Matthew vi. 9. Suae ðonne iuih gie bidde fader urer ðu arð
sic ergo uos orabitis + Pater noster qui és
ðu bist in heofnum & in heofnas; sie gehalgad noma ðin;
in caelis; sanctificetur nomen tuum;
(10) to-cymeð ric ðin. sie willo ðin suae is in heofne
adueniat regnum tuum fiat uoluntas tua sicut in caelo
J in eorðo.
et in terra.
(11) hlaf userne oferwistlic sel ús to dæg.
panem nostrum super-substantiale[m] dá nobis hodie.
(12) J forgef us scylda usra suae uoe forgefon scyldgum
et demitte nobis debita nostra sicut nos dimittimus debitoribus
usum.
nostris.
(13) J ne inlæd usih in costunge ah gefrig usich from yfle
et ne inducas nos in temtationem sed libera nos a malo.[3]
Of a somewhat later date is the celebrated Rushworth Version of the Gospels (MS. Bodl. Auct. D. ii. 9), which contains an independent translation of the Gospel of St Matthew, and a gloss on those of St Mark, St Luke and St John, Rushworth Version. founded upon the Lindisfarne glosses. From a note in the manuscript we learn that two men, Færman and Owun, made the version. Færman was a priest at Harewood, or Harwood, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and to him the best part of the work is due. He translated the whole of St Matthew, and wrote the gloss of St Mark i.-ii. 15, and St John xviii. 1-3. The remaining part, a mere transcript, is Owun’s work. The dialect of the translation of St Matthew is Mercian.[4]
A further testimony to the activity which prevailed in the field of Biblical lore is the fact that at the close of the century—probably about the year 1000—the Gospels were rendered anew for the first time in the south of England. West-Saxon Gospels. Of this version—the so-called West-Saxon Gospels—not less than seven manuscripts have come down to us. A note in one of these, MS. Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 140, states, ego Ælfricus scripsi hunc librum in Monasterio Baðþonio et dedi Brihtwoldo preposito, but of this Ælfric and his superior nothing further is known.[5]
The Lord’s Prayer is rendered in the following way in these gospels:—
West-Saxon Gospels.—MS Corpus 140.
Matthew vi. 9. Eornustlice gebiddað eow ðus; Fæder úre þu þe. eart on heofonum; si þin nama gehalgod (10) to-becume þin ríce; gewurþe ðin willa on eorðan swa swa on heofonum. (11) úrne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us to dæg, (12) J forgyf us úre gyltas swa swa wé forgyfað úrum gyltendum. (13) J ne gelaéd þu us on costnunge ac alys us of yfele soþlice.
Towards the close of the century the Old Testament found a translator in Ælfric (q.v.), the most eminent scholar in the close of the 10th and the opening decades of the 11th century. According to his own statement in De vetere testamento, Ælfric. written about 1010, he had at that period translated the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Kings, Job, Esther, Judith and the Maccabees.[6] His rendering is clear and idiomatic, and though he frequently abridges, the omissions never obscure the meaning or hinder the easy flow of the narrative.
Dietrich, Ælfric’s most competent biographer (Niedner’s, Zeitschrift für historische Theologie, 1855-1856), looks upon the Pentateuch, Joshua and Judges as a continuation of his Lives of Saints, including as they do in a series of narratives the Old Testament saints. Genesis is but slightly abridged, but Job, Kings, Judges, Esther and Judith as well as the Maccabees are mere homilies epitomized from the corresponding Old Testament books. Judith is metrical in form.
The 11th century, with its political convulsions, resulting in the establishment of an alien rule and the partial suppression of the language of the conquered race, was unfavourable to literary efforts of any kind in the vernacular. With the exception of Ælfric’s late works at the very dawn of the century, we can only record two transcripts of the West-Saxon Gospels as coming at all within the scope of our inquiry.