The Liturgy and The Old English Descent Into Hell

The Liturgy and the Old English "Descent into Hell"
Author(s): Patrick W. Conner

Source: The Journal of English and Germanic Philology , Apr., 1980, Vol. 79, No. 2
(Apr., 1980), pp. 179-191
Published by: University of Illinois Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27708640
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0363-694/80/0400-0179101.30/0
? 1980 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
THE LITURGY AND THE OLD ENGLISH

"DESCENT INTO HELL"
Patrick W. Conner, West Virginia University
One of the most intriguing questions concerning Medieval poetry, and

especially Old English poetry, has been, "What did they do with it?"
While the so-called New Critics ridiculed such questions not so many
years ago, they never quite drove them out of Old English studies. Too
many poems, such as "Fates ..." and "Fortunes of Men," versifications
of the Pater Noster and the Credo, and those puzzling "Maxims," have
always suggested fascinating contexts in which they must have been
read. Even the elegies, which are fully successful without contextual
embellishments, lead the most objective critic to ransom his objectivity
and to wonder what kind of intensely melancholic poetry-reading
yielded up "The Wanderer" and "The Ruin."
Of course, there are always theories. Much purely Germanic poetry
may have been related to tests of knowledge in pagan kingship rituals.
The Elder Edda has been nicely examined for such poems.1 As con
vincing as such studies are, their proofs have often to be psychological
rather than purely logical, as are so many of the proofs concerning the
pre-Christian Teutons.
One context in Old English poetry that can be treated with some
certainty, however, is the liturgical context. There, we have texts
beyond the poems to guide us in our comparisons. "The Advent
Lyrics" are a case in point, their relationship to Nativity antiphons
and other liturgical structures of the Advent season having been dis
covered by Albert Cook in 1900.2 There are also the poetic sermons
of the Vercelli book which, sprinkled in a book of homilies and given
over to preaching, lead one to believe that Ingeld's meter may indeed
have had something to do with Christ. But particularly interesting
for its liturgical context, which has not gone completely unnoticed
heretofore, is the Exeter Book's "Descent into Hell."3
i Modern study of this problem begins with W. H. Vogt, "Der fr?germanische
Kultredner," Acta Philologica Scandinavica, 2 (1927), 250-63. The basic study, how
ever, is Jan de Vries' "Om Eddaens Visdomdigtning," Arkiv for nordisk filologi, 50
(1934), 1-59. Also see Jere Fleck, "Konr-Ottarr-Geirro?r: A Knowledge Criterion for
Succession to the Germanic Sacred Kingship," Scandinavian Studies, 42 (1970), 39-49.
2 Albert Cook, The Christ of Cynewulf (1900; rpt. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University
Microfilms, Inc., 1965), pp. 71-72.
179

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i8o Conner
Unlike most medieval poems devoted to the Harrowing-of-Hell

theme, "The Descent into Hell" does not depend on the apocryphal
Gospel of Nicodemus. In fact, there is nothing in the poem that is im
mediately dependent on the Nicodemus, while everything?in form,
in theme, or both?can be traced to the Passiontide liturgy. We may
even pinpoint its liturgical analogues more carefully in the season.
"The Descent into Hell" is a conflation of materials from the Mass
and Divine Office of Holy Saturday.
The two celebrations which are unique to the Holy Saturday rites
and which are reflected in the two parts of "The Descent into Hell"
are the Light Service and the Baptismal Service. The former is a cele
bration of Christ's resurrection symbolized by a priest's striking a new
fire from flint, reminiscent of His life springing from the stony tomb.
Once the fire is struck and blessed, it is used to light the Paschal
Candle from which the rest of the candles in the church are lit. The
dawning of the resurrection day is the mythical parallel to that ritual.
The Baptismal Service is comprised of a sequence of readings from
the prophets, predicting Christ's resurrection of which Baptism is a
representation; the recitation of the Litany of the Saints into whose
company the soul is admitted through Baptism; the blessing of the
font and water; the Baptism, itself; and the resolve to live always
with Christ.
The Old English poem recreates the symbology of the Light Service
in its first fifty-five lines. Lines 1-16 are based upon an antiphon ap
propriate to the Easter Vigil; lines 17-55 describe the coming of
Christ in a great light to those who had dwelt in the darkness of hell.
Much of the rest of the poem is put in the mouth of John the Baptist
and is based on the Baptismal Service. With lines 59-75 John praises
Christ and thanks Him for His presence, much as does a priest in the
blessing of the font and previous to the Litany; lines 76-106 are a
sequence of apostrophes to the events in Christ's life which led to His
baptism and they correspond to the series of readings from the prophets;
lines 107-37 (end) are a final praise and thanksgiving to Christ for
the example of His own baptism and provides closure appropriate
to both ritual and poem: "Sie pees symle meotude pone!"
The poem's prologue, recalling the well-known quern quaeritis trope
with Mary, the mother of James, and Mary Magdalene approaching
3 For references en passant to the liturgy and this poem, see Genevi?ve Grotty,
"The Exeter 'Harrowing of Hell': a Reinterpretation," PMLA, 54 (1934), 349?58;
also Richard Meaker Trask, "The Descent into Hell of the Exeter Book," Neu
philologische Mitteilungen, 72 (1971), 419-35

