Abstract
Following this discussion of making the proper choice, the ensuing visions rely upon a more biblically informed type of discourse to instruct Will. Scripture confirms a revealed truth that validates the human desire to seek an end that lies in another realm. The most concrete example of this reality is the Good Samaritan parable. As evinced by Samaritan’s actions, charity proves itself to be not only the motive of God’s communicating his goodness but is the very means that one can love in the way God loves. It elevates the natural loving capacity of the individual because its immediate object is divine goodness. Scotus notes that God can be loved above all not only by charity, but also by one’s natural endowments, at least in the state in which nature was instituted. For Scotus and Ockham, each person can freely choose to respond to the goodness extended by the divine. Although both thinkers assert that particular objects provide certain knowledge, neither one believes that this ability produces metaphysical skepticism; intellectual acumen does not supplant faith. This chapter then considers how the revealed truths of Scripture supplement the tenets of voluntarism and how a proper functioning will produces an ethic of mutuality whose moral goal is friendship with God.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Scotus, Quodlibet XVIII, q. 16; Alluntis, God and Creatures, 403.
- 2.
From the pioneering work of Greta Hort to Britton Harwood, critical explorations into the poem’s portrayal of the relation between the intellect and the will have drawn heavily from Scholastic thought. See Hort, Piers Plowman and Contemporary Religious Thought (London: S.P.C.K., 1938).
- 3.
Simpson, “From Reason to Affective Knowledge,” 5.
- 4.
For a detailed discussion of the critical meanings of Kynde, see Zeeman, Discourse of Desire, 157–200.
- 5.
Schmidt, “Langland and Scholastic Philosophy,” 134–56. Schmidt first discusses the relevance of Bernard of Clairvaux’s conception of free will to explicate Liberum Arbitrium. He dismisses this possibility in favor of the writings of Ayguani, Anselm, Aquinas, and Godfrey of Poitiers among others. While his learned argument provides a solid foundation in grasping the central issues surrounding freedom of the will, it does not consider the evolutionary, and more contemporary, work of Scotus and Ockham. Their theories, which assert the will’s hierarchical importance, prove more complementary to its portrayal in the poem, particularly in the final passus.
- 6.
Michele Angriani, Incogniti Clariss. olim theologi Michaelis Ayguani Carmelitarum Generalis Quaestiones Disputatae in Quatuor Libros Sententiarum (Venetiis: apud J. Guerilium, 1623), fols. 246a-249a.
- 7.
Gandulph of Bologna, Sentences, ed. J. von Walter (Vienna and Breslau, 1924).
- 8.
Schmidt, “Langland and Scholastic Philosophy,” 150.
- 9.
For an informative discussion of this familial motif in both the B- and C-texts, consult Tavormina, Kindly Similitude, 140–66.
- 10.
Genesis 2:24.
- 11.
Tavormina, Kindly Similitude, 144. Also see Alan J. Fletcher, “The Social Trinity of Piers Plowman,” Review of English Studies 44 (1993): 343–61.
- 12.
Scotus, Additiones magnae, d. 25, q. 1; ed. C. Balič, Les Commentaires de Jean Duns Scot sur les Quatre Livres de Sentences (Louvain: Bureaux de la Revue, 1927), 282.
- 13.
For a detailed definition of “maundement,” see John Alford, Piers Plowman: A Glossary of Legal Diction, (Cambridge: Brewer, 1988).
- 14.
Aquinas, ST I-II, q. 100, a. 8.
- 15.
Scotus, Ordinatio III, d. 37; Wolter, On the Will, 202.
- 16.
Scotus, Ordinatio III, d. 37; Wolter, On the Will, 203.
- 17.
Scotus, Ordinatio III, d. 28; Wolter, On the Will, 290.
- 18.
Some recent Scotist scholarship contends that the command to love neighbor flows necessarily from natural law. The claim rests upon the idea that since loving God is good in itself, one cannot love him and not wish that He be loved by all other human beings. They cite the biblical statement, “If a man says ‘I love God’ while hating his brother, he is a liar” (1 John 4:20) to help substantiate their point of view. Yet, nothing inherently undercuts the idea that loving one’s neighbor falls under the jurisdiction of natural law in a general way. God should be loved by his creation, and a person who genuinely loves God will love his brother. The point overlooked, however, is that loving one’s neighbor alone will not necessarily lead to a higher love. “For the goodness of the neighbor does not move me more than if a straw could love God Ordinatio III, d. 28; Wolter, On the Will, 291.” Therefore, it operates only as a strict moral principle if heeded in direct conjunction with loving God perfectly.
