The Triune Heart of The Temple

Abstract

The Triune Heart of The Temple by Phillip J. Donnelly Readers who consider the arrangement of poems within The Temple will find that the sequence of the poems in certain segments of the collection often relates directly to the content of the poetry. However, in discussing the arrangement of the collection as a whole, critics disagree considerably among themselves regarding even the total number of poems.1 Without a clear consensus regarding how the poems should be numbered, there is a similar range of views concerning where to locate the precise numeric center of the collection.2 In one sense, as Louis Martin points out, "it seems unlikely that George Herbert, who delighted in the anagram and hidden meaning, would have overlooked the potential inherent in numerological symbolism.3 However, we can be equally sure that Herbert was not interested in a reduction of poetic meaning to numeric correspondences . Thus, without a definitive numbering of the poems, numerological arguments regarding the whole collection remain uncertain, but even if such a numbering were conclusive, it would risk reducing the arrangement of the poems to a type of metaphysical calculus. Three poems near the middle of The Temple suggest a way of integrating numeric sequence and poetic meaning that nevertheless avoids both of these difficulties. "Sion," "Home," and "The British Church," constitute, in their sequential relation, not a reductive numeric center, but a triune heart of The Temple, where the truly rational mid-point or "mean" of the collection is inextricable from the embodied "meaning" of the poems. My primary concern here is not to advance a numerological argument, but to indicate the larger thematic unities of The Temple in which such numerological arguments can gain greater meaning. In considering those unities, critics safely presume the collection of lyrics to be shaped by the poetic and devotional characteristics of the Psalms, as well as by traditions of Augustinian theology and spirituality. What remains to be understood is how Herbert used Augustinian number theory and Trinitarian psychology to integrate formal poetic elements of the Psalms with the devotional themes of The Temple. As a first step toward that kind of integrated understanding of the collection, I shall undertake here to demonstrate how these three poems unite at the heart of The Temple. 36Phillip J. Donnelly After briefly establishing some of the critical context for this analysis, I shall describe some of the relevant characteristics of Augustinian thought and some of the poetic modes that we find in the Psalms. We can then consider how the sequential arrangement of these poems enables Herbert to intimate the Church's ability to embody within time an image of the Trinity. When considered at all, these three poems are seldom treated at length. Most often, the last of the series, "The British Church," is cited as a statement of Herbert's insistence upon a via media between the extremes of Catholic and Puritan ecclesial practice and theology.4 The poem "Sion," when treated, is usually linked to other poems in The Temple, but not to the two poems that follow "Sion" in sequence.5 Christopher Hodgkins discusses "Sion" and "The British Church" together, but his primary concern is to explain the theological misperceptions that might lead critics to see a tension between the two poems. Hodgkins makes no mention of "Home" and, more importantly, he does not consider the poems in sequential relation to one another. He uses historical and theological evidence to show that any tensions between "Sion" and the "British Church" are only apparent, but he does not suggest why one precedes the other, or why a further poem intervenes.6 Similarly, Sibyl Lutz Severance considers the relation between two of the three poems, "Home" and "The British Church," even calling them the "middle poems of The Temple."7 But she does not consider "Sion" in that context. Nowhere are these three poems all considered together in the sequence that we find them presented in The Temple. I contend that these poems are in a specific order so that the reader goes through a particular series of reflections in reading them. In addition to observing the correlations between the poetic structure of The Temple and...

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