"I think that the different possible moments of conversion identified by
Gless are not due to vagueness on Spenser's part or a desire to let the
reader decide but are a very specific representation of the different models
of salvation offered by Roman Catholic and Protestant theology, and that the
former is represented as a false version of Christianity, the latter as the
truth. In more concrete terms, Redcross complacently regards himself from
the beginning of the story as one of the faithful, but doesn't experience
true (=Protestant) conversion until he comes to the gates of despair in
canto 9, where he is made to see the vanity of his own works and that the
one and only thing that can truly save him is the fact of having been chosen
for salvation by God ("Why shouldst thou then despair, that chosen art?").
The moment of conversion consists in receiving a true and lively faith in
God's having elected him for salvation from the beginning. Up till that
point, all his supposed 'faith' is actually mere self-righteousness, the
most dangerous form of spiritual pride." [-- from Paul Suttie]
Yes, this seems right. And the stages have a historical as well as a
personal dimension—ontogeny repeats phylogeny. Escape from Lucifera’s
palace is like leaving a church full of images and parasitical churchmen, as
said in AnFQ (Lucifera was an epithet for Artemis – hence there’s also a
possible reference to the court of the Virgin Queen). But Redcrosse seems
to have nothing to replace it, and falls into "spiritual pride" from, it
might seem, merely having escaped it. Subsequent escape from Orgoglio might
well fall into places as the more solid beginning or regrounding of the
Reformation in more considered Reform theology. Arthur’s patronage of this
deliverance stands for that of Reformation Princes’, and the English
Crown’s. Besides the theological literature, there is the evidence of
glosses in printed Reform bibles. Antipapal ones are a notable feature of
the Tyndale Bible/s. E.g. Exod. 21:14: "Yf a man come presumptuously vppon
his neyghboure and slee him with gile [=slay him with guile], thous shalt
take him fro myne alter that he dye." GLOSS: "But the pope saith come to
myne altare." Leviticus 21:5: "They shall make them no baldnesse apon their
heedes or shaue off the lockes of their beerdes, no make any markes in their
flesh." GLOSS: "Of the heethen preastes therfore tok our prelates the
ensample of their balde pates." One might not want to apply these citations
to Orgoglio's altar and Duessa's tonsure, but I suppose one would also want
to know what the various Geneva Bible/s does/do in these places, if
anything. (Berry edn. at Ex. 21:14: "The holiness of the place oght not to
defend the murther." Nothing, in Berry, at Lev. 21:5.) Tyndale at Ex. 32:28:
"The popis bull sleeth moo than Aarons calf, euen an hundred thousand for
one heere of them." (This is all from the Southern Illinois Press edn.=
Bruce's edn. of Mombert's Tyndale's Pentateuch: Centaur Press, 1967).
The rhetorical climax of Book I is the temptation of a pre-Bunyan but rather
Calvinistic Despair, who is a kind of perverse expounder of Romans 3, and
Tyndale's view of the book (following Luther's similar prologue) must be
read as an antidote. So it is logical to suppose that RC’s conviction of sin
corresponds to his temptation by Despair. For Tyndale says Romans, overall,
should NOT endanger your faith--i.e., your assurance of being justified by
faith--in the long run: "Forasmuch as this epistle is the principal and most
excellent part of the new testament, and most pure evangelion, that is to
say glad tidings and that we call gospel, and also a light and a way in unto
the whole Scripture, I think it meet, that every Christian man not only know
it by rote and without the book but also exercise himself therein evermore
continually, as with the daily bread of the soul. No man verily can read it
too often or study it too well: for the more it is studied the easier it is,
the more it is chewed the pleasanter it is, and the more groundly it is
searched the preciouser things are found in it, so great treasure of
spiritual things lieth hid therein." The book in the OT that enjoyed similar
approbation from Tyndale is Deuteronomy.: "This is a boke worthy to be rede
in daye and nyghte and neuer to be oute of handes. For it is the most
excellent of all the bokes of Moses. It is ease also and light and a very
pure gospell that is to were, a preachinge of fayth and loue: deducinge the
loue to God oute of faith, and the loue of mans neyghboure oute of the loue
of God. ... The .xxviii. is a terreble chaptre and to be trembled at: A
christen mans harte might wel bleed for sorow at the readinge of it, for
feare of the wrath that is like to come vpon us accodinge vnto ich thou
there readest. ... But to serch goddes secretes blindeth a man as it is wel
proved by the sawrmes of oure sophisters, whose wise bokes are now when we
loke in the scriptures found ful of folishnesse." But of course it was
precisely in the following of Tyndale's leadership that there poured out of
Antwerp and presses abroad the first great wave of English Reform press
(i.e., the bulk of the first printed English books), in which outpouring we
can recognize something analogous to the disgorge of Error!
