Dante, St

Dante, St. Paul and the Epistle to the Romans

Peter S. Hawkins

Boston University

Whereas some writers are at pains to conceal their debts, Dante makes them required reading. In one afterlife encounter after another he meets the souls of writers and thinkers whose work made his own creation possible: indeed, his Commedia is a hundred-canto ¡°Acknowledgement¡± of his many sources

In the beginning, of course, there is Virgil, ¡°O de li altri poeti onore e lume, ¡± ¡°O glory and light of other poets¡± (1: 82), whose Aeneid is second in importance only to Scripture as a subtext for the Commedia.[i] In the first circle of hell, Limbo, Virgil introduces him to the other great poets of antiquity on whom he will draw –Homer, Ovid, Horace, and Lucan – all eager to welcome Dante to their ranks, to make him ¡°sesto tra cotanto senno¡± ¡°sixth among so much wisdom¡± (4. 102). Purgatorio does not leave the ancient world behind but introduces Dante to a succession of vernacular precursors who wrote in Provencal or Italian, each of them a forerunner of the poet¡¯s ¡°dolce stil nuova.¡±

In Paradiso, we move away from literary models to an acknowledgement of theological debts. In the heaven of the sun (Par. 10-14), the poet¡¯s mentors in divinity appear in two concentric circles: Scholastics like Albertus Magnus and Peter Lombard, mystical writers such as the Pseudo-Dionysius and Hugh of St. Victor. In a trade off between Dominicans and Franciscans, first Aquinas and then Bonaventure identify those upon whom Dante draws so extensively in the final canticle of his ¡°poema sacro¡± (Par. 25. 1). Later on, in the upper reaches of paradise, none other than the inner circle of Christ¡¯s disciples, Peter, James, and John, examines Dante on the three theological virtues. As he demonstrates through artful allusion to their sacred writings, it was they who essentially taught him what he knows about faith, hope, and love.

Conspicuously absent in this personal roll call, however, is without doubt the greatest as well as the earliest of Christian theologians, that ¡°scribe of the Holy Spirit¡± who in 1 Corinthians 13 was the first not only to name but also to rank the virtues under discussion in Paradiso 24-26: ¡°so there abide faith, hope and charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.¡± Missing in action, so to speak, is the figure Dante refers to reverently throughout his works as ¡°Apostle,¡± ¡°vessel of election,¡± ¡°great vessel of the Holy Spirit,¡± and ¡°preacher to the gentiles¡± – the one whose rapture to the third heaven openly provides the model for the Paradiso¡¯s ascent to the Empyrean. Where in the Commedia¡¯s sequence of authorial encounters is the meeting with St. Paul?[ii]

* * * *

For whatever reason, Dante chose to stage an encounter not with Paul himself but with an allegorical representation of his Epistles. In the elaborate pageant of revelation that unfolds atop Mount Purgatory¡¯s Garden of Eden, the poet presents us with the canon of Scripture, from the alpha of Genesis to the omega of Apocalypse.[iii] The main part of the procession begins with twenty-four ¡°seniori¡± (¡°elders,¡± 29. 83) walking two by two; they represent the books of the Hebrew Bible as enumerated by Jerome in his ¡°helmeted¡± preface to the Vulgate. Behind them come four winged animals, traditionally associated with the Gospels; collectively, they escort a splendid griffin-drawn chariot. Following this ensemble is yet another file of elders: first a pair of old men, then a quartet of males who appear ¡°of lowly aspect¡± (v. 142), and finally a single old man walking forward with his eyes closed. Here Dante gives us the rest of the New Testament that follows upon the Gospels: the Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline ¡°corpus¡± together precede the Catholic Epistles, which in turn are followed by the solitary ¡°old man¡± (v. 143) in visionary trance who ¡°is¡± the book of the Apocalypse.

Dante has any number of reactions to this allegorical set piece: he is puzzled, enraptured, deceived, and full of wonder. When he looks in particular at the Pauline Epistles, however, he has a unique response: beholding the figure¡¯s emblematic ¡°spada lucida e arguta¡± (¡°sharp and shining sword,¡± Purg. 29. 140), he is struck by fear: ¡°mi fé paura¡± (v. 141). Commentators have long conjectured that Paul¡¯s eloquent severity is the reason for Dante¡¯s anxiety: his letters are full of words that not only rouse but also wound. One thinks, moreover, of a specific passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews (4: 12-13), which any medieval reader would have assumed to be from Paul¡¯s own hand.

¡°For the word of God is living and efficient and keener than

any two-edged sword, and extending to the division of soul

and spirit, of joints also and marrow, a discerner of the thoughts

and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from

his sight: but all are naked and laid open to the eyes of him to

whom we have to give account.¡±

As author of this text, with its contrast between the penetrating power of God¡¯s Word and

the exposed vulnerability of our words, Paul perhaps stands before Dante as a figure of divine judgment on human speech. In the presence of the Apostle¡¯s two-edged sword, a human poet might easily find himself ¡°naked and open,¡± cut to the quick and rendered speechless – especially the self-professed author of a ¡°sacred poem¡± who claims to fly as high as the Empyrean; especially if the words he is to speak for thirty-three cantos of the Paradiso break the injunction to silence, as we shall see, on the one who hears things above not be told below.

