The Trinitarian Unity of The Temple: Herbert's Augustinian Aesthetic

The Trinitarian Unity of The Temple: Herbert's Augustinian Aesthetic by Louis Martin According to seventeenth-century European cosmology, because creation was based on "measure, weight, and number," certain numbers could appeal to the soul's higher reason, revealing God's order and turning the soul from sin. According to this world view mathematical principles, theological principles, and aesthetic principles were interdependent . Hoping that numerical harmonies would bring conversion , some seventeenth-century religious poets attempted to echo divine mathematics.1 Of such writers George Herbert has been the most enigmatic. Although critics have unsuccessfully sifted his verses forconvincing patterns of numerical symbolism, it seems unlikely that George Herbert, who delighted in the anagram and the hidden meaning, would have overlooked the potential inherent in numerological symbolism. Not surprisingly, Herbert's revisions of The Temple show him creating three-part structures and Trinitarian themes that suggest perceptible analogues of the Triune God. These structures and themes link both individual poems and entire sections, reinforcing the work's unity, and affirming its sense of stability. The relationships established by these links lead the reader to compare and to reinterpret poems, an effect previously observed with thematic and scriptural links, but not with numerological ones. The key to these overlooked patterns of structure and analogy lies in the works of St. Augustine, whose fascination with the relation of number and divine order was surely well known to Herbert.2 The importance of number to Augustine's theology and to his aesthetics is clear. In On the Freedom of the Will he observes that, "Artists . . . have in their art numbers to which they adapt their work . . . conforming to the inward light of number." He continues, explaining that because "number lives" in art one can, by understanding number, "pass beyond 64Louis Martin the soul of the artist, to see everlasting number."3 In this process the intellect ascends the neo-platonic ladder to contemplate God, for "when we begin . . . to mount upward we find that numbers pass beyond our minds and abide unchangeably in truth itself."4 Along with Augustine's many numerological explications of scripture, these and similar passages suggest a key to Herbert's number symbolism. The opening of The Templo confirms this suggestion. As Louis Martz points out, Herbert expanded "The Church-porch" to seventy-seven stanzas to achieve a numerological significance .5 This significance relates to the sub-title "Perrirhanterium ," which refers to purification by water, and to the way the poem casts the reader as a catechumen awaiting baptism.6 According to Augustine, because seventy-seven signifies "the abolition of all sins ... in baptism," Luke specifies exactly seventy-seven generations which precede Christ's baptism.7 Analogous to those seventy-seven generations, the stanzas of "The Church-porch" make ready the way of a Lord who confronts the reader directly in "The Church." This introduction to The Templo both indicates that Herbert made revisions to achieve numerological significances and prepares for patterns of number symbolism in the work. At the center of Herbert's numerological design stands the poem "Trinitie Sunday," which has already received considerable treatment as a numerological poem.6 The poem's triple rhymes, triadic syntactic patterns, metaphorical analogies of the Trinity, and tri-partite stanza structures provide a paradigm of the many kinds of Trinitarian structures found in other poems in The Temple and recall John Donne's suggestion that "it is a lovely and a religious thing to find out Vestigia Trinitatio, Impressions of the Trinity, in as many things as we can."· In the same paragraph Donne mentions Augustine, who finds manifestations of the Trinity in man's soul, in Christ's Incarnation and baptism, and in the tripartite division of philosophy.10 Augustine even maintains that symbolism of the Trinity operates in three-word formulae such as number, weight and measure; heart, soul, and mind; memory, understanding, and will.11 The Trinitarian structures in "Trinitie Sunday" exhibit intricate patterns of number, meaning, and form and so suggest this kind Augustinian symbolism. Within these patterns verbal meanings combine with those generated by numero- HERBERT AND AUGUSTINE65 logical structures to enrich the poem's symbolism. The final stanza of "Trinitie Sunday" clearly shows how Trinitarian...