Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T14:27:00.648Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

16 - De septiformi spiritu (‘Concerning the Sevenfold Spirit’)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2024

Get access

Summary

De septiformi spiritu (‘Concerning the Sevenfold Spirit’) is Ælfric's Latin tract on the sevenfold ‘spirits’ or attributes of the Holy Spirit and of the evil spirit, the devil. In this brief work, each spiritus bonus (‘good spirit’) is paired with its opposing spiritus malus (‘wicked spirit’) and another worse spirit. A spirit of wisdom, for example, is contrary to foolishness and the pretense of wisdom, and a spirit of discernment contrary to stupidity and the pretense of learning. Likewise, the good spirits of, deliberation, courage, knowledge, piety, and the fear of God are opposed by their wicked and worse counterparts. The tract's opening sentence mentions Isaiah from whose book of prophesy the idea of the sevenfold spirit ultimately derives. But Ælfric's more immediate source was a commentary on the book of Revelation, the Commentarius in Apocalypsin, by Primasius, a mid-sixth-century bishop of Hadrumetum in Africa (today Sousse, Tunisia). The one copy of the Commentarius known to have existed in Anglo-Saxon England was annotated by Dunstan (d. 988), the archbishop of Canterbury, who along with Æthelwold, bishop of Winchester (d. 984), and Oswald, bishop of Worcester and archbishop of York (d. 992), led the ecclesiastical reform of which Ælfric was a product. Dunstan probably annotated the Commentarius when he was abbot of Glastonbury (ca 940–57), the same time Æthelwold, Ælfric's teacher, was Dunstan's student there. Ælfric thus might have learned of Primasius’ commentary from Æthelwold and consulted it in some form during his studies at Winchester. For De septiformi spiritu, Ælfric hews very closely to Primasius’ text and then expands on his adaptation in the vernacular Be þam Halgan Gaste (‘Concerning the Holy Spirit’ [AH II.17]). He wrote both tracts between about 998 and 1002, perhaps as a single work and probably for Wulfstan (d. 1023) who was bishop of London at the beginning of this period and archbishop of York at its end. Wulfstan lightly revised Be þam Halgan Gaste for a homily of his own but left De septiformi spiritu unchanged. Ælfric for his part seems to have had both tracts copied into a Commonplace Book that no longer survives.

Type
Chapter
Information
Ælfrician Homilies and Varia
Editions, Translations, and Commentary
, pp. 787 - 802
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×