How The Canterbury Tales drew on 1 Timothy
A documented line of influence: Geoffrey Chaucer demonstrably engaged Paul’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
1 Timothy
Paul · c. 63
BibleThe influenced
The Canterbury Tales
Geoffrey Chaucer · c. 1400
MedievalRelevance
9/10
On The Canterbury Tales’s page
- The Pardoner's entire sermon-theme — Radix malorum est cupiditas, cited 'Ad Thimotheum, 6°' — is lifted straight from 1 Timothy 6:10
- Knowing Paul's line ('the love of money is the root of all evil') makes the irony land: the Pardoner preaches it relentlessly while being the greediest man on the pilgrimage
- Chaucer is quoting Scripture to indict its own quoter — the source text is the hook on which the whole hypocrisy hangs
On 1 Timothy’s page
- One line from 1 Timothy — 6:10, 'the love of money is the root of all evil' — becomes the running theme of Chaucer's most damning character
- The Pardoner preaches it as his Latin tag, Radix malorum est cupiditas, citing it again and again through his Prologue and Tale
- The bite is that he preaches Paul's warning against greed while embodying that greed completely — Scripture turned into a con man's sales pitch