Page images
PDF
EPUB

son, to which, for the fear of hell, I had voluntarily condemned myself, having no other company but scorpions and wild beasts, I many times found my imagination filled with lively representations of dances in the company of Roman ladies, as if I had been in the midst of them. I often joined whole nights to the days, crying, sighing, and beating my breast till the desired calm returned. I feared the very cell in which I lived, because it was witness to the foul suggestions of my enemy; and being angry and armed with severity against myself, I went alone into the most secret parts of the wilderness, and if I discovered anywhere a deep valley, or a craggy rock, that was the place of my prayer, there I threw this miserable sack of my body. The same Lord is my witness, that after so many sobs and tears, after having in so much sorrow looked long up to heaven, I felt most delightful comforts and interior sweetness; and these so great, that, transported and absorpt, I seemed to myself to be amidst the choirs of angels; and glad and joyful I sung to God: After Thee, O Lord, we will run in the fragrancy of thy celestial ointments."

In another letter, cited by Montalembert, Monks of the West, Auth. Tr., I. 404, he exclaims: "O desert, enamelled with the flowers of Christ! O solitude, where those stones are born of which, in the Apocalypse, is built the city of the Great King! O retreat, which rejoicest in the friendship of God! What doest thou in the world, my brother, with thy soul greater than the world? How long wilt thou remain in the shadow of roofs, and in the smoky dungeons of cities? Believe me, I see here more of the light."

At the end of five years he was driven from his solitude by the persecution of the Eastern monks, and lived successively in Jerusalem, Antioch, Constantinople, Rome, and Alexandria. Finally, in 385, he returned to the Holy Land, and built a monastery at Bethlehem. Here he wrote his translation of the Scriptures, and his Lives of the Fathers of the Desert; but in 416 this monastery, and others that had risen up in its neighbourhood, were burned by the Pelagians,

and St. Jerome took refuge in a strong tower or fortified castle. Four years afterwards he died, and was buried in the ruins of his monastery.

40. This truth of the simultaneous creation of mind and matter, as stated in line 29.

41. The opinion of St. Jerome and other Fathers of the Church, that the Angels were created long ages before the rest of the universe, is refuted by Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., I. Quæst. LXI. 3.

45. That the Intelligences or Motors of the heavens should be so long without any heavens to move.

51. The subject of the elements is the earth, so called as being the lowest, or underlying the others, fire, air, and water.

56. The pride of Lucifer, who lies at the centre of the earth, towards which all things gravitate, and

"Down upon which thrust all the other rocks.”

Milton, Par. Lost, V. 856, makes the rebel angels deny that they were created by God :—

"Who saw

When this creation was? Rememberest thou
Thy making, while the Maker gave thee being?
We know no time when we were not as now;
Know none before us; self-begot, self-raised
By our own quickening power, when fatal course
Had circled his full orb, the birth mature
Of this our native heaven, ethereal sons,"

65. The merit consists in being willing to receive this grace.

95. St. Chrysostom, who in his preaching so carried away his audiences that they beat the pavement with their swords and called him the "Thirteenth Apostle," in one of his Homilies thus upbraids the custom of applauding the preacher: "What do your praises advantage me, when I see not your progress in virtue? Or what harm shall I receive from the silence of my auditors, when I behold the increase of their piety? The praise of the speaker is not the acclamation of his hearers, but their zeal for piety and religion; not their making a great stir in the times of hearing, but their showing diligence at all other times. Applause, as soon as it is out of the mouth, is dis persed into the air, and vanishes, but when the hearers grow better, this brings an incorruptible and immortal reward

both to the speaker and the hearer. The praise of your acclamation may render the orator more illustrious here, but the piety of your souls will give him greater confidence before the tribunal of Christ. Therefore, if any one iove the preacher, or if any preacher love his people, let him not be enamoured with applause, but with the benefit of the hearers.'