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Liturgy and OE "Descent into Hell" 181
the Holy Sepulcher?all a traditional emblem for the resurrection

depends on an antiphon used at the end of the Holy Saturday service.
The source of this prologue is generally attributed to Scripture (see
Matt. 28:1), which is undeniably the origin of the words.5
Vespere autem sabbati quae lucesit in prima
sabbati: venit Maria Magdalene, et altera
Maria, videre sepulcrum, alleluia.
And in the end of the seventh day when it

began to dawn on the first day of the
week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary
came to see the sepulcher, alleluia.
But it is demonstrable that the Vespere autem antiphon used before

and after the "Magnificat" at the end of the Holy Saturday Mass and in
the vigil of the resurrection is a more likely immediate source, con
sidering the context of the poem as a whole.
If the distinction between the antiphonal and the scriptural sources
seems a niggling one, since both are worded in exactly the same way,
the point to be made is that "The Descent into Hell," like the "Ad
vent Lyrics," has close liturgical associations which may be used to
understand better some of its imagistic and structural qualities. The
unity of the poem's structure is recognized on the liturgical level when
the Holy Saturday Mass is shown to be the source of the Old English
references to the visitation of the women, the apostrophes to Gabriel,
Mary, and Jerusalem?for example?and the allusions to Baptism.
But the prologue, based then on the Vespere autem, should not be
thought to extend to the first twenty-three lines of the poem?the tra
ditional point of view (see n. 5)?but only through the first sixteen
lines. Krapp and Dobbie have made this division evident by indenting
the seventeenth line, a practice used in their edition to indicate divi
sions of thought not represented in the manuscript. But the poet him
self has indicated the division through the use of litotes (11. 15a?16),
which is often employed to make a final statement about an idea or
4 O. B. Hardison, Jr. (Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages
[Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1965], p. 166) claims that the visit to the
tomb was "the accepted and traditional symbol for the resurrection."
5 James Hampton Kirkland (A Study of the Anglo-Saxon Poem: The Harrowing
of Hell ([Halle, 1885], p. 11) saw Matt. 28:1 as the major source for the prologue,
although Mark and Luke are used for lines 16-23 which he also considered a part
of the prologue; Julius Cramer ("Quelle, Verfasser, und Text des altenglischen
Gedichtes 'Christi H?llenfahrt'," Anglia, 19 [1897], 138-39) claims that although
Matthew may have influenced the first fifteen lines, such influence is purely acci
dental since the poet was using an Easter tradition drawn from all the Gospels.

