In Search of Revelation: a Metaphorical Sīϸ in the Old English Poem “Elene”

Abstract

After Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity, what appeared as a mere symbol becomes the object of Saint Elene’s quest. Elene, the Old English poem of the Anglo-Saxon poet Cynewulf, a medieval version of the Inventio Crucis story, starts with Elene’s sīϸ, a mission to find the “real cross” that culminates in a metaphorical journey: the reception of Christian sapientia. Based on a review of the literature, including critical essays, editions and translations, the study aims to determine how this quest develops. To what extent is the quest an assignment? In the Christian context of Anglo-Saxon poetry, the journey is not only physical but it emerges as a spiritual movement, a passage from darkness to light, from ignorance to knowledge, from slavery to freedom, a revelation. This is what happens throughout the entire poem, characterized by the metaphorical use of dichotomies and dealing with “multiple conversions”, starting with the Emperor Constantine and ending with the poet himself. 

Keywords: metaphorical journey; Anglo-Saxon poetry; Inventio Crucis; spiritual quest; Cynewulf; conversion to Christianity.

I. The Manuscript that
travelled from
England to Italy:
the Vercelli Book

In 1602, as Halsall (1969, p. 1547) found, in an entry of a catalogue of the Vercelli’s Cathedral, Canon Leone wrote about a “Liber Gothicus, sive Longobardus”; in 1750 another inventory mentions the presence of a “Liber Ignotæ Linguæ”; in 1822, as Brooks (1961) found, the German jurist Dr. Friedrich Bluhme, who was in Italy to study Roman law, was the first to identify in Vercelli the language of an unknown manuscript, affirming “das andere (Cod. CXVII) enthält Legenden oder Homilien in angelsächsischer Sprache” and becoming the discoverer of an Anglo-Saxon poetic manuscript in Italy. 

How to define the manuscript containing the Old English Cynewulf’s poem Elene? A travel book, a religious florilegium, a collection of texts used for preaching, or a monastic book? Simply, the Vercelli Book, the sole witness of Anglo-Saxon poetry preserved outside the British Isles, designated as Codex CXVII and housed in the Chapter Library of Vercelli, in northern Italy (Krapp 1932, p. xi). The Vercelli Book is a testimony of the tenth century Old English literary tradition and also regarded as one of the earliest collections of homiletic matter, whose relevance dwells in its originality: it is not a copy of an existing manuscript but, judging from the great variety of texts and dialects, the sources employed for its compilation were many as were the scriptoria where each text was conceived (Scragg 1994).

Determining the date and the scriptorium of origin, the history, and the function of the Vercelli Book has involved and still involves many researches. Dumville (1994) found that the date of composition seemed to revolve around the second half of the tenth century, more precisely around 975, while other scholars have conjectured that the manuscript was written during an earlier period, judging from the type of the script:

The date of handwriting of the manuscript has been given variously. Grimm thought the writing belonged to the end of the ninth or beginning of the tenth century, but it is now generally agreed that this date is too early. Wülker gave the date as the beginning of the eleventh century, Holthausen as the second half of the tenth century. Keller is more precise and endeavors to establish the date of the writing as between the 960 and 980, or still more definitely, between 970 and 980. Förster hesitates to express himself quite precisely and gives the date as the second half or towards the end of the tenth century. (Krapp 1932, p. xvi) 

In relation to the place of compilation, the most likely scenario includes several scriptoria from Worcester, Barking, Winchester and Rochester, to Canterbury. According to Scragg (1994) St. Augustine was the only institution in Canterbury in the period in which the Vercelli Book was compiled and, considering the several linguistic, textual, paleographical and contextual analogies that the manuscript shares with some other codexes belonging to such monastic institution^[2], Canterbury seems to be the most likely place of origin of this codex. ^[3]

The enigma of its history, including its function and its current location, raised a number of issues: Could it be a devotional florilegium, a preaching book or a didactic book meant for monastic learning? Or could it be a travel book intended for a pilgrim who had to undertake or undertook a journey throughout the Via Francigena?^[4] This might be an explanation for its current presence in Vercelli, being a relevant Christian centre during the Middle Ages and one of the principal stops of this route from Canterbury to Rome (Herben 1935). Many pilgrims, travelers, clerics, and traders probably passed through Vercelli. Moreover, a number of institutions arose, namely a flourishing school, a scriptorium, the hospice of Santa Brigida degli Scoti, and the Abbey of Saint Andrew, therefore the city had regular contacts with people from the British Isles. It is probable, according to Halsall (1969), that one of those pilgrims or travelers left the manuscript to one of these institutions as a gift or repayment.

