Quotations and Allusions in
C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms
compiled
by Arend Smilde (Utrecht, The Netherlands)
C. S. Lewis’s Reflections
on the Psalms (1958), like most of his books, contains many allusions to or
quotations from unspecified sources. In the present case there are, naturally,
comparatively many quotations from the Bible. It is perhaps never vitally
important to locate (and check) all the various sources; still it can be a
rewarding enterprise. What follows is a listing by chapter of many such words
and phrases with brief references to what I have found to be their sources and,
occasionally, notes suggesting their relevance to the context in which Lewis
uses them. I have also included a few other items where a short explanation may
be of use to some readers. The list is based on notes I made for my Dutch translation of this book,
published in 2002 as Gedachten over de Psalmen.
Double question marks in bold type – ??
– follow items where I have not found the required information. Corrections
and additions including proposed new
entries are welcome. Updates
are listed at the end.
Dedication
Austin and Katharine Farrer
Friends of C. S. Lewis. Austin
Farrer (1904–1968) was a philosopher, theologian and Bible scholar; Fellow of
Trinity College, Oxford from 1935 until 1960 and Warden of Keble College from
1960 until his death. His wife Katharine Farrer-Newton (1911–1972) was a writer
of detective stories.
Chapter
I: Introductory
para. 1 [the
psalms were written ...]
the “captivity”, which we
should call the deportation to Babylon
» The period (c.
587/586–515 b.c.) when much of the population of Judah
lived in exile in Babylon until the Persian conqueror King Cyrus allowed them
to go home.
para. 3 [what
must be said ...]
Burke
» Edmund Burke (1729–1797),
English statesman, conservative political theorist and orator; his works
include Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790).
the Aeneid
» Chief work of the Roman poet
Vergil (70–19 b.c.), about Aeneas, the legendary founder
of Rome.
para. 6 [in
reality it is ...]
Marlowe
» Christopher Marlowe
(1564–1593), English poet and dramatist. The quotation is from the epilogue of Doctor
Faustus (published 1604).
the Cherry Tree Carol
» One of the many traditional
English Christmas songs called Christmas Carols.
para. 9 [i think, too
...]
the Magnificat
» The hymn or poem spoken by
the Virgin Mary (“My soul doth magnify the Lord”, Luke 1:46–55, one of the
so-called “canticles”) when she had been told she would bring forth the Son of
God and after Elisabeth called her “blessed among women”. The words quoted
(“That we should be saved from our enemies” etc.) are taken not from the Magnificat
but from the next canticle, Benedictus (Luke 1:68–79), spoken by the old
priest Zechariah when his child John the Baptist is born.
para. 11 [i have worked
in the main ...]
Coverdale
» Miles Coverdale (1488–1568)
produced the first complete Bible in English (1535). His version of the Psalms
was included in the Book of Common Prayer, the service book of the
Anglican Church for centuries. This translation thus became better known to many
people than the one included in the King James Bible (or Authorized Version).
Annoyingly, the two translations have many slight differences in verse
numbering.
St. Jerome
» Hieronymus (c.
347–420);, one of the Latin Church
Fathers; author of the Vulgate, i.e. the
standard Latin translation of the Bible used throughout the Middle Ages.
Dr. Moffatt
» James Moffatt (1870–1944),
Scottish Church historian and author of a widely used Bible translation.
para. 12 [finally,
as will soon ...]
not what is called an
“apologetic” work
» All of Lewis’s previous
explicitly “Christian” books were of a markedly apologetic nature. Austin
Farrer, the present book’s dedicatee, wrote an excellent assessment of Lewis’s
apologetics shortly after his death in 1963: “The Christian Apologist”, in Light
on C. S. Lewis, ed. Jocelyn Gibb (1965), pp. 23–43.
Chapter
II: “Judgement” in the Psalms
para. 1 [if
there is any thought ...]
