第五十三卷第一期 中華民國一一二年三月 研 究 論 文 林質心 《仙后》中之講道學與教牧學: 聖潔殿堂裡的基督騎士養成 趙相科、高倚萱 實證醫學中的科學證據: 證據階層的實作與科學哲學觀點 蔡敏玲 安佑洛.布隆奇諾的《畢馬龍和加拉蒂亞》: 石化與肉體間的辯證 A Journal of European and American Studies 中央研究院歐美研究所 中華民國臺灣臺北市 Print ISSN 1021-3058 Online ISSN 1991-7864 DOI: 10.7015/JEAS 《仙后》中之講道學與教牧學:
EURAMERICA A JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN STUDIES 第五十三卷第一期/中華民國一一二年三月 VOLUME 53 NUMBER 1 / March 2023 原《美國研究》 Formerly American Studies 中央研究院歐美研究所 Institute of European and American Studies Academia Sinica 歐美研究
編輯顧問/ King-Kok Cheung (張敬珏), University of California, Los Angeles, USA Marise Cremona, European University Institute, Italy Bruce Cumings, University of Chicago, USA Sally Haslanger, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA Robert M. Hauser, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA Ronnie Po-chia Hsia (夏伯嘉), Pennsylvania State University, USA John McDowell, University of Pittsburgh, USA John Parham, University of Worcester, UK Joanne Scott, European University Institute, Italy 編輯委員/王智明 (中央研究院) 何之行 (中央研究院) 李秀娟 (國立臺灣師範大學) 楊文山 (中央研究院) 趙順良 (國立政治大學) 鄧育仁 (中央研究院) 盧業中 (國立政治大學) 謝世民 (國立中正大學) 簡士傑 (中央研究院) 顏厥安 (國立臺灣大學) 羅至美 (國立臺北大學) 關秉寅 (國立政治大學) 蘇彥圖 (中央研究院) 主 編/ 鄧育仁 執行編輯/ 簡士傑 助理編輯/ Jeffrey N. C. Cuvilier 出版編輯/ 吳梅東、許昕 業務助理/ 邱劭晴 《歐美研究》季刊原名《美國研究》,創刊於民國60 年,每年3 月、6 月、9 月及12 月,由中央研究院美國文化研究所出版。自第21 卷第3 期 (民國80 年9 月) 起配合 美國文化研究所更名為歐美研究所,改名為《歐美研究》,專門刊載有關歐美人文 及社會科學方面之學術研究論文,獲國科會人文暨社會科學期刊綜合類評比為第一 級期刊,同時為TSSCI 及THCI 核心期刊,並被收錄於Academic OneFile, America: History and Life, Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), Historical Abstracts, International Bibliography of Periodical Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences (IBZ), International Political Science Abstracts, MLA International Bibliography, Periodicals Index Online, Political Science Complete, SocINDEX, Sociological Abstracts, Worldwide Political Science Abstracts,以及月旦法學知識庫、華藝線上圖書館、碩亞學術研究知識 網、臺灣人文及社會科學引文索引、臺灣人社百刊、臺灣全文資料庫、臺灣期 刊論文索引系統等國內外資料庫。 投稿請至本刊線上投稿系統:https://euramerica.org,撰稿凡例亦請上網查詢,網址 同前。投稿相關問題歡迎來函:euramerica@sinica.edu.tw 定價:國內每冊新臺幣100 元,一年新臺幣400 元;國外每冊美金4 元,一年 美金16 元 (郵資另計)。 國內讀者如欲購本所出版品或訂閱本刊,請將書款或訂費交存郵局劃撥儲金 「1016448-2 號,中央研究院歐美研究所」帳戶,並註明書名或起訖卷期數。 聯絡電話:(02) 37897212 傳真:(02) 27851787 出版日期:中華民國一一二年三月 ©本刊版權屬於中央研究院歐美研究所 Print ISSN 1021-3058 / Online ISSN 1991-7864 DOI: 10.7015/JEAS
ADVISORY BOARD King-Kok Cheung, University of California, Los Angeles, USA Marise Cremona, European University Institute, Italy Bruce Cumings, University of Chicago, USA Sally Haslanger, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA Robert M. Hauser, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA Ronnie Po-chia Hsia, Pennsylvania State University, USA John McDowell, University of Pittsburgh, USA John Parham, University of Worcester, UK Joanne Scott, European University Institute, Italy EDITORIAL BOARD Chih-Ming Wang, Academia Sinica Chih-hsing Ho, Academia Sinica Hsiu-Chuan Lee, National Taiwan Normal University Wen-Shan Yang, Academia Sinica Shun-liang Chao, National Chengchi University Norman Y. Teng, Academia Sinica Yeh-chung Lu, National Chengchi University Ser-Min Shei, National Chung Cheng University Jay Jian, Academia Sinica Chueh-An Yen, National Taiwan University Chih-Mei Luo, National Taipei University Ping-Yin Kuan, National Chengchi University Yen-Tu Su, Academia Sinica EDITOR-IN-CHIEF / Norman Y. Teng EXECUTIVE EDITOR / Jay Jian ASSISTANT EDITOR / Jeffrey N. C. Cuvilier MANAGING EDITOR / Mei-Tung Wu, Hsin Hsu BUSINESS ASSISTANT / Shao-Ching Chiu Founded in 1971, American Studies has been renamed EurAmerica as of September 1991 (Vol. 21, No. 3), which is devoted to the publication of scholarly papers from a wide variety of perspectives on European and American cultures. EurAmerica is published quarterly in March, June, September and December by the Institute of European and American Studies (formerly the Institute of American Culture), Academia Sinica. The journal is a multiple winner of the National Science and Technology Council Award for Outstanding Academic Journal in Taiwan, and has been ranked Tier 1 by the Evaluation Program for Academic Journals of the Humanities and Social Sciences for the category of multidisciplinary journal by National Science and Technology Council. EurAmerica is indexed/abstracted in Academic OneFile, Airiti Library, America: History and Life, AsiaWorld Academic Research Database, Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), Historical Abstracts, Hyread Journal, International Bibliography of Periodical Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences (IBZ), International Political Science Abstracts (IPSA), Lawdata, MLA International Bibliography, Periodicals Index Online, Political Science Complete, SocINDEX, Sociological Abstracts (SOCA), Taiwan Citation Index-Humanities and Social Sciences (TCI-HSS), Taiwan Journals Search, Taiwan Periodical Literature System, and Worldwide Political Science Abstracts. Please submit manuscripts using our online submission system at https://euramerica.org Contributors are advised to consult the Submission Guidelines on the website. For questions, please contact us at euramerica@sinica.edu.tw Subscription rates: NT$100/single copy, and NT$400/year in Taiwan; US$4/single copy, and US$16/year abroad (shipment excluded). Telephone: 886 2 37897212 Fax: 886 2 27851787 Publication Date: March 2023 Copyright © 2023 by the Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica Print ISSN 1021-3058 / Online ISSN 1991-7864 DOI: 10.7015/JEAS
歐美研究 EURAMERICA 目 錄 研究論文 林質心 《仙后》中之講道學與教牧學: 聖潔殿堂裡的基督騎士養成 1 趙相科、高倚萱 實證醫學中的科學證據: 證據階層的實作與科學哲學觀點 59 蔡敏玲 安佑洛.布隆奇諾的《畢馬龍和加拉蒂亞》: 石化與肉體間的辯證 99 《歐美研究》投稿須知 歐美研究所近年出版品 第五十三卷第一期/中華民國一一二年三月