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i82 Conner
image in Old English poetry, therefore isolating the idea, and con
ferring upon it a sense of completeness.
[ Ongunnon him on uhtan 3e{)elcunde masgO
J gierwan to geonge; wiston g?mena gemot
I ae]3elinges lie eorcSasrne bej)eaht.
Woldan werigu wif wope bimaenan
aejDelinges dea? ane hwile,
reonge bereotan. Raest wses acolad,
heard waes hinsi?; haele? waeron modge,
pe hy set ?>am beorge bli?e fund?n.
Cwom seo murnende Maria on dasgred,
heht hy of)re mid eorles dohtor.
< Sohton sarigu tu sigebearn godes
senne in f>ast eor?asrn paer hi ser wiston
âet hine gehyddan hseleS Iudea;
wendan past he on {âm beorge bidan sceolde,
ana in f>aere easterniht. Huru f)ass o{>er ping
wiston ?>a wifmenn, pa. hy on weg cyrdon! (11. 1-16)6
What is particularly interesting, insofar as liturgical representation
is carried over into the poem, is that the poem repeats the antiphon as
it would be repeated before and after the "Magnificat." The Latin text
provides the material for lines 1-3; lines 4-8 give a motivation for the
women's visit (extreme grief) and foreshadow the mystery they bli?e
fund?n at the tomb. Lines 9-13 repeat the ideas of the antiphon; lines
14-17 provide the closure we have come to expect in an Old English
prologue. But since the Vespere autem is repeated in the ritual before
and after the "Magnificat," the repetition of its thematic content in
this prologue recalls its use in the Mass and Divine Office. The double
stress on what the women could expect to find signifies through litur
gical configuration the kind of promise and optimism appropriate to
the day of baptism.
The succeeding lines, to 23a, are not organically related to the previ
ous lines. Although they mention the coming of the angels and the
opening of the tomb, they do not mention the grieving women. In
fact, there is every indication that the opening of the tomb by the
angel was thought to take place before the women arrived there. This
is supported by the Quern quaeritis trope in the Regularis Concordia
where the women are shown the already opened tomb and the empty
shroud.7 But "The Descent into Hell" offers an even stronger textual
6 The Old English text cited here and elsewhere in this paper is that of George
Philip Krapp and Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie, eds., The Exeter Book, The Anglo
Saxon Poetic Records, in (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1936). The text is on
pp. 219-22, the notes on pp. 356-59.
7 Thomas Symons, ed., Regularis Concordia (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons,
Ltd., 1953), P- 5?- The trope, however, was performed on Easter Sunday when the

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Liturgy and OE ''Descent into Heir 183
support for the separation of the visiting women from the visitation
of the angels described in lines 17-23. We are told that the women
Ongunnon him on uhtan, "began at dawn." A few lines later we read
that Mary Cwom on d gred, "came at dawn." But dawn came in at
least two degrees among the Germanic peoples. Uhtan was pre-dawn
or that point just before the sun was visible. D gred is later, after
light is visible.8 Line 17, describing the descent of the angels, uses on
uhtan as an indication of the time of that event, too. The poet indicates,
then, that at the same time that the women had decided to go to
Christ, He had descended into Hell. Their efforts to bring comfort
to the Son of God are allegorical representations of the much greater
solace He brings to the sons of men. On d gred indicates that the
women have progressed toward their destination just as lines 33-42a
indicate Christ's progression toward His ultimate destination, the con
quering of death. It is, then, entirely appropriate that the Vespere
autem should be employed here. It has the same temporal references
as would be found in the vigil, its liturgical context, which ends with
the dawning of the day of the Resurrection and the angel's saying,
Non est hic; surrexit sicitt praedixerat.9 It is important in the symbology
of Baptism that the Holy Sabbath ritual is basically a preparation for
the Resurrection.
To this point in the poem, the speaker has shown only his primary
voice, that of the narrating celebrant of the liturgy. But liturgical
celebrants, pagan and Christian, traditionally have one or more
secondary voices. The origin of this structure may be most obvious in
the form of the present-day s?ance in which the secondary voice of
the leader emerges as the voice of the summoned spirit. In the Holy
Liturgy one finds the celebrant speaking in the voice of Mary, for
example, when chanting the "Magnificat," or David, or Isaiah, or
Christ Himself. While not shamanistic, at least in the usual sense, some
holy manifestation is made personally present. "The Lord doth magnify
my soul," not "her soul." The celebrant's soul is magnified by the ex
tension afforded to him through whom the Virgin speaks.
This same principle governs the voices in "The Descent into Hell."
The primary voice is the celebrant's narration; the secondary voice is
the personal voice of John the Baptist.
Scholars, however, have debated John's claim for some time because
consummation of the visit was more appropriate as a symbol of the Resurrection;

see above, n. 4.
8 Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, trans, and ed. James Steven Stallybrass
(1883; rPt- New York: Dover, 1966), 11, 747.
9 "He is not here, He arose as He said He would" (Symons, p. 50).