* * * *

The fear that marks Dante¡¯s silent confrontation with Paul¡¯s Epistle¡¯s also characterizes the poet¡¯s first allusion to the Apostle in Inferno 2. After initially accepting Virgil¡¯s invitation to travel through the three realms of the afterlife, the would-be pilgrim fears that such an undertaking will be sheer folly: ¡°temo che la venuta non sia folle¡± (2. 35).[iv] Two mortal precedents for such journeys immediately trouble his mind. First there is Aeneas, father of Roman Empire and of ¡°lo loco santo/ u¡¯ siede il successor del maggior Piero,¡± ¡°the holy place where the successor of great Peter has his seat¡± (vv. 23-24). Then there is Paul, who (like Aeneas) also went to the immortal world while still a mere mortal, as the Apostle himself claims, despite his coy allusion to ¡°a man in Christ¡± who is none other than himself:

I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago –whether

in the body or out of the body, I do not know, God knows –

such a one was caught up to the third heaven. And I know

such a man –whether in the body or out of the body, God knows

--that he was caught up into paradise and heard secret words

that man may not repeat¡± (2 Cor. 12: 2-4).

Although Dante worries for several tercets about comparison to Aeneas, it is truly ¡°the man in Christ¡± who gives him reason to ponder.

Andovvi poi lo Vas d¡¯elezïone,

per recarne conforto a quella fede

ch¡¯è principio a la via di salvazione.

Later, the Chosen Vessel went there, that

he might bring thence confirmation of that faith

which is the beginning of the way of salvation.

(2. 28-30)

The hesitant pilgrim can understand the rationale for both Aeneas and Paul going where it is not licit for the living to venture: it was God¡¯s will that the one should father an empire and the other make compelling the Christian ¡°via di salvazione.¡± But who is he to make such a journey or to presume upon the Empyrean? ¡°Io non Enëa, io non Paulo [sic.] sono;/ me degno a ciò né io né altri ¡®l crede¡± (¡°I am not Aeneas, I am not Paul; of this neither I nor others think me worthy,¡± vv.32-33)

Despite this demurral at the threshold of the journey, this staged hesitation to follow in the footsteps of St. Paul (as suggested obliquely in 2 Corinthians 12 or quite explicitly in the apocryphal Visio Sancti Pauli)[v], Dante goes on to do precisely this – and with the boldness for which the Apostle himself is renown. In the first canto of Paradiso, just after he proclaims in no uncertain terms that he has been to the heaven of heavens, the Empyrean, he wonders, like Paul, whether he made the journey in the flesh or apart from it: ¡°S¡¯i¡¯ era sol di me quel che creasti/ novellamente, amor che ¡®l ciel governi,/ tu ¡®l sai, che col tuo lume mi levasti,¡± ¡°Whether I was but that part of me which Thou didst create last, O love that rulest the heavens, Thou knowest¡± (1. 73-75). Suddenly, the ¡°I am not Paul¡± becomes an open identification with him. We see this again in Paradiso. 15, when Dante is asked by his great-great grandfather Cacciaguida – spoken in the Latin speech of Roman Empire and Roman Church – if there was anyone else ever entered through heaven¡¯s gate a second time: ¡°sicut tibi cui/ bis unquam celi ianüa reclusa?¡± (15. 29-30). The reader may be forgiven for noticing the poet¡¯s presumption in assuming that his own return to paradise is assured! But the answer, of course, is that there is only one other for whom the door was opened twice – St. Paul.

The indirection characteristic of these between-the-lines associations of Poet and Apostle changes in Paradiso 26. At the outset of Dante¡¯s examination on love, the third theological virtue, St. John makes an explicit connection between the momentarily blinded Dante and Saul thrown sightless from his horse on the Damascus Road. Just as the touch of Ananias later caused scales to fall from Saul¡¯s eyes so that his vision might be fully restored (Acts 9: 17-18), so Dante¡¯s guide, Beatrice, has in her look ¡°la virtù ch¡¯ebbe la man d¡¯Anania¡± (¡°the power which the hand of Ananias had,¡± v. 12).

Paul is also referred to two cantos later, when Dante and Beatrice ascend to the Primum Mobile and behold nine concentric circles revolving around a brilliant still point. This final son et lumière in the material universe presents the nine ranks of angels arrayed about the divine center: ¡°Da quel punto/ depende il cielo e tutta la natura,¡± ¡°On that point the heavens and all nature are dependent¡± (Par. 28. 41-42). Beatrice names the orders in descending hierarchal order, from seraph to angel, according to the enumeration of Dionysius the Areopagite. Once she does so, she senses Dante¡¯s puzzlement: given the different rankings that the medieval Christian could choose among, how could a mere mortal like Dionysius have known what was not revealed in Scripture nor can be deduced by reason?[vi] Beatrice as ¡°Doctor angelicus¡± responds by reminding Dante that Dionysius was not in fact on his own when he wrote his Celestial Hierarchy; rather, he learned the hierarchy from one who had seen it ¡°face to face¡± in his rapture to Paradise:

E se tanto secreto ver proferse

mortale in terra, non voglio ch¡¯ammiri:

ché chi ¡®l vide qua sù gliel discoperse

con altro assai del ver di questi giri.

