conscious and malicious spiritual agencies well known in Christian mythology, and more particularly, where it is possible to distinguish them sufficiently, the devil himself.3 My decision to approach demonology by primarily investigating narrative scenes rather than expository discussions (theology, commentary literature, etc.) may call for a word of defence. Paul Ricoeur has demonstrated that it is not sufficient to explicate mythic narratives by reducing them to a series of meanings expressed as propositions - there is always a surplus of significance built into the very images and their relationships that defies exhaustive analysis: 'the myth is autonomous and immediate,- it means what it says' (164). 4 Thus the dramatization of events is

Introduction 5 not mere adornment - it is not theology dummied-down for the masses - but is itself the 'meaning' of the text. Secondary analysis (by modern or medieval explicators alike) can approach this meaning more or less thoroughly, but can never pretend to have 'uncovered' or 'revealed' it exhaustively. It is often illuminating to consider contemporary articulations of demonological beliefs such as those found in the Interrogations of Sigewulf or commentaries on Genesis, Job, and the Gospels, but there is no intrinsic reason why these texts should be granted priority over narrative representations when explicating the meanings of the myths.5 On the contrary, Neil Forsyth has shown that it was in the composition of narrative as much as exposition that the more influential thinkers of the patristic age encoded their beliefs (5-6, 10-12). To articulate a particular conceptualization of the human condition and its relationship with evil, the church fathers would tell different stories about the fall of angels and the crisis in Eden (13-14). It is not from simplicity, but from sensitivity, that the most fundamental truths and anxieties are cast in a society's myths, in a fluid matrix of interrelated stories, rather than a catalogue of assertions. Thus it is imperative to focus on the role of the devil specifically in narrative contexts, especially where the findings conflict with those of contemporary explanatory analyses. The Anglo-Saxons were not necessarily keen interpreters of their own devil. To examine the contours of the demonic, it is helpful to form as clear an idea of its boundaries in narrative space as possible. I will approach the texts in terms of internal narrative logic, therefore, attempting to reconstruct the scenes and actions as far as they are explicitly described.6 Although the cues for spatial staging in Old English narrative are rarely abundant (except in such cases as the careful description of Grendel's approach to the building and then the main room of Heorot), they are nearly always functional and serve to orient the reader. Andreas experiences an abrupt journey to Mermedonia in Andreas, for instance, finding himself transported overnight to the walls of the very city. Although Andreas's spatial movement is fractured, the author deflects possible confusion by accounting for the spatial disruption and drawing attention to Andreas's accompanying feelings of surprise. Spatial cues rarely accompany the onstage appearances of the Christian devil, however. His entrances and exits are only stated (if even that), seldom described - though it is surely at such junctures

6 Satan Unbound that the audience most requires details in order to visualize the scene. New characters obviously alter the interpersonal dynamics glances are exchanged, those already present shift their stance to face the newcomers, etc. - and in the present instance the new characters are no less than the spectacular fallen angels themselves. Only a few words would be required to turn the various laconic accounts into clear and rational narratives: 'the devil then left the room and returned to hell through a nearby aperture in the earth/ or 'an invisible demon whispered so and so into his ear, though no one else there could see it.'7 Such rationalizations occasionally appear, for instance, in St Martin's discovery of a demon whispering into Avitianus's ear in the Life of Martin, or in the explicit mention of the devil rowing toward and then away from a ship in the Life of Nicholas.8 The Old Saxon Heliand even gives Satan an invisibility helmet of some sort to allow him to appear among people, a most telling detail for deciding what sorts of narrative cues and logical coherence a continental Saxon audience expected.9 But far more often the staging and orientation are left unstated; the texts offer gaps and silence rather than clear stage directions, even at the most crucial moments. These moments will become critical focal points of analytic attention, as I have indicated, because their very open-endedness denies the possibility of a single visualization of the scene, and because at such moments the demonic can be seen at its most elusive - and thus, potentially, at its most suggestive and conceptually fertile. I will make every attempt to fill in the narrative gaps where this can be done easily and intuitively, but my ultimate purpose is not to impose coherence where the author sees fit not to. In this I am sympathetic with the critical principles of Jean Starobinski in his reading of Mark's 'Gerasene demoniac' episode: 'But there is nothing to compel this analytical method to extract only harmonies and agreements from the text; if it can pay enough attention, it will also be able to point out the imbalances, the contradictions, the clash of conflicting actions, if it meets them in the text' (379). In this spirit, I investigate the logical lacunae of the narratives diagnostically. Many of them manifest genuine tensions that result from ambiguities in early medieval conceptions of the devil, and, I believe, opaquely reflect deep-rooted anxieties in the early medieval understanding of the territorial distribution of the moral cosmos, the contested spiritual provinces of the demonic and the divine. Of course, it is also possible that many such logical inconsistencies are

Introduction

7

simply errors, authorial or scribal.10 It is nonetheless significant that certain types of errors can be easily introduced and perpetuated, and that the shifts in sense they invoke apparently gave medieval scribes and redactors little cause for concern. The variants and errors are themselves revealing, because they are comfortably camouflaged in the range of narrative possibilities and were not considered problematic. I have attempted to survey every narrative appearance of the devil occurring in the sixth age of humankind (the present age) extant in Old English literature.11 I am primarily interested in the devil not as a player in the cosmic drama of salvation history, but in human time - because it is during the period that medieval intellectuals called the 'sixth age' that the tensions I wish to explore are most acute, since the devil is supposed to be bound in hell during this period. The devil's function and activities at the major turning points of cosmic history (as depicted in Genesis B or Christ and Satan] are well known. His fall from heaven and arrival in hell are rehearsed in countless passages, and the Harrowing is likewise familiar, but thereafter the records are largely silent concerning his activities until Judgment Day.12 His role as an ongoing participant in the sins of the fallen human world between the Harrowing and Second Coming, however, has been much less studied. The AngloSaxons considered him present and active: ^€lfric asserts, nu on urum dagum on ende pyssere worulde, / swicad se deofol digollice em.be us ('now, in our days, at the end of this world, the devil secretly deceives us').13 There was little consensus on where he was, though, or what he was doing. Peter Brown psychologizes the demonic when he surmises that the demons encountered at late antique saints' shrines, howling and clamouring through the bodies of the possessed, 'stood for the intangible emotional undertones of ambiguous situations and for the uncertain motives of refractory individuals' (Cult 110). Saints' lives are not works of psychology, however - even for an anchorite or cenobite accustomed to visualizing spiritual conflict in concrete terms. Our Anglo-Saxon texts, most of them hagiographic, are not attempts to articulate the personal experiences of sin and temptation for an ordinary person. The scenes in which the devil explicitly prompts the pagans to sin would ideally provide the best opportunity for an exploration of the demonic vs. the human, but authors rarely pause at these moments for more than a brief descriptive clause or two. We

8 Satan Unbound are usually granted little insight into the heathen's internal psychological processes (the pull of sensual or emotional impulses, etc.). The great villains of Old English poetry and prose - Holofernes, Heliseus, Olibrius - only have a passing and sporadic acquaintance with the redundant devil. Instead, the scenes most emphasized are those in which the devil encounters complete defiance from the saint and has no hope of success from the outset - the combats in which the weak human element is all but absent. These scenes occupy substantial portions of the narrative (in Juliana almost half the total length, for instance), and clearly reflect a significant preoccupation on the part of the authors and audience. Hagiography is more interested in the divine than the human,- the experience of the saint in these scenes is far removed from that of frail mortals.14 The demonic in Anglo-Saxon hagiographic literature encodes cosmological rather than psychological processes, the ontological status of the demonic and the divine (their respective dominions, powers, rights, and trespasses) being contested and defined in a stylized literary debate. The potential pain of the saint and of the demon are counterbalanced for a certain time through a ritual dialogue of rhetorical dueling, until the combat is resolved, usually by a direct divine intervention,- the debate over the justness of God's rule by might consistently ends with a show of force. These scenes often constitute the larger part of what, in modern terms, we might call the narrative tension, though the fact that the texts include more material than just this (e.g., miracles, translation details, and hymns) reminds us that the original audience was not exclusively interested in tension per se. The devil consistently exhibits a fluidity, an elasticity, that allows him to bleed over into overlapping regions of time and space, of heart and world, of history and allegory. The contested grounds debated by saint and demon are the paradoxes of the devil's simultaneous binding and liberty, his strength and impotence, his omnipresence and his nothingness. This matrix of uncertainties and ambiguities is how Anglo-Saxon hagiographers encoded their view of the demonic; this was their devil.

The Evolution of the Anglo-Saxon Devil The devil's story has been told many times in recent years, and needs little more than a skeletal summary here.15 The constellation

Introduction

9

of diverse traits and functions that gradually coalesced into the concept of the 'devil' in the Middle Ages had crystallized well before the period of Anglo-Saxon literature. Yet the modern and AngloSaxon conceptions of the devil are both quite alien to that found in the Bible; the productive period of the devil's formation in literature and theology was the first four centuries C.E. Prior to the period of Anglo-Saxon England, the concept of the devil had evolved roughly along the following lines: a) The idea of Satan as opponent of the Lord is essentially foreign to the Old Testament. The word satan appears frequently with the sense of 'adversary/ without implying a proper name or distinct personality.16 The Old Testament only mentions the cosmic foes of a primordial battle (Leviathan, Rahab) in vague, undeveloped references.17 In Satan's few appearances as a distinct character he is a member of heaven's court, a prosecuting attorney who levels accusations against humankind.18 These post-exilic writings reflect the influence of the Persian/Zoroastrian principle of evil, Angra Mainyu or Ahriman. It was apparently during the exile that Hebrews developed the idea of an independent cosmic antagonist whose will is opposed to that of the Lord.19 b) By the time of the New Testament, especially in inter-testamental and apocryphal works, a personal, cosmic antagonist to the creator deity is already loosely in place. The apocryphal works supply a plethora of names for this ill-defined character (Azazel, Beelzebul, Beliar or Belial, Mastema, Sammael, Satan, Semjaza, etc.), a few of which appear in the New Testament.20 Over time, writers identified the 'fallen angels' familiar from the Books of Enoch and from Revelation with the demons long believed to inhabit the earth.21 The demonology of this period relies heavily on the 'watcher angels' story of Genesis 6 (the 'sons of god' coupling with the 'daughters of humans').22 The story would later drop out of the orthodox tradition altogether, and the Enochian books were never included in the canon.23 c) Irenaeus, the first to accept the four present gospels as authentic and reject all others as spurious, elaborated the fundamental relationship of the devil to the creator as one of apostasy. Thus mainstream Christian theology rejected the gnostic belief in the coprimacy of evil and good. From this point on, the devil was recognized not only as having been created, but as having been created good: he only turned away from God on his own impetus.24 God is

10 Satan Unbound ontologically prior to the devil, but is in no way responsible for the devil's falling away.25 Everything created by God is good, so only perverse actions of independent wills - of humans as well as of fallen angels - account for the evident evil and suffering in the world.26 The 'ransom theory' of salvation championed by Irenaeus and later popularized by Gregory the Great would not be a lasting church tradition, however.27 d) Origen of Alexandria established the picture of Satan as proud rebel angel (as he appears in Genesis B and Milton) in contrast to the image of a lustful 'watcher angel' more popular in earlier sources.28 Whereas before, the temptation scene of Eden had been frequently portrayed as the site of both angelic and human transgression, with Origen the fall of angels is distinguished once and for all from the fall of humankind.29 Satan's rebellion is pushed back to a pre-mundane time, and thus becomes a prototype for the human fall in Eden.30 e) Augustine's importance in the formation of Christian demonology is sometimes exaggerated.31 By the time of Augustine, Christian doctrine regarding Satan had largely weathered its major transformations. Augustine definitively established pride (instead of envy) as the devil's chief sin, though that had become the more common tendency anyway; and he put to rest the increasingly unpopular stories of 'watcher angels' mating with human women.32 Augustine is most famous for his adoption of the Neo-Platonic privation theory, which holds that sin and evil are in reality nonbeing.33 The argument was too sophistic to hold much sway in practice, and theologians and writers alike required more concrete images than 'non-being' to represent pain or spiritual struggle.34 By Anglo-Saxon times it was common to identify Lucifer (the morning-star from Isaiah 14.12ff.) with Satan, and those with the devil, and all three with the serpent of Genesis and the dragon of Revelation. Here Anglo-Saxon demonology is sometimes said to part from established traditions in maintaining a fairly consistent distinction between Satan, the fallen angel Lucifer who is bound in hell, and the devil, a more mobile instigator of evil whose precise relationship with Satan is variously imagined.35 It is true that Anglo-Saxons sometimes respect categories that are not consistently sustained in such writers as Jerome, for instance, who does not distinguish an incarcerated devil from mobile demons: diabolus et dsemones toto vagantur in orbe ('the devil and the demons rove

Introduction

11

all over the earth').36 In many cases the issue is more problematic, however - the narratives go out of their way, I will argue, to sustain the very tension between the roaming devil and confined Satan. The devil/Lucifer/Satan figure is usually distinguished from the Antichrist, although their association is always close (the Antichrist is his son, assistant, etc.). For Gregory the Great, yElfric, and Wulfstan, the Antichrist is an incarnation of Satan.37 Death is also a closely associated figure, sometimes identified with the devil but more often kept distinct. Of the numerous mentions of the devil in Old English, a large proportion ostensibly refer to his role as tempter. These references appear most often in fixed phrases such as purh deofles larum ('through the devil's teachings'), which in many cases seem to represent a frozen idiom or rhetorical trope largely divorced of signification. That is, the same few phrases recur frequently in diverse texts, usually without clear reference to the events of the surrounding context (see the appendix for further discussion). Thus the portrayals of the devil in Anglo-Saxon literature, as opposed to the visual arts, know little of the dramatic flourishes that would characterize the later devil of medieval drama and Renaissance witch trials - the horns and spines, multiple faces, bestial proportions and features, etc.38 Anglo-Saxon authors devote little attention to his physical description. Instead, his most frequently mentioned characteristics reflect mythology (his role in the larger cosmic battle) and, whether convincingly or unconvincingly, psychology (his causal agency in the inducement of human sin). Thus he is at once a character in set mythological narratives and a moral metaphor, but in both cases the emphasis is on his function rather than his personal character or activities.39 By the end of the Middle Ages, the opposite is true: the devil's character - greatly elaborated through treatises, dramatic portrayals, and folkloric assimilation of native tales within the Christian framework - becomes personal and vivid, even in circumstances in which his function is obscured or altogether absent. The fact that the devil had accumulated such personal traits in art and literature explains, in part, how he survived the two great theological innovations that rendered his function in Christian thinking otherwise obsolete, Augustine's formulation of Original Sin and Anselm's reformulation of redemption theology. Original Sin eliminates the need for external motivation in daily human sin.

12 Satan Unbound In Anselm's redemption theology, the execution of Christ is seen as a satisfaction paid from one person of the Trinity to another, rather than from the Father to the devil. Anselm objected to the idea that the devil holds any rights over God to begin with, thus effectively eliminating Satan altogether from the dynamics of atonement.40 However, popular belief in the devil increased with the Albigensian persecutions and especially with the Protestant Reformation - even while numerous other medieval beliefs were being scornfully dismissed as superstitions - and the devil acquired a new function largely unknown to the early Middle Ages, the god of witches and master of ceremonies at their sabbat. Only the violent and hysterical excesses of the witch hunts would arouse serious questions concerning the devil's existence.

Literature and Cultural Archaeology I will adduce evidence from a wide range of genres (theology, hagiography, law, epistles) to delineate the points of tension in the Christian mythology of the devil - especially his location, externality to the human heart, and his distinction from other demons. These points of tension, left unresolved in the conflicting sources, allow the native authors the greatest narrative freedom, and thus the most room for creative mythography. I have selected for close examination those appearances of the devil which most exhibit spatial or numerical incongruities, a sample which, as it turns out, represents most of the longer and more important narrative texts in the corpus. This alone suggests that the presence of the narrative distortion is not accidental, but is somehow integral to the conceptualization and function of the devil. I must emphasize from the beginning, however, that the devil is largely a literary motif, encountered primarily in ecclesiastical productions. There are no secular laws forbidding interaction with the devil, and no instructions for how local authorities should deal with a demon, were they ever to catch one.41 Chronicles and personal letters seldom mention his presence other than in set phrases such as purh deofles larum, the literal meaning of which may well be doubted. Thus we need surely not go so far as G.G. Coulton, when he suggests that 'to the ordinary man, it may almost be said that the devil was a more insistent reality than God' (95). If the devil does loom large in many of our sources, it is because the

Introduction 13 extant writings were largely produced and preserved in ecclesiastical environments, and because they are moral rather than scientific in nature. We are fortunate, however, in having an unusually well-attested charm and medicine record from Anglo-Saxon England, which helps supplement the literature of the educated elite. The devil of the charms, in particular, provides a valuable contrast with the devil of hagiography. Since the medical texts include the devil's temptations among a variety of natural intrusive forces (poisons, worms, insect bites, etc.), they are almost entirely bereft of their usual psychological implications. The devil appears simply as a malicious natural force, which has assailed the unlucky rather than the morally guilty, and which may be repelled through a precise application of herbal and liturgical remedies. The patient suffers from misfortune - be it physical or spiritual, medical or psychological - and without further regard to the patient's role in creating or succumbing to that misfortune, the unfavourable condition can be corrected by universally valid formulas. Questions of free will, responsibility, absolution, and merit never enter the equation.42 A variety of charms throughout the Anglo-Saxon medical compilations are directed against very general ailments, sometimes even against all ailments (e.g., Lacnunga CLV: wid aelcum yfele-, 'Against every evil').43 In such contexts the devil can be mentioned as easily as lice, elf-shot, or discharging foot disease, and the charm-user possibly did not distinguish between these categories very carefully when employing remedies wid feondum ('against enemies'). Nonetheless, certain charms sufficiently specify characteristics associated with the mythological Old Enemy that it is clearly the Christian devil (and not merely a 'fiend' or 'devil' meaning 'an antagonist') which has been incorporated into the charm-lore. For instance, a charm in MS Bodley Junius 85 (p. 17) attributes certain 'strange swellings' to the devil - doubtlessly reminiscent of his infliction of Job with boils (Job 2.7) - and directs the practitioner to recite the Pater noster and Fuge diabolus several times in succession.44 Furthermore, a charm against the devil in the Leechbook appears with the title Wid Feondes Costunge ('Against the Devil's Temptation'), clearly a reference to the Christian devil.45 The charm offers the following remedy against the devil's temptation: Rudniolin46 hatte wyrt weaxej) be yrnendum waetre. Gif J)u J)a on ^e

14 Satan Unbound hafast, and under pinum heafodbolstre and ofer pines buses durum, ne masg 6*e deofol sceppan, inne ne ute. (Leechbook 3.58, Cockayne 2.342) 'Red stalk' [or 'water pepper'] is the name of an herb that grows near running water. If you keep it on you, and under your pillow and over the doors of your house, the devil cannot harm you, inside or out.

Nothing could be more antithetical to Christian exegetical norms than combating the devil's temptations with common herbs, sprinkled about the premises like a pesticide. Here there are no exhortations to clean living or to confession, no appeal to the sacraments, the will, or to the grace of God; a physical prop is considered effective against all injuries from the devil, 'inside or out.' Some remedies against devil-sickness do seem to address the religious dimension of the illness, although the substitution of ecclesiastical props for secular ones does not by itself alter the material nature of the remedy. An herbal remedy appears shortly after the one just cited, also claiming efficacy against feondes costunge ('temptation by the enemy'), through a variety of liturgical and folkloric procedures.47 Here, however, the herbs are placed under an altar, lichen must be scraped from a cross, and the recipe specifies use of prayer throughout. Thus the assimilation of physical and spiritual, of botanical and psychological, is complete: where theology struggles to blur the distinction between internal passions and demonic intervention, the charms reify all injurious impulses and situate them external to the subject. Saints' lives sometimes imply, for the purpose of glorifying a particular healing miracle, that only the saints can restore health to possessed persons,48 but the existence of devil-sickness recipes in general medical compilations argues against this.49 If the herbal remedies did have a calming effect, the demon was to some extent banished already. Thus, we may speculate, if indwelling spirits were actually perceived as genuine social phenomena, and do not merely appear in our texts as fossilized literary motifs, then there is reason to think they may not have been as frightening or as uncontrollable as hagiographers might have us believe. No more so, anyway, than discharging foot disease. Although the devil does appear sporadically as a pathological agent, from what is told of him in the charms one cannot form even a skeletal conception of the Old Enemy's history or personality. He

Introduction

15

is veiled, silent, distant, and when he is briefly glimpsed in the ravings of a convulsive or in the internal pangs of temptation, he can be readily dispelled again through an application of soothing herbs and orderly, ritualized prayer. This popular conceptualization of the devil from the medical recipes forms a notable contrast to the presentation of spiritual conflict in the more literary sources, the saints' lives.50 Though the saints' lives were presumably produced in comforting monastic settings, they generally portray spiritual conflict as violently as possible, and paint the devil with as much presence as conventions allow. While many hypothesize that a prominent and vivid devil is the cultural symptom of desperate or turbulent periods in history, perhaps in some cases a prominent devil is rather the product of leisure. A patently literary portrayal of the devil appears in the poetic Solomon and Saturn I, which is as curious a devotional exercise as the Old English corpus offers.51 A sort of lorica, the poem exhibits a charm-like, apotropaic quality - like the Pater noster itself - and was perhaps envisioned as an effective defence against demons or impure impulses. Solomon and Saturn I sensationalizes spiritual aggression and paints the demonic in especially vivid imagery. Solomon explains that the Lord's Prayer 'extinguishes the devil's fire' (adwxsced deofles fyr, 42).52 The devil is apparently conquered through a peculiar torment, being scalded by burning drops of blood - a graphically literalized understanding of the efficacy of 'fervent' prayer.53 Solomon insists that the words of God break bonds, plunder hell, and dissipate fire. Even hunger is not 'alleviated' but rather 'plundered' or 'destroyed' (ahieded, 73): thus there is a tendency to cast even themes of healing and soothing in terms of ritual aggression.54 Solomon explains that each of the letters spelling out the words of the Lord's Prayer has individual power against the devil. He thus begins the extraordinary sequence in which the individual letters of the Pater noster each combat the devil in a specific way. In the tradition of Prudentius, the allegorical battle lingers on the violence and gore with relish. 'F and 'M' shower the devil with arrows, 'T' stabs him through the tongue, 'R' pulls his hair, and 'S' flips him by the feet against a stone: Donne S cymed, engla geraeswa, wuldores stsef, wradne gegriped

16 Satan Unbound feond be dam fotum, laeted forewcard hleor on strangne stan, and stregdad to5as geond helle heap. (11. 111-15) Then S comes, the chief of angels, a letter of splendour, (and| seizes the hostile fiend by the feet, drops his cheek forward on the hard stone, and strews his teeth around the crowd of hell.

What is ostensibly a meditation on the protective spiritual powers of a Christian prayer is actually the narration of a massacre. It is difficult to correlate these elaborate battles with genuine human emotions, though conceivably some individuals may have found metaphors of conquering empowering. Shortly afterwards, following defeat at the hands of 'R/ the devil wishes he were back in hell (helle wisced, 105), which invites the reader or listener to wonder where exactly this contest is taking place. The poem addresses itself increasingly to that very issue: it proceeds to detail the activities of demons in the natural landscape.55 As the Pater noster battle draws to a close, and the activities of demons become increasingly the focus of Solomon's monologue, the grammatical indicators of the demons' numbers become increasingly erratic. The more the Lord's Prayer resolves the demonic into its manifold embodiments and scatters them, the more the grammatical accidence betrays this fragmentation by introducing a series of abrupt shifts between the singular and plural verb forms that Menner calls 'curious' (114).56 Solomon is particularly concerned with the demonic ability to assume a variety of forms - its outward manifestations: Maeg simle se Codes cwide gumena gehwylcum ealra feonda gehwane fleondne gebrengan durh mannes mu6, manfulra heap sweartne geswencan, nacfre hie daes syllice bleoum bregdad, setter bancofan feflerhoman onfod. Hwilum flotan gripad; hwilum hie gewendad in wyrmes lie str[o]ngcs and sticoles, stinged nieten, feldgongende feoh gestrudefl. (11. 146-54) For everyone the word of God, through a person's mouth, can always

Introduction

17

put to flight each and every enemy, torment the black throng of wicked ones, however wondrously they change their forms (or colours), assume plumage on their body. Sometimes they seize a sailor; sometimes they change into the body of a strong and biting serpent, (which) stings a beast, ravages the field-roaming cattle.

Solomon begins speaking of the powers of the deofol and se feond (11. 25, 69), but by the end of his oration, the demonic has splintered into a host of minor demons instead. The poem's concentration on the devil's diversity of activities and shape-shifting abilities continues into the Prose Solomon and Saturn, which follows the poem without break in the manuscript. In a provocative exchange, the Prose Dialogue presents a series of fifteen paired 'likenesses' or forms that the devil and the Pater noster assume in an abstract showdown of alternating transformations. The devil first appears in the form of a child, which the Pater noster counters by assuming the likeness of the Holy Ghost. Then the devil transforms into a dragon, and the Pater noster into an arrow, etc. The devil appears in a wide array of animals, objects, and abstract concepts, including darkness, a nightmare, an evil woman, a sword, a bramble, destruction, a poisonous bird, a wolf, crime, an evil thought, and death. The entire continuum of Solomon and Saturn texts in CCCC 422 remains fascinated with the manifold appearances and facets of the demonic. Solomon and Saturn I reifies abstract agents of cure, just as the charms reify abstract agents of temptation and illness. Both exploit repetition, increment, and sequential balance to create a litanic effect. The presupposed attitudes toward the devil, however, are different. Of these two poles of demonic presentation - the undramatic, sober, and cautious in the charms, and the lavish and literate in Solomon and Saturn - the latter is most characteristic of the bulk of extant Old English narrative literature, which is predominantly hagiographic and devotional. In proceeding to the literature of the monasteries and chapter houses, then, we are in all likelihood departing from the everyday conceptions of the demonic of the average uneducated Anglo-Saxon, only the slightest and most tantalizing glimpse of which can be discerned in the opaque charm record. The literature to which we now turn our attention is a mannered literature, like Solomon and Saturn I, rather than a body of sociological artifacts. But through their continuous attention to

18 Satan Unbound spiritual conflict, monasteries can sometimes foster as well as bridle ritual aggression,57 and if the literature seems artistically deliberate and affected, this does not mean that it did not serve simultaneously as a venue for the expression of sincere preoccupations and anxieties.

2. The Devil as Tempter

Ceci n'est pas une pipe. Rene Magritte

Everyone knows that the devil tempts us to sin - for some, in fact, this is his raison d'etre. He tries to distract us from God and from all things spiritual, turning our attention rather to ourselves - to our bodies and to all the transient concerns of this world. By doing so, of course, he unwittingly provides us with a means of testing our faith (1 Corinthians 10.13), and as a lawyer inveighing accusations against humankind (in Job and Zechariah), he offers us the opportunity to prove ourselves worthy of salvation. Like the Crucifixion of Christ, the existence of the devil is, paradoxically, at once a cause for regret and a desirable - even necessary - ingredient in the unfolding of human history. Medieval thinkers exhibited a wide range of attitudes toward the extent of the devil's involvement in human sin. All are agreed, of course, that the devil is the originator of all sins in being their first cause, historically - that is, he opened the possibility of sin by leading humans astray in Eden. But, now that he lies shackled in hell, to what extent is he implicated in the ongoing sins of fallen humankind? Orthodox theology has always required a balance between external stimuli and internal free will - the temptations of the world and the demons on the one hand, and on the other, the complicity of the will implied in succumbing to those temptations.1 The church has always found it desirable to maintain the existence of the devil as an instigator of sin, while insisting that sin - true sin,

20 Satan Unbound the kind for which we will one day be judged - comes exclusively from within. Thus the devil is periodically pulled into the limelight, when his dramatic dynamism and folkloric versatility are required to emphasize a protagonist's steadfastness; at other times he is thrust to the focal periphery, when homilists and theologians want to stress personal responsibility. Caught in such a centripetal vacillation, it is natural that his various portrayals should exhibit ambiguity, if not outright inconsistency. Thus, what the devil is supposed to be doing, according to theology and expository literature, is not what we actually see him doing in Old English narrative literature. The literary context often determines whether it is personal will or external temptation that receives the greatest emphasis. Narrative literature generally reifies sin agents as external characters, while homiletic literature internalizes demons and the devil as human passions and sinful impulses. The two genres thus exert pulls in contrary directions, and as a result, the hortatory value of narrative literature is - by its very nature - necessarily compromised. The narrative portions of saints' lives are singularly unconcerned with the causes of sin,- exhortations to individual responsibility appear only in homiletic prologues, asides, and epilogues. Hagiographic narrative is far more interested in displaying the contours of the demonic through a highly codified series of iconographic conventions, than in confronting the struggle between sin and virtue in the human soul. The inextricable blend of exposition and narrative characteristic of both homilies and saints' lives accounts for the richly confused and fascinating treatment of the devil in these genres.

Demonic Instigation in Patristic Theology Even when medieval thinkers were agreed more or less on the devil's nature and history (roughly, by the beginning of the fifth century), they continued to dispute his role as a tempting agent in human psychology. Modern commentators such as de Tonquedec see the devil metaphorically as the principle of evil itself: 'on reading certain texts of the New Testament or of the Desert Fathers, one gets the impression of a general superintendence exercised by the prince of this world over all the evil which is committed in it' (43-4). Not only did the devil set the ball rolling in Eden, then, but

The Devil as Tempter 21 he continues to run alongside it, guiding its downhill course very carefully. Thus Gregory the Great states that the devil scrutinizes our thoughts, words, and deeds at all times (semper}.2 Daniel Defoe provides one of the bolder articulations of this position in his Political History of the Devil (1726): From this time forward you are to allow the Devil a mystical empire in this world; not an action of moment done without him, not a treason but he has a hand in it, not a tyrant but he prompts him, not a government but he has a in it; not a fool but he tickles him, not a knave but he guides him,- he has a finger in every fraud, a key to every cabinet. (2.2)

Certain New Testament passages readily lend themselves to such an interpretation,3 but the strongest scriptural authority is from Ecclesiasticus (or the Book of Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach) 21.27, or 21.30 in the Vulgate: dum maledicit impius diabolum, maledicit ipse animam suam ('when the impious curses the devil, he curses his own soul'). Thus medieval moralists might be tempted to find the influence of Satan wherever evil and sin rear their heads, just as it is tempting to see the mysterious grace of God in felicitous coincidences and touching acts of human kindness. Technically, however, such impulses are exercised upon the devil only at the risk of theological heterodoxy. If the influence of an evil cosmic antagonist is broadened to encompass too much of the fallen natural or moral world, it comes to resemble the evil demiurge of gnosticism so distasteful to Augustine and to the church after him. That is, the tendency to portray Satan as omnipresent is dangerously suggestive of various species of dualistic heresy, and by turning the devil into the personification of evil, writers would be inadvertently granting him an undue measure of power and dignity.4 In practice, medieval authors freely admitted the influence of the devil in both minor peccadilloes and in the travesties of kings and popes, and the theological undertones of the early church heresy were not a problem by Anglo-Saxon times. Thus Blickling Homily 3 freely asserts that, cup is pxt se awyrgda gast is heafod ealra unrihtwisra dxda ('it is known that the wicked spirit is the head of all our unrighteous deeds'), but Wulfstan, characteristically, says it most succinctly: Mlc yfel cymd of deofle ('every evil comes from the devil').5

22 Satan Unbound Overall, however, a consistently developed, fully allegorical reduction of the devil is more characteristic of Oriental-Hellenistic philosophy and religion (such as gnosticism), and of Reformation theology, than it is of the writings of the Middle Ages. There are sporadic passages that support a full allegorization of the devil, as when Augustine locates the devil in no place other than the hearts of human sinners: Et misit ilium [diabolum], inquit, in abyssum, quo nomine significata est multitudo innumerabilis inpiorum, quorum in malignitate aduersus ecclesiam Dei multum profunda sunt corda. (De civ 20.7; Hoffmann 2.442,11. 3-6) [John] says, 'And he threw [the devil] into the abyss/ by which word he means the innumerable multitude of the impious, in whose hearts are great depths of malice against the church of God.

or when Ambrose situates the demonic within the self: non igitur ab extraneis est nobis quam a nobis ipsis maius periculum. intus est aduersarius, intus auctor erroris, intus inquam clausus in nobismet ipsis. (Exameron 1.8.31; Schenkl 31,11. 11-13)6 The greater peril, therefore, is not from without us, but from us ourselves. Within is the enemy; within is the author of error - within, I say, closed up in our very selves.

The establishment of Original Sin as church doctrine threatened to render the need for Satan (or any external sin-principle) theologically obsolete, since it provided a ready-made explanation for the tendency to sin.7 This trend de-emphasized Satan as an independent personality, presenting him instead as simply an elegant shorthand for the sum of human passions and weaknesses. An allegorical reduction of Satan to a principle is implicit any time he is implicated in a sin without more evidence than the very existence of that sin. Such cases, in the Middle Ages, are legion. There is scriptural authority for the devil's instigation of Judas, and there is patristic authority for the devil's instigation of the Jews as they turned against Christ; but on what grounds, other than the ubiquity of Satan in all acts of malice, does an Anglo-Saxon author

The Devil as Tempter 23 attribute to Satan the blame for more recent and local events? For instance, Eddius Stephanus (Vita Wilfridi 14) tells us that, Quodam igitur tempore, adhuc sancto Wilfritho episcopo trans mare non veniente, Oswi rex, male suadente invidia, hostis antiqui instinctu alium praearripere inordinate sedem suam edoctus consensit ab his ... (Colgrave, Life 30,11. 1-4) After a certain time, when Saint Wilfrid the bishop did not arrive from across the sea, King Oswiu, moved by envy and at the instigation of the devil, consented to allow another to forestall him in his see in an irregular manner ... (Colgrave, Life 31)

Is this a purely literary trope, understood by author and intended audience alike to constitute dramatic embellishment rather than informative, empirical assertion? Or is the devil indeed understood to underlie all such acts, and only diverse contexts make it more or less relevant to mention the fact? The latter position, for instance, would account for Odo of Cluny's claim that the devil can work either directly or through his minions (tarn per se quam per satellites suos) - whether or not the immediate cause, Odo implies he is still the ultimate cause.8 Shortly afterwards, when blaming Satan for a design error in the construction of a church, Odo admits simply, 'I don't know through what means' (nescio qua arte}.9 For him, whatever the apparent causes, one way or another the devil is certainly at fault. Or, perhaps, does an author occasionally feel confident in asserting diabolical influence merely from the superlatively heinous scope or nature of an evil act, without implying such influence in all evil acts? This seems to be the case when Gregory of Tours censures Amalsuntha, a niece of King Clovis, for poisoning her own mother: 'there is no doubt that such an evil deed was the work of the devil' (non enim dubium est, tale maleficium esse de parte diabuli}.10 Thus, no one answer to these questions will satisfy the range of early medieval attitudes toward the devil; the lack of a specific rationale behind the employment of the 'devil' lends the metaphor a fluidity, an organic richness that helps account for its endurance. The actual treatments of Satan in the literary as well as theological sources usually place him somewhere between the two extremes of ubiquitous involvement in present sins and none at all.

24 Satan Unbound Christian art, literature, and theology continued to sustain the ambiguity of the scriptural passages and the ambivalence of patristic ones. On the one hand, Satan is personal, subject to spatio-temporal laws and thus confined to a single place at a given time; on the other, he is a spiritual entity of such inconceivable scope and power that he may be said to inhere in all sinners, and in all sins, throughout the world. The general tendency (as exemplified by Gregory of Tours's quotation in the preceding paragraph) presumed a middle ground, in which Satan is envisioned as the cause of some evils in the present world, but not all. The internal impulses of the fallen human soul, combined with the external temptations of the fallen natural world, provide sufficient occasion for the possibility of sin without requiring categorically the assistance of demonic intervention.11 Of the numerous psychologies of temptation appearing in the Bible, none purports to be systematic or complete. The temptations of Saul, David, Job, Christ, and Judas seem to be unique, ad hoc dramas catered to their particular situations, and hardly imply universality.12 James 1.12-15, on the other hand, sounds more general: Blessed is anyone who endures temptation. Such a one has stood the test and will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. No one, when tempted, should say, 'I am being tempted by God'; for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one. But one is tempted by one's own desire, being lured and enticed by it; then, when that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and that sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death.

This gestational model of sin, interestingly, makes no mention of the devil. Many medieval psychologies would supply this omission, borrowing the dramatic instigator from Job and Christ's temptations to add an external dimension to James's completely internal model. But many more would not. Theological models of demonic temptation are important backdrops against which to understand narrative appearances of the devil or demons, but they are inadequate by themselves. Painters, poets, and dramatists must commit themselves to more concrete details of how exactly the devil interacts with sinners. Since the earliest times, Christian writers implied what Aquinas would later systematize, that the devil (as well as his demons) can manipulate

The Devil as Tempter 25 our surroundings - including the images presented to our eyes or the balances of fluids in our bodies - to lead us into sin. Augustine vacillated during his career over the inviolability of the human soul.13 On the one hand, the mind (mens) is that which inclines toward one impulse or another - not unlike Empedocles' elements on the basis of its constituent elements (De Trinitate 9.7). Pure love draws the soul toward God, while more proximate objectives lead it askew.14 On many occasions, the demons have complete control over the senses. They can appear to read our minds, by observing the minute expressions and gestures - too imperceptible even for us to notice - that invariably accompany a state of mind; they influence our thoughts and desires, by presenting illusions to our eyes and stirring up bodily fluids. This is the physicalist approach to demonic temptation that permeates Augustine's letter to Nebridius in 389 C.E., for instance, and De divinatione dzemonum.15 The demons influence us only indirectly, through the senses and humours, and thus do not enjoy any privileged access to the soul. Augustine later admitted he was uncertain exactly how demons influence us, whether physically or spiritually.16 A number of passages imply a more intimate association between internal soul and external agency. For instance, the angelic voices in Augustine's Enchiridion seem to be within the soul, implying one spiritual substance can speak with another: the angels speak non ad aurem forinsecus, sed intus in animo hominis, etiam ipsi ibidem constituti ('not to the ear externally, but internally to the human soul where, besides, they themselves are stationed').17 Augustine can easily speak of demonic instigation commanding privileged access to the human soul as well. He notes, for instance, on the basis of the Last Supper narrative (John 13.2: 'The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him'), that the devil is able to inject thoughts directly into the human heart.18 Acts 5.3 also proves problematic for theologians wishing to stake off the human heart as inviolable: '"Ananias," Peter asked, "why has Satan filled your heart?"' When commenting on this passage, Bede objects that the devil cannot in fact have direct access to the soul: Implet enim Satanas mentem alicujus, et principale cordis, non quidem ingrediens in eum et in sensum ejus, atque (ut ita dicam) aditum cordis introiens, siquidem haec potestas solius divinitatis est, sed

26 Satan Unbound quasi callidus quidam et nequam ac fallax fraudulentusque deceptor, in eos animam humanam malitiae affectus trahens per cogitations et incentiva vitiorum, quibus ipse plenus est. Implevit ergo Satanas cor Ananiae, non ipse intrando, sed sua malitiae virus inserendo. (Super Acta Apostolorum Expositio 5)19 Thus Satan fills the mind of a person's heart essentially not by entering into him and into his senses - or (as I believe) by entering the opening of his heart, since only God has this power - but, like a shrewd, vile, lying, and fraudulent deceiver, by drawing the human soul toward malicious ends through thoughts and incentives to vices, with which he is filled. Thus Satan filled Ananias's heart, not by entering himself, but by sowing the slime of his malice.

The force of the final image - that Satan 'sows' (insero, 'to sow, plant, implant, or graft') - is that he himself, though the instigator, remains external. Later, Bonaventura and Aquinas would both accept Bede's position.20 Ultimately, no Christian thinker was willing to relinquish the pristine autonomy of the 'heart/ an intuition which led to inconsistent accounts of the extent to which demons have access to our inner selves. Few pushed the point as rigorously as Cassian, however. John Cassian redacted much of the wisdom of the desert fathers in his compendious Conferences, which was staple reading in monasteries throughout the Middle Ages.21 Books 7 and 8, the conferences with Abbot Serenus of Scetis, constitute a dialogue on the assaults of demons and the plight of the besieged human soul.22 The demons, according to Cassian, are not all the same, but each supervises a certain province of vice or is skilful only in implanting a certain suggestion - some demons implant lust, others blasphemy, still others anger or gloominess, etc. (7.17). The demons known as bacucei, for instance, are principally responsible for pride (7.32). It is not the case, however, that demons are merely allegorized human vices: they have natures and habits independent of their association with any particular human victim. The species identified as planoi take up their residence in areas well frequented by humankind (such as roads), and try to deceive whoever happens along (7.32). There they amuse themselves with a diversity of activities: they possess people, physically assault them, or simply mock them. Against this pageant of spiritual assailants, the holy person's best defence is dis-

The Devil as Tempter

27

cernment (discretio) - the ability to distinguish good spirits from evil, a skill which is acquired by distinguishing between good and evil promptings from within.23 To know one's own heart - to bring everything to the surface, scrutinize it, classify it, and evaluate it is the flip side, the internal dimension, of distinguishing demons from angels.24 While he devotes many hundreds of pages to discussing the difficulty of attaining 'purity of heart' (puritas cordis) in this life, Cassian still believes this is essentially possible (though the earthly apprehension of God is not nearly so direct as it will be after death); in this he is more optimistic than Augustine, for whom the human will has become irredeemably corrupt and helpless in the present world.25 Gregory the Great's account of sin, as expounded in the Moralia and several other works, was perhaps the most prominent theological model of temptation for the Anglo-Saxons. According to Gregory, the devil is responsible only for the first of four stages in the etiology of sin (Moralia 4.27).26 Suggestio (the initial impulse) comes from the devil; delectatio (pleasure) arises from the flesh; consensus (consent) we provide ourselves, from the spirit; and defensionis audacia - a hardening of the heart, through which we rationalize the action to ourselves - sets in at last, as a result of the intrinsic human pride we inherited from Adam. Once we begin to slide into sin, habits form and it becomes increasingly easier to succumb to further temptation. Integral to Gregory's view of temptation is that once the process has been initiated, it is progressively difficult to amend or even recognize with each new stage: thus the principal line of defence becomes that of watchfulness - being everalert against even the first pangs or promptings that may come from the devil. As with Cassian and the desert fathers, the fight against the devil requires vigilance and the ability to discern good spirits (or inclinations) from evil.27 William McCready cautions, however, that Gregory is not consistent in his own employment of the model. Sometimes he refers to a threefold model (Bede's Historia 1.27, Cura pastoralis 29), and sometimes he implies that the devil is a factor throughout the entire process of sin, not just the initial temptation (Moralia 4.27).28 Elsewhere (11.64), he speaks of sin as a purely spontaneous, internal pathogen, without reference to external temptation: Cui quia immunda tentatio non aliunde sed a semetipso nascitur,

28 Satan Unbound more tineae carnem tentatio, quasi uestem de qua exit, consumit. In semetipso quippe habet homo unde tentetur. (Bocognano 3.1, 132) Since foul temptation sprouts from nothing other than the individual's own self, it consumes the flesh like a moth [consuming] the garment from which it emerges. Indeed, it is from within - from the self - that the individual is tempted.

