Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is the first book of the New Testament and one of the three synoptic gospels. It tells how the promised Messiah, rejected by Israel sends the disciples to preach the gospel to the whole world. Most scholars believe it was composed between AD 80 and 90, with a range of possibility between AD 70 to 110; the anonymous author was a male Jew, standing on the margin between traditional and non-traditional Jewish values, familiar with technical legal aspects of scripture being debated in his time. Writing in a polished Semitic "synagogue Greek", he drew on three main sources: the Gospel of Mark, the hypothetical collection of sayings known as the Q source, material unique to his own community, called the M source or "Special Matthew"; the divine nature of Jesus was a major issue for the Matthaean community, the crucial element separating the early Christians from their Jewish neighbors. The title Son of David identifies Jesus as the healing and miracle-working Messiah of Israel, sent to Israel alone.
As Son of Man he will return to judge the world, an expectation which his disciples recognise but of which his enemies are unaware. As Son of God he is God revealing himself through his son, Jesus proving his sonship through his obedience and example; the gospel reflects the struggles and conflicts between the evangelist's community and the other Jews with its sharp criticism of the scribes and Pharisees. Prior to the Crucifixion the Jews are called the honorific title of God's chosen people; the oldest complete manuscripts of the Bible are the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus, which date from the 4th century. Besides these, there exist manuscript fragments ranging from a few verses to whole chapters. P 104 and P 67 are notable fragments of Matthew; these are copies of copies. In the process of recopying, variations slipped in, different regional manuscript traditions emerged, corrections and adjustments were made. Modern textual scholars collate all major surviving manuscripts, as well as citations in the works of the Church Fathers, in order to produce a text which most approximates to the lost autographs.
The gospel itself does not specify an author, but he was a male Jew, standing on the margin between traditional and non-traditional Jewish values, familiar with technical legal aspects of scripture being debated in his time. The majority of modern scholars believe that Mark was the first gospel to be composed and that Matthew and Luke both drew upon it as a major source for their works; the author of Matthew did not, however copy Mark, but used it as a base, emphasising Jesus' place in the Jewish tradition and including other details not covered in Mark. An additional 220 verses, shared by Matthew and Luke but not found in Mark, from a second source, a hypothetical collection of sayings to which scholars give the name "Quelle", or the Q source; this view, known as the Two-source hypothesis, allows for a further body of tradition known as "Special Matthew", or the M source, meaning material unique to Matthew. The author had the Greek scriptures at his disposal, both as book-scrolls and in the form of "testimony collections", and, if Papias is correct oral stories of his community.
These sources were predominantly in Greek, but not from any known version of the Septuagint. The majority view among scholars is that Matthew was a product of the last quarter of the 1st century; this makes it a work of the second generation of Christians, for whom the defining event was the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans in AD 70 in the course of the First Jewish–Roman War. The Christian community to which Matthew belonged, like many 1st-century Christians, was still part of the larger Jewish community: hence the designation Jewish Christian to describe them; the relationship of Matthew to this wider world of Judaism remains a subject of study and contention, the principal question being to what extent, if any, Matthew's community had cut itself off from its Jewish roots. There was conflict between Matthew's group and other Jewish groups, it is agreed that the root of the conflict was the Matthew community's belief in Jesus as the Messiah and authoritative interpreter of the law, as one risen from the dead and uniquely endowed with divine authority.
The author of Matthew wrote for a community of Greek-speaking Jewish Christians located in Syria (Antioch, the largest city in Roman Syria and the third-largest in the empire, is me
Augustine of Hippo
Saint Augustine of Hippo was a Roman African, early Christian theologian and philosopher from Numidia whose writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy. He was the bishop of Hippo Regius in north Africa and is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers in Western Christianity for his writings in the Patristic Period. Among his most important works are The City of De doctrina Christiana and Confessions. According to his contemporary Jerome, Augustine "established anew the ancient Faith". In his youth he was drawn to Manichaeism and to neoplatonism. After his baptism and conversion to Christianity in 386, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and perspectives. Believing that the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, he helped formulate the doctrine of original sin and made seminal contributions to the development of just war theory; when the Western Roman Empire began to disintegrate, Augustine imagined the Church as a spiritual City of God, distinct from the material Earthly City.