And if a mortal declared on earth so much of secret

truth, I would not have you wonder, for he who saw

it here on high disclosed it to him, with much else of

the truth about these circles.

(Par. 28. 136-139)

The ¡°one who saw it here on high¡± is St. Paul, who according to a tradition that the Middle Ages took as gospel, told what he had discovered first hand to one of his converts in the Athenian audience assembled before the altar ¡°To the unknown God¡± on the Areopagus (Acts 17).[vii] Therefore, it is the enraptured Paul who stands behind the ¡°true¡± ranking of the angelic orders offered by Beatrice (not to mention the poet speaking through her!), as well as behind all the angelic lore unfolded in ¡°these circles¡± of Paradiso 28-29. What the Apostle did not disclose to the Corinthians he whispered to Dionysius, as revealed by Beatrice and finally as disclosed by Dante Alighieri.

If Paradiso 28 gives us our last overt reference to Paul, he is nonetheless evoked as Dante stands on the threshold of the Empyrean¡¯s luminous City of God (Par. 30) once more blinded, as during his theological examination in the heaven of Fixed Stars, by a light he cannot ¡°comprehend.¡± Just as a flash of lightning ¡°robs¡± the eye,

così mi circunfulse luce viva,

e lasciommi fascinato di tal velo

del suo fulgor, che nulla m¡¯appariva.

so round about me there shone a vivid light

and left me so swathed in the veil of its effulgence

that nothing was visible to me.

(Par. 30. 49-51)

The verb used to describe the intense shining of that ¡°viva luce¡± –the Latinism ¡°circunfulse¡± – appears only this once in the entire Commedia. It echoes the Vulgate¡¯s ¡°circumfulsit¡± in the account of the Damascus Road conversion given in Acts 22:6: ¡°And it came to pass that, as I was on my way and approaching Damascus, suddenly about noon there shone round about me a great light from heaven (subito de caelo circumfulsit me lux copiosa).¡± By this word choice, the poet suggests that, like his overall ascent to Paradise, his blindness upon entering the City of God links him to the ¡°Vas d¡¯elezïone¡± (¡°Vessel of election,¡± Inf. 2. 28). Nor is this a title that he scruples to invoke for himself when, at the opening of the third canticle, he asks Christ, the good Apollo,¡± ¡°fammi del tuo valor sì fatto vaso,/ come dimandi a dar l¡¯amato alloro,¡± ¡°make me such a vessel of your worth as you require for granting your beloved laurel¡± (Par. 1. 14-15). The implication is clear: just as Paul was granted his journey to the Empyrean in order ¡°to bring confirmation of that faith which is the way to salvation¡± (Inf. 2. 29-30), so Dante is given his extraordinary experience to bring about the Commedia¡¯s own fourteenth-century confirmation, its continuation of the apostolic ¡°via di salvazione.¡± The imperishable wreath of victory (1 Cor. 9:25) for which Paul longs, the ¡°crown of justice¡± he hopes to receive on Judgment Day (2 Timothy 4: 8), becomes the poet¡¯s coveted laurel crown. None of these coronae are meant to fade away.

* * * *

The poet¡¯s use of St. Paul in the Commedia, especially in his capacity as spectacular convert or visionary of paradise, is by no means the full extent of his appropriation. Time and again he appears in Dante¡¯s prose as an authority to be invoked or claimed out right. For instance, arguing in his Monarchia against the assertions of church over state in the realm of politics, Dante arms himself accordingly: ¡°¡¯Putting on the breast-plate of faith¡¯ as Saint Paul exhorts us ¡¦ I shall enter the present arena¡± (3.1).[viii]Although he is only a single layman surrounded by the hostility of the papacy and its supporters, he shows himself to be neither naked nor defenseless. Rather, he takes from Paul the ¡°breast-plate of faith,¡± as well, presumably, as the remaining ¡°whole armor of God¡± that Paul enjoins the soldier of Christ to wear against ¡°the rulers of this world of darkness: (Eph. 6:12).

Where does he get his boldness and bravery? In his audacious Epistola 8 to the Italian Cardinals held ¡°captive¡± in Babylonian Avignon during the papacy of Clement V, he points in the direction of the Apostle: ¡°Verily, I am one of the least of the sheep of the pasture of Jesus Christ; verily, I abuse no pastoral authority, seeing that I possess no riches. By the grace of God, therefore, I am what I am (sed gratia Dei sum id quod sum) (par. 5).[ix] Writing in spring 1314, Dante, like Paul, may not only be the last of the apostles but also the least (1 Cor. 15: 8-9). Nonetheless, also like Paul, he rejoices to be what by the grace of God he ¡°is,¡± an apostle whose ceaseless labor has not been in vain: ¡°But by the grace of God I am what I am [sed gratia Dei sum id quod sum]; and his grace in me hath not been void, but I have labored more abundantly than all they: yet not I, but the grace of God with me¡± (1 Cor. 15: 10).

