But the other host that flying sees and sings
The glory of Him who doth enamour it,
And the goodness that created it so noble.
Even as a swarm of bees, that sinks in flowers
One moment, and the next returns again
To where its labovir is to sweetness turned,
Sank into the great flower, that is adorned
"With leaves so many, and thence reascended
To where its love abideth evermore.
Their faces had they all of living flame.
And wings of gold, and all the rest so white
No snow unto that limit doth attain.
Longfellow.
256
THE EMPYREAN
Mother, and in this her flower all the saints are
united in Paradise, because she, the Mystical Rose, is
the type of the Church, Christ's Spouse, ā Herself the
true Spouse of the Holy Spirit.
St. Anselni, too, likens the Angels to busy bees in
God's service, flying between the flowers of earth and
the hives of Heaven, sweetly disposing all things. In
a similar strain St. Bernard describes the Angels as
faithful messengers of love between the lover and
the beloved, between God and His Spouse the Church,
bearing vows and bringing gifts ; and indeed he uses
this simile of the bee and the flowers in a more
sacred sense still : " The bee is that which feedeth
among the lilies, that dwells in the flower-bearing
land of the Angels. Hence it flew away to the city
of Nazareth, which is interpreted a Flower, and came
to the sweet-smelling flower of perpetual Virginity.
Thereon it alighted, and therein it rested, and thereto
it clung." ^ There is doubtless an allegorical signifi-
cance in the colours of the Angels : the living flame
of charity, the gold of humility or of incorruptibility,
the white of exceeding purity ; their whiteness is
beyond the spotless whiteness of purest snow, that is,
beyond all purity of which man can conceive, for not
even the saints can attain to the purity of an Angel
who has never sinned. Perhaps there is a reference
* " Apis vero est, quae pascitur inter lilia, quae florigeram
inhabitat pati'iam Angelorum. Unde et ad civitatem Nazareth,
quod interpretatur flos, advolavit, et ad suave olentem. perpetuae
virginitatis florem advenit : illi insedit, illi adliaesit." ā De advent u
Domini, Sermo II.
In the above, and several other quotations in this chapter, I have
availed myself of the collection of St. Bernard's praises of the
Blessed Virgin, "arranged and translated by a secular priest,"
under the title The Virgin Mother of God ; or, Behold your Mother
(London and Derby, 1886).
257 s
DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS
in these colours to the three Persons of the Blessed
Trinity, since Lucifer's three coloured faces are an in-
fernal parody of their Di\'ine attributes ; the golden
wings may refer to the Power of the Father, the
white to the Wisdom of the Son, the flaming face to
the burning Love of the Holy Spirit. Ascending and
descending, they communicate the divine peace and
love to the saints ; for the Angels have a deeper
knowledge of the Divine Essence than the saints
(save only Mary, whose knowledge of God surpasses
that of the Seraphim), and the saints have their
accidental joy increased from the truths that these
Angels impart to them from God.^ There is no im-
pediment now to the divine light, and all Paradise is
absorbed in the vision and love of God.
There is a final invocation for those on the tossing
sea of human life {la nostra p^^ocella), that the Trinal
light of the One star may shine upon its darkness ;
there is the last look to Florence with its famous
irony ; and the poet is absorbed in the glory of the
celestial Rome of his ecstatic pilgrimage. As the
barbarians from the savage North were stupefied at
the wonders of the earthly Rome, so Dante from
Florence in the divine Rome of Eternity : ā
lo, che al divino daH'umano,
AU'eterno dal tempo era venuto,
* The function of the Angels in Dante's vision is analogous to
that of Love, as described by Diotima in Plato's Symposium : ā
" He is a great spirit, and like all spirits he is" intermediate
between the divine and the mortal. He interprets between gods
and men, conveying and taking across to the gods the prayers and
sacrifices of men, and to men the commands and replies of the gods ;
he is the mediator who spans the chasm which divides them, and
therefore in him all is bound together." ā Jowett's translation.
258
THE EMPYREAN
E di Fiorenza in popol giusto e sano,
Di che stupor doveva esser compiuto ! *
Just as Virgil's place had been taken by Matilda in
the Earthly Paradise, when the end had been attained
at which Dante was to aim under his leadership, so
here Beatrice resigns her office to St. Bernard, now
that the term of her guidance too has been reached.