His thoughts profoundly influenced the medieval worldview. The segment of the Church that adhered to the concept of the Trinity as defined by the Council of Nicaea and the Council of Constantinople identified with Augustine's On the Trinity. Augustine is recognized as a saint in the Catholic Church, the Eastern Christian Church, the Anglican Communion and as a preeminent Doctor of the Church, he is the patron of the Augustinians. His memorial is celebrated on 28 August, the day of his death. Augustine is the patron saint of brewers, theologians, the alleviation of sore eyes, a number of cities and dioceses. Many Protestants Calvinists and Lutherans, consider him to be one of the theological fathers of the Protestant Reformation due to his teachings on salvation and divine grace. Protestant Reformers and Martin Luther in particular, held Augustine in preeminence among early Church Fathers. Luther himself was, from 1505 to 1521, a member of the Order of the Augustinian Eremites. In the East, his teachings are more disputed, were notably attacked by John Romanides.
But other theologians and figures of the Eastern Orthodox Church have shown significant approbation of his writings, chiefly Georges Florovsky. The most controversial doctrine associated with him, the filioque, was rejected by the Orthodox Church. Other disputed teachings include his views on original sin, the doctrine of grace, predestination. Though considered to be mistaken on some points, he is still considered a saint, has had influence on some Eastern Church Fathers, most notably Saint Gregory Palamas. In the Orthodox Church his feast day is celebrated on 15 June. Historian Diarmaid MacCulloch has written: " impact on Western Christian thought can hardly be overstated. Augustine of Hippo known as Saint Augustine, Saint Austin, is known by various cognomens throughout the Christian world across its many denominations including Blessed Augustine, the Doctor of Grace Hippo Regius, where Augustine was the bishop, was in modern-day Annaba, Algeria. Augustine was born in the year 354 AD in the municipium of Thagaste in the Roman province of Numidia.
His mother, Monica or Monnica, was a devout Christian. Augustine considered the father like a stranger. Scholars agree that Augustine and his family were Berbers, an ethnic group indigenous to North Africa, but that they were Romanized, speaking only Latin at home as a matter of pride and dignity. In his writings, Augustine leaves some information as to the consciousness of his African heritage. For example, he refers to Apuleius as "the most notorious of us Africans," to Ponticianus as "a country man of ours, insofar as being African," and to Faustus of Mileve as "an African Gentleman". Augustine's family name, suggests that his father's ancestors were freedmen of the gens Aurelia given full Roman citizenship by the Edict of Caracalla in 212. Augustine's family had been Roman, for at least a century when he was born, it is assumed that his mother, was of Berber origin, on the basis of her name, but as his family were honestiores, an upper class of citizens known as honorable men, Augustine's first language is to have been Latin.
At the age of 11, Augustine was sent to school at Madaurus, a small Numidian city about 19 miles south of Thagaste. There he became familiar with Latin literature, as well as pagan practices, his first insight into the nature of sin occurred when he and a number of friends stole fruit they did not want from a neighborhood garden. He tells this story in The Confessions, he remembers that he did not steal the fruit because he was hungry, but because "it was not permitted." His nature, he says, was flawed.'It was foul, I loved it. I loved my own error—not that for which I erred, but the error itself." From this incident he concluded the human person is inclined to sin, in need of the grace of Christ. At the age of 17, through the generosity of his fellow citizen Romanianus, Augustine went to Carthage to continue his education in rhetoric, though it was above the financial means of his family. In spite of the good warnings of his mother, as a youth Augustine lived a hedonistic lif
Deity
A deity is a supernatural being considered divine or sacred. The Oxford Dictionary of English defines deity as "a god or goddess". C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greater than those of ordinary humans, but who interacts with humans, positively or negatively, in ways that carry humans to new levels of consciousness, beyond the grounded preoccupations of ordinary life". In the English language, a male deity is referred to as a god, while a female deity is referred to as a goddess. Religions can be categorized by. Monotheistic religions accept only one deity, polytheistic religions accept multiple deities. Henotheistic religions accept one supreme deity without denying other deities, considering them as aspects of the same divine principle. Although most monotheistic religions traditionally envision their God as omnipotent, omniscient and eternal, none of these qualities are essential to the definition of a "deity" and various cultures conceptualized their deities differently.
