Chaucer and the Vulgate Parables

Wheeler IMC Paper 18

Kip Wheeler:

Chaucer and the Vulgate Parables:

Presentation at WTAMU:

May 2008

One dispute in Chaucer studies through the late 1990s concerned whether Chaucer used an actual Latin Bible for his literary allusions or whether his doctrinal knowledge came from other sources. In the medieval period, most bourgeois and lower-class individuals never read the Gospels as a narrative whole, hearing only snippets quoted in sermons. Even the literate might encounter them primarily in florilegia without the surrounding Gospel context, since Bibles as literary artifacts were prohibitively expensive.[1] By 1998, Lawrence Besserman amassed convincing evidence that Chaucer knew some Biblical texts sufficiently well to use deliberate misquotations for comic or rhetorical effect. That familiarity would suggest Chaucer encountered the parables in written narrative, rather than only hearing them excised and grafted into the body of a sermon. What was left indeterminate was whether this text was an actual Latin Vulgate bible or a Middle English translation.

One undiscussed point in this debate concerns Chaucer’s marked tendency to quote or paraphrase Luke's parables in a manner consistent with direct, reading knowledge of the Latin text, a tendency that does not appear when he quotes Mark or Matthew. I would suggest Chaucer had access to a version of the Lukan Gospel, which he used to make direct quotations and close paraphrases, but he may have relied upon memory and intermediary sources for his use of the parables in Matthew and Mark. His direct quotations, allusions, and lengthier paraphrases from the Gospels rely most frequently on parables found exclusively in Luke or found in all three synoptic Gospels. This tendency diverges from the medieval tendency to favor Matthew as a primary Gospel text for quotation.

In the case of many scriptural allusions aside from the Lukan parables, it remains possible Chaucer may have encountered these Biblical passages second-hand in florilegia or as quoted material in a sermon or treatise, rather than taking them directly from the Vulgate Bible. For instance, if the reader checks the index in the back of Besserman's Chaucer and The Bible in comparison with the indexes in the back of Procter and Wordsworth's edition of the Breviarium ad Usum Insignis Ecclesiae Sarum[2] and the Legg and Dickinson edition of The Sarum Missal,[3] it becomes clear that many of Chaucer's Biblical allusions derive from or are paralleled in the liturgy of the medieval church (Besserman Chaucer and the Bible 40). However, the sheer number and scope of such quotations in Chaucer suggests strongly Chaucer's familiarity with the Bible as an actual Latin text. He also read the Bible closely enough to note the small differences in the various Gospel accounts of the Passion. In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey the pilgrim states:

As thus, ye woot that every Evaungelist

That telleth us the peyne of Jhesu Crist

Ne seith nat alle thyng as his felawe dooth;

But nathelees hir sentence is al sooth,

And all acorden as in hire sentence,

Al be ther in hir telling difference.

For somme of hem seyn moore, and somme seyn lesse,

Whan they his pitous passioun expresse--

I meene of Mark, Mathew, Luc, and John--

But doutelees hir sentence is al oon. [VII 943-52 B2 *2133-42]

Given Chaucer's heavy reliance on secondary materials for Matthew and Mark, the statement does not necessarily indicate a complete familiarity with all four texts but it does prove Chaucer was a close reader of at least one section in the various Gospel accounts, or at least he heard these discrepancies discussed by others.

However, Chaucer frequently went beyond his proximate or intermediate sources to fill in their partial Biblical quotations with more complete renditions; he often turned brief scriptural allusions into substantial passages of paraphrase, translation, or (occasionally) even miniature Biblical narratives.[4]

On the other hand, Chaucer's use of the parables is atypical of the general medieval trend. The Gospel of Matthew dominates the medieval period in terms of citation frequency in most medieval writings. Besserman notes the book of Matthew is more often quoted, and his name more often cited, than any of the other Gospels in medieval literature generally. Chaucer's use of the parables is a strange exception to this Matthean primacy. In the case of the parables, Chaucer most frequently uses Luke. If we look at Chaucer's use of the parables, nearly every direct quotation and many of the more general allusions to a parable refer either to one found exclusively in Luke or one that appears in Luke as well as the synoptic Gospels. When quotations appear as attributions to Matthew, often they are incorrectly attributed. When Chaucer correctly attributes them, his intermediary source frequently contains the correct attribution as well, leading one to suspect that Chaucer may have had access to the Lukan Gospel as a primary source, but he more frequently relied upon secondary sources or his own memory for materials in Matthew.