* * * *

Dante¡¯s specific use of the Letter to the Romans in his Latin Monarchia and Epistolae, as well as in the vernacular Convivio, is largely in the service of establishing polemical ¡°proof¡±: the invocation of the text gives weight to an argument and thereby shores up the credibility of the apologist. Because the author of the Romans ¡°stages¡± himself so much less than he does in either Corinthian epistles, Dante¡¯s citations or allusions to the Epistle refer less to himself as apostle and more to the point he is contending. Given his passion for Romanitas and its medieval revival, it is not entirely surprising that the one Scripture addressed ad Romanos should play a part in Dante¡¯s apology for empire.

At the end of the first book of the Monarchia, in which Dante has been maintaining that universal monarchy is the form of governance most likely to lead to human flourishing, he ends with the Pax Augusta as historical proof of this assertion. In the second book takes up a demonstration of this point at length, as Dante makes his case for Rome¡¯s special case in the divine plan, both as it existed under Augustus and as it might once again exist in his own time. Who, looking back to the fullness of time when the Word was made flesh, can deny that the Romans were elected according to the dictates of the divine will? ¡°In itself the will of God is indeed invisible, but the invisible things of God are clearly seen, being understood ¡®by the things that are made¡¯¡± (¡°¡¯Voluntas quidem Dei per se invisibilis est; et invisibilia Dei ¡®per ea que facta sunt intellecta conspiciuntur,¡± 2.2.8). Aquinas had used Romans 1:20 to argue that God can be known through his effects (ST 1 q. 2 a.2 c).[x] Here, Dante employs the same text to say that Rome can be understood as elect of God simply by looking at the effects of history.

Later in Monarchia 2.8.10, the assertion that the Romans prevailed over their rivals because of divine favor is punctuated by the citation of Romans 11:33, with a reversal of the Vulgate¡¯s ¡°sapientiae et scientiae¡± that suggests Dante may be quoting from memory: ¡°¡¯O the depths of the riches of the knowledge and of the wisdom of God! Who would not be filled with awe by your judgment in this case? (¡°¡¯O altitudo divitiarum scientiae et sapientiae Dei,¡¯ quis hic te non obstupescere poterit?¡± 2.8.10).[xi] Paul¡¯s own ¡°O altitudo!¡± in Romans 11: 33 – ¡°O the depths of the riches and of the wisdom of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways!¡± – was his way of asserting a complex mystery he could not otherwise unravel. The chosen people of Israel might presently be enemies of the Gospel, but they would nonetheless be saved; furthermore, their rejection of Christ had the benefit of opening up salvation to the Gentiles. Their temporary unbelief had given ¡°the nations¡± the opportunity to believe.

When Dante resorts to Romans 11:33 in his Convivio, once again in the midst of an apologia for empire, he also pulls the rhetorical stops but for another mystery than the one Paul had in mind: the synchronicity of Aeneas and David, of Rome and Jerusalem –two chosen peoples establishing themselves at two different coordinates of the same imperial sweep. Moreover, when the creator and governor of the universe decided to descend from above during the reign of Caesar, universal peace reigned everywhere, ¡°for the ship of human society was speeding over a smooth track to its destined port,¡± ¡°la nave de l¡¯ umana compagnia dirittamente per dolce cammino a debito porto correa¡± (4.5. 9-10.[xii] In recognition of this wonder, Dante resorts to Pauline speech: ¡°O inexpressible and incomprehensible wisdom of God, who at the same hour both in Syria and here in Italy madest Thy preparations for Thy coming,¡± ¡°O ineffabile e incomprehensibile sapienza di Dio che a una ora, per la tua venuta, in Siria suso e qua in Italia tanto dinanzi ti preparasti!¡± (4.5.9-10).[xiii]

Like his role model, moreover, Dante can also use language like a two-edged sword, especially in such letters as Epistola 5 addressed in autumn 1310 ¡°To the Princes and Peoples of Italy.¡± Opening with a Pauline flourish – ¡°Behold now is the accepted time¡± (2 Cor. 6:2) – Dante first proclaims the advent of Henry VII of Luxembourg, the emperor elect and then denounces the perfidy of those who do not welcome him with open arms:

Praeoccupetis faciem eius in confessione subiectionis,

et in pslaterio poenitentaie iubiletis; considerantes

quia ¡®potestati resistens Dei ordinationi resistit¡¯; et qui

diviniae ordinationi repugnat, voluntati omni-

potentiae coaequali recalcitrat; et ¡®durum est contra

stimulum calcitare.¡¯

Come before his presence with confession, submitting

yourselves unto him, and sing a psalm of repentence unto

him with joy, remembering that ¡®whosover resisteth the

power, resisteth the ordinance of God¡¯; and that whoso

fighteth against the divine ordinances, kicketh against a will

which is as the will of the Almighty; ¡®and it is hard to kick

against the pricks.¡¯ (5.4)