Monotheistic religions refer to God in masculine terms, while other religions refer to their deities in a variety of ways – masculine, feminine and without gender. Many ancient cultures – including the ancient Mesopotamians, Greeks and Norsemen– personified natural phenomena, variously as either deliberate causes or effects; some Avestan and Vedic deities were viewed as ethical concepts. In Indian religions, deities were envisioned as manifesting within the temple of every living being's body, as sensory organs and mind. Deities were envisioned as a form of existence after rebirth, for human beings who gain merit through an ethical life, where they become guardian deities and live blissfully in heaven, but are subject to death when their merit is lost; the English language word "deity" derives from Old French deité, the Latin deitatem or "divine nature", coined by Augustine of Hippo from deus. Deus is related through a common Proto-Indo-European origin to *deiwos; this root yields the ancient Indian word Deva meaning "to gleam, a shining one", from *div- "to shine", as well as Greek dios "divine" and Zeus.
Deva is masculine, the related feminine equivalent is devi. Etymologically, the cognates of Devi are Greek thea. In Old Persian, daiva- means "demon, evil god", while in Sanskrit it means the opposite, referring to the "heavenly, terrestrial things of high excellence, shining ones"; the linked term "god" refers to "supreme being, deity", according to Douglas Harper, is derived from Proto-Germanic *guthan, from PIE *ghut-, which means "that, invoked". Guth in the Irish language means "voice"; the term *ghut- is the source of Old Church Slavonic zovo, Sanskrit huta-, from the root *gheu-,An alternate etymology for the term "god" comes from the Proto-Germanic Gaut, which traces it to the PIE root *ghu-to-, derived from the root *gheu-. The term *gheu- is the source of the Greek khein "to pour"; the German root was a neuter noun. The gender of the monotheistic God shifted to masculine under the influence of Christianity. In contrast, all ancient Indo-European cultures and mythologies recognized both masculine and feminine deities.
There is no universally accepted consensus on what a deity is, concepts of deities vary across cultures. Huw Owen states that the term "deity or god or its equivalent in other languages" has a bewildering range of meanings and significance, it has ranged from "infinite transcendent being who created and lords over the universe", to a "finite entity or experience, with special significance or which evokes a special feeling", to "a concept in religious or philosophical context that relates to nature or magnified beings or a supra-mundane realm", to "numerous other usages". A deity is conceptualized as a supernatural or divine concept, manifesting in ideas and knowledge, in a form that combines excellence in some or all aspects, wrestling with weakness and questions in other aspects, heroic in outlook and actions, yet tied up with emotions and desires. In other cases, the deity is a principle or reality such as the idea of "soul"; the Upanishads of Hinduism, for example, characterize Atman as deva, thereby asserting that the deva and eternal supreme principle is part of every living creature, that this soul is spiritual and divine, that to realize self-knowledge is to know the supreme.
