Cornelius a Lapide

James Joyce on Lapide

A louse crawled over the nape of his neck and, putting his thumb and forefinger deftly beneath his loose collar, he caught it. He rolled its body, tender yet brittle as a grain of rice, between thumb and finger for an instant before he let it fall from him and wondered would it live or die.

There came to his mind a curious phrase from Cornelius a Lapide which said that the lice born of human sweat were not created by God with the other animals on the sixth day.

But the tickling of the skin of his neck made his mind raw and red. The life of his body, ill clad, ill fed, louse eaten, made him close his eyelids in a sudden spasm of despair: and in the darkness he saw the brittle bright bodies of lice falling from the air and turning often as they fell. Yes ; and it was not darkness that fell from the air. It was brightness. Brightness falls from the air. Link (here)

Cornelius A Lapide or Corneille de le Pierre

Was born in the diocese of Liege. He entered among the Jesuits, and became an eminent professor, first at Louvain and next at Rome, where he died in 1657, aged 71.

More on Cornelius a Lapide (here) and (here)

1 Corinthians Commentary by Father Cornelius a Lapide, S.J.

2 Corinthians & Galatians by Father Cornelius a Lapide, S.J.