Scripture tells us "They are all gone out of the way," and "By the law
is the knowledge of sin," and "Destruction and misery are in their ways" (as
Dante's famous inscription implies, hell is full of those who have abandoned
all hope!) Thus one puts Una’s "Where iustice growes there eke grows
greater grace" (FQ I.ix.53) next to Paul’s "Where sinne abounded, there
grace abounded much more" (Romans 5:20) [AnFQ p. 697, and see also pp.
202-03 on successive humblings of the knight of faith, esp. top sentence of
p. 203, at "humiliation," and more especially the Despair/Meliboe equation
on pp. 716-18: "...The temptation of Redcrosse [by Despair], although purely
demonic in its immediate effect, nonetheless contains the germ of the hero's
regeneration, for it demonstrates his conviction of his own sinfulness. It
is therefore a kind of grace in disguise, and it leads to the penitential
House of Holiness. For a counterpart, Book VI offers the humbling of
Calidore's spirit among the shepherds; as Coridon's envy loses its sting,
the hero mysteriously happens upon the vision of the three Graces" (AnFQ pp.
718-19). The cross-references in Reformation Bibles get crowded at Rom. 9 (
-- "Psalm 140" in the Berry Geneva Bible list following the note on 3:9
would seem to refer to the poisonous mouth of Romans 3:13), under "All are
culpable" (top right NT p. 71). Note Rom. 3:10, "As it is written,* There is
none righteous" with the citation of Ps. 14:1[c] "there is none that doeth
good." The preceding cross reference, namely Gal. 3:21, goes with the
preceding star/asterisk, just before the phrase "vnder sinne" (occurring at
the end of verse 9 of Romans' chpt. 9), although in fact the reference given
is a verse off ("[*concluded all] under sinne" occurs in vs. 22 of Galatians
3, not vs. 21, where it is cross-referenced back to Romans 3:9 (end of vs. 9
of Rom. 9). {{So likewise Ps. 53:4, which should be 53:3, at "there is none
that doeth good, no not one" and which should have been attached to Rom.
9:12, un-starred, but which is word-for-word the same.}} (We also conclude
that Romans' "no, in no wise" is to be heard in Galatians' "God
forbid"--i.e. the whole spirits of the two passages are parallel, not just
the exact word pair.) Howard Skulsky makes a homiletic gift to Despair for
good reason: the Calvinist one we can also find in John Curran: Hamlet,
Protestantism and the Mourning of Contingency: Not to Be-. Like Marlowe's
play Doctor Faustus, Curran throws the issue of despair into proper
unrelieved Calvinist relief. See also Job ref. on p. 154 of AnFQ, on
Despair, where "grave or pit or Sheol" could have been glossed with/by Rom.
9:13, which is referred, by the Geneva Bible (Berry edn. throughout), to
Psalm 140:4. i.e. "Their throte is an open sepulchre: they haue used their
tongues to deceit" goes with "Kepe me, o Lord, from the hands of the wicked:
preserue me from the cruel man, which purposeth to cause my steppes to
slide" -- the latter leading to the Psalmist's verse "thou hast couered mine
head in the daie of battel" (vs. 7 of same Ps. 140) and then to the gloss
thereon, "He calleth to God with liuelie faith, being assured of his
mercies, because he had before time prouen that God helped him euer in his
dangers." (= "the remedie of the godlie, when thei are oppressed by the
wordelings" [at Berry Geneva OT, p.265, rt. margin]). ("Let us do evil, that
good may come?" = Let us commit suicide, to cut off a preordained history of
sinning? Jonestown, Hale-Bopp (though millenarianism is not the issue
here).) In sum Spenser’s Despair is a Calvinist preacher who goes a bit far
in convicting RC of his possible election: to damnation (and to a possible
way to heaven, through giving up on life on earth). Nonetheless, Despair is
effective not only as a tempter (of Sir Trevisan), but also in the
mortification of RC--preparatory to his reception of grace. --Jim N.
