156a (B.13.135a, 171a)n.
Skeat says that, though the sentiment is a central idea in medieval culture, this exact formulation is not extant other than here. The statement in Anna Baldwin 1990:72 that it is “a quotation from the apocryphal Testament of Job” is quite misleading: this very early work was never translated into Latin, and the Greek phrase Baldwin refers to is “kreissōn estin pantōn he makrothumia,” patience is superior to everything (Kraft 1974:52–53). In a paper he wrote some time ago but never published, Steven Justice argued that the source may be two contiguous sentences, one with patientes and one with vincunt, in William of St Amour’s De periculis: his twenty-second sign is “quod veri apostoli in tribulationibus patientes sunt,” and his twenty-third, “quod veri apostoli in primo adventu male recipiuntur … sed postea vincunt.” (See G. Geltner’s edition of 2008:126.) Recently Lawrence Warner has found the phrase in John Bromyard’s Summa praedicantium (2014:65–66). I find that Thomas of Chobham has vincunt patientes (Summa de commendatione virtutum et extirpatione vitiorum, ed. Morenzoni 1997:160, line 1918). To see just how rampant the idea is, if not the phrase, search vinc* or vic* or supera* or triumpha* + patien* in the PL online and the Brepols LLT-A; the latter will show a number of examples from Roman writers as well as Christians. The commonest mode has patientia in the ablative, and vincere transitive: By patience we conquer the devil/wrath/strong enemies, etc.
The phrase is certainly not in the bible, and yet B.13.135 as crist bereþ witnesse is surely right: it may just mean Christ’s passion, the great victorious act of patience, an experience beyond clerking; Burdach 1926–32:3.2.226 n1, says that it refers to “sein gesamtes Leben, Wirken, Leiden, Sterben und seinen Sieg (seine Auferstehung)” (his whole life, deeds, suffering, and dying, and his victory [his resurrection]), and means that Christ through his patience—and passion—“Vorbild und Bürgeschaft ist für Geduld, Leiden und Sieg seiner Getreuen” (is model and security for the patience, suffering, and victory of his faithful ones), citing 1 Peter 2:21 and four Pauline texts, of which the most apt is 2 Tim 2:12, “if we suffer, we shall also reign with him.” Burdach sees little relevance in Matt 10:22 (which Skeat settles on, followed by Simpson 2007:132), “Qui autem perseveraverit usque in finem, hic salvus erit” (He that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved). (In my opinion, if Skeat wanted to cite the Gospels he should have chosen Matt 5:10, “Beati qui persecutionem patiuntur propter iustitiam, quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum” [Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice’s sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven].)
In Juvencus’s hexameter version of the Gospels, Evangelicae historiae libri IV, Matt 5:38–39, in the Sermon on the Mount (You have heard, an eye for an eye, but I say, do not resist evil: turn the other cheek), Jesus says that the law says, “similis vindicta sequatur” (Let like vengeance follow), “Sed tranquilla malum melius patientia vincet,” But calm patience will conquer evil better. L would surely have read that in Peter the Chanter’s good chapter on patience (ed. Boutry 2004:687; for the context in Juvencus, see PL 19.129). Peter further cites Jesus’s famous remark, Matt 11:12, “The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away,” then (p. 688) quotes Jerome, “Nonnisi per pacientiam impletur,” (That remark) is not fulfilled except by patience. Jerome in fact has no such statement; but see Letter 22.40, PL 22.424; Peter the Chanter is apparently interpreting what Jerome says there about seizing heaven by violence as only making sense in terms of patience—as if Jesus is saying that the patient take heaven by storm, they win salvation—and L might have been thinking of this as well. Peraldus and others (as Google shows) cite Jerome similarly, but they are probably parroting Peter the Chanter.