To illustrate this, we can turn two sample parables, that of Dives and Lazar and that of the Publican and the Pharisee. In particular, Chaucer has an inordinate interest in the parable of Dives and Lazar, which he alludes to four times, including instances in the Summoner's Tale, the Parson's Tale, the General Prologue, and the Man of Law's Tale.

Quotation #1 Dives and Lazar

In the Doaui-Rheims translation from the Latin, the account appears as "passage one" as listed in your handout:

[Handout Part 1]: There was a certain rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen; and feasted sumptuously every day. And there was a certain beggar, named Lazarus, who lay at his gate, full of sores, Desiring to be filled with crumbs that fell from the rich man's table, and no one did give him; moreover the dogs came, and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. And the rich man also died: and he was buried in hell. And lifting up his eyes when he was in torments, he saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom: And he cried, and said: Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, to cool my tongue: for I am tormented in this flame. And Abraham said to him: Son, remember that thou didst receive good things in thy lifetime, and likewise Lazarus evil things, but now he is comforted; and thou art tormented. And besides all this, between us and you, there is fixed a great chaos: so that they who would pass from hence to you, cannot, nor from thence come hither. And he said: Then, father, I beseech thee, that thou wouldst send him to my father's house, for I have five brethren, That he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torments. And Abraham said to him: They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. But he said: No, father Abraham: but if one went to them from the dead, they will do penance. And he said to him: If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe, if one rise again from the dead. (Luke 16:19-31)

Chaucer's use of the parable is at once similar to and different from the dominant tradition. In this allusion, Chaucer prefers to use a brief paraphrase rather than continue the text at length. The Summoner's Yorkshire friar creates a succinct summary and interpretation of the passage. The summary takes only two lines, and the interpretation fills only another four in your handout as passage two:

[Handout Part 2]: Lazar and Dives lyveden diversly,

And divers gerdon hadden they therby.

Whoso wol preye, he moot faste and be clene,

And fatte his soule, and make his body lene.

We fare as seith th'apostle; clooth and foode

Suffyssen us, though they be nat ful gode. [III (D) 1877-82]

Chaucer also refers to Dives ("thilke riche man in the gospel") in the Parson's Tale: "For certes, if ther ne hadde be no synne in clothing, Crist wolde nat so soone have noted and spoken of the clothing of thilke riche man in the gospel" [X (I) 413, emphasis mine]. Here, Chaucer taps into an exegetical tradition following Gregory's Homilies, as reproduced in Peraldus, who repackages these ideas in his own treatise.[5] Chaucer’s phrasing here is interesting in terms of grammatical construction, and what that suggests about Chaucer's source. Chaucer's phrasing ("thilke riche man in the gospel") strongly suggests a familiarity with the Vulgate translation, rather than simply knowledge of the story generally through intermediary sources. Many medieval readers traditionally thought of the name "Dives" as a proper name--though in fact it is simply the Latin word for a rich man.[6] The two appellations "Lazar" and "Dives" followed opposite etymological trajectories in English usage. In the original parable, only Lazarus has a proper name: an abbreviated version of a longer, common Hebrew appellation (Smith 135). It is one of the rare cases in which a character in the parables actually is given a name, and Smith suggests the Gospel writer needed to clarify the dialogue, which lacked modern conveniences like quotation marks to delineate speech and description. By inserting phrases like "Lazarus said . . ." at the beginning of dialogue transitions, the writer can mark changes in speakers (Smith 135).

