Recalling the ambitions and pursuits of worldly men, Dante realizes that none of them compares with what he is experiencing in Heaven with Beatrice. But he still has questions from the previous Canto about statements made by St. Thomas Aquinas. The crown of lights stops turning, and Aquinas again speaks to Dante through the rest of this Canto, telling the story of St. Francis of Assisi and Lady Poverty as he gradually answers the first of Dante’s two questions.
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O foolish cares of mortals! Your useless reasoning causes you to fly downward instead of up. There you are: some studying the law, some pouring over the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, some following after the priesthood, others pursuing careers in government so you can misuse its powers. Others of you plan theft, or pursue the affairs of state. Some are caught up in carnal pleasures, and some of you are simply lazy! And here I was, far from such vain pursuits, with my Beatrice in Heaven, welcomed with glory beyond words.[1]The first line of this sharp apostrophe was most likely modeled after the 1st century AD Roman poet and satirist Persius, whose First Satire begins: “O troubled humanity! O the emptiness of … Continue reading
When the crown of lights stopped turning, those glowing souls returned to where they were when we first saw them, standing there like candles alight. And once again the luminous spirit of Thomas Aquinas spoke to us in words of smiling light: “Even as I reflect the Light eternal, so I see within It the questions you still wish to ask. Perplexed by my earlier claims, when I said ‘where they might fatten,’ and ‘there has never been another one with such wisdom,’ you wish me to explain in simple terms what I meant, and happily I will do so.[2]At this point, we return to where the previous canto left off. The crown of spirits above Dante and Beatrice (more like a round medieval chandelier with lighted candles in a large church or … Continue reading
“The Providence of God that governs the world with such profound wisdom that no creature could ever hope to plumb Its depths, in order that the Church of Christ, who espoused her with His blood, and that she might be a faithful spouse, ordained that two princely men should assist her in her mission, each one serving as her guide. One of these princes was filled with love like the Seraphim, and the other in his wisdom shone like the Cherubim. For now, I will speak of only one of them because in speaking of one I praise both, for in their lives both served the same divine Master.[3]As an introduction to his explanation, Aquinas relates that in His divine Providence, God willed that two men – “princes” – should act as guides to His Church as she fulfills her mission. One … Continue reading
“Between the rivers Topino and Chiascio lay the fertile slopes of Mount Subasio from which hot summer winds blow through the Porta Sole at Perugia and cold ones in winter. On the other side of Subasio, the towns of Gualdo and Nocera find themselves at the mercy of cruel Perugia.[4]As we have seen on several occasions in the Comedy, Dante likes to amplify his narratives with geographical markers. Here, he has Thomas Aquinas do the same thing. Obviously, Dante’s earlier … Continue reading And where the mountain becomes less steep a sun was born that broke upon the world with the brilliance this sun has sometimes when it rises from the Ganges. Though this town is called “Ascesi,” that is not enough. Honoring its own brilliant sun it should be called Orient.[5]Mount Subasio rises to 4,200 feet, whereas Assisi is only a short way up it’s western slope, and thus less steep. Although it is St. Thomas Aquinas who speaks here, remembering that we are in the … Continue reading
“Not long after this new sun had risen he began to renew the world by the strength of his virtue.[6]Recalling the previous note of Martinez, about Francis helping to rebuild the Church, this is what Thomas Aquinas is referring to – Francis “renew[ing] the world by the strength of his virtue.” Standing fast in the face of his father’s anger, he fell in love with a lady that everyone shunned as worse than death itself. Then before the bishop and his own father he took the lady he loved in marriage, loving her more and more each day.[7]Reading a biography of St. Francis, one cannot miss the fact that he must have been the favorite of his mother and a headache for his father. The anger referred to here refers to Francis’s … Continue reading Having lost her first spouse, she lived unloved and despised for eleven hundred years and more until this young sun came for her. Alone with the poor fisherman Amyclas, she was steadfast when Caesar came to his door. Alone when her spouse died, she climbed his cross to be with him as his mother, Mary, sat below and wept.[8]Lady Poverty’s first spouse was Jesus. Seeing Him alone and abandoned at his death, Aquinas tells Dante that she climbed the cross to keep Jesus company as he died. From that time onward, it seems … Continue reading
