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Traditional Exegesis and the Question of Guilt in the Old English ‘Genesis B’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Susan Burchmore
Susan Burchmore*
Affiliation:
Charlottesville, Virginia
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Extract

For many years, scholars felt that the unusual elements in Genesis B exonerated Adam and Eve by portraying them as innocent victims of a diabolical deception. In particular, the tempter's apparent disguise as an angel, Eve's vision of heaven, and the consistent emphasis throughout the temptation scene on Adam's and Eve's wholehearted loyalty to God made it difficult to confirm their guilt or to identify their sin. For some time, therefore, Genesis B's sympathetic portrayal of the first parents was accepted as one of the poem's strange unorthodoxies, yet another puzzle in a maze of puzzles. However, the more recent studies of the poem have shown its treatment of guilt to be both less unorthodox and, at the same time, more complex than was earlier suspected. Rosemary Woolf, for example, suggests that Eve was motivated, not by innocent loyalty, but by pride ‘directed towards emulation and envy of Adam’; that she succumbed to the tempter's persuasions because she ‘listened with a willful credulity springing from nascent vanity’; and that the poet's insistence upon Eve's ‘wacra hyge’ and good intentions was an apology necessary to mitigate the impression of Eve as a nagging wife. For her, Genesis B thus portrays a variation on Genesis 3.5, which in familiar commentary was sometimes interpreted to stress Eve's desire to be like Adam.

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Articles
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Traditio , Volume 41 , 1985 , pp. 117 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University Press 

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References

1 See McKillop, Alan D., ‘Illustrative Notes on Genesis B,’ Journal of English and Germanic Philology 20 (1921) 34–36, and John F. Vickrey's summary of previous criticism on this point in ‘The Vision of Eve in Genesis B,’ Speculum 44 (1969) 96.Google Scholar

2 Woolf, Rosemary, ‘The Fall of Man in Genesis B and the Mystère d'Adam,’ in Studies in Old English Literature in Honor of Arthur G. Brodeur, ed. Greenfield, Stanley B. (New York 1973) 195–97.Google Scholar

3 Woolf refers in particular to Augustine's De Genesi contra Manichaeos 11.11; ‘Fall of Man’ 195n.Google Scholar

4 ‘The Micel Wundor of Genesis B,’ Studies in Philology 68 (1971) 245–53.Google Scholar

5 ‘Selfsceaft in Genesis B,’ Anglia 83 (1965) 166.Google Scholar

6 ‘Vision’ 98.Google Scholar

7 Hill, Thomas D., ‘The Fall of the Angels and Man in the Old English Genesis B,’ in Anglo-Saxon Poetry: Essays in Appreciation for John C. McGalliard, edd. Nicholson, Lewis E. and Freese, Dolores Warwick (Notre Dame 1975) 281–85.Google Scholar

8 Hill, , ‘Fall’ 284.Google Scholar

9 Those commentaries most relevant to the background of Genesis B seem to be Ambrose, De Paradiso (PL 14.291-332); Augustine, , De Genesi contra Manichaeos (PL 34.173-220), De Genesi ad litteram (PL 34.220-486), and De civitate Dei 14, edd. Dombart, B. and Kalb, A., Opera 14.2 (CCL 48; Turnhout 1955) 414-52; Claude of Turin (ps.-Eucherius), Commentarii in Genesim (PL 50.893-1048); ps.-Bede, In Pentateuchem commentarium (PL 91.189-285); ps.-Bede, De sex dierum creatione (PL 93.201-54); Alcuin, , Interrogationes et responsiones in Genesim (PL 100.515-66); Maurus, Rhabanus, Commentarium in Genesim (PL 107.439-670); Angelom of Luxeuil, Commentarium in Genesim (PL 115.105-244); and perhaps Joannes Eriugena, Scottus, De divisione naturae (Periphyseon) 4 and 5 (PL 122.741-1022) and Remigius of Auxerre (?), Commentarius in Genesim (PL 131.51-134).Google Scholar

10 Vickrey, , ‘Vision’ 100.Google Scholar

11 See, for example, Vickrey, , ‘Vision’ 96, and ‘Selfsceaft’ 154; Hill, , ‘Fall’ 279; and Woolf, , ‘Fall of Man’ 189-90.Google Scholar