歐美研究 EURAMERICA CONTENTS RESEARCH ARTICLES Chih-Hsin Lin The Art of Preaching and Pastoral Care in The Faerie Queene: The Education of a Christian Knight in the House of Holiness 1 Hsiang-Ke Chao and Yi-Hsuan Kao How to Stratify Scientific Evidence: Accessing the Hierarchy of Evidence in Evidence-Based Medicine 59 Min-Ling Tsai Agnolo Bronzino’s Pygmalion and Galatea: The Dialectic Between Petrification and Flesh 99 Information for Authors Recent Publications of Institute of European and American Studies VOLUME 53, NUMBER 1 / MARCH 2023
EURAMERICA Vol. 53, No. 1 (March 2023), 1-57 DOI: 10.7015/JEAS.202303_53(1).0001 http://euramerica.org The Art of Preaching and Pastoral Care in The Faerie Queene: The Education of a Christian Knight in the House of Holiness* TP PTP P Chih-Hsin Lin Department of English, National Chengchi University E-mail: chl202@nccu.edu.tw Abstract This paper examines how the pastor figures in Book I, Canto X of The Faerie Queene respond to the concerns about the art of rhetoric used in sermons and pastoral counseling at Spenser’s time by showing Redcrosse’s Christian education in a world of confusing signs and false preachers. This paper points out that by focusing on the emotional balance and spiritual strength of the students, Spenser emphasizes that effective pastors depend not on rhetoric, not on building their own authority verbally or pleasing the students, as classical orators were instructed to. Spenser believes pastors should teach balanced lessons on the doctrine of salvation and discipline the students physically to help them become strong enough to face the pain in understanding and following the © Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica Received March 30, 2021; accepted September 23, 2021; last revised September 27, 2022 Proofreaders: Yi-Rong Hung, Wen-Yu Tsai, Yu-Jy Chen * The author would like to express her gratitude to National Science and Technology Council for sponsoring the research for this paper and to the reviewers for providing insightful comments that helped improve the paper.
2 EURAMERICA truth and the shame at sensing their insufficiency. This paper also argues that by presenting how these pastor figures follow the model of Christ in history and use their holy lives to inspire Redcrosse to live a life of holiness in a harsh world with the eternal glory in sight, Spenser shows that only the pastors’ holy lives can bring to the students an eternal perspective that is built in as well as helps redefine history, enabling the students to redefine and realign their lives from such a perspective above time. Key Words: the art of pastoral care, preaching, The Faerie Queene, rhetoric, Christian education
The Art of Preaching and Pastoral Care in The Faerie Queene 3 I. Introduction: The Training Program of a Christian Knight/Soldier in the House of Holiness Reading Canto X as the center of Book I of The Faerie Queene (Hough, 1962), many critics predictably see the House of Holiness as a place where Redcrosse is taught the nature of holiness and learns to act accordingly. For these critics, it is in the House of Holiness where Redcrosse realizes for the first time that he is not only a knight fighting for his lady but primarily a Christian knight destined for the heavenly Jerusalem, that the coming fight with the dragon is actually a detour he has to take before concluding his pilgrimage. Sean Kane, for example, focuses on Redcrosse’s struggle to become holy and argues that only after receiving instruction in the House of Holiness does he drop “the habit of egotistic self” (1989: 39) and “learn his true identity” (48). Critics also try to specify what it means to be a Christian knight and to act as the knight of holiness by examining what Redcrosse fails to do in the first nine cantos. Kerby Neill, for example, points out that Redcrosse, when first encountering Duessa, is guilty of “The lust of the eyes,” which leads him to “the first rung in the ladder of lechery” (1952: 97). Paul Suttie, for another example, points out that the problem lies in Redcrosse’s “erroneous self-image as a conventionally virtuous knight errant of the chivalric romance tradition” (2006: 76). These critics may have different opinions about the nature of Redcrosse’s guilt, but they all point out the root of Redcrosse’s failure: he is misled by and cannot resist the power of “an illusion of the sense” (Neill, 1952: 95), whether or not he is held to blame for his failure. In a way, these critics all see Redcrosse as “the generality of mankind” described by Erasmus in his The Handbook of the Christian Soldier, who “is greatly deceived,” with “their mind held captive by the flattering illusions and prestidigitations of this
4 EURAMERICA world” (1516/1988: 24). They believe with Erasmus that if a Christian knight like Redcrosse can “have a clear knowledge of what [he is] on the inside and what [he is] skin-deep”(41), he will be inspired to “make war upon [himself] and to do battle with [his] vices” (38). The solution, however, is not as simple as showing Redcrosse “his true identity” because, on the one hand, if his true self, as Suttie argues, is the “‘proper’ self” Contemplation reveals to him, that proper self “remains to an important degree a hypothetical identity for so long as his earthly life and narrative presence continue” (2006: 138). On the other hand, to see the House of Holiness as the place where Redcrosse first learns about his identity is to deny any efficacy of numerous instructions about who he is and what he needs to do to be a Christian knight before he comes to the House of Holiness. Before Redcrosse is instructed in Canto X, he already blames himself for being an egoistic fool, learns the hard way the insufficiency of his active effort to defend his lady, and is taught that faith and truth are the