In terms of contents, the codex passes on both Old English prose and poetry arranged following a random order:^[5] Twenty-three homilies and six alliterative poems, two of which (Elene and Fates of the Apostles) are attributed to the illustrious Anglo-Saxon poet Cynewulf. Overall, the poems and the homilies seem to pursue almost two common purposes, specifically the dissemination of the Christian religion and the indoctrination of the individual. For that very reason the most outstanding topics of the homiletic texts revolve around the liturgy, and hence it comes down to Passion, Nativity, Epiphany, Ascension and Rogation Days, while the poems focus on the quest for heaven, as McBrine (2009) has found, and on Christian conduct by providing some exempla to follow, dealing with the missions of the Apostles, Saint Andrew, Saint Elene and the morals of the shorter poems that focus on Judgment Day. Instead, what determines all the texts, primarily Elene, is the occurrence of the issue of travel, sīϸ in Old English, in all its connotations: quest, journey, pilgrimage, departure, conversion, and mission (McBrine 2009, p. 300).

II. Cynewulf’s Elene 

Author of four poems (Juliana, Christ II, Elene, Fates of the Apostles) contained in two Old English manuscripts, namely the Exeter Book and the Vercelli Book, Cynewulf was an illustrious poet who lived between the eighth and ninth century, probably in Northumbria. He went down in history as the poet who signed his poems with runic letters. Elene is his most renowned poem deriving from a widely known legend that is the Inventio Crucis story. According to Hill (1996), Elene might be the translation of a Latin saint’s life but “the exact text of the version of the Inventio Crucis legend which Cynewulf used has not been identified”. Zimmermann (1995, p. 189) and Regan (1973) instead, have found that Cynewulf followed a Latin source known as Acta Cyriaci.

Plot

As Hill (1996) has affirmed, Elene is a segmented poem, “a triptych of panels on a church wall”, because it can be divided into three narrative blocks^[6]. The poem is based on historical events and takes place within the wars involving Romans, Huns and Franks around the fourth century. The first part begins with the figure of Emperor Constantine who is fighting against the Huns and the Hrethgoths and who has no knowledge of God. He has a dreamy vision, a cross, and he is told that thanks to this sign he will halt his enemies. The battle ends and his enemies are defeated. The emperor wants to understand the meaning of that sign and, after consulting the wise men and after receiving baptism, he learns from the Bible how and where Christ was killed. For this reason, he sends his mother, Elene, to the land of the Jews to find the place where the real cross was buried.

The second narrative part of the poem takes place in Jerusalem, where Elene calls an assembly of sages to scorn them for having betrayed Jesus and to ask them where the true cross lies. They refuse to help several times so that she is forced to ask help of a certain Judas, a man who refuses too and who is confined in a dark pit for seven days. In despair, on the seventh day, Judas cries that he will reveal the truth of the current place of the cross; he prays God in order to receive a sign. In that moment, after a long prayer, God gives him a smoke sign in the sky and Judas, after digging, discovers three crosses. Nobody knows which of the three is the real one; they see a corpse but the first two crosses cannot reveal the identity of the man. The third cross is the one that reveals the identity, that unites body and soul. Suddenly, Satan appears and fights against Judas who finally converts to Christianity through the baptism. Elene, by decision of her son, intends to build a church where the crosses were found and Judas becomes bishop under the name of Cyriacus. However, she needs to find the nails that held Christ upon the cross. Thanks to Cyriacus she discovers them and sends them to her son in order to always have protection in war. The Holy Spirit fills her with wisdom.

The last part of the poem, that contains the runic signature of the author, focuses on Cynewulf’s personal reflection on the cross as a sign of Doomsday, and it includes the author’s narration about how, thanks to the story, he has experienced a spiritual metamorphosis.

