Freeing from Bondage in OE Religious Poetry

Bondage and Freeing from Bondage in Old English Religious PoetryAuthor(s): Thomas RendallSource: The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 73, No. 4 (Oct., 1974), pp. 497-512Published by: University of Illinois PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27707790 .

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BONDAGE AND FREEING FROM BONDAGE IN

OLD ENGLISH RELIGIOUS POETRY

Thomas Kendall, Campion College, University of Regina

The frequently encountered theme of exile in Old English poetry often

metaphorically represents the theological concept of man's alienation

from God. The formulaic expression of this theme has been the subject of two studies by Stanley Greenfield, and, in an article extending Green

field's work, Leonard Frey has shown that Anglo-Saxon poets increased the power of the metaphor by investing the idea of man's exile from

God with both the rigors of a northern winter and the social background of the Germanic comitatus.1 Another

pervasive Anglo-Saxon and medi

eval Christian metaphor for the plight of fallen man, and one that is fre

quently associated with the image of exile, is that of bondage. Man is a

captive, a prisoner of Satan, bound by sin and death until the sacrifice of Christ frees him. In this article I propose to examine some of the

broader artistic and doctrinal functions of this theme of Old English poetry independently of its possible formulaic expression.2 Man's spir

1 Stanley Greenfield, "The Theme of Spiritual Exile in Christ I," PQ, 32 ( 1953),

321-28, and "The Formulaic Expression of Exile in Anglo-Saxon Poetry," Speculum, 3? ( !955 )> 200-206; Leonard Frey, "Exile and Elegy in Anglo-Saxon Christian Epic Poetry," JEGP, 62 (1963), 293-302.

2 In "The Formulaic Expression of Exile in Anglo-Saxon Poetry," Greenfield followed Albert Lord in defining "theme" in the context of oral poetry as "a subject unit, a group of ideas regularly employed by a singer, not merely in any given poem, but in the poetry as a whole" (p. 200, n. 3). Although the description of his study elsewhere in the article as an analysis of the poetic expression of "certain themes of Old English thought" indicates some uneasiness with Lord's formulation, it served Greenfield's immediate purpose by placing his work squarely in the tradition of Francis Magoun's application of the findings of Parry and Lord's study of Homeric

diction to Old English verse. In the same year as Greenfield's major article, Magoun seconded his formulation of "theme" in a study, "The Theme of the Beasts of Battle in Anglo-Saxon Poetry" (Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 56 [1955], 81-90), and

more recently Robert Diamond has also subscribed to this view ("Theme as Orna

ment in Anglo-Saxon Poetry," PMLA, 76 [1961], 461-68). Such a definition limits the study of Old English poetic themes by making its validity dependent upon the

general oral provenience of the poetry. Frey, in his study of the exile motif, does not detail the precise meaning of his use of "theme," perhaps because essential to his

argument are passages from Andreas and Guthlac B?poems whose oral origin is contested. Although the chapter

on "The Nature and Quality of Old English Verse" of Greenfield's Critical History of Old English Literature (New York, 1965) still

497



498 Rendad

itual bondage and Christ's role as his liberator form a pervasive theme

of this poetry because these ideas were commonplaces of medieval re

ligious thought. The importance of the bondage theme for an under

standing of the poetry transcends its formulaic expression because mod ern readers are apt to overlook the precise theological implications that

bondage and freeing from bondage often carry in Old English verse.

The Biblical resonance of the theme of man's bondage is extensive.

The physical captivity of the Israelites in Egypt and their liberation

under the leadership of Moses (Exodus 1-14) is given a wider spiritual

significance by the frequent use of the image in the Psalms.3 Christ Him

self confirmed the spiritual meaning of the metaphor by His delegation of the authority of binding and loosing to His disciples in Matthew

16:19 and 18:18. These passages played a crucial role in the penitential doctrine of the medieval Church. To loose was interpreted as the divine

power of the Church to forgive sins, and to bind was its announcement

of God's judgment upon unbelievers and impenitent sinners.4 The image was equally popular with St. Paul. In II Timothy (2:25-26), for exam

ple, he speaks of the pure of heart who are able to "recover themselves

from the snares of the devil, by whom they are held captives at his will," and in Galatians (4:21-31) he extends the significance of the image by

telling how Christ has freed man from the bondage of the Old Law.

Also underlying the theme of bondage and freeing from bondage in

Old English poetry is a theory of the Redemption based on these and

other Scriptural passages that received its earliest full expression in the

work of Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons ( b. 126). In a dramatic conflict man's

Redeemer fights against and triumphs over evil, and the concrete ex

pression of that victory is His loosing of man from the powers that hold

him in bondage. "Adam had become the devil's possession," Irenaeus

writes, "and the devil held him under his power." But man had been

created by God that he might live, and if he "should be forever aban

doned to death, God would have been conquered, and the wickedness

speaks of oral composition by theme and formula, in this survey Greenfield himself seems to expound

a wider view of the nature of Anglo-Saxon poetic themes. In the

book's index, a list of themes follows the heading "Themes and motifs ( topoi ) . . .

specific topoi." Some of the topoi listed here are familiar ones such as exile, the beasts

of battle, ruin; others have not been carefully examined either in the Critical History or elsewhere. Among the latter is a topos that Greenfield designates as "the harrow

ing of hell." As I will attempt to show in this article, the Harrowing of Hell motif is

only part of a much more widely significant theme of Old English religious poetry.

