the Apostle of Freedom: a man endowed with those profound convictions on
which alone true tolerance can be built, a man whose deep and passionate
earnestness is tempered and balanced by a saving sense of humour. The
substantiation of this claim may perhaps justify us in carrying the
reader into a remote by-way of Italian literature; in asking him to
note points of contact and of contrast which emerge when the Poet is
confronted, so to speak, with a document which we may be sure he never
saw,[261] but which yet seems to bear, here and there, strange marks of
the impress of his thoughts and of his phraseology. If the comparison of
the two writers should seem at first sight gratuitous and far-fetched, it
may yet succeed in throwing light on Dante’s genius and temper from an
unfamiliar angle.
The Clarendon Press published in 1907 an _Editio princeps_ of the
Mohammedan _Gospel of Barnabas_ from an unique MS. of the latter half
of the sixteenth century in the Imperial Library at Vienna.[262] This
document—apart from its theological and dogmatic importance—should prove
to be of considerable interest to students of Italian literature, as well
on account of its grammatical and orthographic peculiarities, as for
the positive literary merits which not infrequently relieve a style in
general somewhat rough and bald.
The task of preparing for the press a translation of this remarkable
document could not fail to bring before one’s mind certain points of
contact with Dante, more especially as the curious archaic Italian in
which the “Gospel” is written lends itself, in a certain measure, to
verbal coincidences and quasi-coincidences with passages in the Poet’s
writings. The points of contact which will be adduced in the present
paper are none the less interesting because the date of the original
_Gospel of Barnabas_ still remains to a certain extent an open question,
and with it also the nature of the relations, direct or indirect, that
may have subsisted between its compiler and the author of the _Divina
Commedia_.[263]
But first a word is due about the character and scope of this very
apocryphal Gospel. The MS., as we have already suggested, is of
comparatively recent date. Paper, binding, and orthography all combine
with the script to place it—not, as its eighteenth century critics
supposed, in the fifteenth century, or earlier, but—in the latter half of
the sixteenth century.[264] It is, however, of course possible that the
Vienna Codex may be a copy of an earlier MS.; and, curiously enough, one
of the strongest arguments for this earlier original arises, as we shall
shortly see, out of an apparent reference to the famous Jubilee of 1300
A.D. which looms so large in Dante’s life and writings.
The book is a frankly Mohammedan Gospel, giving a full, but garbled,
story of the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, from a Moslem point of
view. It claims to have been written by Saint Barnabas (who figures in
it as one of the Twelve—to the exclusion of poor Saint Thomas!) at the
injunction of his Master, for the express purpose of combating the errors
taught by Saint Paul and others. These errors are summed up under three
heads: (1) the doctrine that Jesus is Son of God, (2) the rejection of
Circumcision, and (3) the permission to eat unclean meats. Of these three
errors the first is regarded as of the greatest importance; and not only
is the Gospel narrative contorted and expurgated to suit the writer’s
purpose, but Christ Himself is made repeatedly to deny his own Divinity
and even his Messiahship, and to predict the advent of Mohammed, the
“Messenger of God.”
About two-thirds of the material is derived, without question, from our
four Canonical Gospels, of which a decidedly unscientific “harmony” forms
the framework of Barnabas’ narrative; the remaining third, which takes
the form of discourses put into the mouth of Christ, is purely oriental
in character, and largely an elaboration of germs or hints to be found in
the Koran or in Jewish tradition. It is on this section of the book that
the Dantist’s interest will be concentrated.
The brief words of awful solemnity in which the Gospels speak of the doom
of the lost are supplemented in Barnabas by elaborate descriptions of
infernal torments which, whencesoever ultimately derived, are expressed
in terms which exhibit remarkable coincidences with the _Inferno_ and
_Purgatorio_ of Dante. Mohammed’s two favourite themes were, the final
Judgment and the horrors of Hell on the one hand, and, on the other,
the delights of Paradise. And the second theme is treated in Barnabas
almost as fully as the first. The Paradise of Barnabas has perhaps little
in common with the Earthly Paradise of Dante, and still less with the
Celestial; but it gives our author scope for an excursion into the realms
of astronomy, whereby he finds himself (perhaps unconsciously), at the
end of his journey, much nearer to Dante’s scheme of the Ten Heavens than
to the normal tradition of the Jews and Arabs.
It will be convenient to deal first with this teaching on Paradise,
secondly with the _Inferno_ of Barnabas, and thirdly with certain verbal
and other points of contact between Barnabas and Dante; concluding with
some more general considerations regarding the tone and colouring of the
“Gospel.”