only answer. On his long journey, he has been “wrapt in Errours endlesse traine” (I, i, 18),1 reduced to “A ruefull spectacle of death and ghastly drere” (I, viii, 40), and so convinced of his insufficiency that he “resolu’d to worke his finall smart” (I, ix, 51). At these desperate moments, he is instructed verbally that he needs to “Add faith vnto [his] force” (I, i, 19), to see “That blisse may not abide in state of mortall men” (I, viii, 44), and to believe that, “Where iustice growes, there grows eke greter grace” (I, ix, 53). That is, he has already received many lessons from Una and from Arthur about the imperfection of his nature, the insufficiency of his effort, the unfailing divine grace for him, and the importance of the faith in such grace. Redcrosse also knows very clearly, before he goes to the House 1 Numbers refer to the book, canto and stanza of Spenser: The Faerie Queen by Edmund Spencer (2007).
The Art of Preaching and Pastoral Care in The Faerie Queene 5 of Holiness, that it is by the Christian armor that he is recognized by Una as “the goodliest man in al that company, and was well liked of the Lady” (Spenser, 2007: 717).2 To suggest that Redcrosse has not really learned his true identity as a Christian knight until he receives such instruction in the House of Holiness would mean that Una’s instruction—which probably represents the teaching in “the community of the redeemed,” in the church (Walls, 2013: 207)3— is of little avail. Why can Redcrosse not simply believe in Una’s confirmation that he has a share “In heauenly mercies” and is the chosen one (I, ix, 53)? Does Redcrosse need the education in the House of Holiness because the verbal teaching of the Church—the sermons from Una—is ineffective or in some way insufficient? What more does Redcrosse need to learn in the House of Holiness in order to recognize Archimago’s and Duessa’s guiles, win the battle against Orgoglio, refute Despair, and fight the dragon? Many critics seek answers by examining the conversation between Redcrosse and Despair in Canto IX and find the problem lies in language use.4 Some particularly argue that facing such a false preacher, “Redcrosse cannot complete his spiritual education until he learns to read and understand the Bible” in the House of Holiness (King, 1990: 60).5 The key problem remains, though: what happens 2 In “Letter to Raleigh,” Spenser explains clearly how Redcrosse starts his journey, wearing “the armour of a Christian man specified by Saint Paul v. Ephes.” (2007: 717). 3 In the book, Walls agrees with earlier critics who “interpreted Una as the Church,” but she argues that Una does not just represent the “visible institution,” the Church of England, but “allegorizes the history of this profoundly Christian community” (2013: 207), and as such, her “story from I.ii.7-I.iii may be seen as a condensed anticipation of the story of Red Cross,” who “represents just one citizen” (13). 4 For example, Tamara A. Goeglein argues that Redcrosse is misled by Despair, whose language “occludes . . . the possibility of transcendence” (1994: 7), whose “back-looking strategies blind the knight to his future” (8). Galena Hashhozheva defines this kind of language as the language of skeptics’, showing how Despair adopts “one of the Skeptics’ substitutes for truth, the category of the probable (verisimile)” to make it “difficult for Redcrosse to imagine being saved” (2014: 213214). 5 Thomas A. Dughi also believes that “not until canto 10 is [Redcrosse’s] faith set
6 EURAMERICA in the House of Holiness so that Redcrosse, despite the fact that he is a “fraile, feeble, fleshly wight” (I, ix, 53), finally learns the lessons that he is already taught? Why cannot he learn from his failures? Is not Una—or Arthur—a good enough preacher and spiritual mentor? Some critics believe that the verbal lessons fail because of the confusing images that Protestants inherited from the Roman Catholics and of Redcrosse’s lack of an interpretive skill that enables Christians to “‘read’ the ‘way to heaven’” (Wall, 1988: 90). They seem to suggest that Redcrosse is instructed in a particular kind of language in the House of Holiness and thus learns an error-proof interpretive method. The problem with resorting to any particular exegetical model is that in the sixteenth century, after a prolonged effort on the Protestant side to ensure the right of individual Christians to interpret the Bible and to promote the necessity to preach the doctrine of salvation, there still was not any error-proof interpretive method that guaranteed a proper understanding of the doctrine of salvation. There were no generally-accepted rules for an effective but safe language that Protestant pastors could use for sermons or for pastoral counselling.6 They were keenly aware, through painful personal experiences like Redcrosse’s, of the ubiquitous danger of Errour. They believed, like Erasmus, that a Christian knight needs to be equipped with “the knowledge of the mysteries of the law,” which, figured by the whiteness of manna, “is not defiled by some blackness of error” (1516/1988: 32), but they also knew it is not easy to lead their students to such knowledge. They had such “concerns about the ability of unlearned readers to make sense (the right sense) of the ‘the dark place’ of Scripture” that they often tried to provide “a context for Scripture reading” (Narveson, 2012: 21) through firmly on the foundation of scriptural truth” (1997: 26). 6 For example, in the Geneva Bible, the editor shows his concern for “how hard a thing it is to understand the holy Scriptures” (Geneva Bible, 1560: ivr) and his fears that “ether the simple shulde be discouraged, or the malicious have any occasion of just cavillation” (ivv).
