The great Eagle continues to speak with Dante, drawing his attention to its head, particularly its eye and brow. The Eagle tells Dante that the soul of David, the King and Psalmist, shines brightly in the pupil of its eye. Then the Eagle proceeds to identify the five soul-lights that make up its eyebrow. The first is the emperor Trajan, followed by the Hebrew king Hezekiah. Next comes the emperor Constantine, then William the Good of Sicily, and finally Ripheus the Trojan. Hearing that two pagans – Trajan and Ripheus – are here in Heaven, Dante questions how such a thing can be possible. The Eagle explains how both souls came to be saved, but also reminds Dante that the workings of Predestination are so deep that no one can fully plumb the depths of God’s will – not even those who look directly at Him.
(To read a footnote, click the number in the text. To come back from a footnote, click the up arrow at the note number.)
When he who bathes the world in his light had set and left our hemisphere in darkness on all sides, the sky – which he alone lights in the day – was quickly re-illuminated by countless stars, all reflections of that same sun. Seeing how the heavens changed, I also saw that great Eagle – symbol of the world’s powers – silent now as all its living lights blazed even brighter while they chanted those divine songs whose sweetness had slipped from my memory. O sweet love that within its smiles enfolds you! What ardent music your holy thoughts poured forth then.[1]Imagining that we are in the celestial theater with Dante and Beatrice, with this canto we are still in the same act (Jupiter), but a different scene from the previous canto. As this scene opens, the … Continue reading
And when those resplendent jewel-souls who made this sixth planet shine ended their song, I could hear what I thought was the gentle murmuring of a clear stream flowing from an abundant source. As the lute’s notes sound forth from its neck, and as the breath within a flute becomes music, just so a murmur rose up through the Eagle’s neck as through an opening and became words from out of its beak – words I longed to hear, words now written in my heart.[2]Dante has been making strong appeals to our senses with images of sight and sound. Sunset, stars, glittering souls, celestial music and hymns, a murmuring stream, and the sounds of a lute and a … Continue reading
It spoke to me thus: “I want you to look closely at that part of me, were I a mortal eagle, that can look directly at the sun. Of all the luminous souls which shape me in this way, those that form my eye are the brightest and the most beautiful. The soul that shines within my pupil was he who, inspired by God’s Holy Spirit, wrote the Psalms and carried the Ark of the Covenant from town to town. Here he knows the value of his sacred songs, to which his own talent contributed, because his happiness here is equal to it.[3]To understand precisely what Dante was seeing in this next section of the canto, we have to imagine the Eagle’s head turned in profile as in a heraldic coat of arms. While it speaks directly to … Continue reading
“Look now at the five lighted souls who form the arch of my eyebrow. The one closest to my beak was the great Trajan, he who showed compassion to the lonely widow who had lost her son. Compared to his life here in Heaven he knows the cost a man pays for not following Christ.[4]We now move from the pupil of the Eagle’s eye to its eyebrow. Recall that we’re seeing the Eagle in profile from its left side, and we begin at the far left side of its eyebrow. Here we find the … Continue reading The soul next to him along that arch was Hezekiah who, through true penitence, was able to postpone his death, and now he knows that God’s judgments remain the same even though prayers from earth can delay one’s death for a time.[5]Hezekiah reigned as king of Judah for 29 years from ca. 715 to 686 BCE. He was a good and devout king, known for ridding the land of pagan shrines and idols, and restoring the Temple in Jerusalem. In … Continue reading