Human Wisdom, by means of human philosophy,
led man to blessedness of this life ; this consisted in
the exercise of his natural powers, and so, in that
blessedness, the place of guide was fitly taken by the
type of the glorified active life. So here Heavenly
Wisdom, by means of Divine Philosophy, has led
man to the blessedness of life eternal ; this consists
in the fruition of the sight of God's countenance, and
for this fruition the place is fitly taken by the type
of the glorified mystical contemplative. It may well
be that St. Bernard is a type of the ecstatic con-
templation in Richard of St. Victor's doctrine. The
glorified active life exercises man's natural powers in
the noblest way in blessedness of this life, in good
works and in the virtuous use of earthly things, and
is more directly ordered to the love of our neighbour ;
but the glorified contemplative life directly and im-
mediately appertains to the love of God ; it begins on
earth in the speculation of supernal things, but is
perfected and glorified in Heaven in the immediate
intuition of God. This seems the more usual view
of the symbolism of the substitution of St. Bernard
for Beatrice in Dante's final instruction. God can-
' I who to the divine had from the human,
From time unto eternitj^, had come,
From Florence to a people just and sane,
With what amazement must I have been filled !
Longfellow (xxxi. 37).
259
DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS
not be seen and known by theology, but by grace
and contemplation. Excess of charity and the inter-
cession of the Mother of Divine Love are needed for
the completion of Dante's work ; therefore the place
of even the Heavenly Wisdom that Beatrice repre-
sents is taken by ā
La vivace
Carita di colui, che in questo mondo,
Contemplando, gusto di quella pace ;
Par. xxxi. 109.*
by him who was believed to have been inspired by
Mary herself to write fittingly concerning Her : ā
E la Eegina del cielo, ond'i' ardo
Tatto d'amor, ne i&vk ogni grazia,
Perocch'io sono il suo fedel Bernardo.
Par. xxxi. lOO.'^
Barelli has pointed out that these last aids which
Dante needs, although derived from the divine science
of theology, are yet rather of the heart than of the
intellect. They are derived from the divine science,
since the heart does not usually tend towards an
object unless first the intellect is convinced of the
excellence of it, but they are something distinct from
that divine science : " Beatrice has sent me," says St.
Bernard.
According to Professor Lubin, this substitution of
Bernard for Beatrice signifies that Theology has given
place to Intuition. Theology is not needed in the
* The living
Charity of the man who in this world
By contemplation tasted of that peace.
Longfellow.
' And she, the Queen of Heaven, for whom I burn
Wholly with love, will grant ua every grace,
Because that I her faithful Bernard am.
Ibid.
260
THE EMPYREAN
Empyrean, for all truths are there seen in the im-
mediate intuition of the supreme Truth. Glorified
contemplation, ecstatic contemplation, intuitive con-
templation : it seems rather a matter of words, and
the two interpretations need not exclude each other.
Beatrice sends St. Bernard to Dante, because it is
Theology that predisposes and prepares man for this
contemplation and intuition (Lubin). St. Bernard
himself teaches that God and the blessed spirits can
be considered by us by opinion, faith, and intuition.
In Intuition {intellectiis) these mysteries are seen
manifestly and without any veil ; intuition is the
certain and manifest knowledge of invisible things,
such clear knowledge that there is nothing more left
to seek of those things about which this intuition is
had.^ Therefore here the saint fitly says : ā
A terminar lo tuo disiro
Mosse Beatrice me del loco mio.
Par. xxxi. 65.'*
Since, therefore, her allegorical task is completed,
allegory has ceased as far as Beatrice is concerned,
and the real woman is seen ā
Nel trono che i suoi merti le sortiro ; *
crowned in her glory with the rays of the light
eternal. And Dante, now at the foot of Madonna's
throne, " that blessed Queen Mary, whose name
had always a deep reverence in the words of holy
Beatrice " ( Vita NxLova, 29), addresses Beatrice for the
last time. In the superb lyrical flight with which
Dante returns thanks and finally commends himself
* De Consideratione, v. 3.
* To put an end to thy desire
Me Beatrice hath, sent from mine own place.
^ Upon the throne her merits have assigned her (line 69).
261
DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS
to her, the only vestige of allegory left is that he is
thanking the woman he has loved, for having taken
upon her this mystical function in order to lead him
from servitude to the liberty of the children of
God:ā
O Donna, in cui la mia speranza vige,
E che soffristi per la mia salute
In Inferno lasciar le tue vestige ;
Di tante cose, quante io ho vedute,
Dal tuo potere e dalla tua bontate
Riconosco la grazia e la virtute.
Tu m'hai di servo tratto a libertate
Per tutte quelle vie, per tutti i modi,
Ch.e di cio fare avei la potestate.