The Art of Preaching and Pastoral Care in The Faerie Queene 7 sermons and private instruction “so that interpretive pathways were laid down before a believer’s own experience of Scripture began” (41). Sixteenth-century pastors knew they needed to be careful with how they interpreted the Bible and with the language they used to preach and to instruct. They probably would not think as modern critics that “text, their meanings, and the authors we perceive through them are products in part of our own imaginings” (Gless, 1994: 3): they knew the difficulties and complexity in adopting any interpretive method or rhetorical techniques to preach the doctrine of salvation and to build faith in such doctrine, so they struggled to protect their students against confusing images and seducing language used by false pastors. An even more fundamental question about such pastoral counseling is how an a-historical, abstract lesson can be effective for students living in their historical contexts. That is, the question is not only how Redcrosse can recognize false pastors and confusing signs but also how he can be taught and led to live as a Knight of Holiness, representing his eternal identity while he is still struggling through his human frailties in history. Such discussions can also often lead to a discussion about Spenser’s poetics; that is, the discussion of Spenser’s belief about pastoral counseling may also lead to that of Spenser’s belief about the instructive power of his own poetry or of allegory in general. Alpers points out that Spenser knows well “how difficult it is to close the gap between the morally valuable experience of reading poetry and its results in moral actions” (1967: 282). Miller also sees Redcrosse’s conversion as a kind of “dialectical progression,” which “is defined from the start by the promise, or mirage, of a closure that will restore all losses at a higher level” (1988: 92), implying that such a closure may not really exist. Teskey similarly comments on Benjamin’s study of allegory to argue that allegory, in order to create a “theological / movement must be incoherent . . . on the narrative level, forcing us to unify the work by imposing meaning on it” (Teskey, 1996: 4-5). To understand how the pastor figures in the House of Holiness teach
8 EURAMERICA Redcrosse to be(come) the Knight of Holiness, then, it is necessary to consider not only how the art of pastoral care in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance helped detect the abuses of rhetoric but also how it dealt with the difficulty or impossibility of creating such a theological movement. It is not enough, then, to identify which exegetical models are used in the House of Holiness to interpret the Bible and to teach Redcrosse the doctrine of salvation. To understand how Redcrosse, despite his fleshly frailty, successfully learns in the House of Holiness to detect the confusing images, biblical or otherwise, to rediscover his identity as the knight of holiness, and to start living as a saved Christian knight, it is necessary to examine what methods, verbal or non-verbal, pastors in and before the sixteenth century adopted to persuade their students to believe in the doctrine of salvation and to live it. A study of such an effort to teach, to persuade, and to shape a proper spiritual identity involves an understanding of the art of pastoral care and a study of the art of rhetoric used particularly in preaching and in pastoral counselling. In this paper, then, I study the general concerns about the art of rhetoric in the early Renaissance, especially when used to preach and to teach the doctrine of salvation. I will study how rhetoricians and pastors evaluated the reliability and effectiveness of rhetoric and addressed its abuse in their discussions about preaching and pastoral care. I will examine rhetorical treatises by Ramus, Wilson, and Rainolds7 and manuals for preaching and pastoral care by Gregory 7 Peter Ramus was a Protestant rhetorician: “in Spain his works were placed on the Index of books forbidden to Catholics” (Murphy, 1992: ix). Thomas Wilson’s book was very popular and went through numerous editions. Rainolds left “the only detailed study from the university tradition” of Aristotle’s On Rhetoric in a series of lectures given at the Corpus Christi College of Oxford University in 1570s (Green, 1986: 9). Rainolds was a “Protestant theologian, preacher, polemicist against Rome;” he was also “the dominant President of Corpus Christi College from 1598 to 1607” (9), whose founder Richard Foxe “hoped that the rebirth of classical learning could make men better Christians” (13).
The Art of Preaching and Pastoral Care in The Faerie Queene 9 the Great, Alan of Lille, Guido of Monte Rochen,8 Latimer, and Perkins 9 in order to establish a context within which Spenser examines the concerns about the use of rhetoric in preaching the doctrine of salvation and shows what kind of pastoral care helps find a coherent narrative of one’s own life with a vision of one’s eternal identity. Via such research, I can come to a better understanding of how Spenser addresses these concerns by showing how Redcrosse learns his lessons in the House of Holiness and how these lessons help him redefine his past journey, understand his identity, and really be(come) a Christian knight, ready to win his final battle. 8 The medieval treatises on the art of pastoral care often include a discussion of the art of preaching, and similar principles often apply to both pastoral counseling for individuals and preaching to the public. For example, after a long discussion in Part 3 about “How the Spiritual Director Who Lives Well Should Teach and Advise the Laity,” Gregory the Great concludes that “These are the things that the director of souls should preserve in the diverse roles of his preaching” because “it is all the more laborious to admonish with a single exhortation an entire congregation that is composed of persons with different passions” (590/2007: 202). Alan of Lille does make a distinction between teaching and preaching in The Art of Preaching, “one of the most popular statements of homiletical theory” in the Middle Ages (Old, 1999: 330), pointing out that preaching aims at “building morals” while teaching aims at “imparting knowledge” (331), but his discussion about the art of preaching still shows that preaching “deals with knowledge of divine things” and “the moral” (332). With 250 manuscript copies still extant and 122 editions printed between 1468 and 1502 (Thayer & Lualdi, 2011: xiii), the Handbook for Curates by Guido of Monte Rochen also advises that a priest needs to be “the teacher of the people” (Guido of Monte Rochen, ca. 1330s/2011: 6). 9 Hugh Latimer was “a master of late medieval homiletical forms” (Old, 2002: 139) and “was often called upon to preach at critical moments in the history of the English Church,” such as “the opening of convocation in 1536, when Henry VIII was most open to having the Church of England move toward reform” (141). William Perkins was seen as a Calvinist with a clear Puritan inclination, and he was also “one of the few theologians / in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth who achieved any kind of international reputation” (260-261). His Art of Prophesying reflects the belief of the Puritans that “preaching . . . was a matter of reading Scripture and then making its meaning clear” (262).
