himself says that if sinners who cannot confess to a priest are contrite, confess to God, and do penance, “temporalibus poenis mutabunt aeterna supplicia, et lacrymis ex vera cordis contritione fluentibus extinguent aeterni ignis incendia” (they will change eternal punishment into temporal punishment, and if their tears flow from true contrition of heart they will extinguish the flames of eternal fire) PL 192.882. And in Aquinas’s commentary on the Sentences, “Post contritionem de mortali potest remanere veniale” (After contrition for a mortal sin it can remain as a venial sin), In IV Sententiarum, 17.2.2.3, resp. ad argum. 4.1. Lombard himself, though, ascribes such downgrading not to contrition but to confession: “Fit enim veniale per confessionem quod criminale erat in operatione” (What was a mortal sin when it was committed becomes venial through confession), PL 192.883, quoted by Hort, 1938:143.
B.14.92 Per confessionem to a preest peccata occiduntur: Sins are killed by confession to a priest. A somewhat common metaphor, as a proximity search of the three terms makes clear. Cf. especially Peter of Cava (twelfth century), whose moralizing Commentary on 1 Kings was formerly ascribed to Gregory the Great. He is commenting on 1 Kings 15.15, where Saul admits to Samuel that he has not slain all the beasts of Amalech, as he was told to; he has kept the best alive for sacrifices, “reliqua vero occidimus” (but the rest we have slain). Peter comments, “Quid est ergo, quod dicit, reliqua occidimus, nisi quia sunt parvissima peccata maioribus, quae sola confessione lavantur?” (What does ‘The rest we have slain” mean except that they are the smallest sins, (much smaller than) the greater, which are only washed in confession?) (Ed. Verbraken 1963:561). The sentence manages to mix together L’s two metaphors, washing sin and killing sin.
B.14.94 et quorum tecta sunt peccata: Psalm 31:1, “Beati quorum remissae sunt iniquitates et quorum tecta sunt peccata,” Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. The second penitential psalm, quoted at 7.152, B.12.177 (also to support “how contricion wiþoute confession conforteþ þe soule” B.12.175), B.13.54. L is taking tecta, covered, very literally as “not confessed openly but covered, blotted out, by contrition.” The anonymous Breviarium in Psalmos, once attributed to Jerome, says (in a statement copied by various others, including Alcuin and Peter Lombard) that the sins are covered “ut hic velentur per poenitentiam, ne in judicio revelentur,” so that they may be veiled by penitence, lest they be revealed in judgment (PL 26.912).
B.14.95 satisfaccion sekeþ out þe roote: Possibly the reference is to pride, the root of the tree of sin in the Parson’s Tale (“the general roote of alle harmes” I388). But that would be to take “root” in the sense of “origin”; surely rather it is used here in the sense of something deep and involved and hard to take out—whether the root of an infection (an abcessed tooth, especially) or the root of a tree. Cf., e.g., John Cassian on wrath: “Non solum e nostris actibus haec amputanda est, sed etiam de internis animae radicitus exstirpanda,” It has to be not just cut off from our actions but ripped out by the roots from inside our souls (Institutes 8.19, PL 49.348). A proximity search of radicitus and exstirp* reveals how popular this metaphor was (as it still is). But I find no tradition of associating such uprooting of sin with satisfaction in particular.