Theism is the belief in the existence of one or more deities. Polytheism is the belief in and worship of multiple deities, which are assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, with accompanying rituals. In most polytheistic religions, the different gods and goddesses are representations of forces of nature or ancestral principles, can be viewed either as autonomous or as aspects or emanations of a creator God or transcendental absolute principle, which manifests immanently in nature. Henotheism accepts the existence of more than one deity, but considers all deities as equivalent representations or aspects of the same divine principle, the highest. Monolatry is the belief that many deities exist, but that only one of these deities may be validly worshipped. Monotheism is the belief. A monotheistic deity, known as "God", is u
Evelyn De Morgan
Evelyn De Morgan, was an English painter whose works were influenced by the style of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. She was a follower of Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones, her paintings exhibit spirituality. She was born Mary Evelyn Pickering at 6 Grosvenor Street, to upper middle-class parents Percival Pickering QC, the Recorder of Pontefract, Anna Maria Wilhelmina Spencer Stanhope, the sister of the artist John Roddam Spencer Stanhope and a descendant of Coke of Norfolk, an Earl of Leicester. Evelyn was educated at home and started drawing lessons when she was 15. On the morning of her seventeenth birthday, Evelyn recorded in her diary, "Art is eternal, but life is short…" "I will make up for it now, I have not a moment to lose." She went on to persuade her parents to let her go to art school. At first they discouraged it, she was granted a scholarship at Slade. However, since the scholarship required that she draw nudes using charcoal and she did not care for this technique, she declined it.
She was a pupil of her uncle John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, a great influence on her works. Beginning in 1875, Evelyn visited him in Florence where he lived; this enabled her to study the great artists of the Renaissance. This influenced her to move away from the classical subjects favored by the Slade school and to make her own style, she first exhibited in 1877 at the Grosvenor Gallery in London and continued to show her paintings thereafter. In August 1883, Evelyn met the ceramicist William De Morgan, on 5 March 1887, they married, they spent their lives together in London. De Morgan, a pacifist, expressed her horror at the First World War and South African War in over fifteen war paintings including The Red Cross and S. O. S. Relative to artistic pursuits, money was unimportant to the De Morgans. Two years after his death in 1917, she died on 2 May 1919 in London and was buried in Brookwood Cemetery, near Woking, Surrey. In August 1875 De Morgan sold the Angel, her first exhibited painting, St Catherine of Alexandria was shown at the Dudley Gallery in 1876.
In 1877, De Morgan exhibited two works at Dudley Gallery and was invited to exhibit at the first Grosvenor Gallery exhibition. In October 1991, sixteen canvases were destroyed in a fire at Bourlet's warehouse. Tobias and the Angel Cadmus and Harmonia Ariadne at Naxos Aurora Triumphans, Russell-Cotes Museum, Bournemouth Night and Sleep Goddess of Blossoms & Flowers The Grey Sisters Phosphorus and Hesperus By the Waters of Babylon Sleep and Death, the Children of the Night Salutation or The Visitation, Love's Passing Dryad Luna The Sea Maidens Hope in a Prison of Despair The Soul's Prison House Love, the Misleader, private collection Medea, Williamson Art Gallery, Birkenhead Angel of Death, private collection The Garden of Opportunity Life and Thought Emerging from the Tomb, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool Flora Eos, Columbia Museum of Art, South Carolina The Undiscovered Country, Columbia Museum of Art, South Carolina Lux in Tenebris Boreas and Oreithyia Earthbound Angel of Death, private collection Helen of Troy Cassandra The Valley of Shadows The Storm Spirits The Poor Man who Saved the City The Love Potion The Cadence of Autumn Queen Eleanor & Fair Rosamund Death of a Butterfly Demeter Mourning for Persephone Port after Stormy Seas The Hour-Glass The Prisoner Our Lady of Peace The Worship of Mammon Death of the Dragon The Vision, private collection The Red Cross The Gilded Cage Deianera The Kingdom of Heaven Suffereth Violence Her works are held in Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.