10 EURAMERICA II. The Art of Rhetoric vs. the Art of Pastoral Care: The Credibility of the Preacher/Pastor, the Logos of the Lessons, and the Emotional Responses of the Students The art of preaching, which has long been a branch of rhetoric,10 became even more important during the Reformation. Its connection to rhetoric brought doubts about some possible abuse. One major concern for the use of rhetoric is the intention and the identity of the speaker. Redcrosse cannot be more familiar with this kind of concern. He is deceived by Archimago not only because the latter is “in long blacke weedes yclad, / His feete all bare, his beard all hoarie gray, / And by his belt his booke he hanging had,” so that “Sober he seemde, and very sagely sad” (I, i, 29). Redcrosse believes that Archimago is a “holy father” also because he calls himself a “Silly old man,” claiming that he “liues in hidden cell, / Bidding his beades all day for his trespass” (I, i 30). Redcrosse is deceived, in other words, by a false preacher who not only carries all the images that “would immediately suggest to Spenser’s Protestant audience the stereotypical portrait of a Roman Catholic monk” (Mallette, 1986: 9) but also boasts explicitly about his holiness. Classical rhetoricians did not seem to be concerned about the speaker verbally establishing his authority. Aristotle encourages the orator to establish his own authority by making good use of the topoi under ethos. He quite practically argues in On Rhetoric that “since rhetoric is concerned with making a judgment . . . , it is necessary not only to look to the argument . . . , but also [for the speaker] to construct a view of himself as a certain kind of person and to prepare the judge” (ca. 350s B.C.E./1991: 120).11 In De Inventione, Cicero also argues 10 In his study of medieval rhetoric, James J. Murphy lists ars poetriae, ars dictaminis, and ars pradicandi as three medieval rhetorical genres (1974). 11 From bk. 2, chap. 1, sect. 2. Aristotle (ca. 350s B.C.E./1991: 163-172) examines the characters of speakers of different ages, social status, and family backgrounds and reminds the speakers to watch for their temperaments and to better present
The Art of Preaching and Pastoral Care in The Faerie Queene 11 that “it will be permissible to try to win [the auditors’] good-will” (ca. 91-87 B.C.E./1976: 43),12 and one way to win such good-will is to “refer to our own acts and services without arrogance” (45).13 Classical rhetoricians, though, are not totally ignorant about the possible deception in such presentation. In his later years, Cicero shows in De Oratore more concerns about the truthfulness of such presentations by the orator: he argues that “no one is to be numbered among orators who is not thoroughly accomplished in all branches of knowledge requisite for a man of good breeding” (ca. 55-46 B.C.E./1970: 24).14 Aristotle’s commentators in the sixteenth century further argue that such a construction of the speaker’s authority should come from an observation of the speaker’s life, not built merely by verbal skills. Rainolds, for example, does not explain the topoi Aristotle lists under ethos; he instead teaches that “We place our trust more freely in good men” (ca. 1572-1578/1986: 171) and quotes Menander to argue that “the life of a speaker persuades, not his words” (as cited in Rainolds, ca. 1572-1578/1986: 171).15 It may be argued, then, that Archimago appears suspicious exactly because he tries to establish his own authority by calling himself a “holy father” (I, i, 30). Likewise, maybe Duessa’s trick should quickly be detected because she expressly claims to be a “silly Dame, subiect to hard mischaunce” (I, ii, 21) and lies about how she, as “A virgin widow,” is still loyal to her dead husband and “went his woefull corse to find” (I, ii, 24). It seems they both try to prepare Redcrosse, as Aristotle advises, to see them as speakers with “practical wisdom [phronésis], virtue [areté], and good will [eunois]” (ca. 350s B.C.E./1991: 121).16 Lucifera may be the only evil figure who does not try to establish her authority verbally, but she is also themselves as authoritative and trustworthy speakers, from bk. 2, chaps. 12-17. 12 From bk. 1, chap. 16, sect. 21. 13 From bk. 1, chap. 16, sect. 22. 14 From bk. 1, chap. 16. 15 Here Rainolds is commenting on Aristotle’s Rhetorica, bk. 1, chap. 2, sects. 3-7. 16 From bk. 2, chap. 1, sect. 5.