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184 Conner
the use of a dual pronoun in the last sentence makes an attribution
to him grammatically improbable if not impossible.
Swylce ic pe halsige, haelend user,
fore [{jjinum cildhade, cyninga selast,
ond for Iordane in Iudeum,

(wit une in jDaere burnan baldan aetgaedre).
Oferwurpe ?>u mid ?>y wsetre, weoruda dryhten,
bli{)e mode ealle burgwaran,
swylce git Iohannis in Iordane
mid })y fullwihte faegre onbryrdon
ealne f>isne middangeard. Sie ?>aes symle meotude pond
(11. 118-19, 131-37)
Lines 118-32 have all the references proper to any speech John might
make. Christ's childhood, the river Jordan, and His baptism therein
foreshadowing, by the way, the poem's series of apostrophes to Christ
all remind one of the associations between Christ and John.10 But the
problem has always been the pronoun git, "you two," followed by
Iohannis. If our reconstructed grammars are to have any integrity at
all, we must agree with Holthausen on this point, "da? doch nat?r
lich nur: 'ihr beide, (du und) Johannes' bedeuten kann, nicht: 'du
und ich Johannes,' wie Cosijn sophistisch vermutet!"11
I should want to modify Holthausen's position only slightly. The
dual is used here as a kind of transition from the secondary to the
primary voice. Lines 133-34 represent a petition to God in the primary
voice of the celebrant. These lines supply one of the pronoun's two
references, the weoruda dryhten or Holy Lord. "John" is, of course,
the other, and the sense of the line might be better translated: "as you,
John, with this help from God, fairly inspired, etc."
Those who have tried to attribute all of the speeches in the poem to
John in order to maintain the unity of the poem as it is centered about
the baptism image have had to resort to ingenious but unlikely situa
tions to explain these final lines which are too obviously oratorical to
be attributed to the narrator.12 But given the context of the poem?
10 However, Krapp and Dobbie (see The Exeter Book, p. lxii), give that whole
monologue, 11. 59-132, to Adam, an attribution first made by Ferdinand Holthausen
("Zur altenglischen Literatur, V., 21, 'Christi H?llenfahrt'," Anglia Beiblatt, 19
[1908], 49-53). Charles L. Wrenn (A Study of Old English Literature [New York: W.
W. Norton, 1967], p. 156) assumes without discussion that the speech is Adam's;
Stanley B. Greenfield (A Critical History of Old English Literature [New York: New
York Univ. Press, 1965], p. 141) is willing to accept either attribution.
11 Holthausen, "Zur altenglische Literatur," p. 51.
12 Crotty (p. 357) and Kemp Malone ("The Old English Period," The Middle Ages,
A Literary History of England, 1, ed. Albert C. Baugh et al. [New York: Appleton
Century-Crofts, 1948], p. 80) go the route of the scribal error: Crotty reads gio,
"once," "formerly," "before," for git; Malone claims many lines are lost between

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that is, a liturgical tour de force based on major themes in the Easter
Saturday ritual?the last five lines are easily explained. They are the
celebrant's final invocation for Baptism in his primary voice and repre
sent the closure of his rite. All preceding lines (from 1. 59) represent
John's speech before Christ in the name of the hell-dwellers, which
is appropriate to the celebrant's secondary voice. Throughout that
speech, Christ's own baptism is stressed as the climactic point in His
life, symbolically responsible for His victory over death. The cele
brant's own invocation (during which his arms and eyes were un
doubtedly raised heavenward) begs that his English candidates may
experience that same Baptism which mid py fullwihte / f gre onbryr
don I I ealne pisne middangeard. There are in these lines, perhaps,
echoes of the post-communion prayer used in the Mass.
Spiritum nobis, Domine, tuae caritatis infunde;
ut quos sacramentis Paschalibis satiasti, tua
facias pietate concordes. Per Dominum nostrum . . .
In unitate eiusdem.
Pour fourth upon us, O Lord, the Spirit of Thy