III. Conversion as a Metaphorical Journey

The journey motif

All the poems of the Vercelli Book are particularly marked by the occurrences of the term sīϸ and its compounds, whose primary meaning of “journey, travel” acquires different semantic values in the texts. The Vercelli Book’s poems tell about real journeys, like the departure for a mission, but also about metaphorical voyages meant as paths to salvation, pilgrimages to heaven, conversions to the Christian faith, or simply meant as passages from life to death. Nonetheless, the theme of travel is also associated with a wide range of terms that exhibit a message of hope and lead to a tortuous path during earthly life but destined for the super-earthly joy. As McBrine (2009, p. 298) has affirmed, “the language associated with journeying in the codex is a recurring series of words that highlights the stages of the road to salvation”. Among the Anglo-Saxon words referring to the theme of sīϸ, there are: Geomor (sad); frofor (consolation); hyht (hope); dream (joy); and lifes weg (way of life).

The poem Elene starts with a mission: A journey to Jerusalem to find the real cross that held Jesus Christ. The poet describes Elene as a Christian ambassador. More precisely Cynewulf writes: “Wæs sona gearu wifu on willsið”^[7] (soon was ready the woman for her glad journey)^[8]. As McBrine (2009, p. 313) stated, the poem gives a representation of Constantine as God and Elene as a faithful apostle. The verses 219-222 mention: “Elene ne wolde / ϸæs siðfætes sæne weorðan, ne ðæs wilgifan word gehyrwan, hiere sylfre suna” (Elene would not / about the journey be slow, nor her prince’s word despise, her own son’s)^[9]. The journey motif gives emphasis to the act of conversion as a way to reach joy (McBrine 2009, p. 316).

Conversion

From the Latin conversio (change, alteration) and the verb convertere (to transform), the term conversion indicates “a radical and complete change in spirit, purpose, and direction of life away from sin and toward God”. The act of conversion to Christianity found its most flourishing period during the Middle Ages when, thanks to Charlemagne, the missionaries undertook long travels with the aim of recruiting new converts among the Germanic tribes. Under the influence of such missions, Anglo-Saxon literature is enriched with religious attestations. The theme of conversion to Christianity is a central focus in this poem, indeed it seems that Elene is a missionary who reaches far lands to civilize, and indoctrinate people to the new faith (Campbell 1996).

The motif of conversion is expressed in terms of a metaphorical sīϸ, a movement, a passage from one condition to a better one. It is exemplified by stressing, through metaphorical images, the discrepancies that exist between Christianity and Judaism. For this reason, throughout the poem, it is possible to identify a series of dualisms whose purpose is to promote the Christian faith and to denote negatively the other beliefs. Such divergences are articulated as a contrast, a struggle, first between Elene and the Jews, and then between Elene and Judas. Actually, Cynewulf represents the historical debate between Christianity and Judaism, between the Church and the Synagogue, through the confrontation of two individuals: Elene, as the representative of the Christian faith, and Judas, as the representative of the Hebrew belief (Hill 1996, p. 211).

As Hill (1996, p. 215) asserted, the poem revolves around the spiritual blindness that has always been the allegorical representation of the Synagogue. The Jews are designated as wisfæste and wordes cræftige, meaning wise in words but not able to understand and see the truth that Elene insists on revealing. Moreover, this contrast is presented through the use of opposite poles: Light and darkness, knowledge and ignorance, freedom and slavery, depth and surface, truth and lie. This opposition is expressed in what Cynewulf writes about the Jews in the poem:

Swa ge modblinde mengan ongunnon

lige wið soðe, leoht wið ϸystrum,

æfst wið are, inwitϸancum

wroht webbedan. (306a-309a)

(Thus you blind of mood began to mingle / falsehood with truth, light with darkness, / envy with honor, in your malicious thoughts / mischief you wove).

