The Chaucer Review: An Indexed Bibliography (Vols. 1-30)

Smith, Charles R. "Chaucer's Reeve and St. Paul's Old Man." 30 (1995): 101-06.
Scholars have suggested that the "four gleedes" are a borrowing from St. Fursey's vision in Bede's Historia, but actually they reveal the nature of the Reeve and his characters as defined by Paul in Ephesians 4. The Reeve and his characters demonstrate that they are not free of the old man spiritually and that they still partake of the four specific sins Paul lists as evidence of bondage.