Paradiso (174 page)
Authors: Dante
38–39.
All those commentators who believe that Dante “doesn’t mean” what he indicates, that in Heaven for the Last Judgment and general resurrection there will be an equal number of Christians and Hebrews (the latter including only a few gentiles in their number, at least two [see the note to
Par.
XXXI.25–27] and only possibly more), should have to recite these lines aloud before saying anything about the issue.
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40–48.
Dante now draws another boundary line, this one dividing the “north-south” axis of the Rose into two portions of equal height (though of unequal volume). There are three classes of saved babies, all of whom, because they had not attained the age of reason, died only in their inherited sinfulness (i.e., without positive sin): (1) Jewish infants who somehow shared their parents’ faith in Christ to come; (2) Jewish infants whose parents, once circumcision was instituted as a ritual by the Jews, had them circumcised (see the note to vv. 76–81); (3) Christian infants who had the better form of “circumcision,” baptism. In real terms, then, the rules for Christian infants were more stringent.
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43.
The “conditions” referred to indicate, of course, ritual circumcision.
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46–48.
Dante obviously enjoyed rewarding himself for his strict interpretation of the law of baptism in
Inferno
IV.30, when he agreed with St. Thomas that all unbaptized children will be found in Limbo. Now he sees a multitude of saved infants, and he dwells much longer on them.
See the note to
Paradiso
XXXI.59 for discussion of the presence of these babes not as the adults they should become (according to the standard view), but as the babies they were, back in their sweet flesh. See Nardi (Nard.1944.1), pp. 317–34, for the “age” of the babes in Heaven and other problems associated with their presence here.
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49–84.
Dante now chooses to deal, at some length, with a knotty problem: Do these sinless and saved innocents appear in the Rose in any meaningful pattern, as do the adults? This matter is set forth and resolved in three parts (vv. 49–60, 61–66, and 67–84).
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49–60.
Part I:
Bernard has divined that Dante, observing that these infants seem to be ranked in some sort of preferential order, immediately counters that (true) perception with the perfectly sensible notion that they only
seem
to be ordered by their varying merit, but are in fact merely casually arranged (for how can one distinguish one infant’s moral perfection from another’s?). In response, he treats his pupil as though he were a balky schoolboy (the reader may understandably feel surprise; we are, after all, very near the final vision).
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57.
The metaphor refers to the hypothesis that lies behind Dante’s question. No, Bernard says, there is no possibility, in this realm, of what exists existing without a reason. Thus, if you see gradation, there
is
gradation, and there is a reason for it.
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61–66.
Part II:
The second stage of Bernard’s response to Dante’s unvoiced question is a clear answer: Nothing happens casually here. The reason for His ordering the infants’ places as He does is in the mind of God and it is futile to try to fathom His reasons; just accept them. (And it may be particularly difficult to accept the idea that God creates human souls with unequal degrees of ability to know Him.)
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67–84.
Part III:
The third and final stage of his response is to give examples of God’s other and similar behavior, which might have made it
clear even to Dante that His preference for preference has always been manifest in the varying degrees of his grace.
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67–75.
Dante might have learned, for instance, from the Bible that God loves variously. See Malachi 1:2–3: “Yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated.” And this while they were still in the womb. Distinguishing them was not what they have done (they have not
done
anything), but, as it may seem, the color of their hair (Esau; see Genesis 25:25). That is the uncomprehending human view. God sees what we do not, and knows what we do not: the inner sight of our fellow beings. Esau’s red and Jacob’s black hair were only the outward manifestations of their inner differences, their abilities to know and love God.
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76–84.
Making clear what was latent in lines 40–48, Bernard now details the “history of grace” for babies, at first their parents’ love for Christ to come, then circumcision, and finally (in the age of Christ) baptism.
For the first two of these, see St. Thomas (
ST
III, q. 70, a. 4), cited by Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 76–78): “Ante institutionem circumcisionis fides Christi futuri iustificabat tam pueros quam adultos” (Before the institution of circumcision, faith in Christ to come justified both little children and adults). Bosco/Reggio go on to point out that Thomas (
ST
III, q. 70, a. 2) also holds that Original Sin is passed along through males alone (though it affects all, since our race cannot rely on matrilineal parthenogenesis), which accounts for the emphasis on male circumcision in the second tercet of this passage. However, the rules became more stringent once Christ came, with baptism now mandatory for the salvation of the innocent.
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79.
Jacopo della Lana (comm. to vv. 79–81) understands that the “age of circumcision” began with Abraham. The author of the Codice Cassinese (comm. to this verse) was the first to understand the reference here as being to the first two ages, from Adam to the Flood, from the Flood to Abraham, some 3,184 years according to him.
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83–87.
Bernard’s lecture ends with the fourth and concluding set of identical rhymes on
Cristo
. See the notes to
Paradiso
XII.71–75 and XIV.103–108.
