Dante Part 7

So again in the second heaven, the Heaven of Mercury, the soul of Justinian tells the poet how that sphere is a.s.signed to them whose lofty aims on earth were in some measure fed by love of fame and glory rather than inspired by the true love of G.o.d. Hence they are in this lower sphere. Yet part of their very joy consists in measuring the exact accord between the merits and the blessedness of the beatified.

'As diverse voices make sweet melody,' he continues, 'so do the diverse ranks of our life render sweet harmony amidst these spheres.'[86]

Indeed, one of the marvels of this marvellous poem is the extreme variety of character and even of incident which we find in Heaven as well as in h.e.l.l and Purgatory. In each of the three poems there is one key-note to which we are ever brought back, but in each there is infinite variety and delicacy of individual delineation too. The saints are no more uniform and characterless in their blessedness than are the unrepentant sinners in their tortures or the repentant in their contented pain.

Nor must we suppose that the Paradise is an unbroken succession of descriptions of heavenly bliss. Here too, as in h.e.l.l and Purgatory, the things of earth are from time to time discussed by Dante and the spirits that he meets. Here too the glow of a lofty indignation flushes the very spheres of Heaven. Thus Peter cries against Pope Boniface VIII: 'He who usurps upon the earth my place, _my place_, MY PLACE, which in the presence of the Son of G.o.d is vacant now, has made the city of my sepulture a sink of blood and filth, at which the rebel Satan, who erst fell from Heaven, rejoices down in h.e.l.l.' And at this the whole Heaven glows with red, and Beatrice's cheek flushes as at a tale of shame.[87]

Dante is still the same. The sluggish self-indulgence of the monks, the reckless and selfish ambition of the factious n.o.bles and rulers, the venal infamy of the Court of Rome, cannot be banished from his mind even by the beatific visions of Heaven. Nay, the very contrast gives a depth of indignant sadness to the denunciations of the Paradise which makes them almost more terrible than those of h.e.l.l itself.

Interwoven too with the descriptions of the bliss of Heaven, is the discussion of so wide a range of moral and theological topics that the Paradise has been described as having 'summed up, as it were, and embodied for perpetuity ... the quintessence, the living substance, the ultimate conclusions of the scholastic theology;'[88] and it may well be true that to master the last cantica of the 'Divine Comedy' is to pierce more deeply into the heart of mediaeval religion and theology than any of the schoolmen and doctors of the Church can take us. At the touch of Dante's staff, the flintiest rock of metaphysical dogma yields the water of life, and in his mouth the subtlest discussion of casuistry becomes a lamp to our feet.

And beyond all this, such is the marvellous concentration of Dante's poetry, there is room in the Paradise for long digressions, biographical, antiquarian, and personal; whilst all these parts, apparently so heterogeneous, are welded into perfect symmetry in this one poem.

Amongst the most important of the episodes is the account of ancient Florence given to Dante by his ancestor Cacciaguida, who also predicts the poet's exile and wanderings, and in a strain of lofty enthusiasm urges him to pour out all the heart of his vision and brave the hatred and the persecution that it will surely bring upon him.

This Cacciaguida was a Crusader who fell in the Holy Land, and Dante meets him in the burning planet of Mars, amongst the mighty warriors of the Lord whose souls blaze there in a ruddy glow of glory. There is Joshua, there Judas Maccabaeus, and Charlemagne and Orlando and G.o.dfrey and many more.

A red cross glows athwart the planet's...o...b.. and from it beams in mystic guise the Christ; but how, the poet cannot say, for words and images are wanting to portray it. Yet he who takes his cross and follows Christ, will one day forgive the tongue that failed to tell what he shall see when to him also Christ shall flash through that glowing dawn of light.

Here the souls, like rubies that glow redder from the red-glowing cross as stars s.h.i.+ne forth out of the Milky Way, pa.s.s and repa.s.s from horn to horn, from base to summit, and burst into a brighter radiance as they join and cross, while strains of lofty and victorious praise, unknown to mortal ears, gather upon the cross as though it were a harp of many strings, touched by the hand of G.o.d, and take captive the entranced, adoring soul.

There Cacciaguida hailed his descendant Dante, and long they conversed of the past, the present, and the future. Alas for our poor pride of birth! What wonder if men glory in it here? For even there in Heaven, where no base appet.i.te distorts the will and judgment, even there did Dante glow with pride to call this man his ancestor.

