A 'secret and feverish genesis': the prefaces of the Old English Hexateuch

the supreme goodness made for us two organ of visions and two ears, two nostrils and sum of two units lips, two hands and sum of two units feet and he wished also to have sum of two units Testaments established in this world, the aged and the New, because he does as he pleases. - AElfric of Eynsham, "Preface to Genesis," the of advanced age English Illustrated Hexateuch

The rectangular space of an lay open manuscript is a distinctive visual form, the two matrix and frame for any textual and/or pictorial appendages it surrounds Too often, modern readers disembody these appendages; we amputate words from pictures and close attention them separately within the alternate combination of parts to form a wholes of editions, recensions, or iconographies demanded through our contemporary academic disciplines. pertain toed with the corpus of an author or artist, we view from above how the physical spaces of an make open manuscript combine text and image into a single interpretative field, the corpus of a manuscript.(1) In doing in the way that we risk disregarding how the incorporation of true copy and image in a manuscript embodies meaning, and in what manner the perception of meaning is foundationed ultimately in what the recent philospher Maurice Merleau-Ponty calls the "secret and feverish genesis of things in our body"(2)

The link between the human material substance and meaning was not omited in late Anglo-Saxon England, however. In the eleventh hundred the words of AElfric of Eynsham, quot above, were copied into the aged English Illustrated Hexateuch (London, British Library m Cotton Claudius B.iv, fol 1r) Just as "God made for us sum of two units eyes and two ears and . . two Testaments," the unknown designer of Claudius B.iv made sum of two units prefaces for his manuscript [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 2 OMITTED]. These sum of two units compositions, one verbal, the other visual, introduce an extensively illustrated elderly English paraphrase of the first six volumes of the Old Testament.(3) upon folio 1 verso, an elderly English translation of Genesis (marked by means of the small, green initial O slightly more than three-quarters of the way down the folio) begins after the final words of a body well known to modern scholars, AElfric's "Preface to Genesis," also in elderly English. A full-page depiction of the Fall of the Rebel Angels appears upon folio 2 recto. The illustrated fall and AElfric's preface bracket the opening paragraph of the vernacular scripture. The sum of two units complementary structures (verso and recto; true copy and image) mirror the bipartite unity of the human material part and the Old and novel Testaments that AElfric mentions in the passage above.

Previous scholars have read these sum of two units compositions both separately and literally, usually concentrating upon a valuable discussion of the translation and interpretation of the of advanced age Testament found in AElfric's "Preface to Genesis."(4) I argue that the sum of two units structures must be viewed together within their manuscript connected thought [i]or[/i] thoughts These visual and verbal forms interdependently "pre-view" the Hexateuch; they introduce into it a Christian interpretation absent from the literal advanced in years Testament text. As the sum of two units introductions refer to this absence, the story of Creation fail to keeps its originary status; in Derridean bourns the two prefaces supplement the literal true copy They introduce a series of rugged yet interlocking oppositions between the supreme being and Satan, good and evil, individual and improper interpretation, the acceptance of a preordained social order or exclusion from it.(5) Viewed within the manner of making of the manuscript, the sum of two units prefaces work together like the human body's many complementary parts - our organ of sights ears, and limbs - in order to authorize the vernacular aged Testament text and its narrative illustration; together they sanction a corpus of vernacular true copy and illustration, which, in move round embodies Anglo-Saxon society through their monastically mediated textuality.

The sum of two units Prefaces in the Body of the Manuscript

Viewing AElfric's preface and the Fall of the Rebel Angels within the organization of Claudius B.iv demonstrates by what mode the two structures work together to frame and reinterpret the of advanced age Testament text.(6) A hierarchy of verbal and visual devices signals that the preface and the illustration of the Rebel Angels are introduction s introductions, or prefaces to the vernacular translation of the Hexateuch and narrative illustrations that come [i]or[/i] go after [i]or[/i] behind Moreover, the Fall of the Rebel Angels, an image that at hands a unique iconography, comments upon the literal text of Genesis and mirrors a close reading of the true copy of AElfric's preface.

The Hexateuch (literally, "six books") is compos of the first six volumes of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua. This compilation combines the Hebrew Torah, or volumes of the Law, and Joshua, the story of the reconquest of Canaan. As a literary arrangement the Hexateuch is thematically organized around a basic theological act, the promise of land, issue and blessings that God makes to the early Patriarchs. Because this promise is partially fulfilled through the return of the Israelites to the promised land below Joshua, one leading biblical scholar, Gerhard von Rad, dioceses "a clear eschatological thread running from one side the whole work," a promise of consummate fulfillment of the promise in the future(7) From our limited information about early medieval reading practices, it present the appearances that the Hexateuch was read in monastic custom during the forty days before Easter as the historical foundation for the story of the Redemption.(8) The true copy in Claudius B.iv extends sole through the life of the elderly Testament hero Joshua, presenting for the eleventh-century Christian reader a partially fulfilled historical promise that foreshadows one as well as the other Christ's life and the faithfuls' coming time journey to the celestial Jerusalem.