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Langland’s Way to Unity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2024

Conrad Pepler O.P.
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Extract

Langland’s outlook is really centred in the doctrine of the Mystical Body, though he nowhere employs the term itself. He conceives of the Church and her members in this living corporate way. From the very fact of to the Incarnation, all mankind has become related to God in common brotherhood, even those outside the Church.

But my nature shall move me to be merciful to man For we are brethren of one blood though not in baptism together are words of our Lord at the harrowing of hell (Passus XVIII, 397-8). Men are not only blood brethren because they bear the same nature with the same human blood coursing through their veins, but also because they have been bought by the outpouring of that blood made precious in union with the divinity:

“They are my blood brethren”, said Piers, ‘for God bought all men”. (Passus VI, 212; cf. XVIII, 348 sqq.)

Type
Research Article
Information
Life of the Spirit , Volume 1 , Issue 7 , January 1947 , pp. 198 - 204
Copyright
Copyright © 1964 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

1 Benedictus. Orchard Series ed. p. 219. Cf. the whole of this passage, and Bonum Est, id. p. 209; The Scale, ii, 3, p. 182; Mother Julian, cc. 9, 31, 34; 51, etc.: Cloud, c. 25. Also Blackfriars, March 1940, p. 192, The Clergy Review March 1943.

2 Compare the beautiful passage in the Ancren Riwle part vii (Medieval Lib. ed., p. 296) where our Lord is shown as the knight of great prowess, proving his love for the soul in the tournament of the Cross. Cf. also Piers Plowma Passus XVI, 211-5; XVIII, 13-39.

3 This is the view taken by Skeat in a note on C Text, in which alone this passage appears. Others have interpreted only the maiden as the contemplative like the monk or the nun, and deny that Matrimony, Widowhood and Virginity can possibly stand here for Dowel, Dobet and Dobest. In the A text which is not here included by Wells, Wit treats Dowel, Dobet and Dobest as states and points out that perfection does not depend on one’s state. This approaches more accurately the teaching of St Thomas on the subject. Cf. Rolle, The Form oj Living, c. 3. (Heseltine ed., p. 24) and Dunning, Piers Plowman, An Interpretation of the A Text. (pp. 173 sq.) And Coghill, Medium Aevum, Vol II, No. 2. (p. 126).