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TheDescentfromtheCross.JosephofArimathealowerstheSaviour,sbodyto be received by Nicodemus (left); The Entombment (centre); Christ

proclaims the good news to imprisoned spirits; one, still unrepentent, is seen

behind red hot bars (right).

Fairford church, Gioucestershire. (Royal commission on Histoical Monuments)

ART AND DOCTRINE:

ESSAYS ON MEDIEVALLITERATURE

ROSEMARY \TOOLF'

EDITED BY

HEATHER O'DONOGHUE

THE HAMBLEDON PRESST r.tl\Tn11I\T A\Tn Dr\NT/-E\rED'rD

28 Art and Doctrine

in the shape ofa serpent speaks to Eve from the tree] but the'serpent' tells Eve'Fromheaven I came now,' and Eve when tempting Adam relers several times to the'angel.'The Norwich play is the more striking in that it provides interesting evidence of thesurvival of the tradition into the sixteenth century. The earlier text, that in use in 1 53 3,like the Cornish play, exemplifies exactly the contradictions analyzed earlier in thisarticle. As a dramatis persona the tempter is identified as serpens, but nevertheiess heassures Eve'Almighty God dyd me send,'and Eve describes to Adam how'An angellcam from Godes grace / And gaffe me an apple of thys tre.' The historically curiouspoint is that in the later version of I 565 (disingenuously described in the manuscript asbeing revised'accordyng unto Pe Skripture') clears up these inconsistencies by makingthe devil's disguise more explicit. The devil at the beginning announces, 'Unto thisangelloflyghtlshewmyselfetobe,'andEve'slaterreferencetohimasGod's angellistherefore appropriate. There is no contradition until Eve's biblically based excuse,'The Serpente diseayvyd me with that his fayer face' (obviously a female-headedserpent). Although here, as in the Cornish plays, the temptation is that of Genesis erintsicut dii, one may note the devil's approach to Eve with flattering words,'0 lady offelicite ...' It is just possible that the sixteenth century reviser pondered the peculiaritiesof the earlier text, and thus by chance arrived at a version closer to the originaltradition, but one would have expected a Reformation redactor to have tidied the textby omission ol such detail rather than by expansion. It is tempting to suppose thatsome work which amply embodied the tradition was known to him.

IIIDOCTRINAL INFLUENCES ON

THE, DREAM OF THE ROOD

Trre unique quality of the treatment of the Crucifixion inthe Dream oJ'

the Roodhas been long admired, and memorably commented upon.rIt is unique, not only in Old English poetry-that would not be

remarkable since so little survives-but in the whole range of English,and perhaps even western, literature. It is almost certain that thisuniqueness of conception is the Anglo-Saxon poet's own. and that he

did not have before him a source which he followed closely. There is a

compactness and intensity in the poem that would be startling in an

Anglo-Saxon translation or paraphrase; nor is its individuality moreeasily accounted for by the hypothesis that it was originally the workof a Roman rather than of an Anglo-Saxon Christian. Neverthelessall literary and historical probability is against the supposition thatnothing but the poet's personal inspiration lies between the gospel

narrative and the Dream of the Rood. But, whilst the poem is

obviously not a Biblical paraphrase in conventional style, yet it is

influenced hardly at all by Latin hymns,2 nor by certain antiphons ofthe liturgy, such as lie behind the treatment of the Crucifixion in theCrist.The influences to be considered are in fact not of the kind thatcan be isolated in any specific text, but rather those of the religiousthought of the poet's period, in particular its philosophic view of theperson and nature of Christ and definition of the Redemption. Themost remarkable achievement of the poem is its balance between theeffects of triumph and suffering, and their paradoxical fusion in theCrucifixion is suggested first by the alternation between the jewelledradiant cross and the plain and blood-covered cross in the prelude,3

1 The most notabie comment is in W. P.Ker The Dark Ages (London 1904), p. 265.2 It is clear from H. R. Patch 'The Liturgical Influence in lhe Dream of the Rood,

P.M.L.A.xxxiv (1919), 233-51 that the influence of Latin hymnody is confined to a f'ewphrases.

3 There is ampie evidence for the symbolic meanings olboth the gernmed crrlss artdthe red cross. The jewelled cross symbolizing triumph is particularly associltctl witlrConstantine and the well-known story of his conversion. At Constanlinc's cotrr.nunrl :r

most splendid cross was erected in the Holy Places of Jerusalem: this wus rcplotlut cr I r rr

the late fourth century mosaic of the apse of S. Pudenziana in Rontc: I,. llrilrirt, / il t

3t30 Art unrl Doclrine

and secondly and much morc subtly and powerfully by the twofigures of the heroic victorious warrior and the passive enduringcross. At the time when the poet wrote, the Church insisted on the co-existence of these two elements in Christ, divine supremacy andhuman suffering, with a vehemence and rigidity deriving from morethan two centuries of heretical Christological dispute, and whichabated only when the orthodox view was no longer questioned. In thesoteriological doctrine of the time there also co-existed the two ideasof a divine victory and a sacrificial offering, though here not as theresult of a carefully formulated orthodox dogma, but simply becauseas yet the nature of the Redemption had not become a central subjectof theological speculation, and contradictory views were thereforestated not only by different writers but also often in different works ofthe same writer. The author of the Dream of the Rood, then, inemphasizing at once both triumph and suffering in a way that wouldhave been inconceivable in the Middle Ages, reflected exactly thedoctrinal pattern of thought of his time, though this fact, of course,by no means detracts from the brilliance with which this thought, sodifficult of imaginative comprehension, is transmuted into a poeticform which brings home its meaning to the understanding in a waythat is beyond the dry precision of philosophical ianguage.

The stress that will be laid on the Crucifixion as a scene of triumphor a scene of suffering depends upon the stress that is laid on Christ asGod or Christ as a man. These two possible emphases developed inthe late fourth century in the theological schools of Alexandria andAntioch, and both led to Christological heresy. The Monophysites,whose philosophic definition of Christ sprang from the speculativemode of thought of Alexandria, correctly insisted on the unity of

Chrdtien (Paris I918), fig. 21. It is interesting to note that in this mosaic the gemmedcross appears to tower in the sky; cp. Elene,88-92. According to Eusebius (ZllaConstantini,III, 49) even upon the ceiling olthe main chamber of the imperial palacethere was represented a cross in gold and precious stones. The splendour olgold andjewels symbolized not only the triumph of Christ, but also His divinity. This is madeclear by the formula lor the consecration ola cross in the earliest known Pontifical. thatof Egbert (consecrated Archbishop of York in 732):'radiet hic Unigeniti Filii ruisplendor divinitatis in auro, emicet gloria passionis in ligno, in cruore rutilet nostramortis redemptio, in splendore cristalli nostre vita puriflcatio' (Surtees society xxvii,112). The obvious point that a plain red cross symbolizes the redeeming biood of christis made as early as the fifth century by Paulinus of Nola, who, in his church dedicated tost. Felix had inscribed on either side oftwo red crosses: 'Ardua florifere crux cingiturorbe corone, / Et Domini fuso tincta cruore rubet' (P.L.lxi 337; this is referred to by J.W1lpert, Die rdmischen Mosaiken und Malereien (Freiburg im Breisgau l9l8), p. 45). Inthe time ol the author of the Dream of the Rood such symbolic associations may wellhave been commonplaces to the educated.