At C.15.156 the phrase is called, more generally, of holy writ a partye, which offers a wider field of possibilities for a scriptural source: Prov 16:32, “Melior est patiens viro forte, et qui dominatur animo suo expugnatore urbium” (The patient man is better than the valiant; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh cities); James 1:4, “Patience hath a perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, failing in nothing” (failing in nothing = conquering); and James 1:12, “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he hath been proved he shall receive the crown of life” (endurance = patience, receiving the crown = conquering). See also 1 Peter 2:20, “If doing well you suffer patiently, this is thanksworthy before God”—as if the pardon read “Qui bona egerunt et patienter passi sunt ibunt in vitam eternam.” Or, if to do bet is to suffer, as both Wit (B.9.207) and Clergie (B.10.257) have said, then the first line of the pardon and patientes vincunt are equivalent statements. See Lawler 2000:144–45.
John of Salisbury at Entheticus minor 243–48 cites Prov 16:32, and says that patience “crushes wars with an unwarlike hand.” Prudence in Chaucer’s Melibee, whose whole aim is to persuade her husband that patience and forgiveness will be the most effective vengeance, cites Prov 16:32 and James 1:4 consecutively (B.15.14–15). Donaldson 1949:175 n2 and 180 n2 cites James 5:11, “Beatificamus eos qui sustinuerunt” (We account them blessed who have endured) (which repeats James 1:12 in other terms), and “Burdach’s interesting note,” which I have drawn on above, and which also cites the Sententiae of Publius Syrus, “Feras dolorem; vincitur patientia” (Put up with sorrow; it is conquered by patience) (ed. Friedrich, 1880:85, sent. 6).
See also Chaucer, FrkT F773–75, “Pacience … venquysseth … Thynges that rigour sholde nevere atteyne”; ParsT I661, “seith the wise man, ‘If thow wolt venquysse thyn enemy, lerne to suffre’” (translating “Si vis vincere, disce pati,” Walther, Proverbia 16974; see Hazelton 1960:367–68); and Troilus 4.1584, in Criseyde’s letter to Troilus, “Men seyn, ‘The suffrant overcomith,’ parde” (“Qui patitur, vincit,” Walther, Proverbia 24454). Note that Chaucer’s speakers always quote somebody: “thise clerkes,” “the wise man,” “men,” as if none of them want to be caught treating it as an original idea. Likewise Roman de la Rose, ed. Lecoy 3199–3200, “J’ai bien esprové que l’en vaint/Par sosfrir felon, et refraint,” I have well proved that one conquers and reins in the wicked one by suffering.
For other uses of the phrase by English writers, see Whiting P61, S865, T213, W264; Skeat may be right to say that Langland was thinking of the Distichs of Cato, Sententiae xl and Disticha 1,38 (which Burdach also mentions, and Hazelton treats, 1960:357)—though not when he called it part of holy writ. The brilliance of the phrase is precisely that it goes to the heart of both the Christian ethic of love and self-sacrifice and Cato’s Greco-Roman prudence. L seems to be aware of its protean nature; of its six appearances in the B version (13.135, 171; 14.33, 54; 15.268, 598), he omits or significantly changes in C all but one (B.14.54, C.15.253).
Piers jumps in (C only) (130–51)
137–51 Quod Peres the ploghman … y couthe no mo aspye: In B.13.133, Conscience has resolved the discussion of Piers’s impugning of learning by looking to his coming at some unspecified time in the future. In C, where we were told at the start of the passus (33–37) that he is present, he breaks suddenly into the debate here, uttering Pacientes vincunt and then a single long sentence (138–47), asserting belief in the power of love, that in the B version (13.137–47) is reported by Patience as having been “once” taught him by his girlfriend Love—and then he disappears. This is undeniably more dramatic, and keeps the mysterious Piers alive in our minds, but does not seem to me to add any depth of meaning to the dinner scene. It is hardly more than a distraction, and undermines somewhat the speech of Patience, which has more integrity in the B version.
137, 156a (B.13.135a, 171a) Pacientes vincunt: The overall meaning of this motto “the patient win” in the passage as a whole is “Love your enemies.” That is, assuming that we are in conflict with our enemies, and want to conquer them, the way to do it is to love them: that is a “beating” that will make them “bow” (147, B.13.147). See B.11.379, “Suffraunce is a souerayn vertue, and a swift vengeaunce,” and everything else that Reason says there
