P017 Early Paraphrases and Versions.

P017 Early Paraphrases and Versions.

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II.

EARLY PARAPHRASES AND VERSIONS. The earliest recorded attempt at rendering any part of the Bible into the vernacular was made by Cӕdmon, a Benedictine monk, who lived in the seventh century, at Whitby.

He paraphrased, in Anglo-Saxon verse, different portions of Scripture. Cӕdmon died about 680.

Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne, (b. 656, d. 709,) translated the Psalms into Anglo-Saxon.

Guthlac, a hermit of Croyland, near Peterborough, (b. 667, d. 714,) also rendered the Psalms into Anglo-Saxon. The Venerable Bede, of Jarrow, (b. 675, d. 735,) translated the Gospel of St. John into Anglo-Saxon.(1)

He finished the translation while dying. He then began to chant the Gloria Patri, and expired while uttering the last words of this ancient doxology.

Alfred the Great (b. 849, d. 901) made a paraphrase of some parts of the Bible, notably of the Ten Commandments, which he called "Alfred’s Dooms." He was engaged on an Anglo-Saxon version of the Psalter at the time of his death.

Another Anglo-Saxon Psalter, by an unknown translator, was written in the ninth century.

About the year 680 Eadfrith, Bishop of Landisfarne, wrote the four Gospels in Latin.

About 950 a priest named Aldred made an interlinear translation of it, word for word, in Anglo-Saxon. This work is known as the "Durham Book," as it once belonged to the dean and chapter of Durham.

It is also sometimes called the "Cuthbert Gospels," because the manuscript is said to have been used by St. Cuthbert; and it has likewise been called the "Landisfarne Gospels," from the see of the bishop who wrote the Latin.

About the same time appeared a similar interlinear translation, now known as the "Rushworth Gloss," from the name of one of its owners in the seventeenth century. The Latin text was written by an Irishman named Mac Regol; hence the work is sometimes called the "Gospel of Mac Regol." The gloss, or interlinear translation, was written by two priests of Harewood, named Farmen and Owen.

------------ (FN1)Bede probably translated other portions of the Bible, but of this there is no positive proof.

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