Doclrirtttl ltr.f luatrcc,s irt tltc I)rcrtnt tt.f tlrL, llood

Christ's person, but at the cost of a tendency to confuse His two

natures: the result was that they overstressed His divinity, for in thisconfusion His humanity, unsafeguarded by an essential

distinctiveness, might seem to be absorbed as a drop of water by the

ocean. The undesirable but logically inevitable conclusion of such aphilosophic view was either that the Godhead must be thought of as

passible-as the Eutychians of the fifth century were accused ofmaintaining-or Christ must be said to have been imrnune from theordinary human experience of suffering, and in the sixth centurysome of the more extreme Monophysites scarcely avoided thisDocetic belief. The heresy of the school of Antioch takes its namefrom Nestorius, although modern scholarship has shown him to havebeen at least partly maligned. The Nestorians had the moral andliteral way of thought which characterized all Antiochene studies.

They, unlike the Monophysites, correctly distinguished between thetwo natures of Christ, but at the cost of almost denying the unity ofHis person, and hence of overstressing Christ's humanity. TheNestorians were notorious for their rejection of the term Theotokos(God-bearer) as a descriptive title of the Virgin, and in thcir mostobviously extreme statements held that the indwelling o1'God inChrist was not different in kind, although of course in degree, liorrrHis indwelling in the prophets. To stress that Christ was sub.iect to rllthe natural pains of human nature was therefore particularlycharacteristic of the Nestorians. This summary has stressed what isextreme and exaggerated in the Christology of the two hereticalschools, for it was this that was remembered and feared by theorthodox. The difference between the moderate and unfanaticalthinkers of both sides was more a matter of ernphasis than ofl deepdogmatic division, and each side when speaking cautiously andcharitably could reach agreement with the other, as they did at thetime of Cyril's Formulary of Reunion (433), but the effect in the heatof hostile argument or in private eccentric speculation was that theMonophysites seemed to deny that Christ was fully man, and theNestorians to deny that Christ was fully God.

The Church in Rome insisted on a middle way between these twoextremes, and the dispute was first settled to the philosophicsatisfaction of the west at the Council of Chalced on (449) .a There theCouncil accepted a number of documents as orthodox, besides

a A detailed account may be found in R. V. Sellers, The Counci.l of Clrultvdrtn(London 1953).

32 Art and Doctrine Doctrinctl Influenc:es in the l)rtun ttf thc Rootl 33

compositrg its own Defnitio Fidzi. Of these documents the oo" of .,$' ...,:, detennined, though onlV at the cost of the schism of the churches ofmosi lasting importance was rhe Iome of t eo 1.5 In tlis the pope S . Egypt and Asia Minor. Even in the west Christological orthodoxy did

established a razor-edge position between Alexandria and Antioci. # . oo, then- r€main r'mdisturbed, for in the eighth century the

maintaiidng the true western tmdition that there was in Christ ole ].fl,r1.. Adoptionist heresy (th€ vi€wthai Chdstwas Son ofcod by adoptionperson and two natures, the person uldivided and the natures ,S . ti:.] oDly) became strong in Spain and France, and Alcuin was one ofunconfused. He also defined the correct manner of speaking of .li those who.defended western orthodoxy against it.7

Christ's lifeotrearth, so thatthis bare defnitionmight beexpres; in .A .t:r Theological disputation may at tust sight seem remote fromterms of naffative or exegesis. From Antioch ie borrowed the -{|. " I Angto-S.*oo_England ofthelate sevcnth century. But whilst the factpdncipal of 'recognizing th; difference', that is ol dividing, as the ,S .t. ttat the Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastics of this p;dod came of a peoplepdncipal ol 'recognizing the dillerence', that is o[ dividinp. as the rl tr", urc ^utsru-o4^ux EwrEsrdsuus ut uur tEltuo (rimc or a peoPre

Nestodans had commonly done in their scriptural comrnenilries, all J only comparatively recently converted, and without any tradition ofthe acts ofchrisfslife into those which appeitained to His humanity { I philosophical thinking, no doubt led to their accepting westem

atrd those which appertained to His divil1ity- In His humanity, for ;] . . orthodoxy unquestioningly, it did not nec€ssarily m€an that they

instance, He hungered, thirsted, felt fatigue, and suflered: in Hrs I ' accepted_it i8porantly. It was not thepolicy ofthePope to keep themdivinity He h€aled, forgave, and accomplished all ltis miracles-or, J ionocently unaware of heretical dangerc, but rathel to instruct theto quote apopularand lointedexample;in His humanity Chdst wep! j . Aflglo-Saxon church against them; nor could they have read thefor the deirh of Lazarus, but in Hi; divinity He raisei tim.o Thi" ] works of any of the Sreat Fathers and remained ignoiant of themethod prcseri'ed admirably the doctrine ofthe two natures witlout J i @stern heresies. The Anglo-Saxons were in fact in an ideal positionconfusion, but for full orthodoxy it required tle corrective and ",i ' for upholding the westem tradition. On the one hand it is clear thatcorollary of the principle of communhatio idiamdrrt t [communior of ri they had sumcient grasp of theological teaching to understand the: - ,.',. propen iesl. which Leo adopred from Alexa odria. The philoso phic issues involved. b ut on the ot her ha nd t hey had n€il he r t he fa nal icisr n

basis ollhis principlewas that. since Chrisl's pgrsoo *asi unity. rhe I of spirit nor lhe confidence of a long tradition ol indcpcndcnlproperties ofboth flaturescould be ascribed to it, provided, ofcourse. I scholarship. which might lead lhem into disagreemcnl wirh lt',nrL..propertjes ofboth flatures could b€ ascribed to it, provided, ofcourse, 'L .. scholaxshlp, wlllch mlght lead them tnto drsagreement with lionrc.

iir . fiat the $/ord used for Ch st's person was a concrete not an abstract 11 In the year 679, th€ Christological heresi€s werc particularlyft urNr s Pcrsu! wan4ror

ll.i troun (e.g. cod. not codhead). The method was therefore to tlj -. brcught to the attention of theAnglo-Saxon Church. The Pope, in,t atLribure to Christ under a divine ritle one of lhe limitadons of ; preparatjoD for the Oecummical Couocil, wished lo assure himselfol'lL] humanity: authority for this could be found in the works ofst. Paul lll rr. the invariable orthodoxy of all the countries in the west. Intrt .lii I hims€lf, who had written in a much quoted text,'Ifthey had knowrl it :] i accordance with this wish, Theodorc of Tarsus, Archbishop of

they would not have crucifi€d the Lord of c1ory'GCor. ii.8). The '.Li 1'i'. Caaterbury, in 679 summoned the Synod of Hatfield,3 aDd in theunity ofchrist's pefion was thus emphasized jn a manner which from i presence of th€ papa.l legate inquired diligently of the bishops anda literary poi[t of view produced a startlingly paradoxical effect. : ! , . docto$ there assembled what doctrine they he1d, and found that they

Although Leo's Tone established for c€nturies the orthodox way i ,-'. were all of the Catholic faith. This Council condenned the grcatof descdbitrg Christ's life, it did not at the tim€ put an eod to 'i :l I heEtics, including Nestorius and Eutyches, ard rcad and acceptedChristologicai dispute, but rather stimulat€d further dissension. With . ; . r the documents of the Lateran Council of 649, which, of course,the doctrinal issue aggravated by motives of imperial policy, Rome :t . , included Leo's Tome.e Theodorc also set down the declaratiofl ofand Byza[tium remained oppos€d until the Oecumenical Council of i i: faith oftle Council in a Synodical letter'for the iNtruction and faith682, when the Monophysite and Nestorian controversy was flnally