We should not assume, therefore, that these models necessarily provide privileged insights into the early medieval Christian mindset, or that they were viewed as standard conceptual frameworks. A creative writer today does not decide whether a whale is a fish or a mammal depending on the literary context; we universally accept the taxonomy provided by professional biologists (based on highly specialized comparisons of developmental anatomy). Thus we consider that someone is simply uninformed when, say, they call a coral a plant. It is incorrect to read such deference back into the early Middle Ages, however, as though theologians were the experts in a field, and poets simply popularized their ideas. Such a compartmentalized view of human knowledge is uniquely modern. Patristic accounts of demonic instigation are themselves literary exercises, no less than poetry or hymnography, and all provide equally important insights into the basic intuitions underlying them. Each genre has an implicit theology of its own - a world view born of conventions tailored to the contours of the medium - and each is thus capable of articulating a unique perspective on the demonic. It is thus important to ask, in spite of the theological models available, how the other arts, such as narrative literature, visualized demonic temptation.

Demonic Instigation in Narrative Literature Of course, snippets of theology sometimes appear embedded in narrative literature, for instance in a character's speech or as an authorial aside. Early Germanic poetry provides some unusually detailed models of demonic temptation in such quasi-expository contexts. The Old Saxon Heliand, for instance, paints a vivid picture of the internal processes at work when Judas turns against Christ. At the Last Supper, just after Christ prophesies that one of the twelve will desert him, the devil enters into Judas at the very moment he partakes of the bread:

The Devil as Tempter 29 So tho the treulogo that mos antfeng endi mid is mudu anbet, so afgaf ina tho thiu godes craft, gramon in geuuitun an thene lichamon, leda uuihti, uuard imu Satanas sero bitengi, hardo umbi is herte, sidur ine thiu helpe godes farlet an thesumu liohte. (ch. 55, Behaghel 160,11. 4620-6) As soon as the faithless one received the food and took it into his mouth, God's power abandoned him. Hostile things entered his body, evil beings; Satan became grievously bound around his heart, since God's help relinquished him in this life.

This visceral portrayal represents a substantial embellishment on John 13.27: 'After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him.'29 In the Old Saxon version the demonic infiltration of the soul is primordially and biologically raw - the devil is virtually a heartworm. Satan is apposed with a plurality of ill-defined creatures (gramon, leda uuihti; 'malignant ones/ 'evil things'), reminiscent of the hosts of unnamed bodily assailants familiar from early Germanic charms.30 The abandonment of God's help, the ingestion of the bread (which has been accepted in bad faith), and the appearance of the parasitic demons are all accomplished in one fluid narrative stroke. This powerful scene springs more from popular medicine and the folklore of elf-shot than from patristic accounts of demonic instigation. It makes for livelier poetry, certainly, than Gregory's fourfold model would. The Old English Juliana offers a similar expository description of demonic temptation embedded within poetic narrative that is far more complete than that in the Heliand.3'1 Juliana recognizes the devil despite his appearance as an angel, reflecting the virtue of discernment (discretio) so important to patristic commentators. Cynewulf's account, however, places far more emphasis on firmness or steadfastness than on discernment.32 When Juliana forces the demon to confess his identity and his criminal history, he launches into a lengthy description of his methods: 'Pus ic soSfasstum purh mislic bleo mod oncyrre. Paer ic hine finde fero" stapelian

30 Satan Unbound to godes willan, ic beo gearo sona paet ic him monigfealde modes gaslsan ongean bere grimra geponca, dyrnra gedwilda, purh gedwolena rim. Ic him geswete synna lustas, maene modlufan, paet he minum hrape, leahtrum gelenge, larum hyred. Ic hine pass swipe synnum onaele paet he byrnende from gebede swiced, stepeft stronglice, stapolfaest ne maeg fore leahtra lufan lenge gewunian in gebedstowe/ (11. 362-76) 'Thus I change the mind of the faithful through my manifold appearance. Wherever I find someone standing firm by God's will in his heart, I am immediately ready to begin to carry [to him] grim thoughts, deceitful errors, through a large number of delusions. I sweeten in him the love of sins, wicked pleasure, until he quickly heeds my promptings, burdened by crimes. I ignite such sins in him that he abandons prayer as though on fire - the steadfast leaves boldly,he cannot remain long in the place of prayer because of the desire for sins.'

As in the patristic accounts, this devil insists that sin still requires the consent of the sinner: he larum wile / purh modes myne minum hyran, I synne fremman ('[if] he wishes to obey my will in his heart of hearts, to commit sin ...' 11. 378-80). The demon proceeds to explain that when he encounters strong resistance from someone who levels against him the spiritual armour of God, he must retreat and seek out a weaker or less vigilant (saenran, 1. 395) soul. He then describes the assault against this weaker individual in detail, portraying the scene as a siege: 'Peah he godes hwaet onginne gaestlice, ic beo gearo sona, paet ic ingehygd eal geondwlilte, hu gefaestnad sy ferQ innanweard, widsteall geworht. Ic paes wealles geat ontyne purh teonan; bid se torr pyrel,

The Devil as Tempter 31 ingong geopenad, ponne ic aerest him purh eargfare in onsende in breostsefan bitre geponcas purh mislice modes willan, paet him sylfum selle pynced leahtras to fremman ofer lof godes, lices lustas. Ic beo lareow georn paet he monpeawum minum lifge acyrred cudlice from Cristes as, mod gemyrred me to gewealde in synna sead.' (11. 397-413) 'Though he starts out in some spiritual good, I am immediately ready, and I see right into his inner mind, how his inward spirit is fortified, how his opposition is built. I breach the wall's gate through iniquity. The tower is breached - the entrance opened - when I first send bitter thoughts into his heart, as a flight of arrows, as various desires of the heart, such that it appears to him better to indulge in sins, bodily pleasures, in spite of God's praise. I am a teacher eager for him - having openly abandoned the law of Christ - to live by my customs, in my power in the pit of sins, his mind led astray.'

This improvised sermon is provocative and rich in psychological subtlety, but admittedly it has nothing to do with the actual instances of demonic temptation which appear in Old English poetry, or in hagiography in general. In fact, it is not even descriptive of the devil's interaction with characters elsewhere in Juliana. Juliana's father Africanus is hard-hearted and 'savage' (ferdgrim, 1. 141), Maximian is dishonorable (arleas, 1. 4), and Eleusius is a cruel tyrant and thoroughly vicious (leahtra ful, 1. 612), but nowhere is the devil's immediate influence implicated in the downfall of these sinners. They are heathen, to be sure (11. 15, 52, et al.) but if their subjection to idolatry is initially due to the devil's promptings in any way, we are not witness to the moment in which they succumbed to him. That moment is not what drives hagiographic narrative. We are only privy to one brief moment of interaction between the demon and a sinner in Juliana, when the devil makes a second appearance shortly before Juliana is to be executed. He tells Heliseus,

32 Satan Unbound 'Gyldad nu mid gyrne, paet heo goda ussa meaht forhogde, ond mec swipast geminsade, paet ic to meldan weard. Lastao" hy lapra leana hleotan purh waepnes spor, wrecad ealdne nid ...' (11. 619-23) Tay her back now with evil, that she despised the might of our gods, and grievously degraded me, such that I became a messenger. Let her obtain a more loathsome retribution through the wound of a weapon,avenge the old enmity ...'

This is hardly the profound interaction between principle of evil and human heart that theologians associate with demonic temptation. Heliseus conducts his evil affairs with perfect independence and confidence,- the demon's brief appearance here is more an interruption of Juliana's tortures than a cause of them. There is one mention of the relationship between the demon and Heliseus, however, which is not in Cynewulf's source. Following Juliana's victory over the demon in prison, but before the demon's second appearance, the prefect devises a cauldron of boiling lead as further torment for Juliana. Cynewulf attributes this impulse directly to the instigation of the devil: Nass se feond to last, se hine gelaerde past he laemen fast biwyrcan het wundorcraefte, wiges womum, ond wudubeamum, holte bihlasnan. (11. 573-7) The fiend was not too slow, [when] he taught him [Heliseus] to have an earthen vessel wrought with wondrous skill and with the noises of battle, and to have trees and wood set around it.

The exact nature of this demonic instigation - how we are to visualize it - is not described, however; the vague se hine gelserde remains elliptic. The mechanisms of temptation are obscure, even despite Belial's lengthy descriptions. This is reflective of the vast majority of instances in which demonic instigation is mentioned in the Middle Ages: it is assumed, stated flatly, and passed over, rather than described, analysed, or evaluated.

The Devil as Tempter

33

The Vercelli Book and the Devil's Arrows Aside from the poetic temptation scenes in the Heliand and Juliana, a prose narrative portrayal of psychological temptation consistently runs through several homilies of the Vercelli Book. Along with the Blickling homilies, the Vercelli homilies are sufficiently substantial to give a general conception of visualizations of the demonic in tenth-century England. Furthermore, unlike the translations of Alfred's earlier cultural campaign, these texts are revealing in their casual and sometimes unsophisticated presentation of material. Reflecting a haphazard collection of sources, in contrast to the conscientiously selected and edited texts of Alfred's campaign or to the crafted homilies of the later monastic reform, they permit occasional insights into the popular Christianity of the period.33 Since certain of the Vercelli homilies build from and expand on patristic sources, rather than parroting and truncating them, the Vercelli Book offers us an unparalleled glimpse into an Anglo-Saxon attempt to synthesize the ill-defined components of the Latin tradition. By citing 1 Peter 5.8 (the devil as 'roaring lion' prowling around), Homily 14 reminds the hearer that the source of the evil influences, the devil, is himself out and about, actively looking for human souls. But this scriptural catchphrase is scarcely descriptive of how the Vercelli homilies as a whole portray the machinations of the devil. Perhaps more explicitly than any other text or group of texts in the vernacular tradition (with the possible exception of Juliana], several of these homilies rationalize the means by which the devil, though bound in hell, can nonetheless instigate temptation in the world. The idea of the devil's invisible 'arrows,' a common Christian trope as well as an analogue of the 'elf-shot' of Germanic folklore,34 provides the necessary rationalization, so long as one accepts that these invisible arrows can travel from hell to a sinner's heart without obstacle or delay (not unlike neutrinos, if an analogy from contemporary physics can help make the mechanics seem more plausible). In Homily 9 a hypothetical individual is mentioned hwses heorte sie mid diofles straele pmhwrecen ('whose heart is pierced with the devil's arrow'), for instance, and in Homily 23, there is a detailed description of the devil shooting Guthlac with an arrow of despair.35 In Homily 3 there is even a reversal of the topos, as fasting is said to be an arrow fired against the devil:

34 Satan Unbound Witodlice pa fsestenu sint strange gescotu angean pxs diofles costungum ('truly, fasts are powerful missiles against the devil's temptations').36 Homily 4, however, boldly expands the idea of the devil's arrows, offering an imaginative visualization of the processes at work in psychological temptation. The account is straightforward, almost disarming in its simplicity: forme haefS paet dioful geworht bogan 7 straela. Se boga bid geworht of ofermettum, 7 pa straela bioQ swa manigra cynna swa swa marines synna biod. Sumu strasl byd geworht of ni3e 7 of aefste, sumu of gebelge 7 of hatheortnesse, sumu of stale 7 of wraennesse, sumu of druncennesse 7 of dyrnum geligre, sumu of aswbryce 7 of gedweollcraeftum, sumu of lyblace 7 of gytsunge, sumu of gifernesse 7 of yrre, sumu of reaflace 7 of scincraeftum, [sumu of drycraefte] 7 of mordorcwale, sumu of peofunga 7 of feounga. Swa manige straela syndon swa nis aeniges mannes gemet paet hit asecgan maege. 7 aelce daege / paes diofles willa bid, past pissa straela nan ne sie geunfaestnod, gif he findan maeg hwaer he hie afasstnian maege. 7 on helle pa dioflu scotiap mid pissum straelum, 7 eac swa some he haef5 aelce daege his bogan to us gebend, 7 wile us scotian mid {5am straelum pe ic aer nemde. (Scragg, Vercelli Homilies 102-3,11. 308-21) Then that devil has fashioned a bow and arrows. The bow is fashioned from pride, and the arrows are of as many varieties as are a person's sins. One arrow is made from enmity and from envy, one from anger and from rage, one from theft and from wantonness, one from drunkenness and from illicit fornication, one from adultery and from sorceries, one from witchcraft and from avarice, one from greed and from ire, one from robbery and from sorcery, one from magic and from murder, one from theft and from hatred. So many arrows are there that it is within no one's ability to relate it. And every day it is the will of the devil that not one of these arrows remains unfastened, if he can find somewhere to fasten them. And the devils in hell shoot with these arrows, and also, similarly, he has his bow bent against us every day, and wishes to shoot us with the arrows I named before.

Here the homilist expands the familiar topos of the devil's arrow into a scenic description that neatly reconciles Satan's active instigation on earth with his imprisonment in hell (though, interestingly, the homilist conflates the singular devil with plural

The Devil as Tempter

35

demons).37 The motif of the devil's 'arrow' appears also in Blickling Homily 19 (on Andreas), though there is no mention of arrows in the analogue texts (the Greek Praxeis or the Latin Casanatensis versions).\ 3ft Mlfric yElfric's writings reveal a far more polished, if also a less vibrant, attitude toward the devil than the tenth-century anonymous collections.39 yElfric left a sizable corpus, including three separate homiletic cycles that provide readings for the entire liturgical year. Much of the material is expository or hortatory rather than narrative in nature, though of course, homilies turn continuously to scriptural and hagiographic episodes for exempla to illustrate various points. The most substantial narrative episodes appear in Lives of Saints, a sanctorale (that is, a cycle of readings on the saints following the fixed saints' days rather than the movable church feasts).40 Dorothy Bethurum conjectures that when selecting texts suitable for translation and inclusion in Lives of Saints, yElfric tended to stay away from overly sensational vitae.41 His collection does contain some quite energetic passages involving demons, however, such as the story of the young man who makes a written contract with a demon in the Depositio S. Basilii Episcopi - an early variant of the 'devil's contract' motif. ^Elfric's account of the Forty Soldiers in his Lives of Saints (Quadraginta milites, March 9) offers a challenging and provocative demonology, though not one ultimately compatible with expected theological norms. Of the myriad torments the Forty Soldiers suffer, the most memorable is their forced immersion in an icy lake. A bright heavenly light appears to the soldiers, warming the icy pool and making their punishment pleasant. Observing these proceedings, the devil becomes infuriated that the martyrs are spared the pain of their tortures, and takes on human form: Pa braed se sceocca hine sylfne to menn, gewrad his sceancan and wanode him sylfum (1.252,11. 222-3)42 Then the demon turned himself into a man, twisted his legs and bewailed on behalf of himself.

36 Satan Unbound He delivers a brief plaint, and states he will 'turn the savage one's heart to the thought' of further torments (awendan pxs wzelhreowan heortan to pan gepance, 1.252). This promised instigation occurs offstage, but is apparently successful because the judge does proceed to follow his bidding: Da gedyde se dema swa swa se deofol gebeotode ('then the judge did just as the devil threatened him/ 1.254, 1. 259). The verb gebeotian may draw attention away from the judge's complicity to the devil's initiative, but on the whole, there is no attention to the temptation itself - to the struggle between the sinner and the sin, the downward spiral that is so elegantly described in theology. There is no need for it: since the fit between the devil's impulse and the judge's complicity is as snug as nut and bolt, the villain in early medieval narrative is already arod to deofles willan ('ready to the devil's will,' 1.240). When yElfric in his Life of Martin describes a certain monk who has decided to resume habitation with his wife, he attributes this decision to the devil: pa besende se deofol swilc gepanc on pone munuc ('then the devil sent such a thought into the monk ...' 2.286, 1. 1073). The devil 'sending' the thought to the monk is relatively vague, and at the very least implies distance, not proximity, between devil and sinner. The evil impulse driving the persecutors of the Forty Soldiers 'came into their thoughts': Pa geweard pam ehterum on heora yfelum gepeahte (1.246; 'it came to the persecutors, into their evil thoughts'). The consistent reduction of censured behaviour to demonic instigation in these narrative episodes leaves little room for questions of the personal will and its complicity in sinful thoughts or behaviours. Those issues are for expository literature, not narrative. /Elfric's narratives are rich in character motive and in detailed visual cues, however, and they also offer some more satisfying visualizations of demonic instigation. Most poignantly, in his Life of Martin, yElfric adopts the image of the demon riding the afflicted sinner like a steed. In an episode yElfric includes from Sulpicius's Dialogues (2.9), Martin encounters a mad cow (wod cu, 2.284) that violently assails everyone who comes near. Eminently percipient, Martin notices a demon (deofol or scucca, 2.284) riding atop the cow, which he sharply rebukes: 'Gewit, t>u wael-hreowa, aweg of J)am nytene, and pis unscasddige hryper geswic to dreccenne!' (2.284, 11. 1048-9)

The Devil as Tempter 37 'Depart, you bloodthirsty one, away from that creature and stop afflicting this innocent cow!'

The cow instantly regains self-possession and pays grateful obeisance to Martin. The innocence (unscseddige) of the afflicted beast (and, so far as we know, of the local people harassed by the cow while it raved) presumes that this random demonic prank is devoid of any moral or allegorical consideration. The naturalistic presentation of the possession simply provides Martin with a miracle opportunity, not unlike extinguishing the flames of an accidental fire. When demons hold traffic with humans, on the other hand, one may expect an inherently moral dimension to the tales, because humans are moral beings. In fact this is rarely the case.43 Sulpicius devotes several chapters of his third book of the Dialogues (as it is broken up in modern editions) to the cruel tyrannies of Avitianus in the city of Tours, and Martin attempts to mitigate his ferocity. At last convinced of Martin's sanctity, Avitianus treats the people of Tours kindly, though continuing his severe rule over other districts. One day, Martin walks in and sees a very large black demon on Avitianus's back. yElfric translates: pa geseah he sittan aenne sweartne deofol ormaetne on his hrycge, and he him on ableow. (2.292, 11. 1184-5) Then he saw a large black devil sitting on his back, and he blew on him.

Surprised, Avitianus asks why Martin is blowing at him, and Martin responds that it is not directed at him, but at the devil on his back: Se bisceop him andwyrde, 'Ne behealde ic na pe, ac pone sweartan deofol pe sit on pinum hneccan; ic pe of ableow.' And se deofol swa aweg gewat, and his hiwcude setl sona 5a forlet. (2.292,11. 1188-91) The bishop answered him, 'I wasn't facing you, but the black devil who sits on your neck; I blew him off you.' And so the devil went away, and immediately abandoned his familiar seat.

Just as in the case of the mad cow, the violent behaviour arises

38 Satan Unbound purely from a parasitic demon physically envisioned as riding the sinner (see fig. 1). Avitianus treats his subjects much more kindly after the expulsion - in this case an exsufflation - of the demon.44 Avitianus apparently knows nothing of this demon at his shoulder, and hardly comes across as morally reproachable in this episode: he is the unwitting victim of demonic control, no less than the mad cow. yfclfric cannot accept the amoral implications of such a scene, however, any more than Sulpicius before him (Dialogues 3.8). Thus he adds a comment that reopens the question of the relationship between Avitianus's will and the demon's control. He notes that Avitianus amends his behavior, oppe for-pan-pe he wiste pact he his willan aer worhte, oppe for-pan-pe se unclaene gast him of-afliged waes ... (2.292,11. 1194-5) either because he knew that he had formerly worked his [the devil's] will, or because the unclean spirit had been expelled from him ...

Here is certainly one of the most tantalizing references to the relationship between internal will and external temptation in Old English narrative literature; if only it came with a key. /Eliric distinguishes two possible reasons for Avitianus's cure (his psychological recognition of guilt vs. the physical removal of the demon), and places them in disjunction. Does ^Ifric mean that both are possible explanations, and that it is simply not known in this case which was the actual one? Or is the disjunction intended rather as an elaborate apposition, so that the removal of the demon and Avitianus's greater awareness are meant to parallel one another, as two faces of the same coin? There is ample room to read demonic instigation as a psychological process, if that is one's predisposition, but there is no fundamental difference in ^tlfric or in Sulpicius between the demonic instigation of a cow and that of a person.45 The devil is never more vapid and obsolete, perhaps, than when he appears - again in ^Ifric's account of the Forty Soldiers - to the prefect after the soldiers are brought before him. He carries a serpent in one hand and a sword in the other: Pa com eac se deofol and haefde aenne dracan on handa and swurd on odre, pus secgende pam deman, 'fu eart min agen ongin; nu swipe wel' (Skeat 1.246,11. 134-6)

The Devil as Tempter 39 The devil then came too, with a dragon in one hand and a sword in the other, speaking thus to the judge: 'You are my own,- now begin, without holding back!'

His commands are devoid of impact, since the prefect has needed no encouragement before now to torture the soldiers, and has shown no signs of relenting that might invite this interruption. The devil is a prop, holding the lifeless symbols of his evil ministry, like a statue of Justice carrying scales and wearing a blindfold. Christian medieval narrative is on the whole content with villains of unmitigated evil, and heroes of unsullied goodness. The empathy accorded Grendel in Beowulf - if modern readers are not anachronistically sentimental in reading it into the text at all stands in notable contrast to Latin Christian literature. The villains of hagiography stand in a profound and primordial relationship with evil; it is of their very nature. The devil is unnecessary, therefore, as a tempting agent: he is already in league with the villains when the narrative opens, and fails perpetually in his attempts to tempt the saint. The devil is reserved for other roles.

3. The Role of the Devil

Almost a hundred years ago Abbetmeyer proposed a two-part classification system for representations of the devil in Old English poetry, which applies equally to prose narratives. On the one hand are 'epic' treatments of Satan such as Genesis A and B, and on the other, semidramatic pieces which he calls 'plaints of Lucifer/ including Christ and Satan, Phoenix, and the verse saints' lives.1 Abbetmeyer's implicit premise that an original 'plaint of Lucifer' ur-text was subsequently cannibalized by diverse authors has been rendered obsolete by oral-formulaic theory, but his division does reflect a twofold attitude toward medieval representations of the devil that many continue to share. The 'epic' treatment, in which Satan is portrayed as strong and majestic although perverted, concerns itself almost exclusively with the rebellion in heaven and the fall of angels, and thus falls outside the scope of this study. These portrayals of Satan, especially that in Genesis B, have attracted the most critical attention.2 The devil of Christ and Satan, who has also been studied at length, comes just at the cusp between the fifth and sixth ages of humankind, and does not yet pose a problem concerning Satan's location.3 But the devil of hagiography, who should be unequivocally bound in hell, does. The 'plaints of Lucifer' scenes portray the devil as a participator in human contexts during the present age of the world. These texts focus on the 'torments and utter hopelessness of hell' and stress the devil's 'malignity, his hideousness, and his sufferings' (42), while they quickly pass over the pride and glory of the fallen angel.4 He often appears just long enough to deliver his familiar diatribe before scurrying off again.

The Role of the Devil 41 This grovelling adversary is cut from a very different cloth than the epic hero of Genesis B, and Abbetmeyer is correct in observing that the 'plaints' appear to have been far more popular than the 'epic' treatments, if the number of surviving texts of each is any indication (19). While the mythological devil of Christ and Satan may be humiliated by being forced to measure hell with his hands, Old English authors often avoid degrading the devil or hagiographic demon, sometimes departing substantially from their sources to do so. Thus Cynewulf departs from the Latin Acta lulianae by having Juliana send her demon to hell rather than to a dungheap, for instance, and the Junius 11 illustrations of Satan present him as calm and majestic, even when shackled in hell (figs 2, 3, and 4). The devil's apparent disempowerment in particular scenes stands in constant tension with his greater cosmological significance, which is never compromised. The survival of 'the devil and the anchorite' story from the Egyptian desert to the Latin Middle Ages provides a revealing glimpse into the close relationship between the devil and the saint, and implies their mutual dependence on one another for orientation and audience. Also known as 'the devil's account of the next world' and the 'Theban legend,' the story of the devil and the anchorite was widely popular and appears in a number of Old English versions.5 The episode floats freely through diverse manuscript contexts, sometimes retaining little of its fuller narrative framework. Throughout the various versions, however, it is the demon rather than the anonymous holy man whose point of view forms the backbone of the narrative. The saint is on the edges of the narrative, no less a passive observer than the reader, attentively granting the devil an almost unbroken monologue. By way of contrast, consider the Life of Anthony: most of what the devil/demons say is reported indirectly, in a sermon that Anthony delivers to his disciples.6 The 'devil's account' ultimately stems from the tradition of the Vitae Patmm (of which the Life of Anthony forms a part), but the isolated strands of the tradition surviving in the Anglo-Saxon versions reveal a notable shift of emphasis.7 The devil, as it turns out, makes quite a good homilist: the anchorite learns factual and moral truths from him, without deception or perversion, as Anthony's disciples learned from Anthony. Thus tutored, the anchorite lets the devil go at the end of the monologue:

42 Satan Unbound Da paet deofal pis eal haefde asegd pam haligan ancran pa forlet he hine, and se deofal gewat pa to helle to his eardungstowe. (Robinson, 'Devil's Account' 11. 74-6) When that devil had said all this to the holy anchorite, then he let him go, and the devil departed to hell, to his habitation.

Thus the narrative focus follows the devil from the scene, without further mention of the anchorite. It is a commonplace that the devil must speak the truth when interrogated by a holy person.8 But in the 'devil's account/ this minor episode which grants momentary prominence to the devil as a personal character is promoted to a foundational narrative structure, and the nameless saint confronting the devil is all but effaced from the scene. The devil is capable of assuming important structural and thematic functions, then, however unpardonable his moral alignment.

The Range of Narrative Functions Since the devil assumes a certain narrative preeminence in Old English hagiography, he likewise takes on a privileged thematic function, and assumes a priori an important spiritual and cosmological role - either in the forging of the saint, or in the testing of an already perfected saint. In the most complete and expansive texts (Gregory's Life of Benedict, the Tiberius A.iii Life of Margaret, Andreas, and Felix's Guthlac], the devil serves both functions. The relationship between the devil and the saint is far more profound and problematic than that between the devil and the sinner. While the role of the devil as tempter is often atrophied or altogether absent in early medieval hagiography, a demon frequently serves a critical structural function in tracing the development of the saint's progress. Saints are loners, and the devil often winds up as their oldest and most consistent acquaintance. Since the devil always seems to know what is going on, anywhere in the world, he serves perfectly as an external observer to the saint's trials and triumphs. He appears at critical moments, issuing a running commentary on the state of the saint's circumstances. Thus he can function a little like the chorus in Greek tragedy, always on the periphery, occasionally rejoicing but more often lamenting. This 'chorus' of one does not represent the moral majority or communal con-

The Role of the Devil 43 science, however, but a twisted, inverted chorus whose laments and tragedies are rather meant as a source of enjoyment. If the devil is the principle of opposition itself, an obstacle to perceived ideals, one might expect to find him as the necessary leavening agent in any account of spiritual tempering. Jesus encounters Satan in the wilderness immediately following his baptism, and in all three synoptic gospels, the Temptation in the desert is the prelude to all of Christ's healing and miracle activity.9 This theme appears sporadically in early Christian martyrdom accounts, but flourishes in Old English poetry especially. In fact, however, early medieval sources do not consistently grant him such a privileged role. His importance varies widely in Old English saints' lives, in which he can appear in minor cameos as easily as lead roles. The Life of St Nicholas on the one hand, and the Life of Margaret, on the other, illustrate these two extremes. The Life of Nicholas: The Accidental Devil The demonic appears only sparsely in the Life of Nicholas, and does not inform any crucial episode.10 Only one episode in the Life affords some interesting insights into the devil's activities in this world. After Nicholas is ordained bishop, the text relates a number of minor miracles he performs, many involving the calming of the sea and the assistance of sailors (Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors). His ministry includes the driving away of demons and false gods from the land, including the shameful goddess Diana,- thus he incurs the wrath of the devil by diminishing the devil's domains on the earth. Plotting a variety of evil countermeasures, the devil finally resolves to have a treacherous oil brewed for him by certain sorcerers [dieomen, 1. 285, or drymen, 1. 277). He comes to them in the night and they perform his bidding without question. Now in possession of this evil oil, which will consume whatever it touches with flames, the devil must devise a means of delivering it to Nicholas. Thus he assumes the form of an old woman, and entering a boat, rows to a ship of men on their way to receive Nicholas's blessing: 7 se deofol hine J>a selfne gehiwode swylce he an eald wif waere, 7 for into {jsere sas, 7 com rowende on anum bate to sume scip full mannum ... (11. 290-2) and the devil transformed himself such that he became an old woman,

44 Satan Unbound and went out on the sea and came rowing in a boat to a certain shipful of men.

He asks the sailors to convey the oil to Nicholas and to coat the walls of his church with it, to which they agree, knowing nothing of his scheme or of the true nature of the oil. In John's original, the shadowy antagonist appears not as an old woman, but as a religious woman or a nun (in cuiusdam religiosae feminx uultum).11 But in the Old English he appears to the sailors in a form standardly viewed with mistrust in later medieval folklore, an old woman (eald wif) or 'hag.' (fig. 5)12 In John's Vita, the devil-as-nun disappears from the scene in a rather indistinct manner: Tune monstrum informe umbra uelut tenuis uelociter euanuit. (301.41-2) Then the formless monster vanished rapidly like a thin shadow.

In the Old English, this ephemeral exit becomes more concrete and loses much of its mysterious grandeur: Se scucce paerrihtes betaehte paet manfulle ele, rasdlice adwan of heora gesihpe. (11. 302-3)

7

hreow fram heom

7

Straight away the demon delivered that evil oil and rowed from them, and quickly vanished from their sight.

In this version the devil 'vanishes' from their sight simply by rowing, which is the second reference to the devil physically rowing his boat (neither of which is found in the Vita). The vernacular prefers mundane staging over the dreamlike quality of the original. Before the sailors reach Nicholas, they encounter a mysterious boat. From the boat a stranger who appears to be Nicholas questions them about their encounter with the woman. He tells them that the woman was in reality the goddess Diana (that avatar of the devil with which the local population is most familiar), who was recently expelled from the land by Nicholas. To prove the point, he has them throw the oil into the sea, and when they do the ocean bursts into flames upon contact and burns ominously for a long time. When the sailors finally reach Nicholas and tell him of their

The Role of the Devil

45

adventure, he is surprised to learn of his divine doppelganger and joins them in a prayer of thankfulness. Patently, this miracle-story has little to do with Nicholas. He is not present and knows nothing of the matter until told subsequently. He is but a symbol of righteousness, a recognizable and approachable form that the divine may assume when visiting humankind, but a pawn nonetheless. The miracle manifests and confirms his sanctity, but is in no way a prodigy of Nicholas's own doing. The devil, on the other hand, is clearly active and autonomous. He enjoys independent existence and activity, even when there are no human characters on the scene. His powers are implicitly circumscribed, however, since he is forced to work his machinations only through the most indirect means. Though he can row a boat, he cannot himself produce the hyper-flammable oil and relies on his sorcerer cohorts for their alchemical talents. Once in possession of the oil, he cannot go to the church himself to smear it on the walls, but enlists a ship of unwary sailors to perform the errand. Nicholas has driven him from the land so decisively that he can only conduct raids in neutral waters, like a pirate. In both the Vita and the English Life, the devil is an active and interactive character in the world, though he remains only on the periphery of Nicholas's domains: he is, as Rosemary Woolf says in a different context, 'skulking wretchedly round the outskirts of the world.'13 He has no personal relationship or encounter with Nicholas, and his instigation of the other humans cannot possibly be related to psychological temptation: the sailors do not know what the oil really is, and the sorcerers have no idea to what ends the devil plans to use the potion he has them manufacture. Here the devil is little more than a functional (though colourful and vivid) villain in the anecdote, playing a role for which a thief or a disgruntled rival bishop could be substituted without difficulty. The entire anecdote itself appears amidst a series of miracle tales surrounding the person of Nicholas, and does not stand out as having any intrinsic spiritual significance over and above them.14 The case is quite different, however, with the passion of Margaret. The Lives of Margaret: The Devil as Saint-Maker On the whole, outside of the tradition of the Vitae Patrum, early Christian hagiography does not especially focus on the scene of conflict between the saint and devil as a pivotal turning point,

46 Satan Unbound either structurally or thematically. In early hagiographic narratives, the motif appears accidentally and is not an essential component of hagiogenesis.15 Thus it is surely significant, despite the paucity of remaining poetic texts from which to generalize, that such a large proportion of Old English verse hagiography does in fact portray the combat between the saint and the devil as an integral component of the narrative structure and thematic development. The testing and perfection of the saint - involving both incarceration and a direct encounter with the devil - represents pivotal narrative moments in Juliana, Andreas, Elene, and Guthlac A. Since Guthlac B is presented in the manuscript as an extension of Guthlac A, only Judith does not display this fascination for the tempering of the saint through demonic conflict - and interestingly, Judith is the only one set in the fifth, not the sixth and present, age of humankind. Thus it seems safe to say, at least, that when choosing source materials appropriate for versification into Old English, Anglo-Saxons were particularly attracted to texts turning on scenes of direct spiritual or nonhuman .conflict, often occurring in an underworld setting. The bipartite structure of passion narratives generally involves an external conflict with human foes, paralleled by a subsequent internal conflict (in a prison or cave) with nonhuman ones.16 Thus the Inventio sanctae crucis and the Passio Julianae were translated into verse saints' lives, while, so far as we know, no attempt was made to produce vernacular verse lives of Paul the Hermit, Augustine of Hippo, Boniface, or the confessor saints of Anglo-Saxon England such as Cuthbert, Ceolfrid, or Benedict, though their Latin vitae were quite popular. There is one major prose tradition which accords the devil at least as much symbolic importance as the verse hagiographies - the Lives of Margaret. The various texts recounting the passion of Saint Margaret of Antioch (sometimes appearing as the Greek form 'Marina') allow a far more significant role for the devil than the Life of Nicholas, or than most other vernacular saints' lives. As apassio, of course, the account of Margaret necessarily focuses on a different range of issues than a vita, though there is no a priori reason a vita cannot also integrate the devil as a pivotal force in the saint's testing and spiritual development (e.g., the Vita Antonii and Gregory's Vita Benedicti}. Margaret's passio exists in two Old English versions (one in Cotton Tiberius A.iii and another in CCCC 303, the same manuscript as the Life of Nicholas], and these differ in certain

The Role of the Devil 47 crucial aspects with regard to the prison scene in which she encounters the devil.17 The widely popular legend of St Margaret was disseminated in a number of recensions and versions through the Middle Ages, leaving a somewhat complicated textual genealogy with which to contend. The most standard form of the Latin passio, according to Clayton and Magennis, is no. 5303 in the Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina (hereafter BHL 5303), which represents an important manuscript tradition for our purposes: it is found in at least one Anglo-Saxon manuscript, and contains elements also present in the Old English CCCC 303 variant. An alternate Latin tradition (BHL 5304, hereafter Casinensis) is attested only in a single copy (Monte Cassino 52), but preserves material from a common older redaction. It bears certain features in common with the Old English Tiberius A.iii account. The Cotton Tiberius A.iii Life of Margaret seems to represent a relatively conservative translation of its immediate exemplar.18 The Tiberius version follows those textual strands of the Margaret complex that identify the author in the preface as a certain Theotimus (who, alternately, is Margaret's foster parent in the CCCC 303 account). In the Latin BHL 5303 this Theotimus indicates that the story of Margaret is, above all else, actually about her conflict with the devil. The narrator Theotimus describes his project at the outset thus: Ego ... posui me caute cognoscere quomodo pugnauit beatissima Margareta contra demonem et uicit hunc mundum. (Margaret 194, ch. 2, 11. 11-14)19 I ... set myself to investigate carefully how most blessed Margaret fought against the demon and conquered the world.

The Tiberius version preserves this focus: Ic pa, Deotimus, wilnode georne to witanne hu seo eadega Margareta waes wip pone deofol gefaeht and hine oferswipde and pone ece wuldorbeh set Code onfengc. (Margaret 112, ch. 2,11. 8-10) Then I, Theotimus, eagerly wished to know how blessed Margaret fought the devil and overcame him and received the crown of glory from God.

48 Satan Unbound The explicit of the now-lost Cotton Otho B.x vernacular Life of Margaret (which, along with the incipit appearing in Wanley, is the only portion to survive the destruction of the manuscript in the Cottonian fire), agrees in defining the conflict with the devil as the core narrative tension: Nu ge gebrodra mine ge gehyrdon be pasre eadigan Margaretan prowunge. hu heo ofer swiQe ealra deofla maegen. (Margaret 95 )20 Now you, my brothers, have heard about the martyrdom of Saint Margaret, how she overcame the power of all devils.

Though it does not constitute the bulk of the narrative, the devil episode does represent its centre, and is singled out in these passages as the story's most salient feature. 21 In the absence of these prologues, a modern reader would not necessarily come away from the stories with a similar intuition about its essential conflict Margaret's conflict with her human tormentors provides the most obvious narrative tension. Margaret's plight is the familiar predicament of the virgin martyr. She is arrested by the prefect Olibrius, who at first has nuptial designs for her, but subsequently engages in a brutal effort to convert her to worship of the pagan gods. He throws her into prison, while contemplating the precise tortures to be administered. Though he has her publicly hung upside-down, stripped, and lashed, she still has the strength to address the crowd of witnesses with an elegant profession of her belief. Thus beaten and humiliated, she is again imprisoned, but not before she first makes a special request of God. In her prayer in the Tiberius account, she asks to be able to confront her enemy directly, 'face to face': '... p£et ic geseo minne wiperweardan, se pe wip me gefihtap, ansyna to ansyna.' (Margaret 118, ch. 10,11. 8-9) '... that I may see my adversary, he who fights against me, face to face.'

This passage is crucial, because its presence in some texts and not others amounts to a significant difference in the function of the demonological confrontation. Margaret also expresses a desire to see her enemy in the BHL 5303 tradition. The Latin reads:

The Role of the Devil 49 'Da mihi, Domine, fiduciam ut dimicem contra aduersarium meum, ut uideam eum facie ad faciem qui mecum pugnat, ut uincam eum et uideam eum proiectum ante faciem meam.' (Margaret 202, ch. 10, 11. 6-9) 'Lord, give me trust that I may struggle against my adversary, that I may see him face to face who fights against me, that I may conquer him and that I may see him cast out from before my face.'

It would seem, then, that the prefect torturing her is not truly her enemy. This is a significant element of this textual strand of the passio, in fact: she repeats her request once she is locked in prison (immediately before the appearance of the dragon).22 Though Olibrius is the one physically tormenting her, she obviously does not consider him the real enemy, the root of the problem. In this she is only heeding Paul's warning to the Ephesians: 'For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but ... against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places' (6.12). The divinely intervening dove reinforces the Pauline interpretation, since after Margaret conquers the demon, but before she faces Olibrius again, the dove tells her she has already vanquished her enemy (pu ... pone feond oferswipdest, 'you have conquered the enemy').23 Margaret prays again from prison, and laments (among other things) that ic ane eom herinne ('I am alone herein,' 1. 11). This is presently alleviated when a dragon emerges from the corner of the cell, a strange and terrible creature described at some length.24 He breathes fire, raises himself and hisses, and Margaret becomes afraid: Seo halgae faemnas wags pa geworden swipe fyrht and gebigde hire cneowu on eorpan and apenoda hire honda on gebede. (Margaret 122, ch. 12, 11. 10-12) The holy woman then became very afraid and bent her knees on the ground and reached out her hands in prayer.

Curiously, it is specified in both Latin versions that she forgets that she is the one to request the confrontation: Oblita enim erat propter pauorem quod Deus exaudiuit orationem eius et quod dixerat, 'Demonstra mihi qui mecum pugnat.' (Paris 12, Margaret 204,11. 13-15)25

50 Satan Unbound Truly, because of her fear, she forgot that God listened to her bidding and to what she had said, 'Show me who fights against me.'

It is interesting that her fear is specified - this is not a feature associated with Juliana, or with many other saints whose virtue lies in their fortitude and unfaltering faith. We might not want to say that her faith is shaken, but whatever 'faith' we may wish to attribute to her takes on a more abstract or intellectual cast, since it must be distinguished from her manifestly wavering emotional state. It implies that (unlike /Eltric's Life of Martin) this is the story of the making of a saint, not the story of a saint already perfected. This process of perfection is intrinsically linked with her personal encounter with the demonic. She prays that the power of the dragon be extinguished (adwysc), but her prayer is apparently not heeded - at least not immediately since the dragon swallows her directly: mid pam pe heo pus gebsed hig to Crist, se draca sette his mup ofer psere halgan faemnan heafod and hi forswealh. (Margaret 122, ch. 13,11. 1-2) While she prayed thus to Christ, the dragon set his mouth over the holy woman's head and devoured her. She has thus descended into a prison within a prison, as it were, enclosed within the creature whose abode is a dark corner of a place of confinement. She has penetrated level after level of interiority.26 Although she has been verbose during her tortures as well as during the prison scene, here in the stomach her response is purely gestural (perhaps her cramped quarters preclude speech): she makes the sign of the cross. This has the effect of tearing the squamate hagiophage in two, and Margaret escapes unharmed. 27 Thus her archetypal descent/destruction reaches its nadir, and the heroine (as students of mythology will already suspect) returns from this trauma newly perfected and empowered. So far, however, the episode lacks the dialogue normally associated with the saintly confrontation with the devil in prison. This is provided by a second encounter, that with a small black devil who is there when she crawls from the ruptured dragon's stomach.28 No sooner does Margaret offer a prayer of thanks for her deliverance from the serpent than the demon grabs her hands and asks her to

The Role of the Devil 51 depart. Again, we see her prayer perversely denied, at one level but perhaps more profoundly answered at another. Only through such ordeals is deliverance possible. The demon explains that the dragon was actually a demon, his own brother Rufus, sent in the form of a serpent.29 Margaret is unmoved by the demon's plaint, and without a word she seizes him and subjects him in turn to a highly graphic beating: Seo halga Margareta gegrap pane deofol pa be pasm locce and hine on eorpan awearp and his swypran ege utastang and ealle his ban heo tobrysde and sette hire swipran fott ofer his swyran and him to cwaep: 'Gewit fram minum magphade!' (Margaret 124, ch. 14,11. 8-12) Holy Margaret then seized the devil by the hair and threw him to the ground and plucked out his right eye and she shattered all his bones and set her right foot on his neck and said to him: 'Get away from my virginity!'

