Augustine’s tractates on John and the homilies of Ælfric

Abstract

Augustine of Hippo’s In Iohannis Evangelium Tractatus CXXIV was extensively used by Bede and the Carolingian homilists and commentators of the exegetical tradition to which Ælfric belonged. The dense intertextuality of this tradition often makes it difficult to determine which immediate source-texts Ælfric consulted. These difficulties are compounded by the tendency of modern scholars to give priority to the ultimate source, in this case Augustine’s Tractatus, with the result that the extent to which this work was directly consulted by Ælfric may be overstated in lists and catalogues of the books available to him. Modern scholarship currently cites twenty-seven of Ælfric’s temporale homilies for which the Tractatus is thought to have been used. The rigorous reassessment of these homilies in the present study demonstrates that the majority of the supposed examples of direct usage are highly questionable, and that secure evidence for Ælfric’s use of the Tractatus as a discrete work is to be found in only seven homilies, each of which was composed later in Ælfric’s career than the Catholic Homilies and was written primarily for an ecclesiastical audience. In the course of the investigation, major questions are raised about the modern processes of identifying and recording Ælfric’s Latin sources which, it is argued, distort our sense of the scope of his library and the nature of his engagement with the tradition in which he wrote. The approach adopted here shows that a more nuanced appreciation of Ælfric’s access to source-materials is possible, which in this case suggests that he obtained a copy of the Tractatus sometime in the latter half of the 990s.