3 For example, Vulgate Psalms 123:7, 115:16, 145:7. 4 "Et quodcumque ligaveris. Id est, quern in peccatis persistentem aeternis poenis

adjudicaveris: vel quern humilem et ver? poenitentem absolveris, sic erit in coelis"

(Glossa Ordinaria in Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Patrolog?a Latina [hereafter

PL], ed. J. P. Migne, cxiv [Paris, 1844-64], 142).



Bondage and Freeing in OE Religious Poetry 499

of the serpent would have prevailed over the will of God." The fulfill

ment of the divine plan could be achieved only by Christ's incarnation

and destruction of the devil's power, so that "man who had been taken

captive" could be "set free from the bondage of condemnation."5 Adam's

disobedience had made man the thrall of the devil, and beside the devil

Irenaeus sets those powers of continuing bondage

that Satan represents.

Man is bound by the devil, but also by his own sins and by death. "The

Word was made flesh," Irenaeus writes, "to work life in man, for we

were in the bonds of sin. . . . He loosed the prison bonds." All men were

bound in death because of the disobedience of Adam; therefore, "the

bonds of death had necessarily to be loosed through the obedience of

Him who was made man for us."6 While bondage by sin and death is

always implied by the devil's bondage of man in Irenaeus and later

writers, for the most dramatic possible presentation of the Redemption, Satan is portrayed as Christ's principal antagonist. Christ's death was

necessary to free man from servitude to a personal

master. Literal inter

pretation of Christ's remark in Mark 10:45 that "the Son of Man has come to give his life as a ransom for many" (cf. Matthew 20:27) caused

early Christians to view the atonement for man's sin as a transaction

with the powers of evil involving the death of the Saviour by which sin

ful man was somehow "bought back." Irenaeus combines this idea with the Biblical imagery of man's bondage by viewing Christ's sacrifice as a paying of ransom to Satan for the emancipation of a slave: "buying us

back by His blood," Christ "gave himself as a ransom for those who were

led into captivity."7 Anselm's Cur Deus Homo ( 1098 ) was the first expression of the later

notion that Christ's death was a satisfaction necessitated by God's own

justice, a view in which sin is no longer described as resulting in bondage

by Satan but as an offense against the honor and justice of God.8 For the

5 With few exceptions, the works of Irenaeus have survived only in later Latin translations. "Primum enim possessionis ejus vas Adam factus est, quem et tenebat sub sua potestate.

... Si enim quie factus fuerat a Deo homo, ut viveret, hie amittens vitam laesus serpente qui d?praverai eum, jam non reverteretur ad vitam sed in totum projectus esset morti; victus esst Deus, et superasset serpentis nequitia volun tatem Dei. . . . solutus est autem condemnationis vinculis, que captivus ductus fuerat

homo" (Contra Haereses III, xxxii, 2 in Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Patrolog?a Graeca [hereafter PG], vu, 960 ). In the following discussion I am indebted for refer ences to relevant texts to Hastings Rashdall, The Idea of the Atonement in Christian

Theology (London, 1920). G

Irenaeus, Proof of the Apostolic Preaching, trans. Joseph P. Smith ( London, 1952), Ancient Christian Writers Series, No. 16, pp. 71, 68.

7 "Quoniam Verbum potens, et homo verus, sanguine suo rationabiliter redimens

nos, redemptionem semetipsum dedit pro his, qui in captivitatem ducti sunt"

(Irenaeus, Contra Haereses V, i, 1 [PG, vu, 1121]). 8 Martial gives way to legal terminology, and the stage for the deliverance of



500 Kendall

first thousand years of Christian thought, however, the imagery of

Irenaeus' "ransom theory" prevailed.

It pervades

the commentary of

Origen (185-254), who compares Christ's work to that of a king's son

who disguises himself as a commoner in order to free the captives of an

unjust tyrant. Through His passion and death Christ "destroyed him

who had the power of death, that is, the devil, in order to liberate us

who were held by death."9 Augustine (354-430) explains that man's

bondage by the devil after the Fall was just, but that Satan exceeded his authority in attempting to chain Christ by death. Thus "it was

brought about that the bonds of many sins in many deaths were loosed

through the death of one whom no sin had preceded."10 In the fifth cen

tury an attempt was made to give the metaphor of freeing from bondage an explicit Scriptural basis in the apochryphal Descensus ad Inferos,

which represents the triumph of the crucified Christ by His binding of the devil and freeing of the patriarchs and prophets from hell.11 The

origins of this legend go back to at least the second century, and the

idea of Christ's storming hell was formally recognized by the Church

with its inclusion in the Apostle's Creed at the Fourth Synod of Sirmium

( 359 ) Gregory the Great ( 540-604 ), whose popularized transmission

of the work of the Fathers was the basis of early medieval theology, also

frequently speaks of Christ's freeing of man from the bonds of sin and

death, and the continuing popularity of this metaphor to express the

doctrine of the Redemption in the later Middle Ages is demonstrated by its adoption in the Sententiae of Peter Lombard ( 1100-1160)?the most

widely read theological textbook of the time.12

man is no longer the battlefield, but the courtroom. Specifically, just as the ransom

theory had been given concrete form by the metaphor of loosing from bondage, the

Anselmian view was embodied in the frequently encountered allegory of the Four

Daughters of God. For a thorough treatment of the various versions of this allegory

and their interrelations see Hope Traver's The Four Daughters of God ( Bryn Mawr,

1907). Although she notices that a fifteenth-century Latin version of the allegory

takes arguments directly from Anselm (p. 26), Traver was apparently unaware of

the connection between the great popularity of the allegory and the new juridical conception of the Redemption.

