2 - Assertions and denials: paradise and the interim, from the Visio Sancti Pauli to Ælfric

Summary

Men ða leofostan Paulus se apostol ealra ðeoda lareow awrat be him sylfum þæt he wære gelædd up to heofonum. oð þæt he becom to ðære ðriddan heofonan. and he wæs gelæd to neorxnawange. and þær ða gastlican dygelnysse gehyrde and geseah. ac he ne cydde na eorðlicum mannum ða ða he ongean com. hwæt he gehyrde. oððe gesawe … Humeta rædað sume men. ða leasan gesetnysse. ðe hi hatað Paulus gesihðe. nu he sylf sæde. þæt he ða digelan word gehyrde. þe nan eorðlic mann sprecan ne mot.

Hwæt wille we eow swiðor secgan be ðisum symbeldæge. buton þæt maria cristes modor wearð on ðisum dæge of ðisum geswincfullum middanearde genumen up to heofenan rice … Gif we mare secgað be ðisum symbeldæge þonne we on ðam halgum bocum rædað þe ðurh godes dihte gesette wæron. ðonne beo we ðam dwolmannum gelice. þe be heora agenum dihte oððe be swefnum fela lease gesetnyssa awriton … dwollican bec ægðer ge on leden ge on englisc.

Ælfric's attacks on the apocryphal stories about Mary's Assumption and Paul's vision of the third heaven exemplify his self-proclaimed and polemical brand of orthodoxy, which Anglo-Saxon scholars have often discussed. It has nevertheless gone largely unnoticed that both dwollican bec which Ælfric rejects describe the afterlife in terms of a paradise quite distinct from the heavenly kingdom of Augustinian exegesis.