At last their converse ended; Cacciaguida's soul again was sweeping the unseen strings of that heavenly harp, and Dante turned again to look for guidance from his guardian. Beatrice's eyes were fixed above; and quick as the blush pa.s.ses from a fair cheek, so quick the ruddy glow of Mars was gone, and the white light of Jupiter shone clear and calm in the sixth heaven--the Heaven of the Just.

What a storm of pa.s.sions and emotions swept through Dante's soul when he learnt where he was! 'O chivalry of Heaven!' he exclaimed in agony, 'pray for those who are led all astray on earth by foul example.' When would the Righteous One again be wroth, and purge His temple of the traffickers--His temple walled by miracles and martyrdoms? How long should the Pope be suffered to degrade his holy office by making the penalties of Church discipline the tools of selfish politics--how long should his devotion to St. John the Baptist, whose head was stamped upon the coins of Florence, make him neglect the fisherman and Paul?

Such were the first thoughts that rose in Dante's mind in the Heaven of the Just; but they soon gave way to others. Here surely, here if anywhere, G.o.d's justice must be manifest. Reflected in all Heaven, here must it s.h.i.+ne without a veil. The spirits of the just could surely solve his torturing doubt. How long had his soul hungered and found no food on earth, and now how eagerly did he await the answer to his doubt! They knew his doubt, he need not tell it them; oh, let them solve it!

Yes, they knew what he would say: 'A man is born upon the bank of Indus, and there there is none to speak of Christ, or read or write of him. All this man's desires and acts are good, and without sin, as far as human eye can see, in deed or word. He dies unbaptised, without the faith. Where is that justice which condemns him? Where is his fault in not believing?' Yes, they knew his doubt, but could not solve it. Their answer is essentially the same as Paul's: 'Nay, but, O man, who art thou that repliest against G.o.d?'

The Word of G.o.d, say the spirits of the just, could not be so expressed in all the universe but what it still remained in infinite excess. Nay, Lucifer, the highest of created beings, could not at once see all the light of G.o.d, and fell through his impatience. How then could a poor mortal hope to scan the ways of G.o.d? His ken was lost in His deep justice as the eye is lost in the ocean. We can see the shallow bottom of the sh.o.r.e, but we cannot see the bottom of the deep, which none the less is there. So G.o.d's unfathomable justice is too deep, too just, for us to comprehend. The Primal Will, all goodness in itself, moves not aside from justice and from good. Never indeed did man ascend to heaven who believed not in Christ, yet are there many who cry, Lord, Lord, and in the day of judgment shall be far more remote from Christ than many a one that knew him not.[89]

With this answer Dante must be content. He must return from Heaven with this thirst unslaked, this long hunger still unsatisfied. Ay, and with this answer must we too rest content. And yet not with this answer, for we do not ask this question. That awful load of doubt under which Dante bent is lifted from our souls, and for us there is no eternal h.e.l.l, there are no virtuous but rejected Heathen. Yet to us too the ocean of G.o.d's justice is too deep to pierce. And when we ask why every blessing, every chance of good, is taken from one child, while another is bathed from infancy in the light of love, and is taught sooner than it can walk to choose the good and to reject the evil, what answer can we have but Dante's? Rest in faith. You know G.o.d's justice, for you feel it with you in your heart when you are fighting for the cause of justice; you know G.o.d's justice, for you feel it in your heart like an avenging angel when you sin; you know G.o.d's justice--but you do not know it all.

There in the Heaven of the Just was David; now he knew how precious were his songs, since his reward was such. There too was Trajan, who by experience of the bliss of Heaven and pain of h.e.l.l knew how dear the cost of not obeying Christ. There were Constantine, and William of Sicily, and Ripheus, that just man of Troy. 'What things are these?'

was the cry that dropped by its own weight from Dante's lips. The heathens Trajan and Ripheus here! No, not heathens. Ripheus had so given himself to justice when on earth, that G.o.d in His grace revealed to him the coming Christ, and he believed. Faith, Hope, and Charity were his baptism more than a thousand years ere baptism was known. And for Trajan, Gregory had wrestled in prayer for him, had taken the Kingdom of Heaven by storm with his warm love and living hope; and since no man repents in h.e.l.l, G.o.d at the prayer of Gregory had recalled the imperial soul back for a moment to its mouldering clay. There it believed in Christ, and once more dying, entered on his joy.[90]

Thus did Dante wrestle with his faith, and in the pa.s.sion of his love of virtue and thirst for justice seek to escape the problem which he could not solve.