“that day of wrath, that
dreadful day”
» From a Medieval Latin poem
of Franciscan origin, usually attributed to Thomas of Celano,
and probably best known for its use in the Latin Mass for the Dead (Requiem): Dies
irae, dies illa ...
“in the hour of death and at
the day of judgement”
» A phrase from “The Litany”,
a prayer in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.
parable of the Sheep and the
Goats
» Matthew 25:32–46.
para 3 [the
reason for this ...]
Judge Jeffreys
» George Jeffreys (1645?–1689)
was an English judge who imposed extremely severe punishments on the Duke of
Monmouth and his fellow conspirators against the King.
creatures
» i.e. puppets, straw men.
Chapter
III: The Cursings
para. 4 [one
way of dealing with ...]
“written for our learning”
» Romans 15:4.
para. 10 [there
is no use ...]
seventy times seven
» cf. Matthew 18:22.
para. 11 [it is
monstrously simple-minded ...]
Mr. Pilgrim
» Very probably a reference to
the case of Edward Pilgrim (1904-1954); see Wikipedia
article.
para. 13 [the
first is that within ...]
St. Paul’s “If thine enemy
hunger, give him bread”, etc.
» Romans 12:20.
para. 17 [it
seems that there is ...]
The “average sensual man”
» A phrase usually quoted in
its French form, l’homme moyen sensuel, in which form
it has perhaps been given currency by philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre
(1905–1980), although it may have been coined in English. It certainly dates
from before the twentieth century and is or was often used in English, e.g. in
various places in Aldous Huxley’s Ends
and Means (1937). In the diaries of Beatrice Webb (1858-1943) it is found as early as 29 December 1894. Origin as yet unknown – ??
Committee of Public Safety
» i.e. the Comité
de Salut Public, the state organization which under the leadership
of Robespierre was responsible for the French Revolution’s bloodiest episodes
in the years 1793–1795.
the most honest and
disinterested critic
» Lewis is probably referring
– or at least alluding – to F. R. Leavis (1895–1978),
a renowned and influential literary critic of the mid-twentieth century. Leavis and Lewis were colleagues in Cambridge from 1954
onwards. See also C. S. Lewis’s An Experiment in Criticism (1961), pp.
124–129.
para. 20 [different,
certainly higher ...]
Carlyle
» Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881),
English historian; he presented the history of the world as a history of Great
Men.
Kipling
» Joseph Rudyard Kipling
(1865–1936), English writer and poet, renowned champion of British imperialism.
some modern critics
» Again, Lewis is very
probably thinking of F. R. Leavis, now more
especially of the latter’s view of “Culture” as a kind of secular path of
salvation (Mass Civilization and Minority Culture, 1930; The Great
Tradition, 1948; The Common Pursuit, 1952). See Walter Hooper, C.
S. Lewis: A Companion and Guide (1996), pp. 73–74, and A. N. Wilson, C.
S. Lewis: A Biography (1990), pp. 287–288.
Our Lord’s words about
“counting the cost”
» Luke 14:27-28.
And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after
me, cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth
the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?
para. 21 [For we can still ...]
he “desireth
not the the death of a sinner”
» Ezekiel 33:11. The phrase is
also used in the Book of Common Prayer, in the “Absolution or Remission
of sins” which is a part of the services for Morning Prayer and for Evening
Prayer.
Chapter
IV: Death in the Psalms
para. 4 [again,
in 49, we ...]
there was no other “good
enough to pay the price”
» From the hymn “There is a
green hill far away”, No. 332 in Hymns Ancient and Modern.
para. 14 [it is
surely, therefore ...]
to pant after Him “as pants
the hart”
» Psalm 42:2; a hart is an
adult male deer.
“to enjoy Him forever”
» From the first Question
& Answer of the Westminster Shorter Catechism (1647).
Q. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him
forever.
The same phrase is quoted once
more at the end of chapter 9.
para. 16 [all
this is only ...]
