/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.1994838]

So. I've been reading Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce lately. The book is absolutely filled with allusions so Christianity (and Catholicism in particular), and the edition I'm reading is annotated to flesh out those references, but one footnote has me a bit puzzled:

The actual line in the book reads like this:

A quartet of them, soldiers of the ninetyseventh infantry regiment, sat at the foot of the cross and tossed up dice for the overcoat of the crucified.

And the footnote reads:

Ghezzi's (the character being spoken about) countrymen, the Italians, 'invented' Christianity in the symbolic dividing of Christ's garments at the foot of the Cross by Roman legionaries.

Could someone please explain how dividing up Christ's garments = symbolically inventing Christianity?

[Anonymous No.1994854]

Does it mean they invented that part? I can't recall it being in the bible

[Anonymous No.1994864]

>>1994854

John 19: 23-24

23Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout.

24They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be: that the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+19&version=KJV

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.1994868]

Is there a heavily footnoted Finnegan's Wake?

[Anonymous No.1994870]

>>1994868

Hahaha, you'd need a whole other book for the footnotes.

[Anonymous No.1996062]

Bump.