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85–87.
This transitional tercet presents the face of Mary as preparation for the final vision of Christ’s features in the next canto (verse 131), a stunning detail, suggesting a resemblance both physical for the human side of the
Godhead and spiritual (Mary’s perfect purity of soul as the only human worthy of bearing the Christ).
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88–93.
And now, as a sort of coda to the foregoing “lecture,” the angels radiate their pleasure in her down from above to Mary. Gabriel, who had before (see
Par.
XXIII.94–96) descended to reenact the Annunciation, does so once again, spreading his wings as the painters of this scene always show him doing, and singing her song.
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95.
Gabriel’s praise of Mary is the last singing we hear in the poem. (For the program of song in the last
cantica
, see the note to
Par.
XXI.58–60.) If we recall the first parodic references to “hymns” (
Inf.
VII.125) or “songs” (
Inf.
XIX.118) or “psalms” (
Inf.
XXXI.69) to describe antimelodic utterance in Hell, we realize the care with which Dante organized his plan for the “musical score” of the
Commedia
, beginning
in bono
with the first singing heard in
Purgatorio
(II.46–48), the “theme song” of the entire work, Psalm 113,
In Isräel de Aegypto
.
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97–99.
The assembled choirs of Heaven, angelic and human, share a moment of joy in Mary, both singing and beaming with love.
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97.
The word
cantilena
, a hapax, would seem to refer specifically to Gabriel’s song (although some think it is more general in its reference). The singers would seem to include (although there is some uncertainty about this also) everyone on the scene, all the angels and all the saints, and their response, according to Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 94–99), is both spoken and sung: “cantantes et dicentes Dominus tecum etc.” (singing and saying “The Lord be with you,” etc.). Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 85–99) fills in the “etc.” by reciting the full response: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.”
Cantilena
(at least in Italian) seems to be a coinage of Dante’s. It happens that the word is also a hapax in the Vulgate (as Aversano has noted [Aver.2000.2], p. 169), occurring in the following passage of Ecclesiasticus (47:13–18): “Solomon reigned in days of peace, and God gave him rest on every side, that he might build a house for his name and prepare a sanctuary to stand for ever. / How wise you became in your youth! You overflowed like a river with understanding. / Your soul covered the earth, and you filled it with parables and riddles. / Your name reached to far-off islands, and you were loved for your peace. / For your songs [
cantilenis
] and proverbs and parables, and for your interpretations, the countries marveled
at you. / In the name of the Lord God, who is called the God of Israel, you gathered gold like tin and amassed silver like lead.” Aversano reasonably enough believes that the word
cantilenae
here reflects the songs of Solomon gathered in the
Cantica canticorum
. Thus
cantilena
may have a certain affinity with the last coinage for a God-derived song,
tëodia
, that we heard in
Paradiso
XXV.73, as Mattalia (comm. to verse 97) suggests.
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100–102.
Dante’s last address to Bernard sounds like a conflation of his farewells to Beatrice (
Par.
XXXI.79–81) and to Virgil (
Purg.
XXX.46–51), his first “padre” in the poem. (See the note to
Par.
XVI.16.)
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103–105.
The protagonist does all of us who need assistance a favor by asking Bernard who that angelic presence was.
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107–108.
Mary is now presented as the morning star, Venus, a moment that certainly Nietzsche would have to agree is a pronounced “transvaluation of value,” even if he might not approve of the result.
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109–114.
Bernard identifies Gabriel as the angel who carried the palm of victory down to Mary at the Annunciation when Jesus decided to give His life for our salvation. Whose victory? Hers, for having been chosen; eventually ours, over death.
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115.
The three words at the beginning of this verse echo Virgil’s similar urgings of Dante to come along in
Inferno
XX.124 and
Purgatorio
IV.137.
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116–117.
The language is that of imperial Rome (“patricians,” “empire”) “transvaluated” into Christian terms, or at least terms that are positive in either context: justice and piety, perhaps the values most readily translatable between, in many respects, two very different cultures.
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118–120.
The two “roots” of the Rose are Adam, “father” of all those who believed in Christ to come, and St. Peter, the first leader of His Church.
For a study in which the Rose is seen as the culmination of the vegetation motif in the poem, see Frankel (Fran.1982.1). Her article studies this motif, from the tree losing its leaves in the simile of
Inferno
III.112–116 through its culmination in the form of a repetaled rose, moving from Virgilian tragedy to Dantean comedy. See also Prandi (Pran.1994.1) for a similar appreciation, if from a different perspective.
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119.
Calling the Queen of Heaven “Agosta” is a daring “imperializing” touch. The last time we heard the adjective it was in Beatrice’s mouth (
Par.
XXX.136) and described a true emperor, Henry VII. This is perhaps as far as Dante can go in the vein initiated in
Purgatorio
XXXII.102, “that Rome where Christ Himself is Roman.”
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