“But enough of my allusions. I am telling you about Francis and Lady Poverty, the lovers in my story.[9]Dante has done this at various places in the Comedy, drawing out a story before identifying characters. Here, he has Thomas Aquinas doing it for him. Living in such blissful harmony, the mystery of their love and tenderness caused holy thoughts to grow in others’ hearts. Their first follower was the venerable Bernardo who, seeing their happy peace, gladly threw off his shoes to run after them quickly. What surprising wealth was to be discovered, what great good awaited! Giles was next to throw off his shoes, and then Sylvester. Having also fallen in love with the bride, they eagerly sought out the groom. Then that father and teacher, together with his spouse and their family girded themselves with the cord of humility and set off for Rome.[10]Francis and Lady Poverty were so happy together that they attracted others to follow them. The first to join Francis was Bernardo da Quintavalle, a wealthy merchant, followed by Giles and then … Continue reading
“Caring not that he was the son of the merchant, Pietro Bernardone, he felt no shame when he was mocked for dressing in rags. Rather, like a king he explained his difficult Rule to Pope Innocent who placed his seal upon this holy Order of poor men. As the followers of this man of poverty increased greatly, this holy father – whose amazing story should be sung by the angels – received the Church’s final approval through Pope Honorius who was inspired to do so by the Holy Spirit.[11]As a young man Francis was a “free spirit,” to use a modern term. He lived a carefree life and was well-liked. He fought in a skirmish between Assisi and Perugia and was taken prisoner. After his … Continue reading
“Thinking that he might convert the Sultan and his followers to the ways of Christ and his Church, this holy man traveled to Egypt. But seeing that no harvest of souls was to be made there he returned to Italian fields where a rich crop awaited him.[12]In 1219, during the Fifth Crusade, Francis and one of his followers, Brother Illuminato, made their way to Egypt with the crusaders with the intention of converting the Sultan, El-Melik El-Kamil. … Continue reading It then happened that, while fasting in the rocky region between the Arno and the Tiber, Christ gifted him with the marks of His own holy wounds which he bore until he died a few years later.[13]On September 14, 1224, St. Francis was making a retreat at an isolated mountain spot in the Apennines called La Verna (about 50 miles east of Florence). While he was at prayer he had a vision of a … Continue reading When that time came, ordained by God who now saw fit to call him to Himself for high rewards, this lowly man called his brothers together, calling them his heirs and commending them to his beloved lady. And making his deathbed with her upon the ground, his illustrious soul returned here to our heavenly kingdom.[14]In the year or so before he died, St. Francis began to go blind, suffering from the effects of trachoma, a disease of the eyes. His last days were spent at the tiny chapel of the Portiuncula just … Continue reading
“So now consider what kind of man would be fit to stand alongside him guiding St. Peter’s ship on the right way across the high seas. Just such a helmsman was our own holy father, and those who follow his commands will clearly see the richness of the cargo they carry.[15]St. Thomas Aquinas, having paid homage to the founder of the Franciscan Order, now calls Dante’s attention to his own founder, St. Dominic Guzman who, along with Francis, is another “helmsman” … Continue reading Sadly, his flock has grown greedy for rich food, and they wander aimlessly through bad pastures to feed themselves. The farther they go astray, the less milk they bring back. Some, it is true, stay with their shepherd; but so few are these that not much cloth is needed to make their hoods.[16]Before he turns the podium over, as it were, to a Franciscan Saint, St. Thomas has a few denunciations to make about his own Order. Many of the monks, it seems, have strayed from the first fervor of … Continue reading
“If I have been clear, and if you have listened carefully, you will recall my earlier words and your wish will have been partly satisfied.[17]Early in this canto, Thomas Aquinas noted that Dante had two questions: “Perplexed by my earlier claims, when I said ‘where they might fatten,’ and ‘there has never been another one with such … Continue reading For now you see the corruption I speak of and why I said, ‘where they might fatten – if they do not stray.’”[18]The fattening here refers to those Dominicans who remained faithful to their Rule and didn’t stray (the “corruption”) after worldly pursuits that led them away from their original calling.