On Sat, 5 Apr 2008 10:55:45 +0100
Paul Suttie <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I agree that these are very important questions for the interpretation of
>Book One, but I think (especially given the dominant position of Calvinism
>in Elizabethan salvation theology) that we need to distinguish carefully
>between RC's election and his conversion. All those who are to be saved in
>the end are elect from the beginning; but the elect live as sinners until
>they experience conversion and the start of the process of regeneration. So
>it wouldn't make sense to suggest that RC becomes one of the elect at any
>point in the story other than 'before the beginning', but it is a salient
>question to ask when in his story he experiences conversion and begins to
>live as one of the faithful. I have a chapter on this in my book
>"Self-Interpretation in The Faerie Queene" (Boydell and Brewer, 2006) in
>which I discuss Gless's interpretation and others. In a nutshell, I think
>that the different possible moments of conversion identified by Gless are
>not due to vagueness on Spenser's part or a desire to let the reader decide
>but are a very specific representation of the different models of salvation
>offered by Roman Catholic and Protestant theology, and that the former is
>represented as a false version of Christianity, the latter as the truth. In
>more concrete terms, Redcross complacently regards himself from the
>beginning of the story as one of the faithful, but doesn't experience true
>(=Protestant) conversion until he comes to the gates of despair in canto 9,
>where he is made to see the vanity of his own works and that the one and
>only thing that can truly save him is the fact of having been chosen for
>salvation by God ("Why shouldst thou then despair, that chosen art?"). The
>moment of conversion consists in receiving a true and lively faith in God's
>having elected him for salvation from the beginning. Up till that point,
>all his supposed 'faith' is actually mere self-righteousness, the most
>dangerous form of spiritual pride.
>
> Paul Suttie
>
>
> On Apr 4 2008, Reid Robert L. wrote:
>
>>Darryl Gless suggests locating "the all-important divine call before the
>>beginning of RCK's quest, or at the moment when Arthur rescues him from
>>Orgoglio's prison, or at the end of canto ix when he seems consciously
>>to accept the doctrine of predestined election" (Interpretation &
>>Theology in Sp. 145). Gless's reference to "Readers who accept the
>>knight's armor as prima facie evidence of his prior election and
>>calling" (55) recalls Padelford's comment on the tall clownish young man
>>who, "when clad in the armor of a Christian man, 'seemed the goodliest
>>man in al that company,' so recreated was he by the grace of God." When
>>does RC receive his call?Abandoning Una (& thus his faith, however
>>"immature or untried") assumes an earlier call.
>>
>>
>>
>>Jim Broaddus' questioning the precise timing of the "call" seems
>>important, and Darryl Gless's nice list of options recalls other
>>repetitious features of the moral/religious allegory (why do allegorical
>>figures of "pride" reappear so persistently, yet in such intriguingly
>>varied forms?). The question of when the clownish hero was "called"
>>might be connected with the Reformation's much-debated question of when
>>to be "baptized" (before, or during, the conscious quest)... & the even
>>more intensely and anxiously debated question of whether (and when) one
>>can be assured of being "saved." Wasn't it G.K. Chesterton who replied
>>to a puritan questioner, "Yes sir. I have been saved, I am being saved,
>>and I shall be saved." So perhaps the answer is all of the above, with
>>the hotline always vulnerable to being again shut down, or again
>>renewed. Even at the very end of the Legend of Holiness it seems RCK is,
>>once again, answering a calling to renew the quest that, as David Miller
>>argues, is always challenged and incompletely answered.
>>Yet, having said that, it seems that Spenser's series of moments (and
>>types) of divine call (as listed by Gless) are not simply repetitious
>>but form a carefully-structured sequence which DOES offer a rough
>>simulacrum of completeness. The defeat of Orgoglio, Despair, and the
>>Dragon offer a holistic pattern that matches the three stages of the
>>house of Holiness. Thus it seems that the structured pattern of types of
>>calling, answering stages of spiritual need in the life-quest, is
>>important.
>>
>> Robin Reid
>>
>>
[log in to unmask]
James Nohrnberg
Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
Univ. of Virginia
P.O Box 400121
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121
