Having stared so intently at the Apostle John in the previous canto, Dante was temporarily blinded. Assuring him that his sight will return, St. John now initiates a conversation/examination with the Pilgrim about the virtue of Love. Dante tells the Apostle that God is the beginning and end of his love, but St. John asks him why he sets his goal so high. Dante replies that he has learned about love from reading philosophical texts and those which came down from Heaven – namely, the Scriptures. Good kindles good, Dante tells him, and good also begets love. This love can also lead a person to God. Dante cites God revealing himself to Moses and St. John’s own Gospel as proof-texts. Happy with Dante’s answers, the Apostle probes deeper and Dante offers more proofs of his great love. Then all of Heaven sings out with joy and a flash of light from Beatrice’s eyes restores Dante’s sight. The first thing he sees is a fourth brilliant flame that has joined Sts. Peter, James, and John. Beatrice tells him that this is the soul of Adam. Dante is filled with desire to speak with Adam, who already knows his questions and happily proceeds to answer him.
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Blinded, I stood there fearful and confused. But in a moment there came a voice from out of the brilliant flame that had stolen my sight. It said: “Let conversation between us make up for the sight you lost staring at me so intently. So, then, tell me what goal you have your heart set upon – and do not worry about your eyes. Your sight, dazzled for a while, will return to you. Be assured that she who guides you through these heavens has the same power in her glance that enabled Ananias – with his hands – to restore the sight of our brother, Paul.”[1]Dante’s examination on Love begins here. St. John is clever, if one can say that, in having the Poet/candidate speak while he is still blind because there will be less to distract him as he ponders … Continue reading
I said in reply: “As it pleases her, now or later, may she restore my eyes that were but the gates by which she entered with such fire that I still burn. The Good which fully satisfies this realm with joy – that is the Alpha and Omega of all the texts Love has read to me.”[2]Realizing now that his sight will be restored by Beatrice, Dante virtually says, “Ok. She can take her time. I’m still on fire from the last time she looked at me.” This fire of love for his … Continue reading
Once again, the voice that had calmed my earlier fear of being blind, encouraged me to say more. “Surely, you need to refine what you have stated by further explanation,” he replied. “Tell me why you take aim at such a high mark?”[3]Remembering St. John’s own words, “God is love,” the “high mark” Dante is aiming for here is God. But the Apostle doesn’t settle for the immediate breadth of the Poet’s answer. Asking … Continue reading
I told him: “Both philosophical reasoning and the authority that comes down to us from this realm print the stamp of this Love upon me. That is because the good, insofar as we can understand it, kindles even more good; and with more good comes more love. Thus the mind of anyone who can see the truth of this must be moved by love to love God, which is the greatest love of all – every other kind of love is merely a reflection of this.[4]The Poet begins his refinement by stating his that his understanding of God as Love and the object of all desire has been “stamped” or imprinted on him both through his study of philosophy … Continue reading The truth of this has been made clear to me by those great thinkers who point to the God of Love as the First Mover of all things. This was made plain by God, when he said – speaking of Himself to Moses: ‘I will make all my goodness pass before you.’ Furthermore, you yourself reveal this to us in the first words of your Gospel which, more than any other proclamation, tells us on earth about the mystery of Heaven.”[5]Dante’s first reference here is most likely based on Aristotle (commentators differ on exactly where). There is a first principle of the universe stating that all created things seek the good for … Continue reading
The voice then said: “Human reason and divine revelation agree here – the highest aim of all your loves is the love of God. But say more about this: are there other things that draw you to Him? Tell us of Love’s many teeth that hold you fast.”[6]St. John approves of Dante’s answer and affirms that the ultimate goal of his love is the love of God. That being the case, however, the Apostle asks, translating Dante’s Italian: “Tell … Continue reading
The holy purpose of these questions from Christ’s great eagle was clear to me, and I now knew how to frame my answer. Replying, I said: “The bite of those teeth can move a man to love God, and I have been bitten that way. The existence of the world and my own being, the death He willingly endured that I might have eternal life, the hope of all faithful believers, all this, with the great truths I spoke of earlier, have saved me from the sea of false love and brought me to the shore of True Love. I love every leaf in the garden of the Eternal Gardener to the extent that His goodness grows within it.”[7]In this passage we have the climax of Dante’s examination. As though he has been waiting for the moment, he lists the “teeth” of Love that hold him fast: first (earlier) was what he learned … Continue reading