9 "Per quam mortem destruxit eum, qui habebat mortis imperium, id est, diabo

lum, ut liberaret eos, qui tenebatur a morte" ( Origen cited in Rashdall, Idea of the

Atonement, p. 261 n.). 10 "Factum est enim ut vincula peccatorum multorum in multis mortibus, per

unius imam mortem quam peccatum nullum praecesserat, solverentur" (Augustine, De Trinitate IV, xiii, 17 [PL, xlii, 899] ).

11 The Descensus ad Inferos is translated in The Apocryphal New Testament, ed. M. R. James (Oxford, 1924).

12 Gregory's

use of the traditional imagery occurs in the context of a further in

genious metaphorical extension of the ransom theory in which the Incarnate Christ is offered as a baited hook to the devil, who, having received the payment, is then

pierced by the sharp point of the Saviour's divinity. The arch-deceiver is himself




The theme of Christ's freeing of man from bondage is no less ubiqui tous in Old English verse than in the writings of the Fathers. In Genesis

B, Satan laments the hot-hammered bonds of iron which have oppressed him since his expulsion from heaven, but he hopes to subvert and en

slave the sons of man so that the fallen angels may have them to serve

them on pyssum faestum clomme (1. 408) .13 The poet of Judgment Day JI remembers that all deeds will be revealed on the Last Day and is

spurred to repentance. The only salvation for a wretched soul is the

heavenly Physician Christ, who alone may

aglidene mod gode gehaelen and raeplingas

recene onbindan. (11. 47-48)

In the closing passage of Elene, Cynewulf tells how before God's mercy unlocked his power of religious song, he was synnum asaeled . . . bitrum

gebunden ( 11.1243-44). The author of Christ HI describes the Last Day,

Donne bij) geyced ond geedniwad moncyn J)urh meotud. Micel arisen

dryhtfolc to dome, si^an daej)es bend tolesecS liffruma. (11. 1039-42)

The theme of man's bondage also finds, as one would expect, a prom inent place in treatments of the Harrowing of Hell?a favorite subject of

Old English religious poets. The Exeter Descent into Hell vividly de

tails the plight of the waiting patriarchs and prophets in terms of the

Latin Descensus, and John's praise of the risen Christ expresses their

hope:

ne bi? he no J^aes

nearwe under ni?loc [ . . .

. . . ] J)aes bitre

gebunden under bealuclommum,

Daet he \>y y<5 ne

maege eilen habban, 3onne he his hlafordes hyldo gelyfe?5 3aet hine of psan bendum bicgan wille. (11. 64-68)

defrauded by Christ's final triumph over death (Moralia XXXII, 12-XXXIII, 6

[PL, Lxxvr, 644-77]). The relevant section of the Sententiae reads: "Nunc ergo

quaeramus quomodo per mortem ipsius a diabolo, et a peccato, et poena redempti sumus. A diabolo ergo et a peccato per Christi mortem libera ti sumus, quia ut ait

Apostolus, Rom. 5, in sanguine ipsius justifican sumus; et in eo quid sumus justifi

cati, id est, a peccato soluti, a diabolo sumus liberati, qui nos vinculis peccatorum

tenebat" (PL, cxcn, 795-96). 13 All quotations and line references of Old English poetry are from The Anglo

Saxon Poetic Records, ed. George P. Krapp and Elliot Van Kirk Dobbie ( New York, 1931-53).



502 Rendall

Following the description of the Harrowing in Christ and Satan, the poet exhorts his contemporary audience to give thanks to Christ, for

... he us of haeftum ham gelaedde

up to etSle, J)aer we agan sceolon drihtnes domas, and we in wynnum wunian moton.14 (11. 551-54)

Notation of occurrences of the image could be extended. What follows

will present a detailed examination of the poetic and doctrinal function

of the theme of bondage and freeing from bondage in three works : the

Advent, the Exodus, and Andreas.

