With Hymns and Sweet Perfumes
Elfric imagines how the Virgin Mary went to her eternal home.
990-994
King Ethelred the Unready 978-1016
Elfric imagines how the Virgin Mary went to her eternal home.
990-994
King Ethelred the Unready 978-1016
When Elfric, Abbot of Eynsham near Oxford during the reign of Ethelred the Unready (r. 978-1916), came to preach on August 15th, the Feast of the Repose of Mary, he was unusually tightlipped. Some of what was passed around he regarded as legend, but he was sure of one thing: that Mary did not go home to heaven all on her own.
translated and abridged
WE read here and there in books, that very often angels came at the departure of good men, and with spiritual hymns led their souls to heaven. And, what is yet more certain, at their departure some have heard the singing of male and female voices, accompanied by a great light and a sweet perfume.*
Now if Jesus has often shown such honour at the death of his saints, and commanded their souls to be brought to him with heavenly hymns, how much more, do you imagine, would he now, today, send the heavenly host to meet his own mother, that they with light beyond measure, and hymns beyond words, might lead her to the throne which was prepared for her from the beginning of the world?
There is no doubt that all the heavenly host would rejoice with unspeakable bliss in her coming. Indeed, we believe that the Lord himself came to meet her, and benignly, delightedly, placed her by him on his throne.*
translated and abridged
See St Chad and the Invisible Choir.
In the service books of the Eastern churches, Ode VIII of the Canon for the feast says: ‘The angelic hosts were amazed, seeing their Master in Zion, bearing in His arms a woman’s soul; for as befitteth a Son, He exclaimed to her in all-pure manner: Come, O pure one, and be glorified with thy Son and God!’
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.