Patience replies to questions from Actyf about patient poverty (and in B about charity) (272–306, B.14.98–132)
272 What is properly parfit pacience? (B.14.98 Where wonyeþ Charite?): I will treat B first, where we have a moment of humor. Critics have striven to understand what motivates this question of Actyf’s—Maguire (1969:206) finds analogies to moments in passūs 1 and 5; Alford (1977:98) sees L laboring to make the transition from the first group of quotations that “structure” the passus to the second; Gillespie 1994:115 asserts that “Fiat voluntas tua is often linked to charity.” Basically, it’s just funny: Patience has been getting preachy, and Actyf stops him with a question seemingly out of the blue. It isn’t really out of the blue, though, as these several critics have shown, each in their way. My own understanding is that it arises straight from the line before it, because satisfaction is Operis satisfaccio (C.16.31), doing good works; see B.14.21a note above. Chaucer’s Parson says that satisfaction “stant moost generally in almesse” (I1029), which is “werkes of charitee” (I1033). Furthermore, a soul freed of sin, as described in lines 94–96, is now “in charity.” Sin being uprooted, the soul is now “rooted and founded in charity” (Eph 3:17). All the same, Actyf can hardly be expected to know these correspondences, and L has bought his humor at the expense of verisimilitude.
Another way to look at it is in reference to Sodom, home of vnkyndenesse (B.14.73), where, as Ezechiel says, “they did not put forth their hand to the needy and the poor.” Actyf says in effect, “All right, I know where unkindness lives; now show me where charity lives.” Or Actyf’s own country may be coueytise or vnkyndenesse; see 188–90 (B.13.219–21) above and the note to 188 (B.13.219). A third possibility, very unlikely, is that L forgets that Actyf was not at the banquet, and did not hear Patience’s praise of Charity at 13.163a.
The question “Where does Charity live?” of course reminds us of Will’s earlier question, “Where does Dowel dwell?” (10.4 [B.8.4, A.9.4], etc.). It seems a little mannered, since we would ask rather, “Where can Charity be found?,” as Will does at 16.287 (and at B.15.151, “Where sholde men fynde swich a frend?”). But the phrasing reminds us that the idea of home is central to this poem of pilgrimage. Though every pilgrim has left home with a purpose, they all must want to return, and this implicit ache can account for Will’s preference for speaking in terms of home—and Actyf’s too. And in passus 18 Will learns that Charity is at home in him, in cor hominis—as he should have learned from Piers at 7.255–60 (B.5.606–7, A.6.93–94).
In C the question is moved to the later scene with Liberum arbitrium: “Charite … Where may hit be yfounde?” C.16.286–87, where it comes up naturally. What is said here in lines 273–76, and in B.14.100–1, about charity in answer to Actyf is not inconsistent with the major later material on charity at 15.298–374a (B.15.149–268), but L was wise in both versions to hold back any discussion of charity until Anima/Liberum arbitrium brings it to the fore in instructing Will, a better pupil for it than Actyf.
Here in C the question is replaced by another that is still a bit offbeat, but follows well enough, though no form of the word “patience” has occurred since pacientes vincunt 253. Patience has ranged among various modes of patience—accepting God’s will, suffering hardships such as bad weather and imprisonment, penance, sobriety, dying as God wills, not being solicitous about liflode, living moderately—and it is reasonable then to ask what is perfect patience.
Donaldson 1949:180–81 argues that the question is changed because whereas in B L treated charity and patience together, he separated them in C. That is generally true, but here Donaldson ignores 273–76; see the next note.
273–76 Meeknesse … alle perelles to soffre (B.14.100–1 Ther parfit truþe … god hymselue): These answers are different but have to be treated together, since they share the idea that charity is chief, and they both mingle patience and charity. The implication is perhaps that the two questions—What is perfect patience? (C), Where does charity live? (B)—are not as different as they seem. The key to both is the Sermon on the Mount, Matt 5–7, with some assist from 1 Cor 13 and Rom 12:9–21.
C first: meeknesse: “Blessed are the meek” 5:4. mylde speche: “But I say to you not to swear at all …. let your speech be ‘Yea, yea,’ ‘No, no,’” 5:34–37, see also 5:22–25, 47; 6:3–7; 7:1, and Rom 12:14. And see 18.11 “benigne speche” and the note there. men of o will: “Thy will be done,” 6:10, and “of one mind one towards another” Rom 12:16; cf. 17.128, “Alle kyne cristene cleuynge on o will.” The whiche wil loue lat [And love leads that will] to