The formal coherence of the twelve distinct lyrics or divisions of the

Old English Advent springs from ideas or themes that recur throughout the poem much in the same way that pervasive motifs serve to unify the relatively independent units of a sonnet sequence.15 A recurring theme of bondage in the Advent thus makes an important contribution

to its formal unity. Regarded in the context of medieval attitudes

toward the coming of Christ, the bondage theme is also seen to under

line a main doctrinal point of the poem. Because Christ's incarnation and

subsequent sacrifice were necessi

tated by man's sin, the Church services during the season of Advent ( ex

cept on saint's days) are of a penitential character. The Te Deum is

omitted from the Office, the Gloria in Excelsis is not said at Mass, the

vestments are purple or violet (in the early Middle Ages, they were

black), the altar is left unadorned. Yet the over-all tone of the season

is a mixture of remorse and joy:

awareness of man's sinful condition and

the necessity of repentance is mitigated by rejoicing that the coming of Christ has provided mankind a means of redemption. The mixed tone

of the season is expressed in the New Testament readings for the four

14 The Christ and Satan poet also repeatedly represents the condition of the fallen

angels as one of bondage (e.g., 11. 38-39, 48-50, 57-58, 102-103, 155-58), and

the manuscript illuminations accompanying the poem bear out this verbal emphasis

by their vivid presentation of Satan's wites clom. Reproduced in The Caedmon

Poems, trans. Charles W. Kennedy (London, 1916). 15 In treating the first 439 lines of the Exeter Christ as an

independent work, this

discussion follows Jackson Campbell ( The Advent Lyrics of the Exeter Book [Prince

ton, 1959]), Robert B. Burlin ( The Old English Advent: A Typological Commen

tary [New Haven, 1968]), Greenfield (Critical History), and?according to the

later?"most modern scholars." The unity of the lyrics comprising the Advent itself

has also been much discussed. The presence of recurring themes or motifs in the

twelve divisions was noticed by Campbell and, more recently, has been vigorously

asserted as the structural principle of the poem by Burlin. Greenfield's article, "The

Theme of Spiritual Exile in Christ 1" (noted above) is also an attempt to demon strate the thematic coherence of the poem.




Sundays of Advent that remind the faithful of Christ's threefold coming.

Jackson Campbell cites Bernard's twelfth-century statement of the idea:

"Triplicem enim

ejus adventum novimus : ad homines, in homines, con

tra homines":

This threefold coming means that the anniversary of Christ's actual,

physical birth in Bethlehem was only the most

elementary aspect of

Christ's coming which the liturgy expressed. A second factor was the

coming of Christ in a spiritual

sense into the soul of each individual

believer, and a third sense was an outgrowth of the second, the coming

of Christ as judge.16

The theme of bondage in the Old English Advent relates and gives

powerful expression to the first two of these three aspects of Christ's

coming: His coming ad homines and in homines.

The first four occurrences of the theme stress Christ's advent ad

homines. In the second, fifth, and sixth divisions of the poem, the bond

age theme takes the form of laments by the patriarchs and prophets who await in hell the coming of their Redeemer: in the second division

they describe their plight sorrowing in carcerne (1. 25), in the fifth they implore Christ to illumine those who have long waited in darkness,

synnum bifealdne (1. 117), and in the sixth division the 'wretched cap tives" and "sad prisoners" patiently bidon in bendum hwonne beam

godes / acorn? to cearigum (11. 147-48). The poet utilizes the theme of bondage to represent the condition of

those awaiting Christ's physical advent in the third division of the

poem also, but does it in a different context. He exhorts sancta hierusa lem to lift up its eyes in expectation:

Nu is J)aet beam cymen,

awaecned to wyrpe weorcum Ebrea,

bringen blisse pe benda onlyseS nijyum genedde. (11. 66-69)

This passage reflects the last of a group of Advent antiphons on which the Old English poet largely based his lyrics: "O Hierusalem, civitas Dei

summi, leva in circuital oculos tuos, et vide dominum tuum, quia jam veniet solvere te a vinculis."17 The common

exegetical interpretation of

Jerusalem as both the historical city and the community of Christ's faithful already hints at the meaning in homines. But the Advent poet

16 Campbell, Advent Lyrics, p. 5. The Bernard passage was first noted by Albert

S. Cook ( The Christ of Cynewulf, rev. ed. [Boston, 1909], pp. xxvii-xxviii n. ), who also notes a similar passage in Honorius of Autun.

17 Cited in Cook, Christ of Cynewulf, p. 81.



504 Rendall

is not content to simply mirror the idea of his liturgical source; he elab

orates it. Jerusalem can hope for its deliverance by Christ because the

Saviour Himself suffered bondage. The immediately following verses

go on to explain: Nearopearfe conn, / hu se earma sceal are gebidan, "He knows the suffering of constraint, how the wretched must await

mercy" (11. 69-70). Christ's bondage in the Betrayal, on the Cross, and

in His tomb is the means by which man is released from the bondage

nipum genedde. As Chaucer's Parson expresses the paradox, because of

man's sin the Saviour was betrayed, "and after that was he bounde, that cam for to unbynden us of synne and peyne."18

In the eighth division of the Advent, the poet relates Christ's historical

advent ad homines to His continuing advent in homines by extending the

significance of the appeal for liberation from bondage to men after as

well as before the Incarnation. In the season of Advent the poet and his

ninth-century audience await Christ's spiritual coming and the renewal

of divine grace in their souls just as the patriarchs and prophets awaited

Christ's physical advent at Bethlehem and His descent into hell. At this

time of year, the Anglo-Saxon Church was painfully aware of its con

tinuing bondage by sin and the devil. The faithful pray that Christ will

open the gates of heaven that have long stood locked. They need His

mercy, for Hafa? se

awyrgda wulf tostenced, deor daedscua, dryhten, pin eowde,

wide towrecene. paet ?u, waldend, aer

bl?de geh?htes, jSaet se bealofulla

hyneS heardlice, ond him on haeft nime?