love, that by Thy loving kindness thou mayest
make to be of one mind, those whom Thou hast
fed with these paschal sacraments. Through our
Lord ... in the unity of the same Spirit.
John's first speech in "The Descent into Hell" has several hiatus,
but enough remains to show that John, even here, is preparing for
Christ's visit. His exhortation to the hell-dwellers to the effect that
Christ promised to come to them on that day is reminiscent of his cry
in the wilderness before he baptized Jesus: "Repent ye, for the kingdom
of heaven is at hand" (Matt. 3:2). But John's most important speech
extends from line 59 to line 132 (see n. 10). Here, the poet emphasizes
baptism as a culminating religious experience, not only thematically
but also formally. The whole speech becomes a vernacular liturgy for
the Baptism, from the mouth of the ritual's most remembered celebrant.
Most of this speech depends upon four apostrophes, one each to
Gabriel, Mary, Jerusalem, and Jordan. The praises are similar to the
"Great O" antiphons which Albert Cook identified as sources of the
"Advent Lyrics."13 The poem could have no better structure to convey
the feeling of the Holy Saturday Baptismal Mass. The repeated form
of the apostrophes is ritualistically compatible with the elaborate
lines 134 and 135. Trask (p. 422) sees the words as a "kind of dual peroration of the
poet as persona as well as John, only in this climactic moment the poet's involve
ment is so great that he addresses his spokesman (John) and Christ together, as a
third party who embodies in words what the two effectuated by their deeds."
13 See n. 2 above.

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i86 Conner
recital of the litany used on Holy Saturday.14 But what is striking

is the particular series of apostrophes celebrating events leading up to
Christ's Baptism, which are so neatly balanced against the twelve Old
Testament prophecies read in the Mass after the blessing of the paschal
candle and before the blessing of the baptismal font. The apostrophes
in "The Descent into Hell" celebrate, unlike the prophecies, the New
Testament events leading up to Christ's realization in Baptism. Nor is
this technique of segmenting Christ's life unknown elsewhere in the
Exeter Book. "Christ II" is remarkable for the way in which Christ's
life is segmented into six "leaps." It is generally agreed that the division
of Christ's life into "leaps" was based on Gregory the Great's Homily
XXIX.15 Particularly relevant to "The Descent into Hell," although
possibly coincidental, is the fact that Gregory provided only five "leaps"
in his homily; Cynewulf seems to have invented a sixth, one which
refers to the Harrowing of Hell.
The Eala Gabrihel apostrophe, the first of the series of four, com
memorates the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel appeared to
Mary. The feast of the Annunciation is celebrated on March 25, which
always will fall within the Easter season. This means that the poem's
auditor, if he is aware of the liturgical conventions, will be confronted
with another image of which Baptism is a type: the Resurrection.
While the Resurrection celebrates the instance at which life triumphs
over death, the Annunciation denotes the start of the cycle anew at the
moment of its greatest victory and assures the infinite repetition of its
mysteries. The Eala Maria represents Christ's birth and the second step
of His revelation to man.
The third and fourth apostrophes ought to be taken together because
of the obvious parallels in their structures.
Eala Hierusalem in Iudeum,
hu f>u in f)aere stowe stille gewunadest!
Ne mostan pe geondferan foldbuende
ealle lifgende, f>a pe lof singa?\
Eala Iordane in Iudeum,
hu J)u in J^sere stowe stille gewunadest!
Nales f)u geondflowan foldbuende;
mostan hy ?>ynes waetres wynnum brucan. (11. 99-106)
The first two lines in each apostrophe are the same, with a single
difference in the nouns of address. The second half-line of the third
14 The more specific resemblance of lines 118-37 to tne preface of the litany
has been noted by Crotty, p. 365, and by Trask, pp. 433-34.
15 F. Dietrich, "Cynevulfs Christ," ZfdA, 9 (1853), 193-214. Particularly note
worthy for the present study is Cook's discovery (p. 115) that those parts of the
homily which influenced "Christ II" are all to be found in the shortened breviary
edition of the homily used on the feast of the Ascension.

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verse in each set also constitutes a repetition, and there is a parallel