The very moment I stopped speaking the whole of Heaven was filled with the sweetest singing, and Beatrice joined those celestial choirs who chanted: “Holy! Holy! Holy!” And then, just as a sudden flash of light will startle us from sleep as our sense of sight rushes toward the light it perceives, and just as the startled sleeper shies away from that rude awakening until his judgment sets it all aright, just so, Beatrice drove the blindness from my clouded eyes with those dazzling orbs of hers, whose brilliance shines out for more than a thousand miles. And seeing far better than I had before, I was taken aback to see that a fourth blazing light had joined the other three. Beatrice said to me: “There within those rays of blazing light you now see, looking with love upon his Creator, is the first soul the First Power made.”[8]Each successful passage of an exam has been accompanied by a notable event: for Faith, St. Peter circled around Dante three times; for Hope, all the spirits danced for joy and St. John appeared as a … Continue reading
As in strong winds trees bend and then straighten again, so I had bent when she spoke to me. But my confidence soon returned and with it the burning desire to speak to him, so I said: “O apple – the first and only fruit created fully ripe, O oldest of fathers, every woman’s father and father-in-law, as devoutly as I can, I beg you to speak with me. You see how much I wish it, and to hear you more I will stop and listen.”[9]Dante, with his sight restored, bends like a tree in the wind in respectful homage to Adam the first human, created directly by God. One can imagine a most reverent and now-highly confident Dante … Continue reading
At times an animal’s skin might quiver in accord with its inner feeling. Just so, that first human soul shook with joy within his brilliant glow and brought me joy as well. Then he spoke to me, saying: “Without your having to tell me, I already know your ardent desire, even better than you do, because I see it in that divine Mirror of Truth which perfectly reflects all things, but which no created thing can reflect back as perfectly. You wish to know how long ago it was that our Creator placed me in that Garden of Paradise where Beatrice prepared you for your journey up into our heavens here. You also desire to know how long I was there, what was the true reason for God’s anger, and what language I created and spoke while I was there.[10]Dante’s powers of perception and his ability to make striking comparisons never fails to catch our attention. This passage begins with a curious image comparing Adam’s joyful frisson with an … Continue reading
St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians 13:1-13.[11]St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians 13:1-13: “If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of … Continue reading
Notes & Commentary
| ↑1 | Dante’s examination on Love begins here. St. John is clever, if one can say that, in having the Poet/candidate speak while he is still blind because there will be less to distract him as he ponders and delivers his answers. Note also that St. John asks the first question and then reassures Dante not to be concerned about his eyesight, that Beatrice will restore it to him. One might imagine that his fear and distress at losing his chief sense, having come this far on his journey, would cloud his ability to think straight. But God should be his only focus now. That Beatrice is like Ananias is a reference to the story of St. Paul’s conversion in the Acts of the Apostles (9:1-19). When Paul encountered Jesus at Damascus he was blinded by a bright light. The blindness lasted for three days until Ananias, having been sent by Jesus, came to him and restored his sight. The themes of blindness, revelation, and conversion fit well in these cantos covering Dante’s examination in Faith, Hope, and Love. Beatrice, as always, represents the revelation of God. Not only did she bring him to admit his sin and infidelity toward the end of the Purgatorio, but she continues to accompany him throughout Paradise and her unfolding beauty represents the ever-deepening revelation of God as they come nearer and nearer to the Empyrean, the abode of God. Dante’s three examinations by the chief Apostles is a way of validating the authenticity of his conversion before he can proceed on his journey. And note that, almost at the end of these exams, he stumbled momentarily by giving in to the need to prove what he already knew was wrong about the legend of St. John’s body. As a result, he was blinded. Dante didn’t sin here, but he’s still seeing with mortal eyes, and the blindness is not only a reminder of that to Dante (and to the Reader), but it’s also a way of decreasing the effects of that mortality in preparation for the vision that is soon to come. We can also pause for a moment on St. John’s initial question about love: “What goal [do] you have your heart set upon?” We will soon see that this examination will appear more relaxed from the others. No precise definition of Love will be required from Dante because, unlike Faith and Hope, Love is more an act of the will than of the intellect. And it can’t be helped if the Reader has in mind the old adage, “Love is blind,” while Dante, in fact, takes his examination on Love while blind. Note