Ælfric’s Homily for Lent 1 (CH I.

11) in Its Liturgical Context:

A Case Study
(Presented at 44th International Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo, May 7, 2009)

When we consider the contexts of Ælfric’s material—particularly the Catholic Homilies—a

central context must be the context from which and for which they were originally composed: the
monastic liturgy. If we wish to understand how Ælfric goes about the task of interpreting Scripture
and therefore how he uses, adapts, or ignores patristic sources dealing with those texts, we cannot
ignore the influence of the liturgy. The way I’ll proceed is to begin by offering some suggestions on
how the monastic liturgy interprets Scripture, then I’ll identify two features of interest from the
monastic liturgies for the First Sunday in Lent, explain these features, then look at Ælfric’s homily
for the First Sunday in Lent to see what our liturgical awareness has gained us.

Scripture Interpretation in the Monastic Liturgy

I’d like to focus today on three major methods through which the liturgy interprets
Scripture: 1) discursive analysis, 2) selection, and 3) pregnant juxtaposition. Discursive analysis
appears in composed liturgical texts like prayers, gospel antiphons, proper prefaces, hymns and
homilies. This is where a liturgical text explicitly makes an interpretive move—often applying some
point from a Scriptural text to the congregation in a moral or typological sense. Examples of this on
your handout include the Proper Preface and Benedictions from the Leofric Missal. Homilies clearly
fall into this category even though we don’t always consider them as textual elements of liturgies.
Selection is a broad category that ranges from highlighting individual verses—say, for use as
Little Chapters at Vespers or Lauds—to identifying large chunks of text as particularly suitable for
certain occasions—like selecting Gospel or Epistle texts for Mass. Isolating a single verse out of a
text highlights it. And even more so if that verse gets repeated for the whole rest of the liturgical
season! For instance, the two little versicle and response pairs on the handout from Ps 90 are
repeated daily until Mid-Lent. The effect is that these two verse snippets become an integral part of
the monastic experience of Lent. So, whether big or small, selection makes a difference and alters,
sometimes subtly, sometimes profoundly, how a monastic would encounter that same passage again
whether inside or outside of the liturgy.
This principle of selection is the starting place for the third and final interpretative method
found in the liturgy. Pregnant juxtaposition starts with selection, but kicks it up a notch by putting
two or more selections in relation with one another. That is, the liturgy may take two passages from
two entirely different parts of the canon but by placing them next to each other has created, in
essence, a new Scriptural concept or narrative. Some of these juxtapositions are smooth—like the
first one under pregnant juxtaposition on the handout. We have two gnomic statements on the
same theme and they flow into one another without a hitch. Others are more challenging and take
on the character of a fundamentally under-determined text. That is, you have two concepts
intentionally placed together but with no discursive direction as to how they relate. The under-
determined character requires the reader and the whole reading community to actively participate in
the process of meaning making by creating comprehensible connections. The second example gives
a flavor of a more under-determined juxtaposition. Therefore I modify this connection with
“pregnant” because the connection between texts is loaded with potential meaning, but the liturgy
leaves it in a potential state, not making it quite explicit.
So—these are three major mechanisms through which Scripture interpretation happens in
the early medieval monastic liturgies: discursive analysis, selection, and pregnant juxtaposition.
Moving on to the actual liturgies and Ælfric’s homily, the first item of liturgical interest I’d
like to address is the appointed Epistle text, 2 Cor 6:2b-7. Looking at this text on a literal level, it’s
part of a larger argument. 2 Cor 5:11-6:13 is a defense of Paul’s ministry to the ungrateful
Corinthians. Paul is insisting here that he is a legitimate agent of reconciliation from God and is
assisting in the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy that God would turn to his people at the acceptable
time and in the day of salvation. Thus, Paul insists that that time is now. God’s reconciliation is
happening now and that he is determined to make that happen despite the ill-treatment that he has
and is receiving.
Through the act of liturgical selection, however, the meaning is radically transformed. Shorn
of the Isaiah passage to which he is referring, Paul’s words take on a whole new meaning. The
passage opens with the apostolic insistence, “Behold, now is the acceptable time, now is the day of
salvation…” Suddenly, this is no longer an invitation for God’s people to recognize Paul as an agent
of reconciliation but instead a statement about the salvific possibilities within the Lenten season.
Likewise, Paul’s rehearsal of his apostolic woes takes on a new character. Enduring with patience,
going without food and sleep are not cruel hardships forced on Paul and his companions, but ascetic
disciplines through which the salvific potential of the penitential season may be realized.
While these new meanings are hinted by the selection of this passage as the Epistle for the
day, these meanings are cemented by the responsories of the Night Office. Using only the principles
of pregnant juxtaposition, one of the appointed responsories (which is on your handout) makes
these meanings incontestable:
R. Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. Let us commend
ourselves with much patience, with many fasts, through the weapons of righteousness of the
power of God.
V: In all things let us present ourselves as servants of God that our ministry may not be
slandered. Through the weapons of righteousness of the power of God.
If you didn’t know otherwise, you might never guess that this text is not directly from the hand of
Paul but, instead, is a clever weaving together of phrases from six different verses completely
reordered from how they appear in Paul’s letter. Every single word is biblical—and yet the
rearrangement and its liturgical placement creates a whole new set of meanings.
Ælfric’s homily shares more than a passing resemblance to the responsory’s logic in lines
196-201:

Just as God’s law commands that we should give pay a tenth of all things from our
year’s toiling to God, so we should also in these tithing-days tithe our bodies with
restraint to the praise of God. We should prepare ourselves in all things just as God’s
thanes after the apostle’s teaching in great patience and in holy vigils, in fasting, in
chastity of mind and body…1