12 Cf. Kennedy, Charles, trans., The Cædmon Poems (1916; Gloucester, Mass. 1965) xl n. 1: ‘The metamorphosis [into serpent form], however, was not, and could not be, maintained. From this point in the narrative the motivation of the temptation scene demands that the fallen angel speak in his natural form that there may be plausibility in his statement that he is a herald sent from God.’ Google Scholar

13 The best examples are Robinson, F. N., ‘A Note on the Sources of the Old Saxon Genesis,’ Modern Philology 4 (1906) 389–96; Evans, J. M., ‘Genesis B and its Background,’ Review of English Studies 14 (1963) 1-16 and 113-28; Woolf, , ‘Fall of Man’; and McKillop, , ‘Illustrative Notes.’ Google Scholar

14 All references to and quotations from Genesis B are taken from The Junius Manuscript, ed. Krapp, George Philip (Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 1; New York 1969) 9–28.Google Scholar

16 See his Der Heliand und die angelsächsische Genesis (Halle 1875) 19–20.Google Scholar

16 De Genesi ad litteram 11.30.59 (PL 34.415). Cf. also Angelom, , Comment in Gen. 1.3.6 (PL 115.137), where he says only that Eve did not think the fruit would make her die; Alcuin, , Interrogationes 66 and 67 (PL 100.523); and Claude of Turin, Commentarii in Genesim 1.3.2ff. (PL 50.911).Google Scholar

17 Commentarium in Genesim 1.15 (PL 107.488-89).Google Scholar

18 De civitate Dei 14.11, Opera 14.2 (CCL 48) 433.Google Scholar

19 Claude of Turin, Commentarii in Genesim (PL 50.911).Google Scholar

20 Commentarii in Genesim 1.3.7 (PL 50.912). See also Maurus, Rhabanus, Commentarium in Genesim 1.15 (PL 107.489 and 490); ps.-Bede, In Pentateuchem commentarium (PL 91.214); and ps.-Bede, De sex dierum creatione (PL 93.250 and 251).Google Scholar

21 Commentarii in Genesim 1.3.7 (PL 50.911-12).Google Scholar

22 Comm. in Genesim 1.15 (PL 107.490-91).Google Scholar

23 De sex dierum creatione (PL 93.250-51). This passage appears also in ps.-Bede, Quaestiones super Genesim (PL 93.278-79).Google Scholar

24 Cf. Augustine, , De Genesi contra Manichaeos 2.25-27 (PL 34.216-18).Google Scholar

25 See, for example, Woolf, , ‘Fall of Man’ 191–93.Google Scholar

26 Haymo of Auxerre, In diversas Pauli Epistolas expositio (PL 117.651). Cf. also Ambrose, De Paradiso 15, where in discussing the relative punishments of Adam, Eve, and the serpent, he says, ‘Serpens, inquit, me persuasit: et hoc veniabile Deo visum est: eo quod nosset multas ad decipiendum vias esse serpentis (quia transfiguratur in angelum lucis, et ministri ejus sicut ministri justitiae sunt) falsa imponentis rebus singulis nomina, ut temeritatem dicat esse virtutem, et avaritiae nomen imponat industriae. Serpens enim mulierem decepit, virum mulier ad praevaricationem de veritate deduxit. Serpentis typum accepit delectatio corporalis: mulier symbolum sensus est nostri, vir mentis. Delectatio itaque sensum movet, sensus menti transfundit quam acceperit passionem. Delectatio igitur prima est origo peccati, ideoque non mireris, cur ante serpens damnetur judicio Dei, secundo mulier, tertio vir. Secundum erroris ordinem, damnationis quoque ordo servatus est. Delectatio enim sensum, sensus autem mentem captivam facere consuevit’ (PL 14.329); cited also by Vickrey, , ‘Selfsceaft’ 166–67n.Google Scholar

27 Commentarii in Genesim 1.3.7 (PL 50.912).Google Scholar

28 Commentarium in Genesim 1.15 (PL 107.490-91). The identical statement can be found in ps.-Isidore of Seville, Sententiae 4.29 (PL 83.1173).Google Scholar

29 Thus he says, ‘Providendum nobis est, quia intueri non debet quod non licet concupisci. Ut enim munda mens in cogitatione servetur a lascivia voluptatis suae, deprimendi sunt oculi, quasi quidam raptores, a culpa. Neque enim Heva lignum vetitum contigisset, nisi hoc prius incaute respiceret. Hinc ergo pensandum, quanto debemus moderamine erga illicita visum restringere, nos qui moraliter vivimus, si et mater viventium per oculos ad mortem venit.’ Comm. in Genesim 1.15 (PL 107.490).Google Scholar

