Dante's Paradiso: Canto XXIX
Beatrice’s Discourse of the Creation of the Angels, and of the Fall of Lucifer. Her Reproof of Foolish and Avaricious Preachers.
At what time both the children of Latona,
Surmounted by the Ram and by the Scales,
Together make a zone of the horizon,
As long as from the time the zenith holds them
In equipoise, till from that girdle both 5
Changing their hemisphere disturb the balance,
So long, her face depicted with a smile,
Did Beatrice keep silence while she gazed
Fixedly at the point which had o'ercome me.
Then she began: "I say, and I ask not 10
What thou dost wish to hear, for I have seen it
Where centres every When and every 'Ubi.'
Not to acquire some good unto himself,
Which is impossible, but that his splendour
In its resplendency may say, 'Subsisto,' 15
In his eternity outside of time,
Outside all other limits, as it pleased him,
Into new Loves the Eternal Love unfolded.
Nor as if torpid did he lie before;
For neither after nor before proceeded 20
The going forth of God upon these waters.
Matter and Form unmingled and conjoined
Came into being that had no defect,
E'en as three arrows from a three-stringed bow.
And as in glass, in amber, or in crystal 25
A sunbeam flashes so, that from its coming
To its full being is no interval,
So from its Lord did the triform effect
Ray forth into its being all together,
Without discrimination of beginning. 30
Order was con-created and constructed
In substances, and summit of the world
Were those wherein the pure act was produced.
Pure potentiality held the lowest part;
Midway bound potentiality with act 35
Such bond that it shall never be unbound.
Jerome has written unto you of angels
Created a long lapse of centuries
Or ever yet the other world was made;
But written is this truth in many places 40
By writers of the Holy Ghost, and thou
Shalt see it, if thou lookest well thereat.
And even reason seeth it somewhat,
For it would not concede that for so long
Could be the motors without their perfection. 45
Now dost thou know both where and when these Loves
Created were, and how; so that extinct
In thy desire already are three fires.
Nor could one reach, in counting, unto twenty
So swiftly, as a portion of these angels 50
Disturbed the subject of your elements.
The rest remained, and they began this art
Which thou discernest, with so great delight
That never from their circling do they cease.
The occasion of the fall was the accursed 55
Presumption of that One, whom thou hast seen
By all the burden of the world constrained.
Those whom thou here beholdest modest were
To recognise themselves as of that goodness
Which made them apt for so much understanding; 60
On which account their vision was exalted
By the enlightening grace and their own merit,
So that they have a full and steadfast will.
I would not have thee doubt, but certain be,
'Tis meritorious to receive this grace, 65
According as the affection opens to it.
Now round about in this consistory
Much mayst thou contemplate, if these my words
Be gathered up, without all further aid.
But since upon the earth, throughout your schools, 70
They teach that such is the angelic nature
That it doth hear, and recollect, and will,
More will I say, that thou mayst see unmixed
The truth that is confounded there below,
Equivocating in such like prelections. 75
These substances, since in God's countenance
They jocund were, turned not away their sight
From that wherefrom not anything is hidden;
Hence they have not their vision intercepted
By object new, and hence they do not need 80
To recollect, through interrupted thought.
So that below, not sleeping, people dream,
Believing they speak truth, and not believing;
And in the last is greater sin and shame.
Below you do not journey by one path 85
Philosophising; so transporteth you
Love of appearance and the thought thereof.
And even this above here is endured
With less disdain, than when is set aside
The Holy Writ, or when it is distorted. 90
They think not there how much of blood it costs
To sow it in the world, and how he pleases
Who in humility keeps close to it.
Each striveth for appearance, and doth make
His own inventions; and these treated are 95
By preachers, and the Evangel holds its peace.
One sayeth that the moon did backward turn,
In the Passion of Christ, and interpose herself
So that the sunlight reached not down below;
And lies; for of its own accord the light 100
Hid itself; whence to Spaniards and to Indians,
As to the Jews, did such eclipse respond.
Florence has not so many Lapi and Bindi
As fables such as these, that every year
Are shouted from the pulpit back and forth, 105
In such wise that the lambs, who do not know,
Come back from pasture fed upon the wind,
And not to see the harm doth not excuse them.