of er usse nioda lust. (11. 256-61)

18 "The Parsons Tale," I, 1. 276, The Poetical Works of Chaucer, ed. F. N. Rob

inson, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Mass., 1957), p. 235. An etymological reading of

nearopearf in this context and conscious juxtaposition of the bondage of man and

of Christ are supported by John's exclamation to the risen Saviour in Christ and

Satan:

Eart pu pis, drihten, dome gewur?ad? We Se gesawon aet sumum cyrre,

pec gelegdon la?ne bend

haef)ene mid hondum. ( 11. 535-38 )

The poet of Judgment Day I also tells how there has been joy in heaven

sif)|)an user haelend waes,

middangeardes meotud, |)urh pa. maestan gesceaft on ful blacne beam bunden f aeste

cearian clomme. ( 11. 64-67 ) The poem's most recent translator, Burlin, weakens and psychologizes nearopearf to "anxiety" (Old English Advent, p. 81). Campbell's "dire need" (Advent Lyrics,

p. 50) and Kennedy's "heavy need" ( The Poems of Cynewulf [New York, 1949], p.

155) are little better. R. K. Gordon comes closer to the poet's intention with "hard

straits" (Anglo-Saxon Poetry [rpt. London, 1954], p. 134).




Finally, a moving passage in the tenth division reiterates this petition,

combining the theme of bondage with that of exile :

We pe, haelend Crist, 3urh ea?medu ealle bidda?

3aet pu gehyre haefta steine, 3inra

niedJ)iowa nergende god, 'iu we sind geswencte ]ûrh

ure sylfra gewill.

Habba? wraecmaecgas wergan gaestas, hetlen helsceajâ, hearde genyrwad, gebunden bealorapum. (11. 358-65)

Campbell notices that in the sixth division of the sequence "we are

conscious throughout. . . that the we theme is being extended. The souls

in hell and the suffering community of living sinners become one, and

there is a great intensification of the meaning and emotion of the

poem."19 This remark is equally true of the Advent as a whole, and a

principal way in which the expanding relevance of the poem's subject is brought home is through the expanding application of the image of

bondage.20 By drawing on the traditional metaphorical connotations of

bondage as well as on the Harrowing of Hell legend, the poet is able to

powerfully express the continuing significance for his contemporaries of Christ's birth.

The bondage theme in the Old English Exodus is not so extensive as in the Advent, yet it provides a clue for still another way in which the

Anglo-Saxon audience may have regarded this allusive poem. In an

opening passage of the Exodus, the poet tells how the people of Egypt suffered captivity for attempting to deny to the Israelites their "cher ished journey":

Swa Jâes faesten dreah fela missera,.

ealdwerige, Egypta folc, J)aes pe hie widefer? wyrnan J)ohton

Moyses magum gif hie metod lete, on langne lust leofes si?es. (11. 49-53)

The phrase weredon toaelnet (1. 202) in reference to the Israelites en

camped on the shores of the Red Sea may be another instance of the

theme if it is to be understood as "deadly nets enclosed them" rather

19 Campbell, Advent Lyrics, p. 21.

20 In his note on 11. 358-65 just quoted above, Burlin comments: "the images of

bondage and captivity are here exposed as ominous metaphor. No longer

are the 'exiles' part of a historical situation where their chains and darkness may be excused as an accident of time. The blame falls squarely and repeatedly

on man himself"

(The Old English Advent, p. 157).



5o6 Rendait

than as "corslets protected them."21 A few lines later the dire straits of

the Hebrews hemmed in between Pharaoh and the sea are emphasized: nahton mar an hwijrft ( 1. 210 ) ; but there is a dramatic reversal in applica tion of this image in the later passage that describes the fate of Pharaoh's

army as the sea rushes over it. The seeming impotence of the Israelites

in the face of the Egyptian host is powerfully contrasted with the ulti

mate captivity of the Egyptians at the hands of God:

Maegen waes on cwealme

faeste gefeterod for?ganges weg searwum aesaeled (11. 469-71)

?"the army was firmly fettered in death, the way of escape cunningly bound."22 Finally, in the last lines of the poem, the theme recurs in a

passage describing the Israelites' celebration of their deliverance from

the Egyptians:

Handa hofon halswur?unge, bli?e waeron, bote gesawon, heddon herereafes, haeft waes onsaeled. (11. 582-84)

J. W. Bright's 1912 article, "The Relation of the Caedmonian Exodus

to the Liturgy," was the first study to demonstrate the poem's relation

ship to the baptismal ceremonies of the Easter vigil.23 More recently, J.

21 Editors are divided on the meaning of waelnet, a word found nowhere else in

OE. The analogous compound searonet has the meaning of "armor net, corslet" in

Beowulf 406; but in Andreas 64 it is clearly meant to be synonymous with inwitwrasn, "hostile fetter," of the preceding line. Werigean can carry the meaning of both

"cover, enclose" and "defend, protect." 22

Again, a passage that has posed serious problems of interpretation. Krapp weg:

MS nep, a hapax legomenon of uncertain meaning that some editors connect with

Icelandic hneppr 'scant/ in positing an OE adjective nep lacking.' Kennedy, for ex

ample, renders for?ganges nep 'with no chance of escape' ( Caedmon Poems, p. 114 ). While the primary sense of searo is 'skill, cunning,' it also can mean by extension 'a

work of skill, war-gear, armor.' Hence some scholars who retain MS nep translate 11. 47ob~47ia "with no chance of escape, bound by their war-gear." Edward B.