Thus the saint amply demonstrates her newly acquired power and confidence. Clayton and Magennis observe that 'Margaret's physical assault on the demon is more violent in the Old English than in any of the Latin versions of this scene' (45).30 The knowledge that the victim is an unclean spirit and a traitor against God does not serve to mitigate the ferocity of the scene, since there is ample evidence that other scribes found the violence too stark even for a medieval audience - the Latin redactors and the redactor of the CCCC 303 version tone down the brutal assault that was apparently a very early, if not original, element.31 Thus far Margaret has apparently initiated the assault without recourse to heavenly intervention, but at this point a light penetrates the dark prison and a vision of the cross appears.32 A dove accompanies the vision and tells Margaret to question the demon concerning his evil works, and so she stops beating him. In light of the treatment he has been receiving at her hands, the demon must no doubt consider a verbal interrogation a form of respite, and one may justifiably wonder whether the dove has come to Margaret's aid or to the demon's. Consider Augustine's plea in De civ 20.1: daemones ne torqueantur precantur, nee utique iniuste uel parcitur eis uel pro sua quique inprobitate torquentur. (Hoffmann 2.425,11. 24-6)

52 Satan Unbound The demons entreat that they not be tortured, but in any event it is not unjustly that they are either spared or tortured on the basis of their depravity.

The dove does not specifically censure her violence, however, and only expresses joy at her having overcome the enemy. Thus ensues the requisite interrogation scene: the devil admits to inciting people to sin and to blinding them from their belief - thus, in putting his eye out, Margaret has only repaid him in kind. She asks for his lineage, but rather than responding to her, he asks her how she comes to be so strong and fortified in her faith. She answers that she is not permitted to speak to him: 'Nys me alifed past ic pe to secgas forpon pu ne eart ne wyrpe mine stefne to gehyrenne.' (Margaret 128, ch. 16,11. 5-6) 'It is not permitted me that I speak to you because you are not worthy to hear my voice.'

In the Tiberius version she does not press her original enquiry further, however, and gets very little out of him. We never find out his requested lineage, though it is surely no great secret. In all the Latin versions of the passio the devil answers her question at length.33 Here in the vernacular translation, then, the structure of the dialogue is maintained, along with the framework of the exchanges of comments and the protocol of who has to answer whom, but the content of the actual speeches is abridged. The Old English translator or compiler apparently values the outward facts of gesture and obeisance over the actual information contained within the discourse. Though she has obtained no information, she has sternly questioned him, and that is sufficient. At this stage Margaret orders silence rather than answers from her foe: Andpu, deofol, adumbe nu, forpon pe ic nelle nan word ma of pinum mupe gehyran ('And you, devil, be quiet now, because I do not wish to hear one more word from your mouth/). 34 The demon is sent back to hell, not by Margaret, but by greater powers, because the very earth swallows him: hrsedlice seo eorpe forswalg pone wzelhreowan deofol grimlice ('the earth quickly and horribly devoured the cruel devil/).35 The demon has been sent into his own prison or place of suffering and confinement, following his torture at Margaret's hands. Thus Margaret has appropriated the

The Role of the Devil 53 overworld activities of Olibrius, re-enacting them in private, spiritual space, without an audience. The reappearance of the devil in the physical affairs of humankind outside of the prison in Andreas and Juliana preclude a purely archetypal reading that would encourage reading the prison as the heroine's soul in these texts, but the Life of Margaret offers no such resistance to a psychological reduction of demonic temptation. Here, spiritual conflict and the physical prison are one and the same. The 'true' conflict has been the interior one, which paves the way for her conquering of the exterior world (in the words of the Paris text, uicit hunc mundum). Brought back before Olibrius, Margaret is now immune to the prefect's attempts to torture her and employs her newly gained spiritual perfection in the conversion of preposterous numbers of onlookers (fifteen thousand men, not counting women and children). The other vernacular version of the life of Margaret (CCCC 303) exhibits different demonological emphases. We have seen that in a remarkable passage in the Latin and in the Tiberius account, Margaret asks to be able to see her adversary (wiperweardan] face to face, even while she is in the presence of her ostensible adversary Olibrius.36 The Tiberius version thus presupposes that spiritual enemies are behind the physical ones, and that to deal with Olibrius or worldly tyrants is only to treat the problem symptomatically. Thus it becomes understandable why, in that version, she becomes afraid before the dragon but not before Olibrius. The CCCC 303 version, on the other hand, does not preface the prison scene with Margaret's request that she be allowed to face her enemy.37 The appearance of the dragon and demon is thus less vested with allegorical significance. That is, the tortures in the human world are not subordinated to those of the spiritual world (the internal conflict with the demon and the dragon). Her confrontation with Rufus the dragon transpires differently here than it does in the Paris and the Tiberius versions, also. Instead of being swallowed by him, here she makes the sign of the cross before he can touch her, and thus she remains uninjured: And seo eadige fsemne hal and gesund fram him gewzente ('And the holy woman went from him safe and sound').38 The dragon still bursts to pieces, though she is not inside of him: And call sticmaelum todwan se draca ut of ^an carcerne, and hi nan yfel on hire ne gefelde. (Margaret 162, ch. 13,11. 5-6)

54 Satan Unbound And the dragon disappeared from the prison all in pieces, and he did not cause her any harm.

The dramatic tearing of the dragon, perhaps originally introduced as an expedient to allow Margaret to escape from his digestive tract, is retained, while the more ignominious swallowing of Margaret is itself eliminated.39 Just as in the Tiberius version, Margaret spots the black demon in the corner as soon as her confrontation with Rufus is finished. Whereas in the Tiberius account seeing him causes her to offer a prayer to heaven, here she addresses him directly instead, affirming her complete control of the situation.40 She does not need to ask for directions: 'Ic wat hwast pu pasncst, ac geswic pu paes gepohtes, forpon ic wat call pin yfel gepanc.' [Margaret 162, ch. 14, 11. 4-5) 'I know what you're thinking, but abandon that thought, because I know all [about] your evil purpose.'

He answers that she has killed his brother, and expresses fear that she may do the same to him. She seizes him and throws him to the floor, planting her foot on his neck, but the CCCC 303 variant does not indicate that she puts out his eye or breaks all his bones. The physical violence is toned down, as in most of the Latin redactions. Now the scene is interrupted with a divine incursion - only here it is not a cross and dove, but an angel of the Lord (Drihtnes engel}. The interaction between Margaret and this divine messenger is only reported indirectly here, whereas an explicit dialogue between Margaret and the dove ensues in Tiberius. The focus here, then, leans more heavily on the actual verbal confrontation between Margaret and the demon, and her dependence on divine support is deemphasized. In Tiberius, she only bids him depart, and it is stated that the earth swallows him up. Here the reference to the earth swallowing him up appears as part of her command: 'Gewit pe heonan on weig and sea eor3e pe forswelge and pu paer wunige to Domesdasge!' (Margaret 166, ch. 16,11. 12-13)

The Role of the Devil 55 'Depart from here on your way, and may the earth devour you and you remain there until Judgment Day!'

Thus, driving him away herself, she is consistently presented as wielding abundant personal power. As in Tiberius, there is a brief struggle between Margaret and the black demon for the power to ask questions. Margaret asks his lineage, he asks for hers, and she refuses to answer him. But unlike Tiberius, the black demon finally offers a full account of his past deeds and crimes in CCCC 303. One he deprived of sight, another of senses,- one he led astray in this way, another in that; etc. The list even includes a reference to bestiality uncommonly explicit for non-penitential literature of the time, especially hagiography: sume mid feowerfoted nytene for minum willen gefremedon ('some by my will availed [themselves] of four-footed beasts').41 Thus the interrogation, so abbreviated in the Tiberius version, appears here unabridged. The CCCC 303 redactor shows a keener interest in the precise details of the demon's crime history, retaining the content as well as the external structure of the demon-saint dialogue. In both versions, Tiberius and CCCC 303, the demonic conflict ceases with the end of the prison scene. The demons make no further narrative appearances. In the Latin versions, however, they appear at her body along with angels after she dies. They are tormented and exclaim the truth of the God of Margaret. In the Paris version there is also a reference to their torment at the relics of Margaret. But these loose appearances of demons that trail on even after Margaret's death in the Latin versions are absent in both Old English versions: there the demonology is tightened, so that demons only appear in direct response to Margaret's mental state (in the middle of her torment and temptation) and physical state (in the prison). Thus both the Old English accounts open up the possibility of purely psychological readings. The demon-in-prison confrontation scene in the Margaret texts is not used gratuitously, then, but forms an integral aspect of the poet's landscaping of spiritual conflict. In this it forms a radical contrast with the whimsical appearances of the demonic in the Life of Nicholas and most other early medieval hagiographies. Though quite different from one another, both vernacular Lives of Margaret exhibit among the most

56 Satan Unbound consistent and penetrating employments of the demonic encounter in Old English literature. The divergent textual traditions of Margaret's passion in fact emphasize and downplay different aspects of the demonic conflict. The basic two-conflict paradigm, one against a dragon and one against an articulate demon, already lends itself to a range of interpretations. For instance, the struggle with the dragon can be seen as Margaret's struggle with her bestial nature (emotions, sexuality, etc.), while the dialectical struggle with the demon represents her confrontation with her own mind or intellect. Though the dragon is split in both Old English redactions, in Tiberius she does not conquer it until after initially succumbing to the dragon's power (i.e., after being swallowed), and she is herself more violent with the dragon as well. Thus in Tiberius the physical actually embodies the spiritual: her struggle with darkness and chaos is not represented by merely having her meet the dragon, but by her being swallowed by it, completely immersed in it. In exchange for this blunt physical allegory of Tiberius, the CCCC 303 version presents a stronger Margaret psychologically. She is perfected from the start, and the prison scene represents not so much the formation of her sanctity, but the testing or simply the displaying of it. She takes charge of the situation without asking guidance from heaven. She does not show fear as the Margaret of the Tiberius version does, and her ability to exile the demon to hell at will places her in a position of executive authority. The CCCC 303 account stresses her emotional relationship with God and downplays her suffering at the hands of the demonic forces: the dragon does not swallow her, and the black demon does not grab her. Even in her aboveworld experiences with Olibrius there is more talk of torture in direct speeches (threats) than there is actual narrative description of those tortures. The Tiberius Life, on the other hand, is not about protection from danger and pain, but direct confrontation with it. The principle that wisdom cannot be achieved without suffering, characteristic both of Greek literature and of Bede's hagiography, forms the backbone of the Tiberius account and of the major Latin source texts. Thus Margaret specifically asks to be able to see her true enemy, and engages that enemy not only through rhetorical dueling but also through physical combat. Clayton and Magennis have pointed out the distinctly emotional

The Role of the Devil

57

cast of Margaret's piety in the CCCC 303 version (65-71), and more recently Magennis has expounded the argument in greater detail: In its insistent emphasis on the personal love of the saint for Christ, the CCCC version is exceptional both among Old English saints' lives and among early-medieval versions of the Margaret legend. This affective spirituality reflects impulses that were just beginning to appear in religious writing in the very closing phase of Anglo-Saxon literature. (Magennis, 'Listen' 41)

It is probable that the CCCC 303 version was composed later than the Tiberius version, and that it exhibits nascent signs of the coming twelfth-century trend in personal devotional literature associated with Anselmian spirituality.42 The late Anglo-Saxon emotive piety notable in the CCCC 303 version apparently finds the brutal Greco-Bedan 'wisdom' of the earlier tradition incompatible with contemporary spiritual needs. This late Old English composition, above all, deviates boldly from its immediate source texts in eliminating the physical demonic confrontations (as in the Tiberius version) in favour of more direct and prolonged verbal confrontations. The competing world views implied in Margaret and the devil's opposed moral alignments work themselves out in the structures of discourse rather than in representational violence.

The Devil as Observer The devil's role as observer - as an external gauge of the saint's spiritual initiation - is critical in the earliest hagiographic traditions, the accounts of the desert fathers of Egypt and Syria. Through such (writers) and translators as Evagrius, Jerome, and Cassian, these themes formed an enduring (if increasingly peripheral) dimension of the Western tradition. It appears in the second book of Gregory the Great's Dialogues (the Vita Benedict!}, for instance, as well as in ^.Ifric's Life of Martin. The devil enjoys a critical role as a commentator on Benedict's spiritual initiation in Gregory's Dialogues.43 For Gregory, Benedict is not just another saint: in the Dialogues he is singled out as the holy man par excellence, whose Regula was sufficiently worthy for all subsequent spiritual aspirants to emulate. Accordingly, Gregory devotes more space to him than to any other saint in the work, and

58 Satan Unbound singles out Benedict's relations with the devil to draw attention to the devil's role as an intrinsic component of spiritual progress. While the actual focus of the text shifts from saint to saint, the devil appears in narrative episodes throughout the Dialogues, and is the only character in the work to do so. The devil plays a role in a number of trivial anecdotes throughout Book 1, but in Book 2 he subjects Benedict to a series of assaults that reflect the stages of that saint's spiritual advancement. The devil appears to Benedict in the form of a blackbird while Benedict is alone, and though Benedict dispels the bird with the sign of the cross, he is nonetheless stricken with temptation. The devil implants within him the image of a woman he had once seen, and the saint is almost overcome. Benedict leaps naked into a bush of thorns and nettles, as though to tear the sinful thoughts from his body literally. For Gregory, this ordeal represents a turning point Benedict is free from temptation from this time forward: Ex quo uidelicet tempore ... ita in illo est temptatio uoluptatis edomita, ut tale in se aliquid minime sentiret. (2.2)44 Then from that time ... the temptation of lustful sin was tamed in him, so that he scarcely felt anything like it in himself again.

Though the devil implants the temptation in Benedict's mind, for Gregory the victory is over the temptation of lust rather than over the devil. In accordance with Gregory's outline of sin in the Moralia (see chapter 2), the devil is never mentioned in this temptation episode following the initial instigation. In the Old English translation, the definitive nature of the break with sin is even further underscored: whereas Gregory only indicates that Benedict 'scarcely' (minime) felt lustful after this brush with the devil, the vernacular emphatically states that he never felt such promptings again: he pyslices naht on him sylfum nazfre oferpxt ne ongset ('he never felt anything like it in himself again because of that').45 A successful opposition to the devil's open assault is effectively apotropaic against future attacks of internal temptation, at least in the symbolic world of hagiography. In Old English writings, however, the devil's role as the saint's shadow appears most comprehensively in ^Ifric's Life of Martin. Here v^Elfric abandons his usual reliance on only a single source,

The Role of the Devil 59 incorporating material from such sources as Sulpicius Severus and Gregory of Tours. The resulting comprehensive biography of Martin thus resembles certain early medieval hagiographies, such as Athanasius's Life of Anthony and Gregory's Vita Benedict!, that exploit demonic motifs for the widest range of narrative functions. y£lfric had already included an abridged life of Martin in his second series of Catholic Homilies,46 but that appearing in Lives of Saints is much more complete.47 The closing chapters of Sulpicius's Vita concentrate increasingly on Martin's encounter with demons, and particularly with the devil. First the devil slays one of Martin's monastery workers, out of frustration at not being able to harm the saint (ch. 21), and then he appears to Martin in as many forms as possible to try to seduce him: Frequenter autem diabolus, dum mille nocendi artibus sanctum uirum conabatur includere, uisibilem se ei formis diuersissimis ingerebat ... (Halm 131) Often, however, the devil - trying to hinder the holy man with a thousand pernicious stratagems - presented himself visibly in forms most diverse ...

The devil tries to convince Martin that he is beyond redemption, but in response, Martin tells the devil that even he himself (the devil) is not beyond redemption, would he only show signs of genuine contrition.48 Sulpicius's emphasis in the Vita is on Martin's consistent ability to recognize the devil through his various disguises (chs. 21-4). The last appearance of the devil is his most ambitious ruse, assuming the form of Christ. Martin readily dismisses the impersonation on the basis that when Christ comes, he will appear not in purple raiments but in the humble rags which he wore on the cross (ch. 24). This is the last anecdote Sulpicius relates about Martin; he closes his account with a brief panegyric about Martin's virtues in general. The escalating demonic encounters, culminating in the recognition of the devil posing as Christ, serves as a narrative climax. In yElfric's Life, the devil appears to Martin at the very beginning of his adventures, and again at the end, at Martin's deathbed. In his youth, as soon as Martin leaves the military service so hateful to

60 Satan Unbound him, one of his first encounters is with the devil in the form of a man. Upon hearing that Martin is a man of God, the devil announces, 'Swa hwider swa pu faerst, o55e swa hwaet swa pu beginst, pe bi5 wiper-raede seo deofol.' (Skeat 2.230, 1. 175-6) 'Wherever you travel, or whatever you undertake, the devil will be against you.'

Martin promptly dispels the figure, but from the outset Martin's entire pilgrimage in the human world is established as perpetual warfare against the devil. Though the devil besieges him frequently, Martin never succumbs even to a moment of doubt or weakness.49 The demonic episodes fall into two classes, those in which the attempted temptation by the demons fail (those directed against Martin), and those in which they succeed (those directed against secondary characters). /Elfric groups together several episodes of the former, those demonic assaults launched against Martin himself, at the middle of his Life of Martin. yElfric faithfully renders the 'thousand malicious tricks' (pusend searo-crseftum), recreating the Antonian temptation scene.50 Unlike the Antonian or Guthlacian temptations, however, no demon is ever able to lay a physical hand on Martin. Since y£lfric also includes here the scene in which the devil appears in the form of Christ, that scene loses the climactic force it enjoys as the culmination of demonic manifestations in Sulpicius's Vita: here it is no longer Martin's last encounter with him. But the devil does pursue Martin to his deathbed, where he patiently stands waiting for the saint to die. Martin's dying words, in fact, are addressed to the devil: he tells the devil sharply and confidently that he will have no claim over him.51 Bishop Severinus, who observes the ascension of Martin's soul, confirms the truth of these words: '... se hetela deofol mid his unriht-wisum gastum hine wolde gelettan, ac he gewat gescynd awasg fram pam halgan, and nan ping his agenes on him ne gemette.' (2.306,11. 1402-5) The hateful devil and his unrighteous spirits wished to impede him,

The Role of the Devil 61 but, put to shame, he went away from the saint, and met nothing of his own in him.'

Even after Martin's death the devil is intently interested in procuring his soul, attempting to inhibit its upward course to heaven. Thus, direct encounters with the devil frame Martin's career, roughly occurring at the beginning, middle, and end (cf. the devil's appearances in Bede's Historia}.52 /Elfric insists on sustaining the presence of the devil on the narrative horizon, always at Martin's back and always harassing him whenever opportunity arises. The devil serves as a continuous reminder of the perils of the present world, perils which make Martin forever an outsider here, and which make him long for the next world after his eighty-one wearisome winters have expired (2.304, 1. 372}. yElfric preserves the devil's status as an ontological benchmark of spiritual progress - his assaults, though resisted, are formidable,- and his dominant role in the larger unfolding of human events around Martin is respected. Only the omnipresent devil can follow Martin personally through his life, from conversion to death-bed, while along the way being repeatedly rebuked, exiled, and symbolically bound in hell. The devil is the saint's mirror.

4. Exterior Evil and the Landscape of Old English Narrative

Your country of Two Dimensions is not spacious enough to represent me, a being of Three, but can only exhibit a slice or section of me ... Edwin Abbott, Flatland

The essential premise of 'the demonic' as a metaphor for the instigation of moral evil is that sin is at some root level external to the self.l The demon is wholly other, the impulse toward evil introduced from without. The integrity of the individual is not compromised when demons are expelled or vices are eradicated; rather the original purity of the prelapsarian self - which has nothing of the demonic in it - is restored. C.W. Marx identifies otherness in the abstract as the very essence of the medieval devil: And, in exploring medieval constructions of the Devil, one is exploring at a fundamental level conceptions of the Other. With the Devil, however, we are concerned not with an identifiable Other - what medieval culture defined itself against such as pagans, Muslims, or Jews - but with more abstract notions about what constitutes the Other. (5)

Thus narrative and liturgical conventions consistently maintain a distinction in identity between the individual and the associated evil spirit. The sin and sinner walk beside each other in Old English narrative, occupying different focal points of the narrative horizon; the allegorical and the historical interact with one another as characters. Homilists are left with a difficult task, then, in presenting sin as a battle of self against self.

Exterior Evil and the Landscape of Old English Narrative 63 The role of homiletic and sermon literature is, presumably, to encourage self-inspection and perhaps influence behaviour. In such works, the natures of sinner and devil are deliberately blurred. In Vercelli Homily 4 the devil admits to being 'near' a sinner: ponne wxs ic symle xi xt him ('at that time I was ever near him'), and Vercelli Homily 22 suggests an even closer relationship: d«t dioful bid on eowrum heortum ('that devil is in your hearts').2 Interestingly, the reverse is also true in Vercelli Homily 10, where the devil claims that the sinner desires to be in his (the devil's) own heart: woldon hie in minon hordcofan ('they wished to enter into my mind [or heart]').3 Thus moralists went to great lengths to sustain the ambivalence of the demonic as something that arises from within as well as something that intrudes from without. Augustine paints a graceful account of the internalized interaction between the self and the demonic in De divinatione daemonum: suadent autem miris et inuisibilibus modis per illarn subtilitatem corporum suorum corpora hominum non sentientium penetrando et se cogitationibus eorum per quaedam imaginaria uisa miscendo, siue uigilantium siue dormientium. (Zycha 607) [Demons] persuade [sinners] in marvellous, invisible ways, entering by means of their own rarified bodies - the bodies of unwitting people and intermingling with their thoughts through certain imaginary visions, whether they are awake or asleep.

This passage is an especially artful juggling of the various ways in which sin arises: the actual physical bodies commingle, suggesting demon possession, which is made possible through lack of vigilance (cf. Beowulf 11. 1741-2); there is, simultaneously, a commingling of minds or thoughts between the intrusive spirit and the sinner, such that visions become confused with reality; and thus populated by phantasms, waking reality becomes indistinguishable from dreams. This imagistic picture thus sustains a careful balance between a materialist or literal account of the demon entering the sinner on the one hand, and an allegorical account of the demon representing the wandering thoughts of the undisciplined individual on the other. Even more radical is Cassian's interiorization of evil, in which the distractions of the world are kept absolutely distinct from the self. The distractions from 'outside' (extrinsecus, Conference 7.12,

64 Satan Unbound Petschenig 192) include not only the attractions of the city or the company of women, but also the impulses arising from our own flesh, passions, emotions, and thoughts; thus the 'self - defined as the negation of these - retreats ever inward, to the 'marrow' or 'pith' (medulla, 7.15). It becomes a logical point, as it were, chased by the demons (who can penetrate very deeply into the mental and physical layers of the self) to the 'inner soul' (internis animae, 7.15; Petschenig 194). Since soul and demon are both spiritual, and thus share a 'certain substantial similarity and relationship' (quaedam substantiae similitude atque cognatio), they can become 'imperceptibly joined' (insensibiliter coniugari}. It is impossible, however, for the demon to penetrate the soul as completely as, say, a virus invades and then controls a host cell. The demon cannot contaminate the inviolable monad at the core of the soul, a point which is critical for retaining the freedom of the will, and the essential goodness of the human heart. We must not imagine that demonic influence 'penetrates into the substance of the soul itself (in animae ipsius penetrans substantiam, 7.12; Petschenig 191). Nonetheless, it can infiltrate very deeply indeed, so much so that the distinction between self and demon becomes quite blurry: tantaque inter ipsos ac mentem unitas fiat, ut sine del gratia, quid ex illorum incitamento, quid ex nostra voluntate procedat, discern! paene nonpossit. (Petschenig 191,11. 1-3) between (the demons) and the mind there is such uniformity that, without the grace of God, it would barely be possible to discern what follows from their incitement and what follows from our will. Elsewhere he refers to the human heart as a 'dark underground cavern' (subterraneo specu, 2.10), a place in which lions and dragons hide (1.22), and he refers to an evil thought (any evil thought) that arises within this internal place of concealment as 'the loathsome serpent' (serpens taeterrimus, 2.10). Cassian is acutely committed to how thoroughly the demonic permeates all the strata of our body and psyche. This is perhaps the sort of psychology Rosemary Woolf has in mind when she generalizes, 'there was no traditional distinction between these [internal and external temptation], in that they were considered alike in kind and different only in the extent to which they showed the devil's dominion over his victim.'4

Exterior Evil and the Landscape of Old English Narrative 65 The interplay of internal and external remained a significant patristic preoccupation until at least the time of Gregory the Great: Aubin concludes that this dyad is one of the principal conceptual modalities of the Moralia, for instance.5 Like Augustine, Gregory insists that the fallen will can generate evil impulses independently of external instigation,6 a move which threatens to eliminate the need for a (living) devil at all. The internal/external dyad remains vibrant and dynamic in Old English narrative: thus yElfric, for instance, states that since Christ was pure of mind, the devil's assault against him in the wilderness was purely external: 'the devil's temptation was therefore all from without, and not at all from within' (wxs pses deofles costnung for dy eall widutan, 7 nan pincg widinnan}.7 The challenge in interpreting the devil of Old English narrative literature is not that Anglo-Saxons were less systematic than their continental forebears, but that they were faced with intrinsic tensions within the Latin tradition itself. In assimilating the inherited literature of the Latin Christian tradition, Anglo-Saxon authors found themselves confronted with a large body of theology compulsively asserting that sin arises from within, alongside a large body of narrative and liturgical literature unapologetically presupposing - and portraying - that it comes from without. In hortatory prose it is natural to encounter phrases such as dxt dioful bid on eowrum heortum ('that devil is in your hearts'), but this metaphysics is largely foreign to the landscape of narrative.8 In practice, whenever a demon is invoked to visualize the etiology of sin, the human soul becomes by implication an enclave of purity, in proportion to the distance and otherness of the demon. Vercelli Homily 19, for instance, lists an arsenal of the devil's assaults - actually a catalogue of proscribed psychological states each with the appropriate countermeasure: He winno" mid ofermodnesse; uton we ongean mid eadmodnesse. He us gegearwad galnesse; uton we ongean claennesse. He gegripo" manfulnesse; uton we ongean rihtwisnesse. He us onbebringed yrsunge; uton we fylgean gepylde. He us onasent gytsunge,- uton we began mildheortnesse. He us myngad to gifernesse; uton paer ongean gehealdan forhsefednesse. (Scragg, Vercelli Homilies 318-19,11. 71-6)9 He fights with pride; we should (stand) against him with humility. He

66 Satan Unbound girds us with lust; we should (stand) against him with purity. He seizes us with wickedness; we should (stand) against him with righteousness. He incites anger in us; we should observe patience. He sends avarice against us; we should practise mercy. He incites us to greed; we should there practise temperance against him.

Thus the homily externalizes and renders concrete broad psychological states that are socially discouraged by characterizing them as personal attacks. The homilist paints the active acts of aggression vividly through the rich variety of verbs, while stylistically suggesting passive resistance through the frequent absence of a verb in the counter measures. The complete externalization of the source of evil draws the retreating, interiorized individual more deeply into spiritual paranoia: se deoful us symle ymbepridad ('the devil surrounds us always').10 No doubt such stirringly concrete imagery was of inestimable value in subduing passions and resisting undesired inclinations, either in conjunction with theological models or in spite of them.

The Devil in Hell The devil's location is not a matter of occult curiosity - his location is intricately bound with the scope of his psychological and mythological domain. Satan's dual functions in early medieval psychology and mythology are in tension with one another: psychologically the devil is on the sinner's shoulder, behind the ear, or in the heart, whereas mythologically he is simply in hell. Descriptive representations of the devil (in either narrative or visual art), which must commit themselves to depicting him somewhere specific, cannot always fall back on lyric and imprecise language to sustain the ambiguity, as liturgical language can. Narrative depictions force the reader to circumscribe evil in certain ways, and thus demarcate the moral boundaries of the cosmos along specific lines. Christian tradition is fairly confident that Satan started out in heaven, and quite certain that he will, in the end of days, wind up in the abyss, in the 'outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth' (Matthew 8.12). His location between the Harrowing of Hell and the Second Coming of Christ, however, admits of some debate, and Church tradition insists paradoxically that he is simultaneously chained in hell and roaming about the

Exterior Evil and the Landscape of Old English Narrative 67 earth.11 The Book of Revelation, which offers the most dramatic scriptural account of the cosmic battle between Satan and the angels, expresses both tendencies. Revelation 12.9 reads: The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world - he was thrown down to the earth [in teiram], and his angels were thrown down with him ...

Here Satan's abode since the Fall of Angels has been the earth rather than hell, an interpretation popular with most commentators of the early Middle Ages. Revelation also asserts in no uncertain terms, however, that Satan is bound in a pit: He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, / and threw him into the pit [abyssum], and locked and sealed it over him, so that he would deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years were ended. (20.2-3)

Revelation 20.7-8 allows that following the thousand-year period, Satan will be let loose to deceive the nations of the earth - thus, depending on whether one takes the thousand-year period to be already completed, the text can be cited to prove either that Satan is bound in hell or that he is already at large.12 Other scriptural passages also imply that Satan is confined in hell, such as 2 Peter 2.4: God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell [in tartarum] and committed them to chains of deepest darkness to be kept until the judgment...

And Jude 6: And the angels who did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness [caligine] for the judgment of the great Day.

Although these passages may be enigmatic, because of the interpretation of 'hell' and 'deepest darkness' by certain patristic authorities as the air of this world (to be discussed shortly), the emergence of an

68 Satan Unbound independent literary tradition - that of the vision of hell and the Descensus ad inferos - eventually made the binding of Satan in a subterranean prison unequivocal. Since at least the time of Dante, Satan has been commonly visualized as bound in hell, and it is difficult for the modern reader to adjust to the fact that this was not the predominant image of Satan in the early Middle Ages. Two of the earliest visions of hell, the Apocalypse of Peter (ca. mid-second century) and the Apocalypse of Paul (third or fourth century), mention Satan in moral contexts,13 but - though the visionaries tour hell and view the occupants and torments - there is no sign of the devil there. There are references to punishing angels (Ezrael, Tatirokos, Tartaruchus), and both mention 'the worm that does not sleep' as a resident, but there is no explicit mention of Satan or any attempt to equate him with these figures. Likewise, Gregory the Great presents three brief visions of hell in the Dialogi, Bede offers three more in his Historia ecclesiastica, Boniface includes two in his correspondence, and Gregory of Tours includes one in his Historiae,14 but only one of these nine Bede's anonymous monk - offers a glimpse of the bound Prince of Darkness in hell. Even that is but a passing, static glance (see below). In fact, of the numerous early (pre-1100) medieval visions of hell, the vast majority do not include the devil.15 Only with a tenth-century redaction of the Voyage of Brendan, the eleventh-century Vision of Adamnan, and finally the widely popular twelfth-century Vision of Tundale does Satan become an essential feature of hell tours. Satan is thus increasingly seen as bound in a physical location, limited by a certain description, and his allegorical status as ubiquitous principle of evil or temptation is cast increasingly into obscurity. In the Middle Ages, the most famous visitor to hell was Christ, at the Harrowing. There are numerous Old English manifestations of the widely influential Descensus ad inferos, which, together with the Acta Pilati, comprises the Gospel of Nicodemus.16 In the early Descensus tradition, though Christ conquers an enemy in the underworld, this enemy is not identified as Satan,- in fact, there is great diversity in the identification of the enemy.17 Yet the binding of Satan grew to be an indispensable feature of the narrative. By the time of the prose Old English redaction, Satan and Hell are each significant figures, and conduct a lengthy dialogue in nervous anticipa-

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tion of the coming victor.18 Blickling Homily 7 (Easter Day) contains an account of the Harrowing which mentions the binding of Satan twice, and the Junius 11 poem Christ and Satan dwells at length upon Satan's humiliation at the Harrowing.19 Cynewulf isolates the binding of Satan as the principal salient point of the Harrowing/ if his descriptions of the six 'leaps' of Christ in Christ II may be taken as emphasizing essential points: Wass se fifta hlyp pa he hellwarena heap forbygde in cwicsusle, cyning inne gebond, feonda foresprecan, fyrnum teagum, gromhydigne, pser he gen liged in carcerne clommum gefaestnad, synnum gesseled. (ASPR 3,11. 730-6) The fifth leap was when he humiliated the crowd of hell-dwellers in (their) living torment, bound the king therein, the advocate of demons, the malignant one, with fiery fetters, (and) there he yet lies in prison, secured with bonds, confined for his sins.

This entire fifth 'leap' of Cynewulf's six - the Harrowing - is itself an addition to the five leaps of Gregory's homily, which is the source for the leaps of Christ passage. These texts as a whole established the chaining of Satan in hell more firmly by rendering the scene explicit in narrative detail. Audiences could now picture the devil in hell in a way they could not by merely relying on isolated passages in Revelation, 2 Peter, and Jude. Thus the banishment of the rebellious angels to hell apparently occurs at two times: once at the war in heaven, and again at the Harrowing. In some contexts these facts are reconciled by allowing that the devil fell to earth at first and then was confined to hell at the Harrowing; others posit a difference in degree of depth and torment, which was merely augmented at the Harrowing; most contexts, however, simply do not address the issue and blithely refer to the 'fall' and 'binding' of Satan whatever the context at hand.20 These are, after all, archetypal images whose importance lies more in their reiteration than in their coherence as a unified narrative.21 Whether or not the devil was strictly confined to hell before the Harrowing, he has undeniably been there since that time, and the

70 Satan Unbound description of the devil bound in hell is a familiar trope in Old English.22 This is where we meet him in Bede's Historia ecclesiastica, for instance. Though there are numerous appearances of demons and other possession narratives in Bede's Historia, the three narrative appearances of the devil frame the work at the beginning, middle, and end (Books 1, 3 and 5).23 The final appearance in Book 5 is only a brief glimpse of him in hell (5.14). An anonymous sinning monk, whom Bede identifies as a personal acquaintance, is granted a vision of the hell in which Satan appears: ... coepit narrare quia uideret inferos apertos et Satanan demersum in profundis Tartar! Caiphanque cum ceteris qui occiderunt Dominum iuxta eum flammis ultricibus contraditum. (Colgrave and Mynors 504, 11. 3-5) he began to relate how he had seen hell uncovered and Satan sunken in the depths of Tartarus - and Caiaphas, delivered together along with the others who struck down the Lord, near him in the avenging flames.

This brief and sterile glimpse - this frozen picture of the devil immured in his torments, as that in Dante - is the extent of his final narrative appearance. He no longer does anything, but is only alluded to passively, the mere object of description by a doomed and abject sinner. If the three narrative appearances of Satan in Books 1, 3, and 5 form a refrain punctuating the demonic themes running through the work, then this third and final refrain is no crescendo. Satan has receded, reduced to a subordinate position both in narrative prominence (he no longer acts) and in location (he is in hell rather than in the world).

The Devil of the Air For some early Christians, however, the confinement of the devil appeared incompatible with his active role in human sin. Hippolytus of Rome asks, 'Were the Devil already bound, how could he then still mislead the faithful and persecute and plunder mankind?'24 In the first two chapters of Job, when asked by the Lord where he has been, Satan responds: 'From going to and fro on the

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earth, and from walking up and down on it .../25 The most explicit New Testament passage - and one specifically referring to the period subsequent to the Harrowing of Hell - is 1 Peter 5.8: 'Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.'26 Thus Gregory the Great refers to the devil as lupus circumiens, for instance.27 The New Testament frequently treats evil spirits as beings of the air, a motif common in classical and early Christian philosophy.28 Thus Ephesians 2.1-2: 'You were dead through the trespasses and sins / in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air (principem potestatis aeris}, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient.'29 Throughout the patristic period the devil was often conceived as inhabiting the lower heavens (the atmosphere of this world). The Latin rendering of zophos ('darkness') in Jude 6 (quoted above) in the Vulgate is caligo, which aside from 'darkness' can also mean 'fog' or 'thick air' - thus the passage could be used to support Satan's entrapment in the air of this world, instead of his confinement in a void or pit.30 It may seem unintuitive that the 'hell' into which the fallen angels were plunged following their expulsion from heaven was the air of this world, but the church fathers devoted a great deal of attention to the subject.31 If not always identified as the place of torments, the air is frequently characterized as a prison.32 Augustine is not vague: Propterea ad ista caliginosa, id est, ad hunc aerem, tanquam ad carcerem, damnatus est diabolus, de apparatu superiorum Angelorum lapsus cum angelis suis: nam Apostolus hoc de illo dicit: 'Secundum principem potestatis aeris hujus, qui nunc operatur in filiis diffidentiae.' Et alius Apostolus dicit: 'Si enim Deus angelis peccantibus non pepercit, sed carceribus caliginis inferni retrudens, tradidit in judicio puniendos servari/ infernum hoc appellans, quod inferior pars mundi sit. {Homily on Psalm 148.9, Caillau and Guillon 53) On that account, the devil was condemned into this darkness, that is, into this air, as though into a prison; he fell from the splendour of the angels with his angels. For the Apostle says this about it: '... following the prince of the power of this air, who now works in the sons

72 Satan Unbound of diffidence' [Eph 2.2]. And elsewhere the Apostle says: 'Truly, if God did not spare the sinning angels, but thrusting them into the prisons of gloomy hell, delivered those to be punished to be kept until judgment ...' [2 Peter 2.4], calling that hell, which is the lower part of the world.33

Though this account conflicts with the traditional view of hell as subterranean, it allows a cosmological finesse capable of sustaining both the letter of scripture and the omnipresence of the demonic.34 The demon in a Passio Margaretae copied in Anglo-Saxon England reveals to Margaret, 'Our lives are not on the earth, but we travel with the winds/ and the demon in Juliana is referred to as lyftlacende, 'flitting through the air.'35 ^Elfric calls the devil se fleogenda sceocca ('the flying demon'), and notes in De auguriis that the invisible devil flyhd geond pas woruld and fela dincg gesihd ('flies throughout the world and sees many things').36 Byrhtferth closes his Enchiridion with the admonition that eall pis lyft is full hellicra deofla, 'all this air is full of hellish devils.'37 Only with Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas would the idea that Satan is already chained in hell become the prevalent opinion in orthodox circles.38 Although the tradition that the demons were properly beings of the air was widespread, it proved difficult to envision how they could be suffering the fires of hell (as Revelation insists). Matthew 25.41 refers to a fire 'prepared for the devil and his angels/ to be their fate at the final judgment, and thus (by implication) not afflicting them at present.39 The presence and nature of the fires consuming the rebel angels was thus a matter of dispute, and for early writers, once again, the allegorical interpretation predominated: they are not the material flames of hell (though those do exist, and await the demons), but represent rather their present state of suffering. Many early writers such as Origen and Ambrose insist that it is merely the anticipation of the hellfires, which they know await them, that causes the demons to suffer. Bede states in his Commentary on the Epistle of James (3.6): A gehenna dicit a diabolo et angelis ejus, propter quos gehenna facta est, et qui ubicunque vel in aere volitant, vel in terris aut sub terris vagantur, sive detinentur, suarum secum ferunt semper tormenta flammarum, instar febricitantis, qui et si in lectis eburneis, et si in

Exterior Evil and the Landscape of Old English Narrative 73 locis ponatur apricis, fervorem tamen vel frigus insiti sibi languoris evitare non potest. Sic ergo daemones et si in templis colantur auratis, et si per aerea discurrant, igne semper ardent gehennali ... (PL 93, col. 27; cf. Coulange 68-9).40 By hell, he says, 'by the devil and his angels/ for whom hell was made and who always everywhere take with them the torments of flames, whether they fly in the air or wander on the earth or beneath the earth or are [kept there. They are] like a person with a fever who, even if he is placed on ivory beds or in sunny places, still cannot avoid the heat and the chill of the illness within him. So therefore the demons, even if they are worshipped in golden temples or move around through the air, always burn with hellish fire ... (Hurst 39)

Here we are on familiar ground - this is not far removed from Marlowe's 'where we are is hell; and where hell is, must we forever be' or Milton's 'Which way I fly is hell; myself am Hell.'41 Though provocative in the context of early modern theology and literature, these tropes were in fact commonplaces of the early patristic tradition, in which the moral and allegorical aspects of the devil were at least as prominent as his individuality, traits, or personal history. The Liturgical Devil A far more powerful influence on the minds of practising Christians than theological works - which were abstruse and difficult to obtain - was the liturgy itself, which vividly suggests the ubiquitous presence of the devil. Coulange writes: Let us note that the traditional belief [that the devil is not in hell, but free to wander], expelled from theology, found refuge with the people and in the Liturgy. Without thought of the doctors and their revolutionary speculations, the faithful continued to believe that the Devil ranged about them. And the Church, which chased the Devil from the bodies of the possessed, which interdicted, under the gravest penalties, pacts with the Devil, changed nothing in its practices. The theologians, with their innovations, succeeded only in putting themselves in a state of rebellion against the Ritual. (65-6)

While Russell observes that on the whole the devil plays a small

74 Satan Unbound role in the liturgy, there is at least one major exception - baptism, the definitive sacrament in the construction of the Christian self.42 No standard baptismal rites were established during the time of the composition of the New Testament. Already in the earliest extant baptism liturgies in the West, however - the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus (Rome) and the writings of Tertullian (Carthage), both around the beginning of the third century - the ceremony is presented as freeing the catechumen from evil spirits.43 The renunciation of Satan is one of the few features both the Roman and Carthaginian practices share, in fact. In Hippolytus's rite, Satan is directly addressed and rebuked as part of the initiatory practices, but references to him are abandoned throughout the remainder of the ceremony. In Tertullian's rite, the devil is not addressed in direct discourse or treated as though present; the renunciation is addressed rather to God and the congregation. By Augustine's time, however, the practice of prebaptismal exorcism had become a standard part of the ceremony, and would soon dominate the initiation procedures in the rites of baptism throughout Christendom (except Syria). For Augustine the expulsion of Satan was primarily metaphoric; that is, in the exorcism of the devil, the catechumens were merely severing the bondage of their souls to sin.44 Kelly observes, The notion that all sinners were literally possessed by demons did not find much favor with the Fathers, and when they were confronted with baptismal ceremonies that presupposed it, they were forced to interpret them allegorically ... (Baptism 273-4)

The liturgy was a vital expression of community, a living system with a momentum independent of speculative theology: The creative liturgists took their cue not from the liturgotropic rationalizations of the Fathers but from the literal sense of the exorcisms themselves, which had continued to be performed with more attention than the Fathers' homilies had been reread. As a result, this aspect of the confrontation with the adversary, theologically questionable unless symbolically understood, underwent great elaboration, unhindered by the circumstance that these fearsome adjurations came more and more to be pronounced over the heads not of sinful and world-tainted adults but of imperceptive infants. (Baptism 151)

Exterior Evil and the Landscape of Old English Narrative 75 The dramatic nature of the rite was designed to leave an impression on the congregation, and (in the case of adult baptism) even more so on the participants. The local variations of the rite exhibit a marked tendency to embellish and dramatize those very demonological references that Augustine and other church authorities tried to deemphasize. Two letters of Alcuin, which would become influential in the Carolingian reformations of liturgy, describe contemporary baptism procedures.45 The catechumen undergoes initial rites 'to renounce the malign spirit and all of his damnable pomps.'46 The devil is then mocked and driven away through 'exsufflation,' and the candidate receives the Apostles' Creed so that the vacated soul can be adorned for the entry of God. The ceremony repeatedly stresses the presence of the devil in the candidate, and several rites which in earlier treatments do not explain the significance behind the gestures and actions here freely associate them with the expulsion of and fortification against the devil. The breast is anointed, for instance, 'so that by the sign of the holy cross the devil will be prevented from further entry' (ut signo sanctae crucis diabolo claudatur ingressus, Dummler 202, 11. 23^). The demonological emphasis is dropped during the remaining ceremonies (following the baptism itself); the prebaptismal exorcism is apparently taken to be absolutely effective. It is difficult to judge how reflective Alcuin's descriptions were of current practices. The Roman liturgy, however, as reflected first in the Oido romamis XI and eventually in the Ordo L (compiled and disseminated in the tenth century), quickly supplanted most local variants and soon became the standard Catholic baptism ritual.47 The Oido XI treats the devil as present and even as though he were inhabiting all the candidates simultaneously. He is ordered to depart in direct discourse (Exorcizo te immunde ...), and the priest interprets several of the subsequent rites for the catechumens in terms of demonological combat. These references colourfully dramatize the devil as a real and active participant in the room, in the catechumen's soul, and in the world. Even the physical components of the rite - the oil and the water - are permeated with the demonic presence, and all must be exorcised individually, just as a surgical team sterilizes its instruments. The very nature of a sacrament requires the suspension of the historical attitude toward mythological narrative, and the adoption of a more symbolic frame of mind to allow for the participation of the

76 Satan Unbound congregation in the holy mysteries. That is, regardless of what theologians and historians may assert concerning the devil's history and present location, the liturgist necessarily ignores these, and instead evokes the archetypal facet of the ancient enemy in crafting a rhetoric of personal participation in the cosmic battle: The devil is simply envisaged as possessing each of the candidates and as not yet suffering the pains of hell. But this logical (or chronological) contradiction did not disturb the overall movement of the ritual plot, as it had developed by the ninth or tenth century: in the historical present of the sacred triduum, the Savior who died yesterday and will rise tomorrow will defeat the forces of evil in hell this very night. In this morning's ceremony [the seventh scrutiny], Satan, who has virtual omnipresence, is warned of this defeat. (Kelly, Baptism 221)

Thus the sacrament stresses the archetypal significance of the mythological elements over the historical in order to allow the individual to participate directly in the supernatural combat for the cosmos itself.48 In the process, however, the historical interpretation cannot help but undergo lasting permutation in the minds of the practitioners. In ritual functions the ordinary significance of space and time are suspended and invested with a new religious significance, as Eliade argues in The Sacred and the Profane.49 Yet are we to imagine that the congregation, after witnessing or even experiencing such a ceremony and leaving the church, would immediately abandon the rhetorical conventions and conceptual presuppositions of the liturgical practice? Surely the presence of the devil in the ritual drama of the sacrament contributes toward a broader understanding of his activities in the world, in addition to those activities familiar from more conventional narrative sources (the Bible, hagiography, etc.). In 'When God Blew Satan out of Heaven/ Hill shows how an isolated liturgical expression from the baptismal liturgy (the exsufflatio) appears in hortatory/literary sources of ostensibly unrelated context (see also Knox 201). Along with phrases and visual images, broader conceptual schemata, such as the characteristics and activities of the major players in the drama of the cosmic battle, can also be assimilated in alien contexts. Galpern notes: 'The liturgy shaped the most basic, unarticulated assumptions of the monks' (23). In our Old English texts, the devil enjoys certain freedoms with

Exterior Evil and the Landscape of Old English Narrative 77 the natural world: he appears and disappears at will, he enjoys an almost omniscient awareness of remote matters, and his role as external vs. internal tempter is blurred beyond hope of distinction. Clearly the 'virtual omnipresence' assumed of the devil in the liturgical rites, and the ease with which he is treated as an entity clearly in defiance of normal spatio-temporal constraints, informs some of the anomalous tendencies of the devil in these texts.

