The Christian Hebraism of John Donne: Written with the Fingers of Man's Hand

TWO. The Penitential Psalm 6: Notes and Margins

49 TWO The Penitential Psalm 6 Notes and Margins Dr. Duns notes the 16th of October 1625 on the 6th psa v 5. or 6. Returne o Lord, deliver my soule... By returneing is not meant a returne of providence for soe god is never from us, but in some particular grace punctually thus returneing may be eyther in remooveing judgmentes, in vouchsafeing mercyes, or in turning us to him self. —John Burley, “Manuscript Notes,” Dublin, Trinity College MS 419, f. 72v1 Sermon and Context Paul Stanwood’s discovery of John Burley’s manuscript notes on Donne’s sermons, recorded in a “miscellaneous academic notebook” (“John Donne’s Sermon Notes” 76), bestows a palpable presence on one member of this preacher’s “learneder, and more capable auditories, and congregations” (Sermons 5:42–43). 50 The Christian Hebraism of John Donne The 23-year-old Burley, at this time matriculated at Oriel College, Oxford, and attached to Chelsea College, records lines from Donne’s sermon preached on the Penitential Psalm 6:4–5.2 Burley inscribed these notes in October of 1625,3 the period during which Donne was sequestered in Chelsea, in retreat from the plague epidemic that was ravaging London (Sermons 6:31–35).4 The continuing presence of these sermons is thereby confirmed for the contemporary reader by what Ceri Sullivan discusses as a sermon’s “written afterlife in notes for friends, colleagues, patrons, and printers” (42). As Sullivan has shown, Burley supplies one example of what she describes as “the art of listening in the seventeenth century.” Trained most probably like others of his time, Burley attentively listens and records, bringing the twenty-first century reader of Donne’s sermons (in Stanwood’s words) “nearer than we have ever been to Donne’s actual preaching , to his first thoughts as contrasted with the eloquent contrivances of his later study” (“John Donne’s Sermon Notes” 78). Theparticular“afterlife”ofthesermononthePenitentialPsalm 6:4–5 recorded by Burley confirms the attention that Donne pays to the biblical text, in this instance, the way in which he unfolds the meaning of the Hebrew word ‫ה‬ ָ ‫שׁוּב‬ shuvah, “Returne.” This is one of a string of verbs in the psalmic text that are directed by the speaker to God; as he does with shuvah, Donne takes great care to explain each of these verbs in its original Hebrew, pausing in the midst of an impassioned discussion of penitence to base his argument on a correct reading of the biblical text (table 11).5 Thus Donne explains (in the first of the two printed sermons on verses 6:4–5) that “Shubah, To Returne, is Redire ad locum suum, To returne to that place, to which a thing is naturally affected” (Sermons 5:368), thereby reflecting the grammatical form of the Hebrew word in which the locative letter ‫ה‬ heh is added to the root shuv.6 Donne subsequently draws from this point of grammar a religious and ecclesiastical meaning when he writes that “in the Church, in the Sermon, in the Sacrament he [God] returnes to us, in the first signification of this word Shubah, as to that place to which he is naturally affected and disposed” (Sermons 5:368). The Penitential Psalm 6 51 Table 11. Verbs Biblical Passage Sermon 6:1: O Lord, rebuke me not in Thine anger, neither chasten me in thy displeasure This word that is here Rebuke, Iacach [‫י‬ ִ‫נ‬ ֵ ‫יח‬ ִ ‫תוֹכ‬ tohiheini], is for the most part, to Reprove, to Convince by way of argument, and disputation (Sermons 5:332). Both these words, which we translate to Chasten [“Iasar”; ‫י‬ ִ‫נ‬ ֵ ‫ר‬ ְ ‫סּ‬ַ‫י‬ ְ ‫תּ‬ teyasreini], and Hot displeasure [“Camath”; ‫ָך‬ ְ ‫ת‬ ָ ‫מ‬ ֲ ‫ח‬ ַ ‫בּ‬ ba-hamatkha], are words of a heavie, and of a vehement signification (Sermons 5:335). 6:2: Have mercy upon me For this word Chanan [‫י‬ ִ‫נ‬ ֵ‫נּ‬ ָ ‫ח‬ haneini]...[is] Lord shed some drops of grace upon me (Sermons 5:340). 6:4: Returne, O Lord, deliver my soule: oh save mee And so, Shubah [‫ה‬ ָ ‫שׁוּב‬ shuvah], To Returne, is Redire ad locum suum, To returne to that place, to which a thing is naturally affected (Sermons 5:368). This word is in the Original, Chalatz [‫ה‬ ָ ‫צ‬ ְ ‫לּ‬ ַ ‫ח‬ haltzah]; which signifies Eripere [snatch away, pluck out] in such a sense, as our language does not fully reach in any one word. So there is some defectiveness, some slacknesse in this word of our Translation, Delivering (Sermons 5:375). Iashang7 [‫י‬ ִ‫נ‬ ֵ ‫יﬠ‬ ִ ‫הוֹשׁ‬ hoshiʿeini, “save me”] is the very word...