“Following, then, along that arch,” the Eagle continued, “is Constantine, who moved me and the seat of the empire to the East, leaving the Pope to take his place in the West. His intentions were good but they bore bad fruit, and here he knows that all the harm that sprang from his decision cannot do him injury, even though the world be ruined.[6]In the year 330 AD, the Emperor Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Byzantium, which he renamed after himself, Constantinople (present-day Istanbul). In doing this, he left … Continue reading The next soul you see is that of William the Good, mourned by Sicily where Charles and Frederick now do much evil. Here he knows how Heaven loves a righteous king and thus he shines so brilliantly.[7]This is William II Hauteville (1153-1189), King of Naples and Sicily, who ruled from 1166 till his early death in 1189. Quite the opposite from his father, he was known as “the Good” because he … Continue reading Lastly, who in your erring world would believe that the fifth soul among these holy lights is Ripheus of Troy? Here in this place he knows more about the grace of God than anyone on earth, though even his eye cannot probe its depths.”[8]Unless one were a close and careful reader of Virgil’s Aeneid, one might not give a second thought to this seemingly un-notable Trojan warrior, Ripheus. But his presence here, while it has caused … Continue reading
Now, like a soaring lark that sings and then, satisfied with its song, stops, so did that great Eagle seem satisfied in reflecting God’s pleasure in making all things what they truly are. All the same, I was still much perplexed and could not keep my doubts from taking shape in words. “How can such a thing be?” I said, freed from the weight of those heavy thoughts. But no sooner had I spoken than all those glittering souls flashed forth their joy at hearing my question.[9]The curtain has come down on the previous “scene” in this Jupiterian drama, but the play is hardly over. The Eagle, having spoken its lines with lark-song words, is now silent again. Standing … Continue reading And burning more brightly than before, that sacred Eagle answered me at once: “I can see that you believe what I have told you, but you do not see how it is possible, and so the truth hides from you. You are like someone who knows the name of a thing but cannot grasp its essence unless someone explains it to you. True it is that the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence – but from ardent love and passionate hope. These have the power to overcome God’s will – but not as one man defeats another. No: His will wills it this way so that defeated like this its great mercy shows forth.[10]The Eagle understands that sometimes the “How can it be?” of something can also hide the truth of it. Always seeing more of the truth than Dante sees, the Eagle sets out to show him as much of it … Continue reading
“The first and the fifth soul I named within my brow leave you wondering how this angelic kingdom can be adorned with the likes of them. But you think they died as pagans. Not so, but as Christians: the first believing in Christ already come and other in Christ yet to come.[11]Quickly, the Eagle corrects Dante’s earlier misgivings. Neither Trajan nor Ripheus (the first and fifth souls on the Eagle’s brow) died as pagans. They died as Christians. How? Trajan by … Continue reading
“The first one came back to this life from Limbo, where there is no return. This was a reward for the great hope that filled Gregory’s prayers – prayers that he be brought back so that he might be free to chose the path of Christ.[12]The legend of Pope Gregory’s prayerful intervention on behalf of Trajan has already been laid out above. And Robert Hollander remarks about Gregory’s hope here in his commentary:“What is … Continue reading And so it happened that this shining soul, having returned to the flesh he only briefly inhabited, turned his faith to Him Who has the power to save. This faith of his lit such a fire of love within him that when he died a second time, he came directly here to join our great feast.[13]As it happens, even St. Thomas Aquinas writes about this in his Summa Theologiae ( III, Suppl., q. 71, a. s, ads):“Concerning the incident of Trajan it may be supposed with probability that he was … Continue reading
“The other soul you ask about is here by means of grace that flows from a source so deep that no one has ever plumbed it fully. He was a good and righteous man, and from that hidden source of grace God filled him and so opened his eyes that he saw the true light of salvation and believed. From then on he shunned all pagan ways and set himself against those who practiced them. More than a thousand years before Christ he was baptized by those three ladies you saw at the right side of the chariot down on the Mount.[14]At last we come to the most challenging part of this canto: the salvation of the noble Trojan Ripheus. If there’s a legend about the conversion and salvation of Trajan, and only a few lines about … Continue reading
“O Predestination! How vastly deep is your source from the eyes of those who cannot envision the Primal Cause in its entirety! Know this, you men of the earth, and be slow to judge, that even we who see God in the face do not yet know the list of those He has saved. But for us this incomplete knowledge is a joy, because whatever God wills we will too!”