- 19.
See Luke 10:29–37.
- 20.
A.V.C. Schmidt, “’Elementary’ Images in the Samaritan Episode of Piers Plowman,” Essays in Criticism 56 (2006): 313.
- 21.
Ockham, Quodl. II, q. 17 (OTh. IX, 188).
- 22.
The will can have acts of sensory appetite in its power immediately, through its acts. Ockham, Rep. IV, q. 16 (OTh. VII, 358).
- 23.
Ockham, Rep. III, q. 11 (OTh. VI, 379).
- 24.
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angles, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1).
- 25.
For this particular reference of kynde, see B.5.430–6. Kynde, as seen in earlier passus, can also refer to God or the law of nature. Hugh White scrutinizes the term’s different uses. “It is worth noting that what is involved in being kynde is loving and giving, activity dictated by the law of kynde” (Nature and Salvation, 93).
- 26.
Aquinas states, “And as being is the first thing that without qualification falls within our understanding, so good is the first thing that falls within the understanding of practical reason” (ST I-II, q. 94, a. 2); Scotus centers his discussion of good on God, noting that God is not to be hated, for what is best must be loved most (Ordinatio III, d. 27; Wolter, On the Will, 276); Ockham completes the development by explaining that because “I love the end, I can also love the means; but if I do not love the end, there is no reason for loving the means,” for love terminates in God Himself (Sent. III, d. 1, q. 1; OTh VI, 380).
- 27.
Riding an ass also echoes Matthew’s gospel, “The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them” (MT. 21:6–7).
- 28.
E. Talbot Donaldson, Piers Plowman: An Alliterative Verse Translation (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1990), 216.
- 29.
The similarity between this episode and the plowing of the half-acre has been noted by many critics. Mary Carruthers writes, “[T]hese scenes from Passus XIX, the culmination of the Vita, are intended to reveal the meaning of passus VI-VII, the culmination of the Visio, through a relationship which binds the two parts of the poem in an explicitly figural way. Passus XIX redeems Passus VII, as the life of Christ redeems that of the men of the Old Law.… It is a redemption not only of mankind and human society, but of the poem’s allegory and of its language (Search for St. Truth, 155). Other significant scholarship includes Elizabeth D. Kirk, The Dream Thought of Piers Plowman (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972): 190–205; and Stephen A. Barney, Allegories of History, Allegories of Love (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1979), 89–101.
- 30.
Scotus, Ordinatio III, d. 27; Wolter, On the Will, 282.
- 31.
This Latin phrase is first used in its entirety earlier in passus 19, lines 187 and 193. Translated as “pay what thou owest,” it is drawn from the New Testament, Matthew 18:28 and Romans 13.7. However, the conjugated form of the command, “reddite,” is found much earlier in passus 5, line 462. This chronologically prior usage closely resembles the present scene. Both focus on laboring as the means to acknowledge God’s grace for humankind. The chief difference between the two is the ambiguity of whether or not the laborer in passes five will actually pay back what he owes. For a further investigation into its usage, see Clopper, “Songes of Rechelesnesse,” 307–15; Hugh White, Nature and Salvation, 110–11; Robert W. Frank, Piers Plowman and the Scheme of Salvation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957), 107–9.
- 32.
Ockham, Quodl. III, q. 18 (OTh IX, 274).
- 33.
Ockham, Quaest. Variae, q. 8, a. 1 (OTh VIII, 409).
- 34.
Ockham, Quaest. Variae. q. 8, a. 1 (OTh VIII, 410).
- 35.
Scotus, Ordinatio III, d. 27; Wolter, On the Will, 276.
- 36.
Aristotle writes, “It is therefore because the good man has these various feelings toward himself, and because he feels toward his friend in the same way as toward himself (for a friend is another self), that friendship also is thought to consist in one or other of these feelings, and the possession of them is thought to be a test of a friend” (Nicomachean Ethics IX, ch. 4 (1166a 30–3).
- 37.
