Reformed Churchmen

We are Confessional Calvinists and a Prayer Book Church-people. In 2012, we remembered the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer; also, we remembered the 450th anniversary of John Jewel's sober, scholarly, and Reformed "An Apology of the Church of England." In 2013, we remembered the publication of the "Heidelberg Catechism" and the influence of Reformed theologians in England, including Heinrich Bullinger's Decades. For 2014: Tyndale's NT translation. For 2015, John Roger, Rowland Taylor and Bishop John Hooper's martyrdom, burned at the stakes. Books of the month. December 2014: Alan Jacob's "Book of Common Prayer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Common-Prayer-Biography-Religious/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417814005&sr=8-1&keywords=jacobs+book+of+common+prayer. January 2015: A.F. Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation: 1489-1556" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-English-Reformation-1489-1556/dp/1592448658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420055574&sr=8-1&keywords=A.F.+Pollard+Cranmer. February 2015: Jaspar Ridley's "Thomas Cranmer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Jasper-Ridley/dp/0198212879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422892154&sr=8-1&keywords=jasper+ridley+cranmer&pebp=1422892151110&peasin=198212879

Sunday, November 16, 2014

16 November 1005 A.D. Aelfric Dies—28th of 105 Archbishops of Canterbury


16 November 1005 A.D.  Aelfric Dies—28th of 105 Archbishops of Canterbury

A Romanist’s take.  Translator of Scripture to Anglo-Saxon?  Also, a Ratramnus sighting too!   Oh oh!  A double predestinarian like Ratramnus and Gottscalk!!??  Oh no, not that again!!

Thurston, Herbert. "Aelfric, Abbot of Eynsham." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01171b.htm.  Accessed 14 May 2014.

Aelfric, Abbot of Eynsham


Also known as "the Grammarian", the author of the homilies in Anglo-Saxon, a translator of Holy Scripture, and a writer upon many miscellaneous subjects. He seems to have been born about 955, and to have died about 1020. The identity of this writer has been the subject of much controversy. Even in Freeman's "Norman Conquest" he is wrongly identified with Aelfric, Archbishop of Canterbury (1005). But of late years nearly all scholars have come round to the opinion of Lingard and Dietrich that there was but one Aelfric famous in Anglo-Saxon literature, and that this man was never raised to any higher dignity than that of Abbot. Of his career we know but little. He was undoubtedly a monk of the Old Monastery of Winchester under Saint Athelwold, whose life he subsequently wrote in Latin. Some time after his ordination into the priesthood, he was sent to Carne Abbey, or as he himself writes it "Cernel", in Dorsetshire. Thence he became, in 1005, abbot of the recently-founded monastery of Eynsham, near Oxford, where he probably remained until his death. Of all the writers in Anglo-Saxon who have been preserved to us Aelfric was the most prolific. He is especially remembered for his Homilies, around the theological teaching of which concerning the Blessed Sacrament a great controversy has raged. Already in the reign of Queen Elizabeth it was asserted by Mathew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, that Aelfric in his Homily for Easter Day clearly evinced his belief is Transubstantiation, and that he must, moreover, be regarded as expressing the sentiments of the whole Anglo-Saxon church, of which he was a prominent and trusted representative. The details of the controversy cannot be discussed here. It may, however, be noted that the Anglican writer, W. Hunt, who eighteen years ago in the "Dictionary of National Biography" described Aelfric as vigorously opposing "the doctrine of the Catholic Church on the subject of the Eucharist," has recently so far modified his view to allow that "it is possible to reconcile Aelfric's words with the present teachings of Rome; his expressions are loose and unphilosophical, and, therefore, capable of being interpreted according to demand." ("The English Church to the Norman Conquest," p. 376.) This latter view is undoubtedly the more correct. Aelfric never intended to attack the doctrine of the Real Presence. He quotes with approval instances of the miraculous appearance of blood at the breaking of the Host. But he had adopted the views of Ratramnus of Corbie, whom he repeatedly paraphrases, insisting that in the Eucharist was a "spiritual" presence as opposed to a "bodily" (i.e., fleshly or carnal) one. That Ratramnus was no opponent of Transubstantiation has recently been proved to demonstration in the monograph of Dr. Aug. Naegle (Vienna, 1903). Aelfric's numerous works in Anglo-Saxon, which give evidence of much literary power, have been edited with translations; the former in 1846, by Thorpe; the latter in 1906, by Skeat.

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