.., 7 A. Hmrck, dirrot! oI Dogn4, tras. t. Minar 0_ond@ 1898), V, 289.

dispute;nbefoundinE k.Ha:dy.tht.Btotosrclther,ii,i,ai,i 'iAai, I'Til: q,c..Ply-rcr,,?q4D:/ir B@d@ ope,o Histunato,ford r8or',. r...r rx 40

"- rpr" ri.r, ;;d;i Jffi;i;; A;. i-t;i)." council as an appendix to Bede's account of the synod or I t,rrtictrtIlrit j .ri

)

,,lrt urri l)otlrineof aftercomers', and a copy of this was given to the legate to take backto Rome. At the oecumenical council itself the faith of the Anglo-Saxon Church was attested by wilfrid,r0 on the first occasion whenthe Anglo-Saxons were represented at such a council.rr rhe papallegate at Hatfielc had been John, the arch-chanter or precentor of St.Peter's, who had spent the previous year under the guidance ofBenedict Biscop in the monastery at wearmouth, instructing thernonks in the Roman rnanner of singing the monastic office, andduring that time a copy of the documents of the Lateran council,which he had brought with him, was made at wearmouth.lz It isinconceivable that during this time he left unheeded the other half ofhis commission from the Pope, and failed to discuss and instruct inwestern christology. Similar guidance and instruction must havebeen given by Theodore and his colleague Hadrian of Naples, both ofwhom are known to have made extensive journeys through Engrand.Theodore himself had been brought up in the geographiJal ceritre ofthe dispute, and was so learned and skilled in-the Monophysitecontroversy that the previous pope had wished him to teid theRoman legation to Constantinopie.

.[t was not, however, solely from the teaching of such men asTheodore and Hadrian, or from the assembly at Hatfield, or from thedocuments of the councils deposited in England, that knowledge ofthe heretical doctrines of the person and nature of Christ would reachthe Anglo-Saxon Church, but also from the works of the greatFathers, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine and Gregory the Great. Inseparate tracts and in their exegesis of the New Testament the laterFathers constantly refuted the Nestorian and Monophysite heresies,and various key texts in the gospels became conventional startingpoints for an attack on the wicked Nestorius or the rnadness ofEutyches. These anti-heretical arguments based on scriptural textsare repeated by Bede, whose own commentaries on the four gospelswere written in the first quarter of the eighth century.l3 Therels tttlein Bede's commentaries that is originar, but neither are they simplytranslations, and Bede must be supposed to have selected irom theworks of his authoritative predecessors those arguments andexplanations which he thought most relevant and important, and ailhis four commentaries are extraordinarily full of reiutations of the

]: LM Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford 1947),p.137.1.t-

lhristglogy of the Later Latin Fathers, p. 3g2.12 Bede IV xvi [xviiij, plummer, t,24U2.-13 P.Z. xcii.

l.)rn trittttl Ittlltttrtt't'.t itt tltt' Ilrt'ttnt ,,l Iltr' 11,,,',1

earlier heretics.la From the combined evidence of the histoncal

information and of Bede's commentaries it is clear that the heresies of

Nestorius and Eutyches were a living issue in England for at least the

ffiy years from about 675-"125. Since the identity of the author of the

Dream of the Rood is not known' it cannot be conclusively proved

from evidence outside the poem that he knew of the Christological

controversy. But the burden ofproofis undoubtedly on anyone who

would maintain that an educated man of this period could remain

unaware at the very least that the greatest theological care and

precision was required in any statements about Christ's life, and inparticular about His Crucifixion, and that an equal stress must be laid

on Christ's divinity (against Nestorius) and Christ's humanity(against EutYches).

The tension between divinity and triumph on the one hand and

humanity and suffering on the other might also arise from the

doctrine of the Redemption as it was taught at this period. NocomprehensivEand consistent soteriological theory was evolved untilthat of Anselm in the eleventh century, and this point-no doubtbecause it had not been associated with heresy-was not treated withthe same philosophic depth and perception with which the Fathers

had analysed the person of Christ, and on it they were ollcnambiguous and self-contradictory. Apart from the typically citstcrtr

idea of humanity being cleansed and immortalized through its

assumption by the divinity, which though important is not rclcvitttlhere, two other main ideas can be clearly distinguished. The earlier is

that which was commonly held by the eastern church, and it was

dualistic, though of course not Manichaean. According to it, thenature of the Redemption was that God, by His Incarnation andPassion, released or redeemed mankind from the devil, who, by theFall had acquired a just claim to man. Christ's death was seen eitheras a bait or an offering, and through his acceptance of it the devil was

outwitted and overcome. The issue was therefore between God andthe devil, and the result was God's defeat of the devil. Although thisidea was of eastern origin. it was repeated by the great westernFathers, Leo, Augustine and (irogory I.1s They, however, followingthe New Testament, and in particular the Epistle of the Hebrews, also

1a A valuable discussion ol Bede's Commentaries will be found in A. HamiltonThompson, Bede, His l..i/e. Times, and Writings (Oxford 1935), pp. 152-200.

I s The works ol these Fathcrs, including those in which this doctrine is stated, wereof course known to thc Anglo-Saxons. See J. D. Ogilvy, Books known to Anglo-LatinWritersfrom Aldhelm to Alcuin (Camb., Mass. 1936).

t5

36 Art and Doctrine

stressed the Crucifixion as an olrering or sacrifice rnade on behalf ofman by christ as man, the spotless for the guilty. The emphasis in theNew Testament on man being redeemed by the blood of Christ couidscarceiy be ignored, and a recognition of this was aided by thegrowing devotion to the Eucharist. Gregory I contributed much tothe catholic doctrine of the mass, and in self-contradiction statedboth theories of the Redemption, developing a theory of christ,ssuffering and death as a sacrificial offering, which is Anselm's view inrudimentary form; though elsewhere he aiso speaks of the cruciflxionin terms of conflict and triumph, repeating Gregory of Nyssa,sgrotesque image of christ's humanity being a bait swallowed byLeviathan.l6 These two theories were not normally combined, but ifthey were associated in thought a tension and paradox would beinevitable. In the one view the slress is on christ's divinity: God entersthe world to free man from the devil, and the momenr of His triumphis the Crucifixion; in the other view the stress is on christ,s humaniiy:God becomes man that as man He may offer to God the due sacrificewhich man is unable to offer for himserf, and the crucifixion is thesupreme moment of pain and abasement. It must, however, be addedthat these two views were not entirely mutually exclusive, but ratherwhat was central in one became secondary in the other.l ? Thus in thetheory of the'devil's rights'it was not forgotten that the result of thedefeat of the devil was the restoration of the former relationshipbetween God and man, and in the 'satisfaction' theory it rvasremembered that the further result of God being reconciled to manwas that the devil lost his former possession of the whole human race.For this reason it was not ridiculous that both ideas shouid be impliedor stated within one passage or poem.