In any case, Lazarus' counter-part, "a certain man who was rich," is in the Vulgate translation "homo quidam erat dives." In common Middle English vernacular usage, Dives was erroneously thought to be a proper Jewish name. On the other hand, in Middle English usage of the fourteenth century, the name "Lazarus" or "Lazar" became a generic term to refer to any leper, diseased person, or beggar (see MED "laser" and variant spellings; OED "lazar"). The general tendency, especially among uneducated speakers, was to remove the name semantically from its connection to a historical figure and turn it into a synonym for the diseased and impoverished wretches of fourteenth-century England. The common appellation for the leprosarium was, in fact, the "lazar-house."

Chaucer does not follow the common medieval practice of referring to the character of the rich man as if his proper name were Dives. Instead, the Parson uses the demonstrative adjective thilke [that] in conjunction with man, a grammatical construction reflective of (and common to) Latinate phraseology in Middle English translation. Both quidam in Latin and thilke in Middle English can be used to point to a single, specific-but-indeterminate figure--one known but not necessarily named. If the passage appeared in another rhymed and metered tale, it would be tempting to explain it as Chaucer's attempt to make a metrically complete line or create a rhyme, but the Parson's Tale is a prose work, so this explanation does not work. Chaucer's wording here shows direct familiarity with the Vulgate version of the parable in the Gospel of Luke. Clearly, Chaucer may have had the Latin passage in mind as he consulted his sources.[7]

Quotation Three: The Pharisee and the Publican

Like Dives and Lazar, the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican is another parable in which Chaucer ignores Matthew and follows Luke:

[Handout Part 3]: dixit autem et ad quosdam qui in se confidebant tamquam iusti et aspernabantur ceteros parabolam istam / duo homines ascenderunt in templum ut orarent unus Pharisaeus et alter publicanus / Pharisaeus stans haec apud se orabat Deus gratias ago tibi quia non sum sicut ceteri hominum raptores iniusti adulteri vel ut etiamhic publicanus / ieiuno bis in sabbato decimas do omnium quae possideo / et publicanus a longe stans nolebat nec oculos ad caelum levare sed percutiebat pectus suum dicens Deus propitius esto mihi peccatori / dico vobis descendit hic iustificatus in domum suam ab illo Quia omnis qui se exaltat humiliabitur et qui se humiliat exaltabitur

[And to some who trusted in themselves as just, and despised others, he spoke also this parable: Two men went up into the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee standing, prayed thus with himself: O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican. I fast twice in a week: I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes towards heaven; but struck his breast, saying: O God, be merciful to me a sinner. I say to you, this man went down into his house justified rather than the other: because every one that exalteth himself, shall be humbled: and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted.] (Luke 18:9-14)

This Lukan parable of the Pharisee and the Publican follows four earlier parables focuses on characters who have a change of heart.[8] However, when medieval interpreters encountered the parable outside of the larger gospel narrative, they generally would ignore this context of changes of heart and read the parable allegorically. Saint Augustine, while discussing the Psalms, pauses to mention this passage. He sees the Pharisee as the Jewish people and the publican as a symbol of the gentiles (see On the Psalms, PL 36, 37, especially col. 954), an interpretation that became the medieval standard reading.

In sharp contrast, when Chaucer's Parson alludes to this parable, he ignores the exegetical tradition regarding the Jews and the Pharisee and focuses on the appropriateness of the Publican's response: "Swich was the confessioun of the publican that wolde nat heven up his eyen to hevene, for he hadde offended God of hevene; for which shamefastnesse he hadde anon the mercy of God" [X (I) 986]. The same allusion appears in Pennaforte in the Summa Causa Poenitentiae (Ch and the Bible 234-35). In both Chaucer's version and Pennaforte's, unlike in most medieval sermons, the allusion functions as a fairly straightforward model of what penitents should feel (sorrow) and the need for a change of heart in order to achieve full pardon for their sins.[9] This suggests he was not relying on other florilegia or common sermons.