to be noticed in the first half-line of that verse where the elements
alliterating with the second half-line are compounded with geond-.
The attempts to translate and understand lines 99-106 have led to
many emendations when that was a standard method of clarification,
and to ingenious exegesis in more recent years.16 Thomas D. Hill has
written the best of the latter, a translation of these verses in light of a
cosmic stasis at Christ's birth, recorded in the New Testament Apoc
rypha. And I agree entirely with Hill when he suggests that the
"Descent" is "not so much concerned with historical (or, if one prefers,
'mythic') events in themselves as with ordering these events in a
pattern which bears on the present moment."17 It is this which the
poem shares with the liturgy that makes it a powerful reflection of its
source's spirit.
Many scholars have noticed the similarity in spirit between the
"Descent" apostrophes and the "Advent Lyrics" which are based on
antiphons from that season. Until now, no antiphonal sources have
been found, and I cannot admit outright to such a discovery here. But
I do find a comparison of lines 105-106 with the antiphon, Vidi aquam,
very helpful in determining the basic sense of the third and fourth
apostrophes to Jerusalem and Jordan.
Vidi aquam egredientem de templo a latere dextro,
alleluia; et omnes ad quos pervenit aqua ista salvi facti
sunt et dicent: alleluia, alleluia.
This is traditionally translated:
I saw the water flowing from the right side of the
temple, alleluia; and all they to whom that water came
were saved; and they shall say: alleluia, alleluia.
The traditional translation, however, does not render the force of
the prefix per- in pervenit adequately, which is most important in
showing the connection between the antiphon and the Old English
apostrophes. When its subject is a person, pervenire means "to attain"
or "to reach a state or position"; when the subject is a thing, the verb
implies that the subject "comes into one's knowledge or possession."18
The following is more awkward, but also a more accurate translation:
. . . and all those into whose knowledge that water came
were saved; and they shall say: alleluia, alleluia.
iGTrask, p. 432; Thomas D. Hill, "Cosmic Stasis and the Birth of Christ: The
Old English Descent into Hell, Lines 99-106," IEGP, 71 (1972), 382-89; R. E. Kaske,
"The Conclusion of the Old English 'Descent into Hell'," Hapct?ocri?: Studies in
Memory of Edwin A. Quain (New York: Fordham Univ. Press, 1976), pp. 57-58.
17 Hill, p. 338.
18 R. E. Latham, Revised Medieval Latin Word List from British and Irish
Sources (London: Oxford Univ. Press for the British Academy, 1965), p. 347.

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i88 Conner
The water is the water of Baptism, but it is through Baptism that

Divine Grace is obtained; and to obtain that Grace, one must seek it,
for the meaning of Christ's incarnation is that now may be possessed
what was?as Augustine writes?"formerly so far away" (Civitas Dei,
X, 29).19 Pervenire expresses not only that the water was available, but
that it was sought.
The Old English equivalent of per- was geond- (though purh- was
also possible), although it could not provide the notion of recipro
cation found in pervenire. It is the need, however, to provide just
such a sense which leads to the negation of the georcd-compounded
verbs. Whether the well-established poetic tradition of litotes was
responsible for this syntactic anomaly, I cannot say, but I suggest the
following translations for the third and fourth apostrophes to Jerusa
lem and Jordan, respectively:
O Jerusalem in Judea, how quietly you dwell in that

place, nor may all of the living dwellers of the
earth who praise you cross over you.
O Jordan in Judea, how quietly you dwell in that place;

you do not rush upon the dwellers of the earth.
They must needs come by the joys of thy water.
In Christian typology, Jerusalem signifies many things, from the

Church surge or militant to the Virgin, but here Jerusalem is the place
of Christ's purification. It is also a symbol of the Church on earth and
it is the name of the eternal city of God.20 These three significances
are linked by baptism, the Christian symbol of purification which
not only is necessary to entering the earthly Church, but is required
for entering the eternal Jerusalem as well. The emphasis here, however,
is not on dwelling in eternity, but on the foldbuende, those living the
temporal life on earth. Their world is elsewhere and does not touch
in any ordinary way the Christian paradise. The passage is a state
ment of the unbaptized man's predicament.
Remedy for this predicament is offered in the last apostrophe. Just
as those who sing God's praises are not given automatic entrance into
19 Gratia Dei non potuit gratius commendari, quam ut ipse unicus Dei Filius
in se incommutabiliter manens indueret hominem, et spem dilectionis suae daret
hominibus, homine medio, quo ad ilium ab hominibus veniretur, qui tarn longe
erat immortalis a mortalibus, incommutabilis a commutabilibus, Justus ab impiis,
beata a miseris" (Patrolog?a Latina, xli, col. 308).
20 See Cook, The Christ of Cynewulf, p. 81; also see Edmond Mart?ne (De Anti
quis Ecclesiae Ritibus Libri [1736-1738; rpt. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuch
handlung, 1967], in, col. 440), who prints an antiphon designated as "Urbs beata
Jerusalem &c." before the benediction of the font in one version of the Holy Saturday
ritual.