Irving, Jr., the most recent editor of the poem, suggests that "the idea that the

Egyptians were entangled in their own accouterments could have come ultimately from the phrase 'subvertit rotas currum' in Exod. 14:25" (The Old English Exodus

[New Haven, 1953], p. 93). While this interpretation is a justifiable attempt to

explain the sudden and seemingly irrelevant introduction of the idea of bondage into the description of the defeat of Pharaoh's army, what follows will show that the

bondage spoken of here is likely to be of more momentous significance. Searwum

aesaeled 'bound by skill, cunningly bound' has parallels in Beowulf 1764, searwum

gesaeled (of arm rings) and in Andreas 1396, searwum gebunden (of the saint at the

hands of the Mermedonians ). 23

J. W. Bright, "The Relation of the Caedmonian Exodus to the Liturgy," MLN, 27 (1912), 97-103.




E. Cross and S. I. Tucker have explicated certain passages of the poem in the light of the common Patristic interpretation of the crossing of the

Red Sea as a type or figure of baptism.24 This equation is Biblical. In

I Corinthians (10:2-6), Paul tells the Jews how all their fathers "were

under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all in Moses were

baptized in the cloud and in the sea. . . . Now these things were done

in a figure of us." Isidore and Bede are equally explicit: "What is the

Red Sea if not blessed baptism in the blood of Christ?"25 Recent studies

of the Exodus poet's use of Patristic etymologies of Biblical names have

demonstrated his thorough familiarity with the commentaries,26 and it

is inconceivable that such a theologically sophisticated writer was not

aware of the relationship between the Exodus and baptism, a gloss on

which, by the authority of either Isidore or Bede, he may well have

found written against the text in his Biblical source.

The predominantly concrete, realistic treatment of the Old Testa

ment story in the Exodus does not, as some critics seem to feel, in itself

invalidate the poem's possible figurai aspect. For figurai interpretation "differs from most of the allegorical forms known to us by the historicity both of the sign and what it signifies." Tertullian ( 160-240), who cham

pioned figurai exegesis as an alternative to the allegorizing approach

espoused by Origen (185-254), "was definitely hostile to spiritualism and refused to consider the Old Testament as mere allegory; according to him, it had real, literal meaning throughout, and even where there was

figurai prophecy, the figure had just as much historical reality as what it

prophesied."27 Augustine was in agreement. Old Testament episodes have autonomous historical and doctrinal context and interest; only in

certain crucial aspects is their figurai importance revealed. The Old Eng lish Exodus cannot be read as an abstract allegory, but it should be read as the product of a tradition that almost automatically invested Old Testament episodes with their New Testament significance.28

24 J. E. Cross and S.I. Tucker, "Allegorical Tradition in the Old English Exodus,*'

Neophilologus, 44 (i960), 122-27. 25

"Quid mare Rubrum, nisi baptismus est Christi sanguine consecratus?" ( cited in Cross and Tucker, "Allegorical Tradition," p. 122).

2(i Irving, Old English Exodus, pp. 19, 72, 74, 89; Fred C. Robinson, "The Sig

nificance of Names in Old English Literature," Anglia, 86 ( 1968), 25-29, and "Some Uses of Name Meanings in Old English Poetry," Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 69

(1968), 161-71. 27 Erich Auerbach, "Figura," in Scenes from the Drama of European Literature

(New York, 1959), pp. 54 and 30. 28 Thus Irving, it seems to me, may be confusing the overt didacticism and point

for-point correspondence of allegory with the isolated similarities that define a

typological relationship in asserting that "no sane reader would be likely to call Exodus a poem about baptism" because the poem is "so historical and is devoted to



5o8 Rendall

Modern students are thus correctly admonished to bear the common

medieval equation of the Exodus and baptism in mind in their attempts to understand this poem. But figurai exegesis allows a single Old Testa

ment episode to prefigure several events of Christ's life and the life of

His Church. As early as the fourth century the eastern Father, Aphraates, had developed a parallel between the Exodus and the Harrowing of

Hell: "At the Passover the Jews escaped the bondage of Pharaoh, while

we on the day of crucifixion are delivered from the bondage of Satan. . . .