The Devil of the Homilies The Vercelli homilies - and the vernacular homilies in general exhibit a marked reluctance to present the devil as a character outside of hell. The devil of the Vercelli Book mostly appears in narrative accounts occurring before the First Coming or after the Second, that is, in mythological time. At least a quarter of the homilies mention that the devil is in hell, while only two actually depict him as being out of hell.50 Both of these latter instances are hagiographic episodes - of Saints Martin and Guthlac - and both rely substantially on Latin predecessors. However, for the account of St Martin (Homily 18), at least, the redactor has eliminated most of the numerous appearances of the devil found in Sulpicius Severus's Vita Martini, preserving only Martin's most notable encounter, that with the devil at his deathbed (see figs 6 and 7).51 The Blickling collection exhibits the same tendencies: though the devil is frequently mentioned, there is a reluctance to assert his presence outside of hell during the sixth age of humankind.52 In the homilies of Wulfstan, sparse in narrative content as they are, there is no instance of the devil appearing out of hell in any narrative episode. The devil's absence from narrative situations set between the Harrowing of Hell and the Second Coming is conspicuous throughout the anonymous vernacular homilies as a whole, and attests to the strength with which certain ideas had become entrenched in the popular imagination - most notably, the parallel images of the binding of Satan at the Harrowing of Hell and at the Day of Judgment (two structurally similar episodes which homilies often collapse into a single archetypal moment). We saw in chapter 2 that the Vercelli homilies exploit the motif of the devil firing his arrows from hell at certain points, which, whether or not intended as a conscious rationalization, has the effect of logically reconciling the devil's incarceration with his active participation in psychological temptation.

78 Satan Unbound While the anonymous homilies remain fascinated with scenes of dramatic grandeur and indulge freely in spectacular scenes and eschatological speculations, they tend not to expend this energy on the person of the devil himself. Perhaps a taboo figure (as in the charm literature) popularly immune to such idle poetic licence, he remains a distant and ill-defined character, appearing as background trimming or absent altogether from scenes of the Last Judgment, and appearing only in the scenes in which he is indispensable (such as the rebellion in heaven and the temptation in Eden). Furthermore, the non-hagiographic homilies tend to concretize and rationalize the more potentially unstable features of the devil's location, mobility, and personal presence in the human sphere - the very features that the hagiographic texts (especially poetic ones) exploit. The devil is 'present' only in the abstract consideration that individuals must beware of sin, but cosmologically, there is little support for the theological claim that the Old Enemy is imprisoned in the air or that he roams the earth, 'prowling like a lion.' The effects of the devil's works and machinations are real and frightful, perhaps far more so - certainly of more observable interest - than the devil himself. Against this background, Old English poetry forms a striking contrast. Space and Poetry Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Beware, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison so that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have affliction. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. Revelation 2.10

The prison is a privileged site of spiritual conflict: three of the six major Old English poetic hagiographies situate spiritual conflict in prisons or prisonlike environments (as opposed to the open-space conflicts of Anthony or Hilarion, for instance).53 Poets carefully abstract the level of discussion beyond particular human concerns and historical settings, and only after establishing such an ideal context is the poet free to explore the most fundamental principles of reality. This does not presuppose undue hermeneutic sophistication: such intuitions provide the framework for cosmological narra-

Exterior Evil and the Landscape of Old English Narrative 79 tives throughout world mythology. By removing events to the beginning or the end of time, mythology signals them as ontologically prior to human historical events: they have greater significance than contingent human events, which become only shadowy reflections of them. Consider the following myth of the Krachi people of Togo: In the beginning of days Wulbari [the deity] and man lived close together and Wulbari lay on top of Mother Earth, Asase Ya. Thus it happened that, as there was so little space to move about in, man annoyed the divinity, who in disgust went away and rose up to the present place where one can admire him but not reach him. (Sproul 75)54

We instantly recognize the foundational significance of these events, though they are related only as particular and accidental occurrences, because they are related as temporally prior to the present age. This accounts for the significance of the Satan figure in the cosmological narratives of salvation history (the fall of angels, the temptation of Adam and Eve, the Harrowing, etc.). But these tropes are not available for the devil of ongoing human interaction (the 'hagiographic demon/ as David Johnson has called him), since the beginning and end times are out of reach for the saints and sinners of the sixth age of humankind. Removing events to an underworld setting is an alternate method of investing them with ontological priority, and this is the one available to - and amply exploited by - Old English poets. If the devil cannot always come to the saints, the saints can come to the devil. In its confinement, darkness, and solitude, the prison is a functional analogue of the 'underworld' familiar from both classical writers (Homer, Virgil, Ovid, etc.) and world mythology in general, although in the Latin Middle Ages the archetype is most familiar from Christ's descent into Hell.55 Generally, in these narratives the protagonist, bereft of companions and protections (except for a single magical device or crucial piece of information), leaves behind the daylight world of reason, society, and order to penetrate the hidden recesses of a darker world of fear, loneliness, and chaos.56 Among the various contexts in which the saint confronts the demon in prison in early Christian narrative, the most common is the passions of the martyrs. What Nelson has said of the prison in Juliana - that it is a 'strange, inverted world' - is true of many of

80 Satan Unbound these hagiographical prison episodes.57 Ironically, though the binding of Satan and the confinement of the demons in hell are common homiletic tropes, in the hagiographic narratives it is rather the saint who is condemned to a place of confinement, in accordance with the archetypal standard outlined above. The essential idea informing the conventional mythological visit to the underworld is that the protagonist visits the most powerful antagonist on its own terms and in its own territory; but in our texts, this carefully established scene is then thematically undermined. Here in the cold prison the saints, praying and often conversing with the deity or an angel, are no less at home than they would be in the grandest basilica.58 It is the saint who remains stationary, while the demons, who must themselves invade the prison, become the intruders. Juliana's experience of incarceration betrays no discomfort or loneliness, for instance: Halig paer inne waerfasst wunade. Symle heo wuldorcyning herede aet heortan, heofonrices god, in pam nydclafan, nergend fira, heolstre bihelmad. Hyre waes halig gaest singal gesid. (ASPR 3, 11. 237-42) The holy one remained faithful therein. She praised the king of glory, the god of the heaven-kingdom, the saviour of people, in her heart continuously in the prison, covered in darkness. The holy ghost was a constant companion to her.

In contrast with this steadfastness, the comings and goings of the demon make him appear flighty and directionless. Thus Cynewulf appropriates the underworld itself from stationary, controlling figures such as Hades, Pluto, Satan, or Hel, and reinscribes it as contested, if not quite sacred, space. The saint offers prayers, makes the sign of the cross, and drives away the trespassing demons.59 For the Christian mythographer, there should be no region in the cosmos truly away from the reason and order of God's logos-, in medieval narratives, however, this is not always the case. The prison scenes - and demonic conflicts in general - encode spiritual conflict not only as verbal debate but also as territorial dispute. In such a symbolic landscape, it understandably becomes cru-

Exterior Evil and the Landscape of Old English Narrative

81

cial to pay close attention to the poet's use of relational and absolute space, and to the possible significance of adhering to or denying expected indications of position and motion. Verse saints' lives evoke the language of eternity rather than history, of abstracts rather than particulars: in short, it approaches the language of liturgy. Accordingly, the devil is more ephemeral and mobile - less materially cumbersome - in the poetry.60 He is at once in the world and incarcerated in hell, because above all he inhabits the timeless, boundless space of mythological symbol. But this symbol remains external, to pagans and saints alike: the psychology of homiletic prose ('that devil is in your hearts') gives way to the ontological battle between heaven and hell that is simultaneously fought in all places and in all times, through the pawns of demons and saints. Where the human reader of these grandiose narratives fits in is not at all clear, and hagiographers themselves grasp at straws in their prefaces or prologues to relate the events in their story to the mundane pursuits of the average Christian.

Mise en Scene in Elene and Andreas The legend of the finding of the true cross by Constantine's mother Helen was widespread in the early Middle Ages. In Old English it is related in a prose homily (extant in two versions), and in the Vercelli Book poem Elene.61 This tale is generically distinct from the passions of the virgin martyrs: the primary stage of conflict is resituated from the private to the public sphere, and is more concerned with the confrontations between two communities (Christianized Romans and Jews) than with individual enlightenment. The devil is as much a public spectacle as a private menace. Even more than in Juliana, Cynewulf exploits space to problematize the ontological status of the demon. Such commentators as Hill, Johnson, and Regan have noted the catechetical form of Judas's instruction at the hands of Elene, as well as the analogies between Judas's fasting/conversion and the rites of early baptismal liturgies.62 On this account, the sudden appearance of the devil onto the narrative stage is easily accounted for: he is required to play his role in the liturgical drama being enacted (specifically, he must be present for Judas's renunciation of Satan, since it is delivered in the second person). At this point the narrative - which has only been marginally realistic in terms of his-

82 Satan Unbound toricity or visual detail anyway - crosses over fully from literal to figural signification. Johnson explains, 'With the advent of the Devil immediately following the raising of the Cross, the narrative shifts as it were to spiritual, liturgical time.'63 Thus, perhaps, we should not attempt to visualize the scene too precisely, or to hold the narrative to strict scrutiny of sequential progression, causality, or motive.64 And yet, if the operative terms in the figural narrative (characters, motifs, etc.) are conscientiously chosen and carefully manipulated, as is increasingly recognized, it is still important to investigate them as they function not only in the abstract, but as concrete figures moving within clearly delineated regions of narrative space. Of course we would be daft to conclude that a bishop or saint is actually twice the size of a fawning disciple, simply because they are iconographically depicted in those proportions in a manuscript illustration,- this is only meant to represent relative sanctity, or to prioritize the spectator's attention.65 But in closely reading the literal level of a text, we are not departing from the figural or iconographic significance of the figures, but simply (to keep the analogy) measuring the relative proportions of the figures with great care. Even in the most symbolic of illustrations, it is still important to attend to close detail - perhaps even more so, since only in 'realistic' (non-symbolic) descriptions do details have no ostensible external meaning, and make no claim to greater significance beyond themselves. A text should not be read sloppily simply because it is figural. In the Latin Ada Cyriaci, a possible source of Cynewulf's Elene, the devil becomes infuriated that Judas finds the three crosses and discovers the true one by a controlled experiment involving the resurrection of a deceased boy. Both the Latin and the Old English specify that the devil is in hell, but his voice can still be heard here in the world: sed omnium bonorum semper invidus diabolus cum furore vociferabatur in aere ... ('but the devil, always envious of good things, cried out in the air ...')66 Though the Old English prose homily also states that the devil is in hell, it omits the detail about the air: fa waes se nipfulla diofol on helle mid eorre and mid hatheortnesse astyred. And he pa swipe hlude rymde and pus cwae5 ... (Bodden 91-3) Then the envious devil in hell was stirred up with anger and with rage. And he then cried very loudly and spoke thus ...

Exterior Evil and the Landscape of Old English Narrative 83 These versions discourage visualizations of the devil on the scene by specifying that he is in hell or that his voice is only heard in the air. The description of the devil in the Latin ('envious of all good things') is appropriate for the current circumstances; he speaks at the very climax of the 'good things' that happen in the account. This aspect is more or less preserved in the prose homily, which states he is nipfulla ('envious/ Bodden 91). Cynewulf, however, eschews the particular motive of envy, and concentrates instead on the devil as more generally 'mindful of evils': J>a paer ligesynnig on lyft astah lacende feond. Ongan pa hleodrian helledeofol, eatol asclaeca, yfela gemyndig ... (898-901, and cf. 939b) Then the deceitful one rose up there in the air, the flying fiend. Then the hell-devil began to cry out, the terrible demon, mindful of evils ...

Unlike the prose homily or the Latin Acta, Cynewulf does not hesitate to bring the Old Enemy in person onto the actual scene. Not only is he present, but he is restless and even expresses some levity (on lyft astah}. The other versions rely on a scene of less concretely visualized intervention from a more nebulous foe, though one with a specific motive, while Cynewulf insists on a tangible devil, more concretely realized though less specifically motivated. This devil is thus less personal, and more iconographic in function: his presence is required as visual spectacle, though he is not a subject of intrinsic interest as a character. The devil laments impotently that through the finding of the cross, Christ enjoys yet another victory over him and his dominion.67 At this point Cynewulf adds a detail, not found in the other versions, concerning the devil's periodic rather than continuous confinement in Hell: 'Hwaet, se haelend me in pam engan ham oft getynde, geomrum to sorge!' (11. 919-21) 'Lo! The Saviour has often enclosed me in that oppressive home, to the sorrow of the mournful ones.'

84 Satan Unbound Since he specifically indicates the devil is physically present, Cynewulf appropriately goes out of his way to reconcile this mobility with his widely known entrapment in hell. For Cynewulf, the devil is not continuously trapped in hell, but rather is shut up there 'often' (oft}.68 This explanation represents a departure from th standard patristic reconciliations of the devil's mobility vs. entrapment. Cynewulf has placed himself under the necessity of providing such an explanation here because, unlike in Juliana, in Elene he insists even more explicitly than his source that the devil confronting Judas is not a lesser demon but Satan, the Old Enemy.69 In the Ada and in the prose homily, after the devil appears and bewails his loss of an ally, Judas's response to the devil's lament is brief and straightforward: 'Qui mortuos suscitavit Christus, ipse te darnnet in abyssum ignis aeterni.' (Bodden 92,11. 8-9) 'May Christ, who resurrected the dead, condemn you to the abyss of eternal fire.' 'Se Haelend pe liofap and rixap pe besaence on pone diopan belle grund.' (Bodden 93,11. 249-51). 'May the Saviour who lives and reigns sink you in the deep pit of hell.'

Cynewulf greatly expands this passage, which already bears a formal resemblance to exorcism as found in the gospel possession accounts, as an exorcistic rebuke (Hill 'Sapiential Structure' 175). In particular, Judas enumerates the identifying characteristics of the demon to be driven out: 'Ne pearft du swa swide, synna gemyndig, sar niwigan ond saece raeran, mordres manfrea, past pe se mihtiga cyning in neolnesse nyder bescufed, synwyrcende, in susla grund domes leasne, se de deadra feala worde awehte. Wite 5u pe gearwor past pu unsnyttrum anforlete leohta beorhtost ond lufan dryhtnes,

Exterior Evil and the Landscape of Old English Narrative 85 pone faegran gefean, ond on fyrbaede suslum beprungen syddan wunodest, ade onaeled, ond paer awa scealt, widerhycgende, wergdu dreogan, yrmdu butan ende.' (11. 939-52) 'You, mindful of sins, need not so greatly renew the pain and initiate the strife, wicked lord of murder, in that the mighty king will hurl you, sin-working, bereft of glory, down into the abyss - he who awoke many of the dead with his word. Know the more clearly that you foolishly relinquished the brightest of lights and the love of God, the fair joy, and have since dwelt in a bath of fire, encompassed with tortures, burned with fire, and will ever [dwell] there, hostile one, endure damnation, misery without end.'

The historical binding of Satan in hell (pu anforlete gefean) is structurally assimilated with a future binding (pe se cyning bescufed), presumably that at the time of the Second Coming. This cross-temporal referencing provokes a spatial distortion as well, since Judas claims explicitly that his interlocutor is in hell at present (on fyrbxde syddan wunodest ... ond p&r awa scealt wergdu dreogan, 948-51). It cannot be argued that Judas distinguishes the demon before him from Satan - whomever he takes the demon before him to be, that is the one he claims is in hell. The character, Judas, insists on blurring the geographical distinction between the devil in the world and the devil in hell, even while Cynewulf digresses from the sources specifically in rendering that distinction explicit and consistent. The Vercelli Book poem Andreas also exacerbates the tension between the devil in the world and that bound in hell. When Andreas is cast into prison by the Mermedonians, the devil enters with either six or seven companion demons.70 This prison scene sustains a fairly consistent distinction between the devil who roams about the earth (fyrnsceapa, 'hostile old fiend/ 1346), and his father, the devil in hell (ealdgenidla, 'old enemy/ 1341; helle h&ftling, 'hell captive/ 1342).71 What is peculiar about this scene is that the devil presently in the cell conducts a long-distance conversation with the devil in hell, without leaving. The devil in hell then addresses Andreas directly, and Andreas answers him appropriately as a creature bound with chains:

86 Satan Unbound '[^€,lmihtig god] in niedum iu gefaestnode fyrnum clommum! Pasr du syddan a, susle gebunden, in wraec wunne ...' (11. 1377-80) 'Almighty God once fastened you forcibly with fiery chains! There you have lived ever since in exile, bound in torment...'

The saint and demons address each other fluidly and naturally, with only a single, charmingly simple comment on the spatial and acoustic difficulties: it is stated that the devil addresses Andreas from hell with a 'loud voice' (hludan stefne, 1360)! The first scene in which Andreas confronts the demonic problematizes this distinction between the devil and Satan, however. The roaming devil appears among the Mermedonians, pointing Andreas out to them and rallying them to attack the saint. Andreas tells him, 'De se aelmihtiga heanne gehnaegde, ond on heolstor besceaf, \>set J)e cyninga cining clamme belegde, ond ]3e syddan a Satan nemdon, da de dryhtnes a deman cudon.' (11. 1190-4) 'The Almighty conquered you, abject, and thrust you into the darkness, where the king of kings enchained you with a bond, and they who know how to heed the Lord's law have called you Satan ever since.'

Here it is the devil immediately before him who is bound in hell, a devil called Satan. Boenig observes that the verb tenses at this point in both Old English versions (Andreas and a prose homily) mark a shift from that of the Greek Praxeis.72 In the Praxeis, Andreas tells the devil that Christ 'will lower you' into the abyss, which the Old English homily and poem render instead in the past (Christ has already done so). Like Elene, Andreas deliberately upsets the narrative logic, and explicitly problematizes the devil's status as a roaming agent and even as a single entity. Though he does not especially seem to be in anyone's heart, there is a manifest concern in these texts to keep Satan at once in the world and out of it. There is little wonder, then, if Satan regularly finds himself in a state of 'treble confusion.'73

5. The Devil and the Demons

To be contracted by another person into a single being - how strange. Virginia Woolf, The Waves

'Look/ explains Father Karras to Regan's hysterical mother in William Friedkin's screen version of William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist, 'your daughter doesn't say she's a demon; she says she's the devil himself. Now if you've seen as many psychotics as I have, you'd realize that's the same thing as saying you're Napoleon Bonaparte.' This is a modern problem, not a medieval one. Our intuition is to take epithets such as adversarius Dei, auctor criminum, and antiquus hostis to refer specifically to the devil rather than to his lesser demons, but if we insist on making much of this difference, we depart from our sources in doing so. Such distinctions are largely alien to medieval demonology. Kelly observes that 'sometimes, no doubt, the devil is simply taken as a collective term for all evil spirits.'1 Bastiaensen warns, 'a distinction made between the devil and his assistants should not be too absolute' (133), and Cotton Mather is even less timid: When we speak of, The Devil, 'tis a name of Multitude; it means not One Individual Devil, so Potent and Scient, as perhaps a Manichee would imagine; but it means a Kind, which a Multitude belongs unto ... because those Apostate Angels, are all United, under one Infernal Monarch, in the Designs of Mischief, 'tis in the Singular Number, that they are spoken of. (44, 173)

88 Satan Unbound Though not often explicitly addressed in theological or expository writings, there is an ambivalence between the singular devil and his multitude of minions sustained in the earliest patristic writings and throughout the early Middle Ages, both within sentences at the level of syntax, and at larger narrative levels. It is common to find the devil attributed certain actions in one text, and to find a host of demons blamed for the same action in an alternate version. Thus Satan enters into Jewish princes in one version of the Latin Adsumptio Sanctae Mariae (Et statim Satanas introiuit in illos principes ...), while in another, the offenders are a group of lesser demons (in eis ingressis demonibus}.2 Ephesians 6.11-18, the base text for all medieval constructions of spiritual warfare, provides the seed of this conceptual syllepsis. Paul presents the singular devil and the plural hostile spiritual powers in fluid apposition: Put on the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. / For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places ... With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

The singular 'devil' at the beginning of the series and 'the evil one' at the end frame a number of terms designated in the plural. Ling interprets the list of plural 'powers' and 'forces' as Paul's amplification - his spelling out in greater detail - of the singular term 'devil' (76-7). Whatever Paul's original intention, the habit of placing the devil in syntactic apposition with demons without comment or explanation is commonplace in the Middle Ages. Rufinus of Aquileia equates the singular tentator with the plural multitudo dcemonum in his account of John of Lycopolis.3 Cassian apposes 'innumerable hordes' (innumerabiles catervas) of spiritual enemies with 'the evil one' (inimicus).4 The late sixth-century Greek alphabetical collection Sayings of the Desert Fathers quotes Abba Poemen as blithely identifying 'evil demons' with 'the evil one,' and in the early Syrian martyrdom tradition, an indwelling demon tells Saint Pethion, 'What have I got to do with you, the hateful opponent of our number?'5 In his Book of the Lives of the Fathers,

The Devil and the Demons 89 Gregory of Tours apposes daemones (plur.) with hostis and inimici (sing.) in his account of Lupicinus and Romanus, and apposes daemonibus (plur.) with daemonis (sing.) in that of Abbot Senoch.6 A fascinating anecdote in a Life of Waldetru.de, the seventh-century Abbess of Mons, at first identifies the antagonist as the 'ancient enemy of humankind' (antiquus humani generis inimicus}, and then as the 'devil' (diaboli), and then almost immediately afterwards as the 'troops of Satan' (catervas satanse).7 Walafrid Strabo's Life of St. Gall equates 'a great many serpents' (plurima serpentium multitudo) with the 'devil' (diabolo), referring to them as his agents but subsequently implying that Satan himself is effectively driven away once the serpents are.8 Conversely, the devil (or a demon) can simultaneously inhere in several possessed persons: Baudonivia's Life of Radegund, for instance, notes that 'the enemy seriously possessed two women' (mulieres duas graviter infestabat inimicus}.9 At the narrative level there are authoritative precedents for the conflation of the single devil with his subordinate demons in the gospel possession accounts. The most obvious instance is the Gerasene demoniac episode (Mark 5.1-20 and Luke 8.26-39), in which Jesus exorcizes a possessed Gentile in his only foray outside of Judea. A single man possessed by a 'legion' of demons refers to himself somewhat confusingly, alternating between the first person singular and plural (as in the St Pethion incident related above). The demon in him exclaims, 'My name is Legion; for we are many.'10 The image of the 2000 demons fleeing before Christ and plunging themselves suicidally into a river after occupying nearby swine is dramatic and stuck in the imagination of many medieval writers: legio becomes a relatively common, species-specific phrase referring to a group of demons (as with a 'pride' of lions), and the number 2000 becomes frequently associated with demon possession.11 Medieval commentators consistently identify these 2000 demons as Satan. An exorcism rite addressing Satan in an eleventh-century Liber ordinum (northern-Spanish/southern-French service) provides a clear example: 'We come together against you by his power, to whom you made known that your name is Legion.'12 In a nonbaptismal exorcism formula of that text, the devil is interestingly called a 'multiform spirit' (spiritus multiformis) in an impressive list of explicatives,13 a word also used of the devil in the Passio Marinae.14 Gregory the Great equates the single devil with the

90 Satan Unbound legion of spirits in Book 3 of the Dialogues,15 and y£lfric likewise equates the devil with the entire Gerasene troop in De auguriis.16 Isolated features of the Gerasene possession account recur in subsequent medieval writings. In his Vita Hilarionis (ch. 18), Jerome has Hilarion cure a man occupied by a 'legion' of demons and say to Jesus in his supplication, 'Thine it is to conquer many no less than one.'17 So fascinated is Jerome by the multiple aspect of the possession that he includes the rare detail that several distinct voices are heard to come from the man ('as it were the confused shouts of a multitude').18 Boniface's spirited letter to King ^Ethelbald (746-7) also presents a man possessed by a multitude of demons, which he equates with the devil: Nam Ceolredum, precessorem venerande celsitudinis tuae, ut testati sunt qui presentes fuerant, apud comites suos splendide epulantem malignus spiritus, qui eum ad fiduciam dampnandae legis Dei suadendo pellexit, peccantem subito in insaniam mentis convertit, ut sine paenitentia et confessione furibundus et amens et cum diabolis sermocinans et Dei sacerdotes abhominans de hac luce sine dubio ad tormenta inferni migravit. (Tangl 152-3) For while Ceolred, Your Highness's predecessor, as those who were present testify, sat feasting amidst his nobles, an evil spirit [malignus spiritus] which had seduced him into defying the law of God suddenly struck him with madness, so that still in his sins, without repentance or confession, raving mad, gibbering with demons [diabolis sermocinans} and cursing the priests of God, he departed from this life and went certainly to the torments of hell. (Talbot 125)

Writers exhibit no anxiety over identifying the devil with multiple demons or indwelling spirits,- the texts reflect a complete integration of the two basic models for the expression of evil in the world (i.e., its embodiment as the devil vs. its manifestation as a horde of demons).19 I have purposefully cited scattered instances of this rhetorical tendency to show that it is not limited to a certain context or genre, but appears in epistolary and liturgical as well as more obviously literary (hagiographical, theological, poetic) environments. The tendency toward syntactic and conceptual assimilation of devil and demons - of singular and plural - survives the transition from Latin to Old English. The opening of Vercelli Homily 12

Figure 1. The Hereford Troper. St Martin chases a demon from Avitianus's back in Sulpicius Severus's Dialogues (3.8), here depicted in The Hereford Troper (British Library MS Cotton Caligula A.xiv, fol. 29r). The distinction between sinner and demon is compromised by the camouflage effect of the hunched demon, who blends in with the folds of the robes. At a quick glance or viewed from a short distance, one could imagine the sinner standing alone, with a hunched back and his own pair of demonic wings. The artist has thus skilfully sustained both the external and the internal nature of demonic instigation. Reproduced by permission of The British Library.

Figure 2. Junius 11, p. 16. Satan is cast out of hell and bound in the drawings of Oxford Bodleian MS Junius 11. Other than the tail and grotesque feet, he here appears basically human, though he looks longingly back to his lost heavenly abode. The monstrous, animalistic hell-mouth (an important medieval iconographic motif developed in Anglo-Saxon England) commands much more presence, and evokes much more fear, than Satan. Reproduced with permission of the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.

Figure 3. Junius 11, p. 17. Satan is apparently resigned to his new-found fate - he looks to the side (in an attitude not unlike the 'two-eyed kings' in a modern deck of cards) with a subdued calmness that almost suggests dignity. Though his neck is bound as well as his hands and feet, his posture has changed from lying on his stomach to sitting upright. He remains tranquil and composed amidst the confusion of contorted, restless demons. Reproduced with permission of the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.

Figure 4. Junius 11, p. 20. Satan sends an emissary in the Junius 11 account of Genesis B - or else, conceivably, the illustrator is adhering to the common iconographic convention of 'simultaneous representation,' drawing the same figure at two different moments on the same visual field. Satan's body and that of the emissary demon form a single, fluid arc, and Satan here has wings (though in the previous Junius drawings he had none). Thus, even bound in hell, Satan is iconographically assimilated with the mobile demon. Reproduced with permission of the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.

Figure 5. Mosaic in San Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna. The angel standing to the left of Christ; who is separating the sheep from the goats, is presumably the devil. The only feature differentiating him from his counterpart on the other side of Christ is his bluish-purple hue. If this angel is in fact the devil (which not all commentators accept), it is the earliest known depiction of him in Christian art (sixth century). Dignified and granted equal presence in the heavenly triumvirate of judgment, this devil is not yet the loathsome monster he will become in later iconography. Reproduced with permission of Hirmer Verlag, Munich.

Figure 6. The Leofric Missal. The earliest datable visual depiction of Satan from Anglo-Saxon England is the sketch of Mors (Death) in the Leofric Missal (Bodley 579, fol. 50r), produced at Glastonbury in the 970s. This illustration assimilates a number of traits more traditionally associated with the devil, such as wild hair, horns, bestialized feet, a ragged loincloth, and a host of six lesser demons emanating from his head. His wings are still angel's wings, however (rather than the later bat wings). In the manuscript he stands opposite Christ (fol. 49v), who is represented in the same proportions and who adopts the same pose, emphasizing that they are complements, that one is a mirror of the other. Reproduced with permission of the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.

Figure 7. Graphic artist's reconstruction of Leofric Missal, fol. 50r, emphasizing devil. Digital restoration by Mark W. Claunch.

The Devil and the Demons 91 apposes helle gsestas and dioflum sylfum ('evil spirits/ 'the devils themselves') with the singular dioful in a discussion of pagan idols.20 Blickling Homily 5 states: se gifra helle bid a open deoflum & paem mannum pe nu be his larum lifiap ... (Morris, Blickling Homilies 61,11. 12-13) the greedy hell is always open to devils and to those people who now live according to his [i.e., the devil's] teaching ...

How could the singular possessive pronoun (his] refer to the plural deoflum so naturally, were not the conceptual overlap between singular and plural complete? Thus the poetic Solomon and Saturn I features a list of demonic shapes and attributes clearly referring to plural fiends (ealra feonda gehwane, 147; manfuha heap, 148), but the culminating sentence of this list simply employs the singular (feond 169) rather than plural (1.151 ff.). 21 There is a gradual and unannounced shift from plural to a singular but non-specific 'enemy' within the passage (11. 146-69). The devil and/or the demons in Christ and Satan make a speech which vacillates between the first person singular and plural.22 Even the popular demonology presumably reflected in native charms may exhibit such vacillation: in Wid Dweorh, an anomalous shift from singular to plural has driven editors to various emendations, even to the point of reordering the lines of the charm.23 The evidence offered by the visual arts confirms the fact that Satan and his minions are not fully distinct. The manuscript illustrator for Junius 11, for instance, blurs the conceptual distinction between Satan and his mobile emissary. Figures 2 and 3 show Satan bound in heaven as a result of the rebellion in heaven, and here he has no wings. In figure 4, however, when Satan sends forth his emissary, he now has a pair of wings himself. Not only is he anatomically assimilated with the departing devil, but his upward bodily posture also forms the first segment of the arc that the exiting devil describes. The numeric tension is sufficiently consistent in recognizable contexts across time and place, then, that one can safely discount the possibility of recurring, coincidental oversights. But what, then, does it mean? Johnson is perhaps the first person to confront the problem directly. Primarily wrestling with the ambiguities in

92 Satan Unbound Christ and Satan, Johnson resolves the problems of narrative logic by drawing attention to the Liber regularum of Tyconius.24 The work would have been readily available to the Anglo-Saxons, since Augustine incorporated significant sections of it in De doctrina Christiana, including a certain section on the 'bodies' of Christ and the devil.25 Just as Christ is the head of the Church and the believers are its limbs or 'body/ and as references to Christ can sometimes be taken also to refer to any member of that body, so also, according to Tyconius, is there an equal and opposite 'body' of the devil: uigilandum est, ut intellegatur, cum de una eademque persona scriptura loquitur, quid conueniat capiti, quid corpori; ita et in ista nouissima, aliquando in diabolum dicitur, quod non in ipso, sed potius in eius corpore possit agnosci ... (Martin 114) it is necessary to be alert in order to understand what pertains to the head and what pertains to the body when Scripture speaks of one and the same person, so in this last one, sometimes things are said concerning the Devil which may be understood not with reference to himself, but rather to his body. (D.W. Robertson 116)

There can be no doubt that this interpretational framework informs the attitudes of early Christian writers and poets, and that many incongruous narratives can be re-imagined more satisfyingly through its application. And yet, however relevant to the problem at hand, the Tyconian account of the interchangeability of the devil's head with his body is itself but an attempt to impose order and rationale on unsatisfying contradictions in the material. Tyconius's theoretical formulation of the devil's body provides a description rather than an explanation of the narrative tensions. It does not go far toward deciding why such unintuitive principles inform early Christian narratives so consistently. Modern commentators have interpreted the psychological and philosophical repercussions of the inherent unity or division in the kingdom of evil variously. Puzzling over the scriptural passage in which Christ is accused of being in league with Beelzebul (Matthew 12.22-37, Mark 3.19-35, Luke 11.14-28), Fridrichsen writes: Behind this idea lies the pluralism of popular demonology. The

The Devil and the Demons 93 demons, it is true, form together a kingdom, a body of affiliated beings, divided into groups and classes with varying power and faculties; but there is no unity of will in this kingdom, nothing but planlessness, capriciousness, independent activity. It is the grotesque manifold of popular phantasy. (126-7)26

The ancient enemy strives always to cleave and break asunder (scindere); in fact, the word daimon itself is thought to derive from daiomai, 'to divide, apportion/ though it is not certain why.27 Chaos has long been associated with evil as order is with good, an association recorded at least as far back as the monstrous goddess Tiamat in the Babylonian Enuma Elish (second millennium B.C.E.). As the sea is often employed as a symbol of chaos (raw potentiality or directionless activity), the sea creatures Rahab and Leviathan, biblical analogues of Tiamat, were defeated by Jahweh as part of his imposition of order on the world.28 Cassian describes the intrinsic chaos of the kingdom of evil in terms of the infighting of demons amongst themselves, which commonly appears as a hagiographical motif: as Leontius of Neapolis asserts, 'it is characteristic ... of demons to fight and to remain unreconciled all day long.'29 This is the demonology implicit in Juliana, for instance, in which the subordinate demon sets out on Satan's request only grudgingly, and trembles at the scourging he will receive upon returning to his cruel master. However philosophically satisfying, such infighting is not generally the rule in early medieval demonology. Contrast with it, for instance, the sober and dignified integrity of the demonic front facing humankind, according to Ferguson: The larger consideration represented by Jesus' perspective is the essential unity of the kingdom of evil. The demons function under a prince or ruler and are his subordinates. Evil may have varied manifestations, but ultimately there is only one principle of evil. Instead of a world dominated by many warring demons (a pagan and polytheistic conception), Jesus saw one kingdom of Satan. (20)

Ling maintains that this emphasis on the singular evil of Satan - as opposed to the multiple autonomous demons of popular imagination and folklore - is among the most important spiritual innovations of the New Testament.30 This is the demonology implicit in

94 Satan Unbound Genesis B, for instance, in which Satan, a good king rather than a cruel tyrant, asks graciously for a volunteer; he reminds his thanes of past gifts and favours, and offers the successful volunteer a seat closest to his own. Likewise in the various Guthlac texts the picture is one of cooperation and single-mindedness among the demons. Thus there is no single view on the nature of the demonic, nor on its inherent unity or division. It is a kinetic matrix of symbols, fulfilling a variety of functions in medieval hagiography; it is the tension between the real and the apparent, the intimate and the distant, the omnipresent and the vacant, which lends the demonic its dynamism in the mythology of the early Middle Ages, as Old English narratives attest - sometimes with lucid sobriety, sometimes with inadvertent charm. Bede's Ecclesiastical History The Old English translation of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People includes a healthy number of possession stories, and all paganism is assimilated with devil-worship.31 Only three passages in Bede's history directly introduce the devil or a demon as a character. In his first narrative appearance in the Historia, the devil indulges in a minor prank, causing Germanus of Auxerre to trip and break his leg.32 Next, in 3.11, Bede tells of an anonymous demoniac against whom regular exorcism is powerless. Not until he comes into contact with the relics of King Oswald is he healed, since the purpose of the scene is ostensibly to exemplify the sanctity of that figure. The scene unfolds curiously, however, and it is interesting to watch the fluctuation of singular and plural in the brief account. At first we are told he is possessed by an 'evil spirit' (inmundo spiritu), and then 'the devil' (diabolo}.33 When the sacred dust effects the miracle cure, the man himself, now restored to his right mind, gives a first-person account of his deliverance: 'Mox ut uirgo haec cum capsella quam portabat adpropinquauit atrio domus huius, discessere omnes qui me premebant spiritus maligni, et me relicto nusquam conparuerunt.' (Colgrave and Mynors 248, 11. 31-4) 'As soon as this young woman approached the entry hall of the house

The Devil and the Demons 95 carrying the small box, all the evil spirits oppressing me scattered, and having left me, were not to be seen anywhere.'

Thus he bears personal witness to the plurality of spirits assailing him. Perhaps the fragmentation of self inherent in the phenomenon of possession impresses itself upon the victim as a multiplicity of invaders. Or in referring to the demons, perhaps, the man is simply providing greater detail, offering a more precise account than the generalized assertion that he was possessed by an 'evil spirit' or 'devil' (in the same way that someone might claim that she has been plagued by 'illness' all winter long, proceeding to enumerate a variety of colds and flus). The conclusion of the chapter at last offers a final interpretation of the events, again in the narrative mode rather than in the man's first-person account. The final words of the episode specify that the man 'suffered no more night alarms nor afflictions from the ancient foe' (ab antiquo hoste, 250,1. 2). The scene is simplified in the Old English translation. Though the initial shift from the single indwelling spirit to the plural spirits of the man's own description is preserved, the narrative does not follow Bede in culminating the passage with a description of the possessing demonic force as the devil.34 Instead the narrative voice continues to refer to the plural spirits (awyrgedan gastas) as the man has done in direct discourse.35 The multiple possession of Bede's original narrative readily lends itself to a psychopathological reading, since it is not the narrative voice but only the man's personal testimony that points to a multiplicity of spirits. The narrative itself indicates only that there is a single spirit, at last identified as the Old Enemy. The man's insistence that there are many spirits, then, can possibly be taken as a purely perceptual claim, conceivably a symptom of the possession itself. Such a reading is no longer possible for the Old English version, however. Once the healed energumen asserts that there were multiple indwelling spirits, the narrative voice follows his example and continues to refer to plural spirits. The multiplicity of the demonic has spread, as it were, to the narrative, having attached itself to the only account of reality we have (the narrator's) by which to assess the character's claim. Thus the Old English abandons fluid shifts of psychological registers, and substitutes for them fluid shifts of ontological ones. The vernacular translator feels no discomfort in apposing unclsenum gaste with awyrgedan gastas in the direct nar-

96 Satan Unbound rative, presumably because there is an easy conceptual fluidity in the very understanding of demons that allows for such inconsistency to pass without comment.

Cynewulf It is Old English poetry, however, which takes fullest advantage of the shifting registers of demonic number identity.36 Cynewulf's Elene and Juliana have provided modern readers with challenging mise en scene reconstructions, and Guthlac A revels in the narrative and dramatic possibilities of conflating the one and the many. All of these pivot on scenes of direct dialectical confrontation between a saint and a demon, and in all three the ontological status and territorial rights of the demonic are the principal subject at issue. Cynewulf accords the devil greater scope and significance in Elene than do his Latin models.37 He introduces the devil much earlier in the story than the Acta Cyriaci, for instance. When Constantine questions his wisest councillors, they tell him that the Saviour freed humankind from the 'lock' (or 'prison') of the devils (alysde leoda beam of locan deofla, 1. 181). The narrator states that the devil, and not the Jews, is the true source of their evil actions (11. 836-8), and then reinforces this emphasis shortly afterwards, blaming the devil for instigating the Jews to turn against Christ (11. 20710). The demonic dimension of the conflict is established before Elene has even left the shores of Italy. In her attempt to locate the cross, Elene interrogates successively smaller groups of Jews, narrowing her search methodically - from 3000 to 1000, then to 500 and at last to Judas alone. Thus the real root of the problem is not reached until the intermediate layers of sinners (the decreasing number of Jews, and then Judas alone) are penetrated, and the devil himself is confronted. Her role is thus to peel away the distracting layers of multiplicity - of accidental evil to undercover the essential unity at its core. Judas blossoms into a humble Christian convert following his week-long imprisonment in a well, when he at last agrees to cooperate and is led from the pit. At this point he delivers a lengthy prayer, in which Cynewulf expands a reference to the rebellion of the angels, which is just a brief statement in the Latin Acta Cyriaci: 'Tu autem dominaris omnium ... qui incredibiles Angelos profundo

The Devil and the Demons 97 tartaro tradidisti; et ipsi sunt sub fundo abyssi a draconum foetore cruciandi, et tuo praecepto contradicere non possunt.' (Bodden 86) 'You, however, have authority over all... [you] who delivered the unbelieving angels into deep Tartarus,- and they are at the bottom of the abyss suffering in the dragon's stench, and they cannot contradict your order.'

