These Homilies supply to those of Ælfric their true historical introduction. They support the reasons which Ælfric assigns for producing homilies. In his preface he speaks of certain English books to which he designs his sermons as an antidote. He had translated his discourses (he says) out of the Latin, not for pride of learning, "but because I had seen much heresy (_gedwild_) in many English books, which unlearned men in their simplicity thought mighty wise." Not only do the Blickling Homilies contain enough of unscriptural and apocryphal material to justify the charge of "_gedwild_" in its vaguer sense of error, but we have also documentary grounds for believing that a careful theologian of that time, such as Ælfric undoubtedly was, would have brought them under the indictment of heresy.
It used to be thought that the oldest extant list of condemned books proceeded from Pope Gelasius, and was of about A.D. 494; but now that list is assigned to the eighth or even ninth century. In this Index we find sources for much of the literature which we have been considering in this chapter; we find the "Acts of Pilate," "Journeys of the Apostles," "Acts of Peter," "Acts of Andrew the Apostle," "The Contradiction of Solomon," "The Book Physiologus."[122] The material which gives the Blickling collection its peculiar character is largely apocryphal, and, in the light of the above list, heretical.
A new vitality is imparted to Ælfric's sermons by their contrast with these older ones. It is plain that there is a common source behind both sets of sermons; the well-established series of topics for each occasion seems clearly to point to some standard collection of Latin homilies now lost.[123] The evident identity of the lines on which the discourses run makes comparison the easier and the more satisfactory. In the sermon for Ascension Day, Ælfric's treatment is in pointed contrast with the older book. The Blickling is full of the signs and wonders; some, indeed, Scriptural, but far more apocryphal; and it is effusive over these. Whereas Ælfric teaches that the visible miracles belonged to the infancy of the Church, and were as artificial watering to a newly-planted tree; but, when the heathen believed, then those miracles ceased. Now (he says) we must look rather for spiritual miracles. The Homily on St. John Baptist is a good example. According to the old book, John is called "angelus," because he lived on earth the angelic life, but Ælfric takes it as messenger, and this may hint the difference of treatment. In the same discourse there is a contrast which touches the chronology. The old Homily says that there are only two Nativities kept sacred by the Church--that of the Lord and that of His forerunner. Ælfric takes up this topic with a difference. He says that there are three Nativities, which are celebrated annually, adding that of the Blessed Virgin to the previous two. Now, it was precisely in the tenth century that this third began to be observed in the churches of the West;[124] and the change took place in the interval that separates these two sets of homilies.