The Dream of the R.ood then was written at a time when bothchristology and soteriology laid this double stress on the crucifixionas a scene of both triumph and suffering, and the author hassucceeded in fulfilling what might seem to be an artisticallyimpossible demand. without such a briliant conception as that of thepoet's, the two aspects would inevitably have become separaterJ, as

r6 Gregory olNyssa, Oratia _Catechetica Magna, xxiv, p.G. xlv,66; Gregory I,

Mrtralia xxxlii,9, P.L. xxvi, 682-3. The scurce of ihe image is Job xt, i0, t'he tex"t uponwhich Gregory is commenting.

1 7 This point is. made by Gustav Aul €n, christus victor (Lond,on 1953), p. 72. Thiswork.isan intercsting but tendentious study olthe doctrine of the R"a..npiiJo. A *or"detaile<i and ohjective account can be found in the works olJean RivierJ, purti"rrurrvin Le Dogme dc lu R(demption au dibut du Moyen Age (paris 1934).

[)ttt'lrinttl lnllttrtrct't itr lltc l)rtttttt rtf tltt lltttttl 31

they were usually in the Middle Agcs. The Crucilixion in both

mediaeval art and rricclieval literature is usually a scene of utmost, agofly'. in accordance with the doctrine of 'satisfaction', Christ as

man offers His suffering to its farthest limit, until the body hangs

painfully from the Cross without blood or life. The note of triumph is

,a""r.u.ily reserved until the Harrowing of Hell, when Christ,

approaching as the King of Glory, conquers the devi1, often using His

Resurrection closs as a weapon of war and plunging it into the rnouth

of the defeated Leviathan.lB The timing of this, of course, exactiy

expresses the pattern of the medieval doctrine of the Redemption.

the sacriflce being primary, the defeat of the devil secondary.

The image of the Cruciflxion as a conflict and Christ as a warrior is

v€ry appropriate to the dualistic theory of the Redemption, for the

essence of this image is that there should be an opponent to be

overcome, and that the hero should be tliumphanu as a symbol of the

'satisfaction' theory it would lose its force and appear crude and

irrelevant. In the Middle Ages, therefore, the image of Christ as a

feudal knight is rarely used, and, when it is, is normally accompanied

--...-_ by a statement of the theory of the'devil's rights'.1q A clear example

of this may be seen in Piers Plowman (Passus xviii, B Text), whcrc

Christ is represented as contestor and victor in a tournamcnt, antl

releases man justly from the devil's power since'gyle is bigylcd'(1"

358) and Christ's soul given in ransom 01. 325' 33142), the ideas ol'

the bait and the offering being here combined. we might con.iccturc

that the image of the Crucifixion as a battle would otherwisc havc

almost died out, had it not been given a new force by the association

of courtly love with chivalry, so that Christ becomes the lover-knight,loving his lady (mankind) to the point of death, and deserving thereby

to win her iove in return. The exemplum of the lover-knight, of which

the most moving forrn is in the section on love inthe Ancren Riwle and

Henryson's Bloody Serk, rnakes this much-stressed point of Christ's

18 This detail is found in English art as early as the eleventh century, when it was

strikingly carved on the Bristol stone. It is an interpretation of'... posuitque domiuus

crucem suam in medio inferni, que est signum victoria', Evangelium Nicodemi, B, x,

ed. C. Tischendorf Evangelia apocrypha (Leipsig 1876), p. 430.1e Thetheoryofthe'devil'srights'wasnotforgotteninthe MiddleAges,andits

inclusion in the third book ol the Sentences of Petrus Lombardus must have macle itknown to every trained theologian. That it is the doctrinal basis ol Lht l-udus

coyentriaehas been pointed out by Timothy trry, 'The Llnity olthc LLulu:t ('oventriad.

Stutlies in Philoiogy, xlviii (195l),527-70.Its occurrencc in l-angland, howcvcr, has nol

been commented upon.

38 ,,|rt ttntl Doctr.ittt,

love for man with beauty and clarity.2oThe presentation of christ in the Dream of rhe Rood as a young

warrior advancing to battle has been much commented upon as anexample of the common Anglo-Saxon convention of treatingchristian subject matter in heroic terms. The conception of christ aia warrior is, however, not peculiar to the Anglo-Saion imagination.In visual art, for instance, it was a common Mediterranean t]reme, ofwhich one of the most striking extant exampres is a mosaic in thechapel of the palace of the Archbishop at Ravenna. There christ,dressed in Roman military style, stands strongly, the symbolicalanimals subdued beneath His feet, and a cross of the Resurrectionstyle swung over His shoulder as though it were a weapon.z1 Theeffect is of a triumphant hero. The armour of christ probauty derivesfrom the description of the divine warrior-redeemeiin Isaia-h lix. 17,whilst the animals beneath His feet are an illustration of psalm xci.13. whilst it is not improbable that the Anglo-saxons knew thechri.gtus Miles theme, it cannot be proved that they did, for, althoughthere is a christ standing over the animals on both the Ruthwell andBewcastle crosses, the original was probabry in the hieratic style, inwhich christ, dressed in a long mantle, seems to stand as a ruler withserenity and power over the prostrate animals.22 The concept of thecrucifixion as a battle, however, was not restricted to the visuar arts.The idea of a military conflict had been common in the patristicstatements of the theory of the'devil's rights', and became, no doubttherefrom, a commonplace of early Latin Christian poets and hymn_writers, and with it was associated the idea of kingry victory. Thisderived supposedly from psarm xcvi. 10, which ln irre psalteriumRomanum read: 'Dicite in gentibus quia dominus regnavit a ligno,

. .20 The concept of christ as a knight has been discussed by w. Gaffney, .TheAllegorv of the christ-K night.in

-p ier s-p ro wman', p. M . L. A., xrv i (r% rl,iiija, un,iby Sister Marie de Lourdes l:.yur,

_The Alleiory o1 fie'Cnris't_Xnign)-ir"Argnrn

Lit.erature ffashington r932). Although both wJrks ari useful and inter?sting, neitherwriter relates the image to theological Joctrine, and thereror" tr,.y ao noi"-pi"ii.ulydislinguish between the feudal knight and the lover-knight.

^.21 According to E. H. Kantororiicz, The King's two Bidies (princeton 1957), p. 72,christ has_here the golden armour and shoulJer fibula oru'no.u,

"rrp.r6., "ro!l.l"I:1. the idea expressed here is not simply of victory but of a ,"yul ,;;;;. On pp.61-78 Kantorowicz gives an interesting account of the tireme ortrr".ofuity oicirirt i,eariy thought and art. TheRavenna m-osaic is reproduced by -1. witpeit, d i)a*xrnrnMosaiken und Malereien,Ill, pr. g9, and commented upon in r, p. fi .Fo. th. i"i"..r"eto Kantorowicz and lor other herpful references and comments I am indebted to Mr J.A. W. Bennett.22 See F. sax,'The Ruthwell cross', Journal of the warburg and courtarrdInstitute:;, vi (1943), l-19.

l)octrittul lnllucttct'.s in thc [)rcrtnt rtl tlrc lktrttl

lsay among nations that the Lord ruled from the wood]. Versions tn

*nl.n , ligno did not appear were dismissed by the early church as

malicious alterations of the Jews, so admirably did this reading

u*pr"5 their doctrine of the crucifixion. The idea that christ reigned

from the tree was given popularity by the famous hymn of Venantius

Fortunatus, vexilla Regis Prodeunt, ahymn undoubtedly used by the

Anglo-Saxon Church,23 and was given iconographical expression in

theiarliest crucifixes and representations of the Crucifixion. In these

Christ, a young man of noble appearance, stands flrmly on the Cross,

His feet supported by a suppedaneum ffootrest], and on His upright

head a halo or royal crown .24 All these are but illustrations of a

common imaginative theme of the early church, which must have

been known to the Anglo-Saxons, and which presents such striking

affinities to both conception and tone of the geong heled lyoungwarrior] in the Dream of the Rood, that it would be perverse to prefer

the theory of coincidence to that of influence.

