The impetus which Alfred had imparted did not cease with his life. If we look into the Chronicles, we see that the Alfredian style of work is continued down to the death of his son Edward, in 924, and that from that point the stream of history dwindles and becomes meagre. This may be typical of what happened over a wider surface. The impulse given to translation may be supposed to have continued, and we may specify two translations likely to have been made at this time. These are the Four Gospels[118] and the poetical Psalter.[119]
A feature of the Gospels is that the name of Jesus is regarded as a descriptive title, and subjected to translation. It never appears in its original form, but always as “Se Hælend”—that is, The Healer, The Saviour.
To this period, the first half of the tenth century, must be assigned some translations of another sort. There are some considerable remains of a translating period that gave to the English reader a mass of apocryphal, romantic, fantastic, and even heretical reading; and that period can hardly be any other than this. I imagine that now as a consequence of the new literary interest awakened by King Alfred, many old book-chests were explored, and things came to light which had been stored in the monasteries of Wessex ever since the seventh and eighth centuries. These writings claim a manifest affinity with the early products of the Gaulish monasteries, and from these they would naturally have been diffused in southern Britain. But, since the religious life of Gaul had been touched and quickened with the reform of the second Benedict in the ninth century, some old things would have been condemned and rejected there, which might still enjoy credit with the old-fashioned clergy of Wessex.
Of apocryphal materials in Anglo-Saxon literature there are several varieties. First, there is the so-called Gospel of Nicodemus. This is from a Latin version of the Greek “Acts of Pilate,” and it is our earliest extant source for that prolific subject, the Harrowing of Hell. The Greek text laid claim to a Hebrew original:—
| —her onginnath tha gedonan thing the be urum Hælende gedone wæron . eall swa Theodosius se mæra casere hyt funde on Hierusalem on thæs Pontiscan Pilates domerne . eall swa hyt Nychodemus awrat . eall mid Ebreiscum stafum on manegum bocum thus awriten: | —here begin the actual things that were done in connexion with our Saviour, just as Theodosius the illustrious emperor found it in Jerusalem in Pontius Pilate’s court-house; according as Nicodemus wrote it down all with Hebrew writing on many leaves as follows. |
The “Dialogues of Solomon and Saturn” belong to a legendary stock that has sent its branches into all the early vernacular literatures of Europe. The germ is found in the Bible and in Josephus. In 1 Kings x. 1, we read that, when the Queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, she came to prove him with hard questions. Josephus, in the “Jewish Antiquities,” vii. 5, tells a curious story about hard questions passing between Solomon and Hiram, king of Tyre. From such a root appear to have grown the multiform legends in various languages which passed under such names as the “Controversy of Solomon,” the “Dialogues of Solomon and Saturn,” or of “Solomon and Marculfus.” This became at length a mocking form of literature; often a burlesque and parody of religion. Mr. Kemble traces these legends to Jewish tradition; but of all the examples preserved he says “the Anglo-Saxon are undoubtedly the oldest.... With the sole exception of one French version, they are the only forms of the story remaining in which the subject is seriously and earnestly treated; and, monstrous as the absurdities found in them are, we may be well assured that the authors were quite unconscious of their existence.”[120] There are, however, some places in which one is moved to doubt whether the extravagance is the product of pure simplicity, and without the least tinge of drollery.
But the reader may judge for himself. The fragments preserved are partly poetical and partly in prose: the poetry is rather insipid; our quotation shall be from the prose. The subject is the praise and eulogy of the Lord’s Prayer, which is personified and anatomised. Saturnus asks, “What manner of head hath the Pater Noster?” And, again, “What manner of heart hath the Pater Noster?” We quote from the answer to the latter question:—
I do not undertake to assert that this piece is as old as the first half of the tenth century; it is placed here only because this seems to be the most natural place for the group of literature to which it belongs. As I said, the reader must judge for himself whether this is perfectly serious. I believe that these “Dialogues” are the only part of Anglo-Saxon literature that can be suspected of mockery. The earliest laughter of English literature is ridicule; and if this ridicule seems to touch things sacred, it will, on the whole, I think, be found that not the sacred things themselves, but some unreal or spurious use of them, is really attacked. So here, if there is any appearance of a sly derision, the thing derided is not the Pater Noster, but the vain and magical uses which were too often ascribed to the repetition of it.
Here we must find a place for the translation of “Apollonius of Tyre.” This has all the features of a Greek romance, but it is only known to exist in a Latin text, so that it has been questioned whether this Latin romance is a translation from a Greek original, or a story originally Latin in imitation of the Greek romancists. With those who have investigated the subject, the hypothesis of translation is most in favour, and for the following reason. The story presents an appearance of double stratification, such as might naturally result if a heathen Greek romance had been translated into Latin by a Christian. Although the phenomenon could be equally explained by supposing a Latin heathen original which had been re-written by a Christian editor, yet the former is the more natural and the more probable hypothesis.[121]