also that long after his conversion, at the height of his missionary work, St. Paul wrote in his First Letter to the Corinthians what has been lauded throughout the ages as one of the most beautiful discourses on love in the Christian tradition. It is appended at the end of this canto. Lastly, in his commentary here Robert Hollander makes an interesting connection between this moment and Canto 11 in the Inferno: “These lines bring back to mind a similar tactic on the part of Virgil (Inferno XI.10-15), where Dante’s olfactory sense must be rested from the infernal stench before the downward journey into the pit may be continued. Therefore, Virgil, in order to pass the time profitably, offers his ‘lecture’ on the order of the sins. Here, in response to Dante’s temporary blindness, John will use the time to give Dante his examination on Love.” |
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| ↑2 | Realizing now that his sight will be restored by Beatrice, Dante virtually says, “Ok. She can take her time. I’m still on fire from the last time she looked at me.” This fire of love for his Beatrice, though, is but a stepping-stone from creature to Creator, she is a reflection of God in her role as Revelation – his love for her leads him to God, “the Good” which fills Heaven with joy. Then the Poet begins his answer to St. John’s first question using the Apostle’s own words. His reference to the Alpha and Omega takes us to the Book of Revelation, where St. John uses the phrase three times for God’s self-revelation three times (note the Trinitarian number): (1:8) “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God;” (21:6) “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end;” and (22:13) “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” These, of course, are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet (remembering that the entire New Testament was written in Greek), and ever since the phrase in Christian writing is used as a reference to God. And the first words, “I am,” are akin to God’s self-revelation to Moses in the Book of Exodus (3:14): “I am who I am.” In the First Letter of St. John, he writes in 4:8: “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love,” and 4:16 he writes: “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.”) One might say that, for Dante, Love is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end of everything, certainly the beginning and the end of everything he has learned from the Bible. |
| ↑3 | Remembering St. John’s own words, “God is love,” the “high mark” Dante is aiming for here is God. But the Apostle doesn’t settle for the immediate breadth of the Poet’s answer. Asking for more precision, he wants Dante to hold back on the grand answer, to back away from it for a moment, and then proceed with some particulars first. |
| ↑4 | The Poet begins his refinement by stating his that his understanding of God as Love and the object of all desire has been “stamped” or imprinted on him both through his study of philosophy (Aristotle, mostly) and his reading of Holy Scripture. Knowledge of God leads to love of God, and from this good comes more good. Tozer in his commentary here writes: “The argument derived from Reason is this: That which is good awakens love in the soul of him who understands its nature, and the love increases in proportion as the goodness is greater. Consequently, the Being who is perfect goodness must attract more love than any other object.” |
| ↑5 | Dante’s first reference here is most likely based on Aristotle (commentators differ on exactly where). There is a first principle of the universe stating that all created things seek the good for which they were made. This good kindles love which leads to the God of Love. God’s love is manifested in His creation (as First Mover) and naturally leads creation back to Himself as the highest object of our love. And any good found apart from God is but a reflection of Himself. The motion of the universe is the motion of its love toward its Creator. All of this, Dante claims, was made clear in a story from the Book of Exodus (33:18-23) where Moses wants to see God. But this cannot be, as God tells him: “No one can see me and live.” Instead, God proposes an alternative. He places Moses behind an outcropping of rock and tells him that he will cover Moses’s eyes with his hand as he passes by and then remove his hand so Moses can see Him from behind. Thus, as Dante quotes to St. John: “I will make all my goodness pass before you” (Ex. 33:19). To a certain extent, however, the use of this passage from Exodus as a way to connect Dante’s mention of “…the God of Love as the First Mover of all things” and the Prologue to St. John’s Gospel is opaque. First of all, as several commentators note, when Dante thinks of St. John’s writings he tends to think of all of them as a whole. This is a difficulty when we try to figure out which of the 18 verses of St. John’s Prologue the Poet is referring to here. Nevertheless, I think there is a solution presented by John Carroll as quoted by Robert Hollander in his commentary here. The key passages are verses 17-18 of Chapter 1 (Prologue) of St. John’s Gospel and Exodus 32:33. What Carroll suggests is that, while in the Exodus story, God only allowed Moses to see the back of him, in St. John’s Prologue (vv. 17-18) Christ, the Son of God, fully reveals the Father to us. As a matter of fact, though Dante doesn’t use these passages, later in St. John’s Gospel (10:30) Jesus will say, “the Father and I are one.” And in (14:9) Jesus tells the Apostle Philip, “He who sees me, also sees the Father.” |