30 Augustine, , De Genesi ad litteram 12.25 (PL 34.475-76). Cf. also Augustine, , De diversis quaestionibus octoginta tribus 9, ed. Mutzenbecher, A., Opera 12.2 (CCL 44a; Turnhout 1975) 16-17, where he examines the nature of sensual vision and concludes, ‘Si igitur sunt imagines sensibilium falsae, quae discerni ipsis sensibus nequeunt, et nihil percipi potest nisi quod a falso discernitur, non est constitutum iudicium ueritatis in sensibus. Quamobrem saluberrime admonemur auerti ab hoc mundo, qui profecto corporeus est et sensibilis, et ad deum, id est ueritatem quae intellectu et interiore mente capitur, quae semper manet et eiusdem modi est, quae non habet imaginem falsi a qua discerni non possit, tota alacritate conuerti.’ Google Scholar

31 De Genesi ad litteram 12.14 (PL 34.465-66). Interestingly, Augustine also makes a possibly relevant reference to 1 Corinthians 11.14 in his discussion of how to distinguish good from evil visions: ‘Discretio sane difficillima est, cum spiritus malignus quasi tranquillus agit, ac sine aliqua vexatione corporis assumpto humano spiritu dicit quod potest; quando etiam vera dicit, et utilia praedicat, transfigurans se, sicut scriptum est, velut angelum lucis [2 Cor. 11.14], ad hoc ut cum illi in manifestis bonis creditum fuerit, seducat ad sua’ (ibid. 11.13; PL 34.465). In Genesis B, the tempter's use of Eve's vision seems to fit this description fairly well, and therefore Eve's insistence upon the tempter's angelic ‘gearwon’ might refer to this Augustinian description of evil visions. But, again, the reference would be too oblique to justify entirely the role it plays in the poem.Google Scholar

32 De divisione naturae 4.10 (PL 122.783).Google Scholar

33 Ibid. 4.10 (PL 122.784).Google Scholar

34 Ibid. 4.10 (PL 122.784).Google Scholar

35 Ibid. 4.16 (PL 122.826).Google Scholar

36 Vickrey, , ‘Vision’ 97–98.Google Scholar

37 For a full description of the tempter's rather pathetic character, see Renoir, Alain, ‘The Self Deception of Temptation: Boethian Psychology in Genesis B,’ in Old English Poetry: Fifteen Essays, ed. Creed, Robert P. (Providence 1967) 47–67, especially 55-61.Google Scholar

38 Augustine, , De Genesi ad litteram 11.30 (PL 34.445) Cf. also Alcuin, , Interrogationes 63 (PL 100.523); ps.-Bede, In Pentateuchem (PL 91.211); ps.-Bede, De sex dierum creatione (PL 93.250); Claude of Turin, Commentarii (PL 50.910-11); Maurus, Rhabanus, Commentarium (PL 107.487-88); and Angelom of Luxeuil, Commentarium (PL 115.136).Google Scholar

39 Cf. Ambrose, , De Paradiso 12 and 13 (PL 14.318-26); and to follow the rhetorical concern back even further, see for example Chrysostom, , De diabolo tentatore, Hom. 3 (PG 49.269).Google Scholar

40 De Genesi ad litteram 11.42 (PL 34.452-53).Google Scholar

41 De Paradiso 1.4 (PL 14.300).Google Scholar

42 Augustine's discussion of this question appears in De Genesi ad litteram 9.25–29 (PL 34.403-408).Google Scholar

43 Angelom, , Commentarium (PL 115.136).Google Scholar

44 Ps.-Bede, De sex dierum creatione (PL 93.231).Google Scholar

45 In support of this reading, see also Hall, J. R., ‘Duality and the Dual Pronoun in Genesis B,’ Papers in Langage and Literature 17 (1981) 142–43.Google Scholar

46 De civitate Dei 14.11, Opera 14.2 (CCL 48) 433. Vickrey suggests the significance of this passage, ‘Selfsceaft’ 167n.Google Scholar

