Alfred the Great

“ He who strives not only to visualize the outward life, but also to retrace the thoughts and experience the emotions of King Alfred, must by that very effort rise to a higher and better life. To enter into the conscious life of Alfred's age is to reconstruct for one's delectation and edification one of the most fruitful periods of the much underrated and slighted Middle Ages. ”

“ And the pathos becomes almost tragic as we contemplate this warrior-king, then forty years old, vowing to give half his means and time to God's service, patiently studying Latin books, and translating them 'sometimes word for word, sometimes according to the sense', but always adapting the thoughts and expressions to the needs of his unlettered subjects. ”

“ Reason, which is the eye of the soul, promises to demonstrate God to the mind as clearly as the sun shows itself to the eyes. The soul, then, in order to see God, has need of Faith, Hope, and Love; after these are dwelt on as essentials to the true seeing, it is affirmed that by looking, which is the reason in active operation, the soul beholds the Beatific Vision. ”

“ But to him faith itself was an acting of reason, and from faith to knowledge, therefore, there was a necessary transition. He constantly looked below the surface to the hidden motives of actions and to the universal laws of diverse events. The metaphysician and the Christian believer coalesced in him. This may be seen in the ease with which he blends philosophy and theology in his writings: his oratio and his meditatio unconsciously melt into each other.
It is Augustine who first clearly -and completely expresses the principle of the immediate certainty of inner experience. ”

“ Reason expresses wonder that any one should doubt the immortality of the soul, the highest and best of all God's creatures, when even the lowest and meanest creature does not utterly perish and pass away. Let the mind turn inward, and search for other examples to prove the same truth. The mind will, if discreet, say that it desires knowledge of past, present, and future things, because it knows it shall always exist. ”

“ The following summaries will reveal his process: 'You have said that falsity cannot be without sense, and that sense cannot but be; therefore there is always sense. But there is no sense without soul; therefore the soul is everlasting. Nor has it power to exercise sense, unless it lives; therefore the soul always lives'. ”

“ The wicked and the good are to see each other, and know their respective states of punishment and reward, for the purpose of intensifying the torment of the one and the joy of the other. Thus the book is on the subject of the future state of the soul, whether it be the more specific topic of seeing God or of mutual recognition of souls.
A bond is established between the deeds and aspirations of this world and the rewards of the next - a thought that doubtless thrilled Alfred: 'The like have their like. One is also not to suppose that all men have like wisdom in heaven ”

“ They know the greatest part, though they do not know it all before doomsday, and they have very much remembrance in that world of their kindred and their friends. And the good help the good, and each of them the other, to the extent that they can. But the good will not have mercy on their evil friends, because they will not give up their evil, any more than Abraham would pity the rich man, though he was of his own kin, because he perceived that he was not so humble before God as he rightly should be. ”

“ Therefore have the evil more punishment in the world to come, because they know the honors and dignities of the good, and also therefore the more, that they remember all the honors which they had in this world; and also they know those torments which they have who shall then be left behind them in this world.
'The good, then, who have full freedom, shall see both their friends and their foes just as here men in power often see together both their friends and their foes. They see them alike and know them alike, although they do not love them alike. ”

“ Combating heathen religion and philosophy, Augustine defends the doctrines and institutions peculiar to Christianity, and maintains, in particular, against the Neo-Platonists, whom he rates most highly among all ancient philosophers, the Christian theses that salvation is to be found in Christ alone; that divine worship is due to no other being beside the triune God, since he created all things himself, and did not commission inferior beings, gods, demons, or angels to create the material world ”

“ The subject-matter of Book II of the Alfredian version is the first that calls for special comment. Whereas Augustine gives a learned disquisition on truth and falsity, similitude and dissimilitude, as a means of substantiating the immortality of the soul, Alfred approaches the subject mainly through authorities quoted, and with the common sense of a practical Christian of his time. Near the beginning of Book II the inquirer admits the immortality of God, but expresses a doubt about the immortality of the soul. ”

“ He will conceal naught from us, who lets us know himself. But we shall then know all that we now wish to know even also that which we now do not wish to know. We shall all see God - both they who are here the worst and they who are here the best. All the good shall see him to their comfort and joy and happiness and glory ”

“ A third thing, Truth, must be first known, because through her alone are we led to know God and the soul. The book closes with a resolution to submit to God's guidance, and a prayer for faith in him and an ability to do his will.
In Book II the author propounds as the question of supreme moment: 'Am I immortal'? St. Augustine works out the solution to this problem in a manner very satis- factory to himself, no doubt, but the modern thinker would be tempted to object that 'much might be said on both sides'. The Latin Father here shows himself the forerunner of scholasticism. ”

“ Hence 'there is no doubt that souls are immortal. Believe thine own reason, and believe Christ, the Son of God, and believe all his saints, for they were very reliable witnesses; and believe thine own soul, which always says to thee through the reason that it is in thee; it says also that it is everlasting, be cause it wishes everlasting things. It is not such a foolish creature as to seek what it can not find, or wish that which it has not, or which belongs not to it. ”

“ No better example of a skilful preface or introduction can be found than the one with which he begins the Soliloquies. It recalls Emerson's saying: 'Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests and mines and stone-quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.' With some such thought as this our English King, inured to the hardships of war, no doubt having felt at times the need of shelter from storms, but yet with a burning desire for peace and strong faith and hope and love and the other Christian graces, approaches the translation of St. ”