12 EURAMERICA the only one quickly recognized by Redcrosse as “too exceeding prowd” because she “to strange knight no better countenance allowd” (I, iv, 15). The pastor figures in the House of Holiness do not promote themselves verbally as classical orators. Coelia actually “All night . . . spent in bidding of her bedes” (I, x, 3), but she never tells Redcrosse so. Fidelia likewise is silent in the beginning. She “fast did hold / A booke” (I, x, 13), just as Archimago has a book at his side (I, i, 29), but her book “was both signd and seald with blood, / Wherin darke things were writt, hard to be vnderstood” (I, x, 13). Fidelia’s authority, then, is not established by the topoi under Aristotle’s ethos: her authority is sanctioned by her association with the crucifixion in history. Similarly, Contemplation is described as a “godly aged Sire, / With snowy lockes adowne his shoulders shed” (I, x, 48), just as Archimago is described as an “aged Sire” with “beard all hoarie gray” (I, i, 29), but Contemplation never explains why “Each bone might through his body well be red” (I, x, 48). He just “well [Redcrosse and Mercie] greeting, humbly did requight, / And asked, to what end they clomb that tedious hight” (I, x, 49). In short, none of the legitimate pastor figures in the House of Holiness try to establish verbally their authority. Redcrosse does not seem to have difficulty recognizing the good people from the evil ones as long as they do not verbally promote themselves.17 In the House of Holiness then, Redcrosse learns to recognize the true preachers/pastors by their silence about their own holiness. With the self-acclamation of the speakers presented as a sign of their deceptive nature, it may seem, as Goeglein explains, that the dialogues in the House of Holiness “dramatize aspects of the 17 The danger of verbal deception, of course, is not the only kind of danger in The Faerie Queene. In Book II, Guyon constantly needs to face sensuous images and decides whether he should enjoy the beauty of such images, but such images are not exactly deceptive images as those in Book I, where evil figures can appear like saints. In Book II, the evil power lies more in the sensual allurement, and Guyon knows better the evil beneath the beauty.
The Art of Preaching and Pastoral Care in The Faerie Queene 13 protestant soul engaging in self-debate” (1994: 1) and show such souls, as Ramus suggests, “do have recourse to Logos through the mediation of a dialectic supplemented . . . by a transcendence predicated faith” (17). It may seem that the pastor figures in the House of Holiness preach with a focus on logos rather than on ethos. Maybe they follow Rainolds, who agrees with Ramus that “We ought not to consider who it was who spoke, but what may be said” (ca. 1572-1578/1986: 203).18 Here, for example, Fidelia starts the lesson right with “her sacred Booke” (I, x, 19), not with herself or some irrelevant stories “of Saintes and Popes” (I, i, 35), and “vnto [Redcrosse] disclosed euery whitt, / And heauenly documents thereout did preach, / . . . / Of God, of grace, of iustice, of free will” (I, x, 19, emphasis mine). Such an emphasis on topics under logos in pastoral instruction can be traced back to the advice in many early preachers’ manuals about common topics such as the seven deadly sins, the four cardinal virtues, the ten commandments, the sacraments, or the articles of the faith.19 However, Spenser’s pastor figures do not really elaborate on the theological topoi of which they preach. Instead, Una pleads for Fidelia’s help, hoping that “of her heauenly learning [Redcrosse] might taste, / And heare the wisedom of her wordes diuine” (I, x, 18). Fidelia accordingly not only teaches but also moves Redcrosse to experience salvation: she pushes him to “taste” it.20 She does list 18 Here Rainolds is commenting on Aristotle’s Rhetorica, bk. 1, chap. 2, sects. 19-22. 19 Alan of Lille classifies these common topics into two types, “that which appeals to the reason and deals with the knowledge of spiritual matters” (1981: 16) and that “which offers teaching on the living of a good life” (17). Guido of Monte Rochen examines three topics in his manual: first, “the sacraments and the things which pertain to the administration of the sacraments;” second, “penance and the things which pertain to the hearing of confession and the imposition of penances;” and thirdly, “the articles of the faith and the things which pertain to the teaching of the people” (ca. 1330s/2011: 7). Although his manual is not exactly a handbook on preaching, its sole focus on the theological topics and the adoption of “a plain but useful style” without using “ornate words” reflects the deep-rooted belief that a plain instruction of a list of theological topics is the best way to preach (4). 20 As early as the thirteenth century, Bonaventure already aligns “sight with
14 EURAMERICA the appropriate topoi under logos, but she is also able “with her wordes to kill, / And rayse againe to life the hart, that she did thrill” (I, x, 19). It is true that Spenser here follows Rainolds in questioning the use of ethos in sermons and in pastoral counselling, but he does not focus much on logos, either. Instead, he highlights the importance of pathos, defined by Aristotle as the emotions “through which, by undergoing change, people come to differ in their judgments” (ca. 350s B.C.E./1991: 121).21 It seems that, Spenser, following Cicero, argues that a pastor, like an orator, should watch for the hearers’ emotional responses when preaching, that if “weariness has alienated the sympathy of the auditor from your case, it is a help to promise that you will speak more briefly,” that “it is not unprofitable to begin with some new topic, or a jest . . . , to insert something appalling, unheard of, or terrible at the very beginning” so that “a mind wearied by listening is strengthened by astonishment or refreshed by laughter” (Cicero, ca. 91-87 B.C.E./1976: 51).22 It also seems that Spenser agrees here with Ramus, who sees the necessity of “the third style of swaying and moving . . . because the audience is generally dull and slow-witted, like a bad horse which does nothing unless spurred” (1549/1992: 10). The pastor figures in the House of Holiness, then, do not teach Redcrosse new lessons about grace or righteousness, but move him to believe them. The problem is: how? intellectus and taste with affectus” (Coolman, 2012: 140). See also Dughi’s comment on Fidelia’s power to “[make] biblical narratives live as present reality, overcoming the gap between reading and experiencing” (1997: 28). 21 From bk. 2, chap. 1, sect. 8. 22 From bk. 1, chap. 17, sect. 25. Different tones and physical movements are also examined as ways used by orators to arouse different emotions: for examples the author of Ad C. Herennium explains that “The Tone of Amplification either rouses the hearer to wrath or moves him to pity” (Caplan, 80s B.C.E./1989: 197), from bk. 3, chap. 13, sect. 23.