In Cynewulf, Judas lingers on this theme: '... pu womfulle scyldwyrcende sceadan of radorum awurpe wonhydige. Pa sio werge sceolu under heolstorhofu hreosan sceolde in wita forwyrd, paer hie in wylme nu dreogap deadcwale in dracan fasSme, peostrum forpylmed. He pinum widsoc aldordome. Pass he in ermdum sceal, ealra fula ful, fah prowian, peowned polian. Paer he pin ne maeg word aweorpan, is in witum fasst, ealre synne fruma, susle gebunden.' (11. 760-71) 'You cast the sinful evil-doers, the foolish wretches, out of the heavens. Then the wretched band had to fall down to the house of hell, into an evil fate of punishments, where they now endure death-throes in surging fire, in the dragon's embrace, enveloped in darkness. He rejected your authority. For that he - guilty, full of foulness - must suffer in miseries, endure bondage. There he cannot reject your words, but is (held) fast in torments, the author of all sin, bound in torture.'

The Latin Acta speaks only of the rebel angels as a group, and draws no special attention to the devil. Judas, on the other hand, phrases the account such that attention shifts gradually from the plural demons to the singular devil, his speech culminating with the punishments of the devil alone (ealre synne fruma}. This singling out of the devil parallels Judas's own singling out from the multitude of Jews. Just as Elene's role was to identify the true human opponent, so Judas's role is now to pinpoint the true spiritual opponent. In both cases, the opposing force must apparently be concentrated or

98 Satan Unbound crystallized into a single entity before it may be confronted and controlled. Of all the Old English verse saints' lives, however, Juliana offers the most detailed and intriguing conflict between devil and saint, in which the interpretational difficulties are brought to a peak. The demonic characteristics of Juliana's worldly enemies (her father and Heliseus) have often been noted, as part of the general observation that human adversaries are demonized in Old English literature. However, though there is a rhetorical tendency to assimilate the earthly and spiritual foes throughout, there is no question that humans and demons are different kinds of beings, serving distinct roles. As with other saints encountering demons in a prison setting, the conflict with the shadowy spiritual foes occurs in an underworld setting divorced from the usual social and spatial orientations. Particular human persecutions are forgotten and the names of the persecutors left behind, and in their place an abstract and stylized representation of the cosmic battle between Christ and Satan is re-enacted. In Juliana, this distinction between the aboveworld human antagonists and the underworld spiritual foes is reinforced through several omissions from the Latin Passio S. lulianse that, for lack of more evidence, is often taken as Cynewulf's source (or close to it), the first of the two lives of Juliana edited by John Bolland himself in the Acta Sanctorum.38 In the Passio, Juliana addresses the prefect twice as the son of Satan, and in her first lengthy prayer, refers to him as a 'companion of demons.'39 The 130 witnesses whom Juliana converts also address the prefect as the son of the devil (patre tuo diabolo, sec. 16 [877'a, 1. 9]). Cynewulf omits all of these references, however, retaining the 'son of Satan' connection exclusively with reference to the demon in prison (11. 321-4, 522, 545). Whereas in the Latin the devil is generally considered the father of antagonists human and spiritual alike, Cynewulf reserves the designation only for the spiritual foes. He thus downplays the allegorical function of the devil as the 'father' of all evil and malice, in favour of a stricter taxonomy keeping spiritual and earthly evil distinct. The most interesting feature of the demon in the Latin Passio identified as 'Belial' is that though he is only one among a host of demons, as he confesses his various crimes it comes out increasingly that he is responsible for a wide range of crimes normally attributed to Satan, and indeed, he at last appears singularly respon-

The Devil and the Demons 99 sible for most major crimes of temptation recorded in scripture. To name the most important, he admits to tempting Adam and Eve, instigating Cain, testing Job, and possessing Judas to betray Christ. After the first-person monologue enumerating these crimes, however, he finishes, 'I and my brothers have done all of these things' (ego ista omnia &) alia deteriora fed cum fratribus meis}.40 The reference to 'my brothers' at the end comes as a surprise, and it is not clear in retrospect whether he means T or 'we' in the list of confessions. At some point along the way, 'I' has become 'we': a sort of rhetorical splintering of the demonic has occurred, as told from the demon's own point of view. Even if we read 'we' instead of T throughout, and allow that those crimes were performed by the host of demons rather than by Belial alone, the confusion is not cleared: in patristic tradition, the crimes he names are specifically attributed to Satan himself. There is even scriptural authority for attributing at least one of these activities to Satan, the possession of Judas (Luke 22.3, John 13.27). In another confession, Belial tells Juliana unequivocally, 'Omnia mala, quae in isto mundo sunt, meo consilio peraguntur, &. ego ipse perficio.' (sec. 11, Bollandus and Henscenius 875b. 11. 70-1) 'All the evils which are in this world are executed by my suggestion, and I myself perform them/

This categorical assertion is not mere epic inflation or flippant boasting; he has spelled out a detailed list to support his claim. Thus the functional distinction between the demon and his father and brothers is hopelessly blurred. The result of this blurring is that when Juliana drags Belial out from the cell with her to humiliate him publicly, he whines, 'Pattern meum superasti, me vinxisti, quid adhuc vis?' (sec. 12, Bollandus and Henschenius 876a, 1. 16) 'You have overcome my father, you have bound me, what more do you want?'

In conquering the demon she has apparently conquered Satan also. The author of the Latin Passio provides unambiguous spatial ori-

100 Satan Unbound entation: it is clear when Belial enters and leaves in each of his two appearances, and there is no conflict between the appearance of the demon and the chaining of Satan in hell, since their persons (if not their respective crimes) are kept distinct. However, this distinction between Satan and his emissary is sustained only at the expense of attributing no worldly evils to Satan whatsoever: he is distanced from the worldly scenario entirely, while his mobile son/emissary usurps all of the crimes normally associated with him. Satan remains distant, uninvolved, a liminal figure known only through second-hand reports. Like Dante's Lucifer, he is 'an exhausted creature whose energy is spent, whose history is over/41 In his place, the sprightly demon Belial becomes, in effect, the 'devil' in the most commonly recognized senses of the word. It is this second devil - not the cosmic antagonist who broods below - that is the source of all worldly evils. In evaluating Cynewulf's portrayal of the kingdom of evil we do not have the advantage of the personal names so carefully spelled out in the Latin Passio.42 When the demon first enters the cell, the narrator does not identify him as either Satan or a lesser demon; he is only hazleda gewinna and yfeles ondwis ('people's enemy' and 'skilful in evil,' 11. 243, 244). A missing leaf obscures the first part of the demon's confession after Juliana seizes him, but fol. 70 resumes in the middle of his enumeration of past sins (11. 289-315), which seems to adhere closely to that in the Latin Passio. We know, at least, that the demon is responsible for the trespass in Eden, since he refers to that event further on (11. SOOff.). The list again ends with the problematic reference to his brothers and himself, and his next speech begins with the reference to his having been sent by his father (hellwarena cyning, 1. 322; 'king of hell-dwellers'). Thus Cynewulf preserves the family relations among the demons, even as he abandons their connections to the worldly persecutors. When Juliana addresses the demon shortly thereafter, the narrator refers to him as wrohtes wyrhtan and fyrnsynna fruman ('worker of evil' and 'author of great [or former] sins,' 11. 346, 347): thus, as in the Latin, the demon here appropriates epithets and features normally associated with Satan.43 The cosmic adversary is bound in hell, while the creature in Juliana's presence is the true source of all evils in the world. As in the Latin, his speech culminates in a pitch of ethopoeic frenzy:

The Devil and the Demons 101 'Hwast sceal ic ma riman yfel endeleas? Ic call gebaer, wrape wrohtas geond werpeode, pa pe gewurdun widan feore from fruman worulde fira cynne, eorlum on eorpan.' (11. 505-10) 'How can I relate more of the endless evil? I brought them all forth, the grievous crimes throughout the nation, those that occurred far and wide to the human race, to the people of the earth, since the beginning of the world.'

Like the villain of a second-rate mystery novel, he did it - he did it all. As in the Latin, no attempt is made to reconcile this admission of all evils with the statement that his fellow demons are out causing similar crimes, or with the tradition that these are, by other accounts, Satan's crimes. Up to this point, all we are told concerning Satan's involvement in evil is that se is yfla gehwzes ... geornfulra ponne ic ('he is more eager than I for every evil,' 11. 323-4) that he is more eager or zealous (geornfuha, etymologically related to 'yearn') than the emissary - but not that he actually performs more. He is merely the impetus that drives the legions. The demon implies that in defeating him, Juliana has defeated his father also (though the Latin is almost necessary at this point to make sense of the elliptic passage in Cynewulf): 'Ic pec halsige, hlaefdige min, luliana, fore godes sibbum, past pu furpur me fracepu ne wyrce, edwit for eorlum, ponne pu ser dydest, pa pu oferswipdest pone snotrestan under hlinscuan helwarena cyning in feonda byrig; past is faeder user, morpres manfrea.' (11. 539-46) 'I entreat you, my lady Juliana, for God's peace, to inflict no further injuries on me, abuse before people, than you already have, in that you conquered the wisest king of hell-dwellers in the darkness of prison, in the fortress of fiends; that is our father, the evil lord of murder.'

102 Satan Unbound This conceptual conflation of the devil and his 'father' serves to preserve a balance in the text between the devil's culpability and his impotence. In the prison, Juliana has actually encountered the source of all evils in person, and can thus re-enact the cosmic binding of the 'strong man' onstage (and, in fact, she does physically grab him and drag him out). For this the author need not take her all the way to hell, as in the visionary tours of hell, since that scenario is represented microcosmically through the confrontation in the dark confinement of a worldly prison. Meanwhile, Satan is still enchained in hell, utterly powerless to intervene directly in human affairs. The leader of the rebel angels is far away, alluded to through second-hand report, consigned eternally to a distant place of exile. In a way, by exiling the mobile demon back to confinement in hell, by silencing his loquacity and curtailing his busy machinations, Juliana is effectively causing the images of the two disparate devils (Satan and the demon) to converge. Thus, at the very moment she physically - as well as rhetorically - collapses the manifold kingdom of evil into a unified entity, she banishes it. Johnson explains that Cynewulf introduces the devil in Elene to wrench the scope of the narrative out of its local particulars and to shift it instead to eternal, liturgical time, bending the rules of literal narrative logic in order to give greater cosmological resonance to the events. I suggest that this implicitly occurs in any narrative that introduces the devil, as opposed to a human villain, at a given narrative crux. Thus, while Cynewulf asserts the distinction between Satan and the lesser demon in Juliana, he simultaneously follows his source in undermining that distinction through the lesser devil's prolonged enumeration of his crimes as well as in the statement that in defeating the demon, Juliana has also defeated the devil (11. 543-6). There is a physical entity chained in hell called Satan, a silent and distant prop serving only as a mute memorial to a failed rebellion a long time ago, and there is a lively and industrious demon in Juliana's cell who is associated with sin and temptation in the human race through his constant contact with it. The text causes us to question what it means, exactly, to be 'the devil.' Johnson faults many critics who claim that Juliana encounters Satan himself, for failing to notice that Cynewulf clearly distinguishes this lesser demon confronting Juliana from Satan, the demon's father, who is in hell.44 In fact, Johnson argues, the distinc-

The Devil and the Demons 103 tion of Satan from his lesser emissary is characteristic of Old English hagiography in general (with the notable exception of Elene, 11. 8-10, 152ff.). However, the very ongoing nature of the critical debate itself, and the interpretational gymnastics required in many instances to identify a given demon as Satan or a lesser demon (as I have been performing in this chapter), suggest that the case is not so easily resolved. The devil figure itself not only exhibits a tendency toward protean plasticity of form, location, and identity, but actually subsists on this plasticity as an essential trait. The devil fulfills certain narrative functions precisely because of his ability to appear suddenly, and to evaporate just as effortlessly; because his own fluid boundaries call into question the permanence and stability of the tangible world to which the materialistic and literal-minded pagans and sinners are so attached; and because his simultaneous existence in several ontological as well as hermeneutical domains (physical/ literal/historical, spiritual/allegorical/liturgical) makes him perfectly suited to challenge the adherence of a particular narrative scene or character to any one of those domains. He is most often, and most significantly, introduced as a character where a different functional villain (such as a thief or a Jew) would not do.

The Guthlac Cycle The Guthlac cycle offers a rare opportunity to observe the diverse manifestations of essentially the same story in a number of insular genres - a full prose translation of the Latin original, a homiletic abstract, and at least one major poem. The ultimate source for all of these is Felix's Vita Guthlaci, written between 730 and 740 (around the time Bede was finishing his Ecclesiastical History}. Felix crafted his Vita from a number of sources, two of the most obvious being Bede's Vita Cuthberti and Evagrius's Vita Antonii. A translator, working perhaps in the century following the composition of the Vita, decided to make the work available for those who did not read Latin, 'perhaps at a time when Alfred was encouraging scholars to translate Latin writings into English.'45 The full prose translation attests to the ongoing interest in preserving the substance of Felix's text as closely as possible, occasionally omitting or altering details of only minor importance, in a form accessible to the general populace or to those in the beginning stages of a clerical education. In contrast with this relatively conservative translation, the handling

104 Satan Unbound of the material in the vernacular homiletic abstract and poem betrays revealing peculiarities. Felix's Vita Guthlaci provides a relatively complete biography of Guthlac of Crowland's career. At the age of twenty-four, after a sudden revelation concerning the futility of earthly pursuits and the importance of Christian salvation, Guthlac abandons his military career and enters the monastic establishment at Repton. After two years, yearning for still more rigorous asceticism, he sets out into the fenlands to establish a hermitage. At first, as Felix relates, he sinks into despair for three days, following an open attack by the devil. Subsequently he encounters fierce resistance from the autochthonous demons inhabiting the island, until he overcomes their sustained attacks by simply persevering through them. For the remaining fourteen years of his life, Guthlac is (according to Felix) no longer troubled by the devil or by demons; entirely at peace with himself, he serves as a healer and spiritual advisor to others during this period. Guthlac's encounters imply that recognition of and direct confrontation with the enemy are integral components of spiritual struggle, and the sequence of the narrative relating his spiritual struggle (chs. 29-36) distinguishes the early sections on Guthlac's ambitious novitiate from the later chapters on his prophecies and miracles. In Felix's work, the devil appears at a critical moment - at the outset of Guthlac's separation from human society - but overall he does not dominate the narrative landscape or monopolize the reader's attention. Kurtz, in an exemplary study comparing Felix's Vita with its most significant precursors, identifies various traditions of hagiographical demonology that all stem from Athanasius's Life of Anthony (mostly known to the European Middle Ages through Evagrius's Latin translation). He argues that Athanasius's work skilfully represents the spiritual struggles one would expect of an eremitic life, encoding psychological realism in the demonic encounters. The order, type, and narrative function of Anthony's conflicts with demons reflect the internal struggles against sins and temptations (105-9). The majority of early medieval saints' lives, however, follow more in the tradition of Jerome's Vita Hilarionis (129) in missing Athanasius's subtlety, and fail to exploit the psychological potential of the demon encounters: Like most of his successors who superficially imitated the Antonian

The Devil and the Demons 105 demonism, Jerome piles up his devil stories in indiscriminate confusion, merely as a romantic sign of his hero's spiritual eclat ... there is more zoology than spirituality in many of his marvels. (Kurtz 130-1)

Kurtz offers an overview of the major hagiographic contributions from late antiquity through Anglo-Saxon England, finally concluding that Felix's Vita Guthlaci approaches the Antonian model of spiritual development through demonic conflict more faithfully than any of the other works he considers. Felix's work exhibits 'a notable penetration into the ideals of discipline and tranquility/ and presents its demonic struggles with some insight into the Athanasian concept that victory over the fiends of solitude marks the attainment of a spiritual majority. Felix does not scatter his demons and miracles indiscriminately over the hagiographical course. The conquest of self in the fight with the demons of solitude eventuates, as in the Antonius, in an access of miraculous power. (141; but see Shippey 129-30)

For Kurtz, demons represent the sinful thoughts or passions that a hermit is likely to face, and he implies that the Vita Guthlaci is the last successful work in a declining tradition. It is perhaps the case, however, that the same symbols and scenes were undergoing a transformation in the early Middle Ages, and that psychology was no longer of principal interest, as it was for Athanasius, Cassian, and Augustine. I will instead trace the ontological facet of the Guthlac cycle, because Felix's Vita and the vernacular works are primarily interested in encoding the delicately shifting balances of power between the saintly and the demonic. These formal structures of discourse parallel Kurtz's psychological ones. But, while the vernacular Guthlac texts show little awareness of the psychological mechanics behind the representational violence, they preserve and sometimes expand the ontological processes. In all extant Old English Guthlac materials, the territorial struggle for Crowland can be traced through the verbal interaction of Guthlac with his assailants, and more specifically, through his recognition of them as single or plural. In Felix's Vita, Guthlac refuses to address the demons of his first two encounters, the first with the devil, and the second with two lesser devils (whom the narrator subsequently refers to simply as the single devil).46 Though the nar-

106 Satan Unbound rator implies that a unity underlies the surface multiplicity, Guthlac shows no awareness of this yet. In his trip to the jaws of hell, however, in which the multiform variety of the demonic is presented in full splendour, he does directly address the antagonists in the plural.47 Thus, as the two weeping demons in the following encounter admit, he has crossed a threshold in his spiritual struggle: the two demons say they have been defeated and can no longer approach him ('non enim te tangere aut propinquare audemus').48 Next he at least recognizes the single foe behind the myriad forms in the assault of the British-speaking demons, though he does not yet address this antagonist.49 He also recognizes (persentiens] the unified kingdom of evil directly in the person of Satan, when Satan enters Guthlac's would-be assassin Beccel, though here again he addresses Beccel rather than the devil.50 Only in the final demonic assault on Guthlac, in which the demons assail him as a menagerie of hooting, howling beasts - in the diverse forms of various monsters (variorum monstrorum diversas figuras) - does he at last both recognize and directly address the demonic as the single Satan: 'O miserrime Satana, manifestae sunt vires tuae .../51 Having driven these desperate forms from before him by a direct rebuke, Guthlac has at last crossed the threshold from spiritual enthusiast to saint. No longer passively reciting psalms or awaiting the intercession of Bartholomew, no longer taken in by appearances or by the misleading external multiplicity that conceals the unity of the demonic, in his one brief command to Satan Guthlac concludes the temptation phase of his life. The confrontations Guthlac experiences from this point on are of a notably subdued character, never against the demonic in any direct form, but involving comparatively innocuous episodes with mischievous monks and jackdaws. While the Old English prose translation of Felix's Vita is quite faithful, the vernacular Vercelli homily and poem take more liberties with their material. Felix's clear and precise narrative staging of events becomes largely obscure in the more imagistic poetic account of Guthlac A.52 The first demonic encounter in the Latin Vita, Guthlac's wounding with an arrow of despair (ch. 29), becomes in Guthlac A more of an abstract meditation on spiritual conflict, divorced from its historical context as Guthlac's first encounter on Crowland, and even largely divorced from its individuality as being specifically Guthlac's conflict at all. The confrontation appears following two indicators of chronological orientation: the statement that Guthlac

The Devil and the Demons 107 arrived at Crowland (101-2), and then the statement that Guthlac's earlier days were devoted to sin (108-10). The brief section on Guthlac's battle with the devil begins, Tid wxs toweard ('the time was near/ 114). But which tid: the arrival at the island, or the abandoning of sin, which according to Felix should predate his decision to retreat to the fens by at least two years? In fact, the poet is unaware or uninterested in Guthlac's intermediate monastic career. The poet collapses Felix's careful presentation of increasing depths of sanctity into a simplified, two-tiered model of worldly (fallen) vs. ascetic (blessed). The isolated scene presents an abstract portrayal of crystallized spiritual conflict, perhaps only intending to represent Guthlac's victory over sinful urgings in general. The early account of Guthlac's victory over the devil results in his spiritual perfection prior to the subsequent demonic assaults on Crowland. The battle with the devil is portrayed as the requisite trial for tempering Guthlac, so that he may be a fitting ward over the island: ... paet lond gode faegre gefreopode, sippan feond oferwon Cristes cempa. (11. 151-3) ... that he might protect the fair land of God, once the soldier of Christ overcame the enemy.

At this point Guthlac is said to fortify himself with spiritual weapons (177-81), a scene which takes place in Felix's Vita before the meeting with the devil, not after it. Whereas in Felix, the earlier worldly and monastic experiences made a saint of Guthlac before his encounter with the devil, here it is the encounter with the devil that itself creates the saint. Guthlac A preserves certain broad demonological tendencies of Felix's Vita that are downplayed or lost altogether in the prose translation and the homily. Most notably, the poem exhibits a keen awareness of the shifting referents in demonic identity and number that abound in Felix's text, and exploits their dramatic and rhetorical potential. The defeat of the devil, initially presented as a trial for subsequent spiritual struggles, turns out to be less of an individual, historical conflict, than an abstract template for ideal spiritual struggle. It lays bare the ontology implicit in all spiritual conflict,

108 Satan Unbound and so cannot be too strictly distinguished from Guthlac's subsequent demonic confrontations - especially since the multiple demons are placed in direct apposition with the devil, both in narrative description (346-7) and in Guthlac's perception (365). Guthlac's personal recognition of his foe(s) proceeds along a course parallel to the increasing intensity of the demonic confrontations. The actual progression of the encounters with the demon hordes in Guthlac A is difficult to map onto any of the encounters in Felix's Vita. A host of many demons with their many weapons arrives at first (185-6), and they threaten to burn him there on the hill if he does not leave the wasteland (191-9). The evil spirits' commination has been delivered, we are told at its conclusion, by a single spokesperson: Swa him yrsade, se for ealle spraec feonda mengu. (11. 200-1) Thus he became enraged at him, he who spoke for all the host of fiends.

A single voice is allowed to speak for the demons, though they are repeatedly characterized as 'many.' Though directly addressed, at first Guthlac does not respond at all. Shifting attention back to the demons, the text proceeds to a lengthy description of the demons' history on the island. They renew their threats shortly, urging that if Guthlac does not depart, they will return with a larger host (mid mengu maran cwome, 237); the multiplicity of demons hopes to confound the saint by expanding into an even larger multiplicity. Thus far the demons' harangue has been reported entirely in indirect discourse, and Guthlac has not explicitly made any response either directly or indirectly. Now at last he engages them, issuing a lengthy rebuke in the first person in which he informs the demons that the inequality in numbers is of no consequence: Mseg ic £is setl on eow I butan earfedum ana gedringan ('I can gain this dwelling from you by force alone, without hardship/ 244-5). He bids the evil spirits begone (Gewitad nu, awyrgde, 255, quoting Christ's curse of Matthew 25.41), sending them into a flurry of disorder. To address the demons is effectively to scatter them. Now that Guthlac has finally brought the dialogue to the intensified level of direct discourse, the demons escalate, expressing them-

The Devil and the Demons 109 selves as a chorus rather than relying upon a singular speaker. It is now the many (monige, 264) who speak: Oft we ofersegon ... ('often we have observed ...' 266); and the demons draw attention to their own collectivity: peos mengu eall ('all this multitude/ 278-9). Thus Guthlac's firm rebuke has splintered the opposing forces from one speaker into a multiplicity of speakers. Again they threaten to increase their numbers (maran mzegne, 282) if he will not comply with their eviction request. They warn that their armies (monfarum, 286) will devastate the island by trampling it under their very feet, so numerous will they be, and again Guthlac tries to explain to them that their numbers are inconsequential: 'J>eah ge pa ealle ut abanne, ond eow eac gewyrce widor sasce, ge her ateod in pa tornwraece sigeleasne sid.' (11. 299-302) 'Though you call all of them out, and you perpetrate [even] greater strife, you will make a journey without victory in that fierce vengeance.'

The narrator repeatedly draws attention to Guthlac's single resistance against many (se wid mongum stod, 323; 'he stood against many') and the effect of the saint's speech, once again, is at last to drive away the many (Gewat eal ponan / feonda mengu, 325-6; 'all the many enemies departed from there'). With its characteristic lack of spatial or temporal orientation, other than that it is night-time (nihta genipu, 350), the narrative proceeds without break into the next demonic encounter. Demons swarm around the saint like so many locusts. Though we are given hints that Guthlac has a spiritual guardian (355-60), it is he himself who must address the demons directly: Oft worde bicwaeo": 'Huru, paes bihofad, se 3e him halig gaest wisa6 on willan ond his weorc trymad, lapad hine lipum wordum, gehated him lifes rasste, past he paes latteowes larum hyre, ne lete him ealdfeond eft oncyrran mod from his meotude.' (11. 360-6)

110 Satan Unbound Often he made an exhortation: 'Truly it behooves him whose will the holy ghost guides and whose works [it] fortifies - invites him with gentle words, promises him peace in life - to follow the teachings of the guide, and not let the Old Enemy afterwards turn his mind from the Measurer.'

Guthlac here addresses himself at last not to the host of flighty demons painted so vividly, but to the single ealdfeond. The saint is narrowing the focus of his attention. At this point the demonic attacks escalate from merely verbal to physical expression, a categorical distinction explicitly drawn by the narrator (434-9; and see 26-31). Though statements to the effect that 'after that point the demons were unable to harm him' are casually dropped in hagiography and are as often as not forgotten within a chapter or two, here the two physical assaults are indeed final.53 The demons fly Guthlac high into the air, showing him the corruption permeating the entire world. It is a singular spirit, se werga gxst (451), that addresses him, though the speech is again a collective sentiment in the first-person plural - the demonic still presents itself as a group. Guthlac answers the direct address in kind, injecting his own speech with an incipient offensive threat, rather than merely his previous humble and defensive stand. In an isolated hypermetric line he warns that, pses cymed / steor of heofonum ('punishment for that will come from the heavens,' 510), and the narrator repeats the litany of Guthlac's solitary front against the numerous foes: he wid mongum stod (474, 'he stood against many'). At last the demons haul Guthlac off to the gate of hell.54 Guthlac is flown to the summit of the firmament, and dragged to the portal of the underworld (559), and thus symbolically encompasses within himself the entire range of human experience. Here, then, at this pitched moment of heightened cosmological scope, Guthlac launches into a protracted tirade providing derisive epithets, relating the demons' history, and by revealing their state of bondage, he thereby effects it. The ealdfeond is granted no further presence, in speech or narrative, although the closing passages of the poem say that saintly persons in general conquer the enemy (feond, 803) and avoid sinful desires (firenlustas, 803), the two in apparent apposition. With the recognition, atomization, and dispersal of the demonic, Crowland is 'consecrated' as sacred ground, as land was cleared of demons before the erection of a church in the Middle Ages.

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Guthlac's final speech to the demons at the gate of hell calls down the aid, finally, of his protective spirit from heaven. The fact that the accompanying guardian has been mentioned before this point, but has made no outward gesture to protect Guthlac, implies that Guthlac first had to reach a certain point in his own development before the divine assistance is available to him. The divine protector pronounces himself as the arbiter of the present case (dema, 703), and orders the demons to return Guthlac to his accustomed barrow. He further specifies that he will not hide his own face from the many (Ne sceal ic mine onsyn fore eowere / mengu mipan, 707-8; 'I will not conceal my face from the multitude of you'), and identifies himself as one of the twelve apostles. Not specifically identified as Bartholomew until after his speech is ended, the apostle promises to stick closely by his spiritual 'brother' Guthlac: 'Is past min bropor, mec his bysgu gehreaw. Ic paet gefremme, paer se freond wunad on paere scene, pe ic pa sibbe wid hine healdan wille, nu ic his helpan mot, past ge min onsynn oft sceawiad. Nu ic his geneahhe neosan wille.' (11. 714-19) 'That is my brother; his trouble grieved me. I will bring it about - so long as the friend dwells in that sanctuary (he with whom I wish to hold peace, now I can help him) - that you will often see my face. Now I wish to visit him frequently.'

This promise is not a little confusing, given the narrator's insistence early in the poem that Guthlac gained his spiritual guardian after first defeating the devil (136-7), and given the repeated assertions that the guardian was with him at all times, even before this moment (355-60, 747-8). The distinction between the free-floating confrontation with the devil early in the poem and these subsequent battles is thus blurred. The conflicts are structurally patterned in a sequence of punctuated thresholds of initiation. After each stage of demonic confrontation, Guthlac advances and gains some apotropaic immunity against similar attacks. Thus the demons must escalate, either in number or in kind of attack, to sustain a challenge for the increasingly saintly man. After the battle at the gate of hell, however, no further conflict is generated within the bounds of the poem:

112 Satan Unbound the demons are silenced, and even nature yields to Guthlac once he returns to his fen. The conflicts with the demons are apparently not at an end, since Bartholomew says the demons will see his face oft (718), but their function in the narrative is complete. In Guthlac A the overlapping conceptual features that unite Satan and the lesser demons are operative in the divine sphere, no less than the demonic. The recurring use of adjectives such as ana emphasize the solitary nature of Guthlac's fight against the demons, but there is simultaneously a rhetorical pull toward the presentation of Guthlac as supported by angelic hosts. At times this pull refers only to a single guardian (identified late in the poem as Bartholomew) who keeps constant watch over the disciple, while at others, Guthlac says his support derives from an ill-defined group of divine spiritual impulses (mara dsel / in godcundum g&stgerynum, 247-8) such that he states outright that he does not face the assailants alone: 'Ne earn ic swa fealog, swa ic eow fore stonde, monna weorudes, ac me mara dael in godcundum gaestgerynum wunad ond weaxed, se me wrape healded. Ic me anum her eade getimbre hus ond hleonad ...' (11. 246-51) 'I am not so destitute of troops and people, as I stand before you, but a greater portion, which supports me with comfort, remains and thrives [by] me in divine spiritual mysteries. I will easily construct a house and shelter for myself alone ...'

Thus what Guthlac in fact presupposes is a vacillation between himself as alone and himself as protected by spiritual guardians: Swa modgade, se wid mongum stod, awreded weordlice wuldres cempa engla masgne. (11. 323-5) Thus he exulted, who stood against many, the soldier of glory, worthily supported by the strength of angels.

The strength he shows in resisting the army of demons is apposed with the might of angels, to the point that it is not clear where one

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stops and the other begins. In short, Guthlac's angelology betrays the same fluidity that Felix's demonology exhibits in the Vita. Since his promptings are from heaven, he enjoys a hazy-bordered assimilation with the hosts of heaven.55 The Old English poem emphasizes both rhetorical tendencies - presenting Guthlac as alone, and presenting him as continually supported by an angel or angels - with greater insistence than Felix's Vita or the other Guthlac sources. The imprecise conceptual distinction between Guthlac and the angels stems from the poet's consistent practice of assimilating the interior and exterior sources of strength. For the Guthlac A poet, the exterior and interior mesh harmoniously. Guthlac is unfailingly steadfast, but rather than obviating the need for an external protector, the poet rather presents this state of internal perfection through the image of a continuously vigilant external protector.56 Thus attention is consistently turned from Guthlac's inherent goodness to the protection of God (we pses Gudlaces / deorwyidne dxl dryhtne cennad, 182-3ff.; 'we ascribe the lot of that [same] Guthlac to the worthy Lord') or of Bartholomew (engel hine elne trymede, 190ff.; 'the angel strengthened him with courage'; cf. 172-4). Guthlac's virtues are not only the cause of the Lord's favour, but are simultaneously, and quite mysteriously, a manifestation of it. His 'readiness' is apposed with God's assistance: Gearo waes Gudlac - hine god fremede on ondsware ond on elne strong. (11. 292-3 )57 Guthlac was ready with an answer, and strong in courage; God helped him.

He is as much an example - a chosen man - as an internally motivated spiritual contestant who succeeds through his own diligence and merit (762-72). He is predisposed to the good, just as the villains in Old English poetry are arod to deofles willan ('ready to the devil's will').58 The last item in the Vercelli Book (Homily 23) is an Old English prose excerpt from the Life of Guthlac, either a fragment of an Old English translation of Felix, or an autonomously translated block of material.59 The passage represents the most intensely dramatic section of Felix's Vita Guthlaci - the initial confrontation between

114 Satan Unbound Guthlac and the demons. All else has been omitted: Guthlac's early life and cenobitism, the miracles and healings, and his death scene and prophecies.60 The translator or redactor of this passage has seen fit to focus only on the demonic confrontations, and more specifically, only on the most traumatic and violent, those in which Guthlac himself seems most unsettled. In fact, the scenes excerpted to form an independent unit in the Vercelli Book build in scale: first Guthlac encounters the singular devil, then two demons, and then at last a multitude of demons. Guthlac having met the worst that the rebellious spirits have to offer, the homily ends. The closing sentence of the homily implies that Guthlac goes to heaven directly after the third demonic encounter: 7 l>a sefter pam fleah se haliga Gudlac mid pam apostole, sancta Bartholomei, to heofona rices wuldre, 7 hine se hselend paer onfeng, 7 he pasr leofad 7 rixaf) in heofona rices wuldre ... (Scragg, Vercelli Homilies 392) And then after that holy Guthlac flew with the apostle, Saint Bartholomew, to the glory of the heavens' kingdom and there the Saviour received him, and there he lives and rules in the glory of the heavens' kingdom.

The defeat of the demonic here results in immediate salvation thus contradicting Felix's Vita, which allows Guthlac to live on the island for a number of years before entering heaven. As in Guthlac A, the homilist presents us with an isolated meditation on spiritual conflict concerned almost exclusively with the saint's battle against demons, which are scarcely distinguishable apart from their escalating numbers.

6. Conclusion

From the depersonalized, naturalistic demons of the charms and Solomon and Saturn, inhering in the animate and inanimate world at every level, to the iconographic and highly stylized tantrums of the 'hagiographic demon' who verbally articulates evil suggestions directly into the ear of all-too-acquiescent pagans, to the more distant and stately devil performing the static roles of the mythological scenes of salvation history, Old English literature presents a variegated spectrum of demonic forms and functions. Soldier, scop, trapper, farmer, knot-maker, bird, whale, and wolf, the forms of the devil permeate every region of the social and natural spheres.1 This very ambivalence of forms proves to be one of the demon's most fertile and organic traits, the conceptual elasticity allowing for imagistic narratives that prove challenging, if not altogether perplexing, to the modern reader. I have considered two major demonological processes at work in these narratives: the instigation of sinners by the devil, and the conflict between the devil and the saint. One might expect that these two cases simply reflect the demonic when its promptings are successful, on the one hand, and when they are not, on the other. Yet the two cases bear little resemblance to one another: we are at a complete loss to decide why Heliseus succumbs to the devil's promptings, while Juliana does not, or why Beccel falls prey to evil instigation while Guthlac remains firm. To say that Juliana has faith in God and that Heliseus doesn't is not to explain the phenomenon, but only to describe it in different terms, because in Old English religious narrative, to say that a character is a heathen or has turned from God is only another way of saying that the charac-

116 Satan Unbound ter has fallen prey to the devil.2 The devil does not approach saint and sinner alike: the nature and extent of their interaction already presupposes their relationship from the start. The orthodox platitude that the demon can tempt, but cannot force, the individual to sin only makes an awkward transition from theological treatise or pulpit to narrative.3 More often it is belied by the narrative presentation of heathens who are deceived as a matter of course, and Christians who overcome temptation and rebuke the demon without internal struggle. It is not generally the purpose of these texts to examine the processes involved in the instigation of sin, then, but to portray its effects. Early medieval homilies can effectively rise to the task of integrating patristic as well as popular demonology with a sincere desire to influence behaviour or inspire introspection. Saints' lives, on the other hand, reveal a different range of interests. Among the most prominent of these is the exploration of the ontological status of both the demonic and the divine in abstract conceptual space (though embodied in local conflicts between saint and demon), 4 divorced from any moral concern for the particular reader or hearer. An interesting narrative passage in Blickling Homily 15 (Spel be Petrus and Paulus] confirms that the focus of hagiography is more on extra-human than human affairs: Peter explains that the evil sorcerer Simon Magus contains two powers or faculties, human and demonic: Ponne syndon on pyssum Simone twa speda, mannes &) deofles ('therefore there are two powers [or faculties] in Simon, human and diabolic').5 From what theology teaches us about the devil, we should expect his influence to be the more dangerous of the two. It is, however, the human rather than the demonic component that Peter singles out as the corruptive one: oD he ponne men gxlep selces godes purh his pone menniscan dxl ('and he through his human part hinders people from anything good').6 There is thus a sense in which the demonic and the divine are of another order than our immediate human concerns, and are in that sense beyond our anthropocentric blame or praise. Critical discussions of Old English hagiography frequently comment on the profound and implicit faith Anglo-Saxon hagiographers exhibit in their portrayal of the demonic as inherently weak and doomed to failure. 7 It is supposed that the divine and the demonic are disproportionately opposed in the combat scenes of these works, so much so that the greatest assault of the demons cannot sustain

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its attack for a moment before a humble Christian manifesting sincere faith. By taking a step back, however, it is not difficult to see a certain amount of anxiety in these exaggerated portrayals of the devil's weakness. Why should the impotence, the confinement, and the ultimate defeat of the demons be so tediously rehearsed in narrative and in liturgy, were it not a matter of genuine concern? In fact, despite the frequent and pious exclamations of saint and hagiographer, the conflict between the saint and the demon is not always so one-sided. The scenes of spiritual conflict in early medieval hagiography document a profound and heated engagement between the demonic and the divine, an engagement presented as permeating all levels of society and all regions of the earth. Only by recourse to mythological time (the beginning of time or the end of it) do the historical saints extricate themselves from the localized conflict: they tell the demon either, 'you were cast out of heaven and bound forever,' or else, 'you will, at the last, be cast down and bound forever.' As for the present age, however, it is abundantly clear that the demonic is serviceable, and the devil's present fetters can only be of the most slipshod quality.

Dialogue and Demonology: Defining the Opponent In almost all cases dialogic conflict, as opposed to physical violence, serves to define the abstract contours of the demonic and the divine. Socrates is clearly the winner in Plato's dialogues - that is, he understands, and therefore defines, the nature of reality more deeply than his interlocutors - but Plato nonetheless insists on maintaining the dialogue form. Thus the reader never loses sight of the multiplicity of voices and the inherent instability of numerous points of view.8 Likewise, the devil in our Latin and Old English texts is allowed his own speaking time and the power of selfdescription, and the dialogue thus transcends mere catechism. The single-sided presentation of truth is compromised through narrative dialogue, however much the speeches themselves attempt to deny such compromise. What is at stake, after all, is not simply the soul of the individual saint, but the order and moral composition of the entire 'spiritual cosmos' - that logical space inhabited by abstract values or concepts and their relations, projected from local concerns into ideal space - for which the saint is but an ambassador. The saint strug-

118 Satan Unbound gles to impose order on the chaos that confronts him or her, to give it precise identity and location. And here I understand chaos in the broadest possible sense: disorder of the body (torture), of the mind (falsehood), of the spirit (heathenism, apostasy, or heresy), of nature (demons as natural predators and parasites), and even of the cosmos itself, because the devil will always have at least some power until the ever-elusive Second Coming. It is thus no accident that a more precise and empirical metaphysics of demonic temptation never gained general acceptance in the early Middle Ages, or indeed, for as long as the devil was a living metaphor. The ontological anxieties being expressed are no less than rifts in the moral integrity of the cosmos, and by their very nature they cannot be expressed without a plastic and adaptable symbol, a symbol which eludes attempts at precise specification. For this was the devil forged. The tensions intrinsic to a mythological conceptualization of the devil are thus intimately linked with the devil's narrative functions. Even the most orthodox and erudite author or poet, while adhering to patristic conceptions and sometimes rigid narrative conventions, recognized certain open registers in the conceptualization of the devil. Among these are the internality/externality of the devil to the individual, the simultaneous presence of the devil in hell and on earth, and the distinction between the devil and his lesser demons. Through these, authors responded to and sustained the Christian paradox of the 'simultaneous power and impotence of the sin and evil embodied in Satan.'9 Through the narrative progression of these shifting registers, the author could construct any of a number of possible models of abstract spiritual conflict. This was true of the earliest hagiographers, and as Felix, the Guthlac A-poet, and the translator of the Old English Bede demonstrate, at least some insular composers were able to construct native demonologies from these premises, independently of their sources.

Open Registers of Demonic Representation One of the narrative registers that Old English translators perceived as most flexible was the form assumed by the devil. If the source text indicates that the devil appears, Old English composers never substitute another type of functional villain. But, having faithfully preserved the character of the devil, the translators apparently feel greater liberty in altering the devil's shape, and the means by which

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he enters and exits the scene. The Life of Nicholas changes him from a nun in the Latin source text to a hag, and the vernacular Andreas texts alter the shape he assumes before the Mermedonians, for instance.10 The protean dimensions of the early Christian representations of evil thus serve as organic conceptual registers. The presence of evil (in a general or collective sense) sometimes undergoes a shift in referents during the course of a given episode. On the one hand, a character may begin by perceiving the demonic intrusion as an attack by multiple demons or spirits, and only gradually recognize and acknowledge the unity underlying these manifestations of evil.11 Thus the character shifts from addressing the demonic as a plurality of demons, and addresses them in a more collective sense as the devil. The sense in these episodes is that the saint must overcome the manifold mask of evil, and learn to discern its true essence. Specifically, the saint must identify the diverse lesser demons as the Old Enemy himself by invoking the events of the Fall of Angels or the Day of Judgment (that is, the saint must project the local conflict into mythological time, simply by referring to them). On the other hand, the character or narrator may begin by addressing evil as a single demon or the devil, yet end by referring to it as a multitude of evil spirits or demons. In yElfric's account of St Maur, a single devil (dam fulan gaste) enters three workmen, but when Maur prays for their release, it is a plurality of demons which disperses (pa deoflu}.12 The narrator of Solomon and Saturn I also scatters a single devil into a number of demons, and Guthlac's testing takes the form of an escalating number of attacking demons in Vercelli Homily 23. Here the number-identity of the demonic serves to gauge its relative coherence and solidity during its confrontation with the divine: as the demonic gradually loses ground, it fragments into a disparate multiplicity of entities, each one weak and scattering in a different direction. Other lists, such as the compartmentalized catalogue of vices in Vercelli Homily 4, can also be read as an attempt to master the demonic by atomizing it into its basic components. The power of properly employed discourse presupposed in popular charms as well as Christian prayer carries over into the narrative presentation of spiritual battle, because these scenes imply an ontological connection between the physical manifestations of evil in the world (demons) and the verbal manifestations of evil in language. To acknowledge and articulate the nature of the devil is already to have conquered him.