| ↑6 | St. John approves of Dante’s answer and affirms that the ultimate goal of his love is the love of God. That being the case, however, the Apostle asks, translating Dante’s Italian: “Tell me…with how many teeth does this love bite you.” In the context here, this is purposely not a romantic image, not a love as “being nice” image. These are teeth that bite to hold fast and to consume. In other words, what is it about God’s love that holds onto Dante, that won’t let him go, that literally consumes him? Bosco and Reggio, in their commentary here write: “Such metaphors are not to the taste of some modern readers, but this kind of concreteness and density of image is characteristic of mystical language.” |
| ↑7 | In this passage we have the climax of Dante’s examination. As though he has been waiting for the moment, he lists the “teeth” of Love that hold him fast: first (earlier) was what he learned from philosophy and scripture; second is the existence of the world (and, by association, the cosmos), third, he points to his own life and existence, fourth is Christ’s death for our salvation. Surely, he has in mind here another significant passage from the First Letter of St. John (4:7-10): “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.” These and all the truths he’s laid out in his previous examinations have saved Dante from the perilous “sea of false love” (recall his “confession” to Beatrice in the Earthly Paradise) and brought him to the “shore of True Love.” These are the teeth of God’s Love that have bitten into his heart and hold him fast. Only now does he return to the broadest possible image he tried to use earlier, and only now does it “fit.” Keeping in mind all of creation as evidence of God’s love, Dante likens creatures to leaves in the “garden of the Eternal Gardener,” and tells St. John that he loves every single leaf to the extent that God’s love fills it. Mark Musa calls this “a passionate declaration that God is the primary object of his love” Think of Jesus’ remarks in St. John’s Gospel (15:1, 5): “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower,” and “I am the vine, you are the branches.” And recall much earlier how he learned that, though each of the souls in Paradise have different “volumes,” each is filled to its capacity with the vision and love of God. Returning to the beginning of this passage for a moment, “Christ’s great eagle” is a reference to St. John the Evangelist. This symbol comes from St. John’s Book of Revelation (4:6-7) “In the center and around the throne, there were four living creatures covered with eyes in front and in back. The first creature resembled a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like that of a human being, and the fourth looked like an eagle in flight.” Traditionally, these creatures have been traditionally linked with the four Evangelists: the lion is St. Mark, the ox is St. Luke, the human is St. Matthew, and the eagle is St. John. Together or separately they have, from ancient times, appeared frequently in Christian iconography. |
| ↑8 | Each successful passage of an exam has been accompanied by a notable event: for Faith, St. Peter circled around Dante three times; for Hope, all the spirits danced for joy and St. John appeared as a blinding light; and for Love, all of Heaven – including Beatrice – sings out words sung by the seraphim before the throne of God in Isaiah’s prophecy (6:3) “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts,” and in the Book of Revelation by the four living creatures (Evangelists) who also stand before the throne of God (4:8): “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty.” These words are reserved only for the Liturgy, used in the Mass before the consecration of the bread and wine into the body and blood of the Lord. Using them here highlights Dante’s theological achievement which is accompanied by a miracle: his sight is restored even better than before by Beatrice (like Ananias for St. Paul) who looks at him with her powerful eyes. John Ciardi observes in his commentary here: “The power of Beatrice’s thousand-mile ray having penetrated the lids (of blindness) that covered Dante’s eyes after the dazzling vision of St. John, rouses Dante’s visual spirit and he is able to see again, more clearly than before. The figure will seem strange to present-day physiologists but the moral is clear: only as one loses his mortal senses can he endure the enlargement of revelation.” And what does he see first but another blazing light, which leaves him, as Dante writes, quasi stupefatto, almost stupefied. And no wonder: the arrival of this soul, while quite amazing in itself, is completely unexpected. This is Adam! Sheathed within his blazing light he says nothing yet, but simply gazes with passionate contemplation upon his Creator. Dante uses the word vagheggia to express this idea. Bear with me for a moment. Ordinarily, one would use the verb guardare or vedere (to see, to look at) here. Instead, he uses the elegant (elevated, high class) verb vagheggiare by which he heightens the intensity of the scene to a more refined or poetic level. This is Adam Dante is looking at, and one can see in his language the awe and reverence that matches surprise. |