Moses diverted the sea for them and made them pass through it; our

Saviour opens hell and shatters its portals when he went down into it

and opened and marked out the way for all who were to believe in

him."29 The relationship between the Exodus and the Harrowing was

also implied in the Holy Saturday liturgy that Bright felt to be a primary source of the poem. Successive verses of the Exsultet chant praise Holy

Saturday: "This is the night in which of old Thou didst bring forth our

fathers the children of Israel out of Egypt, making them to pass through the Red Sea dry-shod. This then is the night which by a pillar of fire

removed the darkness of sins. . . . This is the night in which Christ broke

the chains of death and rose a conqueror from hell."30 The vitality of

this equation through the Old English period is attested by its incorpora tion in a popular fourteenth-century compendium of Scriptural types, the Speculum Humanae Salvationis. In a Middle English translation, the

relevant passage of the Speculum reads:

Pharao and alle his folk

godde smote and out ledying The Childere of Israel to the londe with mylke & hony flowyng So crist woundid the feende and his foulle assembling

the story as story, drawing no analogues, pointing out no

specific doctrine" (Old

English Exodus, p. 15). 29

Aphraates, cited in Jean Dani?lou, From Shadows to Reality: Studies in the

Biblical Typology of the Fathers (London, i960), p. 192. 30 "Haec nox est, in qua primum patres nostros filios Israel eductos de Aegypto,

mare Rubrum sicco vestigio transir? fecisti. Haec igitu nox est quae peccatorum tenebras columnae illuminatione purgavit.

. . . Haec nox est in qua destructis

vinculis mortis, Christus ab inferis victor ascendit." The two passages are separated

by a single verse that underlines the relevance of these parallel historical events

for contemporary man: "Haec nox est quae hodie per Universum mundum, in

Christo credentes, a vitiis saeculi, et caligine peccatorum segregatos reddit gratiae, sociat sanctitati" (in Prosper Gueranger, The Liturgical Year: Passiontide and Holy

Week [London, 1911], p. 563). For the presence of this chant in the ninth-century

liturgy see O. B. Hardison, Jr., Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle

Ages (Baltimore, 1965), p. 147.




and ledde seints out of helle til eternale feding.31

The Exodus poet's awareness of the Harrowing of Hell parallel may underlie his reference to the Egyptians as eorp werod (1. 194), a phrase

which, as Fred C. Robinson has shown, seems to be based on the Patris

tic etymologizing of the name Aegyptus as tenebrae. That Egypt means

'darkness' was taken to signify, among other things, that the Egyptians were

figures of the fallen angels whom God had cast into darkness.32

The Harrowing parallel may also underlie the often-noted way in which

the poem presents the destruction of Pharaoh's army as though it were

the result of a military engagement.33 This second tradition of figurai interpretation and the background of the bondage motif in the Descen sus legend certainly provide a tenable explanation for the early refer ence to the Egyptians' suffering long captivity for attempting to deny the Israelites their "cherished journey" (11. 49-53, quoted above) and for the otherwise puzzling description of the vanquished Egyptians as

faeste gefeterod, searwum aesaeled: they are fettered and bound as is Satan in hell after the Harrowing. The Israelites depart with Moses and the saints in hell depart with Christ, and in both cases, haeft waes

onsaeled.

In Andreas the motif of bondage is utilized to emphasize and extend the significance of the saint's imitatio Christi. According to V. A. Kolve,

"Figures do not cease with the Ascension of Christ, but those that re

main or appear thereafter are 'figures' in a different way: they are pre ceded by their fulfillment, rather than serving to imitate its future event.

The saints and martyrs who come after are spoken of as figures of Christ."34 In Andreas, explicit statements of a parallel between the suf

ferings of the saint and those of Christ indicate that this tradition of

"post-figuration" was an ingredient in the poet's conception of his sub

ject. Early in the poem the Saviour describes His passion to Andreas and continues :

Ic adreah feala

yrm]3a ofer eorc-an. Wolde ic eow on Son

J)urh bli?ne hige bysne onstellan, swa on

ell]3eode ywed wyr?e?. (11. 969-72)

31 The Mir?me of Mans Saluacionne, ed. Alfred H. Huth (London, 1888), p. 110. 32

Robinson, "Significance of Names," pp. 26?27. 33 The sea-wall "wishes to decide the battle" (wolde . . . hilde gesceaden, 1. 505)

with "God's foe" ( godes andsaca, 1. 503 ) by its embraces, and the poet's final com ment on the Egyptians' fate is the simple hie wid god wunnon (1. 515).

34 V. A. Kolve, The Play Called Corpus Christi (Stanford, 1966), p. 81.



5io Rendall

Later, Andreas directly compares his three days of suffering at the

hands of the man-eating Mermedonians with Christ's day upon the

Cross and goes on to echo the Saviour's cry with the words: hwaet for laetest ?u me? ( 1. 1413 ). This much of the Andreas-Christ parallel the

poet derived from the apocryphal Acts of Andrew and Matthias.35 Seiz

ing upon and developing these hints, however, he made Andreas' imitatio

Christi something much more meaningful than it was in his source. By a stress upon the bondage motif not found in either the original Acts or

the Old English prose version of this saint's life, the Andreas poet is

able to parallel Andreas' rescue of his fellow missionary Matthias with

Christ's salvation of man.36

Frequent references to bondage in the later action of the poem (11.

