Classic Poem

Discourse of Beatrice.--The Fall of Man.--The scheme
of his Redemption.

"Osanna sanctus Deus Sabaoth, superillustrans claritate tua
felices ignes horum malacoth!"[1]--thus, turning to its own
melody, this substance,[2] upon which a double light is
twinned,[3] was seen by me to sing. And it and the others moved
with their dance, and like swiftest sparks veiled themselves to
me with sudden distance. I was in doubt, and was saying to
myself, "Tell her, tell her," I was saying, "tell her, my Lady,
who slakes my thirst with her sweet distillings;" but that
reverence which lords it altogether over me, only by BE and by
ICE,[4] bowed me again like one who drowses. Little did Beatrice
endure me thus, and she began, irradiating me with a smile such
as would make a man in the fire happy, "According to my
infallible advisement, how a just vengeance could be justly
avenged has set thee thinking. But I will quickly loose thy mind:
and do thou listen, for my words will make thee a present of a
great doctrine.

[1] "Hosanna! Holy God of Sabaoth, beaming with thy brightness
upon the blessed fires of these realms."

[2] Substance, as a scholastic term, signifies a being subsisting
by itself with a quality of its own. "Substantiae nomen
significat essentiam cui competit sic esse, id est per se esse;
quod tamen esse non est ipsa ejus essentia."--Summa Theol. I.
iii. 5.

[3] The double light of Emperor and compiler of the Laws.

[4] Only by the sound of her name.


"By not enduring for his own good a curb upon the power which
wills, that man who was not born,--damning himself, damned all
his offspring; wherefore the human race lay sick below for many
centuries, in great error, till it pleased the Word of God to
descend where He, by the sole act of His eternal love, united
with Himself in person the nature which had. removed itself from
its Maker.

"Now direct thy sight to the discourse which follows. This
nature, united with its Maker, became sincere and good, as it had
been created; but by itself it had been banished from Paradise,
because it turned aside from the way of truth and from its own
life. The punishment therefore which the cross afforded, if it be
measured by the nature assumed, none ever so justly stung; and,
likewise, none was ever of such great wrong, regarding the Person
who suffered, with whom this nature was united. Therefore from
one act issued things diverse; for unto God and unto the Jews one
death was pleasing: by it earth trembled and the heavens were
opened. No more henceforth ought it to seem perplexing to thee,
when it is said that a just vengeance was afterward avenged by a
just court,

"But I see now thy mind tied up, from thought to thought, within
a knot the loosing of which is awaited with great desire, Thou
sayest, 'I discern clearly that which I bear; but it is occult to
we why God should will only this mode for our redemption.' This
decree, brother, stands buried to the eyes of every one whose wit
is not full grown in the flame of love. Truly, inasmuch as on
this mark there is much gazing, and little is discerned, I will
tell why such mode was most worthy. The Divine Goodness, which
from Itself spurns all rancor, burning in Itself so sparkles that
It displays the eternal beauties. That which distils
immediately[1] from It, thereafter has no end, for when It
seals, Its imprint is not removed. That which from It immediately
rains down is wholly free, because it is not subject unto the
power of the new things.[2] It is the most conformed to It, and
therefore pleases It the most; for the Holy Ardor which
irradiates every thing is most living in what is most resemblance
to Itself. With all these things[3] the human creature is
advantaged, and if one fail, he needs must fall from his
nobility. Sin alone is that which disfranchises him, and makes
him unlike the Supreme Good, so that by Its light he is little
illumined. And to his dignity he never returns, unless, where sin
makes void, he fill up for evil pleasures with just penalties.
Your nature, when it sinned totally in its seed,[4] was removed
from these dignities, even as from Paradise; nor could they be
recovered, if thou considerest full subtly, by any way, without
passing by one of these fords:--either that God alone by His
courtesy should forgive, or that man by himself
should make satisfaction for his folly. Fix now thine eye within
the abyss of the eternal counsel, fixed as closely on my speech
as thou art able. Man within his own limits could never make
satisfaction, through not being able to descend so far with
humility in subsequent obedience, as disobeying he intended to
ascend; and this is the reason why man was excluded from power
to make satisfaction by himself. Therefore it behoved God by His
own paths[5] to restore man to his entire life, I mean by one, or
else by both. But because the work of the workman is so much the
more pleasing, the more it represents of the goodness of the
heart whence it issues, the Divine Goodness which imprints the
world was content to proceed by all Its paths to lift you up
again; nor between the last night and the first day has there
been or will there be so lofty and so magnificent a procedure
either by one or by the other; for God was more liberal in giving
Himself to make man sufficient to lift himself up again, than if
only of Himself He had pardoned him. And all the other modes were
scanty in respect to justice, if the Son of God had not humbled
himself to become incarnate.

[1] Without the intervention of a second cause.

[2] That is, of the heavens, new as compared with the First
Cause.

[3] That is, with immediate creation, with immortality, with free
will, with likeness to God, and the love of God for it.

[4] Adam.

[5] "All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth."--Psalm
xxv. 10. Truth may be here interpreted, according to St. Thomas
Aquinas, as justice.


"Now to fill completely every desire of thine, I return to a
certain place to clear it up, in order that thou mayest see there
even, as I do. Thou sayest, 'I see the water, I see the fire,
the air; and the earth, and all their mixtures come to
corruption, and endure short while, and yet these things were
created;' so that, if what I have said has been true, they ought
to be secure against corruption. The Angels, brother, and the
sincere[1] country in which thou art, may be called created, even
as they are, in their entire being; but the elements which thou
hast named, and those things which are made of them, are informed
by a created power.[2] The matter of which they consist was
created; the informing power in these stars which go round about
them was created. The ray and the motion of the holy lights draw
out from its potential elements[3] the soul of every brute and of
the plants; but the Supreme Benignity inspires your life without
intermediary, and enamors it of Itself so that ever after it
desires It. And hence[4] thou canst argue further your
resurrection, if thou refleetest bow the human flesh was made
when the first parents were both made."

[1] Sincere is here used in the sense of incorruptible, or
perhaps unspoiled,--the quality of the Heavens as contrasted with
the Earth.

[2] The elements axe informed, that is, receive their specific
being not immediately from Goa, but mediately through the
informing Intelligences.

[3] Literally, "from the potentiate mingling," that is, from the
matter endowed with the potentiality of becoming informed by the
vegetative and the sensitive soul.

[4] From the principle that what proceeds immediately from Goa is
immortal.