HEAVEN

When Dante wrote the Paradise, he well knew that he was engaged in the

supreme effort of his life, to which all else had led up. He well knew

that he was engaged in no pastime, but with intensest concentration of

matured power was delivering such a message from God to man as few

indeed had ever been privileged or burdened to receive. He well knew

that the words in which through long years of toil he had distilled the

sweetness and the might of his vision were immortal, that to latest

ages they would bear strength and purity of life, would teach the keen

eye of the spirit to gaze into the uncreated light, and would flood the

soul with a joy deeper than all unrest or sorrow, with a glory that no

gloom could ever dispel. He knew moreover that this his last and

greatest poem would speak to a few only in any generation, though

speaking to those few with a voice of transforming power and grace.

'Oh, ye,' he cries almost at the beginning of the Paradise, 'who,

desirous to hear, have followed in slight bark behind my keel, which

sings upon its course, now turn you back and make for your own shores,

trust not the open wave lest, losing me, ye should be left bewildered.

As yet all untracked is the wave I sail. Minerva breathes, Apollo leads

me on, and the nine Muses point me to the pole. Ye other few, who

timely have lift up your heads for bread of angels fed by which man

liveth but can never surfeit know, well may ye launch upon the ocean

deep, keeping my furrow as ye cut your way through waters that return

and equal lie.'[77]

In these last words, comparing the track he leaves to the watery furrow

that at once subsides, Dante seems to indicate that he was well aware

how easily the soul might drop out of his verses, how the things he had

to say were essentially unutterable, so that his words could at best be

only a suggestion of his meaning dependent for their effect upon the

subtlest spiritual influences and adjustments, as well as upon the

receptive sympathy of those to whom they were addressed. And if there

are so many that fail to catch the spirit and feel the heavenly harmony

of the music when it is Dante's own hand that touches the strings, how

hopeless seems the task of transferring even its echo, by translated

extracts, or descriptions, from which the soul has fled.

There is indeed much that is beautiful, much that is profound, in the

Paradise which is capable of easy reproduction, but the divine aroma of

the whole could only be translated or transferred by another Dante.

Petal after petal of the rose of Paradise may be described or copied,

but the heavenly perfume that they breathed is gone.

'His glory that moves all things,' so Dante begins the Paradise,

'pierces the universe; and is here more, here less resplendent. In that

Heaven which of His light has most, was I. There I saw things which he

who thence descends has not the knowledge or power to retell. For as it

draws anigh to its desire, our intellect pierces so deep that memory

cannot follow in its track. But of that sacred empire so much as I had

power in my mind to store, shall now be matter of my poesy.'[78]

And again, almost at the close he sings, 'As is he who dreams, and when

the dream is broke still feels the emotion stamped upon his heart

though all he saw is fled beyond recall, e'en such am I; for, all the

vision gone well-nigh without a trace, yet does the sweetness that was

born of it still drop within my heart.'[79]

If so much as an echo of that echo, if so much as a dream of that

dream, falls upon our ears and sinks into our hearts, then we are

amongst those few for whom Dante wrote his last and his divinest poem.

* * * * *

Through the successive heavens of Paradise Dante is conducted by

Beatrice; and here again the intimate blending in the divine guide of

two distinct almost contradictory conceptions forms one of the great

obstacles towards giving an intelligible account of the poem. This

obstacle can only disappear when patient study guided by receptive

sympathy has led us truly into the poet's thought.

In the Paradise, however, the allegorical and abstract element in the

conception of Beatrice is generally the ruling one. She is the

impersonation of Divine Philosophy, under whose guidance the spiritual

discernment is so quickened and the moral perceptions so purified, that

the intellect can thread its way through subtlest intricacies of

casuistry and theology, and where the intellect fails the eye of faith

still sees.

Even in this allegorical character Beatrice is a veritable personality,

as are Lucia, the Divine Grace, and the other attributes or agents of

the Deity, who appear in the Comedy as personal beings with personal

affections and feelings, though at the same time representing abstract

ideas. Thus Beatrice, as Divine Philosophy impersonated, is at once an

abstraction and a personality. 'The eyes of Philosophy,' says Dante

elsewhere, 'are her demonstrations, the smile of Philosophy her

persuasions.'[80] And this mystic significance must never be lost sight

of when we read of Beatrice's eyes kindling with an ever brighter glow

and her smile beaming through them with a diviner sweetness as she

ascends through heaven after heaven ever nearer to the presence of God.

The demonstrations of Divine Philosophy become more piercing, more

joyous, more triumphant, her persuasions more soul-subduing and

entrancing, as the spirit draws nearer to its source.

But though we shall never understand the Paradise unless we perceive

the allegorical significance and appropriateness not only of the

general conception of Beatrice, but also of many details in Dante's

descriptions of her, yet we should be equally far from the truth if we

imagined her a mere allegory. She is a glorified and as it were divine

_personality_, and watches over and guides her pupil with the

tenderness and love of a gentle and patient mother. The poet constantly

likens himself to a wayward, a delirious, or a frightened child, as he

flies for refuge to his blessed guide's maternal care.[81]

Again, they are in the eighth heaven, and Beatrice knows that a

glorious manifestation of saints and angels is soon to be vouchsafed

to Dante. Listen to his description of her as she stands waiting:

'E'en as a bird amongst the leaves she loves, brooding upon the nest of

her sweet young throughout the night wherein all things are hid,

foreruns the time to see their loved aspect and find them food, wherein

her heavy toil is sweet to her, there on the open spray, waiting with

yearning longing for the sun, fixedly gazing till the morn shall rise;

so did she stand erect, her eyes intent on the meridian. And seeing her

suspended in such longing I became as one who yearns for what he knows

not, and who rests in hope.'[82]

* * * * *

Under Beatrice's guidance, then, Dante ascends through the nine heavens

into the empyrean heights of Paradise. Here in reality are the souls of

all the blessed, rejoicing in the immediate presence and light of

God,[83] and here Dante sees them in the glorified forms which they

will wear after the resurrection. But in order to bring home to his

human understanding the varied grades of merit and beatitude in

Paradise, he meets or appears to meet the souls of the departed in the

successive heavens through which he passes, sweeping with the spheres

in wider and ever wider arc, as he rises towards the eternal rest by

which all other things are moved.