In the Dream of the Rood the heroic quality of Christ is suggested

by the three actions ascribed to Him: He advances to the cross with

bold speed, strips Himself, and ascends it. A11 these emphasizc thc

confidence of divine victory and the voluntariness o[' Christ's

undertaking the Cruciflxion. They are therefore absolLrtcly

consonant with the teaching of the early church, and in in[ctrsr.:

contrast to the medieval treatment of the Crucifixion2s 'l'ltc

medieval picture of Christ exhausted and stooping beneath thcr

weight of the Cross is so well-known and so moving that it is easy to

forget nowadays that this is not a literal illustration of the gospel

narrative, but a rnedieval interpretation which, though the Christian

23 This hymn with an Anglo-Saxon Gloss will be found in Latin Hymns known to the

Anglo-saxon Church, surtees Society, xxiii (1851). These hymns are mainiy collected

from an eleventh-century manuscript, but it is reasonable to suppose that most olthemwere known at an early date.

2a No crucifixes ol the date ol the Dream of the Rool survive in England. There is,

however, a relerence lo a crux antiquissima with crown in a story of william r:f

Malmesbury. It is quoted by D. Rock, The Church of our Fathers (London 1849), I,306-7, note 8. Cf. aiso the Peterborough chronicle s.a. 1070, where the raiders on the

monastery are said to seize a gold crown from the head of a figure ol Christ. Manytriumphant crucifixes of a later date also survive, An interesting example is the

eleventh-century Aaby Crucifix from Denmark, which is reproduced by R' W'Southern, The Making of the Middle,4ges (London 1953), pl. 2.

25 It was not that the Middle Ages did not iay stress on the idea that Christ suffered

the Passion quia ipse voluit: on the contrary this point was emphasized over and over

again. But, in order to drive home to the imagination the measure of what Christ was

willing to suffer, they ceased in art and literature to express this willingness in the act urlPassion scene symbolically.

39

,:.

r;l.1

1r:

40 Art and Doctrine

may well believe it to be true, is at most faintly implicit in the gospelsthemselves. There is a discrepancy in the gospel accounts of thecarrying of the Cross. In the first three gospels the Cross is said tohave been borne by Simon of Cyrene, whilst in St. John Christ carriesit Himself. According to the orthodox exegesis, which Bede follows,the discordant statements are reconciled by the view that the crosswas first carried by christ and later by Simon. But it is interesting tonotice that Bede, again following an authoritative tradition, makesonly an abstract and moral deduction from this: Simon isallegorically a Christian obeying Christ's command to take up hiscross and follow Him, and literally a gentile in order to signify thegathering in of the whole world into Christ's Church.26 Thenaturalistic deduction that Christ was too exhausted to carry itfarther Himself, which accorded so well with the medieval doctrineof the Crucifixion, was not made until later. It was therefore not awilful divergence from the gospel narrative to represent Christadvancing without the Cross (although that the Cross is already inposition and watches Christ advancing to it seems to be the poet,sown variation). In the mosaics of San Apollinare Nuovo at Ravenna,for instance, christ Himself advances with His hands outstretched ina gesture ofsacrificial self-offering. The poet has taken advantage of /this tradition to heighten the heroic and voluntary nature of theCrucifixion.

The stripping of Christ is not described in any of the gospels. Thesoldiers divide His garments amongst themselves, but their actualremoval is not given as an essential detail of the narrative. The MiddleAges, of course, imagined that Christ's robes were torn from Him bythe soldiers, as a further stage in their grotesque brutality, and themanner in which this caused the wounds of His flagellation to reopenwas often gruesomely described. Since Matthew and Mark a fewverses before the description of the Crucifixion tell of the previousstripping of Christ, when the purple robe was placed upon Him, it isplausible to imagine the scene preparatory to the Crucifixionanalogously. But the author of the Dream of the Roodwas following apatristic tradition, to be found, for instance, in Ambrose,scommentary on Luke, of Christ as kingly victor removing Hisclothes:'Pulchre ascensurus crucem regalia vestimenta deposuit'.27

26 P-L. xcii 286. The alternative harmonization in which the cross was carried bychrist and Simon of cyrene together, although it occurs in Ambrose (p.L. xv 1923),was rare until the later Middle Ages, when it became popular in both art and exegesis.21 Expositionis in Lucam Libri x, P.L. xv 1923. 'Very fitting when about to ascendthe Cross, He laid down His royal vestments.'

Doctinal ln:fiuences in the Drautn tt.l'lhc liltol 4l

Though to this is added an Old Testament parallel, that as Adan-r

defeated sought clothing, so Christ conquering laid down FIis

clothing. In the Dream of the Rood Christ is very clearly a hero

stripping Himself for battle in a description which has been comparedwith an analogous scene in the Aeneid (y. 241 ff.),28 where Entellusstrips himself, and stands imposing of appearance, ready for hisencounter with Dares: a resemblance, of course, of heroic descriptionto heroic description, not of derivative to source. Christ's stripping ofHimself, then, is voluntary and heroic, and so also therefore is Hisnudity. In the Syrian tradition of Christian art, in which nakedness

was considered shameful, Christ on the Cross for the sake ofreverence and decorum was dressed, with hieratic effect, in the longcollobium [sleeveless tunic]. But Hellenic Christian art retained theidea of the nudity of the hero, and therefore represented Christ as

naked, or almost naked, upon the Cross, without this in any wayconflicting with the idea of the Crucifixion as a royal and heroictriumph; and it is this conception which also lies behind the phrase

ongyrede hine fhe stripped himself] inthe Dream of the Rood.2e It is

interesting to notice that in the Middle Ages writers and artistsadhered in this point to the gospel account and to the outward lormof Hellenic art, but saw the enforced nakedness ol Christ as lr

humiliation added to torment, and it was sometimes imaginccl thirtthe Virgin intervened to save her Son from such shame by coveringHim with her veil.

Christ's mounting the Cross is the climax and end of thedescription of the Crucifixion in heroic terms. Again in the gospels themethod of attaching Christ to the Cross is not described, andexegesis, as in Bede, normally only expounds the allegoricalsigniflcance of the Crucifixion, and is not primarily concerned withturning the gospel story into a continuous naturalistic narrative. Ofthe great Fathers, only Ambrose in the passage referred to abovedescribes Christ ascending the Cross as victor. In Latin hymnodythere were two conventional expressions, in crucem ascendere ftoascend the cross] and in crucis stipite leyatur [is raised up by the tree ofthe Cross]. The poet, perhaps following Ambrose, and certainly with

28 Dream of the Rood, ed. A. S. Cook (Oxford 1905), p. 24.2e By the sixth century, however, western Christians did not always retain the idea

without uneasiness, as is shown by the story of Gregory of Tours (Libri Miraculoruml,Societi de I'histoire de France, cliii (1857),62), who relates how there appeared to apriest at Narbonne a terrible and angry Christ, who demanded that His paintedrepresentation should be given a complete covering instead of merely the loinclothwhich it had.