103. Lapo is the abbreviation of Jacopo, and Bindi of Aldobrandi, both familiar names in Florence.

107. Milton, Lycidas, 113:

"How well could I have spared for thee, young swain,

Enow of such as for their bellies' sake

Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold!
Of other care they little reckoning make,
Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast,
And shove away the worthy bidden guest!
Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know
A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else the

how to hold

least

That to the faithful herdman's art belongs! What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;

And, when they list, their lean and flashy

songs

Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched

straw:

The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed;
But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they

draw,

Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread :
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said:
But that two-handed engine at the door

the symbol of St. Anthony, as the cherub is of St. Matthew, the lion of St. Mark, and the eagle of St. John. There is an old tradition that St. Anthony was once a swineherd. Brand, Pop. Antiquities, I., 358, says :

"In the World of Wonders is the following translation of an epigram :

'Once fed'st thou, Anthony, an heard of swine,
And now an heard of monkes thou feedest
still:-

For wit and gut, alike both charges bin:
Both loven filth alike; both like to fill
Their greedy paunch alike. Nor was that kind
More beastly, sottish, swinish than this last.
All else agrees: one fauit I onely find,

Thou feedest not thy monkes with oken
mast.'

"The author mentions before, persons who runne up and downe the country, crying, Have you anything to bestow upon my lord S. Anthonie's

swine?'"

Mrs. Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art, II., 380, remarks: have read somewhere that the hog is given to St. Anthony, because he had been a swineherd, and cured the diseases of swine. This is quite a mistake. The hog was the representative of the demon of sensuality and gluttony, which Anthony is supposed to have vanquished by the exercises of piety and by divine aid. The ancient custom of placing in all his

Stands ready to smite once, and smite no effigies a black pig at his feet, or under

more."

115. Cowper, Task, II.:—

"He that negotiates between God and man,
As God's ambassador, the grand concerns
Of judgment and of mercy, should beware
Of lightness in his speech. 'Tis pitiful
To court a grin, when you should woo a soul;
To break a jest, when pity would inspire
Pathetic exhortation; and t' address
The skittish fancy with facetious tales,
When sent with God's commission to the
heart!"

For a specimen of the style of popular preachers in the Middle Ages, see the story of Frate Cipolla, in the Decamerone, Gior. VI. Nov. 10. See also Scheible's Kloster, and Menin's Prédica

toriana.

118. The Devil, who is often represented in early Christian art under the shape of a coal-black bird. See Didron, Christ. Iconog., I.,

124. In carly paintings the swine is

his feet, gave rise to the superstition that this unclean animal was especially dedicated to him, and under his protection. The monks of the Order of St. Anthony kept herds of consecrated pigs, which were allowed to feed at the public charge, and which it was a profanation to steal or kill: hence the proverb about the fatness of a 'Tantony pig.'

Halliwell, Dict. of Arch. and Prov. Words, has the following definition : "ANTHONY-PIG. The favourite or smallest pig of the litter. A Kentish expression, according to Grose. 'To follow like a tantony pig,' i. e. to follow close at one's heels. Some derive this saying from a privilege enjoyed by the friars of certain convents in England and France, sons of St. Anthony, whose swine were permitted to feed in the streets. These swine would follow any

one having greens or other provisions, till they obtained some of them; and it was in those days considered an act of charity and religion to feed them. St. Anthony was invoked for the pig."

Mr. Howell's Venetian Life, p. 341, alludes to the same custom as once prevalent in Italy: "Among other privileges of the Church, abolished in Venice long ago, was that ancient right of the monks of St. Anthony Abbot, by which their herds of swine were made free of the whole city. These animals, enveloped in an odour of sanctity, wan dered here and there, and were piously fed by devout people, until the year 1409, when, being found dangerous to children, and inconvenient to everybody, they were made the subject of a special decree, which deprived them of their freedom of The Republic was always opposing and limiting the privileges of

movement.

the Church!"

[blocks in formation]

1. The ascent to the Empyrean, the tenth and last Heaven. Of this Heaven, Dante, Convito, II. 4, says: "This is the sovereign edifice of the world, in which the whole world is included, and outside of which nothing is. And it is not in space, but was formed solely in the primal Mind, which the Greeks call Protonoe. This is that magnificence of which the Psalmist spake, when he says to God, 'Thy magnificence is exalted above the heavens.""

Milton, Par. Lost, III. 56:

"Now had the Almighty Father from above, From the pure empyrean where he sits

High throned above all highth, bent down his eye,
His own works and their works at once to view
Stood thick as stars, and from his sight received
Beatitude past utterance."