La tua magnificenza in me custodi
Si, cbe I'anima mia die fatta hai sana,
Piacente a te dal corpo si disnodi.
Par. xxxi. 79.'
The three closing lines are clearly a prayer for
final perseverance, the same grace that St. Bernard
will presently implore for Dante from the Blessed
Virgin, although the Ottimo oddly seems to suppose
that Dante prays to Beatrice that his soul may
remain in Paradise. Her sniile and last look upon
Dante, as she turns back to the contemplation of
* "0 Lady, thou in whom my hope is strong,
And who for my salvation didst endure
In Hell to leave the imprint of thy feet.
Of whatsoever things I have beheld,
As coming from thy power and from thy goodness
I recognise the virtue and the grace.
Thovi from a slave hast brought me unto freedom.
By all those ways, by all the expedients.
Whereby thou hadst the power of doing it.
Preserve towards me thy magnificence,
So that this soul of mine, which thou hast healed,
Pleasing to thee be loosened from the body."
Longfellow.
This is the only place in the Divina Commedia in which Dante
uses tu, instead of voi, in addressing Beatrice.
2G2
THE EMPYREAN
God, show the poet that his final prayer is accepted
by her. Allegory is practically over now, and
Beatrice is once more the woman loved.
St. Bernard now commences his function of pre-
paring Dante for the final consummation of the
vision. He must gradually prepare himself to be-
hold the Divine Essence, by disciphne of his sight
in first contemplating the glory of the saints, and,
above all, that of Mary, la Regina cui questo regno
h snddito e devoto (xxxi. 116). And, indeed, all this
part of the poem is thoroughly steeped in the spirit
of Mary's fedel Bernardo, who in one of his sermons
calls her the Sinner's Ladder ; " whose top, like the
ladder which the patriarch Jacob saw, touched the
heavens ; nay, passed through the heavens, until it
reached the well of living waters which are above
the heavens ; " and, elsewhere, " Let us seek for grace
and let us seek for it through Mary ; for what she
seeks for, she finds ; for she cannot seek in vain."
So now, at Bernard's bidding, Dante lifts up his
eyes to the throne of Mary. In the highest and most
glorious part of the Heaven of Heavens, Dante sees
her enthroned. As the east at sunrise, so here the
throne of Mary is brighter than all else in Paradise ;
and, surrounded by a multitude of Angels with out-
spread wings, Dante beholds her indescribable beauty
and glory. With St. Bernard he is absorbed in
devout and loving contemplation of her, and indeed
this vision of Mary in the midst of this surpassing
light of Heaven, in the sunrise of her Son's glory, is
a poetical rendering of a thought of Bernard him-
self : ā
" Justly is Mary said to be clothed with the Sun,
since she has pierced through the exceeding deep
263
DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS
abyss of God's wisdom, far deeper than could be be-
lieved ; so that, as far as her condition as a creature
will suffer, without personal union, she seems to be
plunged in the light inaccessible. By the fire of that
Sun the prophet's lips were cleansed ; by the same
fire the Seraphim are kindled with love. But in a
far higher sense did Mary merit, not, as it were, to
be touched merely on her lips, but rather to be
covered all over and encompassed by that fire, and,
as it were, to be enclosed therein." ^
One of the greatest of modern poets has written in
a similar strain : ā
Soul, is it Faith, or Love or Hope,
That lets me see her standing up
Where the light of the Throne is bright?
Unto the left, unto the right,
The Chervibim, succinct, conjoint,
Float inward to a golden point,
And from between the Seraphim
The glory issues for a hymn.
With Canto xxxii. St. Bernard commences Dante's
final instruction ā
Affetto al suo piacer, quel contemplante
Libero offizio di dottore assunse.
Par. xxxii. 1.^
To instruct others, as St. Bernard himself says, is a
work of the active life; but saints sometimes return
from the contemplative life to the active for the good
of their neighbours, and this, he rather quaintly
remarks, is signified in the text of the Canticle of
Canticles : " Arise, make haste, my love, my dove, my
* In the Sermo de duodecim prcerogativis B.V. Mariae (For
Sunday within the Octave of the Assumption).
* Absorbed in his delight, that contemplator
Assumed the willing office of a teacher.
Longfellow.