Christ did not to his first disciples say,
'Go forth, and to the world preach idle tales,' 110
But unto them a true foundation gave;
And this so loudly sounded from their lips,
That, in the warfare to enkindle Faith,
They made of the Evangel shields and lances.
Now men go forth with jests and drolleries 115
To preach, and if but well the people laugh,
The hood puffs out, and nothing more is asked.
But in the cowl there nestles such a bird,
That, if the common people were to see it,
They would perceive what pardons they confide in, 120
For which so great on earth has grown the folly,
That, without proof of any testimony,
To each indulgence they would flock together.
By this Saint Anthony his pig doth fatten,
And many others, who are worse than pigs, 125
Paying in money without mark of coinage.
But since we have digressed abundantly,
Turn back thine eyes forthwith to the right path,
So that the way be shortened with the time.
This nature doth so multiply itself 130
In numbers, that there never yet was speech
Nor mortal fancy that can go so far.
And if thou notest that which is revealed
By Daniel, thou wilt see that in his thousands
Number determinate is kept concealed. 135
The primal light, that all irradiates it,
By modes as many is received therein,
As are the splendours wherewith it is mated.
Hence, inasmuch as on the act conceptive
The affection followeth, of love the sweetness 140
Therein diversely fervid is or tepid.
The height behold now and the amplitude
Of the eternal power, since it hath made
Itself so many mirrors, where 'tis broken,
One in itself remaining as before." 145
NOTES
1 - 1
The Primum Mobile, or Crystalline Heaven, continued.
The children of Latona are Apollo and Diana, the Sun and Moon.
2 - 2
When the Sun is in Aries and the Moon in Libra, and when the Sun is setting and the full Moon rising, so that they are both on the horizon at the same time.
3 - 3
So long as they remained thus equipoised, as if in the opposite scales of an invisible balance suspended from the zenith.
9 - 9
God, whom Dante could not look upon, even as reflected in the eyes of Beatrice.
11 - 11
What Dante wishes to know is, where, when, and how the Angels were created.
12 - 12
Every When and every Where.
14 - 14
Dante, Convito, III, 14, defines splendor as “reflected light.” Here it means the creation; the reflected light of God.
Job, xxxviii, 7: “When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” And again, 35: “Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are?”
16 - 16
Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., I Quaest., LXI, 3: “The angelic nature was made before the creation of time, and after eternity.”
18 - 18
In the creation of the Angels. Some editions read nove Amori, the nine Loves, or nine choirs of Angels.
21 - 21
Genesis, i, 2: “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”
22 - 22
Pure Matter, or the elements; pure Form, or the Angels; and the two conjoined, the human race.
Form, in the language of the Schools, and as defined by Thomas Aquinas, is the principle “by which we first think, whether it be called intellect, or intellectual soul.” See Canto IV, Note 54.
23 - 23
Genesis, i, 31: “And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.”
33 - 33
The Angels. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., I Quaest. L, 2, says: “Form is act. Therefore whatever is form alone, is pure act.” For his definition of form, see Note 22.
34 - 34
Pure matter, which is passive and only possesses potentiality, or power of assuming various forms when united with mind.“ It is called potentiality”, comments Buti, “because it can receive many forms; and the forms are called act, because they change, and act by changing matter into various forms.”
35 - 35
The union of the soul and body in man, who occupies the intermediate place between Angels and pure matter.
36 - 36
This bond, though suspended by death, will be resumed again at the resurrection, and remain forever.