| ↑9 | Dante, with his sight restored, bends like a tree in the wind in respectful homage to Adam the first human, created directly by God. One can imagine a most reverent and now-highly confident Dante shaking off his restraints, telling Adam (with the Reader tongue in cheek): “You can see that I’m dying for you to talk with me. I’m all ears!” Mark Musa adds this: “The Pilgrim [has been] moving through a hierarchy as he moves through the heavens. He is now in the eighth sphere, which may be thought of as the summit of the ‘human’ hierarchy, since the two remaining spheres are the angelic and the Empyrean. Adam appears here, then, as the father of the human race [the last ‘human’ he’ll meet], and the only being created mature and perfect. The Pilgrim, amazed by his newly restored sight, bows down to Adam, perhaps in homage to his ancestor, the first father.” When Dante calls Adam, “O apple,” as funny as that might sound in English, and perhaps offensive considering the story of his downfall in the third chapter of the Book of Genesis, this is Dante the Poet elevating his language with a rich metaphor befitting this most unexpected meeting. Ronald Martinez in his commentary finds even more richness in the expression: “Some have thought it tactless to compare Adam to the fruit of Eden, but as a symbol of what is desirable, the pomo [apple] drives the pilgrim to recover Eden. In Eden, Christ is the apple tree that yields the fruit of the heavenly wedding feast.” Interestingly, in his De Vulgare Eloquentia (I.vi.1–2) Dante all but calls Adam “O man never born,” referring to him as “the man who never had a mother nor drank her milk, the man who never saw either childhood or maturity.” A small digression here. Technically, we have no idea what the “forbidden fruit” was that Eve and then Adam ate. The Bible does not tell us. But in the western tradition, particularly in art, it is often depicted as an apple. The reason for this is some confusion over two unrelated Latin words: mālum, a Latin noun which means ‘evil’, and mâlum, another Latin noun, borrowed from the Greek, which means ‘apple’. Remember that the tree from which this forbidden fruit came was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The fruit of this tree, it seems, becomes conflated with the last word in its name. |
| ↑10 | Dante’s powers of perception and his ability to make striking comparisons never fails to catch our attention. This passage begins with a curious image comparing Adam’s joyful frisson with an animal’s nervous shuddering. Perhaps not the most elegant image for one who spoke so elegantly earlier, and certainly an image that has caused a good deal of shuddering among the commentators. Adam is obviously wrapped in a mantle of light (like skin?) which moves and glows like a flame (recall a similar image with Ulysses and Diomedes in Canto 26 of the Inferno). In a poetic sense, Dante himself might be the creature quaking in its skin as an image of the momentary conflict between his strong inner desire to speak with Adam, on the one hand, and his surprise and deep respect upon meeting the first human being. Nor is it impossible that the Poet is subtly asking the Reader what he/she would do in his situation upon suddenly meeting Adam. How would we behave, and what questions would we ask? Immediately responding to Dante’s invitation to speak, Adam tells him that he already knows exactly what his questions are because, as we’ve learned previously, these things can be seen in the “divine Mirror of Truth” into which everyone in Heaven can look. Dante, most likely delightfully surprised, then hears Adam list his four questions: (1) How long ago was Adam created and settled in the Garden of Eden? (2) For how long was he there? (3) What was the reason for God’s anger? and (4) What language did Adam speak? Before exploring the answers to Dante’s questions, here’s a fascinating tid-bit. In lines 103-4 of this canto, Adam says to Dante: “Sanz’ essermi proferta da te,…” Literally, “Without it being spoken to me by you,…” referring to his already knowing Dante’s questions without the Poet having spoken them. Keep in mind for a moment that it was Adam who named all the creatures in the Garden (Genesis 2:19). Interestingly, though, E.R. Moore notes in his Contributions to the Textual Criticism of the Divina Commedia, that there have been some commentators who suggest that the phrase da te spoken by Adam should be interpreted as Dante because it would be appropriate for Adam to do this as the first “namer.” Moore, of course, keeps to the traditional “sacrosanctity” of the Poet’s name being spoken only once in the entire Poem – that by Beatrice in Canto 30 line 55 of the Purgatorio. As for Dante’s four questions, they will now be answered in the order of their importance: #3, #1, #4, and #2. |
| ↑11 | St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians 13:1-13:
“If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, love is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing. For we know partially and we prophesy partially, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things. At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known. So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” |