It would be strange if the Paradise of Barnabas had not some features
in common with Dante’s. Man’s dreams of an ideal resting-place, whether
past or future, have a tendency to express themselves in terms of
greensward and flowers and luscious fruits, cool streams and sunshine
tempered by refreshing shade. The name “Paradise” itself means “park” or
“plaisance” as we know, and though Barnabas is not conspicuously happy
when he poses as an etymologist,[265] the connotation of the word was too
securely established alike in Moslem and in Christian tradition to admit
of much variation. Paradise, of course, has two different meanings in
Dante, and the same is true of its use in Barnabas; but inasmuch as the
distinction in the latter is not expressly marked, it will be convenient
for our purpose to group together the conceptions of the Earthly and the
Celestial Paradise. In Barnabas, as in Dante, the name is applied to the
scene of man’s creation—
il loco
Fatto per proprio dell’ umana spece,[266]
and of his temptation, fall and expulsion.[267] In both again it is
used also of the eternal home of God, the good angels and redeemed
mankind.[268] Speaking generally, the main features of the Paradise of
Barnabas resemble more closely those of Dante’s Earthly Paradise; while
its position in the scheme of the universe corresponds rather to that
of the Celestial Paradise of Dante. Thus the four perfumed rivers[269]
of this “Gospel,” though derived, almost certainly, from the Koran,
correspond, in a sense, to the miraculously clear and limpid stream which
arrested the poet’s progress[270]; while its profusion of flowers and
fruits[271] recall the scene portrayed in Virgil’s parting words—
... l’ erbetta, i fiori e li arbuscelli,[272]
and—
La gran varïazion de’ freschi mai.[273]
which drew Dante’s wondering eyes across the stream to where Matelda
tripped singing through the painted meadow—
Cantando ed iscegliendo fior da fiore
Ond’ era pinta tutta la sua via.[274]
Again, a somewhat terse definition of Paradise in Barnabas reminds one
of a still shorter phrase of Dante’s. The author of the _De Vulgari
Eloquentia_ describes the home which man forfeited by his first sin as
“delitiarum patria[275]” while for Barnabas, “Il parradisso he chassa
doue DIO chonsserva le sui delitie[276]”; or, as he puts it further on
“DIO ha chreato il parradisso per chassa delle sui delitie.”[277]
But the heavenly Paradise of the Empyrean is also described by Dante in
material phrase as “God’s garden.” “Questo giardino”[278] is the name
by which Saint Bernard designates the Mystic Rose, as he unveils its
mysteries to Dante; and already in the Eighth Heaven Beatrice had essayed
to divert the Poet’s gaze from her own loveliness—
... al bel giardino
Che sotto i raggi di Cristo s’ infiora.[279]
Here we may note that in Barnabas[280] GOD (not Christ, of course) is the
sun of Paradise, while Mohammed is its moon.
But there is another passage in the _Paradiso_, where Dante himself is
speaking in answer to Saint John’s catechizing: a passage which may well
detain us a little longer. Here Paradise is described in so many words as
the “Garden of the Eternal Gardener”—
Le fronde onde s’ infronda tutto l’ orto
De l’ ortolano etterno, am’ io cotanto,
Quanto da lui a lor di bene è porto.[281]
Is it fanciful to see a subtle resemblance—in thought, perhaps, more
than in phrase (though Dante’s symbolic meaning is wanting)—in Barnabas’
description of Paradise as a place “doue ... ogni chossa he _frutuossa,
di fruti proportionati ha cholui che lo ha choltiuato_?”[282]
There emerge, at any rate, from both passages, the thought of the
Divine Gardener ... and of a _proportion_ for which He is in some way
responsible. But perhaps a more striking coincidence—if coincidence
it be—is that between the answer given to a problem raised by Saint
Bartholomew in Barnabas and the assurance vouchsafed by Piccarda[283] in
resolution of Dante’s difficulty concerning degrees of glory in Heaven.