37 - 37
St. Jerome, the greatest of the Latin Fathers of the Church, and author of the translation of the Scriptures known as the Vulgate, was born of wealthy parents in Dalmatia, in 342. He studied at Rome under the grammarian Donatus, and became a lawyer in that city. At the age of thirty he visited the Holy Land, and, withdrawing from the world, became an anchorite in the desert of Chalcida, on the borders of Arabia. Here he underwent the bodily privations and temptations, and enjoyed the spiritual triumphs, of the hermit's life. He was “haunted by demons, and consoled by voices and visions from heaven.” In one of his letters, cited by Butler, Lives of the Saints, IX, 362, he writes: “In the remotest part of a wild and sharp desert, which, being burnt up with the heats of the scorching sun, strikes with horror and terror even the monks that inhabit it, I seemed to myself to be in the midst of the delights and assemblies of Rome. I loved solitude, that in the bitterness of my soul I might more freely bewail my miseries, and call upon my Saviour. My hideous emaciated limbs were covered with sack-cloth: my skin was parched dry and black, and my flesh was almost wasted away. The days I passed in tears and groans, and when sleep overpowered me against my will, I cast my wearied bones, which hardly hung together, upon the bare ground, not so properly to give them rest, as to torture myself. I say nothing of my eating and drinking; for the monks in that desert, when they are sick, know no other drink but cold water, and look upon it as sensuality ever to eat anything dressed by fire. In this exile and prison, to which, for the fear of hell, I had voluntarily condemned myself, having no other company but scorpions and wild beasts, I many times found my imagination filled with lively representations of dances in the company of Roman ladies, as if I had been in the midst of them... I often joined whole nights to the days, crying, sighing, and beating my breast till the desired calm returned. I feared the very cell in which I lived, because it was witness to the foul suggestions of my enemy; and being angry and armed with severity against myself, I went alone into the most secret parts of the wilderness, and if I discovered anywhere a deep valley, or craggy rock, that was the place of my prayer, there I threw this miserable sack of my body. The same Lord is my witness, that after so many sobs and tears, after having in much sorrow looked long up to heaven, I felt most delightful comforts and interior sweetness; and these so great, that, transported and absorpt, I seemed to myself to be amidst the choirs of angels; and glad and joyful I sung to God: After Thee, O Lord, we will run in the fragrancy of thy celestial ointments.”
In another letter, cited by Montalembert, Monks of the West, Auth. Tr., I, 404, he exclaims: “O desert, enamelled with the flowers of Christ! O solitude, where those stones are born of which, in the Apocalypse, is built the city of the Great King! O retreat, which rejoicest in the friendship of God! What doest thou in the world, my brother, with thy soul greater than the world? How long wilt thou remain in the shadow of roofs, and in the smoky dungeons of cities? Believe me, I see here more of the light.”
At the end of five years he was driven from his solitude by the persecution of the Eastern monks; and lived successively in Jerusalem, Antioch, Constantinople, Rome, and Alexandria. Finally, in 385, he returned to the Holy Land, and built a monastery at Bethlehem. Here he wrote his translation of the Scriptures, and his Lives of the Fathers of the Desert; but in 416 this monastery, and others that had risen up in its neighborhood, were burned by the Pelagians, and St. Jerome took refuge in a strong tower of fortified castle. Four years afterwards he died, and was buried in the ruins of his monastery.
40 - 40
This truth of the simultaneous creation of mind and matter, as stated in line 29.
41 - 41
The opinion of St. Jerome and other Fathers of the Church, that the Angels were created long ages before the rest of the universe, is refuted by Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., I Quaest., LXI, 3.
45 - 45
That the Intelligences or Motors of the heavens should be so long without any heavens to move.
51 - 51
The subject of the elements is the earth, so called as being the lowest, or underlying the others, fire, air, and water.
56 - 56
The pride of Lucifer, who lies at the centre of the earth, towards which all things gravitate, and
“Down upon which thrust all the other rocks.”
Milton, Par. Lost, V, 856, makes the rebel angels deny that they were created by God: –
“Who saw
When this creation was? Rememberest thou
Thy making, while the Maker gave thee being?
We know no time when we were not as now;
Know none before us; self-begot, self-raised
By our own quickening power, when fatal course
Had circled his full orb, the birth mature
Of this our native heaven, ethereal sons.”
65 - 65
The merit consists in being willing to receive this grace.
95 - 95
St. Chrysostom, who in his preaching so carried away his audiences that they beat the pavement with their swords and called him the “Thirteenth Apostle”, in one of his Homilies thus upbraids the custom of applauding the preacher: “What do your praises advantage me, when I see not your progress in virtue? Or what harm shall I receive from the silence of my auditors, when I behold the increase of their piety? The praise of the speaker is not the acclamation of his hearers, but their zeal for piety and religion; not their making a great stir in the times of hearing, but their showing diligence at all other times. Applause, as soon as it is out of the mouth, is dispersed into the air, and vanishes; but when the hearers grow better, this brings an incorruptible and immortal reward both to the speaker and the hearer. The praise of your acclamation may render the orator more illustrious here, but the piety of your souls will give him greater confidence before the tribunal of Christ. Therefore, if any on love the preacher, or if any preacher love his people, let him not be enamored with applause, but with the benefit of the hearers.”