But we must hasten to the close. Dante and Beatrice have pa.s.sed through all the heavens. The poet's sight is gradually strengthened and prepared for the supreme vision. He has already seen a kind of symbol of the Uncreated, surrounded by the angelic ministers. It was in the ninth heaven, the Heaven of the Primum Mobile, that he saw a single point of intensest light surrounded by iris rings, upon which point, said Beatrice, all Heaven and all nature hung.[91]

But now they have pa.s.sed beyond all nine revolving heavens into the region of 'pure light, light intellectual full of love, love of the truth all full of joy, joy that transcends all sweetness.'[92] And here the poet sees that for which all else had been mere preparation.

But I will not strive to reproduce his imagery, with the mighty river of light inexhaustible, with the mystic flowers of heavenly perfume, with the sparks like rubies set in gold ever pa.s.sing between the flowers and the river. Of this river Dante drank, and then the true forms of what had hitherto been shadowed forth in emblems only, rose before his eyes. Rank upon rank the petals of the mystic rose of Paradise stretched far away around and above him. There were the blessed souls of the holy ones, bathed in the light of G.o.d that streamed upon them from above, while the angels ever pa.s.sed between it and them ministering peace and love.

There high up, far, far beyond the reach of mortal eye, had it been on earth, sat Beatrice, who had left the poet's side. But in Heaven, with no destroying medium to intervene, distance is no let to perfect sight.

He spoke to her. He poured out his grat.i.tude to her, for it was she who had made him a free man from a slave, she who had made him sane, she who had left her footprints in h.e.l.l for him, when she went to summon Virgil to his aid. Oh, that his life hereafter might be worthy of the grace and power that had so worked for him! Then from her distant place in Heaven, Beatrice looked at him and smiled, then turned her eyes upon the Uncreated Light.[93]

St. Bernard was at Dante's side, and prayed that the seer's vision might be strengthened to look on G.o.d. Then Dante turned his eyes to the light above. The unutterable glory of that light dazzled not his intent, love-guided gaze. Nay, rather did it draw it to itself and every moment strengthen it with keener sight and feed it with intenser love.

Deeper and deeper into that Divine Light the seer saw. Had he turned his eyes aside, then indeed he knew the piercing glory would have blinded them; but that could never be, for he who gazes on that light feels all desire centred there--in it are all things else. So for a time with kindling gaze the poet looked into the light of G.o.d, unchanging, yet to the strengthening sight revealing ever more.

Mysteries that no human tongue can tell, no human mind conceive, were flashed upon him in the supreme moment, and then all was over--'The power of the lofty vision failed.'

Dante does not tell us where he found himself when the vision broke. He only tells us this: that as a wheel moves equally in all its parts, so his desire and will were, without strain or jar, revolved henceforth by that same Love that moves the sun and all the other stars.[94]

This was the end of all that Dante had thought and felt and lived through--a will that rolled in perfect oneness with the will of G.o.d.

This was the end to which he would bring his readers, this was the purpose of his sacred poem, this was the meaning of his life.[95]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 77: _Paradiso_, ii. 1-15.]

[Footnote 78: _Paradiso_, i. 1-12.]

[Footnote 79: _Ibid._ x.x.xiii. 58-63.]

[Footnote 80: _Convito_, III. xv.]

[Footnote 81: _Purgatorio_, x.x.x. 79-81, x.x.xi. 64-67; _Paradiso_, i.

100-102, xxii. 1 sqq.]

[Footnote 82: _Paradiso_, xxiii. 1-15.]

[Footnote 83: _Ibid._ iv. 28-48.]

[Footnote 84: _Paradiso_, x. 139--xi. 12.]

[Footnote 85: _Paradiso_, iii. 64-90.]

[Footnote 86: _Paradiso_, vi. 112-126.]

[Footnote 87: _Paradiso_, xxvii, 22-34.]

[Footnote 88: Milman.]

[Footnote 89: _Paradiso_, xiv. 85--xix. 148.]

[Footnote 90: _Paradiso_, xx.]