San Matteo e i maghi nella documentazione omiletica in inglese antico

The celebration of Matthew within the large Old English homiletic tradition is evidenced by an anonymous text entitled Sancte Andreae and by Ælfric’s Natale Sancti Mathei Apostoli et Evangelistae. Written in different contexts, these two texts used different sources and specific modes of rewriting. However, in both cases, the apostle’s missionary work in faraway lands such as Myrmidonia and Ethiopia is met with hostility from pagan magicians. Through an analysis of the two homilies and a comparison with their potential sources and analogues, this essay aims to demonstrate that both stories share, despite their peculiarities, a representation of magic as a feature of an unsettling Elsewhere that Christianisation, as a process of assimilation and erasement of otherness, can transform into a comforting Here.