120 Satan Unbound Many homilists and hagiographers insist that God is all-powerful, that there is no corner of the cosmos truly beyond His domain, and that the devil is utterly disempowered in the presence of the saint or the cross. Thus, at the end of a particular conflict scene, the devil is invariably made to flee, while the saint emerges triumphant. But were the initial premise of the devil's powerlessness entirely true, there should not be any room for conflict at all. What is more significant than observing who emerges triumphant from these scenes is noticing how, exactly, the power hangs in the balance in the interim. It is here that hagiographers betray their conceptions of where the contact points between the human and demonic occur. These ontological fissures are the possible seepage points of chaos into order, into the order of either the human psyche or the cosmos. So what are these 'seepage points/ these recurring points of indeterminism? What is it that the saint and the demon argue over most heatedly and frequently in the type-scenes depicting their debates? A significant proportion of the contested grounds, quite simply, concerns the very narrative tensions I have examined at length: items of specification concerning the opponent's identity, location, and hierarchical status in the cosmos. Each of the opponents struggles to identify the other through the enumeration of personal characteristics. The saint is primarily interested in determining the precise qualities of the demonic as concretely as possible, and this not from scientific curiosity but from practical necessity. When he or she has done so satisfactorily, the battle is won and the demonic, which only holds power so long as it retains its elusive non-specificity, is dissipated.13 A fundamental anxiety encoded in these scenes, then, is the desire to understand, and thus be able to define and articulate, the demonic - whatever that may have represented for any individual author. I do not know what the devil may have meant personally for an individual in the Middle Ages,- doubtlessly he meant different things to different people. It has been common in the modern era to psychologize the medieval devil, to assume that he is a symbol for socially discouraged mental states or behavioural tendencies. I do not get much of a sense of early medieval authors writing their pain into hagiographies, though, in the way that I feel the author's pain in Pearl, for instance. Early medieval narrative was not an exercise in personal catharsis.14 The tensions in these narratives, broadened in scope to encompass the widest possible cosmic dimensions, are

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abstract intellectual ones; they are meditations on the nature of being. They are symbolic chess games, as it were, quite distanced from the daily concerns of human behaviour. Nor was hagiographic narrative a didactic sermon simply dramatized for popular consumption. It thrived alongside hymnography and homiletics throughout the early Middle Ages, a period when textual production and dissemination were costly and time-consuming. Since the two genres existed alongside throughout the period, it is fair to hypothesize that they were envisioned as performing different tasks, and to ask what it is that each of them could be doing differently. Thus I do not find it imperative to reconcile inconsistencies between patristic models of temptation with narrative portrayals of temptation, for instance. The various narrative incongruities can be reconciled by assuming a priori a unified Christian worldview behind them - but if our very question is whether or not there is such a unified, underlying worldview, then recourse to such a priori assumptions beg the question. The demonic - at the most foundational level, the principle of opposition or resistance to perceived ideals - permeates hagiographic narrative with inextricable fibers. Where there is genuine narrative tension, there the demonic is implicitly granted presence and fearful respect, however much the surface of the text attempts to deny it through professions of saintly power and divine omnipresence. Though hagiographers of the Middle Ages frequently end on positive notes of encouragement through repeated claims that the devil was bound a long time ago, is bound now, and will be bound again in times to come (mutually conflicting claims that betray the unease fueling them), they do not cease to foster, even to expand, the very processes whereby his containment is denied. They never cease to grant him the dynamically charged unspecificity that is the source of his strength, struggling to contain him by defining him, yet at the same time allowing him to resist absolute containment or definition.

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Appendix: The Devil as Idiom

Encountering the devil repeatedly in recurring phrases such as deofles larum and deofles cigeft, one may justly question to what extent the devil is an organic referent implying some mental visualization of the devil or belief in his agency, or to what extent these are simply frozen figures of speech. The genitive singular shows a particular propensity to such idiomatic patterning: of the 563 instances of deofles and its alternative spellings in the Microfiche Concordance, over half (53.3 per cent) are joined with a frequently recurring object (that is, an object appearing with deofles ten times or more). These break down as follows: 72 64 45 24 21 20 18 14 11 11 300

12.79% 11.37 7.99 4.26 3.9 3.55 3.2 2.49 1.95 1.95 53.3%

deofles lare (or lore), larum, unlarum " costung (costnung), costunge/a, costungum " anwealde, onwealde, anwealdum " cixft, crsefte, crseftum " peowa, peowte, peowet, peowdome " beam " tyhting, tyhtting, tihtinge, ontihtincge " searo, searu, searwum, syrwum " bigencg, biggencg, biggengum " willan, willa, willen

[I only count instances in which the object is not separated from the genitive by more than two words, and in the few cases of double objects (e.g., of deofles peowdome &> of his anwalde], I count only the object closest to the word deofles (thus, in this example, peow-

124 Appendix dome but not anwalde). These decisions are motivated by a desire to compile as conservative a list as possible, to avoid overstating the case for a given phrase's idiomatic nature. The choice of ten occurrences is completely arbitrary; different cut-off points would of course yield a longer or shorter list.] Thus one in eight occurrences (about 13 per cent) of the word deofles or its variant spellings in the surviving Old English corpus is an instance of the phrase deofles lare. Over half the instances of deofles appear with one of these ten word stems. It would be surprising if the most frequently recurring phrases, at least, have not lost much of the force of their original signification. In contemporary English, 'for God's sake' does not often imply what it literally states, while 'for Pete's sake' almost never does. I would hesitate to divorce these Old English phrases from their referents decisively, however, because although we do not necessarily think of heaven when we 'thank heavens,' sometimes in fact we do, and even when idly used the phrase has the potential to call certain images to mind. A wide variety of genitive constructions remain, furthermore, outside the scope of these set phrases. It is important, also, to note that these phrases are not evenly distributed throughout the corpus, and that personal idiosyncrasies can skew the evidence. Of the 11 occurrences of deofles bigencg and its variants, for instance, 10 are from yElfric, as are 14 out of the 18 instances of deofles tyhting, 8 out of the 9 occurrences of deofles tempi, and 7 of the 8 cases of deofles peowa/peowdome. Wulfstan, on the other hand, prefers the phrase deofles lare—he provides 18 instances, while yElfric, with a much more substantial corpus, offers only 14.

Notes

1: Introduction 1 Russell provides citations that 'no sufficient explanation' for this fact has yet been offered (Lucifer 29). 2 Examples of authorially censured characters without explicit demonic instigation include Holofernes in Judith (in ASPR 4) and Diocletian in Bede's Historia 1.6 (ed. Colgrave and Mynors). Andreas, though told by the Lord that he has sinned (ASPR 2,11. 927ff.), is never said to be influenced by the devil. The Seafarer (ASPR 3) describes natural evils especially in lines l-6a, 8b-17b, 31a-3a; see also Wanderer 45-8 (ASPR 3), and see Robinson Beowulf 70-1 on the harshness of the natural world and the comfort of human artifice. 3 Demons are readily distinguishable from other demonized monsters who are also enemies of God, such as the eotonas, ylfe, orcneas, and gigantas mentioned in Beowulf (ASPR 4,11. 112-13), in that these other creatures are not generated until after the time of Cain (11. 107, 1261). They are historical, while demons have existed since the archetypal epochs predating the creation of the world, and (unlike these other monsters) are depicted in Judgment Day narratives as present at the end of time. 4 See also 164-5, 168-71, 312-13, 347-53. What myth represents is not a set of facts but the ongoing experience of life itself, viz. a drama: 'it is, in fact, because that which is ultimately signified by every myth is itself in the form of a drama that the narrations in which the mythical consciousness is fragmented are themselves woven of happenings and personages; because its paradigm is dramatic, the myth itself is a tissue of events and is found nowhere except in the plastic form of narration'

126 Notes to pages 5-7

5

6

7

8 9 10

(169). It is not that the lived experience of the author is immediately codified in the saint's adventures, of course; but the stylized medium of mythic narrative provides a set structure in which any of a number of isolated beliefs or anxieties may be introduced at certain junctures. We must also be prepared to recognize, however, the tendency of such a conservative genre as hagiography to perpetuate motifs, themes, and narrative sequences without any contemporary mythic significance for Anglo-Saxon England. Some important exegetical texts include Bede, Hexaemeron (PL 91, cols. 9-190), Expositio super Epistolas Catholicas (PL 93, cols. 9-130), Explanatio Apocalypsis (PL 93, cols. 130-206); Alcuin, Interrogationes et responsiones in Genesim (PL 100, cols. 515-66); Hrabanus Maurus, Commentariorum in Genesim libri quatuor (PL 107, cols. 439-670); /Elfric, De auguriis (Skeat 1. 364-82), De falsis diis (Pope 2. 676-712), Dominica prima in Quadragesima (Clemoes SECH 325-34), and an Old English translation of Alcuin's Interrogations (MacLean). For earlier (patristic) sources, see notes in Burchmore, Evans 'Genesis B/ and McKillop. It may be objected that any such literal reconstruction of events in hagiography reflects a deep-rooted misunderstanding of the genre: Doble offers the clearest and most straightforward arguments against literal reconstruction (esp. 332-3). The visualization of events in autonomous narrative space is different from historical reconstruction, however, and remains integral to a reading of the text from any perspective. All readers must form some mental picture of what is happening; they must organize the images and motifs in some chronological and geographic relation to each other. Consider, for instance, the carefully described blocking in Jacob's fifthcentury Life of Pelagia, when Satan appears 'all of a sudden' as a scowling man in tangled, long sleeves: 'Everyone present, including Pelagia and the deaconess Romana, who both had their eyes fixed on that Satan, heard him shouting and reviling the holy Nonnos. Then Satan ... turned to address Pelagia ...' (Brock and Ashbrook Harvey 54). /Elfric's Life of Martin: Skeat 2.292, 11. 1184-91; Life of Nicholas: Treharne 11. 292 and 303. Pontius Pilate's wife cannot see Satan because he is helidhelme bihelid (1. 5452, Behaghel 188,- 'enveloped in a disguising helmet'). One such example is in the Blickling homily on the Assumption of Mary. In the Latin Adsumptio Sanctae Mariae, as the apostles are preparing to remove Mary's body to heaven on its bier, the devil enters into the Jewish

Notes to page 7 127 chiefs to provoke them to mischief: Et statim Satanas introiuit in illos principes sacerdotum et coeperunt ad alterutrum dicere ... (Wilmart Analecta 349; 'and Satan immediately entered into those priests and they began to talk among themselves ...'). In the Old English, however, the entering of the devil into the Jews is not clear: &) pa rape eode Satanas paet deofol &) para ludea ealdormen &) heora ongan pa selc cwepan to oprum ... (Morris 149; 'and then that devil Satan quickly went, and those chiefs of Judea, and then they began to talk among themselves ...'). Dawson (250) very plausibly suggests that at some point in the manuscript transmission ond (represented in the MS with 7) has become confused with on and has replaced it, such that the devil is no longer presented as entering into them: on para ludea was abbreviated as 7 para ludea, and subsequently read by someone else as and para ludea. Thus the Blickling text as it stands reads, 'the devil went, and those chiefs' rather than 'the devil went into those chiefs.' The reader of the homily is thus encouraged to envision the devil as physically present as an independent character (&> pa rape eode Satanas}, though the phrase &> para ludea ealdormen is thereby left syntactically isolated. Thus, a narrative appearance of the devil can be introduced as easily as a scribal confusion between on and ond. For more on the homily's sources and transmission, see Willard 'On Blickling.' 11 The basis for most Anglo-Saxon chronologies is Bede's enumeration in De temporum ratione 66 (excerpted in Forster 189), derived from Augustine. Some chronologies deviate from that of Bede, especially regarding the third and fourth ages (e.g., the Pseudo-Wulfstan, De aetatibus mundi, Forster 187-8), but most agree on the present age as being the sixth, beginning with the birth of Christ and ending with the Second Coming. The seventh and last will commence with the Last Judgment (see Hunter Blair 265-70). Woolf and Johnson discuss the same chronological period (minus the period of Christ's life on earth) as the second of Gregory's three epochs of Satan's dominion, beginning with his binding at the Harrowing of Hell and ending with the Apocalypse (Johnson, 'Studies' 7-8; Woolf, 'Devil' 6; see also Abbetmeyer 29). 12 Lee provides a structural overview of the highlights of the cosmic drama presupposed in Old English poetry, and yElfric's De initio creaturae (Clemoes /£CH 178-89) offers perhaps the most outstanding contemporary version in the vernacular (see also Wulfstan Homily 6, Bethurum 142-56). For the genre of the catechetical narratio (overviews of Christian cosmology and history for the instruction of the newly converted), see Day, 'Influence' and Johnson, 'Studies' 30-46.

128 Notes to pages 7-9 13 Skeat 1.352,11.219-20 14 The devil himself admits the irrelevance of these scenes to normal human psychology when, upon his defeat at the hands of a saint, he laments that such a result is unprecedented, and that he has, in retrospect, been overcome by no ordinary person (Juliana 11. 547-51, Tiberius A.iii Margaret [ed. Clayton and Magennis] ch. 15). Such statements argue against the common contention that saints' lives are edifying in that the reader or hearer is somehow meant to emulate the saint; in fact, the point is often that the saint is beyond all bounds of common human identification (Brock and Ashbrook Harvey 17; Hill, 'Imago Dei' 47). 15 Jeffrey Burton Russell's multivolume history is now the standard overview; his is a delicate blend of social history, theological analysis, and history of ideas. Everett Ferguson and Henry Ansgar Kelly are as approachable as they are insightful, and Neil Forsyth's The Old Enemy is indispensable for the early periods through Augustine. Though not as recent, the studies by F.C. Conybeare and Edward Langton are fascinating and erudite. Social historians such as Peter Brown, Valerie Flint, and Elaine Pagels are necessary for understanding the cultural milieu in which devil beliefs were promulgated. 16 Numbers 22.22, 1 Samuel 29.4, 2 Samuel 19.22, 1 Kings 5.4, 11.14, and 11.23 (see Langton, Satan 9-10). 17 Leviathan: Job 41ff., Psalms 74.13-14, Isaiah 27.1. Rahab: Psalms 89.10, Isaiah 51.9. Primordial sea as cosmic enemy: Job 26.12, Isaiah 51.10, Ezekiel 29.3ff. For further references and general bibliography see Russell, Devil 216, note 93. 18 1 Chronicles 21.1, Job 1.6-12 and 2.1-7, Zechariah3.1-2. 19 Brandon 472-3, 476; Conybeare (1897) 451-4; Langton, Essentials 52-80, Satan 21-4; Pagels 39-44; Russell, Devil 67, 98-121. 20 Azazel: Ethiopic Enoch 8.1-2, 9.6, 10.8, 13.1, 54.5, 55.4, 69.2, cf. Leviticus 16.8, 10.26; Beelzebul (Vulgate 'Beelzebub'): 2 Kings 1.2-6, Mark 3.22, Luke 11.15; Beliar: Book of Jubilees 1.20, Testament of Reuben 2.1, 6.3, Simeon 5.3, Levi 19.1, Issachar 6.1, 7.1, Ascension of Isaiah 1.8-9, 2.4, 3.11, Qumran Testament of Amram 4Q543 (MS B frag. 2, line 3), and cf. Deuteronomy 13.13, Judges 19.22, et al.; Mastema: Jubilees 10.5, 18.9ff., 48.2, Qumran 4Q525 (col. 5, line 4); Sammael: Ascension of Isaiah 2. Iff. 11.41, 3 Baruch 4.8; Satan: Jubilees 10.8, 23.29, Testament of Dan 3.6, 6.1, Slavonic Enoch 29.4, 31.4, Ethiopic Enoch 53.3, 54.6, Matthew 12.26, Mark 1.13, 3.23, 4.15, Luke 22.3, 22.31, John 13.27, Acts 5.3; Semjaza: Ethiopic Enoch 6.3, 7.1-2, 9.7, 29.2. For more references see Barton; Langton, Satan 13-21; Russell, Devil 188. Barton lists over

Notes to pages 9-10 129 fifty proper names and variants for the devil figure in early apocryphal writings (162-6). 21 A fall of angels appears in Ethiopia Enoch 6.7, Slavonic Enoch 29.4, 31.4, Luke 10.18, and Revelation 12.7-9. 22 Watcher angels: Ethiopic Enoch (books 9-15), Jubilees (books 4-5), Testament of Dan (5.5-6), Testament of Reuben (5.6-7), Slavonic Enoch 29.3-4, Daniel 4.13. For general accounts of the watcher angel myth, see Bamberger 74-81; Nash 1-43; Russell, Devil 188, 191-7. 23 Bamberger 15-72; Langton, Essentials 10711, Ling 9-10; Pagels 47-55 (see also 191, note 20). 24 Adversus haereses 3.8, 4.37, 4.41, 5.21, 5.24 (Russell, Satan 80-1). 25 Bamberger 55-6, 73-86; Forsyth 334-48; Russell, Satan 80-8. 26 Tertullian popularized many of these ideas in the Latin tradition [Apologeticum 22,- De spectaculis 2, 15; Adversus Marcionem 2.10). See Langton, Satan 49-50; Russell, Satan 88-103. 27 The 'ransom theory' states that although the devil justly acquired power over the human race through Adam's sin, he lost it again by attempting to extend his power to a sinless human (Christ; see Bartelink, 'Les demons' 23). The Church would later object to the idea inherent in ransom theory that Christ had to trick the devil to secure rights over him. /Elfric subscribes to the ransom model in In dominica palmarum (Clemoes, /ECU 296,11. 167-78). See Adversus haereses 2.20, 3.18, 5.21 (Russell, Satan 84). 28 Bamberger 35. 29 The notion that the devil's sin was envy of Adam and Eve (thus making his fall temporally subsequent to their creation) was widespread throughout the early Fathers (e.g., Tatian, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus; see Evans, 'Genesis B' 8-9; Johnson, 'Studies' 37ff.); to this day it remains the explanation of the devil's sin in the Quran (Sura 7.11-18, 15.30-1, 17.61-5). 30 Bernstein 305-13; Forsyth 358-83; Kelly, Devil, Demonology 29-33; Russell, Satan 123-48. 31 As in Langton, Satan 61. 32 Pride: De civitate Dei 11.15, Ennarationes in Psalmos 58.2-5, De Genesi ad litteram 11.16 (see Russell, Satan 214). Before Augustine the idea appears in Origen [Beginnings 1.5.5, 1.8.3, Homilies on Numbers 12), Ambrose [Explanatio super Psalmos 3.34, 16.15, 35.11), and Jerome (Letters 12, 22, 108), for instance. Chrysostom rejected the watcher myth decisively from the Eastern tradition {Homilia in fohannem 16.4, Homilia in Genesin 22.2), while Western writers such as Ambrose and

130 Notes to pages 10-11

33 34 35 36

37

38

39

Jerome were still undecided (Russell, Satan 187, note 3). Augustine attacks the myth in De civ 15.22-3 and 18.38, In Gen. Quaestionum 3 (Bamberger 80). De civ 11.9, 11.22. The privation theory first appears in its Christian context in Clement of Alexandria (see Russell, Satan 109 for refs.|. Forsyth 387ff., Pagels 182. Thus Genesis B (11. 409-21, 760-2], Juliana (11. 522-5); Prose Solomon and Saturn Pater Noster Dialogue (Cilluffo 135,11. 41-6); yElfric Annunciatio Maria; (Clemoes, &CH 283,11. 70-2). Jerome: Contra Vigilantium {PL 23, col. 359b). Johnson maintains that the Anglo-Saxons distinguished the two more fully than their Latin source texts, arguing that the tension arose from an awkward blending of the native poetic motif of the freely roaming exile with the Christian motif of confinement in hell ('Studies' 8-10, 79-81, 91-107). See Champneys 184; Dustoor 229-32; Russell, Lucifer 239, 247-8; and Rudwin 77 for Lucifer/Satan distinction in the Middle Ages in general. Gregory: Moralia 32.33, 34.7; Mlhic: Catholic Homilies Preface (Clemoes, MCH 175, 11. 78-9); Wulfstan: Homilies la-c, 3, 4 (especially), 5, and 9. See Gatch, Preaching 80, 105-16; Johnson, 'Studies' 194; Russell, Lucifer 154. One exception is the sensational description of the demon inhabiting a pagan idol in the Old English Martyrology (August 25, St Bartholomew,Herzfeld 152), also found in /Elfric's account of Bartholomew (Clemoes, MCH 445-6). Neither of these preserves all the features of the description in the original Apostolicee historic (Fabricius 2.683,11. 17-25), though the Martyrology preserves all but one. Another exception is the description in the anonymous homily Be heofonwarum 7 be helwarum (Callison 246, 11. 56-60,- see Wright 159). See also Gregory's Dialogues 2.8 (Hecht 122, 11. 2-9), and of course the Antonian demons assaulting Guthlac in Felix ch. 31 (Colgrave 102, 11. 6-14; see also ch. 36). Given the later connotations of cloven hooves in iconography, it is interesting that Bede characterizes that as a saintly rather than demonic trait [De templo, book 2): fissam ... ungulam discretae actionis ac loquellae (Hurst 216,11. 969-70; 'the cloven hoof of discerning word and deed'). For a brief though stimulating meditation on the Proppian function of the devil in hagiography, see Helg. Helg concludes that the devil is assimilable with any sort of narrative obstacle or opponent, such that the devil serves to infuse the texts with motion, dynamism, and action: 'the function of the devil is to invest life with all its possible forms, to be movement and a contrast with the divine immobility,

Notes to pages 12-14 131

40 41

42

43 44 45

46 47 48

which already constrains the saint by the force of its immutability' (14). Origen considered the falling away from God as a necessary condition for ontological diversification, an idea which Cams explores more generally in the conclusion of his History of the Devil (482-8; and see Vatter21-2). Russell, Lucifer 161-72. See Kelly, 'Demonology' 191-2. The first law code of Cnut ends with the statement that a bishop's duty is to protect the flock from any deodsceada ('criminal'), adding that Nis nan swa yfel sceada swa is deofol sylf ('no one is so evil a criminal as is the devil himself,' A.J. Robertson 172). For the ecclesiastical nature of this code, see Galpern 14-16; cf. Judicia Dei 4.2 (Liebermann 409-11), and for the devil in charters see Johnson, 'Studies' 53-8. Charms reflect an implicit faith in the moral entitlement of the patient to recover, which is characteristic of the attitude of the medical community in most documented societies. In this the charms parallel certain aspects of penitential literature, which is founded on the principle that anyone can be forgiven, if the proper attitude is adopted and the correct procedures applied. Whereas penitentials concern themselves only with personal behaviour and attitude, however, charms concern themselves more generally with states of affairs (diseases, bad crops, theft of cattle). Grattan and Singer 180. Fuge, diabolus, Christus te sequitur. Quando natus est Christus, fugit dolor (Grendon A.23, 186; 'Flee, devil, Christ follows you. When Christ was born, suffering fled'). British Library MS Regius 12-D.xvii, p. 122b. There is no indication that, prior to Christianization, elves or other pre-Christian disease agents constituted a psychological or tempting threat (contrary to Thun 388-9). It is probably a matter of syncretism that one charm, at least, seems to associate temptation with elves and night-walkers: Gif men hwilc yfel costung weorpe oppe self oppe niht gengan ... (Cockayne vol. 2, recipe Ixi, 'If any evil temptation come to a person, or an elf or a night-walker'). The series, after all, is presented in disjunction rather than apposition, and suggests only a broad affinity between the three elements. Cockayne emends MS rud molin ('red mullein') to rudniolin (242), an emendation defended by Cameron (132). Leechbook 3, charm 62 (Cockayne 2.344-50). For a single instance among many, consider Gregory of Tours's Libri de

132 Notes to pages 14-19 virtutibus sancti Martini episcopi (B. Krusch, ed., MGH, SRM 1 (1885): 661-744|: 'What (cure] such as this one have doctors ever accomplished with their implements? Their efforts produce more pain than healing' (Van Dam 238). 49 See, for instance, Leechbook 3, recipes 41 (Wip Eallum Feondes Costungum, Cockayne 2.334], 62 (Wip /£7cre Feondes Costunge, 2.350), 64 (Wip Deofle and Wip Deofles Costunga, 2.352), 67 (Wip Deofolseoce and Wip Deofle, 2.354 and 356). 50 Spiritual assailants are sometimes represented more graphically and sensationally in the verse charms than in prose ones, casting medicine as epic battle (thus the Nigon Wyrta Galdor and Wid Fserstice, the 'Nine Herbs Charm' and 'Against a Sudden Stitch'), but none of these are directed against the devil. 51 Solomon and Saturn I appears most completely in the mid-tenth century CCCC 422, where it is followed (without break) by the Prose Solomon and Saturn Pater Noster Dialogue and Solomon and Saturn II. An alternative version of the first 93 lines can be found in the eleventhcentury marginalia of CCCC 41 (but see O'Keeffe, Visible Song 60-7). On the authorship and provenance of the poetic complex in CCCC 422, see Cilluffo, O'Neill, and Wright 233-4. 52 References to Solomon and Saturn I are to Menner, Poetical Dialogues. 53 For this interpretation of these corrupt lines, and for further discussion of the motif of boiling, bloody drops, see Dendle, 'Solomon and Saturn 44a,' and Hill, 'Tormenting the Devil.' 54 The earlier manuscript, CCCC 422, reads he ahieded. CCCC 41 offers he gehided ('he hides'), a somewhat less violent, if also less intelligible, metaphor (O'Keeffe, Visible Song 64). 55 See Dendle, 'Demonological Landscape.' 56 Other shifts from singular to plural in the passage include 11. 127, 128, 130 (see Menner, Poetical Dialogues 114). Menner observes that they may simply reflect a Northumbrian original, however, since the confusion of -ed and -ad is more common in that dialect (20). 57 Rosenwein 153-7. 2: The Devil as Tempter 1 The Christian tradition almost immediately blurred the careful distinction between the devil and demons in the New Testament: that is, the devil (a moral agent) tempts while the demons (physiological pathogens) possess.

Notes to pages 21-3 133 2 Dialog! 3.19, de Vogue 2.348-50. 3 E.g., 1 John 3.8: 'Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.' The implicit logic of 'for' (Vulgate quoniam) invites us to take the term 'child' only in a loose, figurative sense (the second clause is hardly a sufficient condition for the first, otherwise). Here the metaphorical relationship of devil to sinner is father-child; other common ones in Old English literature are master-slave (/Elfric, Agatha, Skeat 1.196,1. 6), king-subject {Margaret CCCC 303, ch. 16), house-occupant (Vision of Paul, Healey 324,1. 284), and whole-part (Blickling Homily 3, the devil is the head and the unrighteous his limbs,- cf. AL\iric, Dominica prima in Quadragesima, Clemoes, MCH 267,11. 34-5). See also Abbetmeyer 32, 36. 4 Bartelink explains, 'Later, in general, we no longer find the idea that the devil is the rival of God, formulated in a quasi-dualistic sense: aemulus, inimicus, and adversarius Dei give way to aemulus, inimicus, and adversarius humani generis. Especially beginning with the fourth century, Christian authors insist strongly that the devil and the demons are entirely subordinated to the divine power and do not act in any way on their own' ('Denominations' 427; see also 'Le diable' 465-6). Nonetheless, in Old English the devil is still called godes andsaca (Christ and Satan 1. 339, Guthlac A, 1. 233; see Malmberg 241 and Frank, 'Poetic Words' 93 for a curious instance of the phrase in prose). If the demons and Satan embody rather than oppose the will of God, even despite themselves - a thoroughly common homiletic and theological trope the obvious conclusion is that they are to be aided rather than opposed (see Lohr 73). Augustine combats this inference in De divinatione daemonum chs. 1-6. In practice, despite theology, the demonic forces are standardly treated as directly opposed to the will of God, and God is represented as being continuously frustrated and disappointed with them. 5 Blickling Homily 3 (Morris 33,11. 7-8); Wulfstan Homily 6 (Bethurum 147,1. 82; cf. 241, 11. 30-1). 6 See Hill, 'Imago Dei' 46 and 50 (note 28), 'Middle Way' 182-3; Russell, Satan 189. 7 Augustine, De civ 22.22, 22.24; Gregory, Moralia 4 (preface): 4.6, 8.8, 9.32, 15.57, 17.21, 18.84. For an account of the role of Satan in the evolution of Original Sin see Lukken (esp. 157-265). 8 De Vita S. Geraldi 2.1 (PL 133, col. 669c). 9 De Vita S. Geraldi 2.4 (PL 133, col. 673b). 10 Historiae Francorum libri decem 3.31 (Bruno Krusch, ed., MGH, SRM 1.127). Elsewhere, Gregory implicates the devil not because of moral

134 Notes to pages 24-7 heinousness, but because of the superhuman agency implied in the crime. In 4.39, Count Palladius of Javols kills himself with two strokes of a sword, where one would have sufficed: Quod non sine diabuli opere scelus perfection mirati sumus-, nam prima eum plaga interficere potuit, si non diabulus sustentaculum praebuisset, quod haec nefanda peragerit, Kmsch MGH, SRM1. 171 ('I find it hard to believe that this horrible deed could have been achieved without the help of the Devil: for the first wound was enough to kill him, unless the Devil came to his assistance to give him strength to carry his terrible plan through to the end' Thorpe 234). 11 See Cassian, Conferences 1.19; Gregory, Moralia 6.52, 19.12; cf. Romans 7.23. 12 Saul: 1 Samuel 14-23; David: 1 Chronicles 21.1; Job: Job 2.7 ff. ; Christ: Matthew 4.1-11, Mark 1.12-13, Luke 4.1-13; Judas: Luke 22.3, John 13.27. 13 Babcock, 'Augustine' 93. 14 Confessions 13.9: pondus meum amor meus-, eo feror quocumque feror (PL 32, col. 849; 'my weight is my love; by it I am borne withersoever I am borne' Gilson 134). 15 De divinatione dxmonum: ed. Zycha; Letter 9.3: NPNF 1 (first series) 227-8. 16 Retractions 2.56 (PI 32, col. 643); see also Baynes 8-9. 17 Enchiridion ch. 59 (PL 40, col. 259b). 18 In Joannis Evangelium 55 (PL 35, col. 1786). 19 PL 92, col. 954d. See also John 13.27: 'After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him.' 20 Summa Fratris Alexandri 2.40, Bonaventure, 2 Sentences 8.2.1, Thomas Aquinas, 2 Sentences 8.1 (Kelly, 'Demonology' 176; Devil, Demonology 106). 21 The Rule of Benedict, for instance, praises the Conferences alongside scripture as tools of virtue (instrumenta virtutem, ch. 73; McCann 160). For Benedict, Cassian is a digestif, to be read immediately after supper (McCann 100). 22 Holze 220-6. 23 Conference 2, especially, establishes discretio as the key to the ascetic life. Cassian also extols such related virtues as observantia andpervigiHum (Petschenig 188-9). See also Petersen, Dialogues 165-7, for Gregory the Great. 24 Guy 124-8. 25 Kardong214.

Notes to pages 27-33 135 26 This fourfold model is frequently cited in explicating Old English literature - see, for instance, Calder, Cynewulf 92-3, and Doubleday, 'Allegory' 504 (for Juliana}-, Hermann, 'Recurring Motifs' 12-14, and Hill, 'Fall of Angels' (for Genesis B}-, and Hill, 'Two Notes' (for Solomon and Saturn II}. 17 Vigilance continues to be important in Beowulf; for patristic sources, see Klaeber, 'Christian Elements' 14-16. 28 McCready 236; and see Abbetmeyer 35^-0. The threefold formulation may hearken back, for instance, to Augustine's De sermone Domini in monte secundum Matthaeum 1,12, where suggestio, delectatio, and consensus are named as the causes of sin (PL 34, col. 1246J. Bede repeats the threefold formulation in his commentary on Genesis, in a different order: tribus autem modis peccantum committitur: delectatione, suggestione, consensu ... seipens suadet, delectatio obtemperat, ratio consentit (Expositio in primum librum Mosis 3, PL 91: 214a). In this passage, Bede substitutes serpens for suggestione, as though they are synonymous. Confusingly, /Elfric lists instigation, pleasure, and consent as the three means of the devil's temptation (On dreo wisan bid deofles costnung: pset is on tyhtinge, on lustfullunge, on gedafunge, Clemoes, MCHTJl, 11. 138-9). 29 In fact, the temptation of Judas takes two stages in the biblical account. John begins the Last Supper episode with the assertion that, 'The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him' (13.2). Thus the devil first implants the suggestion into Judas's heart, and at last enters into Judas personally (perhaps as a metaphor for an irrevocable hardening of the heart). 30 'Worm' pathogens are familiar from Old High German and Old Saxon charms (e.g., Pro nessia and Contra vermes, Braune 90) and Old English {Wid wyrme, Grendon 168). The Old English medical corpus - far more prodigious than that of continental Germanic languages - also mentions an impressive array of 'spear' and 'shot' antagonists {Nigon Wyrta Galdor and Wid Fserstice, the 'Nine Herbs Charm' and 'Against a Sudden Stitch'), sometimes simply called 'elf-shot' \ylfa gescotum, Grendon 208). See Glosecki 119-33, Grattan and Singer 52-62, Grendon 217, Jolly, Popular Religion 132-68, Storms 149. 31 References to Juliana are from ASPR 3. All quotations from ASPR are reprinted with permission of Columbia University Press. 32 As argued, for instance, by Calder {Cynewulf 94-5) and Hermann {Allegories 155-60). 33 See Aronstam 272, 277; Clayton 225-9, 242; Dalbey, 'Hortatory Tone'

136 Notes to pages 33-5 and 'Themes'; Gatch, Preaching (esp. 1-11, 25-59); and K. Greenfield 283-4. But see also Gatch, 'Unknowable Audience' for important reservations concerning the generalizations frequently drawn about the tenth-century vernacular homilies as mirrors on contemporary AngloSaxon society: 'it is not necessarily the case that authors will tailor their materials to the special needs and conditions of those who will read their writings or hear them read' (114). 34 On the iconographic and conceptual convergence of demon arrows and elf-shot, see Cameron 141-2,- Grattan and Singer 56-62; folly, Popular Religion 134—8. Consider, for instance, 'For a Sudden Stitch': Ut, lytel spere! (1. 15, ASPR 6, 122). Hrothgar's 'sermon' provides a familiar analogue in Beowulf [bona swide neah, / se pe of flanbogan fyrenum sceoted ... biteran strsele, 11. 1743-46; 'the murderer |is] very near, he who wickedly shoots from his bow ... a sharp arrow'), and Klaeber reviews some patristic sources for the 'arrows of sin' motif in 'Christian Elements' 12-14. See also Abbetmeyer 37-9, Abraham 3, and especially Hermann 'Recurrent Motifs' 11-16 for the role and occurrences of the motif in Old English poetry. Jolly amply demonstrates that the arrows depicted in the Eadwine Psalter (MS Cambridge, Trinity College R 17.1, fol. 66r), which have often been presented as 'elf-shot' by modern folklorists, are actually fired by Christ, not the demonic sprites behind the Psalmist ('Elves' 26). 35 Scragg, Vercelli Homilies 170, 1. 118; 384-5, 11. 13-33. 36 Scragg, Vercelli Homilies 79, 11. 98-9. Other arrows against the devil appear (in addition to those listed in Klaeber, 'Christian Elements' 13) in Solomon and Saturn I (11. 128-31) and the Prose Solomon and Saturn Pater Noster Dialogue (the Pater noster's second form is on strseles onlicnisse-, Menner, Poetical Dialogues 168,1. 7). 37 Scragg, who knows of no Latin source for the homily, puzzles over the peculiarities of this passage and the paragraphs following it (the final sections of the homily). They are late West Saxon, while the rest of the homily contains many early or non-West Saxon features, and they bear little thematic relation with the rest of the homily (Vercelli Homilies 88-9). 38 Andreas calls the devil the heardeste strsel to seghwilcre unrihtnesse ('hardest arrow for every wickedness/ Morris, Blickling Homilies 241, 11. 3-4). In the Vercelli poem Andreas, Andreas also calls the devil, 6u deofles strsel ('you arrow of the devil,' or perhaps, 'you arrow of a devil,' 1. 1189b|. Abraham explains the demonic associations of the how and arrow in Anglo-Saxon England as the product of the eco-technology of

Notes to pages 35-8 137

39

40

41 42 43

44 45

the medieval bow: apparently, yew - which is relatively rare in England - makes the only militarily viable bow (11. 5-8). The Anglo-Saxons hunted with bow and arrow, but did not much use them as weapons. Thus, Abraham argues, 'for the Anglo-Saxons the bow, in warfare, was a foreign weapon' (9). Though Anglo-Saxons coming from the continent may have successfully used yew bows to conquer the insular British - if one may believe Sir Thomas Elyot, who draws from an 'excedyng olde' anonymous chronicle (Grimley 55) - after their settlement in yewimpoverished England they had little reason to love the weapon: they suffered great defeats from foreign bows and arrows first from the Vikings, and then ultimately from William the Conqueror. Bradbury reviews the evidence that Anglo-Saxons did occasionally employ archers in battle, though certainly not extensively (17-22). When yElfric and other monastic reformers fulminated against theologically suspect religious texts, they could well have been talking about sorts of homilies that appear in the tenth-century Blickling and Vercelli collections (Gatch, Preaching 8; Godden, 'Aelfric' 100; but see also Hill, 'Devil's Forms' 175). On the relationship between yfilfric's temporale and sanctorale, see Lapidge, VElfric's Sanctorale.' The gaps in yElfric's sanctorale, Lapidge argues, correspond to the feasts in the temporale, so that a unified body of readings for the liturgical year is obtained by taking Kline's corpus as a whole (119). See also Lapidge, 'Saintly Life' for certain caveats on making too sharp a distinction between yfilfric's two cycles of Catholic Homilies and his Lives of Saints (256). Bethurum, 'Form' 523. All references to Lives of Saints are to Skeat, by volume and page numbers. Skeat leaves the Old English text unpunctuated, so for clarity, I have added my own. Hagiography, in direct contradiction to expository literature, encourages the presentation of animals as moral beings no less than humans. They are capable of obedience or wilfulness, and are accordingly praised or blamed by the saints who care for them (thus the wolf in Sulpicius's Dialogi 1.14, the raven in fonas's Vita Columbani 25, and the jackdaw in Felix's Vita Guthlaci 40). On the exsufflatio motif as a literary importation from the baptismal liturgy, see T. Hill, 'When God Blew Satan,' esp. 134-5 for St Martin. On yElfric's distinctions between humans and animals in terms of mind and soul, see Godden, 'Anglo-Saxons on the Mind' 278-81. For him the soul is roughly akin to the seat of intellect and rationality, and thus

138 Notes to pages 40-2 humans, but not animals, have souls. But Godden observes that there was probably a diversity of opinions on the subject in Anglo-Saxon England: 'The soul is essentially both rational and immortal, and cannot therefore be ascribed to animals. ^€lfric's repeated insistence on the point suggests that he was consciously taking issue with others, perhaps his contemporaries, perhaps his patristic authorities, perhaps Alfred' (281). 3: The Role of the Devil 1 For the Greek origins of the 'plaints of the devil' motif, see Shepherd 26-7. 2 Though there are numerous studies of Genesis B, some of those most relevant to the present concerns include Burchmore, 'Traditional Exegesis'; Doane, The Saxon Genesis (esp. 116-38); Evans, 'Genesis B' and Paradise Lost and the Genesis Tradition (esp. 143-67); Hill, 'Some Remarks/ 'Fall of Angels,' and 'Satan's Injured Innocence'; Jager, Tempter's Voice (esp. 145-89); McKillop, 'Illustrative Notes'; Salmon, 'Site',- Vickrey, 'Micel Wundor' and 'On Genesis'; and Woolf, 'Fall of Man.' 3 For Christ and Satan see Campbell 153-8; Hill, 'Fall of Satan/ 'Measure of Hell/ and 'Satan's Fiery Speech'; Finnegan, 'Christ and Satan' and Christ and Satan (a critical edition); Johnson, 'Old English' 162-75; Keenan, 'Christ and Satan/ and 'Satan Speaks'; and Sleeth, Studies in Christ and Satan (esp. 50-70). 4 For argument, see esp. 16-19. 5 For the background of the legend and its Old English variants see Robinson, 'Devil's Account' 362-5; Scragg, 'Devil's Account',- and Wright, Irish Tradition 175-214. 6 Anthony's sermon: Ellershaw 200a-8a (chs. 16-43); Evagrius chs 15-20 (PL 73, cols 134d-46b). 7 For some devil tales from the Vitae Patrum in Old English (MS Cotton Otho C.i, vol. 2), see Assmann 195-207. In one tale, a sinner must go to the devil (for da to pam deofle, Assmann 197,11. 77-8) to receive demonic encouragement and advice, though we are never told where this devil is, or how exactly one goes about 'going to' him. 8 This appears in patristic sources in the context of demon exorcism, when the lying demon must finally reveal its true identity when questioned by a Christian. Tertullian (1 Apology 23) believes demons would not dare lie to a Christian (Christiano mentiri non audentes, Mayor 80,

Notes to pages 43-4 139 11. 11-12), and bids those who heed demons when they lie - that is, prior to the interrogation by a Christian - heed them even more when they tell the truth (Credite illis, cum uerum de se loquuntui, qui mentientibus creditis, Mayor 82,11. 28-9; cf. 80,11. 2-5). See also Minucius Felix Octavius 27, 5-7 (Pellegrino 42,11. 21-9), Lactantius, Div Instit 2.16, 5.22 [PL 6, col. 334,11. 9ff.; col. 623,11. 16ff). Furthermore, as Lohr indicates (43-5), isolated instances of the motif appear in important hagiographic source texts (such as the Life of Anthony ch. 41: Ellershaw 197a-b, ch.6; 207a-b). In fact, so reliable is this convention, that in /Elfric's Life of Martin, Martin even uses possessed persons as an informational resource, to learn about the rumoured advances of an invading army (Skeat 2.254,11. 554-9)! 9 Matthew 4.1-11, Mark 1.12-13, Luke 4.1-13. 10 Eleven anonymous lives appear in MS CCCC 303, a large collection of lives of which the greater part are by ^tlfric. Treharne dates the codex, perhaps produced at Rochester, to the mid-twelfth century. The vernacular life of St Nicholas of Myra, included in the sanctorale section of the manuscript for 6 December (pp. 171-85), is a translation from a Latin vita by John the Deacon of Naples. John's vita, written ca. 880 from a Greek original, was the basis of all further Latin lives of the saint, and the Old English translation was probably composed in the late eleventh century (Scragg, 'Corpus' 213; Treharne 74). Scragg and Treharne review the evidence of dating the composition of the lives of Giles, Nicholas, and the CCCC 303 Margaret in 'Appendix: Three Anonymous Lives/ concluding that Giles is probably post-Conquest. Because of linguistic affinities between the three texts, they likewise tentatively date the lives of Nicholas and Margaret to the same period, the second half of the eleventh century (233). All citations from the Life of Nicholas refer to line numbers in Treharne, Old English Life. 11 Mombritius 301.34. References to John's Vita Nicholai are from volume 2 of Mombritius's Sanctuarium, citing page and line number. 12 The figure of the 'hag' is known since classical times (see citations to Lucan, Horace, and others in Kieckhefer 31-2), though early works characterizing women as witches only sporadically imply they are old. In Old Irish the word caillech means both 'old woman/hag' and 'nun,' which could conceivably account for the odd substitution of one for the other in the Life of Nicholas. The early Christian literary tradition of presenting the devil as an angel, or allowing him to assume the form of a bishop or upright authority figure, was gradually de-emphasized during the Middle Ages, in parallel with the decreasing practice in pictorial

