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Vercelli Homily VIII and the Christ

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Rudolph Willard
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Extract

Homily VIII of the Vercelli Codex CXVII, is a brief dramatic sermon on penance and the Last Judgment, intended for the first Sunday after Epiphany. It opens with an admonition to the faithful to remember the Lord's warning of the tribulation attending the end of this world. Let us never think our sins too grievous or too shameful for confession: for it is better to confess our sins here before one man, than to confess them at the Day of Judgment, before God and the whole host of Heaven, when all our deeds shall be revealed. The homilist briefly outlines the advent of the Judgment: the coming of the Son of Man in power and great glory, God's mercy to the righteous, the angels blowing their trumpets to the four ends of the world, the resurrection of the dead, and the raging fire. All this, however, is introductory to the central feature of the homily—the address of the Judge to the guilty souls. From His throne of Judgment, God the Son reviews His dealings with man: the Creation, the establishment of man in the joys of Paradise, the Fall, God's mercy to fallen man in His Incarnation, Passion, and Death. The Savior dramatically calls the sinner to behold the wounds in His hands and feet and side; then, charging man with indifference and ingratitude, He sentences him to dwell forever with Satan and his host in Hell. After a brief description of the torments of Hell, the homilist closes with an exhortation to be worthy of the Lord's welcome to the righteous, and of the bliss of Heaven.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , June 1927 , pp. 314 - 330
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1927

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References

1 Massimiliano Foerster, Il Codice Vercellese con Omelie e Poesie in Lingua Anglosassone (Rome: Danesi, 1913), fol. 59r–61r.

2 MS MENDA.

3 On these forms in Vercelli Codex CXVII, see R. Brotanek, Beiblatt zur Anglia, XXVI (1915), 235.

4 MS filios.

5 MS mannnes.

6 MS to.

7 Not in the MS.

8 hu us bonne lyste Bodl. 340 and CCC. 198 have hwilce we þonne beon sceolon.

9 MS gehwylra.

10 MS anegum þigum.

11 MS geafum.

12 MS iudas.

13 MS mnre.

14 MS sare þe ic.

15 MS searlycum.

16 MS and.

17 MS inþrowendlic, St Cœsarius has impassibilis.

18 MS þa.

19 MS And.

20 MS singalic.

21 MS gi.

22 And added above the line.

23 Not in the MS.

24 MS suna; Bodl. 340 and CCC. 198 have halgum gaste.

25 M. Förster, Il Codice Vercellese, p. 57.

26 Migne, Patrol. Lat., LXXVI, 1077: Dominus ac Redemptor noster, fratres charissimi, paratos nos invenire desiderans, senescentem mundum quæ mala sequantur denuntiat, ut nos ab ejus amore compescat. Appropinquantem ejus terminum quantæ percussiones præveniant innotescit, ut si Deum metuere in tranquillitate non volumus, vicinum ejus judicium vel percussionibus attriti timeamus. Huic etenim lectioni sancti Evangelii, quam modo vestra fraternitas audivit [Luke 21. 25-32], paulo superius Dominus præmisit, dicens: Exsurget gens contra gentem, etc., [Luke 21. 10].

27 Patrologia Latina, XXXIX, 2206-2208. Sermo CCXLIX: De extremo judicio, I.

28 Patrol. Lat., XXXIX, 2207.

29 Patrol. Lat., XXXIX, 2207.

30 Albert Stanborrough Cook, The Christ of Cynewulf, p. 210.

31 Op. cit., p. 210.

32 For the Christ, I follow Professor Cook's edition.

33 Op. cit., p. 210.

34 Gustav Grau, Quellen und Verwandtschaften der Älteren Germanischen Darstellungen des Jüngsten Gericthes (Studien zur Englischen Philologie, Heft XXXI), Halle, 1908, pp. 29-88.

35 Op. cit., p. 210.

36 Josephi Assemani, S.P.N. Ephraem Syri Opera Omnia . . . . Grœce et Latine, III, 244. (Rome, 1746.)

37 Ibid., p. 582 A.

38 Ibid., pp. 471-476.

39 Edmund Bishop, Liturgica Historica, Oxford, 1918. Note B. “Influence of East Syrians on Western Piety and Devotion,” pp. 161-163.