I have said it in another book
» i.e. in his autobiography, Surprised
by Joy (1955), at the beginning of chapter 15.
para. 18 [but we
should be quite ...]
every man under his own vine
and his own fig tree
» Micah 4:4 (see also I Kings
4:25).
Chapter
V: “The Fair Beauty of the Lord”
para. 1 [“now
let us ...”]
“Now let us stint all this and
speak of mirth.”
» Geoffrey Chaucer
(1340–1400), Canterbury Tales VII.3157; from The Nun’s Priest’s Tale. In
Nevill Coghill’s modern English version: “And now,
let’s talk of fun and stop all this.”
the old woman in Scott
» This is the blind Mrs.
Maclure in Old Mortality, vol. 2, chapter 21, where she says, “... mony [=many] an hungry, starving creature, when he sits
down on a Sunday forenoon to get something that might warm him to the great
work, has a dry clatter o’ morality driven about his lugs [=ears] ...”
para. 2 [david, we know
...]
danced before the Ark
» II Samuel 6:14–16 and 20–23.
They have not rebuilt the
Temple
» Reflections on the Psalms
was written some ten years after the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948.
para. 10 [i am not saying
that this gusto ...]
what it “cost to redeem their
souls”
» Psalm 49:8 in Coverdale’s
version (cf. chapter 4, par. 4).
Chapter
VI: “Sweeter than Honey”
para. 1 [in racine’s tragedy ...]
Racine’s tragedy of Athalie
» Jean Racine (1636–1699),
French poet and dramatist.
para. 4 [a fine
christian and ...]
the “pleasures of a good
conscience”
» Title of an English hymn by
Isaac Watts (1674–1748).
the “smile” on Duty’s face
» From the “Ode to Duty” by
William Wordsworth (1770–1850):
Stern
lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
The
Godhead’s most benignant grace;
Nor
know we anything so fair
As
is the smile upon thy face ...
para. 6 [the danger
of this second ...]
the “weightier matters of the
Law”
» Matthew 23:23.
para. 7 [thus
the law ...]
Charles Williams wrote, “When
the means are autonomous they are deadly.”
» from “Bors
to Elaine: on the King’s Coins”, a poem in Williams’s first cycle
of Arthurian poems, Taliessin Through
Logres (1938). Charles Williams (1886–1945), writer and poet, was a good
friend of C. S. Lewis.
para. 9 [now
this, in itself ...]
the “schoolmaster to bring him
to Christ”
» Paul’s Epistle to the
Galatians, 3:24.
para. 11 [by
this assurance ...]
terrible theologians
» Doubtless Lewis included
among them the English theologian William Paley (1743-1805), mentioned in The Problem of Pain (1940), ch. 6, par.
12, as Lewis talks of
... the abominable conclusion (reached, I think, by
Paley) that charity is good only because God arbitrarily commanded it ...
para. 12 [for
there were other roads ...]
We who not so long ago waited
daily for invasion by enemies
» C. S. Lewis wrote this less than
two decades after 1940, when Hitler was planning to follow up his conquest of
France by the conquest of Britain; the ensuing “battle of Britain” resulted in
his abandoning this plan.
para. 14 [in so
far as ...]
“sweet reasonableness”
» Matthew Arnold (1822–1888), Literature
and Dogma XII.2.
“thank God that we are not as
other men”
» Luke 18:11.
Chapter VII: Connivance
para. 2 [now
obviously all this ...]
“unco
guid”
» Scottish for “extremely
good”.
para. 6 [the
publicans were ...]
the Vichy or Collaborationist
movement
» Vichy is the French town
from where a collaborationist government under Marshal Pétain
governed the unoccupied South-Eastern part of France while the rest was under
German occupation, 1940–1944.
para. 8 [here
is the perfect ...]
for charity “believeth all
things”
» I Corinthians 13:7.
para. 12 [what
is one to do? ...]
as if we “knew not the Man”
» cf. Matthew 26:27.
para. 16 [what
makes this contact ...]
avoiding “the seat of the
scornful”
» Psalm 1:1 (Coverdale’s
version).