“ The evil, then, can neither do their friends nor themselves any good, for they were formerly of no help, neither to their friends nor to themselves who had passed away before them when they were in this world. ”

“ As to the dialogue form, Alfred followed Augustine, who no doubt took as his exemplar Cicero, and remotely Plato. Indirectly, then, the Dialogues of Plato in Greek became the model of Alfred's Old English version of the Soliloquies. This will be more readily seen when we remember that Boethius drew his dialogue method from Cicero, on whom he wrote commentaries, [2] and Alfred became well acquainted with this manner of enlivening a philosophical discussion from his translation of Boethius. It was an easy transition from Boethius to Augustine. ”

“ King Alfred died exactly one thousand years ago. Great Britain and the English-speaking world have just held fitting commemorations of this event. It is an occasion when the civilized world dwells with admiration upon one of the world's greatest characters. ”

“ Book II - knowledge of the soul; Boole III - state of knowledge and the soul after death. Reason sas shown that we may have a sufficient knowledge of the nature and existence of God and the soul's immortality while in this life, but that at best this is partial, because of the prison of flesh and the sinfulness we are heir to. Our power of vision must be increased and made clearer before we can behold and see that supernal Beatific Vision - but this cannot occur in the present world, though it shall occur in the next. ”

“ An additional interest is given them by the fact that they spring from the yearning soul and great mind of the greatest of the Christian Fathers. St. Augustine, in his two books of Soliloquies, reveals an all-consuming thirst for wisdom and passion for God, which were, it is true, characteristic of his age, but which he possessed with greater intensity than any one else. Still keener is the interest at least to the student of English, when King Alfred, royal, in mind as in lineage, plays the rôle of translator, and gives us his 'blossoms', culled from the rich garden of St. ”

“ And the book closes with the words: 'Here end the blossoms of the second book which we call Soliloquies'.
The following parallel of the points made in the Augustinian and the Alfredian versions respectively will show at a glance the difference of treatment
Augustine Alfred
1. Invocation for divine aid to know self. 2. Proof that the soul is immortal based largely on the subtleties of dialectics; similitude the mother of truth, dissimilitude of falsity; no truth or falsity without a perceiving sense, no sense without a living soul; hence the soul is immortal. ”

“ It is not enough to know God and the soul in this world nor to know that both shall exist eternally, nor yet that they shall live eternally. Alfred added in Book III the one thing still needful to know, namely, that knowledge will continue and increase in the next word. ”

“ The Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius. 6. The Soliloquies of St. Augustine.
The first fact that strikes us as to the kind of books King Alfred chose for the betterment of his people is that they are thoroughly imbued with the Christian spirit. Orosius was written at the suggestion of St. Augustine, to prove that Christianity had not injured the world. Boethius, it is now generally agreed, was himself not a Christian, though the Roman Church canonized him, but Alfred's rendering is made distinctly so. The very titles and authors of the other works speak for themselves. ”

“ And even though there be no cloud between it and thee, thou canst not see it just as it is, because thou art not where it is; nor can thy body be there, nor can thy bodily eyes come anywhere near there, nor even see near there. Nor can we even see the moon, which is nearer us, just as it is. We know that it is broader than the earth, and yet it seems not broader to us sometimes than a shield, on account of the distance. ”

“ Having seen his method as a translator, we may now study him in the other function which he exercised so often, but nowhere better, perhaps, than in Book II. It is here that we see him at work with a freer hand. He is in that intermediate stage, between the faithful translator and the, unshackled, creative artist; and thus his personality stands out in bolder relief, and to that extent appeals to us more strongly.
What he might have become as an original artist is not entirely a matter of speculation. ”

“ It is clear enough that thou art ever lasting, and shalt ever exist'. The inquirer thus expresses himself satisfied as to the subject in hand, but his thirst is not entirely quenched, for just at the close of the book another question is propounded, namely: Shall our knowledge change in the future world as in this world, or shall it remain constant? ”

“ To test the soundness of the spiritual vision, a searching inquiry as to the presence of bodily lusts is made. Even should these be found absent, the mind cannot bear at once to behold the brightness of Divine Wisdom, but must be taken through a process of gradual training. ”

“ Certain definite variations from the normal forms of spelling in Early West Saxon clearly conspire to prove that the manuscript was written in the twelfth century by an Anglo-French scribe from dictation. It was natural that the scribe should spell doubtful words according as his ear translated the sounds he heard, and hence result the numerous departures from the norm, and the frequent so-called scribal errors. ”

“ H. Hulme of Western Reserve University I am indebted for the collations of the manuscript, for reading the proof of the text, and for various helpful suggestions.
To Professor Albert S. Cook I owe more than I can express. From the inception of the work until its completion, he has ever been a kindly critic, an inspiring teacher, and a considerate friend. In his ripe scholarship, in his lofty ideals, and, withal, in his camaraderie, his pupils ever have cause for joy. ”

“ From the certainty of the possession by man of some truth, he proceeds to establish the fact" of the existence of God as the truth per se; 'but our conviction of the existence of the material world he regards as only an irresistible belief. ”