Ælfric, like the responsory, begins with a discussion of time, then transitions to the necessary
preparations of ascetical activity, reminding his hearers that they should be God’s thanes. From that
point Ælfric continues with the 2 Cor passage into a discussion of chastity. While Ælfric may or may
not be consciously quoting the responsory, there is no doubt that he has completely followed the
lectionary’s lead concerning the meaning and referents of the 2 Cor passage.
In surveying the liturgies for the First Sunday in Lent in the Benedictine Revival sources, one
very large anomaly stands out: the sheer omnipresence of Vulgate Psalm 90 (that is—Psalm 91 in
English language Bibles that follow the Hebrew numbering scheme). And this is our second item of
liturgical interest. As you can see on your handout under Liturgical Feature of Interest 2, all of the
sung lesser propers—the Introit, Gradual, Tract, Offertory, and Communion—are from this psalm;

1 Ll. 197-201. Swa swa godes .æ. us bebyt þæt we scolon ealle þa ðinc þe us gescotað of ures geares teolunge gode þa
teoðunge syllan: Swa we scolon eac on ðisum teoðingdagum urne lichaman mid forhæfednysse gode to lofe teoðian. We
sculon us gearcian on eallum þingum swa swa godes þegnas æfter ðæs apostoles tæcunge: on
miclum geþylde: & on halgum wæccum: on fæstenum: on clænnysse. modes & lichaman.
the tract gives almost the whole thing, lacking only a three verse section from the middle. Turning to
the Daily Office, the verses keep coming here as well, the versicles for Lauds and Vespers
continuing until Mid-Lent as I mentioned before. As you can see, the liturgy almost hammers us
with verses 4 and 11.
Ps 90 describes the blessedness of those who “dwell in the help of the Highest and abide in
the protection of the God of heaven.” It’s a familiar text as the monks recite it every night at
Compline. While the recitation at Compline serves to highlight verses like 5 and 6 which promise
protection against terrors in the night and that which walks in the shadows, placing the psalm here
in close proximity to this Gospel text makes other verses jump out: The promise in v. 6c against
“the incursion of the noon-day demon” takes on a whole new level of meaning given Satan’s
appearance to Jesus. The mention of the lion, serpent, and dragon in v. 13 suddenly make
connections to metaphors for Satan from 1 Peter, Genesis, and Revelation. Last but not least, this
psalm contains the only Scripture quoted by Satan in the temptation: for he will command his angels
concerning you and they will bear you in their hands lest you dash your foot upon a stone.
In addition to these new meanings caused by the psalm’s juxtaposition with the Gospel,
some subtle editorial changes further alter the psalm’s meaning. First, the verb tenses are tinkered
with. While most of the verbs of the psalm are in the future tense, the liturgy alternates between past
and future. The effect is to personalize the verses and to put the participant into an on-going
narrative of God’s care: He has shaded you with his wings; V: And under his pinions you shall
trust; God has commanded his angels concerning you; V: That they will keep you in all your ways.
Second, while the tract presents almost the entire psalm, its omissions are telling. It removes the
declaration that the blessed will see the retribution of the sinners and omits the hope that “no evil
will come near you.” Thus, in the verses retained, the liturgy promises the personal presence of both
divine and angelic aid (that’s those repeated verses 4 and 11) but it no longer promises no testing or
temptation.
Turning to the homily, in Jesus’ second temptation, Satan carries him to the pinnacle of the
temple and invites him to shoot down, citing the psalm as proof that angels will protect Jesus and
bear him up. Ælfric states:
Here the devil began to quote holy Scriptures but he lied in their exposition because
he is a liar and no truthfulness is in him rather he is the father of all lying. This was not
written concerning Christ as [the devil] had said but is written concerning holy men. They
need the help of angels in this life that the devil might not tempt them as severely as he
 could. God is so faithful to mankind that he has set his angels as guardians for us that they
should not permit the cruel devils to destroy us. They may test us, but they can not compel
us to any evil except what we do of our own will through the evil incitement of these devils.
We will not be perfected unless we are tested; through the testing we will grow whenever we
renounce the devil and all his teaching and when we approach our Lord with faith and love
and good works and if we should slip immediately we must rise again and eagerly amend
what was broken.
Thus, Ælfric (agreeing with Haymo) judges Satan guilty of a bad interpretation; the psalm
doesn’t refer to Jesus but to holy men. Rather quickly, and departing from Haymo, he makes the
turn from the abstract third person to the concrete first person. “God is so faithful to mankind that
he has set his angels as guardians for us.” The words that Ælfric gives to his monks about tempting,
testing, and divine protection resonate with the Psalm especially as we encounter it in the tract. God
will protect them. Evil will indeed come near, but God and his angels will remain with them even
though they fall
What these two examples show us, is that the liturgy is not a direct source for Ælfric. That is,
he doesn’t quote or cite words from prayers or propers. Instead, the liturgy functions on a more
pervasive level. By the time he sits down to compose, the liturgy has already directed how he hears
and understands these Scriptures. He knows what 2 Cor 6:2b-7 means because of how the liturgy
has presented it; he hears Ps 90 on Lent I through the lens of the tract. Indeed, Ælfric’s homily itself
plays its appointed role—it is the element of discursive analysis with his community’s liturgy.
Ælfric’s homily takes up under-determined meanings within the liturgy and implicitly determines
some, while leaving aside others. Ultimately the liturgy is not just the context for the homily. Rather,
the homily is simply the most discursive piece within the liturgy itself.