“eat of ... such things as
please them”
» Psalm 141:4 (Coverdale’s
version).
Chapter
VIII: Nature
para. 2 [i. They belong
to ...]
a king covets a piece of his neighbour’s property ... a vineyard
» cf. 1 Kings 21:1-16, on King
Ahab and Naboth’s vineyard.
para. 11 [all
this is of course ...]
As someone has said, “gods” is
not really the plural of God
» This “someone” may well be
C. S. Lewis himself as a scholar of Medieval literature. Lewis was a long-time
tutor in Oxford until 1954 and after that a professor in Cambridge. Towards the
end of his life he recast one of his most successful courses of lectures as a
little book, posthumously published as The Discarded Image (1964).
Chapter 4B is about the late Roman author Macrobius
who was, as Lewis points out, not only late Roman but “late Pagan” and, thus,
almost early Christian (The Discarded Image, p. 66):
We have here [i.e. in the thought of Macrobius] a chasm between the Divine and all merely creaturely
beings (however exalted), a sheer transcendence, which earlier Paganism, and
especially Roman paganism, had never dreamed of. The word gods in this
system is simply not the plural of God ... Paganism here becomes, in the
full sense, religious; mythology and philosophy have both been transmuted into
theology.
para. 13 [but
the most ...]
as Homer says somewhere, like
a peeled onion
» cf. Odyssee
XIX, 232-234.
|
τὸν δὲ χιτῶνʼ ἐνόησα περὶ χροὶ̈ σιγαλόεντα, |
I noted the tunic about his body, all shining (Trans. A. T. Murray, Loeb
edition 1919) |
para. 17 [unless
of course ...]
cretinous
» i.e. suffering from
cretinism, a condition arising from a deficiency of thyroid hormone, present
from birth. A cretin is a mentally retarded dwarf with wide-set eyes, a broad
flat nose and protruding tongue.
“not far from any one of us”
» Acts of the Apostles, 17:27.
“the highest does not stand
without the lowest”
» A maxim, often quoted by C.
S. Lewis, from De imitatione Christi (On
the Imitation of Christ), II.10.4: “Summum non stat sine infimo.” This 15th-century religious tract, ascribed to
Thomas à Kempis (1380?–1471), is the most important legacy of the Devotio Moderna, a
religious and educational movement which sprang up in the Eastern Netherlands
in the late 14th century. The book preaches the virtues of humility,
self-denial and simple personal piety.
Chapter
IX: A Word About Praising
para. 5 [but
the most obvious fact ...]
Hymns Ancient and Modern
» Anglican collection of
religious songs for use in church services, first published in 1861.
para. 6 [i think we
delight ...]
man’s chief end is “to glorify
God and enjoy Him forever”
» Cf. note to chapter 4, para.
14, above.
para. 7 [meanwhile
of course ...]
as Donne says, tuning our instruments
» John Donne (1572–1631),
English poet. The line “I tune my instrument here at the door” is from his poem
“Hymn to God my God in My sickness”. Lewis quotes the same line – and in a very
similar context – in chapter 21 of his last book, Letters to Malcolm:
Chiefly on Prayer (1964).
Chapter
X: Second Meanings
para. 5 [one of
the roman ...]
One of the Roman historians
» Tacitus, Histories III.32. The “gentleman” is the
Roman general Marcus Antonius
Primus, who fought for Vespasian in the brief civil war that
followed the death of Nero. He stormed Cremona in October 69, after which the
city burnt down.
Fame and
fortune had made Antonius conspicuous to the eyes of all [i.e. all the people
in Cremona]. He hurried to some baths to wash the blood with which he was
covered. When he complained of the temperature, a voice was heard saying that
they would soon be hot enough. This answer of some slave turned all the odium
of what followed on Antonius, as if he had given the signal to burn Cremona,
which was indeed at that moment in flames.