47 De Genesi ad litteram 11.30.39 (PL 34.415).Google Scholar

48 Ibid. 11.42.60 (PL 34.454).Google Scholar

49 Cf. Commentarii 1.3.7 (PL 50.911 especially).Google Scholar

50 Interrogationes 67 and 68 (PL 100.523).Google Scholar

51 Angelom, , Commentarium (PL 115.137).Google Scholar

52 Ibid. (PL 115.138).Google Scholar

53 De divisione naturae 5.10 (PL 122.784).Google Scholar

54 That this concern with heresy may be an important theme in Genesis B is supported by Margaret Ehrhart's reading of the poem. She identifies in Genesis B a pattern of words which emphasizes learning and teaching and concludes that the poet sees the fall ‘not in terms of a struggle between rivals in the comitatus tradition, but as an instance of disciples listening to the wrong teacher’: ‘Tempter as Teacher: Some Observations on the Vocabulary of the Old English Genesis B,’ Neophilologus 59 (1975) 436–54.Google Scholar

55 Cf. McKillop, , ‘Illustrative Notes’ 35–36.Google Scholar

56 De divisione naturae 5.26 (PL 122.919). This discussion occurs in relation to post-lapsarian man and the way in which he can return to God. While it does not directly concern the pre-lapsarian Adam and Eve, this philosophy is nevertheless, I believe, relevant to Genesis B's concept of the fall, for the poet examines not just how the first sin occurred, but like the more traditional commentators, how man continues to sin in his post-lapsarian state.Google Scholar

57 De divisione naturae 5.28 (PL 122.935-37).Google Scholar

58 Marenbon, John, From the Circle of Alcuin to the School of Auxerre (Cambridge 1981) 105ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

59 Cf. Hill, , ‘Fall’ especially 285ff.Google Scholar

60 Here and throughout the essay, I am indebted to the distinctions among character types established by Robert Scholes and Robert Kellogg in The Nature of Narrative (New York 1966). They distinguish three types of characterization in narrative literature: the ‘illustrative’ character, who functions as a symbol to illustrate an abstract idea; the ‘representative’ character, who is more mimetic and represents a type of ‘real-life’ personality; and the ‘aesthetic’ character, described above. See Nature of Narrative 89-104.Google Scholar

61 References to the illustrations are from The Cædmon Manuscript of Anglo-Saxon Biblical Poetry: Junius XI in the Bodleian Library, a Facsimile with Introduction , ed. Gollancz, Israel Sir (Oxford 1927). The illustrations are also reproduced in Kennedy, The Cædmon Poems , and by Ellis, Henry, ‘An Account of Cædmon's Metrical Paraphrase,’ Archaeologia 24 (1832) 329-40.Google Scholar

62 Cf. Wormald, Francis, English Drawings of the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries (London 1952) 212n. My research at the Index of Christian Art at Princeton University resulted in the same conclusion.Google Scholar

63 Ohlgren, Thomas, ‘Some New Light on the Old English Cædmonian Genesis,’ Studies in Iconography 1 (1975) 39–57.Google Scholar

64 ‘The Illustrations of the Cædmonian Genesis: Literary Criticism through Art,’ Medievalia et Humanistica 3 (1972) 199–212. In this article, Ohlgren suggests that the illustrator emphasized the poem's contrast between good and evil and its theme of deceit. See also his discussion of five drawings in the Junius manuscript which have recently been discovered by the use of ultraviolet light: ‘Five New Drawings in the MS Junius 11: Their Iconography and Thematic Significance,’ Speculum 47 (1972) 227-33, and his discussion of the artist's ‘nearly wholesale assimilation of the poem's content and style’ in ‘Visual Language in the Old English Cædmonian Genesis,’ Visible Language 6 (1972) 253-76.Google Scholar

65 The double figure looks like two Adams but is usually taken to represent Adam and Eve. Could the illustrator be representing Eriugena's belief that before he fell, man was a unified being who contained both male and female and both body and soul in one substance ? Cf. De divisione naturae 4.12 (PL 122.793-99). The two Adams in the drawing could be the artist's representation of man's sexless unity before he succumbed to the devil's deceit. The idea occurs also in the works of Origen, Ambrose, and Augustine, and it is possible that the artist might have incorporated into his own work ideas from the poem's sources which are not found in the poem itself.Google Scholar

66 De divisione naturae 5.16 (PL 122.814-29). Here Eriugena largely follows Ambrose, De Paradiso 1.1 (PL 14.293), who in turn was following Origen; and Augustine's De civitate Dei 14.11, Opera 14.2 (CCL 48) 433. Typically, however, he develops their ideas in more detail and brings them to his own original conclusions.Google Scholar

67 ‘New Light’ 57–59.Google Scholar