“O Master,” says Bartholomew,[284] “shall the glory of Paradise be
equal for every man? If it be equal, it will not be just, and if it be
unequal, the lesser will envy the greater.” Jesus answers: “Non sera
equalle perche dio he iusto he ogniuno si chontentera perche hiuui non
he inuidia,” and again, There shall be “tutta una gloria sebene sara ha
chi più ha chi meno. Non portera alloro inuidia ueruna.” So, when Dante
questions the beatified Piccarda, in her earth-shadowed sphere—
Desiderate voi più alto loco ...?[285]
the spirit replies, in words which, though more beautiful and more
profound, are inevitably called up by the passage of Barnabas just quoted—
Si che, come noi sem di soglia in soglia
Per questo regno, a tutto il regno piace
Com’ allo re ch’ a suo voler ne invoglia:
En’ la sua voluntade è nostra pace.[286]
Turning now to the geographical or rather astronomical aspect of the
subject, we find in Barnabas a definite divergence from the doctrine of
the _Koran_, and adoption of a Ptolemaic scheme closely resembling that
of Dante’s _Paradiso_. There are nine heavens, not counting Paradise,
_i.e._ ten heavens in all. “Noue sono li cielli li quali sono distanti
luno dal altro chome he distante il primo cielo dala terra. Il quale he
lontano dalla terra cinquecento hanni di strada.”[287] In the “five
hundred years’ journey” there is a reminiscence of Jewish tradition:
but the seven heavens of the Talmud and of the _Koran_ have become ten.
And though these heavens are not definitely stated to be arranged, like
Dante’s, as a series of concentric spheres with earth as the centre,
they form a graduated series, in which each is to the next as a “punto
di ago,”[288] or as a grain of sand.[289] The planets, again, have their
place in the scheme. They are not, apparently, identified with the
several “cieli,” as in Dante’s arrangement, but are “set between” or
“amongst” them: “li cielli fra li qualli stano li pianeti.”[290]
The point of resemblance is to be found in a graduated series of ten (and
not seven) heavens, characterised by an ascending scale of magnitude, and
culminating in the Paradise of the Blessed.
The resemblances are indeed striking; but though ‘Barnabas is vastly
superior to previous Moslem writers in the richness of his conception
of Heaven,’ (they in common with their Christian contemporaries shewing
much more spontaneity and exuberance of fancy in describing the torments
of Hell), Dante excels markedly in the glowing wealth of his picture
of Paradise—its radiance, its variety, its peace, its activity, its
all-pervading love.[291]
So far, it may be said, the suggested points of contact between
Barnabas and Dante have been somewhat vague and hypothetical. They
may, perhaps, be adequately accounted for on the basis of a common
tradition—the practically universal tradition of a Garden-Paradise, and
the Aristotelo-Ptolemaic scheme of astronomy common to all the civilised
West, whether Christian or Mohammedan, till the days of Copernicus and
Galileo. But in the Inferno of Barnabas we may discover more definite
and more convincing resemblances to features and passages of the _Divina
Commedia_.
Islam, except in its later developments,[292] has no place for a
Purgatory. There is no mention of a Purgatorio in the Koran or in
this “Gospel,” though Barnabas gives even the Faithful a probationary
residence of torment in Hell, varying from Mohammed’s own brief term of
“the twinkling of an eye” to a duration of 70,000 years![293] But the
Barnaban arrangement of Hell itself furnishes an almost exact parallel
to the scheme of Dante’s Purgatorio. The framework of the arrangement is
that of the seven capital sins. Hell is divided[294] into seven circles
or “centri” wherein are punished respectively (1) lo irachondo, (2) il
gollosso, (3) lo acidiosso, (4) il lusuriosso, (5) lo hauaro, (6) lo
inuidiosso, (7) il superbo. The order of the sins differs considerably
from that adopted by Dante, and indeed is not repeated in any of the
typical arrangements given in Dr. Moore’s well-known Table;[295] coming
nearest to that of Aquinas. In common, however, with Dante’s arrangement
it has the juxtaposition of Pride and Envy and their position at the
lower end of the series: a point which is perhaps the more significant
in that Barnabas approaches his Inferno from the bottom (not, as one
would have expected, from the top), beginning with “il più basso centro”
of Pride. There is another point also, in which the Inferno of Barnabas
resembles both the Inferno and the Purgatorio of Dante—the principle
which runs through all its torments “per quae peccat quis ... per haec
et torquetur.” The proud shall be “trampled under-foot of Satan and his
devils,”[296] the envious shall be tormented with the delusion that
even in that joyless realm “ogniuno prendi allegrezza del suo malle he
si dolgia che lui non habia peggio”;[297] the slothful shall labour at
tasks like that of Sisyphus,[298] and the gluttonous be tantalised with
elusive dainties.[299] Nor can we fail to notice here how in the story
