Anhyld þinre heortan eare: Mind as Body in the Sermons of Ælfric

Abstract

By using a metaphor of the mind as body, with eyes, and ears, a throat and voice, Ælfric explains the complexities of an Augustinian understanding of the mind in comparatively simple terms, to lead: ‘those who dwell in cities and towns and villages’ (Cassian 1997: 375) to an understanding of Christ. In Ælfric’s Dominica in Quinquagesima (1997: 260), the mind is endowed with the potential for sight and has a voice: swa hwa swa oncnæwð þa blindnysse his modes Clipige he mid inweardre heortan (he who is aware of his mind’s blindness let him shout out with inward heart). We see here the complexity of this mental structure. Ælfric’s references to the inner mind or heart go beyond a bodily personification and refer to layers of consciousness, where one part of the mind has an awareness that another part does not. This layered mind, conveyed through the metaphor of mind as body, is also to be found in the Alfredian translations and the Old English translation of the Benedictine Rule. This paper will argue that Ælfric employs the image of mind as body to facilitate the teaching of those outside the cloister to understand and therefore control their minds that they may learn to pray employing the essential elements of the monastic way of prayer. In doing this, Ælfric would seem to be offering the hope of achieving, at some level, a mystic union with Christ in a vision of God’s light to those who live beyond the cloister walls.

Keywords

• Ælfric
• Old English
• Mentalities
• Augustine