The Elene of Cynewulf/Chapter 13
13. Judas and the Devil.
Then, as ever should be, was the miracle which895 the Lord of hosts, Giver of life, had wrought for the salvation of mankind, impressed upon the minds of the people. But there the fiend, the devil from hell, dire monster mindful of evil, sinning with his900 lies, rose up into the air, flying, and spake thus:—‘Lo! what man is this who doth again in the ancient enmity destroy my following, swell the olden hatred, and waste my possessions? Continual905 strife is this. No longer may the souls of them that work evil dwell among my possessions, since now a stranger hath come, whom I counted fast in his sins, and hath robbed me of my every right910 and of all my wealth. This is not a just deed. The Saviour, who was raised up in Nazareth, hath done me many an evil, acts of deep hatred. As he grew up from childhood, he ever turned to himself915 my possessions, nor now can any justice succeed [against him]. His kingdom is broad over the world, while my teaching is weakened beneath the heavens. I dare not despise this cross with scoffing laugh. Lo! the Saviour hath again shut me into920 my narrow home, smitten with woe. Once I was filled with joy by a Judas: but now, again by a Judas, am I humbled, bereft of possessions, abhorred, and friendless. But I know how to discover925 again by my sin a way of return hereafter from the home of the damned. I shall incite against thee another king who shall persecute thee, and shall forsake thy teaching and follow my ways of930 evil; then will he cast thee into the darkest and worst of terrors, that thou, racked with pain, mayst vehemently renounce the crucified King, whom thou didst formerly obey.’
Then the wise Judas, daring hero in strife,935 answered him (the Holy Spirit was granted unto him with strength, a love hot as fire, a knowledge welling up through the learning of a warrior); and he spake this word, filled with wisdom:—‘Thou needst not so mightily, ever mindful of evil, renew940 sorrow and enkindle strife, O sinful prince of murder, inasmuch as the mighty King, who hath awakened with His word many of the dead, doth thrust thee into the nether depths, thou worker of iniquity,945 into the abyss of torture, bereft of joy. Know thou full clearly that thou in folly didst forsake the brightest of lights and the love of the Lord and that glorious faith, and that thou hast since dwelt in a950 bath of fire, burdened with tortures and seared with flame, and that there, with hatred in thy soul, thou shalt ever suffer woe and misery without end.’
Elene heard how the foe and the friend struggled together, the glorious and the foul on opposite sides,955 the sinful and the blessed. And she was the gladder in heart as she heard that the hellish enemy, the Prince of evil, was vanquished; she marveled at the wisdom of the man, how in so little time he was so filled with faith, and how he who had960 ever been so ignorant was imbued with knowledge. And she thanked God, the King of glory, that through the Son of God the joy of both these things was come unto her—on the one hand at the sight965 of the tree of victory, and on the other at this faith which she so clearly understood as a glorious gift in the breast of this man.