Notes & Commentary
| ↑1 | The first line of this sharp apostrophe was most likely modeled after the 1st century AD Roman poet and satirist Persius, whose First Satire begins: “O troubled humanity! O the emptiness of life!” One is also reminded of the opening of the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Hebrew Bible (1:2): “Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” In contrast to the blissful peace of Paradise, Dante scornfully presents the earthly state of affairs as the unreasoned chaos of “vain pursuits.” He’s not belittling honorable human activity, but rather the pursuit of things without the aid of reason. Remember that his journey in the afterlife has taken him all through Hell and Purgatory where countless sinners are punished eternally or temporarily for such lapses of reason. And as far back as Canto 3 (17f) in the Inferno Virgil introduced him to Hell, saying: “We have come to the place I told you about where you will see those who have lost the good of the intellect.” As we continue to reflect on this opening scene, the contrast becomes all the more apparent. In the previous canto, the Poet’s arrival at the Sphere of the Sun (symbolizing Wisdom) was greeted by St. Thomas Aquinas (perhaps the most brilliant figure of the Middle Ages) who introduced Dante to eleven other great intellectuals. (One wonders whether Dante might have seen himself as one of their number similar to his experience in Limbo where he was welcomed by the great poets as one of their own.) Whereas here, for a moment’s intermission, we are reminded of those who have lost their way in life and those who have chosen the wrong paths, perhaps willfully. Not only have they lost their way, but their faulty reasoning has caused them to fly downward, making their separation from Dante’s present vantage point at the Sun all the greater. Note how the various activities Dante mentions actually fall in descending order from the higher ones like law and medicine to mere lust and indolence. As this opening apostrophe ends, note the influence of Boethius here, who wrote in his Consolation of Philosophy (1, Pr. 3): “So it is no matter for your wonder if, in this sea of life, we are tossed about by storms from all sides; for to oppose evil men is the chief aim we set before ourselves. Though the band of such men is great in numbers, yet is it to be contemned: for it is guided by no leader, but is hurried along at random only by error running riot everywhere. If this band when warring against us presses too strongly upon us, our leader, Reason, gathers her forces into her citadel, while the enemy are busied in plundering useless baggage. As they seize the most worthless things, we laugh at them from above, untroubled by the whole band of mad marauders, and we are defended by that rampart to which riotous folly may not hope to attain.” With Dante and Beatrice safely distant from the “madding crowd,” one is reminded of Thomas Gray’s poem, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard: “Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife / Their sober wishes never learn’d to stray; / Along the cool sequester’d vale of life / They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.” |
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| ↑2 | At this point, we return to where the previous canto left off. The crown of spirits above Dante and Beatrice (more like a round medieval chandelier with lighted candles in a large church or cathedral) stops rotating, and Thomas Aquinas, who can read Dante’s two questions in the mind of God, will now proceed to answer them. |
| ↑3 | As an introduction to his explanation, Aquinas relates that in His divine Providence, God willed that two men – “princes” – should act as guides to His Church as she fulfills her mission. One of these men (St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan Order) would be filled with love like the Seraphim (the highest order of angels, closest to God). The other (St. Dominic Guzman, founder of the Dominica Order) would be outstanding in wisdom, luminous like the Cherubim (the second-highest order of angels). Thomas will speak of the first of these men in the rest of this canto, and the other in the next canto. |
| ↑4 | As we have seen on several occasions in the Comedy, Dante likes to amplify his narratives with geographical markers. Here, he has Thomas Aquinas do the same thing. Obviously, Dante’s earlier readers would have known the places that are mentioned. But, for a moment, a few explanations as Aquinas prepares to introduce St. Francis of Assisi. Mount Subasio is a part of the Apennine Mountains, in the province of Perugia in Umbria, central Italy. On its western slope, overlooking the fertile Umbrian Valley, is the ancient town of Assisi. Both the rivers Topino and Chiascio flow through the valley, at the northern end of which is the city of Perugia with the Porta Sole (Sun Gate) built into its ancient Etruscan walls, and at the southern end is the city of Spoletto. On the other side of Mount Subasio are the towns of Gualdo and Nocera, that were under the dominion of Perugia. |