With these words, then, that great Eagle gave me soothing medicine to heal my shortness of sight. And as one who plays the lute with expertise will adjust his pitch to the singer’s voice, thus making his song more lovely, so as that great bird spoke to me, I saw those two holy souls – like two eyes blinking at the same time – flame up as they kept time with the Eagle’s words.
Notes & Commentary
| ↑1 | Imagining that we are in the celestial theater with Dante and Beatrice, with this canto we are still in the same act (Jupiter), but a different scene from the previous canto. As this scene opens, the stage darkens as though the sun has set. The background is filled with glittering stars, some shining more, some less – by the light of the sun. (In Dante’s time, it was believed that the stars variously reflected the light of the sun.) But Dante still sees the great Eagle, not darkened, but definitely standing out somewhat from the dark background with the stars. The heavenly bird is silent now, but all the living lights (souls) that made it up shine even more brightly as they chant their beautiful songs. Their words are so high above Dante’s comprehension that he has forgotten them. But their sacred effect remains to enchant him. Note here, also, that when the Eagle is silent it is the souls who sing out, not through the Eagle, but as themselves. |
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| ↑2 | Dante has been making strong appeals to our senses with images of sight and sound. Sunset, stars, glittering souls, celestial music and hymns, a murmuring stream, and the sounds of a lute and a flute. In anticipation of what the Eagle will say when it speaks, the last images appeal to our hearing as we watch the great bird prepare to speak – Dante waiting with great anticipation. And note the Poet here in his role as scribe: though he could not remember the words of the hymns sung by the glittering souls, the words spoken by the Eagle will be written in his heart. |
| ↑3 | To understand precisely what Dante was seeing in this next section of the canto, we have to imagine the Eagle’s head turned in profile as in a heraldic coat of arms. While it speaks directly to Dante, the Eagle asks him to focus specifically on his eye, where he will see the most beautiful of the souls who form it. From ancient times it was believed that the eagle could look directly at the sun without damaging its eye. Symbolically this indicates that the eagle can look directly at the Sun (God) and see into the roots of divine justice which, as we’ve seen, no mortal (including Dante) can comprehend. In the pupil of the Eagle’s eye is King David who, though not the first of Israel’s Kings (he was the second), was its most famous and beloved. He was a distant ancestor of Jesus. He is traditionally said to have composed the Book of Psalms in the Hebrew Bible, another musical reference. And by bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem, he made that city Israel’s capital to this day and its future temple (built by his son, Solomon) the spiritual center of Judaism. Not only all of this, but in his Convivio (IV, v.), Dante links King David with the founding of Rome: David and Rome were born together, that is, when Aeneas came to Italy from Troy, which was a precursor to the founding of the Roman city, according to the written records. Thus the divine election of the Roman Empire is manifest in the birth of the sacred city, contemporaneous with [David] the root of [the Virgin] Mary’s line.” Note the connection between the Eagle, symbol of the Empire, and the soul of King David, who resides in the eye of the Eagle (as it were, “the apple of his eye”). And one further point here. Not only did David bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, which led to the later building of a magnificent temple as the cultic center of Israel’s religion, but many of his Psalms (hymns) were used for centuries to come in that temple’s worship and liturgies. In a sense, everything Dante witnesses in his passage through the heavens is part of the ongoing liturgy of divine praise of God. Paradise is the ultimate Temple of God where the angels and Saints worship Him continually with music and praise. |