It is in these successive heavens that Dante converses with the souls

of the blessed. In the lower spheres they appear to him in a kind of

faint bodily form like the reflections cast by glass unsilvered; but in

the higher spheres they are like gems of glowing light, like stars that

blaze into sight or fade away in the depths of the sky; and these

living topaz and ruby lights, like the morning stars that sing together

in Job, break into strains of ineffable praise and joy as they glow

upon their way in rhythmic measure both of voice and movement.

Thus in the fourth Heaven, the Heaven of the Sun, Dante meets the souls

of the great doctors of the Church. Thomas Aquinas is there, and

Albertus Magnus and the Venerable Bede and many more. A circle of these

glorious lights is shining round Dante and Beatrice as Aquinas tells

the poet who they were on earth. 'Then like the horologue, that summons

us, what hour the spouse of God rises to sing her matins to her

spouse, to win his love, wherein each part urges and draws its fellow,

making a tinkling sound of so sweet note that the well-ordered spirit

swells with love: so did I see the glorious wheel revolve, and render

voice to voice in melody and sweetness such as ne'er could noted be

save where joy stretches to eternity.

'Oh, senseless care of mortals! Ah, how false the thoughts that urge

thee in thy downward flight! One was pursuing law, and medicine one,

another hunting after priesthood, and a fourth would rule by force or

fraud; one toiled in robbery, and one in civil business, and a third

was moiling in the pleasures of the flesh all surfeit-weary, and a

fourth surrendered him to sloth. And I the while, released from all

these things, thus gloriously with Beatrice was received in

Heaven.'[84]

When Beatrice fixes her eyes--remember their allegorical significance

as the demonstrations of Divine philosophy--upon the light of God, and

Dante gazes upon them, then quick as thought and without sense of

motion, the two arise into a higher heaven, like the arrow that finds

its mark while yet the bow-string trembles; and Dante knows by the

kindling beauty that glows in his guardian's eyes that they are nearer

to the presence of God and are sweeping Heaven in a wider arc.

The spirits in the higher heavens see God with clearer vision, and

therefore love Him with more burning love, and rejoice with a fuller

joy in His presence than those in the lower spheres. Yet these too rest

in perfect peace and oneness with God's will.

In the Heaven of the Moon, for instance, the lowest of all, Dante meets

Piccarda. She was the sister of Forese, whom we saw in the highest

circle but one of Purgatory, raised so far by his widowed Nella's

prayers. When Dante recognises her amongst her companions, in her

transfigured beauty, he says, '"But tell me, ye whose blessedness is

here, do ye desire a more lofty place, to see more and to be more loved

by God?" She with those other shades first gently smiled, then answered

me so joyous that she seemed to glow with love's first flame, "Brother,

the power of love so lulls our will, it makes us long for nought but

what we have, and feel no other thirst. If we should wish to be exalted

more, our wish would be discordant with His will who here assigned us;

and that may not be within these spheres, as thou thyself mayst see,

knowing that here we needs must dwell in love, and thinking what love

is. Nay, 'tis inherent in this blessedness to hold ourselves within the

will Divine, whereby our wills are one. That we should be thus rank by

rank throughout this realm ordained, rejoices all the realm e'en as its

King, who draws our wills in His. And His decree is our peace. It is

that sea to which all things are moved which it creates and all that

nature forges." Then was it clear to me how every where in Heaven is

Paradise, e'en though the grace distil not in one mode from that Chief

Good.'[85]

So again in the second heaven, the Heaven of Mercury, the soul of

Justinian tells the poet how that sphere is assigned 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 God. 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 Hell 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 Hell 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 God 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 Hell.' 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 nobles 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 Hell 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 Godfrey

and many more.

A red cross glows athwart the planet's orb, 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 shine forth out of the Milky Way, pass and repass 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 God, 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 appetite 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 passes 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 passions 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, God's justice must be manifest. Reflected in all Heaven, here

must it shine 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 God?'

The Word of God, 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 God, and fell through his impatience. How then could a poor

mortal hope to scan the ways of God? His ken was lost in His deep

justice as the eye is lost in the ocean. We can see the shallow bottom

of the shore, but we cannot see the bottom of the deep, which none the

less is there. So God'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 Hell,

there are no virtuous but rejected Heathen. Yet to us too the ocean of

God'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 God's justice, for you

feel it with you in your heart when you are fighting for the cause of

justice; you know God's justice, for you feel it in your heart like an

avenging angel when you sin; you know God'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 Hell 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 God 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 Hell, God 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 passion 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 passed 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 passed 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 passing 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 God that

streamed upon them from above, while the angels ever passed 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 gratitude 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 Hell 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 God. 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 God,

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 God.

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]