The Fourfold Division of Souls: The Old English ‘Christ III’ and the Insular Homiletic Tradition

Abstract

A review of the scholarship on the sources of the Old English Christ III makes it increasingly clear that the poem is related to the homiletic tradition, a term used here to refer to both sermons and homilies. This relationship is apparent in three main ways: first, several long passages directly translate known homilies; second, a number of other passages are homiletic in their hortatory tone and their direct apostrophes to their audiences; and third, the constant rearrangement of biblical material to make specific thematic points suggests that the poet was working from homilies rather than directly from the Bible. One example of this third kind of evidence may be instructive since it has not been specifically noted. In describing how man's former deeds are revealed after the general resurrection, the poet writes: Opene weorþað ofer middangeard monna dæde: ne magun hord wera[s], heortan geþohtas, fore Waldende wihte bemiþan; ne sindon him dæda dyrne, ac Þær bið Dryhtne cuð (lines 1046b-50)