| ↑4 | We now move from the pupil of the Eagle’s eye to its eyebrow. Recall that we’re seeing the Eagle in profile from its left side, and we begin at the far left side of its eyebrow. Here we find the Emperor Trajan, whom we met in the first of the magnificent wall carvings in Canto 10 of the Purgatorio. The Eagle reminds us of how Trajan stopped with his army marching out of Rome to do justice for a poor widow who had lost her son. Oh, my! He’s a pagan! And he’s in Heaven! Recall Dante’s earlier question about whether someone who has never known Christ can still be saved. There’s definitely a story here. Pope Gregory I, also known as St. Gregory the Great, apparently had a great affection for Trajan as told in this excerpt from A.P. Stanley’s Historical Memorials of Canterbury. “His heart yearned towards those old Pagan heroes or sages who had been gathered to their fathers without hearing the name of Christ. He could not bear to think, with the belief that prevailed at the time, that they had been consigned to destruction. One especially there was, of whom he was constantly reminded in his walks through Rome – the great Emperor Trajan, whose statue he always saw rising above him at the top of the tall column which stood in the market-place, called the Forum of Trajan. It is said that he was so impressed with the thought of the justice and goodness of this heathen sovereign, that he earnestly prayed in St. Peter’s Church that God would even now give him grace to know the name of Christ and be converted.” According to legend, Trajan was returned to life from Limbo and lived long enough to be baptized and instructed in the Christian faith. And, according to the Eagle, Trajan knows well the difference between life in Paradise as opposed to an eternity in Limbo. |
| ↑5 | Hezekiah reigned as king of Judah for 29 years from ca. 715 to 686 BCE. He was a good and devout king, known for ridding the land of pagan shrines and idols, and restoring the Temple in Jerusalem. In recounting this story about King Hezekiah, Dante seems to have conflated two stories in the Hebrew Bible to suit his purpose here: 2 Kings 20:1-6 and Isaiah 38:1-5. Mortally ill and near death, the prophet Isaiah told the king to put his affairs in order because he would die very soon. Hezekiah wept bitterly and prayed that God would spare him. Once again, Isaiah came to the king and told him that God had heard and accepted his prayers, and that he would live for another fifteen years. A few years later, he fell into the sin of pride, but again repented. On Dante’s words about how worthy prayers from earth can cause that which was ordained for the present time to be postponed to a future time, Henry F. Tozer, in his commentary here, notes that “this was what happened in Hezekiah’s case through the postponement of his death. The meaning of the entire passage here is, that what God has ordained is not changed in answer to prayer, because God has already provided for it.” |
| ↑6 | In the year 330 AD, the Emperor Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Byzantium, which he renamed after himself, Constantinople (present-day Istanbul). In doing this, he left the western part of the Empire under the control of the papacy in a document known as The Donation of Constantine (it was officially declared a forgery in the mid-fifteenth century). In the mean time, while Dante himself accepted the document as valid, he also claimed that Constantine had no right to do what the document claimed. As he knew well from his own time, the document had been used to validate papal interference in secular, civil, and political matters. Thus, as he states here, Constantine may have had good intentions and is now above the fray on earth, as it were, but his actions did not leave the world a better place. Here, he follows St. Thomas Aquinas, who said: “A consequence cannot make evil an action that was good, nor good an action that was evil” (Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 20,a.5, resp.). Robert Hollander notes: “Dante may allow him salvation, but makes him pay for it eternally and dearly with this permanent wound in his self-awareness. This does not efface the glory his good intention won him, but it does mar its beauty.” |
| ↑7 | This is William II Hauteville (1153-1189), King of Naples and Sicily, who ruled from 1166 till his early death in 1189. Quite the opposite from his father, he was known as “the Good” because he was known to be just, righteous, generous, and a strong supporter of the Church and other religious institutions. These qualities are highly revered in Heaven and thus he shines so brilliantly on the Eagle’s brow, as opposed to Charles II of Anjou and Frederick II of Aragon, whose wickedness was noted in the previous canto. |