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the heavenly city, so the waters of Baptism are not poured randomly
on men's heads. People must seek the Baptism which will open the gates
of the Eternal Jerusalem.
The Vidi aquam ties these ideas together nicely, pointing out as it
does, the connection of the waters with the temple, God's presence in
Jerusalem, and conferring the notion that individual responsibility
must act to receive Divine Grace.
The liturgical use of the Vidi aquam is especially important to
understand the way the apostrophes of the "Descent into Hell" work.
In recent pre-Vatican II missals the Vidi aquam was an alternative
anthem to the Asperges me and was said before the opening of the
first Mass of the day from Easter to Whitsunday (or Pentecost).21 This
pre-Mass ritual has long been named the Asperges after the more
commonly used antiphon, but the Eastertide alternative is apparently
the older prayer, included in the earliest antiphonaries where often the
Asperges me is not.22
Both St. Gall antiphonaries list the Vidi aquam as an important
part of the Easter Sunday procession. The text of the so-called Hartker
Antiphonary follows:
[Rubric:] In die resurrectionis ad processionem
?[ntiphon:] In die resurrectionis meae, dicti dominus,
alleluia congregabo gentes et colligam r?gna et effundam super
vos aquam mundam alleluia
?fntiphon:] Vidi aquam egredientem de templo [etc.]
Intfroit:] Quern quaeritis in sepulchro, Christicolae [etc.]23
21 E.g., Sylvester P. J?rgens, S.M., The New Marian Missal for Daily Mass (New
York: Regina Press, 1958), pp. 610-11.
22 See Dom Jacques Froger, ed. Antiphonaire de Hartker [980-1011 a.d.], Pal?og
raphie Musicale, 2e ser (Monumentale), 1 (Berne: Editions Herbert Lang et Cie Sa,
197?)? P- 231/57; Dom Andr? Mocquereau (Directeur), Graduel de Saint-Yrieix: Le
Codex 90) de la Biblioth?que Nationale de Paris [11e s.], Pal. Mus., xm (Tournay:
Descl?e et Cie pour Soci?t? Saint Jean L'?vang?liste, 1925), p. 145; Antiphonale
Missarum Sancti Gregorii: Codex 47 de la Biblioth?que de Chartres [10e s.], Pal.
Mus., xi (1912; rpt. Berne: ?ditions Herbert Lang et Cie Sa, 1972); B?n?dictins de
Solesmes, Antiphonale Missarum Sancti Gregori: Le Codex 121 de la Biblioth?que
d'Einsiedeln [?o^-ne s.], Pal. Mus., iv (1894; rpt. Berne: ?ditions Herbert Lang et Cie
Sa, 1974), pp. 391-92; B?n?dictins de Solesmes, Antiphonale Missarum Sancti
Gregori: Le Codex 339 de la Biblioth?que de Saint-Gall (10e s.], Pal. Mus., 1 (1889;
rpt. Berne: ?ditions Herbert Lang et Cie Sa, 1974), p. 75. I have found the Asperges
me Usted only in Saint-Gall 339 as the last of a series of versicles under the heading
Pro serenitate, p. 139.
23 Antiphonaire de Hartker, pp. 231-37. This codex, MSS. Saint-Gall 390-91, is
generally thought to be the earliest known antiphonary; reason to suspect, but
surely not to prove, its relationship to the Exeter Book lies in the fact that all of
the antiphons which we know "Christ I" (or "The Advent Lyrics") to be based upon
are written out on a single spread of facing folia in this particular antiphonary.
The establishment of a confraternity of prayer between the English houses and St.