Drawmer, Lois Jane. The impact of science and spiritualism on the works of Evelyn De Morgan 1870-1919. Buckinghamshire New University. Archived from the original on 16 June 2016. Harris, Lynda ‘Evelyn De Morgan: Symbolist and Mystic’, published on internet site Talisman Fine Art and Talisman Symbolist Studies, London-Cornwall. Marsh, Jan. Women Artists and the Pre-Raphaelite Movement. Virago. ISBN 978-0-86068-065-9. Marsh, Jan. Pre-Raphaelite women artists. Manchester City Art Galleries. P. 139. ISBN 978-0-901673-55-8. Official website "Evelyn De Morgan" at The Bridgeman Art Library Grave of Evelyn and William De Morgan Portraits of Evelyn De Morgan at the National Portrait Gallery, London 8 paintings by or after Evelyn De Morgan at the Art UK site Endless Digressions on Evelyn De Morgan by Kirsty Walker, Victorian Historian
Revised Standard Version
The Revised Standard Version is an English translation of the Bible published in 1952 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches. The RSV is a revision of the American Standard Version, was intended to be a readable and accurate modern English translation which aimed to "preserve all, best in the English Bible as it has been known and used through the centuries" and "to put the message of the Bible in simple, enduring words that are worthy to stand in the great Tyndale-King James tradition." The New Testament was first published in 1946, the Old Testament in 1952, the Apocrypha in 1957. The original Catholic edition of the RSV was published in 1966, the Apocrypha was expanded in 1977; the second Catholic edition was published in 2006. In years, the RSV served as the basis for two revisions – the New Revised Standard Version of 1989, the English Standard Version of 2001. In 1928, the International Council of Religious Education acquired the copyright to the ASV.
From 1930–32, a study of the ASV text was undertaken to decide the question of a new revision, but due to the Great Depression, it was not until 1937 that the ICRE voted in favor of revising the ASV text. A panel of 32 scholars was assembled for that task; the Council hoped to set up a corresponding translation committee in Great Britain, as had been the case with the RV and ASV, but this plan was canceled because of World War II. Funding for the revision was assured in 1936 by a deal made with the publisher Thomas Nelson & Sons that gave Thomas Nelson & Sons the exclusive rights to print the new version for ten years; the Committee determined that, since the work would be a revision of the "Standard Bible", the name of the work would be the "Revised Standard Version". The translation panel used the 17th edition of the Nestle-Aland Greek text for the New Testament and the traditional Hebrew Masoretic Text for the Old Testament. In the Book of Isaiah, they sometimes followed readings found in the newly discovered Dead Sea Scrolls.
The RSV New Testament was published on February 11, 1946. In his presentation speech to the ICRE, Luther Weigle, dean of the translation committee, explained that he wanted the RSV to supplement and not supplant the KJV and ASV. In 1950, the ICRE merged with the Federal Council of Churches to form the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA; the former ICRE became the new Council's Division of Christian Education, the NCC became the RSV's official sponsor. After a thorough examination and 80 changes to the New Testament text, the NCC authorized the RSV Bible for publication in 1951. St. Jerome's Day, September 30, 1952, was selected as the day of publication, on that day, the NCC sponsored a celebratory rally in Washington D. C. with representatives of the churches affiliated with it present. The first copy of the RSV Bible to come off the press was presented by Weigle to an appreciative President Harry S. Truman on September 26, four days before it was released to the general public.
There were three key differences between the RSV, the KJV, RV, ASV: The translators reverted to the KJV and RV's practice of translating the Tetragrammaton, or the Divine Name, YHWH. In accordance with the 1611 and 1885 versions, the RSV translated it as "LORD" or "GOD", whereas the ASV had translated it "Jehovah". A change was made in the usage of archaic English for second-person pronouns, "thou", "thee", "thy", verb forms "art, hadst, didst", etc; the KJV, RV, ASV used these terms for addressing both God and humans. The RSV used archaic English pronouns and verbs only for addressing God, a common practice for Bible translations until the mid-1970s. For the New Testament, the RSV followed the latest available version of Nestle's Greek text, whereas the RV and ASV had used the Wescott and Hort Greek text, the KJV had used the Textus receptus; the RSV New Testament was well received, but reactions to the Old Testament were varied and not without controversy. Critics claimed that the RSV translators had translated the Old Testament from a non-Christian perspective.