In Romans 13:1-2, Paul charged those who received his epistle to submit to governmental, i.e. Roman, authority – a text that stands at the core of Dante¡¯s political theory and one that traditionally has been used to bolster the status quo. Although Paul elsewhere negatively in his epistles about the ¡°rulers of this age¡± (1 Cor. 2: 6-8; 15: 24-26; 1 Thes. 5: 3-11) – the temporal (and Roman) powers that ultimately would be responsible for his own death – he was as much a Roman as he was a Jew, and proud to appeal to imperial authority when he deemed it necessary (Acts 25:11-12). In the verses that Dante cites, Paul writes, ¡°Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed.¡± Dante hurls Rom 12:2 at ¡°The Princes and Peoples of Italy,¡± urging them to submit to a man who would in fact struggle unsuccessfully to press his imperial claims until his untimely death not long after this letter was written. In the end, in fact, the only crown that Henry VII would receive is the one reserved for him in Paradiso¡¯s Empyrean. Beatrice indicates the thrown that awaits him in April 1300, the date of the poet¡¯s journey:

E¡¯n quel gran seggio a che tu li occhi tieni

per la corona che già v¡¯è sù posta,

prima che tu a queste nozze ceni,

sederà l¡¯alma, che fia giù agosta,

de l¡¯alto Arrigo, ch¡¯a drizzare Italia

verrà in prima ch¡¯ella sia disposta.

¡°And in that great chair whereon you fix your eyes

because of the crown that already is set above it, before

you sup at these nuptials shall sit the soul, which on earth

will be imperial, of the loft Henry, who will come to set

Italy straight before she is ready.

(30. 133-38)

Writing to his countryman do not see the truth of his case, Dante vents his spleen but also his sense on incredulity. After all, isn¡¯t the purpose of the Mover of the heavens in these regards is evident, despite the murky world of politics. The author of Epistola 5 believes so and expresses his conviction in the words of Paul in Romans 1:20: ¡°from the creation of the world the invisible things of God are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made,¡¯¡± (5.8).

Those who murmur against the Emperor, God¡¯s minister, Dante tells ¡°the most iniquitous Florentines¡± in Epistola 6 (March 31, 1311) have not only made a terrible political decision, they have given themselves over to evil: ¡°Nor are you aware in your blindness of the overmastering greed which beguiles you ¡¦ and has brought you into captivity to the law of sin [captivantem vos in lege peccati] (6. 5). The allusion here to Romans is clear even though the original text has been quite transformed in its new context. In chapter 7 Paul spoke about ¡°the war within his members¡± and, despite his good intentions, of his own his captivity to the ¡°law of sin¡± (v.23). Dante turns that inner conflict into a political struggle between factions, parties, so that a relationship either to ¡°the law of God¡± or the ¡°law of sin¡± is determined by one¡¯s position on ¡°hic divus et triumphator Henricus,¡± ¡°the triumphant Henry, elect of God¡± (6. 6).

* * * *

We have seen thus far how Dante incorporates the figure of St. Paul in the Commedia, how he claims a Pauline identity for himself, and how he uses the Epistle to the Romans in particular to bolster support for the once and future Roman Empire.

I want to conclude by returning to the Commedia in order to suggest three different ways in which one can speak of a Pauline presence in the poem and draw attention in each instance to the poet¡¯s use of Romans.

The first of these uses might be called a pretext. Here there is no citation or allusion to note, but only a text that might have served as a source of inspiration. In my own teaching of the poem, for instance, Romans 12: 2 has provided the perfect epigraph to the Purgatorio. After enjoining the Romans to present themselves as ¡°a sacrifice, living, holy, pleasing to God,¡± Paul writes, ¡°Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed in the newness of your minds, that you may discern what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.¡± I cannot think of a more fitting description of the spiritual ¡°work¡± of the seven terraces of the Mountain of Purgatory than this charge to abandon the saeculum of earthly business-as-usual for the ¡°new mind¡± of God¡¯s kingdom. For the penitent, this entails the leaving behind of pride, envy, wrath and the other deadly sins in order to assume the corresponding virtues of humility, generosity, peacefulness, etc. Affiliations or concerns that once mattered greatly do so no longer, so that when Dante asks on the terrace of envy whether there are any Italians to meet, for instance, he is told, ¡°¡¯O frate mio, ciascuna è cittadina/ d¡¯una vera città; ma tu vuo¡¯ dire/ che vivesse in Italia peregrina,¡¯¡± ¡°¡¯O my brother, each one here is a citizen of a true city; but you mean one that lived in Italy while a pilgrim¡± (13. 94-96).

