¹ All quotations from the poem are from The Guthlac Poems of the Exeter Book, ed. Jane Roberts (Oxford 1979), by line numbers.Google Scholar

² Old English Poetical Motives Derived from the Doctrine of Sin (Minneapolis 1903) 37.Google Scholar

³ Lichoman (163b) serves as direct object both for wynna forwyrnde (164a) and for idelra eagena wynna [forwyrnde] (166) and so cannot be translated with wynna as ‘joys (or lusts) of the body’ parallel with eagena wynna, ‘joys of the eyes’; but seftra setla 7 symbeldaga are clearly pleasures of the flesh, and they are marked off as a separate category from the ‘joys of the eyes’ by swylce eac (166a). I take pegan (169b) as a form of peowan, with menniscum prymme as its object, and follow the suggestion of Roberts for the phrase æfter ponce: ‘The fear of God was too great in his mind for him to serve human glory in order to obtain pleasure.’ For other possibilities, which do not affect my argument, see the note on 167b–169 in Roberts’ edition.Google Scholar

⁴ For a summary of the exegetical tradition, see Howard, Donald R., The Three Temptations (Princeton 1966) 43–75, especially 51–53. Concupiscentia oculorum was sometimes equated with curiositas as a specific category of avarice (desire for forbidden knowledge or high position); Bede adds, however, that curiositas consists also ‘in acquirendis rebus temporalibus’ (In primam epistolam S. Joannis, PL 93.92).Google Scholar

⁵ Ps. 110.10; Prov. 1.7, 9.10; Ecclus. 1.16; cf. Job 28.28; Prov. 15.33; Ecclus. 1.34, 19.18. The seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit were commonly thought of as a kind of ladder or scale of virtues rising from timor Domini to sapientia (see for example Augustine, De doctrina Christiana 2.7 [ed. Joseph Martin, CCL 32.36–38; PL 34.39–40]), and commentators on them frequently cited one of the above biblical verses, as did Augustine. To cite an Old English example, Wulfstan in his homily ‘De Septiformi Spiritu’ (adapted from Ælfric) concludes a list of the seven Gifts with the sentence: ‘And ϸonne is Godes ege seo seofoþe gifu ϸissera gastlicra gifa, 7 seo gifu is angin ealles wisdomes.’ The Homilies of Wulfstan, ed. Dorothy Bethurum (Oxford 1957) 186. Thus an allusion to only the first and the last of the Gifts (as here) could in effect be an allusion to all seven.Google Scholar

⁶ For the seven Gifts and the baptism of Christ, see for example Jerome's In Esaiam 17.41. 113 (ed. M. Adriaen, CCL 73A707; PL 24.599); for the three temptations and the temptation of Christ (which was in turn related to the temptation of Adam) see Howard 47–53, and his summary table of correspondences, p. 53. An Old English homily on the temptations of Christ and Adam (which does not cite 1 John) refers to the temptations as giferness, gytsung, and ydelgylp: Twelfth Century Homilies, ed. A. O. Belfour (EETS os 137; London 1909) 100.Google Scholar

⁷ Lc. 4.1–2; cf. Mt. 4.1; Mc. 1.12–13.Google Scholar

⁸ Felix's Life of St. Guthlac, ed. Bertram Colgrave (Cambridge 1956). There is some question whether the Guthlac poet knew the Vita Guthlaci, but assuming he did, he may have developed the three temptations motif out of a passage in chapter 28: ‘Vitae scilicet illius haec inmota ortonomia fuit, ita ut ab illo tempore, quo heremum habitare coeperat, non laneo, nec lineo vestimine, nec alterius cuiuscumque delicatae vestis tegminibus usus est, sed in pelliciis vestibus omnes dies solitariae conversationis suae exigebat. Cotidianae ergo vitae ipsius tanta temperantia fuit, ut ab illo tempore, quo heremum habitare coeperat, excepta ordeacei particula et lutulentae aquae poculamento post solis occasum, nullius alicuius alimenti usibus vesceretur’ (Colgrave 94). Guthlac's renouncing of ‘soft materials’ and all food but barley bread and water may have suggested the poet's references to ‘extravagant clothing’ and ‘feast-days.’ (I owe this reference to Mary F. Wack of Cornell University.)Google Scholar

⁹ ‘His quippe vitiorum vocabulis omnia vitiorum genera comprehendit’; Bede (n. 4 supra).Google Scholar

¹⁰ Hill, Thomas D. has argued that Guthlac's temptations are to idelwuldor and egesa, pride and despair: ‘The Middle Way: idel-wuldor and egesa in the Old English Guthlac A,’ Review of English Studies ns 30 (1979) 182–87.Google Scholar

¹¹ See Hill, 182.Google Scholar