264
THE EMPYREAN
beautiful one, and come." The same return from the
contemplative to the active life, in love of charity, is
indicated further on : ā
santo Padre, che per me comporte
L'esser quaggiu, lasciando il dolce loco
Nel qual tu siedi per sterna sorte. ^
Par. xxxii. 100.*
St. Thomas has a fine sentence upon the same
subject : " Of its kind the contemplative life is of
greater merit than the active. But it may happen
that one individual merits more in the works of the
active life than another in the works of the contem-
plative, if through an abounding love for God, to the
end that His will may be fulfilled, and for His glory,
this person endures to be separated from the sweet-
ness of divine contemplation for a time." ^
St. Bernard therefore proceeds to point out the
order of the saints. Throughout the Rose two
descending lines divide the redeemed of the Old
Testament from those of the New. The one line is
composed of holy women, and jpasses down from the
glorious throne of the Queen of Heaven, "blessed
above all women of the earth " ; the other is of holy
men, passing down from the seat of the Precursor of
Christ, than whom "there hath not risen among them
who are born of women a greater."
The motives that induced Dante's selection of the
individual saints to form these two lines, are more
obvious in the case of the women. Eve, Rachel, and
Beatrice, Sarah, Rebecca, Judith, Ruth, and other
^ holy father, who for me endurest
To be below here, leaving the sweet place
In which thou sittest by eternal lot.
LOKG FELLOW.
^ St. Thomas, Summa, II. ā 2, q. 182, a. 2. {Aquinas Ethicus).
265
DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS
Hebrew women form jthat line ; St. Francis, St.
Benedict, St. Augustine, and others not named, the
other. Eve, tanto hella, so beautiful because created
immediately by God and therefore most perfect, is
of course the type of Mary, the second Eve. Thus
TertuUian says : " Whereas Eve believed the serpent
and Mary believed Gabriel, the fault of Eve in believ-
ing, Mary by believing has blotted out ; " and other
fathers write in a similar strain. Eve is the Mother
of all living ; Mary the Mother of Him that liveth,
and so the Mother of all that live by Him. Also Eve,
according to St. Isidore, is a type of the Church ; the
Church was consecrated as Christ's bride by the
blood and water that flowed from His side as He
died upon the Cross, just as Eve was made from the rib
of the sleeping Adam. Rachel and Beatrice are side
by side in the third row, for in other parts of the
poem they had symbolised Contemplation and The-
ology, and the truths which contemplation beheld in
the old law are expounded by the Church's theology
in the new. Rachel too is regarded by St. Isidore as
a type of the Church, comprehending the mysteries
of Christ by her clear contemplation, which the
blear-eyed Leah (the type of the Synagogue) could
not do. Beatrice's place in the third circle is appar-
ently connected with her mystical relation to the
number Three, so insisted upon in the Vita Nuova ;
we are reminded, too, of the lines in the same book : ā
La gentil donna, che per suo valore
Fu posta dair altissimo Signore
Nel ciel dell' umiltate, ov'e Maria : ^
^ Sonnet xviii. That lady of all gentle memories
Whose new abode
Lies now, as it was well ordained of God,
Among the poor in heart, where Mary is,
ROSSETTI.
260
THE EMPYREAN
corresponding with the words that St. Bernard had
used of her : ā
Nel trono che i suoi merti le sortiro.
So, too, the pacifica oriafiainma (the oriflamme being
an ancient name for the royal standard), the title that
Dante had applied to Mary, recalls his account of the
death of Beatrice in the Vita Nuova : " Lo signore
della giustizia chianio questa gentilissima a gloriare
sotto la insegna di quella reina benedetta Maria, lo
cui nome f ue in grandissinia reverenza nelle parole di
questa Beatrice beata." ^
Sarah, the Mother of God's chosen people, who
brought forth the free children of promise, is also a
figure of the Church ; the Church is in secret the
bride of Christ, and it is not until the kings of the
earth strive to ^dolate her that they find that the
Church is truly the spouse of God. Rebecca again,
in her marriage with Isaac, is the type of the Church
in her mystical union with Christ. Judith, the
deliverer of her people, is the type of Mary, to whom
the Church applies the words that Ozias addressed to
Judith on her return from the camp of Holofernes ;
she is also a type of the Church, as punishing
the enemies of the Faith. Ruth, the ancestress of
Christ according to the flesh, as the woman of an-
other country that married an Israelite is a figure
of the Church coming from the Gentiles to Christ.
These, with the other Hebrew women dividing the
leaves of the Rose, form the bond of union between
^ V.N. 28. " The Lord God of Justice called my most gracious
ladj- unto Himself, that she might be glorious under the banner of
that blessed Queen Mary, whose name had always a deep reverence
in the words of holy Beatrice." Eossetti.
267
DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS
the Old Testament and the New, as ancestresses of
Christ or types of His Mother and His Church.