| ↑8 | Unless one were a close and careful reader of Virgil’s Aeneid, one might not give a second thought to this seemingly un-notable Trojan warrior, Ripheus. But his presence here, while it has caused headaches for centuries of readers and commentators, is utterly beautiful: his apparent “smallness” points to the incomprehensible mystery of God’s boundless mercy and grace. Trajan we might be willing to accept because of the legend that surrounds him. But Ripheus was a pagan: beginning, middle, and end. What we know about him comes from Book II (ll. 426ff) in the Aeneid: “Ripheus also falls, the most just one among the Trojans, and the most devout of justice: the gods saw otherwise.” According to Virgil, Ripheus was “the most just of all the Trojans, and keenest for what was right.” Notice how, with just a few words, Virgil immortalized him, and Dante “eternalizes” him, in spite of the gods, who disagreed and allowed him to die. Apart from his earlier questions about the salvation of those who did not know Christ, and the Eagle’s answer that it is a mystery hidden in the depths of God, here, as it were, Dante turns the pagan pantheon upside down and brings into Paradise this simply noble Trojan. Ripheus, it seems, knows less about how he got here but definitely more about the workings of divine justice and grace, though not all. I beg the Reader’s indulgence for this rather lengthy passage from John S. Carroll’s magisterial commentary on the Paradiso which frames this passage about Ripheus wonderfully: “That ‘the gods saw otherwise’ can scarcely mean that the gods mistook his [Ripheus’] character, and, thinking him unjust, slew him in the fight. Virgil has the natural feeling that a truly just man ought to be under the special protection of the gods, but that often, for some mysterious reason, it seems otherwise to their larger vision, and the most just of men appears to perish. It is at this point the Christian poet [Dante] takes up the problem of the heathen poet [Virgil], and solves it by showing the glory to which Rhipeus passed when he fell in the horrors of that night. This, in short, is the ‘otherwise’ as it ‘seemed’ to the Eternal Justice. “Dante is here satisfying his own hunger for the salvation of the heathen; but it is not without meaning that it is a Trojan that is chosen. Mr. Gardner is undoubtedly right in saying that ‘Dante’s main object is clearly to indicate that the race whom he regards as the ancestors of the Roman People were not without divine light.’ The most just citizen among the ancient race, and the most just Emperor among their descendants, are chosen out of the heathen world as examples of a Divine grace which overflows the bounds of the ordinary means of salvation, according to the astonished words of St. Peter: ‘Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that fears him, and works righteousness, is accepted with him.’ “The most important point in all this may be easily overlooked. It is, I think, the transference of the mystery from the justice of God to His grace in the salvation of the heathen.” |
| ↑9 | The curtain has come down on the previous “scene” in this Jupiterian drama, but the play is hardly over. The Eagle, having spoken its lines with lark-song words, is now silent again. Standing alone, as it were, on a darkened stage, with all the sets removed from the previous scene, Dante is left musing over what he has seen and heard. He has no reason to disbelieve what he’s been shown, nor to argue with the Eagle’s explanations. But when he says, “How can such a thing be?” he speaks for his Reader(s) as well. “How?” And before the Eagle who speaks for God, responds again, all the sparkling souls that make up the Eagle flash out in joyful affirmation that Dante has asked the right question. And so it is that Dante the Pilgrim and his Reader(s) are being led by the Poet to continue the project of unfolding, as much as possible, the mystery of grace and salvation. Trajan was a challenge. But Ripheus seems an impossibility. Not even the Eagle understands completely how he was saved. Let us listen to its reply. |
| ↑10 | The Eagle understands that sometimes the “How can it be?” of something can also hide the truth of it. Always seeing more of the truth than Dante sees, the Eagle sets out to show him as much of it as he can comprehend. That the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence is a statement from St. Matthew’s Gospel (11:12): “…the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent are taking it by force.” What led to this statement by Jesus was that John the Baptist, who preached about Jesus, had been arrested and imprisoned by King Herod. John’s disciples then came to Jesus asking if he was, in fact, the prophet John had been preaching about. The violence and force are obvious in John’s treatment. But the Eagle (Dante the Poet) does something wonderful here as it replaces the violence with the virtues of hope, love, and mercy: something Dante doesn’t expect, like the salvation of Trajan and Ripheus. The “violence” the Eagle highlights here has nothing to do with overcoming something or someone with physical injury, but with the strength and power of love and hope. In other words, the Kingdom of Heaven (in this case, God) is overcome by the power of these virtues. AND, He lets (wills) Himself be overcome! His defeat isn’t a humiliation. Rather, it shows off His mercy. Stated plainly, God is overcome by love! |