of the serpent’s doom[300] there comes out the idea of all pollutions of
human sin—especially repented sin—streaming back eventually to Satan:
the conception which underlies the system of Dante’s rivers of Hell,
including the “ruscelletto” that trickles down from Purgatory.[301]
There is a vivid description in _Barnabas_ of the “Harrowing of Hell”
at the coming of God’s Messenger, which though it has nothing in common
with the account of the Saviour’s Descent as related by Virgil in
Limbo, is strongly suggestive of a later scene where at the advent of
the much-debated “Messo del ciel,”[302] who comes to open the gates of
Dis, both banks of the Styx tremble, and more than a thousand “anime
distrutte” fly headlong like frogs before a water-snake.[303] “Onde
tremera,” says Barnabas, “lo infferno alla sua pressenzza[304] ... quando
elgi ui andera tutti li diauoli stridendo cercherano di asscondersi sotto
le ardente brasse dicendo luno allo altro: scampa scampa che elgi uiene
machometo nosstro innimicho.”[305]
While the general atmosphere of Hell in _Barnabas_, with its “neui he
giazi intollerabili,”[306] its torturing fiends, its biting serpents, its
Sisyphus-labours and Tantalus-pains, its harpies, its burning filth and
nameless horrors, has the same “reek” as that of Dante’s Inferno, there
are passages which present an almost verbal parallel. In his description
of the cries of the lost, Barnabas says: “malladirano ... il loro padre
he madre he il loro chreatore.” Who can but recall Dante’s words about
the dismal spirits assembled on the bank of Acheron, who—
Bestemmiavano Dio e lor parenti?[307]
This brings us to the subject of actual verbal coincidences, of which
we must confess we have found but two, though a more systematic
investigation might well yield a much larger number.
Barnabas’ recurring characterisation of the idols of the heathen as
“dei falsi he bugiardi”[308] is surely too remarkable to be without
significance, and is enforced and supported by the occurrence of another
cadence of the same canto of the _Inferno_ in the phrase “rabbiosa fame,”
which in Barnabas, however, applies not to the symbolic lion of the
_Divina Commedia_,[309] but to the torments of the Lost.
There remains one more point to be adduced—an incidental and a
somewhat subtle one which makes, not so much for a relation between
Dante’s writings and the _Gospel of Barnabas_ as for a relation of
contemporaneity between the two writers. The inference which it would
suggest is so definite and precise, that it is only fair to remark
that there are puzzlingly contradictory arguments to be drawn from the
language and style of Barnabas.
Our point, then, is as follows. Barnabas puts into the mouth of our Lord,
as we have observed above, numerous predictions of the future advent of
Mohammed as “Messiah” and “Messenger of GOD.” In one of these a “Jubilee”
is spoken of as recurring every hundred years: “il iubileo ... che hora
uiene ogni cento hanni.”[310] The writer or compiler here, as often,
fails to throw himself back into the Palestine of the first century,
in which, as his very considerable knowledge of the Old Testament[311]
should have reminded him, the Hebrew Jubilee of fifty years would
have been in force. Whence, then, comes this Jubilee? He cannot have
derived it from the _Koran_. We are almost forced to the conclusion
that the “hora” of the passage quoted is a literal “now” and refers to
a contemporary institution—to the Jubilee as conceived of at the moment
when the lines were penned; and that, the Jubilee of Western Christendom.
This carries us back beyond the twenty-five years’ Jubilee of modern
times—beyond the year when Clement VI, for his own ends, instituted a
Jubilee of fifty years after the Hebrew model; and would give us as our
_terminus ad quem_ the year 1349. For the upper limit—the _terminus a
quo_ of the original Barnabas we must turn to the famous Jubilee of
1300, the ideal date of Dante’s pilgrimage. For though the Bull[312] by
which that Jubilee was promulgated alleged antecedent tradition, and the
contemporary chroniclers naturally followed suit,[313] there seems to
be no sufficient historical evidence for a precedent. Thus, between the
years 1300 and 1350—and, apparently, only during that period—it would
have been possible to speak of the centennial Jubilee as an established
institution. If this be so, the writing of this passage in _Barnabas_
is relegated to the years in which the _Divina Commedia_ took its final
shape, or those just after the poet’s death in 1321 when the poem so
swiftly took its place among the classics of the world’s literature.
The foregoing sketch does not pretend to be exhaustive;[314] it does not
even claim to have proved anything of a substantial nature: but it may
perhaps suggest to some more competent mind a line of study which has at
least the merit of freshness, and it may serve to introduce to those who
are not acquainted with it, a document of no ordinary interest and of no
little beauty.