| ↑5 | Mount Subasio rises to 4,200 feet, whereas Assisi is only a short way up it’s western slope, and thus less steep. Although it is St. Thomas Aquinas who speaks here, remembering that we are in the Sphere of the Sun, he (Dante) calls St. Francis a sun (which was already an image for the Saint in Dante’s time). Francis died in 1226, 39 years before Dante was born. The particular aspect of the sun Dante has in mind here is its brilliance as it rises in the east over what was then considered the farthest eastern limits of the known world – the Ganges River in India. With this in mind, Dante/Aquinas suggests that Assisi honor its “sun” and be renamed “Orient.” But, keeping sun “rise” in mind, there’s also a play on words here in the original Italian. In Dante’s day, Assisi was known as Ascesi which, in the Tuscan dialect at the time, meant “I rose.” Ronald Martinez, offers these points in his commentary here: “The medieval spelling Ascesi means “I have risen,” and evokes both Christ’s ascent of the Cross (a key Franciscan theme) and his Resurrection; but the similar name of Oriente [rising place] evokes the cosmic Christ as the rising sun. Dante’s focus on Francis’s name echoes the prophet Zacharaias 6.12: “Behold a man, the Orient is his name,” a prophecy of the reconstruction of the Temple, interpreted to mean that Francis would help rebuild the Church.” |
| ↑6 | Recalling the previous note of Martinez, about Francis helping to rebuild the Church, this is what Thomas Aquinas is referring to – Francis “renew[ing] the world by the strength of his virtue.” |
| ↑7 | Reading a biography of St. Francis, one cannot miss the fact that he must have been the favorite of his mother and a headache for his father. The anger referred to here refers to Francis’s conversion to the poor, his refusal to follow his father’s career path as a merchant, and a dramatic scene following Francis’s (purposeful) misappropriation of his father’s money and merchandise to the poor. John Ciardi notes this part of the story in his commentary: “In a rage, his father forced the church to return the money, called Francis before the Bishop of Assisi, and there demanded that he renounce his right to inherit. Francis not only agreed gladly but removed his clothes and gave them back to his father saying, ‘Until this hour I called you my father on earth; from this hour I can say in full truth ‘our Father which art in Heaven.’” Aquinas also notes how Francis fell in love with a woman everyone despised. Her name was Poverty. Their marriage was sealed by his vow of poverty. We know that Dante studied at the Franciscan school at Santa Croce in Florence as well as at the Dominican school at Santa Maria Novella. And (though this is not certain) he may well have been a lay member of the Franciscan Order because he wore the cord of that order around his waist. Recall Canto 16 in the Inferno when Virgil had him remove the cord and the threw it over the edge of the cliff to summon the monster Geryon. |
| ↑8 | Lady Poverty’s first spouse was Jesus. Seeing Him alone and abandoned at his death, Aquinas tells Dante that she climbed the cross to keep Jesus company as he died. From that time onward, it seems that no one cared to engage her seriously until St. Francis. Dante must have known this prayer ascribed to St. Francis: “When, because the cross was so high, your very Mother – and such a Mother! – could not reach you (though she cherished you faithfully even then and remained in union with your sufferings with anguished affection) – then, I say. Lady Poverty was there like a most welcome handmaiden with all her privations to enfold you more tightly than ever and to share the more feelingly in your torment.” The inclusion of Amyclas here is almost gratuitous, except that his poverty is used by Dante as an example in his Convivio (4:13:12). In Lucan’s Pharsalia (V:515ff), Julius Caesar needed to cross the Adriatic to Italy from Greece, most likely where the west coast of Greece and the “heel” of Italy are closest to each other. In the middle of the night, Caesar came to the hut of the poor fisherman, Amyclas, and commanded that he row him across the sea. The point where this story and Aquinas’s reference to Lady Poverty meet is that Amyclas was so poor that he feared no one, not even Caesar. What did he possess that anyone would want? Nothing. In the Convivio Dante writes: “Thus Boethius says: ‘If a traveler journeys empty-handed, he can sing in the face of thieves.’ That is what Lucan means in his fifth book [of the Pharsalia] when he praises poverty for the security it offers, with the words: ‘O the simple security of a poor man’s life! O the safety of straightened lodgings and meager furnishings!’” |
| ↑9 | Dante has done this at various places in the Comedy, drawing out a story before identifying characters. Here, he has Thomas Aquinas doing it for him. |
| ↑10 | Francis and Lady Poverty were so happy together that they attracted others to follow them. The first to join Francis was Bernardo da Quintavalle, a wealthy merchant, followed by Giles and then Sylvester, who was a priest. Francis and his first followers went around without shoes or sandals. For a belt, they wore a piece of rope or a cord, symbolizing their humility. In the year 1210 Francis and his early followers set off for Rome to get approval of their order and their Rule from Pope Innocent III. |
