The Medieval Church · c. 997
The Preface to Genesis
Ælfric of Eynsham · c. 955 – c. 1010
What it is
Ælfric explains that he translated Genesis reluctantly and only as far as Isaac, and why: unlearned readers will see the patriarchs with several wives and conclude they may live so too, since they cannot tell what the old law permitted from what the new law requires.
Why it lasted
The clearest medieval statement of the case against vernacular scripture, made by the man doing the translating. Every later argument in England, through Wycliffe to Tyndale, is conducted in the terms Ælfric set here.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
This work is in the public domain and can be read in full, free, at the archives below.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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