The whole of Purgatory is, in fact, a naturalization center in which the souls exchange one citizenship for another, the civitas terrena for the civitas Dei. The goal of the journey is the conforming of the soul¡¯s will to the will of God, to what is ¡°good and acceptable and perfect,¡± in St. Paul¡¯s words. Thus, on the brink of Eden, Virgil tells Dante that after his purgatorial climb – after the renewing of his mind –he is ready to be born again into the state of freedom that Adam and Eve, however briefly, knew before the Fall:

¡°libero, dritto e sano è tuo arbitrio,

e fallo fora non fare a suo senno:

per ch¡¯io te sovra te corono e mitrio.¡±

¡°Free, upright, and whole is your will, and it would

be wrong not to act according to its pleasure; wherefore

I crown and miter you over yourself.¡±

(27. 140-142)

Although Romans 12: 2 does not appear in the Purgatorio as citation, allusion or even echo, it provides a scriptural epigraph for the second canticle¡¯s renewing of the mind.

* * * * *

Another kind of Pauline presence takes the form of an extended allusion to a text that is not overtly referred to but that nonetheless seems to have generated an entire episode in the poem. A case in point is what we find in Purgatorio 32.[xiv] In the beginning of that canto, the same biblical Pageant of Revelation that brought Dante face to face with Beatrice in Purgatorio 30 suddenly directs his attention elsewhere. Wheeling around to the right, the mystical procession moves through a landscape described as deserted, ¡°l¡¯alta selva vòta¡± (v. 31). This is Eden, a wood at once magnificent and empty of mortal life –a paradise lost to humankind. When the murmur of ¡°Adamo¡± breaks the silence, Dante finds himself standing before a leafless tree that seems starkly out of place in this otherwise verdant garden. The tree is ¡°dispogliata, ¡± ¡°despoiled¡± (v. 38), as if to emphasize the violence that ruined its beauty. But Dante also calls it ¡°vedova¡± (¡°widowed,¡± v. 50) to suggest another aspect of its loss: the tree was bereft of its spouse even as it was ravaged and despoiled. This ¡°pianta¡± is, of course, the tree. Not only the Tree of Knowledge from the biblical Eden (Gen. 2:17) –¡°whose mortal taste/Brought death into the world, and all our woe¡± (to recall the opening of Milton¡¯s Paradise Lost)[xv] –but also the arboreal symbol of the human race itself, both lofty in creation and desolate because of Adam¡¯s fall.

With the procession stalled before the manifestation of sin and its wages, it is as if the reader has been invited to attend a wake, a mournful remembrance of things both distantly past and all too present. Yet what unfolds before our eyes is a very different kind of ceremony —not a funeral at all but a remarriage or renewal of vows. In a tableau of Pauline typology lifted directly out of Romans 5, the two-natured Griffin, symbolizing Christ, yokes the crossbar of his chariot to the trunk of the barren tree. In so doing, he joins the wood of redemption to that of perdition, and thereby brings about a spectacular metamorphosis: ¡°s¡¯innovò la pianta/ che prima avea le ramora sì sole,¡± ¡°the tree was renewed that first had its branches so bare¡± (vv. 59-60). The blessed company that witnesses the Griffin¡¯s act then celebrates him with a burst of theological praise:

¡°Beato se¡¯, grifon, che non discindi

col becco d¡¯esto legno dolce al gusto,

poscia che mal si torce il ventre quindi.¡±

Così d¡¯intorno a l¡¯albero robusto

gridaron li altri; e l¡¯animal binato:

¡®Sì si conserva il seme d¡¯ogne giusto.¡¯

¡°blessed art thou, Griffin, that does not pluck with

thy beak from this tree, sweet to the taste, for the belly

is ill racked thereby.¡± Thus around the sturdy tree cried

the others; and the animal of two natures, ¡°So is preserved

the seed of all righteousness.¡±

(vv. 43-48)

This transformation of death into life is described as a sudden arrival of spring, as if it were part of spring¡¯s natural rebirth. In reality, however, it represents a kind of temporal event altogether different from anything in the natural cycle of seasons. For in this sudden blossoming at the touch of the Griffin¡¯s crossbar Dante gives us an image of the supernatural intervention of the divine in human affairs. In it we see the restoration of the first Adam¡¯s family tree through the second Adam¡¯s incarnation, death, and resurrection. We see, in other words, all that the Pageant of Revelation has borne witness to and that the Griffin represents. Expressed in the language of rebirth (¡°si rinovella,¡± ¡°innovò¡±), the transformation of Eden¡¯s barren tree into full life gives us the great paradigm of Christian metamorphosis. It is a poet¡¯s way of re-presenting through imagery and action what Paul wrote of more abstractly in Romans 5: 18: ¡°Therefore as the offense of the one man was unto the condemnation to all men, so from the justice of the one the result is unto justification to all men.¡±[xvi]

* * * * *

Finally, there is overt citation not only of a single Pauline text but also of its larger theological context. In Paradiso 19, Dante raises the question of predestination and election that has overshadowed the Commedia since its first canto introduction of the pre-Christian Virgil as a ¡°rebel¡± to God¡¯s law and therefore excluded forever from the City of God (Inf. 1. 124-129).[xvii] In the heaven of justice, the poet revisits the damnation of those who have never heard the Gospel, but this time, instead of focusing on temporal issues –Virgil and the other virtuous pagans in Limbo were born too soon –the poet takes on the barrier of geography, the obstacle presented by being born too far away. In Paradiso 19, the Eagle of justice articulates a concern that never leaves Dante alone, ¡°question cotanto crebra,¡± v. 69).

ché tu dicevi: ¡®Un uom nasce a la riva

de l¡¯Indo, e quivi non è chi ragioni

di Cristo né chi legga né chi scriva;

e tutti suoi voleri e atti buoni

sono, quanto ragione umana vede,

sanza peccato in vita o in sermoni.