42 Art and Dottrine

the same intention in mind, makes use of the Old English equivalentof crucem ascendere: gealgan gestigan. This is the consummation ofhis theme, and Christ ascends the Cross of F{is own will, in contrast tothe later mediaeval representations in art and mystery plays, wherethe body of Christ is nailed to the Cross as it lies on the ground, andthe thrusting of its base into the socket is an additional agony forChrist. The young hero's advance, and ascent of the Cross, is thus atonce painless and heroic, and is therefore a most admirable symbol ofthe divine nature of christ and the earlier definition of theRedemption.

trn any narrative stressing the divinity of christ, the greatestdifficulty lies in the description of christ's death, a difficulty which isnot only literary but theological. To this the poet's image of christresting and asleep after His great struggle is a most brilliant poeticsolution: 'Aledon hie 6er limwerigne ,.. ond he hine 6ar hwilqreste,mede efter 6am miclan gewinne'* (ll. 63-5). It had been a fairlycommon view that at the moment of Christ,s death, the Godheadforsook the body, and that the obviously anguished cry of Eti, Eli,lamma sabacthani, was the lament of the human body as it feit thedivinity depart. such a conclusion was dangerously near to theApollinarian heresy (that in christ the place of the rational soul wastaken by the Divinity), but the alternative, which seemed to involvethe theologically impossible statement that God could die, and that itwas the dead body of God which was removed from the cross, wasnot immediately acceptable, and it is little wonder that christianwriters faltered before a so apparently incomprehensible paradox. Atthe same time there was an insistence on the voluntary nature ofchrist's death-that, unlike the thieves and all other human beings,He had died at the exact moment that He chose. That christ inclinedHis head before death, not after, was thought to demonstrate this, asalso the comparatively short duration of His agony. The text of JohnX. 18 was orthodoxly associated with this, as can be seen from Bede'scommentaries on Mark and John. This theological uneasiness overthe death of christ is negatively reflected in early representations ofthe crucifixion, in all of which christ is shown alive; in the west it isnot until the Middle Ages that christ is shown hanging dead upon rhecross.3. The author of the Dream of the Rood similarly does not

* 'They laid him down there limb-weary . . . and he rested himself there fbra time, exhauste d atier the great struggle,.

30 rhis point is well made_ and discussed by L. H. Grondijs, L'IconographieByzantine du CruciJii mort sur la croix (utrecht 1947). The conclusions of cionaiysconcerning the date at which the dead christ appears in art have been disputed. That

L)octrinul In.lluotccs in lhc l)rcurtr ol'the lkxtd 43

speak of Christ's death: the climax of the poem is simply, Crist wss on

rodelChrist was on the Cross], and His death is thereafter described

as a sleep, in terms which with cathartic effect suggest exhaustion,release i.id temporary rest.31 In describing Christ's death as a sleep

the poet was probably not original. The image had already been used

of Christ; for instance, by Augustine in his commentary on St. John,and by Bede in imitation.3z Both intend by it to emphasize the

voluntary nature of Christ's death: just as He slept when He wished,

so He died when He wished, though Augustine also draws a furtherallegorical point, that just as Eve was born from the side of Adam as

he slept, so the Church was born from the side of Christ in His flowingsacramental blood as He slept on the Cross.33

But, though the poet may have borrowed the image, the use he

makes of it in suggesting a body still potentially instinct with life is hisown. Modern usage may have reduced the image of death as a sleep toa sentimental euphemism-a danger perhaps inherent in the Homericand late classical usage-but in its earliest Christian form, in Christ'swol(q to Jairus, its point is not to evade the terror and finality ol'thcword death, but to assert the power of God to bring the dead to lilt,and therefore its use in the Dream of the Rood is sublinrclyappropriate.

Whilst the effect of the poet's treatment of Christ the warrior is

indeed fine, it is not here that his brilliance of invention lies, but ratlrcrin his emphasis on Christ's human nature, which is found in histreatment of the Cross. Wonder at the mere device of making the

the dead Christ is represented by the middle ofthe ninth century in Byzantine art as anartistic assertion of orthodox theology has been argued by J. R. Martin, 'The deadChrist on the Cross in Byzantine Att', Late Classical and Mediaval Studies in honor oJ'Matthias Friend Jr., ed. K. Weitzman (Princeton 1955), pp. 189*96. Most recently A.Grillmeier in Der Logos am Kreuz (Nl.unich 1956) has interestingly maintained that thesixth century Syrian Crucifixion ol Rabulas represents Christ dead, the eyes being opento signify His divinity. In support of his view, Grillmeier citesthe Physiologus legend ofthe lion sleeping with its eyes open, with which was associated the Song ol Songs v, 2,'Ergo dormio, et cor meum vigilat'. Certainly, however, there was no naturalisticrepresentation ol Christ dead as such an early date.

3r He does, however, emphasize that the body is God's, with a deliberatestartlingness ol effect, which we shall analyse later.

32 P.L. xcii, 915.33 In Joannis Evangelium tactatus cxxiy P.Z. xxxv 1952. Bede also makes this point

in his hymn on the six days of the creation and six ages of the world, F. J. MoneLateinische Hymnen des Mittelalters (Freiburg im Breisgau i853) I, 1. The image ofdeath as a sleep was also olten associated by the Fathers with the Resurrection ofthedead, and various passages in the Psalms were thus interpreted. On the latter point see

M. B. Ogle'The Sleep of Death' Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome x (1932)8 l-1 I 7. This article is an interesting and learned study ol the image ol death as a sleepin c.lassical and Christian writings.

44 Art and Doctrine

cross speak has perhaps been exaggerated, for, as scholars have .jiisufficiently shown, there are adequate parallels in the Anglo-saxon tRiddles and in Latin literature to the convention of ascribing speech ifn qn inrnimoic nlripnt qrr{ +^ +L:. ^^.^ L^ ^ll^l LL- -- -t , ,1 . : ,l

sufficientlyshown,thereareadequateparallelsintheAnglo.SaxonRiddlesandinLatinliteraturetotheconventionofascribingspeechto an inanimate object, and to this can be added the point thai in at :iruuuu Ltl! lJurrrL trral ln at . i,"ileast one dramatic passage in the Fathers in a pseudo-Augustinian

.,ltsermon, the Cross itself is actually imagined as speaking.3a It is the I

and ironic reversal of the values of the heroic code, it has to acquiesce i ' Hir human nature shrank back from death:

vr uv'r6 I carnis recusat passionem, Divina autem ejus est promptissima.36the cause of death to another, particularly since the other is by e4rrr

3a On the device of making the Cross speak see Margaret Schlauch, 'The Dream of 1 to Chnst HimselfthP ttoodas Pn'otDPGit . Esars Md Studia i, Hob, ol C@lpr,, ,rah, I N.e y.ri '" /".L. tc . 27r. I b,s Paugoalrc worts agaimr rhe Eul ychi, n\ $ ,rr u.' r nll r n rn,r rI le4o).pp.2l J4. Tl. mGl problble direr suE, tow*r. is one otthor riramaLic I lbeeisonly one action r.doaewillrn Lh. D.diator berwccn cod rn,l tn1,.,r,r 1.,{,1

