ABSTRACT
To compare Cynewulf’s image in words with representations in contemporary Anglo-Saxon art is, indeed, to find that they have much in common, both in general conception and in specific motifs. By interjecting the reference to the victorious Christ within the one to the angelic throng Cynewulf suggests an arrangement in space at an instant, as it would be seen. Yet this moment, since it interrupts the regular narrative sequence and hence is outside it, is a point of non-natural, symbolic time. The mosaic differs from an Ascension mainly, of course, in showing Christ seated among the apostles (who are accompanied by female personifications of the church of the Jews and that of the Gentiles); it is a symbolic version of the scene which in Cynewulf’s poem immediately precedes the Ascension. The substantial seventh-century remains at Brixworth today give an indelible impression of a spacious interior designed for sophisticated liturgical use in three dimensions.