140 Notes to pages 45-8 art of presenting the devil as a graceful angel with a halo. What is possibly the earliest depiction of the devil in Christian art (a sixth-century mosaic from the Basilica San Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna) presents him as dignified and exalted, almost indistinguishable from Christ (see Marrou 77-8; Russell, Lucifer 129-32). Not everyone agrees that this figure represents the devil, however (Link 109-11). 13 Woolf, 'Devil' 8. 14 The connection between the devil and St Nicholas would become more pronounced in certain ways through time, perhaps because of St Nicholas's association with fertility cults. Thus the term 'Old Nick' may derive originally from St Nicholas (Hole 8-16; Rudwin 33; Russell, Lucifer 71), though Leisi has recently argued against this (53) and traces the phrase instead to 'Old Iniquity.' On the identification of St Nicholas with Santa Glaus ('St Nick'), and the remarkable identification of both with the devil, see Russell, Lucifer 71 and Rudwin 33. 15 For instance, the combat with the devil appears only sporadically in The Acts of the Christian Martyrs, Palladius's Lausiac History, Rufinus of Aquileia's Historia monachorum in Aegypto, Hrabanus Maurus's Martyrology, Bede's Martyrology, the Old English Martyrology, and Merovingian and early Irish hagiography. 16 This is also the paradigm for Beowulf's fight with Grendel, preceded by the verbal duel with Unferd. Beowulf's two other fights are also preceded by verbal boasts or challenges, though these are less adversarial than that with UnferS. 17 Both texts are edited by Clayton and Magennis Old English Lives of St. Margaret (hereafter simply Margaret). Quotations are reprinted with permission of Cambridge University Press. 18 Clayton and Magennis 56. 19 References are to chapter and line numbers of the Latin passio printed as Appendix 2 in Clayton and Magennis. They print the text of Paris BN 5574, a passio of the BHL 5303 tradition copied in Anglo-Saxon England (191) - hereafter the Paris version. 20 Preserved in Wanley, Librorum Veterum Septentrionalium; vol. 2 of G. Hickes's Linguarum Veterum Septentrionalium Thesaurus (Oxford, 1705): 192-3. 21 Though quite removed from Anglo-Saxon England, a medieval reliquary for the hand of St Marina in the Museo Correr in Venice also identifies Marina's primary significance in her conquering of the dragon, in a Greek inscription running along the sides: 'This is [the hand] of the holy martyr Marina whose power crushed the head of the dragon' (Ross and

Notes to pages 49-50 141 Downey 41-2). The reverse of the inscription, addressing Marina directly, bids 'Save me from the storm of the evil spirits of my mind' (42). 22 Margaret 202, ch. 11,11. 29-30. 23 Margaret 126, ch.15, 1. 6. Compare this hierarchization of spiritual and physical enemies with yfilfric's paratactic grammar of evil in his passion of the Forty Soldiers. There the soldier-martyrs avow that their enemy is three-fold: the prefect (heretoga], the judge (dema), and the devil (and se deofol pridda, Skeat 1.242,1. 79), none explicitly subordinated to the others. 24 For analogues see Price 338-9. 25 See also Casinensis 12 (Margaret 229, 11. 16-18). 26 If this scene is compared with the vision of hell in the brief anonymous homily Be heofonwarum and be helwarum, the swallowing by a dragon itself may be seen as the descent into the underworld. Twelve walls of iron surround hell, and at each wall is a dragon that swallows the soul, chews it, and spits it directly into the mouth of the next: 'thus the soul passes from dragon to dragon, deeper and deeper into hell' (Galpern 85; text in Callison 245-6,11. 45-52). See also the Pseudo-Wulfstan, Homily 29: da deoflu hi da Ixddon and bescuton hi anum fyrenan dracan innan pone mud, and he hi pserrihte forswealh and eft aspaw on pa hatostan brynas hellewites (Napier 141, 11. 23-5; 'Then the devils took him and shoved him alone into the mouth of a fiery dragon, and the dragon immediately swallowed him all up and then spewed him forth into the hottest flames of the hellish torment'). For an ancient analogue, see the Sumerian Descent of Inanna, in which Inanna passes through seven gates to the underworld, relinquishing a garment or possession to the guardian of each one - at last entering the underworld naked and alone (Wolkstein and Kramer 57-60). 27 The Syriac Life of Abraham of Qidun offers an eastern analogue to this remarkable scene: Abraham dreams that a serpent who has swallowed a dove (representing Abraham's niece Saint Mary) places its head beneath his foot, and then its belly is ripped open and the dove emerges unharmed (Brock and Ashbrook Harvey 31). 28 Hrabanus Maurus in his Martyrologium asserts that these two demonic forms are simply diverse aspects of the single devil: et diabulus in draconi specie similiter et in Aethiopis temptauit et subuertere uoluit ('and the devil, in the form of a dragon and similarly in that of an Ethiopian, tempted and wished to overthrow [her]/ 18 June, as Marina; McCulloh 59). The saint is reduplicated under 13 July, as Margaret, but

142 Notes to pages 51-4

29 30

31

32

33 34 35 36 37

38 39

again Hrabanus postulates the single devil behind the dual forms: diabuli seductiones, qui in species diaconis et Aethiopis illi apparuit, superauit ('she overcame the seductions of the devil, who appeared to her in the form of a dragon and an Ethiopian,' McCulloh 67). For the name Rufus and its demonic associations in early England, see Price 339 and 355 (note 13). They postulate that in this respect (especially in her deoculation of him), the Old English seems to be preserving a feature originally present in, but subsequently dropped from, the Latin versions. The BHL 5303 Latin version has the demon complaining at a later point that Margaret has put his eye out, which only makes sense with reference to the description retained in the Old English but absent from the major Latin traditions (Margaret 45). Margaret's Eastern counterpart was at least as fierce: in the Greek Life of Marina she pulls out the devil's beard, gouges out an eye, and repeatedly bludgeons him with a leather mallet until he falls to the ground. Then she places her foot on his neck and resumes striking him on the head and neck (Lafontaine-Dosogne 252-3). This moment of the narrative is that preserved in numerous Eastern iconographic depictions of Marina, such as the North African mural paintings shown in Lafontaine-Dosogne; thus the vanquishing of the demon is considered the essential moment of significance in the saint's career (253), and her spiritual contest 'became concretized in an isolated theme, that of the saint pummeling Beelzebub with heavy blows' (259). For the apprehension of God as 'a sudden flash of dazzling light in the depth of darkness,' see Augustine, De civ 9.16 (Hoffmann 1.432,11. 1-3, 9-11). A flash of light also comforts the forty soldiers in the Old English Martyrology (9 March; Herzfeld 38,11. 6-7). Margaret 144. Margaret 128, ch. 16,11. 7-8. Margaret 128, ch. 16,11. 8-9. Margaret 118, ch. 10,11. 8-9. The text retains fossilized evidence of the passage, since a follow-up reference is intact: georne ic pe baed, pset ic hine geseage (Margaret 162, ch. 12,11. 7-8; 'I prayed to you fervently that I might see him'). The omission of the earlier references could reflect an accident of transmission, or a conscious selection on the part of the scribe not consistently followed through in the later passage. Margaret 162, ch.13,1. 4. Gradually, the detail of the dragon swallowing Margaret would become

Notes to pages 54-9 143

40 41 42 43

44 45 46 47

48

regarded with doubt and (in some instances) is even excised altogether from the Margaret passio through the course of the Middle Ages: Jacobus a Voragine labels the episode of the dragon and the black demon apocryphum et friuolum (cited in Margaret 34). Elizabeth Francis discusses this modification introduced by 'critical hagiographers/ suggesting that 'caution in treatment of the supernatural grew as the centuries passed by' (96). Though Margaret was one of the most popular saints of the Middle Ages (see Spencer, cols. 395-401), the Vatican suppressed her cult altogether in 1969 (Margaret 3). Magennis, 'Listen' 40. Margaret 164, ch. 15 11. 24-5. Margaret 70-1; Magennis, 'Listen' 27-8; Scragg and Treharne 231-4. Gregory's Dialogues were widely popular in Anglo-Saxon England: Ogilvy knows of at least ten manuscripts with English connections, and there are remains of at least four manuscripts of the impressively faithful Old English translation (Ogilvy 150, Yerkes, 'Translation' 335). There are two main versions of the Old English Dialogues. Waerferth's translation itself is preserved in two manuscripts (CCCC 322 and Cotton Otho C.i, both of the eleventh century); the former is standardly called C and is the version quoted here. Harting draws attention to the fact that the C edition in Hecht is not a definitive reconstruction of Wasrferth's text, as some scholars have been led to believe, but that C and O are both but descendants of Waerferth's text. Probably they go back to the same original, whether or not that was Waerferth's (287). The second main version of the Old English Dialogues comes from a century or so later than these two, when an Old English version was itself revised, providing an independent line of manuscript versions (this is the H text, appearing in Hecht as the right-hand column). See Hecht vii-ix,- Yerkes, Two Versions xvi. De Vogue 2.138,11. 22-4. Hecht 101-2. Depositio Sancti Martini Episcopi, Godden, /£CH 288-98. Previous generations of scholars were impressed at ^£lfric's wide reading, but more recently, Zettel has demonstrated that yElfric found most of his materials in prearranged Latin compilations (see 24-7 for the Life of Martin-, see also Biggs 289-92 and Hill, 'Dissemination' 248-9). Though Sulpicius distances himself somewhat from this heretical view (derived from Origen) by presenting it as an instance of Martin's innocent generosity for others, Sulpicius is obviously much attracted to the thought of Origen (see Dialogi 1.6-7, Halm 157-9). y£lfric preserves the

144 Notes to pages 60-1

49

50

51

52

passage intact (2.267), despite the fact that its heterodoxy was much more firmly established in his day than in Sulpicius's (the fifth ecumenical council of Constantinople anathematized Origen's doctrines in 536). yfilfric elsewhere states flatly the orthodox opinion that the devil will not be saved, however (Annunciatio Marias: Clemoes, ALCH 281, 11. 14-17). For a grudging admission of Martin's succumbing to the devil, one must go to Sulpicius's Letter to Eusebius (Letter 1). Trapped in a burning building, Martin first tries to escape through the door, though it holds fast. Deciding that his attempted escape represents a lack of faith, he turns instead to prayer and is thus protected from the flames. According to Sulpicius, Martin himself admits that during this momentary error he was diaboli arte deception (Halm 141, 'deceived by the arts of the devil'). One wonders whether the trust in God rather than on one's own powers so frequently emphasized in hagiography has not been taken too far, when a person in a burning building is not first permitted to try leaving through the door without being accused of Satanic influence. This episode does not occur in any of the Old English materials on Martin, however. Even when saints err in vernacular writings (such as Andreas], the devil is rarely inculpated. Skeat 2.264,1. 710. In Sulpicius's Vita the devil's assumed forms include the pagan gods Jupiter, Mercury, Venus, and Minerva (ch. 22), for which ^Elfric provides Germanic counterparts as well as the Latin names: Jupiter = Thor, Mercury = Odin, Venus = Fricg (2.264). Thus in yElfric there is an even richer diversity of demonic masks than in the Latin (and see Meaney 494). 2.305, 11. 1366-8. The scene was considered an essential moment in the narrative: it also occurs in Vercelli Homily 18 as well as Blickling Homily 18, both abridged lives of Martin. It is Martin's only direct encounter with the devil in the latter, and his only direct encounter save one in the former. This structural framework is even tighter in yElfric's Depositio in the Catholic Homilies. In the temptation episode there he does not conflate the demons but carefully distinguishes them. The demons tempt him with the diversity of forms, while it is the devil who at last appears himself in the form of Christ. Thus, in the Depositio, the devil himself confronts Martin on exactly three distinct occasions, whereas in the Vita, as in Sulpicius, the referents are indistinct and seem to represent an indeterminate number of attacks by the devil during the period of temptation.

Notes to pages 62-5

145

4: Exterior Evil and the Landscape of Old English Narrative 1 The serpent as a symbol of temptation, according to Ricoeur, is 'a part of ourselves which we do not recognize ... [it hovers] on the border between the outer and the inner ... Our own desire projects itself into the desirable object, reveals itself through the object' (256-7). Trevor Ling laments the ancient as well as modern view that sin presupposes the prior existence of external demonic agency, arguing that the demonic is most effective as an empowering metaphor when viewed as the immediate consequence, not that cause, of sin (81). 2 Scragg, Vercelli Homilies 102,1. 299; ibid. 373, 1. 110. 3 Scragg, Vercelli Homilies 201,1. 88. 4 Woolf, Tall' 192. 5 For the devil, see especially Aubin 131-6. Satan himself is 'dangerous and powerful exteriority,' and when his assaults are successful, 'his complete exteriority seizes whatever remains of our interiority' (131). 6 For Augustine, see Contra duas epistulas Pelagianorum ad Bonifacium Papam 1.2.5, De correptione et gratia ad eundem 12.33 (see Clark 8996, Rist 130-5, Wetzel 80-5 and 88-98). See Dudden 2.382-92 for discussion and numerous references to Gregory's Moralia. The issue is further complicated by the fact that an individual, once given to sin for whatever reason, no longer has freedom because of the force of the habit itself. See Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos 57.4 and 7.19, De duabus animabus 3.19, Contra Adimantum 21 (Evans, Augustine 112-18; Rist 175-6); and for Gregory, see Homiliarum in Ezechielen 1.11, Moralia 4.27, 7.34-5, et al. (Dudden 2.385-6, McCready 236). 7 Dominica prima in Quadragesima, Clemoes, SECH 271,11. 149-50. 8 Vercelli Homily 22.110; Scragg, Vercelli Homilies 373. 9 The homilist is here translating from the text formerly known as the Homiliary of St Pere de Chartres (Godden, 'Experiments' 263; Scragg, Vercelli Homilies 310; text from Cambridge, Pembroke College 25 printed in Scragg 318-19). The Old English homilist changes the tu of the original to uton to negotiate a more diplomatic exhortation, the preacher or authorial voice accepting equal responsibility with the listener or reader. For another homiletic series of the devil's methods (a list of 'teachings,' e.g., diofol us Isered slsew and slsecnesse ...), listed in apposition with God's corresponding methods or teachings, see Wright, Irish Tradition 244-5 (lunius 85-6, also in Healey, Vision 3324,11. 351-65). For a series of the devil's 'evil gifts' (yfelan ungifa] to

146 Notes to pages 66-8 humankind, see Wulfstan Homily 9 (Bethurum, Homilies 186-7,11. 5667), and for a series of the devil's 'works' (opera diabolica = the eight deadly sins), see Wulfstan Homily lOb (Bethurum 195-6,11. 50-2). 10 Scragg, Veicelli Homilies 321. 11 The case is much more complicated than Dando presents it, when he asserts that Gregory in the Moialia (4.9.16, et al.) innovatively departs from patristic tradition in claiming Satan now lies in hell (426). 12 Though Jerome, Cassian, and other early writers hold that the events of the Book of Revelation describe the original fall of the angels, Gregory the Great (Moralia 32.22, Homiliae in Evangelia 34.9), Bede (Explanatio Apocalypsis 12.4), Alcuin, Strabo, and others believe they describe rather the final combat, and this view generally held until Peter Lombard and Aquinas returned to Jerome's interpretation (Coulange 40; Forsyth 255; Russell, Satan 194). 13 Peter. 'Satan makes war against you and has veiled your understanding'; Paul: 'You transgress and add sin upon sin ... doing the work of the devil' (Gardiner, Visions 11 and 14). 14 Gregory the Great: Peter the Spanish monk, Stephen the nobleman, and a Roman soldier (all in Dialogues 4.37); Bede: Furseus (3.19), Dryhthelm (5.12), and an unnamable monk (5.14); Gregory of Tours: Sunniulf (4.33); Boniface: a monk of Wenlock (letter 10, following Tangl), and an anonymous visionary (letter 115). 15 Gardiner's sourcebooks (Visions and especially Medieval Visions] and Zaleski's handlist (Otherworld Journeys, esp. 206-9 and 248-54) together provide an indispensable starting point for an overview of medieval visions of hell. Early visions include Valerius of Bierzo's visions of Maximus and Baldarius (mid-seventh century), the vision of Barontus (late eighth century, which repeatedly alludes to the devil as dragging people to hell, but in fact presents the demons rather than the devil as the active agents when the visionary is in hell), the vision of Rotcharius (early ninth century), that of Raduin (ninth century), Heito's Vision of Wetti (ninth century), Prudentius of Troyes's vision of an English priest (ninth century), Rimbert's vision of Ansgar (ninth century), Hincmar of Reims's vision of Bernoldus (late ninth century), the vision of Laisren (late ninth or early tenth century), and that of Leofric (late eleventh century). Of these, only Valerius of Bierzo's vision of Bonello (mid-seventh century indicates the devil is in hell: perduxerunt me ante conspectum impiissimi diaboli (PL 87.434, ch. 22,1. 5). 16 On the Gospel see MacCulloch 152-73. The precise influence of the Gospel of Nicodemus in Anglo-Saxon England is a matter of some

Notes to pages 68-70 147 debate. Healey, reflecting the general scholarly consensus, argues for the thorough influence of the Gospel on Old English homiletic prose and poetry (Vision 41-57, 'Anglo-Saxon Use' 95-102). Campbell, on the other hand, claims that the material dramatized so famously in the Gospel was widely known in the early Middle Ages from a number of other sources as well, and that in many cases it is difficult to demonstrate that the source text for an Old English work is the Gospel itself rather than these other liturgical and homiletic materials. 17 Teachings of Silvanus 110.24 - 'haughty tyrant'; Origen Commentary on Matthew 16.8 - 'Satan'; Aphraates of Syria Homily 14 - 'evil' (Peel 1979). Most commonly, death, or the underworld itself (Hades or Inferus/Infernus), are personified and viewed as the primary antagonist, the 'strong man' whom Christ is binding. 18 Hulme 498-503. 19 Morris, Blickling Homilies 85,11. 4-6 and 87,11. 19-20; Christ and Satan (ed. Finnegan) 11. 398-467, esp. 11. 441-54. 20 A reconciliation found in the Prose Solomon and Saturn appears sporadically in vernacular texts: [God] hyg todaeldon on pri d&las-, anne dsel he asette on pxs lyftes gedrif; Oderne dsel on 6xs wateres gedrif; priddan dael on helle neowelnysse ('God divided them [the fallen angels] into three parts; one part he set in the tract of the sky; the second part in the tract of the sea; the third part in the depth of hell/ Cross and Hill 30, passage 32). Cf. Boniface letter 115; Christ and Satan 262-3, 269-75. 21 Bernstein 278ff. 22 For instance, Vercelli Homily 19:7 ealle pa de set dam rsede mid him wxion 7 him sefter besawon, ealle hie wurdon of englum to deoflum forsceapene 7 on helle bescofene, pxr hie on ecnesse witu poliad ... (Scragg, Vercelli Homilies 316,11. 19-22; 'and all those who were in his conspiracy and followed him, all of them were transformed from angels into devils, and shoved into hell, where they suffer torments for eternity'). See also Andreas 1190-4, 1376-85; Elene 751-71, 934-52; and Abbetmeyer 31 for other instances. For the figural significance of Satan's binding in Old English poetry, see Kendall, 'Bondage.' 23 1.19, 3.11, and 5.14. Bede employs such structural techniques in his exegetical works as well. Connolly draws attention to the fact that Bede uses two scriptural passages (John 14.2 and Psalm 113.21) as a similar refrain in De templo: 'in terms of symphonic composition, these texts in juxtaposition form a theme one hears at key points in the opus, viz. here in the Prologue, again at chapter 18.14, a little over half way, and then significantly, in the very last two sentences by way of finale' (2, note 18).

148 Notes to pages 70-1 24 Cited in Brandon 477; and see Doane 134-6 and Dustoor 260-6 for discussion with regard to early English. 25 Job 1.7 and 2.2. The Vulgate omits the article that appears with satan in the Hebrew text, thus making it more of a proper name than a title (Forsyth 110). 26 Cf. Psalm 10.9, Matthew 13.39, Mark 4.15, Luke 8.12. In Hebrew the very name of the satan suggests his mobility, as the writer of Job puns on the sound of satan and the verb 'to roam/ shut (Pagels 41). 27 O'Donnell 142. The identification of the devil as a wolf is common (Abbetmeyer 36). Wulfstan, who identifies himself as lupus, refers to the devil as a wodfraeca werewulf ('madly ravenous wolf-man') in Homily 16b (Bethurum, Homilies 241,1. 35). 28 Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers 8.32 (Pythagoras); Cicero, De republica 6.22; Philo, De somniis 1.22.135; Apuleius, De deo Socratis-, Eusebius, Preparatio evangelica 4.5, 141c-d; Epinomis 984d. For earlier sources, see Plato, Symposium 202e. Discussing Apuleius's contention that the demons reside mid-way between the gods and humankind, Augustine notes that that much is certain beyond dispute (De CIV9.13; Hoffmann 1.425,1. 10). See Finnegan, Christ and Satan 42-7; Flint 101-26. 29 For discussion of early textual variants and the wider context of the passage, see Danielou, Theologie 148-9 and Lash, 'Where Do Devils Live?' In an interesting twist, Evagrius Ponticus adds that the air is also filled with angels, who are invisible to the demons (Antirrheticus 4.27, O'Laughlin 254). 30 Kelly, Devil 33. 31 The motif derives in part from Jewish apocalyptic writings. In 2 Enoch (or the Slavonic Secrets of Enoch] the visionary is carried up through the heavens, beginning with the clouds, by winged creatures. The fallen angels are found brooding in the second of the seven heavens (7.1-2), and the northern part of the third heaven contains hell with all the familiar punishments (10). The fall of angels occurs in 29.4: 'And I threw him out from the height with his angels, and he was flying in the air continuously above the bottomless' (Platt 91). In The Ascension of Isaiah, the fallen angels occupy the firmament, beneath the lowest of the seven heavens, and the demons occupy the air below that (Danielou, Theologie 132-4, 146-9, 258-9). 32 Justin Martyr, 1 Apology 26, 54, 62 76ff. ; Tatian, Discourse 16; Tertullian, Apologeticum 22.5, 22.10; Origen, Deprincipiis 2.2.6, Homilies on Judges 9.2, Against Celsus 1.31; Lactantius Institutes 2.14.5; Athana-

Notes to page 72 149 sius, Vita Antonii 21, De incarnatione 25; Ambrose, Explanatio Psalmorum 118.8.58, Expositio Evangelii secundum Lucan 4.9, De bono mortis 6.22, Exameron 2.2.5; Augustine, De civ 7.6, 8.14-16, 8.22, 10.9-10, 10.21-2, 14.3, Epistulae9.3, Contra academicos 1.7.20; Isidore, Etymologiae 8.17 (Campbell 119-20, 130, 133; Danielou, 'Les demons' 139; Dustoor 261-5; Ferguson 111; McHugh, 'Demonology' 211-13; Pepin 51-4, 64-8; Russell, Satan 77, 171; Sleeth 50-1). Augustine (De civ 8.22) explains, qui in hoc quidam aere habitant, quia de superioris sublimitate deiecti merito inregressibilis transgressionis in hoc sibi congruo uelut carcere praedamnati sunt (Hoffmann 1.391,11. 4-6; They inhabit that [lower] air, because they were cast down from the greater height for their irredeemable transgression, and were condemned to that place fitting to them as a prison'). For demons in the air as physically obstructing souls attempting to ascend to heaven, see Danielou, 'Les demons,' esp. 138-9. He contrasts the two principal traditions for situating the battle between Christ and Satan, that of the air (the New Testament and patristic tradition) and that of the underworld (which in the Middle Ages eventually prevailed over the first, due in part to the Descensus tradition in art and liturgy, as well as to undue attention to Psalm 103.4). Athanasius, in De incarnatione verbi Dei 25, 'argues that Jesus was crucified rather than decapitated or sawn asunder, because the Ruler of the Power of Evil dwells in the air, and he only that is crucified dies in the air' (Conybeare 1897: 63; see also Lohr 75). 33 See also De Genesi ad literam 3.10: nee aeris saltern spatia superiora atque puriora, sed ista caliginosa tenere permissi sunt, qui eis pro suo genere quidam quasi career est (Caillau and Guillon 232; '[the fallen angels] are not allowed to hold on to the higher and purer expanse of the air, but only to this murky one, which is like a prison fitting to their nature.' Also De civ 11.33. 'The fallen angels are exiled to this world (huius mundi], which is like a prison for them' (eis velut career est; Hoffman 1.562, 11. 5-6). For further distinctions in Augustine's division of the air into upper and lower regions, see De natura boni 33; and see Finnegan, Christ and Satan 42-3. 34 See also Gregory, Moralia 2.47-8 (Dustoor 262). Though Sleeth (51) distinguishes the rival traditions of the aerial hell of this world (found in the exegetical tradition up through Ambrose) from the subterranean hell (found in Augustine, Gregory, and Bede), all of these writers adhere to both views in different passages. 35 Margaret: MS BN Lat. 5574 (tenth century): Nam uite nostre non sunt

150 Notes to pages 72-5

36

37 38 39 40 41

42

43 44

45 46

super terram sed cum uentis ambulemus [sic] (Clayton and Magennis 208,1. 11); Juliana: 1.281. Fleogenda sceocca: Dominica in Sexagesima (Godden, SECH 55,1. 77). Devils are like birds: deoflu sind fugelas gecigede, for dan de hi fleod geond pas lyft ungesewenlice, swa swa fugelas dod gesewenlice, ibid. 54,11. 70-1). See also Skeat 1.372, and for discussion, see LocherbieCameron. ^€lfric: Skeat 1.372,11. 110, 111; Byrhtferth: Baker and Lapidge 247-8, 11. 84-5. Coulange 64-5. Russell, Satan 69. In 2 Epistolam Sancti Petri [PL 93, col. 75). See Russell, Lucifer 99 and Finnegan, Christ and Satan 43. Faustus 5.119-20; Paradise Lost 4.75. For the motif in Gregory the Great see Russell, Lucifer 98-9, and for a 'point of contact' between this idea and Christ and Satan (263-4), see Finnegan, Christ and Satan 43 (note 32). Could some such notion inform the surprising epithet used of errant Grendel, feond on hellel (1. 101; see Malmberg 243) The reference is certainly troublesome: Feldman suggests the emendation feond on healle (171), while Ball concludes that the poet's Song of Creation actually ends with line 101, not line 98 - thus the feond on helle refers to Satan instead of Grendel (163). Russell, Lucifer 124. See, for instance, the prayer Ad Christianum faciendum 'For the Making of a Christian' in the late seventh-century Missale Gothicum (MS Vatican Reg. Lat. 317, ed. Mohlberg 65-6), and the sources in Foot 172-3, 191. Wulfstan grants the devil an especially prominent role in the significance of baptism (8a-c, Bethurum, Homilies 166-84). Senn 93-6, Thompson 13-24 (text on 20), Warren 89. In Contra fulianum (3.199) he writes: Tu autem, qui earn negas a diabolo possideri, procul dubio negas a potestate erui tenebrarum ... immo vero exsufflatur, sed diabolus, qui contagione peccati tenet parvulum reum ... (Zelzer 498,11. 8-17; 'You, however, who deny (that an unbaptized infant) is possessed by the devil, without doubt you deny (him) to be possessed from the power of darkness ... But by no means is He (the Deity, in whose image the infant is created) blown upon, rather the devil (is), who holds the little one condemned by the contagion of sin ...' Hill 'When God Blew Satan' 134). Epistolae 134, 137 (Diimmler 202-3, 214-15). 'Ut renuntiet maligno spiritui et omnibus eius damnosis pompis' (Dummler 202,11. 14-15).

Notes to pages 75-8 151 47 Fisher 26-7. For a useful handlist of ordines see Senn 180-1. 48 Such a reprioritization of meaning can be smoothly effected when the two levels of interpretation are thought to be not only fully compatible, but are actually taken to be mutually informative, as they were for the Christian Middle Ages. That is, by studying the history of the cosmos as found in scripture and patristic exegesis, the individual may gain insight into the human soul; and reciprocally, by internal reflection upon the human condition and the personal experiences of sin and humility, the nature of the primordial conflict between the good and bad angels is better understood. See Cross, 'Aspects/ and Farrar, 'Structure and Function.' 49 Chapters 1 (space) and 2 (time). For baptism, see 130-6. 50 Devil in hell: Homily 1 (Scragg, Vercelli Homilies 40,11. 289-91), 4 (104, 1. 341), 8 (147,11. 76-7), 19 (316,1. 21), 20 (335, 1. 60), 21 (355,1. 93); see also 9 (160,11. 21-2). 51 The devil of the Vercelli homilies appears in accounts of struggles over a human soul, but it is not always clear in the context whether this is meant to be at the Day of Judgment or simply at the death of the individual. The figure of the devil overlaps with that of death - he is the deapberende dioful (Homily 2, Scragg 56, 1. 29). Rush explains, 'The ancient Christians, both of pagan and Jewish extraction, were impregnated with the popular belief in the powerful presence of the devil at all times, but especially at the moment of death' (372-3; for the connection between death and the devil in Old English literature see Joyce Hill, 'Fall of Angels' 10-15). The earliest depiction of Satan in Anglo-Saxon art, in the Leofric Missal, represents him as MOTS or Death (see figs 6 and 7; Jordan 290-3). The Missal was produced in Glastonbury in the 970s, and is thus roughly contemporary with the Vercelli homilies. Healey has noted the convention in Old English homiletic collections of closing with the death scene of a saint (Old English Vision 14-15). 52 Of the three such instances, the first, in Blickling Homily 13 (Assumptio Marige Virginis, Morris 149,1. 32) probably results from a misreading of the source text or from a corrupt source text (Dawson 250). The other two are the appearances of the devil in Blickling Homilies 18 (St Martin,Morris 227,11. 23-4) and 19 (St Andreas; Morris 239-43, several appearances). In the former, as with the Vercelli homily on Martin, the devil's single appearance at Martin's deathbed represents a role much diminished from that in the Latin source texts. 53 When prisons are mentioned in Anglo-Saxon law codes (such as Alfred 1.2; Attenborough 62) the word career appears. The use of a Latin loanword is consistent with Deanesly's claim that Anglo-Saxon societies did

152 Notes to page 79 not standardly resort to incarceration as a punitive measure. Deanesly argues that there were probably no real prisons, but only temporary holding cells to be used while the prisoner awaited sentencing or punishment. She explains, 'Such brief imprisonment meant, generally, to remain with hands and feet tied in an outhouse' (Pre-Conquest Church 330) - thus, in the precise posture in which Satan is often represented in manuscript illustrations (see figs 2-4). 54 On the privileged ontological significance of beginning or end time narratives, see for instance van der Leeuw; Eliade, Myth 20, 51-92 and Sacred 68-113; Ricoeur 163. 55 Odyssey 11 and 24; Aeneid 6; Ovid Metamorphoses 10 (Orpheus); MacCulloch (1-44) and Zaleski (3-25) offer other sources and suggest current anthropological analogues. Though Augustine (De civ 1.14; Hoffmann 1.27,11. 9-11) cites Jonah and the whale as an archetype of the incarcerated saint, biblical analogues for this motif are admittedly few (Jeremiah 37.16 and 21, 38.6; Acts 16.23-30). There is no Hebrew or Christian analogue to the Babylonian Descent of Ishtar, in other words - in fact, none of world's principal monotheisms rely on the underworld test as a formative mythological narrative. The Harrowing of Hell actually reflects the conventional motif only aberrantly, since Christ goes to the underworld not for his testing but after it, simply as a triumphal demonstration of his perfection. For medieval treatments of the underworld in general, see Gardiner, Visions and Medieval Visions-, MacCulloch; and Patch, Other World. In folk tales and romance the forest, or sometimes the open sea, often fulfils the structural function of the underworld. 56 See, for instance, Hillman 2-10, 85-90, and passim,- Jung 293-5, 369-75. The visit to the underworld operates at numerous levels. Read psychologically, the underworld is the subconscious, in which the shades and horrors encountered are none other than the visitor's own fears and anxieties. In the epilogue to the Vita Sancti Abrahae in the Vitae Patrum, for instance, the narrator prays to be led from the 'prison' (cascere, for carcere] of his iniquities (Wilmart, 'Les redactions' 239). The conquering of the underworld often implies the conquering of death - thus the rhetorical assimilation between the prison and the grave (e.g., in Andreas, for which see Hieatt 53). Read archetypally, the descent into the underworld addresses not simply the concerns of the individual, but broader cultural anxieties, subtly implanted and conditioned through centuries of telling and retelling. Read anthropologically, the removal of an initiate from human society into the liminal realms often accompanies

Notes to pages 80-1

153

severe ascetic practices and physical suffering, either self-inflicted or inflicted by other members of the community; these cases bring about a profound change in the individual's conception of self, and represent a necessary and desirable initiation into a new societal function (adulthood, priesthood, etc.), for which see Glosecki (esp. chapter 4). 57 Nelson, Judith 108. 58 Augustine, De civ 1.14: Sed multi, inquiunt, Christiani etiam captiui ducti sunt. Hoc sane miseirimum est, si aliquo dud potueiunt, ubi Deum suum non inuenerunt (Hoffmann 1.27, 11. 4-6; 'They say, "But many Christians are taken captive." That would be pitiable indeed, if they could be taken anywhere that they did not find their God.'). Also 7.30: qui ipsis etiam inferis dominationem suam potestatemque non subtrahit (Hoffmann 1.345-6; '[God] does not withdraw his authority and power even from hell itself.'). 59 /Elfric exploits the prison setting as a site of divine intervention, but consistently keeps his demonic intervention outside of the prison, in the world of daylight (see for instance the account of the Forty Soldiers in Lives of Saints, Skeat 1.242-6, 252). In the Old English Martyrology, about half of the dozen saints subjected to imprisonment receive divine encouragement there (Anastasia, Eugenia, Felix, Anasias, Erasmus, Christina), while, interestingly, none confront the demonic. 60 The poetic rendition of the Harrowing, the Exeter Book Descent into Hell, for instance, does not actually present the devil in hell, or even suggest he is there. The references to the devil there are in connection with sin and bondage, in terms that imply a spiritual rather than physical presence for the Old Enemy. In fact, the devil is characterized as a roaming agent: he bid wide fah |63b). What a different image of the devil this poetic telling evokes from the ponderously immobile and impotent Satan of the prose Gospel of Nicodemus texts (Vespasian D.ix [Warner 83-4], Cambridge University Library Ii.ii.ll, and Cotton Vitellius A.15 [Hulme 498-503]). 61 A runic signature in the epilogue following the text on fols. 132b-133b identifies the poem as Cynewulf's. Krapp (ASPR 2, xl) points out that the epilogue follows the word finit, and is written in a different style from the rest of the poem. If the poem is allowed to be the work of Cynewulf, as it is by most contemporary scholars, then it is his longest surviving work. Prose homilies: MS CCCC 303 and MS Auct. F.4.32. /Elfric also provides a brief vernacular summary of the Inventio sanctae crucis in his Catholic Homilies, but he omits all mention of Judas and the devil (Godden, jECH 175, 11. 38-51). All references to Elene are from ASPR 1.

154 Notes to pages 81-5 62 T. Hill, 'Sapiential Structure' 171-5; Johnson, 'Studies' 164-77; Regan, 'Evangelicism.' 63 'Studies' 180-1; see also Doane 136; Godden, 'Experiments' 277-80; Hill, 'Sapiential Structure' 175. 64 Critics standardly warn against literal reconstructions of events in hagiography (e.g., Hill, 'Sapiential Structure' 166-7; Calder, Cynewulf 76, 86, and esp. 94; Wittig 37-8, 54). But see also Bzdyl 165-6 for a defence of realistic reading. 65 For two examples of such disproportionate figures, see the illustration of St Dunstan at the feet of Christ in MS Bodleian Auct. F.4.32 (plate 224 in Wilson 178), and that of yfilfwine at the feet of St Peter on fol. 19v of Cotton Titus D.xxvi (plate 9 in Dodwell, facing 58). 66 Bodden 90-2. 67 Bjork, exploring the premise that the stylistic patterns of speeches in the verse hagiographies often reflect the spiritual state of the speaker, notes: 'the devil's role is simpler in Elene than in a poem such as Juliana or even Guthlac A; he exists primarily to validate Judas's new voice by offering a contrast to it...' (86) But the brevity of the devil's appearance should not be confused with simplicity of function - especially when he appears at such a crucial juncture, and when his own speech is granted the same epic expansion as Judas's hymn (11. 725-801) and several other key passages in the poem. 68 Anderson (139) identifies the periodic release of the devil as a characteristic Cynewulfian theme, citing Juliana 530b-58 and Christ II 730-6a (201). Johnson rightly ('Studies' 161-2) takes him to task on this point, since the Juliana passage concerns the 'hagiographic demon' and not Satan, and since the Christ II passage mentions only his binding at the Harrowing of Hell and does not indicate any subsequent parole. Though the passages from Juliana and Christ II are not incompatible with the more explicit reference to Satan's periodic release here in Elene, they cannot justly be cited in positive support of it. Christ and Satan (11. 11113) provides another instance of Satan's periodic release from hell. 69 Johnson, 'Studies' 153-8. 70 It is not certain whether the Andreas poet has in mind six or seven lesser demons accompanying the devil into the prison (Olsen even argues that the devil's companions in Andreas are not demons at all, but Mermedonians; see Speech 146-7). The phrase seofona sum should normally mean 'one among seven,' i.e., seven total, and this is the sense often read. Brooks retains the sense of the analogue texts - the devil in addition to seven others, to make eight total - based on other attested

Notes to pages 85-7 155 usages of sum (Bosworth and Toller l.b; Brooks 109). We should not, however, consider the testimony of the analogues as confirmation, as he does, when the question at hand is whether or not the poem deviates from the tradition. The image of a principal demon accompanying seven others is familiar from Matthew's parable of the strong man: if the 'house' (i.e., soul) from which the demon is driven is not secured against re-entry, 'then it [the demon] goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself (12.45; cf. Luke 11.26). Then again, the earliest pictorial representation of the devil from Anglo-Saxon England, the illustration of Satan as Death on fol. 50r of the Leofric Missal (ca. 970s), shows the figure with six other winged demons issuing from his head (figs. 6 and 7). Furthermore, Aldhelm's riddle 'Lucifer,' written from the devil's point of view, indicates that Sex igitur comites mecum super aethera scandunt ('hence, six companions ascend the sky with me,' Ehwald 135, trans. Lapidge and Rosier 88; cf. Jordan 293, 315). Thus there are established traditions for the motif of both the devil + six and that of the devil + seven. The issue may be further complicated, if desired, by Augustine's suggestion in De civitate Dei that the number seven often merely stands for a large or even unlimited number (11.31; Hoffmann 1.559,11. 11, 19). I see nothing within Andreas itself to resolve the matter. 71 References to Andreas are from ASPR 1. 71 Boenig Saint 88-9. The prose homily appears in two manuscript versions, Blickling Homily 19 and (more completely) in CCCC 198 fols 386-94. 73 Milton, Paradise Lost 1.220. 5: The Devil and the Demons 1 Kelly, Baptism 165. Russell, speaking of Tertullian, concludes, 'here and elsewhere the term diabolus may be a general term for all hostile spiritual powers' (Satan 96); Bastiaensen, puzzling over the demonological significance of the word hostis in the Veronese Sacramentary, comments, 'throughout the history of the Latin language, the singular hostis frequently appears in the collective sense, just as in modern languages, for that matter' (132). In the thirteenth century, Caesarius of Heisterbach also dismissed the problem rather facilely as semantics: 'What is said about one is to be understood of the rest since the singular number is often used in the plural' (Dialogue on Miracles 5.1, Scott and Bland 314). For scholarly trends taking the term daimon as a more primitive,

156 Notes to pages 88-9 animistic concept than theos in classical religion - and therefore appearing as more of a collective entity than as clearly distinguished beings (thus appearing with the definite article less frequently) - see Smith 'Towards Interpreting' 432. For an interpretive discussion of this tendency in Manichaeism, see Puech 139-46. 2 First version: MS Reginensis Latin 119; second version: MS Silos fonds reconstitue 2 (Wilmart, Analecta 349). 3 Historia monachorum {PL 21, col. 399,11. 11, 46-7). 4 Conferences 2.11 (Petschenig 52). 5 Poemon: Ward 171; Pethion: Brock and Ashbrook Harvey 82. 6 Liber Vitae Patrum 1.1 (Lupicinus and Romanus; Krusch, MGH, SRM 1, 214); 15.3 (Senoch; Krusch, MGH, SRM 1, 273). 7 De S. Waldetrude (Bollandus and Henschenius, Acta Sanctorum 9 April): 83Ic, ch. 9. 8 PL 114, col. 989. 9 De vita S. Radegundis Reginae, ch. 27 (Krusch, MGH, SRM 2, 394). 10 Matthew (8.28-34) offers only an abbreviated account, without the quotation cited, and speaks of two demoniacs rather than one. Craghan postulates that the change could be influenced by the awkwardness of the first-person plural discourse employed, which Matthew preserves (531). All three synoptics attest to cases of multiple possession, and even Matthew infests his two Gerasene demoniacs with a 'whole herd' of unclean spirits. Mark 1.24 (the Capernaum demoniac) includes another demonic vacillation between the singular and the plural: 'What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.' For discussion of the singular-plural confusion in the gospel possession narratives, see Craghan 526 ff., Ferguson 6, Pesch (355-63), Starobinski 386-90. For the increasingly symbolic interpretation of the Gerasene episode in Latin patristic writings, see Feliers. 11 The exact number itself sometimes varies, just as the actual number of troops in a Roman legion declined through the closing centuries of the Empire. yElfric reckons the Gerasene demoniac as host to 6000 demons {Dominica Hi post Pentecosten, Godden, SECH 219, 11. 176-7). On 'legions' of demons see Eitrem 56-7, esp. note 1 (57). 12 Ipsius te virtute convenimus, cui ipse nomen tuum quod esses Legio prodidisti (Ferotin 76, 11. 8-10). In the East we find a similar identification in the eighth-century Byzantine Barberini euchologium ('you, devil ... all-wicked and unclean and filthy and abominable and alien spirit ... Remember him who at your request commanded you to go into the herd