| ↑11 | As a young man Francis was a “free spirit,” to use a modern term. He lived a carefree life and was well-liked. He fought in a skirmish between Assisi and Perugia and was taken prisoner. After his release, he later contracted a serious illness on at least two occasions, which set him thinking about the direction of his life. One day, as he was riding along a road near Assisi, he encountered a leper. In spite of his fear, he stopped and spoke with the afflicted man and ended by embracing and kissing him. This experience had a profound effect on him as though he had embraced and kissed God. Obviously, this was another in a series of calls that led the young Saint to abandon the world he was accustomed to and to take up life with his new “spouse,” Lady Poverty. Looking like a beggar, which he literally became, he was often mocked but not ashamed to imitate the poverty of Jesus. Ironically, among those who were his first followers were many of his young friends. In 1210, as noted earlier, seeing the need of papal approval for the group that was forming into an Order, Francis wrote a preliminary Rule and set out with several of his followers to see Pope Innocent III in order to get his approval. The Pope admired Francis and his followers for their convictions and devotion to the Gospel, but he felt that Francis’s Rule was too strict. Instead of a formal approval, he granted only a provisional approval. By the year 1223, the Order had grown to more than 5,000 members, and an obedient Francis returned to Rome once again to seek formal approval of his amended Rule. This time, it was, in fact, solemnly approved by Pope Honorius III, who, Aquinas tells Dante, was inspired to do so by the Holy Spirit. |
| ↑12 | In 1219, during the Fifth Crusade, Francis and one of his followers, Brother Illuminato, made their way to Egypt with the crusaders with the intention of converting the Sultan, El-Melik El-Kamil. Though they risked certain death at the hands of the Muslims, they were received with great courtesy by the Sultan who was also known as a holy man. Francis did not succeed in his mission, but was sent back safely to the crusaders’ camp. |
| ↑13 | On September 14, 1224, St. Francis was making a retreat at an isolated mountain spot in the Apennines called La Verna (about 50 miles east of Florence). While he was at prayer he had a vision of a Seraph (the Seraphim are the highest order of angels) who seemed to be crucified like Jesus on a cross. As the vision continued, the marks of the nails in Jesus’ hands and feet, and the spear wound in his side began to appear on St. Francis in the same places. This is the first recorded instance of the wounds of Jesus (also known as the stigmata) appearing on someone’s body. St. Francis bore the wounds of Christ until he died, two years later. He did the best he could to conceal them, but they often bled and caused him a great deal of pain. There have been more than 300 recorded instances of the stigmata since St. Francis, one of the more famous being the Italian Franciscan monk, Saint Padre Pio, who died in 1965 and had the stigmata for over 50 years. |
| ↑14 | In the year or so before he died, St. Francis began to go blind, suffering from the effects of trachoma, a disease of the eyes. His last days were spent at the tiny chapel of the Portiuncula just down the hill from Assisi where he and his followers had built a series of huts. On October 3, 1226, as he lay dying, he bequeathed his spouse, Lady Poverty, to his fellow monks, and then asked to be stripped naked and placed upon the earth when he died. Less than two years later, Francis was declared a Saint by Pope Gregory IX. Aquinas ends by telling Dante that the soul of St. Francis rose straight to Heaven, taking his place here in the Sphere of the Sun, having risen much like the sun to which he was likened in life. |
| ↑15 | St. Thomas Aquinas, having paid homage to the founder of the Franciscan Order, now calls Dante’s attention to his own founder, St. Dominic Guzman who, along with Francis, is another “helmsman” joining St. Peter in guiding the ship of the Church with its precious cargo of souls. Notice the X-shape of these two encomia: St. Thomas Aquinas, a member of the Order of St. Dominic speaks at length about St. Francis, founder of the Franciscan Order. In the next canto, a great Saint of the Franciscan Order will sing the praises of St. Dominic. |
| ↑16 | Before he turns the podium over, as it were, to a Franciscan Saint, St. Thomas has a few denunciations to make about his own Order. Many of the monks, it seems, have strayed from the first fervor of their consecrated lives and have gone astray from their main flock, following worldly pursuits (“rich food” in “bad pastures”) which bring little of value back to the flock as a whole. As Mark Musa calls them, “ewes with empty udders!” Somewhat sarcastically, Aquinas notes that it doesn’t take much cloth to make the hoods of those Dominicans who are faithful because there are so few of them. |
| ↑17 | Early in this canto, Thomas Aquinas noted that Dante had two questions: “Perplexed by my earlier claims, when I said ‘where they might fatten,’ and ‘there has never been another one with such wisdom,’ you wish me to explain in simple terms what I meant, and happily I will do so.” Having spoken at length about St. Francis of Assisi, he has addressed Dante’s first issue. |
| ↑18 | The fattening here refers to those Dominicans who remained faithful to their Rule and didn’t stray (the “corruption”) after worldly pursuits that led them away from their original calling. |