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Hebrews, Israelites, and Wicked Jews: An Onomastic Crux in ‘Andreas’ 161-67

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Thomas D. Hill
Thomas D. Hill*
Affiliation:
Cornell University
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Extract

In the Old English poem Andreas, the narrative begins with the imprisonment and suffering of Matthew, who is blinded and forced to drink a magic potion which is intended to reduce him to bestiality. This drink, which literarily is directly descended from Circe's potion, fails to be effective in this case, and Matthew prays to God for help in his affliction. God responds directly and tells Matthew that He will bring help. God's help is mediated by the apostle Andrew, and immediately before God summons Andrew He is apostrophized in the following passage:

þa w æs gemyndig, se Ðe middangeard

gestaÐelode strangum mihtum.

hu he in ellþeodigum yrmÐum wunode

belocen leoÐubendum, þe oft his lufan adreg

for Ebreum ond Israhelum,

swylce he Iudea galdorcræftum

wiÐstod stranglice.1

Type
Miscellany
Information
Traditio , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , 1976 , pp. 358 - 361
Copyright
Copyright © The Fordham University Press 

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References

1 All quotations of Andreas are from the edition of the poem by Brooks, Kenneth R., Andreas and the Fates of the Apostles (Oxford 1961 ); since the interpretation of this passage is a point at issue, I cite the translation of Gordon, R. K., which I believe is substantively correct: ‘Then He who had established the work with mighty power forgot not how he dwelt in misery among strange people, bound with fetters, He who had often shown forth His love for the Hebrews and Israelites; also He had sternly withstood the magic arts of the Jews’ (Anglo-Saxon Poetry [London 1954] 184). For a recent study of another onomastic problem in Andreas, see Robinson, Fred C., ‘Anglo-Saxon Onomastics in the Old English Andreas,’ Names 21 (1973) 133-36.Google Scholar

2 Brooks, , op. cit. 69.Google Scholar

3 Blumenkranz, Blumenkranz, Les auteurs chrétiens latins du Moyen Age sur les Juifs et le Judaisme (Paris 1963); Blumenkranz's book is a survey of the attitude of every major medieval author (from the fifth through the eleventh century) concerning the Jews and is thus a very valuable treatment of a vast body of material.Google Scholar

4 De gubernatione Dei 4.1, ed. Pauly, F., Opera omnia (CSEL 8) 63-64 (PL 53.71).Google Scholar

5 Blumenkranz, , op. cit. 42.Google Scholar

6 For documentation and discussion, ibid. 31-33 (on Leo); and 26-7 (on Peter Chrysologus). Google Scholar

7 Ibid. 85.Google Scholar

8 Ibid. 133 n. 6.Google Scholar

9 Brooks, , op. cit. 69.Google Scholar

10 Ibid. ; the entries in Bosworth-Toller under galdor and galdorcræft show very clearly the implications of the term in the context of Old English Christian culture. The Old Norse/Icelandic cognate galdr is attested as meaning charm or spell in the Edda; see for example Hávamály stanza 152:Google Scholar

þat kann ec it siaunda, ef ec sé hávan loga sal um sessmogom:

brennrat svá breitt, at ec hánom biargigac, þann kann ec galdr at gala.

I quote from the edition of Gustav Neckel, rev. Hans Kuhn (4th ed.; Heidelberg 1962) 1.42.

11 The point is of course that the fact of translation need not necessarily imply that a translator is unaware of the significance of what he transposes from one language to another. Google Scholar

12 I have examined the prose Old English version of Andreas and the various versions of the Andrew legend ed. Blatt, Blatt, Die lateinischen Bearbeitungen der Acta Andreae et Matthiae apud anthropophagos (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 12; Giessen 1930 ). I have also checked the version of the Acta Andreae et Matthiae ed. Lipsius, R. A. and Bonnet, M. in Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha (Leipzig 1898) 2 .1, and the brief portion of a text edited by Holthausen, F., ‘Eine neue lateinische Fassung der Andreaslegende,’ Anglia 62 (1938) 190-92.Google Scholar

13 For other instances of this kind of apparent creativity on the part of the Andreas-poet, see my discussion of the figure of the draco malitiae in ‘Two Notes on Patristic Allusion in Andreas,’ Anglia 84 (1966) 156–60; and Szittya, Penn R., ‘The Living Stone and the Patriarchs: Typological Imagery in Andreas, Lines 706-810,’ Journal of English and Germanic Philology 72 (1973) 167-74.Google Scholar