Some critics referred to a Jewish viewpoint, pointing to agreements with the 1917 Jewish Publication Society of America Version Tanakh and the presence on the editorial board of a Jewish scholar, Harry Orlinsky. Such critics further claimed that other views, including those of the New Testament, were not considered; the focus of the controversy was the RSV's translation of the Hebrew word עַלְמָה in Isaiah 7:14 as "young woman" rather than the traditional Christian translation of "virgin". Of the seven appearances of ʿalmāh, the Septuagint translates only two of them as parthenos, "virgin". By contrast, the word בְּתוּלָה appears some 50 times, the Septuagint and English translations agree in understanding the word to mean "virgin" in every case; the controversy stemming from this rendering helped reignite the King-James-Only Movement within the Independent Baptist and Pentecostal churches. Furthermore, many Christians have adopted what has come to be known as the "Isaiah 7:14 litmus test", which entails checking that verse to determine whether or not a new translation can be trusted.
It is notable that some scholars agree that almah has nothing to do with virginity, as knowledge of the Hebrew language and textual analysis make it possible that "almah" means "young woman", rather than "virgin". Some opponents of the RSV took their antagonism beyond condemn
Dictionnaire Infernal
The Dictionnaire Infernal is a book on demonology, describing demons organised in hierarchies. It was written by Jacques Auguste Simon Collin de Plancy and first published in 1818. There were several editions of the book. Many but not all of these images were used in S. L. MacGregor Mathers's edition of The Lesser Key of Solomon; the book was first published in 1818 and divided into two volumes, with six reprints—and many changes—between 1818 and 1863. This book attempts to provide an account of all the knowledge concerning superstitions and demonology. A review in 1822 read: Anecdotes of the nineteenth century or stories, recent anecdotes and little known words, singular adventures, various quotations and curious pieces, to be used for the history of the customs and the mind of the century in which we live, compared with centuries past; the cover page for the 1826 edition reads: Infernal Dictionary, or, a Universal Library on the beings, books and causes which pertain to the manifestations and magic of trafficking with Hell.
Influenced by Voltaire, Collin de Plancy did not believe in superstition. For example, the book reassures its contemporaries as to the torments of Hell: "To deny that there are sorrows and rewards after death is to deny the existence of God, but only God could know the place that holds them. All the catalogues made herebefore are only the fruit of a less disordered imagination. Theologians should leave to the poets the depiction of Hell, not themselves seek to frighten minds with hideous paintings and appalling books"; the skepticism of Collin de Plancy subsided over time. By the end of 1830 he was an enthusiastic Roman Catholic, to the consternation of his former admirers. In years, De Plancy rejected and modified his past works revising his Dictionnaire Infernal to conform with Roman Catholic theology; this influence is most seen in the sixth and final 1863 edition of the book, decorated with many engravings and seeks to affirm the existence of the demons. De Plancy collaborated with Jacques Paul Migne, a French priest, to complete a Dictionary of the occult sciences or theological Encyclopaedia, described as an authentic Roman Catholic work.
Many articles written in the Dictionnaire Infernal illustrate the author's vacillation between rationalism and willingness to believe without evidence. For example, he admits the possible effectiveness of chiromancy, while rejecting cartomancy: "It is certain that chiromancy, physiognomy, have at least some plausibility: they draw their predictions from signs which relate to features which distinguish and characterize people, but the cards human artifacts, not knowing either the future, nor the present, nor the past, have nothing of the individuality of the person consulting them. For a thousand different people they will have the same result; the Dictionaire Infernal had multiple releases over the years with varying contents: "Dictionnaire Infernal" 1818 "Dictionnaire Infernal" 1825 "Dictionnaire Infernal" 1826 "Dictionnaire Infernal" 1844 "Dictionnaire Infernal" 1845 "Dictionnaire Infernal" 1853 "Dictionnaire Infernal" 1863 Classification of demons Dictionnaire infernal, ou, Recherches et anecdotes, sur les démons, les, 1818 at Google Books, PDF download available Dictionnaire infernal, ou Recherches et anecdotes sur les démons, 1844 at Google Books, PDF download available Dictionnaire des sciences occultes: ou, Répertoire universel des êtres, des, 1848 at Google Books, PDF download available Dictionnaire infernal: ou Répertoire universel des êtres, des personnages, 1853 582 pages – at Google Books PDF download available Dictionnaire infernal: ou Répertoire universel des êtres, des personnages, 1863 PDF download available.