Scotus, Ordinatio III, d. 28; Vos, Divine Love, 53.
- 38.
For a study into the complexity of his character, see Margaret Kim, “The Politics of Consuming Worldly Goods: Negotiating Christian Discipline and Feudal Power in Piers Plowman,” Traditio 59 (2004): 339–68; Mary Clemente Davlin, “God and the Human Body in Piers Plowman,” Chaucer Review 46 (2011): 147–65.
- 39.
Kathleen M. Hewitt-Smith, “‛Nede ne hath no lawe’: Poverty and the De-stabilization of Allegory in the Final Visions of Piers Plowman,” William Langland’s Piers Plowman: A Book of Essays, ed. Kathleen M. Hewett-Smith (New York: Routledge, 2001), 242.
- 40.
Only two other episodes portray the dreamer interacting with learned figures in the actual world. The opening of passus eight in the B-text describes Will’s dispute with two friars in discriminating good from evil. The other reference lies in the C-text, passus five, the famous autobiographical passage. The former episode sets the stage for the ensuing visions which examine those cognitive faculties employed when discerning truth. The latter one situates the text in a contemporary cultural milieu; the specific emphasis, however, has generated much critical discussion. For a series of essays focusing exclusively on this waking passage, see Written Work: Langland, Labor and Authorship, eds. Steven Justice and Kathryn Kerby-Fulton (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997). As opposed to the other two waking episodes, Need seems more interested in censuring rather than instructing Will about the ways of the world. His insistence upon naturals laws dictating human action stay true to the leitmotiv that complexities continually confront the individual who seeks to winnow right from wrong in either human or spiritual affairs.
- 41.
Ockham, Quodl. III, q. 15 (OTh IX, 261).
- 42.
Ockham, OND, 3.416, 322.
- 43.
Robinson, Early Theory of Property Rights, 117; Ockham, OND 61.35–43, 559.
- 44.
Scotus, Ordinatio II, d. 39; Wolter, On the Will, 165.
- 45.
Clopper, “Songes of Rechelesnesse,” 304. This Latin phrase translates as “thy will be done,” explicitly referencing God’s will as stated in the Lord’s Prayer. In the gospel of Matthew, it is written “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Mt. 6:10). In the gospel of Luke, the phrase reads as such: “And he said unto them, When you pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth” (Lk.11.2).
- 46.
Patience addresses this point in his dialogue with Haukyn, Activa Vita. In passus fourteen, Patience observes that Christ lived a life of poverty and, in turn, any poor man who is patient may claim by pure right heavenly reward (B.14.258–73).
- 47.
For articles negating his import, see Robert Adams, “The Nature of Need in Piers Plowman XX,” Traditio 34 (1978): 173–301; Szittya, Antifraternal Tradition, 247–87. Scholars championing this allegory are Anne M. Scott, Piers Plowman and the Poor (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2004): 187–92; Kim, “Hunger, Need, and the Politics of Poverty in Piers Plowman,” Yearbook of Langland Studies 16 (2002), 131–68; Lawrence M. Clopper, “Need Men and Women Labor? Langland’s Wanderer and the Labor Ordinances,” in Literature in Historical Context: Chaucer’s England, ed. Barbara Hanawalt (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992): 110–29. While both sides expose the complexity of social issues surrounding this state of being, those which perceive him more as an amoral character address more readily Need’s intrinsic bond with the human condition. Ann Middleton, arranging her argument around the topos of poverty, writes that Need is “a wholly ambivalent sign” (“Acts of Vagrancy: The C Version Autobiography’ and the Statute of 1388,” Written Work, 272). Kathleen M. Hewett-Smith adopts a similar stance, “I would suggest, however, that for Langland, Nede is in fact broadly, constitutively, amoral, outside, beyond the reach of those social, religious, and even literary constructs that hope to contain him: manners, law, Christian doctrine, and allegory” (“Nede ne hath no lawe,” 244). For an overview of the scholarly dispute, see Jill Mann, “The Nature of Need Revisited,” Yearbook of Langland Studies 18 (2004): 3–30.
- 48.
Kim, “Hunger, Need, and Politics,” 165.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Strong, D. (2017). The Role of Charity in Knowing Truth. In: The Philosophy of Piers Plowman. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51981-4_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51981-4_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-51980-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-51981-4
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)