It is sometimes stated that Dante places Mohammed not among pagans
nor among heretics but with the schismatics: as though he shared the
optimistic view of some of his contemporaries, that the Moslems were but
an extreme form of Christian “sect.”
But Dante distributes his pagans without prejudice throughout the
successive circles, from the “Nobile Castello” in Limbo[315] to the
central seat of infamy in the Giudecca; and, as a matter of fact, a
pagan, Curio, is partner of Mohammed’s doom in the penultimate “bolgia”
of Malebolge. Obviously “scisma” must not be taken too technically
from Mohammed’s lips, supplemented as it is by the more general phrase
“seminator di scandalo.”[316] The “schism” of which the False Prophet
is guilty is rather that introduction of discord and strife into the
civilised world which makes “Macometto cieco” in the eighteenth canzone a
personification of the factious spirit of Florence.
Yet if it had fallen to Dante’s lot to judge the Founder of Islam
by the spirit of this Mohammedan Gospel, he might have shared that
milder and more optimistic view of Mohammedanism which, according to
a recent writer,[317] inspired Saint Francis when he set out upon his
Egyptian mission. For here he would have found, side by side with
the inevitable denial of our Lord’s Divinity, an attribution to him
not only of the Gospel miracles, but of others beside. He would have
found deep teachings on prayer and fasting and almsgiving; on humility,
penitence[318] and self-discipline; on meditation and mystic love. He
would have found an asceticism in some ways as extravagant as any to
be discovered in mediaeval legend, yet tempered with saving humour and
common sense; a tolerant and charitable spirit which rivals even that of
the “Cristo d’ Italia,” and “a succession of noble and beautiful thoughts
concerning love of God, union with God, and God as Himself the final
reward of faithful service, which it would be difficult to match in any
literature.”[319]
* * * * *
Eleven years after the above lines were written, there appeared in
Madrid a study of Dante’s relations with Mohammedan Eschatology,[320]
which may possibly prove to hold the key to some of the problems raised
by the _Gospel of Barnabas._ The learned Spanish Professor of Arabic
is by no means the first to explore the field of possible Oriental
sources for the Divine Comedy. Since Ozanam wrote his _La Philosophie
Chrétienne avant Dante_, a number of writers—D’Ancona, D’Ovidio and
others in Italy, and Vossler in Germany—have busied themselves with this
subject; and in 1901, M. Blochet[321] brought both the general idea of
the Unearthly Pilgrimage and some of its details into what looks like
a derivative relationship with the two great Oriental Ascension-myths:
the very ancient Mazdean story of Arda-Viraf, of Persian origin, and the
secondary legend of Mohammed’s one-night journey through the heavens,
founded on a short and obscure passage in the _Koran_[322] and known
as the _Miradj_. Together with other researchers in the same field, M.
Blochet brings in also Sinbad the Sailor, the Voyage of St. Brendan,
and all the family of the Quest of the Fortunate Isles; working up the
pedigree right back to the Hesperides of the Hellenic myths—themselves
descended from an ancestry more ancient still, and of origin further
East. He suggests the many possible channels of transmission of oriental
lore to Western Europe, and in particular to Ireland[323] by the more
easterly “Amber Route” which archaeology shews to have passed from
Mesopotamia over the Caucasus and through Russia to the Baltic. He
points again to the openings made by the Crusades, and singles out the
work of Dante’s Venetian contemporary, Marin Sanudo, _Liber secretorum
fidelium crucis_,[324] as evincing such a mastery of the entire “Eastern
Question” as would imply a very exact knowledge of the Moslem religion
and its legends. He points also to Paget Toynbee’s demonstration of
Dante’s indebtedness in no less than ten passages of the _Vita Nuova_ and
_Convivio_, to the Moslem astronomer Djaafer-îbn-Mohammed-el-Balkhi,
known to the mediaeval West by the less cumbrous name of Alfraganus.[325]
New ground has, however, undoubtedly been opened up by Dr. Asín. In his
Inaugural Lecture he makes claims which, no doubt, will be fiercely
combated, and in the end largely discounted. Dr. Parodi in his important
notice of this book[326] points out that Asín’s contention is two-fold,
and one half of it, at least, unprovable. The Spanish Orientalist claims
to have proved (1) that the Western legends of the World Beyond are
derived from Arab (and ultimately from Persian) sources, (2) that Dante
was acquainted with specific Moslem sources, and used them freely.