Deliriums Realm – Dictionnaire Infernal Boards of the edition of 1826 on the site of the electronic library of Lisieux
Piers Plowman
Piers Plowman or Visio Willelmi de Petro Ploughman is a Middle English allegorical narrative poem by William Langland. It is written in alliterative verse divided into sections called passus. Like the Pearl Poet's Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Piers Plowman is considered by many critics to be one of the greatest works of English literature of the Middle Ages preceding and influencing Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Piers Plowman contains the first known reference to a literary tradition of Robin Hood tales; the poem, a mix of theological allegory and social satire, concerns the narrator/dreamer's quest for the true Christian life in the context of medieval Catholicism. This journey takes place within a series of dream-visions; the poem is divided into the divisions between which vary by version. The following summary is based on the B-version of the poem—the most edited and translated. Prologue: The poem begins in the Malvern Hills between Worcestershire and Herefordshire. A man named Will falls asleep and has a vision of a tower set upon a hill and a fortress in a deep valley.
A satirical account of different sections of society follows, along with a dream-like fable representing the King as a cat and his people as rodents. Passus 1: Holy Church visits Will and explains the tower of Truth, discusses Truth more generally. Passus 2: Will sees Lady Mede and finds out about her planned marriage to False. Passus 3: Lady Mede travels to the royal court. Passus 4: Conscience and Reason convince the King not to marry Mede to False. Will wakes up. Passus 5: Will falls back to sleep. Reason gives a sermon to the Field of Folk and the people decide to repent; the Seven Deadly Sins make in penance attempt to go on pilgrimage to St Truth. They get lost, Piers Plowman makes his first appearance: he will help the penitents if they help him plough his half-acre. Passus 6: Piers and the penitents plough the half-acre; some people refuse to work, Hunger punishes them until they work. But once Hunger has been sated, the people return to idleness. Passus 7: Eventually, Truth sends Piers a pardon for the penitents' sins.
When challenged on the pardon's validity by a priest, Piers angrily tears it in two. Will is awakened by their arguing and, musing on his dreams, decides to seek ‘Do-wel’; the A-version of Piers Plowman stops at this point. Passus 8: Will's search for Dowel begins, he enters into a disputation with Friars. He falls asleep once more and meets Thought. Thought instructs Will in'Do well, do better, do best'. Practical interpretation of what these concepts mean is to be provided by Wit. Passus 9: There is an extended allegory featuring Dowel and the Castle of Flesh, exposing the need for people to be governed by their ‘Inwit’; the text discusses marriage. Wit makes further inroads as active virtue. Passus 10: Will meets Wit’s wife, Dame Study, she complains to Will about his ignorance. Will proceeds to Clergy and Scripture to learn more about Dowel, he considers. Passus 11: Scripture complains about Will's lack of self-knowledge. Angered, Will has a dream-within-a-dream in which he meets Fortune, he serves her into old age.
Will learns about power of love. Kynde shows Will the world. Will has an argument with Reason: Reason, Will concludes, does not do enough to keep people from sin. Will awakes from the dream-within-a-dream, he now meets Imaginatif. Passus 12: Imaginatif teaches Will, bringing together and improving his understanding of earlier discussions in the poem. Imaginatif emphasises the importance of Grace. Passus 13: Will awakens and falls back to sleep. Piers the Plowman Do Better and Do Best. Conscience and Patience meet Haukyn the Active Man, who wears a coat of Christian faith which is, soiled with the Seven Deadly Sins. Passus 14: Conscience teaches Haukyn to seek forgiveness and do penance. Haukyn cries out for God's mercy. Passus 15: Will finds himself alienated from the waking world, but Reason helps him to go back to sleep, whereupon Will meets Anima. Anima tells Will off for his pride in wanting to know too much, but goes on to talk about charity, in particular how the Church should care for its flock, but how its priests and monks do not always fulfil this duty.
Talking to Anima, Will starts to conclude. Will realises that he needs to switch from searching for Dowel to searching for Char