(Trans. John Jackson, Loeb edition 1925)
para. 6 [now
let us take ...]
Virgil ... begins a poem thus
» viz. Eclogae
(= Bucolica, “Pastorals”) IV.1.
the Sibylline Books
» A collection of prophecies
and ritual precepts ascribed to the Sibyl (=a kind of prophetess) of Cumae. The
Senate of ancient Rome would order a consultation of these books in times of distress.
para. 9 [Plato
in his ...]
Plato in his Republic
» Book I, 361b–362a.
para. 12 [in other
words ...]
“many shall come from the east
and the west and sit down in the kingdom”
» Matthew 8:11, Luke 13:29.
para. 13 [thus,
long before we ...]
“Thoughts beyond their
thoughts to these high bards were given”
» A line from “The Third
Sunday in Lent”, a poem in The Christian Year (1827) by John Keble
(1792–1866), an English poet and divine. Keble was a leader of the Oxford
Movement, a catholicizing movement in the Church of England.
Chapter
XI: Scripture
para. 2 [i. for us these
writings ...]
as St. Paul says, “the Oracles
of God”
» Romans 3:2.
St. Jerome
» Author of the standard Latin
translation of the Bible; see note to chapter 1, para. 11, above. The
attribution to St. Jerome is wrong.
Calvin
» John Calvin, or Jean Cauvin (1509–1564), French theologian and leading church
reformer. Lewis is referring to Calvin’s second sermon on the first chapter of
Job.
the universal negative
proposition that miracles do not happen
» Lewis is almost certainly referring
to the famous assertion – “Miracles do not happen” – by Matthew Arnold
(1822–1888), in Literature and Dogma
(1883 edition), last sentence of the preface. Lewis devoted a whole book to the
subject, Miracles: A preliminary study (1948, revised in 1960),
where he quotes the same words of Arnold in the epilogue.
para. 11 [but of
course these conjectures ...]
“not by the conversion of the
godhead into flesh...”
» Confession of Athanasius,
Article 35.
para. 12 [of course, on almost...]
Cartesians
» Followers of French
philosopher René Descartes, alias Cartesius (1596–1650).
para. 15 [we do
not know...]
Mr. Dunne
» John William Dunne
(1874–1949), Irish pioneer aviator and philosopher. His book Experiment with
Time, here referred to, was published in 1927. Dunne developed a theory of
“serialism” in which he conceived Time as a thing with infinitely many
dimensions, each dimension having its own chain or series of events; he
dismissed as an illusion the idea of time as something one-dimensional;
occasional escapes from the illusion were possible in special circumstances
such as dreams.
Chapter
XII: Second Meanings in the Psalms
para. 5 [for a jewish convert...]
Milton’s poem on the Nativity
» “On the Morning of Christ’s
Nativity” (1629), an early poem in 27 stanzas by John Milton (1608–1674):
This
is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein
the Son of Heaven’s eternal King,
Of
wedded Maid and Virgin Mother born,
Our great redemption from above
did bring ...
Especially relevant here is
perhaps the 25th stanza, about the Egyptian god Osiris considered as a devil to
be chased away:
He
feels from Juda’s land
The
dreaded Infant’s hand, ...
Nor
all the gods beside,
Longer
dare abide, ...
Our
Babe, to show His Godhead true,
Can
in His swaddling bands control the damned crew.
para. 6 [that
psalm has led us ...]
If Christ “tasted death for
all men”
» Epistle to the Hebrews, 2:9.
para. 9 [few
things once seemed ...]
“the whole blessed company of faithful
people”
» A phrase from the Book of
Common Prayer, in the second (alternative) prayer of thanksgiving after the
Holy Communion.