The Art of Preaching and Pastoral Care in The Faerie Queene 15 III. Pleasing the Students vs. Balancing Their Emotional Responses Spenser knows it is necessary to cater to human weakness and admits in “Letter to Raleigh” that he chooses to present a “historicall fiction, the which the most part of men delight to read, rather for variety of matter, then for profite of the ensample” (2007: 715). Here, he seems to follow the famous rhetorician Wilson, who argues that “euen these auncient Preachers, must now and then play the fooles in the pulpit, / to serue the tickle eares of their fleting audience, or els they are like sometimes to preach to the bare walles” (1909: 3-4). However, it’s also obvious that Spenser still has strong concern about pleasing the audience: the evil speakers in Book I all deceive by delighting Redcrosse. Archimago for example “of pleasing wordes had store, / And well could file his tongue as smooth as glas” (I, i, 35). Duessa also aims at pleasing Redcrosse. Even when she “with reproch of carelesnes vnkynd / Vpbrayd,” she speaks “With fowle words tempring faire, soure gall with hony sweet” (I, vii, 3), and here her speech does not end with Redcrosse feeling ashamed of his misdemeanor, but with both of them delighting themselves. Her rebuke actually becomes irrelevant, since when “Vnkindnesse past, they gan of solace treat, / And bathe in pleasaunce of the ioyous shade” (I, vii, 4). Here Spenser questions the art of rhetoric and the literature that relies on pleasure as the key to teaching and moving readers by showing how much Archiamgo and Duessa please Redcrosse. It’s essential, then, to study how in the House of Holiness Spenser distinguishes the kind of pleasure that leads to moral degeneration and spiritual confusion and the kind that promotes holiness. One basic problem with Archimago’s and Duessa’s lessons is that they delight Redcrosse without teaching him anything. Neither of them, after all, moves from one topic to another as is appropriate in presenting logos. Archimago, instead of explaining the book he carries, only “told of Saintes and Popes” (I, i, 35), without teaching
16 EURAMERICA what virtues they embody. Duessa reproaches Redcrosse for “leauing her in place vnmeet” (I, vii, 3), but she does not really go on to give a lesson about chivalric loyalty. Spenser here is not questioning the humanist practice of “providing some kind of detemporalized paradigm . . . , be it rule, moral, exemplar, picture— to which we can contract and compare the flux of experience” (Dolven, 2007: 53); on the contrary, he is showing how perverse it is not to see beyond human experience in history and find the atemporal truth embedded in it. In “Letter to Raleigh,” Spenser himself says his lesson “shoulde be most plausible and pleasing” (2007: 715), suggesting that pleasing the readers means presenting a plausible story, a story that brings out a logical conclusion, not just showing fanciful incidents.23 Gregory the Great also readily rebukes pastors who delight without providing lessons, who try to secure “the love of laity more than . . . the Truth” (590/2007: 74). Gregory knows well that “good spiritual directors desire to please others” because “it is certainly difficult for a preacher who is not loved, regardless of how well he speaks, to be heard,” but he insists that pastors can incline the students to love them only when they “use affection for themselves as a sort of road to introduce the hearts of their audience for the love of the Creator” (76). Here the danger of using pleasure as a tool in pastoral care lies not just in whether the pleasure is used to bring out the lesson, but also in the fact that pleasure can lead the students to both truth and idolatry. The pastor figures in the House of Holiness try to avoid this kind of danger, so they seldom please. They do not teach like humanists such as Erasmus and Vives, who “moved explicit 23 Sidney holds a similar opinion about what kind of pleasure poets should use to teach and to move. He makes a distinction between delight and laughter, arguing that “for delight we scarcely do but in things that have a conveniency to ourselves or to the general nature,” whereas “laughter almost ever cometh of things most disproportioned to ourselves and nature” (1966: 68). He here points out that the legitimate kind of pleasure is a kind of intellectual pleasure derived from the readers’ recognition of some natural law or truth in the story.
The Art of Preaching and Pastoral Care in The Faerie Queene 17 attention from the mastery of the mind and / body to the ‘allurement’ to learning” (Bushnell, 1996: 29-30) and promoted “the notion of ‘free service’ in love” (32). On the contrary, they focus on Redcrosse’s emotional responses, drawing him away from any pleasure or possibility of idolatry. Before Redcrosse enters the House of Holiness, he is pleased by Archimago’s story and Duessa’s reproach. Now he is “Greeud with remembrance of his wicked wayes, / And prickt with anguish of his sinnes so sore” (I, x, 21). In addition, the emotional response Fidelia’s lesson draws is well balanced by Speranza’s: she “taught [Redcrosse] how to take assured hold / Vpon her siluer anchor” (I, x, 22). Here Fidelia actually works with a team that pays close attention to Redcrosse’s psychological balance. The headmistress here is Coelia. When Una finds Redcrosse is in such “distressed doubtfull agony / . . . , / Disdeining life, desiring leaue to dye” (I, x, 22), she brings her concern to Coelia, who quickly “streightway sent with carefull diligence, / To fetch a Leach,” Patience, who “had great insight / In that disease of grieued conscience” (I, x, 23). Critics often see such focus on Redcrosse’s “grieued conscience” as an effort to counter the lesson taught by Despair. Dughi notices that “without the word of assurance that Una ultimately supplies, Despair’s half-sermon is demonic” (1997: 27) and that “Fidelia’s biblical teaching awakens in [Redcrosse] precisely the same psychological pattern” created by Despair and complements the sermon on “the word of Law” with an instruction on “the internalizing of words that teach and arouse faith” (27). However, this team of pastoral figures seem to have some more formidable enemy in mind than just Despair and his demonic sermon. They not only counter the sermon because it is theologically wrong to lose faith and drown oneself in despair, but they also refuse to simply assure Redcrosse that he should be confident of his salvation. Spenser probably knows the danger of depending on sermons for salvation: his contemporaries also rebuked those who “were becoming dangerously addicted to sermons and were ready to break