First Constantine and Elene, then Judas and the Jews, and at the end, the same Cynewulf; everyone takes a path that leads to a new reality. Conversion occurs as a passage, “a figurative shift from ignorance to knowledge, from darkness to light parallel to the literary movement from confinement to release” (Anderson 1983). Constantine accepts the sign that the messenger reveals only because his army stands no chance to win the battle against his enemies. At the beginning of the poem, in the verses 13b-14a, as Anderson (1974, p. 117) has found, the Emperor is described: “He wæs riht cyning / guðweard gumena” (he was just a king / a warlike guardian of men). Even if Constantine was a niðheard cyning (king bold in war), he has no knowledge of God and therefore, the lack of heavenly joy is a trouble for his battle against the Huns and the Hrethgoths:^[10]

Cyning wæs afyrhted,
egsan geaclad, siððan elϸeodige,
Huna ond Hreða here sceawede,
ðæt he on Romwara rices ende
ymb ϸæs wæteres stæð werod samnode,
mægen unrime. (56b-61a)

(The king was affrighted / sickened with terror, after the strangers / the Huns and the Hreths beheld the army, / how on the Roman empire’s end / upon the water’s shore, a host collected / an innumerable power.)

Constantine rices ne wende (62b) (success he expected not) but he receives that sign of victory, Cristes rode (103b) (the cross of Christ), and finally he wins the battle. Cynewulf underlines how the presence of God in human life is a victory and how the conversion to Christianity is a passage from the lack of hope to the assurance of victory. According to Zimmermann (1995, p. 193) “God became his highest joy and hope, his political success is thus in effect subordinated to his spiritual hopes”.

The conversion of Judas develops almost in the same way; Judas refuses to disclose to Elene what he knows about the place where the cross is buried. He finds himself in a condition of slavery, not only in a literary sense, for he is confined in a pit, but he also finds it a form of spiritual slavery, being unable to accept the truth concerning Christ. The first stage of his conversion happens when, after fasting in a pit for seven days, he wishes freedom and asks God to discover the cross (Hill 1996, p. 219). His new position is tested during the confrontation with Satan: This second stage of conversion is expressed as a baptism. The conversion is complete when he becomes Cyriacus, the bishop of Jerusalem, and when he succeeds in discovering the nails of the cross of Jesus Christ, that convert all the people in Jerusalem:

Ða ðær of heolstre, swylce heofonsteorran
oððe goldgimmas, grunde getenge,
næglas of nearwe neoðan scinende
leohte lixton. Leode gefægon,
weorud willhreðig, sægdon wuldor gode
ealle anmode, ϸeah hie ær wæron
ϸurh deofles spild in gedwolan lange,
acyrred fram Criste. (1112a-1119a)

(when there out of darkness, like stars of heaven / or jewels, close to the ground / the nails from out of their prison shining below, / flashed with light. The people learnt it / a troop gentle-minded, they said glory to God / all with one mind, though they before had been / through craft of the devil, long in error / turned away from Christ.)

Though the last example of conversion as a metaphorical sīϸ occurs in a little portion of text ˗ to be precise the epilogue of the author ˗ Cynewulf provides a further reflection upon the theme. As Zimmermann (1995, p. 199) has found, Christian faith affects art, meaning it turns the work of art into “something containing wisdom”; it converts “scientia into sapientia” (Hill 1996). Cynewulf explains that he was able to compose such a meaningful poem thanks to his understanding of the Christian message:

Ær me lare onlag ϸurh leohtne had
gamelum to geoce, gife unscynde
mægencyning amæt ond on gemynd begeat,
torht ontynde, tidum gerymde,
bancofan onband, breostlocan onwand,
leoðucræft onleac. Ðæs ic lustum breac,
willum in worlde. (1245a-1251a)

(ʻtill He laid knowledge on me through the bright ordination / for a comfort to me in my age, a blameless grace / the powerful King measured out to me and in my memory begot, / bright laid open, at times made wide, / unloosed my flashy bonds, opened my breast-chest, / unlocked the power of the song, that I with pleasure enjoyed / my will in the world.)

IV. The Motif of the Quest: the Revelation of the Cross

The central theme of Elene is conversion – through the cross and, by extension, through Christ. By means of a series of encounters with the ultimate icon of Christianity, first Constantine and Elene, then Judas and all the Jews accede to the spiritual truth that the cross signifies (Sharma 2009, p. 280).