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190 Conner
The antiphon In die resurrectionis offers, tentatively, further con
firmation of the relationship between the Vidi aquam and the Old
English apostrophe to Jerusalem.
"On the day of my resurrection," saith the Lord,?
Alleluia?"I shall gather the people and bring the nations
together and pour out upon you the waters of the earth"?
Alleluia.
Consequently, the living ne mostan, "are not permitted" entrance into

Holy Jerusalem before the resurrection of Christ?that is, the second
coming, of which the historical resurrection is a type?and the baptism
of the world, to which the baptism of the individual is perquisite. The
Eala Iordane, which follows the Eala Hierusalem as the Vidi Aquam
follows the In die resurrectionis in many rites, suggests syntactically and
thematically, however, that in seeking the baptismal waters, one may
yet gain what is not in his power to achieve alone?entrance into the
eternal Jerusalem.
The next lines, 107-32, constitute a restatement of the same ma
terial the four apostrophes had dealt with, but what they had handled
in antiphonal sequence is next expressed in the form of a litany. There
are two petitions to the litany, lines 107-17 and 118-32, each initiated
with the formula ic pe halsie [halsige], "I call upon [praise] you." It
is noteworthy that the poem's final petition (11. 133-37), which straight
forwardly requests baptism, does not employ this invocational tag.
Dropping the tag may be a real indication that the speaker's voice
has changed (from secondary to primary, as I have argued earlier),
since all of John's speech has been built upon the repetition of formally
similar elements like the four apostrophes, the two petitions under
discussion, and the several for clauses in lines 118-32.24 These lines, the
"Descent's" second petition, are based upon the second part of the
litany, said only on Whitsun Eve, Rogationtide, and Holy Saturday.
Ab omni peccato, libera nos, Domine,
A morte perpetua, per mysterium sanctae Incarnationis
tuae, per adventum tuum, per nativitatem tuam, per
baptismum et sanctum jejunium tuum, per crucem et
passionem tuam, per mortem et sepulturam tuam, per
sanctam resurrectionem tuam.25
Gall in the early tenth century offers the exact historical connection necessary to
support the textual relationship. See my doctoral thesis, "A Contextual Study of
the Old English Exeter Book," University of Maryland, 1975, pp. 1-53, 126-37, 318-25.
24 Kaske (pp. 47-59) sees the last five lines, excepting the final half-line, to be
the end of the sentence beginning Swylce ic pe halsige (1. 118). While I do not accept
his argument, its formulation is a compelling statement on the integrity of the
second petition (11. 118-32): the whole petition has to be considered as a single unit.
25 This is the traditional text on which modern use is based; on the definition of

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I have quoted here about one-third of the litany, that part which is
particularly relevant to the Old English poem. The reader's attention is
drawn to two main points of comparison: first, both texts delineate
the stages of Christ's life, and second, both texts consist mostly of a
catalogue of phrases introduced with a repeated preposition, per in
the litany and for in the Old English.
Swylce ic pe halsige, haelend user,
fore [?>]inum cildhade, cyninga selast,
ond fore ?>aere wunde, weoruda dry[hten,
ond for] {jinum aeriste, aeêlinga wyn,
ond fore Jrinre me [der.ar]ian nama,
f>a ealle hellwara herga? ond lof[ia?,
ond for })am engjlum pe pe ymb stonda?,
J)a ?>u pe lete sittan [on {)a swif>ran] hond,
f>a J>u us on ?>isne wraecsift, weoroda dryhten,
f>urh {ri?es sylfes geweald secan woldest,
ond fore Hierusalem in Iudeum,
(sceal seo burg nu ?>a bidan efne swa peah,
}>eoden leofa, ?>ines eftcymes),
ond for Iordane in Iudeum,
(wit une in paere burnan bajxxian aetgaedre).
(11. 118-32)26
While there are no references in the litany to Jerusalem and Jordan,

it is interesting to note that the Old English poet has been careful to
reintroduce them with the same in Iudeum epithets which he first
used with them in lines 99 and 103, respectively. Yet, he is careful to
maintain the litanie effect by the repetition of for(e) in each instance.27
The poet's conscious development of a liturgical pattern is, I am
convinced, inescapable: "The Descent into Hell" is a carefully arranged
structure agreeing completely with the heavy, ritualistic mood of Holy
Saturday. It, like "Christ I," is a fine example of the poetic power
exerted by the liturgy at a time when the liturgy was the highest model
for artistic imitation.
"litany" from a historical perspective, see Edmund Bishop, Lit?rgica Hist?rica

(1918; rpt. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), pp. 128-30.
26 Emendations are those suggested by Krapp and Dobbie, p. 359.
27 "The Exeter 'Harrowing of Hell'," p. 356; Trask, pp. 433-34.

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The Liturgy and The Old English Descent Into Hell

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The Liturgy and the Old English "Descent into Hell"

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