I I155)tsprcbablrnoruiqueorirski!d,uditoriom;sroeuema,"aih,,"h*; i HisGodh.ad. Forwhcrcthe hmaD b@eorrh( *.rknss r'rh. rl,\r',l,r$\ r'.h.t

I ttrou to the aurhor olu. rt.M of the R@d. i rrom the pssioD, Hh divin. wiu k mo( edv f.r,r',f ; )

Doctrinal Influences in the Dreum of-thc lkxttl

implication its lord, to whom it feels that mixture of love and loyalduty, which was the proper feeling of a retainer. It is, moreover,theologically undesirable to over-emphasize the reluctance of theCross as being also a feeling of Christ. The Church, in opposition toMonothehtism, had defined the coexistence of two wills in Christ, buthad added that there was no conflict between them, since the human

use made by the poet of this devic€ that rather deseftes admiring '1$;S,t-,.*,Xl sonformod itselfvoluntarily to the divine. Th€re was also a view,praise: his identification, in part, of the Cross with Christ. - :iflr. ,:, *t"n ro.ung from a sense of decorum rather than from philosophic

In reaction from the forms of Monophysitism, which so stressed .r,i ,. . reasonrng, that even if moderate fear were not in itself evil, it wouldthe divinity ofchrist that he was thought to be naturally free in botl it:l: l 1ir.: nevertheless be unfitting that Christ should in ary way experience itbody and consciousness ofall human experience ofdiscomfort and iil.lii ana recoil from the Crucifixion, thus detracting from thepain, orthodox commentators stessed that like other men He ri'f.l,,il:': rvoluntarircss ofthe act. Nevertheless there was one notable passagehungered and thirsted. Hemust thercforealso havefelt thepainofthe ;$-;r,:, itr the gospels, the account of the Agony in the carden, whi;h in iisCrucifixion, though of course in His humanity, not in His impassible ':j, ililr' tit r"t

"-se pre"is€ly ascribed to Chdst that revulsion ftom pain and

(;odhead. The sufferings of Christ in His humau nature tle poet ;lL . death which is an inherent element in human nature. There is a sensesuggests most movingly by the sufferings of the Cross. The Cross j ofstrain in Bede's colrlmen*,ari€s on this scene in all three gospels. Onshares in all the sufferiflgs of Christ, so that it s€ems to endurc a ]l ,, the one hand, following Ambrose and Jerome, he does not interpretcomPassion, in the sense in which that vr'ord was used in the Middle I the cup, as it was commonly interpreted itr the Middle Ages, as-theAges to describe the virgin's identificstion of he, feelings with rhose ] cup ofChrist's sufrerings, but rcferc it to tle Jews, who having the lawof her son in His Passion. The rcal emotional intensit of Christ's I and the prophets can have no excuse for crucilying one whom theyagony is thus comntunicated without the reasonable and insoluble i sbould have recogrized. On the other haDd the passage interpretedbewildermenl arising of how impassiblity and passibility could co- ] Iirerally provided lhe srrongest evidence againsr the cnosrics andexist in one consciousness. 1 phantasiasts who had dede; the reality of -hrist,s human body-a

The Cross not only experiences the extremities of pain but, having I point which Bede makes in exclamatory style-whilst the actual texts,witlin itself tie power to escape them, endures with a retuctanci :The spirit is u.illing but the flesh is weai'3 i aod ,Not my will but thineheroically subdued This reluctance must primarily b€ referred to the i be done' had similarly lt€come /oci cla$rci for the refutation of theother aspect of the cross, that of the loyal retainer, and its .f .:: Monothelites; and in his commentary on the fust ofthese in Matthewsteadfastness then gains an impressive force. sinc€ by a tremendous I and Mark, Bede, followillg a commorl tradition, allows that christ in

3,11:":l i1tlts ',h"-death ofits lord,forbidden either to irotect i ::.l Facl hic tocus et adversus Eurychianos, qui dicunt unam in mediaroreHim or avenge Him. To see the Cross,s reiterared sratements of ] ... D;;';;;;;;;;;;ffi;;.il,H;.*iffi;l'ililii:;

obedience solely as another rcflection of Christ's human naturc i voluntatern. Cum enim dicit sptiirlj quidpm ttlomptus ert. caru autemwould undoubtedly be to narrow a,ld misinterpret the range of i't.:l yy:"" a*,

"oluntatgs ostendit lumanam, videlicet, quae est camis, €t

emotioa expressed, much of which coDlists of thi ang*.r, oitare i ':, 11*=^.t*-tt ,*,9";gb-1*.T,l:lidem_propter.innrmilarem

45

3s Itwasnotuntillaterthatitwasdeniedthatthefirstoltheset.cxtscoultl lrcrrpplit:11

,re xoodas Prosopopcie', E;arr @d s,udiq i, Eotu;tcute;R ;;;N";n;;i I !6 P.L. tcii,277.'rhrs pausealrc works a8ainst the Eurychians wlro dn i,,h n, r hn r

\

4146 Art and Doctrine

Whilst, therefore, the parallel must not be pressed too far, nor in anyway exclusively, it is difficult not to see a correspondence between theantithesis of the divine and human wills in this passage from Bede andthe contrast in the poem between the hero who hastens to his deathand the Cross enduring only with reluctance.

It might at this point be urged that the reflectioninthe Dream of theRood of the divine and the human in the young hero and the Cross hasbeen overstated, and that the figure of the warrior might symbolize nomore than Christ's glorious humanity. But it was precisely thiselement in Christ which had been ignored in Leo's Tome and bysubsequent commentatcrrs. A11 actions had been assigned to the twocategories of divine and human, and the possibility of a thirdcategory-actions possible to a sinless humanity-had not beenmentioned. It is therefore certain that anybody who understood theChristological doctrine at all would think in terms of this rigiddistinction, which may appear unfamiliar and exaggerated to themodern reader.

The treatment of the young hero and the Cross has so far been seento fulfil the principle of 'recognizing the difference', bur thedistinction between divinity and humanity, triumph and suffering, isreunited by the stylistic form of the communicatio idiomatum. rl isinteresting to compare the style of the Dream of the Roodwith that ofthe description of the crucifixion in the crist. since the latter is acomplaint, the main point is the contrast between man,s sin andChrist's goodness, man's ingratitude and Christ,s love. Thecharacteristic of the style is therefore a series of antitheses, which arestylistically pointed by the alliteration:

[)octrincl In.fluences in tht, I)reum oJ tha Roctd

potentialities of the communicatio idiomatum most fully exploited in

such an objectively meditative sequence as Donne's La Corona. Butalthough the Anglo-Saxons lack the stylistic poise of the

Metaphysicals, it might well be maintained that they managed these

stylistic forms with greater assurance than did the writers of the

mediaeval lYric.

