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Augustine, Ayenbite, and Ulysses
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
In the more highly developed religions there are five elements, which, though they often occur together, are quite distinct and should not be confused: orthodoxy, or correct belief; piety, or emotional response to the deity or the doctrines or the ritual or any two or all three; mysticism, or the sense of God's immediate presence; asceticism, or denial of the animal appetites; and ethics, or good human relations. It is essential to keep the distinctions in mind when dealing with the work of Catholic writers, most especially that of Joyce, for Joyce's exasperated awareness of them was one of the impelling motives of his work. For Catholics, “sin” is a generic term covering unorthodoxy, impiety, indulgence of the animal appetites, and bad human relations; in the lay mind the distinctions among them are liable to become blurred, with resulting confusion in the conduct of life. One of the purposes of the medieval manuals of the virtues and vices, such as Ayenbite of Inwyt, Piers Plowman, and Handlyng Synne, was to remind laymen of the distinctions and the hierarchy among sins as well as of their generic sinfulness. Ulysses too is, among other things, such a manual; one of its principal themes is Handling Sin, as this is achieved by Dedalus and Bloom, each in his own way; Ulysses accordingly adapts the material of Ayenbite somewhat as it does that of The Odyssey.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1955
References
page 1143 note 1 The City of God, xi, 9, trans. Marcus Dods (New York: Modern Library, 1950), p. 354.
page 1143 note 2 Confessions, vii, 12, trans. E. B. Pusey (London: Everyman, 1907), p. 135.
page 1143 note 3 Dialogue on Truth, vii, ed. Richard McKeon, Selections from Medieval Philosophers (New York, 1929), i, 164.
page 1143 note 4 Cf. John of Salisbury, Policralicus, iv, 1. Migne, Palrologia Laiina, cxcrx, 514A: “Neque enim potentis est, cum vult saevire in subditos, sed divinae dispensationis, pro beneplacito sua punire. vel exercere subjectos.”
page 1143 note 5 Stephen Hero (New York, 1944), p. 228.
page 1143 note 6 Finnegans Wake (New York, 1939), p. 424.
page 1143 note 7 Herbert Gorman, James Joyce (New York, 1948), p. 73.
page 1143 note 8 De Divisione Naturae, v, 27–28. Migne, P.L., cxxii, 928D–938B. Cf. Augustine, The City of God, xi, 17; xix, 13 (pp. 361, 691). 9 Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris, trans. Witter Bynner (New York, 1925), p. 52.
page 1143 note 10 The City of God, xi, 18, p. 361.
page 1143 note 11 De Musica, vi, xvii, 56. Migne, P.L., xxxii, 1191[B]: “Deus autem summe bonus, et summe Justus, nulli invidet pulchritudini, quae sive damnatione animae, sive regressione, sive permanisone fabricatur.” Cf. De Libero Arbitrio, iii, xiii, 36. Migne, P.L., xxxii, 1289[B]–1290[A].
page 1143 note 12 Correspondance (Paris, 1926–33), in, 61–62; iv, 164; v, 227–228; vii, 280. That Stephen's aesthetic ideas were Joyce's own is indicated by the excerpts from Joyce's notebooks quoted in Herbert Gorman's biography, pp. 95–99, 133–135.
page 1143 note 13 Stephen Hero, p. 139.
page 1143 note 14 Cf., e.g., A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (New York: Modern Library, 1928), p. 273; “Cain, Abel, and Joyce,” ELB, xxii (March 1955), 48–60.
page 1143 note 15 Augustine, The City of God, xi, 17–18, pp. 361–362. Cf. Paul Valéry, Mon Faust (Paris, 1946), p. 7: “Mais rien ne démontre plus sûrement la puissance d'un créateur que l'infidélité ou l'insoumission de sa créature. Plus il l'a faite vivante, plus il l'a faite libre. Même sa rébellion exalte son auteur: Dieu le sait.”
page 1143 note 16 Confessions, x, 41, p. 229. This division did not originate with Augustine. He himself refers us to i John i.16.
page 1143 note 17 Confessions, x, 43–47, pp. 231–233. Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, x, iii, 6.
page 1143 note 18 Ayenbite of Imvyt, ed. Richard Morris (London, EETS, No. 23, 1866), pp. SO, 54. Cf. quotation from Joyce's notebook, Gorman, p. 136: “Church calls it a low vice … to make a God of the belly.”
page 1143 note 19 Migne, P.L., cxix, 1052c: “Fuge itaque principatum nequitur usurpatum.”
page 1143 note 20 De Musica, vi, xi, 30; De Libero Arbitrio, ii, xix, 53; iii, ix, 26; iii, xi, 32. Migne, P.L., xxxii, 1179[D]–1180[B], 1269[A–B], 1283[D]–1284[B], 1287[A–B].
page 1143 note 21 Confessions, x, 41, p. 229. Cf. the Portrait, p. 111. 22 Ayenbite, p. 158.
page 1143 note 23 Ibid., pp. 46–47, 202. Cf. Chaucer, The Persones Tale, §20.
page 1143 note 24 Confessions, x, 48, p. 234.
page 1143 note 25 Confessions, x, 49, pp. 234–235.
page 1143 note 26 Ayenbile, p. 177.
page 1143 note 27 Confessions, x, 51–52, pp. 236–237.
page 1143 note 28 Confessions, x, 54, pp. 238–239.
page 1143 note 29 Cf., e.g., M.-D. Chenu, “Grammaire et théologie aux xiie et xiiie siècles,” Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen age, 1938, x, 5–31; Etienne Gilson, Jean Duns Scot, Introduction à ses positions fondamentales (Paris, 1952), p. 602. For some direct quotations, cf. Migne, P.L., n, 19A-21A; lxxvii, 1171C–1172A; cxlv, 306c, 307d; cl, 421d; cxcvi, 34c.
page 1143 note 30 Pp. 50–51. Cf. Chaucer, The Persones Tale, §72.
page 1143 note 31 Migne, P.L., xxxii, 1023[A]: “Porro quod sic agitur, et exspectatione opus ut peragi, et memoria ut comprehendi queat quantum potest. Et exspectatio futurarum rerum est, praeteritarum vero memoria. At intentio ad agendum praesentis est temporis, per quod futurum in praeteritum transit.”
page 1143 note 32 Aristotle, Physics, iv, xi, trans. Philip H. Wicksteed and Francis M. Cornford (London: Loeb Classics, 1929), i, 389.