| ↑11 | Quickly, the Eagle corrects Dante’s earlier misgivings. Neither Trajan nor Ripheus (the first and fifth souls on the Eagle’s brow) died as pagans. They died as Christians. How? Trajan by believing in Christ who had already come (he was born about 20 years after Jesus died), and Ripheus by believing in Christ who had not yet come (it would be another 1200 years before Christ was born). As we’ll see, it may be easy to accept Trajan’s salvation because he accepted the Christian faith current at the time. Ripheus, on the other hand, seems more problematical because…well, he accepted the Christian faith before it existed? |
| ↑12 | The legend of Pope Gregory’s prayerful intervention on behalf of Trajan has already been laid out above. And Robert Hollander remarks about Gregory’s hope here in his commentary: “What is perhaps most surprising about Trajan’s reward is that it was won not by his hope, but by that of Pope Gregory. We are reminded of the fate of those in Limbo (where, we assume, Trajan was first lodged), who exist (according to Inf. IV.42) longing for a better lot, if without hope for it. Gregory’s hope “conquered” God on Trajan’s behalf; the emperor himself, the evidence that we gather from Limbo would seem to assert, was hopeless.” |
| ↑13 | As it happens, even St. Thomas Aquinas writes about this in his Summa Theologiae ( III, Suppl., q. 71, a. s, ads): “Concerning the incident of Trajan it may be supposed with probability that he was recalled to life at the prayers of blessed Gregory, and thus obtained the grace whereby he received the pardon of his sins and in consequence was freed from punishment. The same applies to all those who were miraculously raised from the dead, many of whom were evidently idolaters and damned. For we must needs say likewise of all such persons that they were consigned to hell, not finally, but as was actually due to their own merits according to justice: and that according to higher causes, in view of which it was foreseen that they would be recalled to life, they were to be disposed of otherwise.” |
| ↑14 | At last we come to the most challenging part of this canto: the salvation of the noble Trojan Ripheus. If there’s a legend about the conversion and salvation of Trajan, and only a few lines about Ripheus, Dante makes up for the difference and here creates his own legend. Prefacing its response, the Eagle makes it clear to Dante that the “How?” and “Why?” of his salvation is a matter of God’s grace, and that the source of this grace is so deep that no one has seen its source. Nevertheless, he continues, Ripheus was a virtuous man, about whom Virgil wrote in Book II (ll. 426ff) in the Aeneid: “…the most just one among the Trojans, and the most devout of justice.” These virtues and others were the effects of God’s hidden grace working in him such that his life became perfectly aligned with the salvation God had always willed for him. And according to the Eagle, not only was Ripheus baptized by his own virtues, he was baptized by those three ladies (representing the virtues of Faith, Hope, and Love) who danced along the right side of Beatrice’s chariot when it appeared in Canto 29 of the Purgatorio. “Grace” itself is a vast topic, but it’s also rather simple. Perhaps it is best understood as the active power of God’s love and care for us, working within us for good. We don’t earn it, we don’t deserve it. It’s freely given regardless of our worthiness or unworthiness, and a bit mysterious. Because it comes from God as a gift, it necessarily has the power for good in an individual. In his Letter to the Ephesians (2:8), St. Paul writes: “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.” A final point from Robert Hollander’s commentary here which adds a bit of provocative humor to Dante’s claim that the grace-filled Ripheus shunned pagan ways and practices. “As provocation, this detail is over the top. Nonetheless, the commentators are amazingly willing to accept what Dante says without protest. The whole story of Ripheus is nothing less than outrageous, and now the poet tops it off by turning him into a sort of Trojan St. Paul. ‘Why not?’ Dante seems to have thought. ‘If he became a Christian, he must have hated those shoddy pagan gods and the religious practices of his fellow pagans; doesn’t that makes sense?’ And so Ripheus is presented as having preached against those practices. Is Dante having fun with us? And at Virgil’s expense? Perhaps. (It would not be the only time.)” |