In the thirty lines of dramatic description of the Crucifixion in the

Dream of the Rood there are ten examples of the communicatio

idiomatum, and each one stimulates a shock at the paradox, a shock

which grows in intensity as the peom progresses. Those towards the

end are particularly striking: 'Genamon hie par elmihtigne god'

[They seized there Almighty God] (60), 'Aledon hie limwerigne ...

beheoldon hie 6rer heofones dryhten' [They laid him down, limbweary ... they gazed there on the Lord of Heaven] (63*64),'gesetton

hie 6rron sigora Wealdend' [They placed therein the Lord ofVictoriesl (67). The habit of variation in Anglo-Saxon poetic stylc

and the richness of synonym in Anglo-Saxon poetic diction, assist the

poet in each instance to use a fresh word or phrase to emphasize somc

attd'b-ute of God, His rule, majesty, omnipotence; and at the earlydate of the Dream of the Rood lhere can be no question of such

periphrases having become so conventional as to be weakenecl in

meaning. The theological point that the Christ who endured thc

Crucifixion is fully God and fully man is thus perfectly made, ancl

with it the imaginative effect which is the natural result of thc

communicatio idiomatum is attained, the astonishment at the great

paradox of Christianity that God should endure such things.There is a further and related point of contrast to be made between

the description of the Cruciflxion inthe Crist and in the Dream of the

Rood.Since the first takes its form from the antiphons of the liturgy, itanticipates the medieval lyrics and mystery plays, in which the

audience or readers are made to feel participants in the action, byChrist's direct address to them, and the making of their actions andfeelings one half of the stylized antitheses. The didactic anddevotional intention of this is plain, but it also serves another usefulliterary purpose, though probably unintentionally: it removes thedifficulty of the customary instinctive reaction of the audience-which is, to identify themselves with the character in the play or pocnl

with whom they sympathize. There can be no danger ol' thcrn

unconsciously identifying themselves with Christ in His torlllcr)lbecause they feel themselves present in their own person. Their ownfeelings and situation are dramatically relevant to what is being slitl

Ic wes on worulde wedla,earm w&s ic on e6le pinurn,

pet pu wurde welig on heofonum,pet pu wurde eadig on minum.

(1495_6)3?

This, of course, is not native to Anglo-Saxon style, but derives fromthe Easter liturgy, particularly the Improperia of Good Friday,conceivably with the stimulus of a sermon intermediary. The effect ofthe communicatio idiomatum is likewise not native to Anglo-Saxonstyle, for it provides the shock and astonishment of violent paradox.The strangeness of both these styles to Anglo-Saxon literature isimmediately evident if we think of them as characteristics ofmetaphysical poetry: the antitheses being found in their mostpolished and pointed form in Herbert's 'The Sacrifice,, and the

3? 'I was a poor man in the world, that you might be rich in heaven; I was wretchedin your native land, that you might be blessed in mine.,

,Ll48 Art and Doctrine

or done in the literary work. Now this is not so in the Dream oJ'theRood, where the dreamer, with his consciousness of the tragic andterrifying contrast between his own sinfulness and the glory of theCross, is forgotten once the Cross begins to speak. However,particularly in the Anglo-Saxon period, a treatment of thecrucifixion in which the hearer was led by his intense sympathy forchrist's pain to identify himself with christ in the poem, wouldobviously be unfortunate, since it would carry with it the implicationthat christ's consciousness was soleiy human and thereforecomprehensible to fellow human beings. But to imagine christ'sconsciousness as the crucifixion in terms of human experience wouldbe to revert, though no doubt unsuspectingly, to the Gnostic heresywhich was even more obviously un-christian than the extremes ofNestorianism and Monophysitism, that before the passion beganchrist's divinity left Him. By the semi-identification of the cross withChrist, the poet enables his hearers to share in an imaginativerecreation of christ's sufferings, whilst the problem which bewildersLhe mind-the nature of Christ's consciousness-is evaded.

The general feeling and vocabulary of the Dream of the Roodsuggest affinities with the school of cynewulf rather than cf cadmon.But it is evident from the early date of the Ruthwell Cross, on whichmodern archaeologists and art historians are agreed, that the Dreamof the Rood mtst have been an offshoot of the schooi of Biblicalpoetry begun by Cadmon.38 Yet, when Bede speaks of Christ,sPassion as on of cadmon's subjects, one inevitably thinks of thc styleol' the section of the Heliand which describes the crucifixion(5534 ll5), rathcr than of the Dream of the Rood. But the poem musthavc bccn written round about the year 700, and that the ptet did notsir,ply writc a Biblical paraphrase in native style must surely berucc:ountecl lirr by the fact that he was steeped in the doctrine of the('hurch, and thus gave to his treatment of the Crucifixion the fullrrchncss and subtlety of its theological significance. The exigencies of. c.rnplcx and rigid doctrine, far from hampering the poeticirnirgination, have here provoked a magnificent response: a proioundancl dramatic meditation that could never have been inspired byunchartered fieedom. [t is, in fact, this poetic transformation of thephilosophic and theological views of the crucifixion that gives to thepoern its unique quality, and adds depths below depths of meaningunder the apparently lucid surface.

38 on the other hand that part ol the poem which lollows the description of theCrucifir.ion must surcly be a later addition by a writer of the school of

^cynewulf.

IV

THE EFFECT OF TYPOLOGY ONTHE ENGLISH MEDIEVAL PLAYS

OF ABRAHAM AND ISAAC

Tnr story of Abraham and Isaac, of which there survive in England

seven rnedieval plays,r including one Cornish, is the most

consistently well told tale of all those in the Corpus Christi cycles.

These piays might also be called the most successlul, in that, although

others such as the famous Secunda Pastorum or the Towneley Play ofNoah may be more lively, they are less integrated: they are divertingin both the modern and original meaning of the word, for they

interest and amuse by characterizalion and action which htrve no

relevance to the religious meaning of the story. By contrast, in thc

plays of Abraham and Isaac there is no development of charactcr antl

noincidental action which is irrelevant to the story, thouglt this

relevance must be measured, not by the relation of the plays to tltt:twenty-second chapter of Genesis but by their relation to tlltrtraditional interpretation given to it by the Fathers of the ('lturclt.There is a radical distinction between these two. In thc Biblicalaccount Abraham is the only irnportant figure-Isaac is mentionedonly as an object of sacrifice-and the sole point of the narrative is the

testing of Abraham's obedience. He therefore seems to be on the verythreshold of becoming a tragic figure, and the stress of the story, bothdramatic and moral, seems to fall naturally upon the feelings ofAbraham towards the immense demand made of him. In anyexpansion of the story he might at least be expected to hesitate, as he

does in the best sixteenth-century plays on the subject, such as theProtestant classical tragedy of Theodore Bbza, Abraham Sacrifiant,inwhich Abraham, in a long scene immediately before the sacrifice, is

stirred by but rejects the evil arguments prompted by the devil,2 or the

1 The editions used are as follows: The Chester Plays, ed. Deimling and Matthcws,E.E.T.S.,8.S., lxrr,62-83; Ludus Coventria, ed. K. S. Block, E.E.T.S., Ii.S.. <:xx.43-51; The Towneley Plays, ed. England and Pollard, E.E.T.S., E.S., lxxt,40 49; YrtrkMystery Plays,ed. L. Toulmin Smith (1885), pp. 56-671'The Non-Cycle My.rrtr.t' l'lu.v:s,

ed. O. Waterhouse, E.E.T.S., E.S., crv, Dublin and Brome Plays 26-51;'l'fu tlntiurtCornish l)rcma, trans. E. Norris, I, 96-108.

2 Ahraham Sacrifiant, sixteenth-century translation by Arthur Gokling, ctl. M. W.Wallacc ( 1906). pp. 3 t- 16.