Muore non battezzato e sanza fede:

ov¡¯ è questa giudizia che ¡®l condanna?

ov¡¯è la colpa sua, se ei non crede?¡¯

¡°For you said, ¡®A man is born on the banks of the Indus,

and none is there to speak, or read, or write, of Christ, and

all his wishes and acts are good, so far as human reason sees,

without sin in life or speech. He dies unbaptized, and without

faith. Where is this justice which condemns him? Where is his

sin if he does not believe?¡¯¡±

(vv. 70-78)

In the next breath, so to speak, the Eagle turns from articulating what Dante has silently been thinking –an exemplum presented as a textbook case (¡°a man born on the banks if the Indus¡±) – and speaks to this matter in its own voice:

Or tu chi se¡¯, che vuo¡¯ sedere a scranna,

per giudicar di lungi mille miglia

con la veduta corta d¡¯una spanna?

Now you are you who would sit upon the seat

to judge at a thousand miles away with the short

sight that carries but a span?

(vv. 79-81)

The Eagle¡¯s words seem to echo from the book of Job, when the voice from the whirlwind dares the mortal questioner in chapters 38-41 to render an account: ¡°Wilt thou make void my judgment: and condemn me, that thou mayest be justified?¡± ( (40: 3) One also thinks of Wisdom 9:13: ¡°For among men is he that can know the counsel of God? or who can think what the will of the Lord is?¡± The Eagle¡¯s ¡°Or tu chi se¡¯¡± no doubt builds on these Old Testament texts, but it is more likely, given the context of the discussion in Paradiso 19, that Dante wants us to recall two passages in the Epistle to the Romans, where Paul, unlike the authors of Wisdom or Job, is speaking precisely about the mystery of divine. Some are chosen, others not. It was Sarah¡¯s son Isaac, not Hagar¡¯s Ishmael who became the heir apparent to Abraham. Likewise, it was the younger rather than the elder twin of Rebecca who was the child of promise. Paul goes on to marshal scriptural evidence not only from Genesis (Gen 25: 21, 23, cf. Mal 1: 2-3) but also from Exodus (33:19). The point? God¡¯s election proceeds without regard to human works or desert but rather by divine fiat : ¡°he has mercy on whom he will¡± (Rom. 9:18).

At this juncture in his argument, Paul imagines what the recipients of his epistle might be thinking and feeling. Like the Eagle in Paradiso 19, he anticipates their unspoken words in the form of questions but then goes on to raise challenges of his own: ¡°You will say to me, ¡®Why then does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?¡¯ But who indeed are you, a man, to reply to God?¡± (vv. 19-20a).

Neither Eagle nor Apostle can leave the matter at this. Paul returns to the issue of the Jews not believing in Christ in Romans 10. Applying to name of Jesus the saying of Joel 2:2, ¡°For whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved¡± (v. 13), he then poses the questions that is implicit in the mind of the Romans (as well as in the mind of Dante in Paradiso 19): ¡°How then are they to call upon him in whom they have not believed? But how are they to believe him whom they have not heard? And how are they to believe if not one preaches? ¡°(v. 14). The answer is forthcoming: the word is already out and has been so from the time of the Torah and prophets. In v. 18 Paul quotes Ps 19: 4, Deut 32:21, and Isa 65:1-2, all offering Old Testament ¡°proof¡± that Christ had already been preached to Israel.

Dante shifts the discussion from Paul¡¯s concern with the salvation of the Jews to the eternal destiny of virtuous pagans. In Paradiso 20, the Eagle of justice offers two cases in point, men who lived apart from Christ but who turned out to be Christians after all, whether avant or après la letter; or, Dante puts it, with firm faith ¡°in the Feet that were to suffer¡± or in ¡°the Feet that had suffered¡± (20. 104-105. These two figures are the Emperor Trajan, who was saved courtesy of the miraculous intercession of Gregory I, and Ripheus, a Trojan from the world of Aeneid 2, whose salvation is entirely the result of Dante¡¯s own imaginative act. [xviii] The Eagle then concludes this extended consideration of God¡¯s justice with a Pauline o altitudo not unlike what we find in Rom 11: 33:

¡°O predestinazion, quanto remota

è la radice tua de quelli aspetti

che la prima cagion non veggion tota!

E voi, mortali, tenetevi stretti

a giudicar: ché noi, che Dio vedremo,

non conosciamo ancor tutti li eletti;

¡°O predestination, how remote is thy root from the

vision of those who see not the First Cause entire!

And you mortals, keep yourself restrained in judging.