18 EURAMERICA away from the lawful ministry of the Church of England in order to satisfy their craving” (Hunt, 2010: 190).24 The importance of “grieued conscience” (I, x, 23) in avoiding pleasing deceit and in gaining and accepting the knowledge about one’s status and identity before God was often discussed among many Protestant pastors in the sixteenth century. On the one hand, they optimistically agreed with Perkins, seeing “the possession of knowledge as fundamental both to individual and collective betterment,” which “could be achieved” by “the activated conscience” (Dixon, 2014: 95). On the other, they were also concerned as Perkins about “a fundamental error within fallen nature—and that is to trust other creatures more than God” (73) when conscience becomes numb. They saw “The particular names which we call this error . . . are much more changeable than is the error itself” (73). Redcrosse lives exactly in such a world of endless errors, and his knowledge about holiness, of “God, of grace, of iustice, of free will” (I, x, 19) is challenged again and again by allegorical figures with deceptive and pleasing appearances. He has tried to activate his conscience, which gives him an “awareness of God’s will and of an obligation to live accordingly” (Patterson, 2014: 95), but his conscience is grieved to sense that such awareness does not guarantee spiritual wholeness or safety. Sixteenth-century Protestant pastors knew that to heal such wounded consciences, it was not enough that the students were taught the knowledge of “the law as revealed in the scriptures,” which, according to Calvin, “shows what righteousness is, thus making clear what human sinfulness is,” and teaches “positive actions and attitudes of love towards God and one’s fellow human beings” (Patterson, 2014: 93). The sixteenthcentury Protestant pastors saw that they also needed first to help their students gain faith, “which may be barely discernible” except “in the wish, instilled by a special grace of God, to be forgiven for 24 Here Hunt is commenting on the concern about “sermon-gadding,” which was seen by puritans as “a sign of godly zeal,” but by their opponents as an excuse “to abandon the ministry of their own pastor” (2010: 190).
The Art of Preaching and Pastoral Care in The Faerie Queene 19 one’s sins and to live a new life” (95). To inspire such faith, the pastors needed to help those with wounded consciences feel the possibility of the restoration of their spiritual health, of a cure for their fallen nature. It is probably too optimistic, therefore, to say that Redcrosse, after receiving some simple instruction from Fidelia and Speranza, “is now filled by a genuine faith,” to say that he now “possesses Christ” (Broaddus, 2011: 589). Patience still needs to “[Redcrosse] intreat, to tell his grief” so that he can “apply relief / Of salues and med’cines, which had passing prief” (I, x, 24). Like Fidelia, Patience’s words are “of wondrous might,” and he “much aswag’d the passion of [Redcrosse’s] plight” (I, x, 24). Patience and other pastor figures here do not just aim at arousing one particular emotion for one particular lesson; instead, they try to make sure that Redcrosse’s moral sentiments develop in a healthy balance. Here these pastor figures sometimes reassure Redcrosse in his faith, but they do not provide sensual enjoyment for such assurance. It is true that Fidelia “Like sunny beames threw from her Christall face” (I, x, 12), but she also holds a cup with a serpent in it, “That horrour made to all, that did behold” (I, x, 13). Speranza even appears so solemn that “whether dread did dwell, / Or anguish in her hart, is hard to tell” (I, x, 14). Here these pastor figures insist on helping Redcrosse build his spiritual wholeness by coaching him to be an emotionally balanced person before they further teach him verbally. That is, they know they need to be good pastors before their sermons will work on Redcrosse. Such concern to keep the student’s moral sentiments in a healthy balance is rather deeply-rooted in the art of pastoral care, in giving spiritual guidance and in preaching. Gregory the Great, for example, advises that “some things should be gently amended but others vehemently rebuked” because “when the sinner learns that he has been discovered” and “that his behavior is being tolerated, he will be too embarrassed to add those sins that are being tolerated in silence” (590/2007: 77), but “when sin is not recognized by the one
20 EURAMERICA who is guilty of it, he should be made aware of the extent of the fault by the voice of the one who offers the rebuke” (80). Unlike Aristotle, who aims at arousing certain emotions in order to incline hearers to a certain judgment (ca. 350s B.C.E./1991: 121), 25 Gregory watches for the alertness of the students’ conscience in order to cultivate their spiritual sensitivity. It is no surprise that the pastor figures in the House of Holiness follow the tradition of the art of pastoral care rather than that of the art of rhetoric, even when they preach. It is natural that they believe, as Perkins does, “To rouse and revive the exercise of conscience is the task of the preachers” (Patterson, 2014: 98), that the signs for the success of their task lie in whether the student has the will power to choose good and refuse evil, and that such will power “is associated with various emotions—joy, sorrow, love, or hatred, for example” (98). The pastor figures in the House of Holiness know their duty is to attend to their student’s wounded conscience and balance his moral sentiments to restore his spiritual health, not to win an argument. IV. The Caution in Using Pleasing Rhetorical Figures One question about building such an emotional balance remains, though: how and to what extent do the pastor figures in the House of Holiness still please Redcrosse without ruining the balance? Coelia, Fidelia, and Speranza please by being beautiful theological emblems of the heavenly, faith, and hope and sometimes comfort Redcrosse to give relief. They do not even explain much about the signs they carry to stop Redcrosse from being misled by such beauty. It may be argued that Spenser prefers these relatively silent figures to plain verbal lessons simply because he is writing a poem, not a sermon. However, considering that Redcrosse lives in a 25 From bk. 2, chap. 1, sect. 8.
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