The reasons for the special position of St. Francis,
St. Benedict, and St. Augustine, in the opposite line,
are not quite so evident. Dr. Scartazzini thinks that
the line of men are those Avho, in a way, continued
the work of St. John the Baptist in preparing unto
the Lord a perfect people : the founders respectively
of the povei^elli di Cristo, of monasticism in the west,
and of scientific theology. It "will be observed that
immediately next to the Precursor of Christ comes
His closest and most perfect imitator, in whose body
were renewed the sacred stigmata of His Passion.
The alto disio that Dante had expressed to St. Bene-
dict, to see him with face unveiled, is here fulfilled ;
and, in connection with the ardent affection he had
shown towards that saint in the seventh sphere, it is
curious to notice that Benedict is here in the third
row opposite to Beatrice ā the Blessed in name
opposite to the Giver of Blessing. The great
contemplative monk is thus likewise fitly placed
opposite to Rachel, the type of Contemplation itself.
All the seats of those who believed in Christ to
come are full already ; there are still vacant places in
the other half of the Rose ; the number of both will
be equal when the celestial garden shall be filled : ā
Or mira I'alto provveder divino,
Cli6 I'uno e I'altro aspetto della fede
Egualmento empiera questo giardino.
Par. xxxii. 37.'
This, however, seems a peculiar theory of Dante's
' Behold now tlie high providence divine ;
For one and other aspect of the Faith
In equal measvire shall this garden fill.
Longfellow.
2G8
THE EMPYREAN
own. The usual view is that the blessed after Christ
must immensely surpass in numbers those of the Old
Testament, since the latter was merely a time of
preparation. St. Thomas warily remarks : "Of the
number of human creatures predestinated, some say
it will equal those of the fallen Angels and of the
whole angelic creation combined. But it is better
said that the number of the elect who are to dwell in
bliss in Heaven is known to God alone, as the Collect
for the Living and the Dead has it." ^ Dante's view
may be in part induced by his desire to preserve
perfect symmetry in his wonderful creation of the
snow-white Rose of Paradise.
All round the Rose there runs a further line of
division, dividing into a lower and an upper quarter
each of the two great halves of the celestial flower.
Above this line are those saved by their own meri-
torious correspondence with the divine grace, those
who have merited reward by right use of their free
will ; below are the little children who, before and
after Christ, died before attaining to the use of
reason, blessed in this true life not through their
own merit, but through the merit of others (Christ
or their parents), under various conditions in the Old
and New Testaments ā conditions which culminate
in that of Christian Baptism. They were hastened
before their time to this true life, a festinata gente a
vera vita, and still retain the appearance and voices
of children. They too are placed higher or lower in
this Paradise : they have different grades of bliss,
although, having no free election, they could not
merit or demerit. Thus there again, for the last
time, arises in Dante's mind another of those diffi-
culties concerning the mysteries of Divine Predesti-
' Sum7Jia, I. q. 23 a. 7 (quoted by Hettinger).
269
DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS
nation and the Divine Justice, which had been
answered, or rather silenced for him, in the lower
spheres. How can it be, since they were saved by
no merit of their own, that they should now hold
higher or lower degrees of beatitude ? Is it by chance
or by some special favour of God to some, and, if so,
how can it be just? St. Bernard's answer is in effect
the same as Dante had received from other saints in
the lower spheres. Nothing is by chance in Paradise ;
God wills it so, and what He wills is Justice. God
gives grace in different degrees according to His good
pleasure, and to this grace the degrees of glory corre-
spond. Thus Dante's difficulties concerning this
insoluble mystery are finally answered : ā
Clie per eterna legge 6 stabilito
Quantvinque vedi, si che giustamente
Ci si risponde dall'anello al dito.
Lo Eege, per cui questo regno pausa
In tanto amore ed in tanto diletto
Che niilla volonta e di piu ansa,
Le menti tutte nel suo lieto aspetto,
Creando, a suo piacer di grazia dota
Diversamente ; e qui basti I'effetto.
Par. xxxii. 55.'
His difficvilty concerning Divine Predestination is
finally answered. For since it had occurred to him
again and again throughout the Paradiso, it was
necessary that it should be finally set at rest in the
* For by eternal law has been established
Whatever thou beholdest, so that closely
The ring is fitted to the finger here.
The King, by means of whom this realm reposes
In so great love and in so great delight
That no will ventureth to ask for more,
In his own joyous aspect every mind
Creating, at his pleasure dowers with grace
Diversely ; and let here the effect sufiice.
Longfellow.
270
THE EMPYREAN
Heaven where all desire is satisfied. Up to this point