(vv. 130-134)

It may come as a shock to realize that this injunction not to judge comes near the end of a poem in which second-guessing the Almighty has been Dante¡¯s stock in trade from start to finish. Furthermore, once Dante is in the Empyrean – once his eyesight is restored after being dimmed by the light that suddenly shone around him (¡®me circunfulse,¡± Par. 30. 49) –he sees the blessed as allegedly they will be in their resurrection bodies. Now qualm about his choice of the elect prevents him from straightforwardly naming names. Because he is seeing not judging –the fiction of the fiction! –he discerns a matriarchal line descending from the Virgin Mary, the ¡°Augusta¡± of this empyrean Empire. Beneath her feet are Eve, Rachel (and next to her, Beatrice), Sarah, Rebecca, Judith, and Ruth. Immediately to Mary¡¯s left sit Adam and Moses, and to her right, Peter and John the Evangelist. Directly across the expanse of the heavenly rose from the Virgin appears John the Baptist; like Mary he stands at the dividing line of Christian history, marking a ¡°before¡± and ¡°after.¡± Below him descends a male line that entails spirit rather than flesh: Francis, Benedict and Augustine. To the Baptist¡¯s left is St. Lucy, Dante¡¯s patron saint throughout the poem, and to his right, St. Anne, so content to gaze upon the Blessed Virgin, her daughter, ¡°che non move occhio per cantare osanna¡± (¡°that she moves not her eyes as she sings Hosannah,¡± 32. 135). In this roster, a fourteenth-century figure otherwise unknown to history represents the only surprise -- Beatrice!

But where is St. Paul, to return to a question posed at the outset? One might say that by the end of the poem, Dante –both the visionary enraptured to Paradise and the ¡°apostolic¡± writer who sets his readers along ¡°la via di salvazione¡± (Inf. 2.30) –has essentially become him. It is also true, however, that the poet chooses to present Paul among the blessed, not as a persona but rather as an authoritative text invoked in the final theological discussion in the Commedia.

When the issue of predestination is raised for the last time in the poem¡¯s eleventh hour, it concerns the hierarchy of the blessed, who are ranked in the petals of the heavenly rose not sine causa but entirely according to God¡¯s pleasure. To dramatize that divine grace operates inscrutably and ¡°diversamente¡± (32: 58-66), apart from human merit, Dante¡¯s final guide, Bernard of Clairvaux, draws his attention to the hierarchy of baptized infants at the center of the celestial rose – premature souls, so to speak, who did not live long enough to ¡°earn¡± any kind of position for themselves but only received what they had been given. Here Dante, to emphasize God¡¯s sovereignty as well as the extreme importance of individuality, departs from theological consensus: by and large, it held that there was no hierarchy among the infants.[xix]

Making this point, Bernard evidently wants to conclude the matter and leave it shrouded in the mystery of God: ¡°e qui basti l¡¯effetto.¡± ¡°and here let the fact suffice¡± (v. 66). But because facts never do suffice, he adds a scriptural corollary:

E ciò espresso e chiaro vi si nota

ne la Scrittura santa in quei gemelli

che ne la madre ebber l¡¯ira commota.

Però, secondo il color d¡¯i capelli,

di cotal grazia l¡¯altissimo lume

degnamente convien che s¡¯incappelli.

Dunque, sanza mercé di lor costume,

locati son per gradi differenti,

sol differendo nel primiero acume.

And this is clearly and expressly noted for you in

Holy Scripture in those twins whose anger was stirred

within their mother¡¯s womb. Therefore, according to the

color of the locks, of such grace needs must the lofty

light crown them according to their worth. Wherefore,

without merit of their own works, they are placed in

different ranks, differing only in the primal keenness

of vision.

(vv. 67-75)

Reaching an impasse in his argument, Bernard might well have resorted, as the prose Dante does more than once, to the ¡°depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God!¡± (Rom. 11:33). Instead, he cites another text from Romans that draws attention to God¡¯s apparently arbitrary choice of one pre-natal twin over the other¡± ¡°For before the children had been born, or had done aught of good or evil, in order that the selective power of God might stand, depending not on deeds, but in him who calls, it was said [to Rebecca], ¡®The elder shall serve the younger,¡¯ as it is written, ¡®I have loved Jacob, but Esau have I hated.¡¯¡± Paul then joins the Romans for a moment, allowing their puzzlement over the arbitrariness of grace to become his own, before going on to resolve the matter with dispatch: ¡°What then shall we say? Is there an injustice with God? By no means!¡± (Rom. 9.11-14).

In the penultimate canto of the poem Dante does not stage a ¡°walk on¡± by the author of the Epistle to the Romans. Rather, he recalls the only text that can settle the matter of predestination. God¡¯s will is sovereign, and just as Esau was born a red head and Jacob with black hair, so things are as they are. The ¡°color of the locks¡± says it all – ¡°e qui basti l¡¯effetto,¡± ¡°and here let the fact suffice.¡± Perhaps more than from any other quarter, Dante learned from Paul how to win an argument by shutting it down.