Notes to pages 89-92 15 7 of swine/ Conybeare, Rituale Armenorum 392-3, cited in Kelly, Baptism 165-6). 13 Agimus aduersus te, zabole, auctor criminum, celi refuga, animamm infelicium parricida, temtator seculi, iustorum inuide, castitatis et continentium inimice, demon immunde, spiritus multiformis, subdole hostis, serpens horrende damnabilis (Ferotin 76, 11. 42-6; 'We act against you, devil, author of crimes, fugitive from heaven, parricide of unhappy souls, tempter of the world, envious of the just, enemy of chastity and of the continent, unclean demon, multiform spirit, subtle enemy, horrible damnable serpent'). 14 Clayton and Magennis 231, 1. 17. 15 Qui hanc et ab homine expulit, et in porcos ire eosque in abyssum mittere concessit. Ex qua re hoc etiam collegitur, quod absque concessions omnipotentis Dei nullam malignus spiritus contra hominem potestatem habeat, qui in porcos intrare non potuit nisi permissus (de Vogue 2.354,11. 34-9; 'And Christ, after casting them out, allowed them to enter the swine and drive them over the precipice. From this we know, too, that without God's permission the evil spirit has no power against mankind, for he could not even have entered into the swine if God had not allowed it,' Zimmerman 153). 16 Skeat 1.378: drihten gedafode pa dam deoflum past I Hi da into pam swynum ... Ne mxg se deofol mannum derian butan godes dafunge ... ponne he ne moste far an /furdon on pa swin butan him gedafode pxs se haelend (11. 193-8; 'the Lord then permitted the demons to enter the swine ... the devil cannot harm people without God's permission ... since he could not even go into the swine unless the Saviour allowed it'). 17 Fremantle 306b-7a (Ut unum, ita etplures vincere tuum est; PL 23, col. 36b). 18 Fremantle 307a (quasi confusus populi clamor-, PL 23, col. 36b). 19 Aronstam 273-4. 20 Scragg, Vercelli Homilies 228,11. 4-10. Scragg notes further number confusion among devils in Vercelli Homily 4 (107, citing lines 317-19, 32832,336-41). 21 Menner, Poetical Dialogues 89. 22 Plural 11. 228-44, singular 11. 245-53, plural 11. 254-64, singular 11. 26578. The speech is attributed to the plural demons by the narrator, both before and after (11. 227, 279). 23 Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic 169. 24 Johnson, 'Old English' 172-5 (the text and translation of the Liber regularum can be found in Babcock Tyconius}. Tyconius, though ostensibly

158 Notes to pages 92-3

25

26

27

28

a Donatist, was responsible for several severe breaks from provincial Donatism. Ironically, Augustine largely founded his own theological responses against Donatism on the basis of Tyconius's works (Babcock xii). For confirmation of Bede's reliance on Augustine for his knowledge of Tyconius (at least for his Expositio Apocalypsis), see Mackay (213-14, and for the passage on the 'devil's body' in Bede see esp. 218). For a colourful expression of this position, see Puech's description of the kingdom of evil in Manichaeism, as gleaned from the Kephalaia and from Severus of Antioch. A fragment will illustrate: 'The Kingdom of Evil is one perpetual rending, constant struggle of self against self, unremitting intestine warfare, permanent anarchy, auto-destruction. All its members lift their hands against each other, subject against subject, Archon against Archon, vassal against Monarch. Hostility, fury, implacable jealousy compel them to throw themselves against each other, to fight and rend and devour' (152). See also the assault of Mara on the Bodhisattva in the Lalitavistara: 'This fantastic accumulation of everchanging monstrosities never manages to be more than a sum of so many parts, a mass of fragments that can never be resolved into a unity' (Bazin 352). Cassian holds that though no lasting accord can exist among demons, when their interests overlap, necesse est eos temporalem conmodare consensum ('they have to come together in a temporary accord,' Conlationes 7.19, cf. 8.13; Petschenig 196, Ramsey 259). For other analogues (Acts of Thomas, Voyage of Brendan], see Lohr 55-6; and cf. Dante, Inferno 22.133ff. See H. Bietenhard, entry for 5ccioviov in the New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (450). The standard medieval etymology was rather that of Plato (Cratylus 398b), who derives the word from daemon ('knowing' or 'wise'), a knowledge which Augustine grants demons but which, because of their perverse spirit, he calls 'a kind of windy emptiness' (inanissimae quasi ventositatis, Hoffmann 1.438, 11. 3-4). See Augustine, De civ 9.20 (Hoffmann 1.437,11. 26-8), and Isidore, Etymologia 8.11.15 (Oroz Reta 720). Scindere here comes from Ardo's Vita Benedicti Abbatis Anianensis et Indensis (MGH, Scriptores 15, part 1): 203, 37. Russell, Devil 216 cites other conflicts of Jahweh with the ocean (see also 66-8 on evil and chaos, esp. 68 for the serpent as a common symbol of chaos), just as in the Ugaritic epic cycle of Baal, Baal defeats the sea god Yammu (De Moor 44-69). Vatter reads chaos (and the devil) in Jungian terms as the unconscious (13). Throughout world mythology the

Notes to pages 93-6 159 creator deity or force is represented as imposing order on the world (often portrayed as primordial sea with no land), while an antagonist tries to subvert the project. See Eliade 29-32, 49; Ricoeur 199-200, 204. On internal (psychological) chaos, see also Ricoeur 343: 'evil is the consecration of multiplicity within ourselves.' 29 Life of St. John the Almsgiver 15 (Dawes and Baynes 225). 30 See esp. 9-10, 17ff., 54-5; and see Eitrem 6, 56, 58; Fridrichsen 126-30; Yates 39-43. Even Milton subscribes to the essential concord of the fallen angels: 'Devil with devil damn'd / Firm concord holds, men only disagree / Of Creatures rational...' (Paradise Lost 2.496-8). 31 The Old English translation, though probably written contemporaneously with the other translations of the reign of Alfred, was probably not written by Alfred himself, as y£lfric and William of Malmesbury believed (Bately 118, Greenfield and Calder 57-8). The text used is that of Thomas Miller, whose preferred text is the Tanner MS (Bodleian Tanner 10, end of tenth century). Passages cited here referring to base texts other than the Tanner MS are specially noted. Miller argues that all versions derive from a single original (xxiii ff.). 32 Miller 1.19; Colgrave and Minors 60,11. 7-8. 33 Inmundo spiritu: Colgrave and Mynors 248,1. 9; diabolo (though still not necessarily Satan himself): 248,1. 11. 34 Single spirit: unclaenum gaste, deofle, Miller 184,11.22,24. Plural demons of man's description: eallepa wergan gastas, Miller 186, 11. 14-15. 35 Miller 186,1. 19. 36 The devil makes eight unambiguous narrative appearances in Old English poetry, all in either the Junius Manuscript or the Vercelli Book: Genesis B 252-441,- Christ and Satan 34-280,315-47, 659-729; Andreas 1168-200, 1296-301, 1311-87; Elene 898-961. If we count also the emissary demon and the hagiographic demon (who are conceptually assimilated with the devil in many respects), the number is raised to eleven: Genesis B 442-764, Juliana 242-558, 614-34. This count does not include generalized groups of plural demons, who make appearances in poems such as Christ and Satan (34-280, 315-47, et al. and Guthlac A (181-327, 348-730). 37 There are several likely sources for the poem, perhaps the closest being the Acta Cyriaci (under 4 May of the Acta Sanctorum], and the Inventio sanctae crucis. On Cynewulf's Latin source for Elene, see Bodden 35, Carleton Brown 14-29 (esp. 21), Irvine 56-60, Palmer 12-14. A legend in the Vitae Sanctorum is often mentioned in this context also (see Gardner 65, Gradon 15-22).

160 Notes to pages 98-106 38 February, vol. 2 (Bollandus and Henschenius 873b-7b). 39 Patrem tuum Satanam: sec. 4 (Bollandus and Henschenius 874b, 1. 11), and 13 (876b, 1. 8). Particem demoniorum: sec. 5 (874b, 1. 39). 40 Sec. 7, Bollandus and Henschenius 875a, 11. 45-6. 41 Valensin376. 42 Cynewulf does not identify the demon as 'Belial.' He also refuses to name the pagan gods specified in the original, Diana and Apollo (Heliseus only refers to 'our gods/ 169; see Garnett 291-2). In this respect Juliana resembles the Old English prose translation of the Life of Guthlac, which consistently omits the references to pagan mythological names found in Felix's Latin original (Erebus, Styx, Acheron, Olympus), yfilfric, on the other hand, rather seems to enjoy naming pagan gods and demons. As a mild euhemerist, /£lfric's goal is to demythologize the gods and account for them in rational terms - thus their names are not taboo for him, as they seem to be for Cynewulf and the Life of Guthlac translator (see Robinson, Beowulf 11, 86 [n. 28]). For /Elfric's euhemerism, see Johnson, 'Euhemerisation' 47-62, esp. 53-4 and 62, and Menner, 'Two Notes/ esp. 246-7. 43 Analogues include eahe synne fruma (Elene 1. 771) and synna ordfruma (/£lfric Octabas et circumcisio Domini nostri, Clemoes, A^CH 230, 1. 176). 44 Johnson, 'Studies' 80-1. 45 Roberts 'Inventory' 203. If Roberts is correct, this hypothetical work, though no longer extant, was the ancestor of both the tenth-century Vercelli homily and the late eleventh-century prose translation (MS Cotton Vespasian D.xxi, ff. 18-40v). 46 Overcomes devil: ch. 29 (Colgrave 94-8). Overcomes two devils: ch. 30 (Colgrave 98-100). Narrator describes them as plural (duo zabuli... se obtulerunt, 11. 8-9) but at their departure refers to them as singular {hostis strofosus ... evanuit, Colgrave 100,11. 9-11). 47 Journey to gates of hell: ch. 31 (Colgrave 100-6). Demons presented as plural (inmundorum spirituum catervis, Colgrave 102, 1. 1; innumerabiles ... inmundorum spirituum, Colgrave 104,11. 10-11), while their speech still suggests an underlying unity (velut ex uno ore turmae damabant, Colgrave 104, 11. 26-7). Guthlac addresses them as plural: 'Vae vobis, filii tenebrarum ...' (Colgrave 106,1. 11). 48 Colgrave 108,11. 16-17. 49 British-speaking demons: ch. 34, Colgrave 108-10. Guthlac perceives assault as tricks of the singular enemy (vir Dei tandem hostis pellacis millenis artibus millenas formas persentiens, Colgrave 110,11. 12-14). Addresses God through Psalm 67: Colgrave 110,11. 15-16.

Notes to pages 106-10 161 50 Beccel episode: ch. 35 (Colgrave 110-12). Guthlac recognizes singular devil, but addresses Beccel: 'O mi Beccel, ut quid hebido sub pectore antiquum hostem occultas?... Scio enim te a maligno spiritu deceptum'(Colgrave 112,11. 17-20). This runs counter to Augustine's explicit statement that it is the indwelling demon who should be addressed, and not the host (Contra fulianum 3.199, see above chapter 4, note 44), which is also the normal protocol in hagiography. 51 Colgrave 114,11.25-6. 52 Lipp 55; Olsen, Guthlac 48-50; Reichardt 334-5. Opinions differ not only as to whether or not Felix's Vita was a source for Guthlac A, but even as to whether or not there is scholarly consensus on the matter. Greenfield says of the relationship of Guthlac A to Felix's Vita, 'most modern scholars feel there is none' (New Critical History 177), while Roberts notes that 'it is generally held that the poet must have known the Vita' (Guthlac Poems 19). See also Gerould. Six of the thirteen manuscripts of Felix are from around or before the year 1000, the time of the Exeter Book's compilation (BM Royal 4 A.xiv, eighth or ninth century; CCCC 307, ninth century; CCCC 389, ninth or tenth century,- BM Royal 13 A.xv, tenth century; Arras MS 1029, late tenth century; Boulogne Public Library MS 637, ca. 1000; sec Roberts 'Inventory' 194-200). It is safest simply to acknowledge that a literate audience or reader of the poem would be likely to know Felix's Vita, and would draw comparisons between it and the poem even where the author intended none. The issue centres largely around the dating of the poem, which depends on how literally one takes the poem's own claim to have been written within living memory of the saint (Ball pas geeodon in ussera I tida timan, 11. 753-4; 'all this happened in the time of our life'). Delehaye notes that phrases such as 'in our own time' represent a hagiographic topos, however, and should not be taken as literal without further evidence (70-1). Furthermore, it is certain there were stories about Guthlac circulating independently of Felix, since two of the most common features later associated with Guthlac and demons - namely, Guthlac whipping the demons, and Guthlac enclosing the devil in a boiling pot are not in Felix's Vita and do not appear until the Middle English period (Roberts, 'Inventory' 221-8). Citations from Guthlac A refer to line numbers in ASPR 3, except where noted. 53 In 'The Middle Way,' T. Hill offers a reading of these two climactic struggles, each reflecting a separate mode of attack and each targeted for a separate psychological susceptibility: egesa ('terror') and idel wuldor ('vain glory'), both mentioned in line 86. In this respect, Hill draws

162 Notes to pages 110-14 attention to the vertical axis of the poem's trajectory: Guthlac is drawn up in the air to represent exaltation, and then drawn down \niper under nxssas, 563) to represent despair (185). 54 There is a narrative digression concerning the complacency of the Lord in allowing the saintly man to suffer further (517-20). The text refers to the travesty as wundra sum, reminiscent of Genesis B's infamous micel vmndoT (referring to the Lord's complacency in allowing the Fall in Eden, for which see Vickrey, 'Micel Wundor'}. The narrator shrugs off the mysterious motives of divine edict, however, stoically observing that pxt hwsepie gelomp (520, 'that happened nevertheless'). 55 Medieval saints were thought to partake of a single essence, known as the 'communion of the saints.' Jerome argues that all those who are in Christ (the martyrs, whose presence is still within their tombs) are everywhere: si Agnus ubique, ergo et hi qui cum Agno sunt, ubique esse credendi sunt (Contra Vigilantium, PL 23, col. 358b; 'if the Lamb is everywhere, then those who are with the Lamb should also be believed to be everywhere'), but perhaps the clearest articulation of this principle appears in the anonymous Anglo-Saxon Earliest Life of Gregory (ch. 30, Colgrave, Earliest Life 131-2). See also Heffernan 130 ff. 56 Generally, Guthlac's personal actions and individual merits are stressed in the localized central episodes, during his solitary fight with the demons, while in the more abstract opening and closing passages, the saint is passive and the virtues are simply gifts from God. The opening and closing sections can thus be read as general accounts of the nature of Guthlac's spiritual conflict, in which the ultimate sources of good and evil impulses are most completely exposed, while the central episodes, more individualized and historicized as they are, can be taken as a more detailed focus on how those general forces actually play themselves out in the human sphere. 57 Here I follow Roberts's punctuation rather than Krapp and Dobbies's, for reasons given in Roberts, Guthlac Poems 139. 58 This is perhaps one of widest gulfs between epic (heroic) and religious (ascetic) heroes; and since the hero of modern fiction and film is a descendant of the former rather than the latter, it is difficult for us to reconstruct the emotional or intellectual response these characters evoked. 59 The relationship between this passage and the late eleventh-century Old English translation of Felix in MS Vespasian D xxi (fols. 18-40v) is uncertain (Roberts, 'Inventory' 203, 'Old English' 363). 60 In this the homily offers a striking contrast with the compiler of the

Notes to pages 115-16 163 Old English Martyrology (11 April, Herzfeld 56). There the essentials related are the miraculous circumstances of Guthlac's birth and his daily conversations with an angel after his habitation in Crowland, without mention of demonic confrontation. 6: Conclusion 1 Soldier: Juliana 11. 382-409; scop: Vercelli Homily 10 (Scragg, Vercelli Homilies 200,11. 83-5); trapper: Boniface letter 46 (Tangl 74,1. 33); farmer: yfclfric, Sermo de memoria sanctorum (Skeat 1.362,1. 376); knot-maker: /Elfric, Sermo ad populum in octavis pentecosten dicendus (Pope 1.423,1. 164); bird: Waerferth, Dialogi 2.2 (Hecht 100); whale: The Whale 11. 31-82 (ASPR 3, 171-4); wolf: ^Ifric, Dominica II post Pascha (Clemoes, &CH 314,1. 36ff.). ^Ifric, however, departing from his source (Gregory's Dialogi 2.30), declines to make the devil a doctor (Sancti Benedict! Abbatis-, Godden, &CH 104, 11. 434). 2 E.g., y£lfric: selc hsepen man bid deofles ('every heathen person is of the devil/ Sermo in ascensione Domini; Clemoes, ^CH351,1. 166). 3 E.g., ^Ifric: hi moton ure afandian, ac hi ne moton us nydan to nanum yfele ('they can test us, but they cannot force us to any evil/ Dominica prima in Quadragesima-, Clemoes, SECH 268,11. 69-70). 4 Calder makes a convincing case for Juliana specifically: 'the narrative pattern in Juliana accordingly is ritualistic ... a fixed.ceremony and public ritual involving figures reenacting the cosmic struggle between Christ and Satan' (Cynewulf 80). See also St-Jacques for a fuller defense of this position ('Cosmic Dimensions'). 5 Morris, Blickling Homilies 179,11. 9-10; the source (Passio sanctorum apostolorum Petri et Pauli) has two 'substances': in isto autem Simone sunt duae substantiae, hominis et diaboli, qui per hominem conatur hominibus inpedire (Lipsius and Bonnet 139). 6 Morris, Blickling Homilies 179,11. 10-11. 7 For instance, Vercelli Homily 1 indicates that Christ deprived the devil of all his powers at the Harrowing (eallum his mihtum hine bereafode-, Scragg, Vercelli Homilies 40,11. 292-3), Augustine claims that the fallen angels have only a 'certain destitute power' (ad quandam egenam potestatem, De civ 11.1; Hoffmann 1.511,11. 18-19), and St Anthony explains that demons 'are weak (debiles] and can do nought but threaten' and 'they have no power to effect anything' (Evagrius's Vita Antonii 16, PL 73, col. 139d, 1. 58 and 140c, 11. 38-9; cf. col. 132c, col. 167a). Their power is destroyed (potestas eorum [sunt] ablata, col. 140b,

164 Notes to pages 117-20 11. 22-3), and the devil himself knocks on Anthony's door to explain he is vanquished and powerless (col. 145a, 11. 9-33). Having said that the demons can only threaten but cannot fulfill those threats (minationem tuam non sequitur effectus-, Evagrius 16, PL 73, col. 140c, 11. 38-9), however, Anthony goes on to explain that they actually beat him all the time (ssepe quoque me a dxmonibus non denego verberatum-, Evagrius 20, PL 73, col. 144d, 11. 56-7). 8 See, for instance, Charles Kahn, Plato and the Socratic Dialogue (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996): 36-8, 296; Bernard Freydberg, The Play of the Platonic Dialogues (New York: Peter Lang, 1997): 15-16, 36-8; Kenneth Sayre, Plato's Literary Garden: How to Read a Platonic Dialogue (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995): 15. 9 Johnson, 'Old English' 175. 10 The source and function of the devil's ambiguous form in Genesis B (angel of light or serpent) is also an issue of long-standing debate (see, for instance, Burchmorc; Hill, 'Fall' 281-5; Russell, Lucifer 140-1; Vickrey, 'Vision' 96; and Woolf, 'Fall' 195-7; for full overview, see Kelly, 'Metamorphoses'). 11 Thus Judas's gradual recognition of the unified kingdom of evil in Elene and Guthlac's in Felix's Vita Guthlaci (the latter also preserved to some extent in the Old English prose translation and Vercelli homily). Juliana seems to conflate the lesser demon with the devil conceptually and physically - not just rhetorically - and thus collapses them into a single entity. 12 Skeat 1.158, 1.160. 13 Brown's remarks on St Martin hint at this important dimension of hagiography in general: 'The vast prestige of Saint Martin came from the fact that, as an exorcist, he could concretize and, so, mercifully delimit and render manageable tense moments, by being able to perceive and isolate the demon lurking within them' (Cult 110). 14 Classen has recently questioned the psychological role of the demonic in the literature of the High Middle Ages also (135-6).

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Index

Abbetmeyer, C. 40, 41 Abbott, Edwin 62 Abraham, Lenore 136-7 Abraham of Qidun 141 Acta Cyriaci 82-4, 96-7, 159 Acta lulianae 41 Acta Pilati 68 Acta Sanctorum 98,159 Acts 25, 128, 152 Acts of the Christian Martyrs 140 Acts of Thomas 158 Ad Christianum faciendum 150 Adam 27, 62, 79, 99, 129 Adsumptio Sanctae Mariae 88, 126 Adversus haereses (Irenaeus) 129 Adversus Marcionem (Tertullian) 129 ^Elfric 7, 11, 35-9, 50, 57, 58-61, 65, 72,90,119, 124, 126, 127,129, 130, 133, 135, 137, 138, 139, 141, 143, 144, 153, 156, 159, 160, 163 Aeneid 152 ^thelbald 90 Africanus 31 Against Celsus (Origen of Alexandria) 148

'Against a Dwarf.' See Wid dweorh 'Against a Sudden Stitch.' See Wid fserstice Ahriman 9 Albigensian persecutions 12 Alcuin 75, 126, 146 Aldhelm 155 Alfred 33, 103, 138, 151, 159 Amalsuntha 23 Ambrose of Milan 22, 72, 129, 149 Ananias 25, 26 Andreas 5, 35, 85-6, 125, 136 Andreas 5, 42, 46, 53, 85-6, 119, 136, 144, 147, 152, 154, 159 Angra Mainyu 9 Annunciatio Marise (/£lfric) 130, 144 Anselm of Canterbury 11, 12, 57 Anthony 41, 60, 78, 104, 138, 163, 164 Antichrist 11 Antirrheticus (Evagrius Ponticus) 148 Aphraates of Syria 147 Apocalypse of Paul 68 Apocalypse of Peter 68

188 Index Apologeticum (Tertullian) 129, 138, 148 Apology (Justin Martyr) 148 Apostle's Creed 75 Apostolic Tradition (Hippolytus of Rome) 74 Apostolicx historias 130 Apuleius of Madauros 148 Aquinas, Thomas 24, 26, 72, 134, 146 Ardo of Aniane 158 Ascension of Isaiah 128,148 Athanasius 59, 104, 105, 148-9. See also Life of Anthony atonement 12 Aubin, Paul 65, 145 Augustine of Hippo 10, 11, 21, 22, 25, 27, 46, 51, 63, 65, 71, 74, 75, 92, 105, 127, 128, 129, 130, 133, 135, 142, 145, 148, 149, 152, 153, 155, 158, 161, 163 Avitianus 6, 37, 38 Azazel 9, 128 Baal 158 bacucei 26 baptism 43, 74-6, 81, 151 Bartelink, G.J.M. 133 Bartholomew 106, 111-14, 130 Barton, George 128 3 Baruch 128 Bastiaensen, A.A.R. 87, 155 Baudonivia 89 Beccel 106, 115 Bede 25, 26, 27, 56, 61, 68, 70, 72,94-5, 103, 118, 126, 127, 130, 135, 140, 146, 147, 149, 158 Beelzebub 128, 142 Beelzebul 9, 92, 128

Beginnings (Origen of Alexandria) 129, 148 Be heofonwarum &> be helwarum 130, 141 Belial 9,32,98-100, 160 Beliar 9, 128 Benedict Biscop 46 Benedict of Nursia 57-8, 134 Beowulf 140 Beowulf 39, 63, 125, 135, 136 Bethurum, Dorothy 35 Bibliotecha Hagiographica Latina 47 Blatty, William Peter 87 Blickling Homilies 33, 77, 126-7, 137; Homily 3: 21, 133; Homily 5: 91; Homily 7: 69; Homily 13: 151; Homily 15: 116; Homily 18: 144, 151; Homily 19: 35, 151 Boenig, Robert 86 Bolland, John 98 Bonaventura 26, 134 Boniface 46, 68, 90, 147, 163 Book of Jubilees 128,129 Book of Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach 21 Books of Enoch 9, 128, 129, 148 Brown, Peter 7, 128, 164 Byrhtferth of Ramsey 72 Caesarius of Heisterbach 155 Caiaphas 70 Cain 99, 125 Calder, Daniel 163 Campbell, Jackson 147 Casanatensis 35 Cassian, John 26-7, 57, 63-4, 88, 93, 105, 134, 146, 158 Catholic Homilies (yfilfric) 59, 130, 137, 144, 153

Index 189 Ceolfrid 46 Ceolred 90 charms 13-15, 17,29, 115, 131 Christ and Satan 7, 40, 41, 69, 91, 92, 133, 138, 147, 150, 154, 159 Christ II (Cynewulf) 69, 154 1 Chronicles 128, 134 Chrysostom, John 129 Cicero 148 Clayton, Mary 47, 51, 56 Clement of Alexandria 130 Clovis 23 Cnut 131 Cockayne, Oswald 14, 131 Commentariorum in Genesim libri quatuor (Hrabanus Maurus) 126 Commentary on the Epistle of James (Bede) 72 Commentary on Matthew (Origen of Alexandria) 147 Conferences (Cassian) 26, 63, 134, 156, 158 Conlationes. See Conferences Connolly, Sean 147 Constantine 81, 96 Contra Academicos (Augustine) 149 Contra Adimantum (Augustine) 145 Contra duas epistulas Pelagianorum ad Bonifacium Papam (Augustine) 145 Contra Julianum (Augustine) 150, 161 Contra vermes 135 Contra Vigilantium (Jerome) 130, 162 Conybeare, F.C. 128 1 Corinthians 19

Coulange, Louis 73 Coulton, G.G. 12 Cratylus (Plato) 158 Cur a pastoralis (Gregory the Great) 27 Cuthbert of Lindisfarne 46 Cynewulf 29, 32, 41, 69, 80, 81-5, 96-103, 153, 154, 159, 160 Daniel 129 Dante 68, 70, 100, 158 David 24, 134 De aetatibus mundi (PsuedoWulfstan) 127 De auguriis (/Elfric) 72, 90, 126 De bono mortis (Ambrose) 149 De civitate Dei (Augustine) 22, 51, 129, 130, 133, 142, 148, 149, 152, 153, 155, 158, 163 De correptione et gratia ad eundem (Augustine) 145 De deo Socratis (Apuleius of Madauros) 148 De divinatione dsemonum (Augustine) 25, 63, 133, 134 De doctrina Christiana (Augustine) 92 De duabus animabus (Augustine) 145 De falsis diis (^.Ifric) 126 De Genesi ad litteram (Augustine) 129, 149 De incarnatione (Athanasius) 149 De initio creaturae (v£lfric) 127 De natura boni (Augustine) 149 De principiis (Origen of Alexandria). See Beginnings Derepublica (Cicero) 148 De sermone Domini in monte

190 Index secundum Matthaeum (Augustine) 135 De somniis (Philo of Alexandria) 148 De spectaculis (Tertullian) 129 De templo (Bede) 130, 147 De temporum ratione (Bede) 127 de Tonquedec, Joseph 20 De Trinitate (Augustine) 25 death 11, 151, 152, 155 Defoe, Daniel 21 Depositio S. Basilii Episcopi (jfclfric) 35 Depositio S. Martini Episcopi (jfclfric) 143, 144 Descensus ad inferos 68, 149 Descent into Hell 153 Descent of Inanna 141 Descent of Ishtar 152 Deuteronomy 128 'Devil's Account of the Next World' 41-2 Dialogue on Miracles (Caesarius of Heisterbach) 155 Dialogues (Gregory the Great) 578, 68, 90, 130, 133, 143, 146, 163 Dialogues (Old English] 58, 143. See also Waerferth Dialogues (Sulpicius Severus) 36, 37, 38, 137, 143 Diana 43, 44 Diocletian 125 Diogenes Laertius 148 Discourse (Tatian) 148 discretio 27, 29, 134 Doble, G.H. 126 Dominica ii post Pascha (ALltric] 163 Dominica Hi post Pentecosten (^Ifric) 156

Dominica in Sexagesima (y£lfric) 150 Dominica prima in Quadragesima (yfilfric) 126, 133, 145, 163 Ecclesiastical History (Bede). See Historia Ecclesiastica Ecclesiastical History (Old English) 94-6, 118 Ecclesiasticus 21 Eden 5, 10, 19, 20, 78, 100, 162 Elene 81-5,96-7 Elene (Cynewulf) 46, 81-5, 86, 968, 102, 103, 147, 153, 154, 159, 160, 164 Eleusius 31 elf-shot 13, 29, 33, 135, 136 Eliade, Mircea 76 Elyot, Sir Thomas 137 Empedocles 25 Enchiridion (Augustine) 25, 134 Enchiridion (Byrhtferth) 72 Ennarationes in Psalmos (Augustine) 129, 145 Enuma Elish 93 Ephesians 49, 71, 88 Epinomis (Eusebius) 148 Etymologiae (Isidore of Seville) 149, 158 Eusebius 148 Evagrius 57, 103, 104, 138, 163 Evagrius Ponticus 148 Eve 79, 99, 129 Exameron (Ambrose) 22, 149 exorcism 74, 75, 84, 89,94,138, 164 Exorcist, The 87 Explanatio Apocalypsis (Bede) 126, 146, 158 Explanatio super Psalmos (Ambrose) 129, 149

Index 191 Expositio Evangelii secundum Lucam (Ambrose) 149 Expositio in primum librum Mosis (Bede) 135 Expositio super Epistolas Catholicas (Bede) 126 exsufflatio 38, 75, 76, 137 Ezekiel 128 Ezrael 68 Ferguson, Everett 93, 128 Felix 42, 103-6, 107, 108, 113, 114, 118, 130, 137, 160, 161, 164 Flatland 62 Flint, Valerie 128 Forsyth, Neil 5, 128 Forty Soldiers 35-6, 38, 141, 153 Francis, Elizabeth 143 Fridrichsen, Anton 92 Friedkin, Willliam 87 Fuge diabolus 13 Galpern, Joyce R. 76 Gatch, Milton McC. 136 Genesis 5, 9, 10 Genesis A 40 Genesis B 7, 10, 40, 41, 94, 130, 135, 138, 159, 162, 164 Gerasene demoniac 6, 89-90, 156 Germanus of Auxerre 94 gnosticism 9, 21, 22 Godden, Malcolm 137-8 Gospel of Nicodemus 68, 146-7, 153 Gregory the Great 10, 11, 21, 27, 29,46,57-8,59,65,68,69,71, 89, 127, 130, 133, 134, 143, 145, 146, 149, 150, 163 Gregory of Tours 23, 24, 59, 68, 89, 131, 133

Grendel 4, 5, 39, 140, 150 Guthlac of Crowland 33, 60, 77, 103-14, 115, 119, 130, 161-3, 164 Guthlac A 3, 46, 96, 106-13, 114, 118, 133, 153, 159, 161 Guthlac B 46 Guthlac cycle 94, 103-14 Hades 80 Harrowing of Hell 7,66,68,69,71, 77, 79, 127, 152, 153, 154, 163 Healey, Antonette di Paolo 147, 151 Hebrews 9 Hel 80 Helen 81. See also Elene Helg, Didier 130-1 hell 6, 7, 10, 15, 16, 19, 33-4, 40, 41, 42, 52, 56, 61, 66-70, 71-3, 76, 77, 79-86,90,91,97, 100, 101, 102, 106, 110, 111, 118, 130, 141, 146-54, 160. See also Descensus ad inferos-, Descent into Hell-t Hades; Harrowing of Hell; Hel; Pluto; Tartarus; visions of hell Heliand, The 6, 28-9, 33 Heliseus 8, 31, 32, 98, 115, 160 Heorot 5 Hexaemeron (Bede) 126 Hilarion 78, 90 Hill, Thomas 76, 81, 137, 161-2 Hippolytus of Rome 70, 74 Historia Ecclesiastica (Bede) 27, 61, 68, 70, 103, 125 Historia Ecclesiasticae Francorum libri decem (Gregory of Tours) 68, 133 Historia monachorum in Aegypto (Rufinus of Aquileia) 140,156

192 Index Holofernes 8, 125 Homer 79 Homilia in Genesin (John Chrysostom) 129 Homilia in Johannem (John Chrysostom) 129 Homiliae in Evangelia (Gregory the Great) 146 Homiliarum in Ezechielen (Gregory the Great) 145 Homilies on Judges (Origen of Alexandria) 148 Homilies on Numbers (Origen of Alexandria) 129 Hrabanus Maurus 126, 140, 141, 142 Hrothgar 136 In dominie a paim arum (SElhic] 129 In Johannis Evangelium (Augustine) 134 In 2 Epistolam S. Petri (Bede) 150 Interrogations et responiones in Genesim (Alcuin) 126 Interrogations of Sigewulf 5, 126 Inventio sanctae crucis 46, 159 Inventio sanctae crucis (yElfric) 153 Irenaeus of Lyons 9, 10, 129 Isaiah 10, 128 Isidore of Seville 149, 158 Issachar 128 Jacob 126 Jacob of Voragine 143 Jahweh 93, 158 James 24 Jeremiah 152 Jerome 10, 57, 90, 104, 105, 129, 130, 146, 162 Job 5, 19, 24, 70, 99, 128, 134, 148

John 22, 25, 29, 99, 128, 133, 134, 135 John of Lycopolis 88 John of Naples 44, 139 Johnson, David F. 79, 81, 82, 91-2, 102-3, 127, 130 Jolly, Karen L. 136 Jonah 152 Jonas of Bobbio 137 Jubilees. See Book of Jubilees Judas Cyriacus 81-5, 96-7, 153, 154, 164 Judas Iscariot 22, 24, 25, 28, 99, 134, 135 Jude 67, 69, 71 Judges 128 Judicia Dei 131 Judith 46, 125 Juliana of Nicomedia 29, 31, 32, 41,50, 80,98-102, 115 Juliana (Cynewulf) 3, 8, 29-32, 33, 46, 53, 72, 79, 81, 84, 93, 98-103, 128, 130, 135, 154, 159, 160, 163, 164 Justin Martyr 129, 148 Kelly, Henry A. 74, 76, 87, 128 1 Kings 128 2 Kings 128 Kurtz, Benjamin 104-5 Lacnunga Book 13 Lactantius 139, 148 Langton, Edward 128 Lapidge, Michael 137 Lausiac History (Palladius) 140 Lee, Alvin 127 Leechbook 13, 14, 131, 132 Leontius of Neapolis 93 Levi 128

Index 193 Leviathan 9, 93, 128 Leviticus 128 Liber ordinum 89 Liber regularum (Tyconius) 92 Libri de virtutibus sancti Martini episcopi (Gregory of Tours) 131-2 Life of Abraham of Qidun 141 Life of Agatha (yElfric) 133 Life of Anthony (Athanasius) 41, 59, 104, 139, 149 Life of Benedict 3 Life of Gall (Walafrid Strabo) 89 Life of Gregory the Great, Earliest 162 Life of Guthlac 103, 113, 160, 164 Life of John the Almsgiver (Leontius of Neapolis) 159 Life of Margaret (MS CCCC 303) 46, 47, 51, 53-7, 133, 139 Life of Margaret (MS Cotton Otho B.x) 48 Life of Margaret (MS Cotton Tiberius A.iii) 42, 46, 47-53, 54, 557, 128 Life of Marina 142 Life of Martin (/Elhic) 6, 36-7, 50, 57, 58-61, 126, 139, 143 Life of Nicholas 6, 43-5, 46, 55, 119, 126, 139 Life of Pelagia (Jacob) 126 Life of Radegund (Baudonivia) 89 Life of Waldetrude 89 Ling, Trevor 88, 93, 145 liturgy 13, 14, 35, 62, 65, 66, 73-7, 81, 90, 102, 103. See also baptism; exorcism Lives of the Desert Fathers (Gregory of Tours) 88-9 Lives of Margaret 3, 43, 45-57

Lives of Saints (yfilfric) 35, 59, 137, 153 Lives of the Philosophers (Diogenes Laertius) 148 Lohr, Evelyn 139 Lombard, Peter 72, 146 lorica 15 Lucifer 10, 11, 100 Luke 89, 92, 99, 128, 129, 134, 139, 148, 155 Lupicinus 89 Magennis, Hugh 47, 51, 56, 57 Magritte, Rene 19 Margaret of Antioch 46-57, 140, 141, 142, 143 Marina. See Margaret of Antioch Mark 6, 89, 92, 128, 134, 139, 148, 156 Marlowe, Christopher 73 Martin of Tours 6, 36-8, 59-61, 77, 137, 143, 144, 151, 164 Martyrology (Bede) 140 Martyrology (Hrabanus Maurus) 140, 141-2 Martyrology (Old English). See Old English Martyrology Marx, C.W. 62 Mastema 9, 128 Mather, Cotton 87 Matthew 66, 72, 92, 108, 128, 134, 139, 148, 155, 156 Maur 119 Maurus, Hrabanus. See Hrabanus Maurus Maximian 31 McCready, William 27 Menner, Robert 16 Mermedonians 5, 85, 86, 119, 154 Metamorphoses (Ovid) 152

194 Index Milton, John 10, 73, 155, 159 Minucius Felix 138 Moralia in fob (Gregory the Great) 27, 58, 65, 130, 133, 134, 145, 146, 149 mythology 3, 4, 11, 12, 13, 41, 50, 66, 75, 76, 77, 79-81, 93, 94, 115, 117, 119 narrative 3, 4-6, 7, 20, 24, 28-9, 31,36,41-2,62,65,66, 75, 77, 78-9,82,86,92,95, 102, 116 Nebridius 25 Nelson, Marie 79 Neo-Platonism 10 New Testament 9, 20, 21, 71, 74, 93, 132, 149 Nicholas 43-5, 139, 140 Nigon Wyrta Galdor 132, 135 'Nine Herbs Charm.' See Nigon Wyrta Galdor Numbers 128 Octabas et circumcisio Domini nostri (/Elfric) 160 Octavius (Minucius Felix) 139 OdoofCluny 23 Odyssey, The 152 Old English Martyrology 130,140, 142, 153, 163 Old Testament 9 Olibrius 8, 48, 49, 53, 56 ontology 3, 8, 10, 61, 79, 81, 95, 96, 103, 105, 107, 116, 118, 119, 131, 152 Ordo Romanus XI 75 Ordo Romanus L 75 Origen of Alexandria 10, 72, 129, 131, 143, 144, 147, 148 Original Sin 11, 22, 133

Oswald 94 Oswiu 23 Ovid 79, 152 Pagels, Elaine 128 Palladius of Galatia 140 Palladius of Javols 134 Paradise Lost 150, 155, 159 Passio fulianae 46, 98-100. See also Ada lulianae Passio Margaretae 72, 140, 143 Passio Marinae 89 Passio sanctorum apostolorum PetrietPauli 163 Paternoster 13, 15, 16, 17 Paul 49,88, 116 Paul the Hermit 46 Pearl 120 Pelagia 126 Peter 25, 116 1 Peter 33, 71 2 Peter 67, 69 Pethion 88, 89 Philo of Alexandria 148 Phoenix 40 planoi 26 Plato 117, 148, 158 Pluto 80 Poemen, Abba 88 Political History of the Devil (Daniel Defoe) 21 Pontius Pilate 126 possession 7, 14, 26, 37, 63, 70, 73, 74, 76, 84, 89-90, 94-5, 99, 139, 150, 156 Praxeis Andreou kai Matheian eis ten Polin ton Anthropophagon 35,86 Preparatio evangelica (Eusebius) 148

Index 195 privation theory 10, 130 Pro nessia 135 Prose Solomon and Saturn Pater Noster Dialogue 17, 130, 132, 136, 147 Prudentius 15 Psalms 128, 148 Pseudo-Wulfstan 127, 141 psychology 3, 7-8, 11, 13-14, 1928, 31, 33-4, 36-9, 42, 45, 53, 55, 58, 60, 63-6, 77, 92, 95, 104-5, 115-16, 118, 120 Pythagoras 148 Quadraginta milites (^Ifric.) See Forty Soldiers Qumran 128. See also Testament of Amram Quran 129 Rahab 9, 93, 128 ransom theory 10, 129 redemption theology 11,12 Reformation 12, 22 Regan, Catherine 81 Regula Benedict! 57, 134 Retractions (Augustine) 134 Reuben. See Testament of Reuben Revelation 9, 10, 67, 69, 72, 78, 129, 146 Ricoeur, Paul 4, 125-6, 145, 159 Robinson, Fred 125 Romana 126 Romans 134 Romanus 89 Rufinus of Aquileia 88, 140 Rufus 51, 53, 54, 142 Russell, Jeffrey B. 73, 125, 128, 155 Sammael 9, 128

1 Samuel 128, 134 2 Samuel 128 Santa Glaus 140 Saul 24, 134 Sayings of the Desert Fathers 88 Seafarer, The 4, 125 Semjaza 9, 128 Senoch 89 Sentences (Aquinas) 134 Serenus of Scetis 26 Sermo ad populum in octavis pentecosten dicendus (y£lfric) 163 Sermo de memoria sanctorum (yfilfric) 163 Sermo in ascensione Domini (jfclfric) 163 Severinus 60 Severus of Antioch 158 Simeon 128 Simon Magus 115 Socrates 117 Solomon 15, 16, 17 Solomon and Saturn I 15-17, 91, 115, 119, 132, 136 Solomon and Saturn II 132, 135 Spel be Petrus and Paulus 116 Starobinski, Jean 6 Stephanus, Eddius 23 Strabo, Walafrid 89 Sulpicius (Severus) 36, 37, 38, 59, 60, 77, 137, 143, 144 Super Acta Apostolorum Expositio (Bede) 26 Symposium (Plato) 148 Tartaruchus 68 Tartarus 70, 97 Tatian 129, 148 Tatirokos 68 Teachings of Silvanus 147

196 Index Tertullian of Carthage 74, 129, 138, 148, 155 Testament of Amram 128 Testament of Dan 128,129 Testament of Reuben 128,129 'Theban Legend' 41-2 theology 5, 12, 14, 20-8, 32, 35, 65, 73, 74, 76, 88, 90, 116. See also privation theory; ransom theory; redemption theology Theotimus 47 Tiamat 93 Tyconius 92, 157-8 Unferd 140 Valerius of Bierzo 146 Vercelli Book 33, 77-8, 81, 85, 113-14 Vercelli Homilies 33-5, 137, 151; Homily 1: 163; Homily 3: 33; Homily 4: 34-5, 63, 119, 157; Homily 9: 33; Homily 10: 63, 163; Homily 12: 90-1; Homily 14: 33; Homily 18: 77, 144; Homily 19: 65-6, 147; Homily 22: 63; Homily 23: 33, 106, 11314, 119, 164 Virgil 79 Vision of Adamnan 68 Vision of Paul 133 Vision of Tundale 68 visions of hell 68-70, 146 VitaAbrahae 152 Vita Antonii (Evagrius) 46, 103, 163-4 Vita Benedict! (Gregory the Great) 42, 46, 57-9 Vita Benedict! Abbatis Anianensis et Indensis (Ardo) 158

Vita Columbani (Jonas) 137 Vita Cuthberti (Bede) 103 Vita Geraldi (Odo of Cluny) 133 Vita Guthlaci (Felix) 42, 103-6, 107, 108, 113; 114, 137, 161, 164 Vita Hilarionis (Jerome) 90, 104 Vita Martini (Sulpicius Severus) 59, 60, 77, 144 Vita Nicholai (John of Naples) 44, 45, 139 Vita Wilfridi (Eddius Stephanus) 23 Vitae Patrum 41, 45, 138, 152 Vitae Sanctorum 159 Voyage of Brendan 68, 158 Vulgate 21, 71, 128, 133, 148 Vfeferth 143, 163 watcher angels 9, 10, 129 Wanderer, The 125 Waves, The 87 Whale, The 163 Wilfrid 23 William the Conqueror 137 William of Malmesbury 159 Widdweorh 91 Widfserstice 132, 135, 136 Wid wyrme 135 Woolf, Rosemary 45, 64, 127 Woolf, Virginia 87 Wulfstan 11, 21, 77, 124, 130, 148, 150; Homily 6: 127, 133; Homily 9: 146; Homily lOb: 146 Yammu 158 Zechariah 19, 128 Zoroastrianism 9