Saint Wulfstan, writing 999 Years Ago

I have to confess to facing the new year in a mood of complete pessimism and despondency. This morning, I remembered the following from my Old English studies over 50 years ago. There is, indeed, nothing new under the Sun, and Saint Wulfstan's cry of alarm still rings true.

Our enemy now is not a barbaric foreign invader, but a viper within the national bosom.

Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, quando Dani maxime persecuti sunt eos quod fuit anno millesimo XIIII ab incarnatione domini nostri Iesu Cristi:

The sermon of the Wolf to the English, when the Danes were greatly persecuting them, which was in the year 1014 after the Incarna­tion of our Lord Jesus Christ:



Leofan men gecnawað þæt soð is: ðeos worolde is on ofste & hit nealæcð þam ende.

Dear people, know what is the truth: this world is in haste and it nears the end.

 & þy hit is on worolde aa swa leng swa wyrse, & swa hit sceal nyde for folces synnan fram dæge to dæge, ær antecristes tocyme, yfelian swyþe.

And therefore things in this world go ever the longer the worse, and so it must needs be that things quickly worsen, on account of people's sinning from day to day, before the coming of Antichrist. 

I would feel happier if we had a modern Saint Wulfstan.