About him all the sanctities of heaven

2. The sixth hour is noon, and when noon is some six thousand miles away from us, the dawn is approaching, the shadow of the earth lies almost on a plane with it, and gradually the stars disappear.

scribed in Canto XXVIII.
10. The nine circles of Angels, de-

And

My

the Empyrean. Dante, Convite, II. 15, 38. From the Crystalline Heaven to makes the Empyrean the symbol of Theology, the Divine Science: **The Empyrean Heaven, by its peace, resembles the Divine Science, which is full of all peace; and which suffers no strife of opinions or sophistical argu ments, because of the exceeding certi tude of its subject, which is God. of this he says to his disciples, peace I give unto you; my peace I leave you;' giving and leaving them his doctrine, which is this science of which I speak. Of this Solomon says: 'There cubines, and virgins without number; are threescore queens, and fourscore con. my dove, my undefiled, is but one.' All and virgins; and this he calls a dove, sciences he calls queens and paramours because it is without blemish of strife; and this he calls perfect, because it which our soul has rest." makes us perfectly to see the truth in

42. Philippians iv. 7: "The peace of God, which passeth all understanding." 43. The Angels and the souls of the saints.

45. The Angels will be seen in the same aspect after the last judgment as before; but the souls of the saints will wear "the twofold garments," spoken of in Canto XXV. 92, the spiritual body, and the glorified earthly body.

61. Daniel vii. 10: "A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him." And Revelation xxii. 1: "And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb."

64. The sparks are Angels, and the flowers the souls of the blessed.

66. For the mystic virtues of the ruby, see Canto IX. Note 69.

76. For the mystic virtues of the tan topaz, see Canto XV. Note 85.

90. "By the length," says Venturi, was represented the outpouring of God upon his creatures; by the roundness, the return of this outpouring to God, as to its first source and ultimate end." 99. Dante repeats the word vidi, I saw, three times, as a rhyme, to express the intenseness of his vision.

100. Buti thinks that this light is the Holy Ghost; Philalethes, that it is the : Logos, or second person of the Trinity; Tommaseo, that it is Illuminating Grace. 124. Didron, Christ. Iconog., I. 234, says: "It was in the centre, at the very heart of this luminous eternity, that the Deity shone forth. Dante no doubt wished to describe one of those roses with a thousand petals, which light the porches of our noblest cathedrals,-the rose-windows, which were contemporaneous with the Florentine poet, and which he had no doubt seen in his travels in France. There, in fact, in the very depth of the chalice of that rose of coloured glass, the Divine Majesty shines out resplendently.

[ocr errors]

tianity, it is difficult to account for his becoming, as he is called by Beausobre, the hero of the Romance of Heresy. If Simon was the same with that magician. a Cypriot by birth, who was employed by Felix as agent in his intrigue to detach Drusilla from her husband, this part of his character accords with the charge of licentiousness advanced both against his life and his doctrines by his Christian opponents. This is by no means improbable; and, indeed, even if he was not a person thus politically prominent and influential, the early writers of Christianity would scarcely have concurred in representing him as a formidable and dangerous antagonist of the Faith, as a kind of personal rival of St. Peter, without some other groundwork for the fiction besides the collision recorded in the Acts. The doctrines which are ascribed to him and to his followers, who continued to exist for several centuries, harmonise with the glimpse of his character and tenets in the writings of St. Luke. Simon probably was one of that class of adven turers which abounded at this period, or like Apollonius of Tyana, and others at a later time, with whom the oppo. nents of Christianity attempted to confound Jesus and his Apostles. His doctrine was Oriental in its language and in its pretensions. He was the first or emanation, or rather perhaps the first manifestation of the primal Deity. He assumed not merely the title of the Great Power or Virtue of God, but all the other Appellations,-the Word, the Perfection, the Paraclete, the Almighty, the whole combined attributes of the Deity. He had a companion, Helena, according to the statement of his enemies, a beautiful prostitute, whom he found at Tyre, who became in like manner the first conception (the Ennoa) of the Deity; but who, by her conjunction with matter, had been enslaved to its malignant influence, and, having fallen under the power of evil angels, had been in a con147. Among the Simoniacs in the stant state of transmigration, and, among third round of Malebolge. Of Simon other mortal bodies, had occupied that Magus, Milman, Hist. Christ., II. 97, of the famous Helen of Troy. Beauwrites thus: "Unless Simon was in sobre, who elevates Simon into a Plafact a personage of considerable import- tonic philosopher, explains the Helena ance during the early history of Chris-as a sublime allegory. She was the

129. The word convent is here used in its original meaning of a coming together, or assembly.

136. The name of Augustus is equivalent to Kaiser, Cæsar, or Emperor. In Canto XXXII. 119, the Virgin Mary is called Augusta, the Queen of the Kingdom of Heaven, the Empress of "the most just and merciful of empires."