King Cophetua
» A legendary African king who
was uninterested in women until he fell in love with a beggar girl. A ballad on
the subject was included by Thomas Percy in his Reliques
of Ancient English Poetry (1765), II.6. The theme was taken up by Alfred
Tennyson in his poem “The Beggar Maid”: ... Barefooted came the beggar maid
/ Before the king Cophetua. / In robe and crown the
king stept down, / To meet and greet her on her way
... So sweet a face, such angel grace, / In all that land had never been: / Cophetua sware a royal oath: /
“This beggar maid shall be my queen!”
para. 10 [read
in this sense ...]
“a god’s embraces never are in
vain”
» Coventry Patmore, The
Unknown Eros and Other Odes (1877), XII.12, “Eros and Psyche”, 56. Also
quoted in Lewis’s letter to Ruth Pitter of 20 August 1962 (Collected Letters
III, 1364): “A fiend, my Psyche, comes with barren bliss / A god’s
embraces never are in vain.” The line is perhaps an echo from Neptune’s words
to Tyro in Homer’s Odyssey, Book XI. Lewis relates this
story in chapter IV (on Homer) of his Preface to Paradise Lost. Here is
Samuel Butler’s translation, with the relevant words italicized:
The first I saw was Tyro. She was daughter of Salmoneus and wife of Cretheus
the son of Aeolus. She fell in love with the river Enipeus
who is much the most beautiful river in the whole world. Once when she was
taking a walk by his side as usual, Neptune, disguised as her lover, lay with
her at the mouth of the river, and a huge blue wave arched itself like a
mountain over them to hide both woman and god, whereon he loosed her virgin
girdle and laid her in a deep slumber. When the god had accomplished the deed
of love, he took her hand in his own and said, “Tyro, rejoice in all good will;
the embraces of the gods are not fruitless, and you will have fine twins
about this time twelve months. Take great care of them. I am Neptune, so now go
home, but hold your tongue and do not tell any one.”
The story is also mentioned by
Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae III.16, 15.
para.
11 [the
choice of psalm 8 ...]
a chorus in Sophocles
» The
first Ode in his tragedy Antigone.
para.
16 [of
the cursing psalms ...]
“My heart showeth me the wickedness of the
ungodly”
»
This translation of Psalm 36:1 is now controversial or discredited; recent
versions rather have it that the ungodly can see their own
wickedness when looking into their own hearts. Thus Moffatt translates, “An
impious spirit inspires the ungodly man”. Nevertheless the old translation made
sense to C. S. Lewis, as appears from the way he used this same line from Psalm
36 in his preface to The Screwtape Letters and Screwtape Proposes a Toast
(1961):
Some have paid me an
undeserved compliment by supposing that my Screwtape Letters were
the ripe fruit of many years’ study in moral and ascetic theology. They forgot
that there is an equally reliable, though less creditable, way of learning how
temptation works. “My heart” – I need no other’s – “showeth
me the wickedness of the ungodly.”
para.
17 [sometimes
with no prompting ...]
“the wound man was born for”
»
Adapted from a poem by Gerald Manley Hopkins (1844–1889), “Spring and Fall”
(addressing a girl called Margaret):
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed,
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you morn for.
17 October 2007:
note on “a god’s embraces”, ch. XII
17 December 2012
notes provided by Dr Emanuel
Contac (Bucharest) on
– as Homer says somewhere, ch. VIII
– One of the Roman historians, ch. X
18 January 2013
notes provided by Emanuel
Contac on
– Our Lord’s words, ch. III
– Plato in his Republic, ch. X
8 July 2014
expanded note on The “average sensual man”, ch. III
23 August 2015
added note on terrible theologians, ch. VI
24 December 2018
small
correction to paragraph numbering in ch. XII
7 January 2019
corrected notes on Mr. Pilgrim, ch. III, and on to enjoy Hem forever, ch. IV; with thanks to Alexander J. Wei.
23 May
2021
expanded note on the average sensual
man in ch. III