1057-1722) serve to strengthen the relationship between the sufferings of Andreas and Christ. Christ singles out His bondage by the Jews along

with the Scourging and Crucifixion in stating that His passion should serve as an example of Andreas' sufferings (me bysmredon bennum

faestne / wer as wansaelige, 11. 962-63 ). Following the saint's rescue of

Matthias, Satan incites the Anthropophagi against Andreas, and God

appears to warn him that

Nis seo stund latu

JDaet pe waelreowe witum belecga]}

cealdan clommum.37 (11. 1210-12)

Andreas is then seized by the man-eaters, his hands are bound (1. 1222), he is dragged through the streets, and thrown into prison. Prevented from

executing Andreas by a miraculous appearance of the Cross, the Anthro

pophagi resolve at least to scorn him as he lies in prison bendum faestne 0- ^S?)- Satan then taunts the saint with his apparently vain trust in

God's aid:

"Hwylc is J}aes mihtig ofer middangeard,

J)aet he J^e alyse of leoffubendum, manna cynnes, ofer mine est?" (11. 1372?74)

In reply, Andreas makes reference to Christ's deliverance of souls and

humiliation of Satan in the Harrowing of Hell:

35 In The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, viii

(Edinburgh, 1867), 521, 524. The Old English poet was working from a now

non-extant Latin rescension of the original Greek. 36 The Old English prose version of the Andreas is conveniently printed in

Bright's Anglo-Saxon Reader, rev. James R. Hulbert (New York, 1935), PP- 113-28. 37 Neither Christ's mention of His own bondage nor the warning to Andreas is

paralleled in the Acts.




Him pa

Andreas agef ondsware:

"Hwaet, me ea<5e aelmihtig god, ni?a neregend,

se 8e in niedum iu

gefaestnode fyrnum clommum!"38 (11. 1375-78)

This reference to the Harrowing along with a similar one a few lines

earlier89 seems particularly relevant to the action of the first half of the

poem (11. 1-1056). Andreas opens with Matthias' bringing of the Gospel to Mermedonia. The Anthropophagi seize Matthias, bind his hands

feondes craefte ( 1. 49 ), weave a searonet for the saint ( 1. 64 ), and throw

him in a dungeon.40 He is not alone in his captivity by the devil-directed

Mermedonians. God assures Matthias that through Andreas He will free

him from fetters (pe alyse of pyssum leoSubendum),

ond ealle pa. menigo pe pe mid wuniaS on nearonedum.41 (11. 100-102)

The Anthropophagi prepare to eat Matthias; but God is mindful of his servant afflicted with "bonds of torture" (witebendum, 1. 108), "bound

with fetters" (belocen leo?ubendum, 1.-164), and He calls Andreas to

his rescue, telling Andreas that his brother lies in prison bendum faest (1. 184). Finally, after a passage describing Andreas' voyage and present

ing his long dialogue with the Helmsman, the first half of the poem ends with the saint's triumphant liberation of Matthias and the other

prisoners from their bonds. Andreas prays to God for aid,

ond pa gelaedde of leo?ubendum fram J)am faestenne on fri<5 dryhtnes tu ond hundteontig geteled rime, swylce feowertig,

generede fram ni?e, ( p&ex he naenigne forlet under burglocan bennum faestne).42 (11. 1033-38)

38 This is the poet's elaboration of a dialogue in the Acts that contains no reference to the saint's bondage or to the Harrowing ( Ante-Nicene Fathers, viii, 524 ).

39 When the devil reveals Andreas to the Mermedonians and advises them to

take vengeance, the saint rebukes Satan by reminding him of his defeat by Christ

paer pe cyninga cining clamme belegde (1. 1192). 40

Compare the account in the Acts: "the men of that city laid hold of him . . . and led him away to prison" (Ante-Nicene Fathers, viii, 517).

41 The same point is made in God's later instructions to Andreas:

{hi hi?e secan scealt, leofne alysan of la?ra hete,

ond eal f>aet mancynn Ipe him mid wunige

el{)eodigra inwitwrasnum

bealuwe gebundene. (11. 943-47) The emphasis on the prisoners' bondage in these passages is the poet's (cf. Ante Nicene Fathers, viii, 521, 517).

42 Compare the Acts: "And there were in all two hundred and seventy men and

forty-nine women whom Andrew released from the prison" (Ante-Nicene Fathers, viii, 522 ).



512 Rendali

Critics of Andreas have noted that the saint's journey to Mermedonia to free Matthias and the others from the Anthropophagi is reminiscent

of Beowulf's voyage to Denmark to rescue Heorot from Grendel, but

given the explicit statements of the imitatio Christi theme in the poem and the elaboration of its source discussed above, it seems likely that

what the poet really wanted his audience to be reminded of by Andreas'

divinely commanded journey is the coming of Christ to the world to free

mankind from the bondage of the devil. I do not champion a "pan-allegorical" approach to Old English litera

ture. This paper has dealt with a theme whose Biblical and Patristic

tradition was not the possession of a few well-read clerics only, but was central to the early medieval view of the Christian story. At the same time, since Old English religious verse is so closely based upon

well-established tradition, one must avoid belaboring the obvious. Any one who reads this poetry will bring to it a knowledge of its Biblical

background and at least a general idea of the traditional interpretations of that background. But his ideas about the Redemption are much more

likely to be structured by the Anselmian theology of Paradise Lost, a

theology widely accepted by modern Christians, than by the cruder "ransom theory" of the early Middle Ages. In Old English religious poetry, bondage is a pervasive image for man's fallen condition, and deliverance from bondage is the primary metaphor by which Christ's salvation of man is expressed. Alertness to these implications of the

bondage theme considerably sharpens our appreciation of the artistic and doctrinal sophistication of these poems.



Freeing from Bondage in OE Religious Poetry

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