As Sharma (2009) in this statement has affirmed, the encounter with the cross marks the paths, the journeys leading towards Christianity. Indeed the three conversions described in the poem are subjected to the vision of the cross. This is the reason why, according to Sharma (2009, p. 286): “The discovery of the cross in Elene marks the climax of the text’s depicted movement from confinement to freedom, from ignorance to knowledge, from light to darkness, and from Mosaic law of the Jews to the Spirit of Christian understanding”.

According to Fish (1975), in the first section of the poem, the terms related to the cross (beacen and tacen) indicate the mere physicality of the cross perceived by the Emperor^[11]. Moreover, although in the end Constantine understands the meaning of the beacen, at the beginning he simply considers the cross only as a sign of his approaching victory:

Geseah he frætwum beorht 

wliti wuldres treo   ofer wolcna hrof, 

golde geglenged,   (gimmas lixtan); 

wæs se blaca beam   bocstafum awriten, 

beorhte ond leohte:   “Mid ϸys beacne ðu

on ϸam frecnan fære   feond oferswiðesð,

geletest lað werod” (88b-94a)

 

(He saw, bright with ornaments, / the beauteous tree of glory above the roof of heaven / adorned with gold, (the gems lightened) / the pale beam was inscribed with letters, / bright and light: “With this sign you / in the fierce journey thy foe shall overcome / shall stop the hostile force”.)

Similarly, Judas first perceives the discovery of the cross as the only way to gain freedom from his confinement in the dry pit; after a long prayer, he begins his sīϸ towards conversion thanks to the revelation of the cross. From beacen and tacen, in this second part of the poem, the cross becomes: Wlitige treo (beauteous tree) (165b); sigebeacne (victorious sign) (168b); wisdom onwreon (wisdom display) (674a); wyrda geryno (mysteries of fate) (812b); wuldres treo (tree of glory) (827b); sigebeamas (victorious tree) (846b); æðelan beam (noble beam) (1073b); rode rodera cininges (the cross of Heaven’s King) (1074a); and mærost beama (greatest of trees) (1224b). 

In the last section of the poem, the epilogue containing Cynewulf’s reflections and representing the last example of conversion in the text, the cross appears once again to establish its meaning. The cross in the author’s path to salvation implies the true significance of art. Art must honor the divine, in order to turn scientia into sapientia (Zimmermann 1995, p. 199). Cynewulf refers to his experience of dealing with a religious argument and writes “wisdom onwreah” (I revealed wisdom), “Ic ϸæs wuldres treowes / oft, nales æne, hæfde ingemynd / ær ic ϸæt wundor onwrigen hæfde / ymb ϸone beorhtan beam” (I the tree of glory / often not once alone, had in remembrance / before I the miracle had revealed / about the bright tree). The beorhtan beam initiates a long section on Judgment Day, with reference to the day in which the cross will appear in the sky to announce the beginning of the Last Day on this earth. With this concluding section, Cynewulf meditates on mankind’s duty: “understanding the cross” during earthly life in order to gain salvation in the afterlife.

Therefore, the journey told in this poem is revealed to be a mission: To find the real cross. Everything turns into a quest that culminates in the reception of the Christian sapientia. As Fish (1975, p. 19) asserted:

The quest for the cross in the Old English poem, then, does not seek a merely physical object, as in the Latin legend, but a symbol of true wisdom in which letter and spirit, sign and significance are simultaneously present.

Therefore, the cross is a vehicle through which the revelation of the Christian truth is gained. As Sharma (2009, p. 293) has stressed, the cross is not a relic but a sign of salvation, received after a long sīϸ, after a passage from ignorance to knowledge, after a path that leads to “a new spiritual perception of the beacen” (Fish 1975, p. 8). When the mere physical sign becomes a spiritual indicator and the meaning of the cross is discovered, everything comes to an end: The message of the poem is revealed. As Hill (1996, p. 222) has affirmed, the poem is concerned with “finding the Cross in a literal and immediate sense” but also with “finding the cross as an immediate metaphor of conversion”.

Conclusion

The search for the tacen (l. 85a: sign), for truth is not an end in itself; it is also a missionary duty because the believer has to prepare himself for, and warn others of, the Last Judgment. This is the ultimate task of the secular power, the king, the spiritual power, the bishop, and the artist, Cynewulf. (Zimmermann 1995, p. 200)

Endnotes

References