137. This is Henry of Luxemburg, to whom in 1300 Dante was looking as the regenerator of Italy. He became Emperor in 1308, and died in 1311, ten years before Dante. See Purg. VI. Note 97, and XXXIII. Note 43.

142. At the Curia Romana, or Papal

court.

143. Pope Clement V. (1305-1314). See Inf. XIX. Note 83. The allusion here is to his double dealing with Henry of Luxemburg. See Canto XVII. Note 82.

on

Psyche of his philosophic romance. The at Avignon with urgent appeals that tE soul, by evil influences, had become im- disgrace should no longer be permitted, prisoned in matter. By her the Deity-but the Popes gave no heed to hi had created the angels: the angels, words; for the ruin of Roman churches, enamoured of her, had inextricably en- or of Rome itself, was a matter of little tangled her in that polluting bondage, in concern to these Transalpine prelates." order to prevent her return to heaven. 73. From the highest regions of the To fly from their embraces she had air to the lowest depth of the sea. passed from body to body. Connecting this fiction with the Grecian mythology, she was Minerva, or impersonated Wisdom; perhaps, also, Helena, or embodied Beauty."

[ocr errors]

148. Pope Boniface VIII., a native of Alagna, now Anagni. See Inf. XIX. Note 53, and Purg. XX. Note 87.

Dante has already his punishment prepared. He is to be thrust head downward into a narrow hole in the rock of Malebolge, and to be driven down still lower when Clement V. shall follow him.

CANTO XXXI.

1. The White Rose of Paradise. 7. Iliad, II. 86, Anon. Tr.: “And the troops thronged together, as swarms of crowding bees, which come ever in fresh numbers from the hollow rock, and fly in clusters over the vernal flowers, and thickly some fly in this direction, and some in that."

32. The nymph Callisto, or Helice, was changed by Jupiter into the constellation of the Great Bear, and her son into that of the Little Bear. See Purg. XXV., Note 131.

34. Rome and her superb edifices, before the removal of the Papal See to Avignon.

35. Speaking of Petrarch's visit to Rome, Mr. Norton, Travel and Study in Italy, p. 288, says: "The great church of St. John Lateran, 'the mother and head of all the churches of the city and the world,'-mater urbis et orbis,—had been almost destroyed by fire, with its adjoining palace, and the houses of the canons, on the Eve of St. John, in 1308. The palace and the canons' houses were rebuilt not long after; but at the time of Petrarch's latest visit to Rome, and for years afterward, the church was without a roof, and its walls were ruinous. The poet addressed three at least of the Popes

[ocr errors]

102. St. Bernard, the great Abbot of Clairvaux, the Doctor Mellifluus of the Church, and preacher of the disastrous Second Crusade, was born of noble pa rents in the village of Fontaine, near Dijon, in Burgundy, in the year 1190. After studying at Paris, at the age of twenty he entered the Benedictine monastery of Citeaux; and when, five years later, this monastery had become overcrowded with monks, he was sent out to found a new one.

Mrs. Jameson, Legends of the Monastic Orders, p. 149, says: "The manner of going forth on these occasions was strikingly characteristic of the age; — the abbot chose twelve monks, representing the twelve Apostles, and placed at their head a leader, representing Jesus Christ, who, with a cross in his hand, went before them. The gates of the convent opened, then closed behind them,and they wandered into the wide world, trusting in God to show them their des tined abode.

They

"Bernard led his followers to a wil derness, called the Valley of Wormwood, and there, at his biding, arose the since renowned abbey of Clairvaux. felled the trees, built themselves huts, tilled and sowed the ground, and changed the whole face of the country round; till that which had been a dismal solitude, the resort of wolves and robbers, became a land of vines and corn, rich, populous, and prosperous.”

This incident forms the subject of one of Murillo's most famous paintings, and is suggestive of the saint's intense devotion to the Virgin, which Dante expresses in this line.

Mr. Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics, I. 1.45, gives the following sketch of St Bernard :

"With Bernard the monastic life is the one thing needful. He began life by drawing after him into the convent all his kindred; sweeping them one by

« PreviousContinue »