There are several difficulties for a modern reader approaching Ælfric's Lives of Saints. Hagiography is a genre no longer widely practised; the expectations of the genre must be reconstructed by the modern reader from surviving examples. Indeed,
Ælfric would wish his saints to be seen merely as vessels of God's divine design on earth, indistinguishable as such one from the other, all worthy of our veneration and all able to intercede for us with the unapproachable deity. The saint's powers of intercession was the hagiographer's uppermost concern: and hence it did not matter whether the saint was tall or short, fair or bald, fat or thin, blonde or brunette (Lapidge 1991, p. 261)
Thus, when Ælfric describes Edmund pierced with arrows 'like the bristles of a hedgehog, just as was Sebastian' (swilce igles byrsta, swa swa Sebastianus wæs), it is questionable whether we should admire the image. More important than how Edmund and Sebastian were alike is that they were alike. And here we come across a second methodological difficulty. Abbo describes Edmund 'like a prickly hedgehog or a thistle fretted with spines, resembling in agony the illustrious martyr Sebastian' (uelut asper herecius aut spinis hirtus carduus, in passione similis Sebastiano egregio martyri). How do we read Ælfric's Life as a translation? Given that many readers would not have known Abbo's Latin passio, do we need to read Ælfric in conjunction with Abbo?
Secondary criticism has generally focused on the relationship of Ælfric's Life to Abbo's passio and how this interacts with Ælfric's translation policy, as outlined in his prefaces. Clark 1968 found Ælfric had shortened his source, simplified Abbo's 'flowery and pompous rhetoric' and adjusted the narrative to suit a national audience that might include non-monks. Stanton 2002 is more sophisticated, arguing that Ælfric injected a 'conscious, stylised orality into his translation', producing the sermo humilis style (see Auerbach 1965) hinted at in the preface to the second series of Catholic Homilies, 'not with garrulous verbosity nor in unfamiliar words, but with the clear and unambiguous words of this people's language' (non garrula verbositate, aut ignotis sermonibus, sed puris et apertis verbis linguae huius gentis). In addition, Ælfric made 'rich use' of the native English literary tradition to adapt his Life to the experience his audience, so that, for instance, the restraint of the grey wolf (in Ælfric a beast of battle) is more remarkable than in Abbo.
Other critics have focused on themes prominent in the Life, especially violence. Debate has centered on whether Abbo depicts Edmund being executed according to 'the rite of the blood eagle', whereby a prisoner was laid face down, his ribs torn from his spine and his lungs ripped out to resemble a spread eagle, and whether it is significant that Ælfric omits any hint of this practice (Frank 1984, Earl 1999). McDougall 1993 investigates whether pelting a victim with missiles was a specifically Viking practice.
Disappointingly little attention has been paid to Ælfric's life for itself. Benskin 1994 shows that the narrative is well-structured, with a conclusion twice as long as the introduction, and with two sections of equal length describing Edmund's passion and posthumuous miracles. This is a valuable point, but the article spins it out to unnecessary length. There are several questions the criticism has failed to answer: why and how is Edmund portrayed as a national saint? What is the significance of Ælfric's claim nis Angelcynn bedæled Drihtnes halgena? Why, when he omits Abbo's barbs against the Danes, does Ælfric introduce his own barbs against the earman Iudei?