103 - 103
Lapo is the abbreviation of Jacopo, and Bindi of Aldobrandi, both familiar names in Florence.
107 - 107
Milton, Lycidas, 113: –
“How well could I have spared for thee, young swain,
Enow of such as for their bellies' sake
Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold!
Of other care they little reckoning make,
Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast,
And shove away the worthy bidden guest!
Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold
A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else the least
That to the faithful herdman's art belongs!
What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;
And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw:
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed;
But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread:
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said:
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.”
115 - 115
Cowper, Task, II: –
“He that negotiates between God and man,
As God's ambassador, the grand concerns
Of judgment and of mercy, should beware
Of lightness in his speech. 'T is pitiful
To court a grin, when you should woo a soul;
To break a jest, when pity would inspire
Pathetic exhortation; and t'address
The skittish fancy with facetious tales,
When sent with God's commission to the heart!”
For a specimen of the style of popular preachers in the Middle Ages, see the story of Frate Cipolla, in the Decamerone, Gior. VI, Nov. 10. See also Scheible's Kloster, and Menin's Prédicatoriana.
118 - 118
The Devil, who is often represented in early Christian art under the shape of coal-black bird. See Didron, Christ. Iconog., I.
124 - 124
In early paintings the swine is the symbol of St. Anthony, as the cherub is of St. Matthew, the lion of St. Mark, and the eagle of St. John. There is an old tradition that St. Anthony was once a swineherd. Brand, Pop. Antiquities, I, 358, says: –
“In the World of Wonders is the following translation of an epigram: –
'Once fed'st thou, Anthony, an heard of swine,
And now an heard of monkes thou feedest still:
For wit and gut, alike both charges bin:
Both loven filth alike; both like to fill
Their greedy paunch alike. Nor was the kind
More beastly, sottish, swinish than this last.
All else agrees: one fault I onely find,
Thou feedest not thy monkes with oken
mast'.
”The author mentions before, persons 'who runne up and downe the country, crying, Have you anything to bestow upon my lord S. Anthonie's swine'?“
Mrs. Jameson, Sacred and Legendary art, II, 380, remarks: ”I have read somewhere that the hog is given to St. Anthony, because he had been a swineherd, and cured the diseases of swine. This is quite a mistake. The hog was the representative of the demon of sensulity and gluttony, which Anthony is supposed to have vanquished by the exercises of piety and by divine aid. The ancient custom of placing in all his effigies a black pig at his feet, or under his feet, gave rise to the superstition that this unclean animal was especially dedicated to him, and under his protection. The monks of the Order of St. Anthony kept herds of consecrated pigs, which were allowed to feed at the public charge, and which it was a profanation to steal or kill: hence the proverb about the fatness of a 'Tantony pig'.“
Halliwell, Dict. of Arch. and Prov. Words, has the following definition: ”Anthony – Pig. The favorite or smallest pig of the litter. A Kentish expression, according to Grose. 'To follow like a tantony pig', i.e. to follow close at one's heels. Some derive this saying from a privilege enjoyed by the friars of certain convents in England and France, sons of St. Anthony, whose swine were permitted to feed in the streets. These swine would follow any one having greens or other provisions, till they obtained some of them; and it was in those days considered an act of charity and religion to feed them. St. Anthony was invoked for the pig.“
Mr. Howells, Venetian Life, p. 341, alludes to the same custom as once prevalent in Italy: ”Among other priveleges of the Church, abolished in Venice long ago, was the ancient right of the monks of St. Anthony Abbot, by which their herds of swine were made free of the whole city. These animals, enveloped in an odor of sanctity, wandered here and there, and were piously fed by devout people, until the year 1409, when, being found dangerous to children, and incovenient to everybody, they were made the subject of a special decree, which deprived them of their freedom of movement. The Republic was always opposing and limiting the privileges of the Church!“
126 - 126
Giving false indulgences, without the true stamp upon them, in return for the alms received.
130 - 130
The nature of the Angels.
134 - 134
Daniel, vii, 10: ”Thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.“
136 - 136
That irradiates this angelic nature.
138 - 138
The splendors are the reflected lights, or the Angels.
140 - 140
The fervor of the Angels is proportioned to their capacity of receiving the divine light.