The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri [best thriller novels of all time TXT] 📗

Holy Ghost were only temporary manifestations of God in creation, redemption, and sanctification, and would finally return to the Father.

Arius was a Presbyter of Alexandria in the fourth century. He believed the Son to be equal in power with the Father, but of a different essence or nature, a doctrine which gave rise to the famous Heterousian and Homoiousian controversy, that distracted the Church for three hundred years.

These doctrines of Sabellius and of Arius are both heretical, when tried by the standard of the Quicunque vult, the authoritative formula of the Catholic faith; “which faith, except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly,” says St. Athanasius, or some one in his name. ↩

These men, say some of the commentators, were as swords that mutilated and distorted the Scriptures. Others, that in them the features of the Scriptures were distorted, as the features of a man reflected in the grooved or concave surface of a sword. ↩

Names used to indicate any common simpletons and gossips. ↩

In writing this line Dante had evidently in mind the beautiful wise words of St. Francis:⁠—

“What every one is in the eyes of God, that he is, and no more.”

Mr. Wright, in the notes to his translation, here quotes the well-known lines of Burns, “Address to the Unco Guid”:⁠—

“Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;
Though they may gang a kennin wrang,
To step aside is human:
One point must still be greatly dark,
The moving why they do it:
And just as lamely can ye mark
How far perhaps they rue it.

“Who made the heart, ’tis He alone
Decidedly can try us;
He knows each chord its various tone,
Each spring its various bias.
Then at the balance let’s be mute;
We never can adjust it;
What’s done we partly may compute,
But know not what’s resisted.”

↩

The ascent to the planet Mars, where are seen the spirits of Martyrs, and Crusaders who died fighting for the Faith. ↩

In this similitude Dante describes the effect of the alternate voices of St. Thomas Aquinas in the circumference of the circle, and of Beatrice in the centre. ↩

Life is here used, as before, in the sense of spirit. ↩

Chaucer, Troil. and Cres., the last stanza:⁠—

“Thou One, and Two, and Thre! eterne on live,
That raignest aie in Thre, and Two, and One,
Uncircumscript, and all maist circumscrive!”

Also Milton, Paradise Lost, III 372:⁠—

“Thee, Father, first they sung, Omnipotent,
Immutable, Immortal, Infinite,
Eternal King; thee, Author of all being,
Fountain of light, thyself invisible
Amidst the glorious brightness where thou sitt’st
Throned inaccessible; but when thou shadest
The full blaze of thy beams, and through a cloud
Drawn round about thee like a radiant shrine,
Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear,
Yet dazzle heaven; that brightest seraphim
Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes.
Thee next they sang of all creation first,
Begotten Son, Divine Similitude,
In whose conspicuous countenance, without cloud
Made visible, the Almighty Father shines,
Whom else no creature can behold: on thee
Impressed the effulgence of his glory abides;
Transfused on thee his ample Spirit rests.”

↩

The voice of Solomon. ↩

According to Buti, “Spirits newly arrived”; or Angels, such being the interpretation given by the Schoolmen to the word Subsistences. See Note 1541. ↩

The planet Mars. Of this planet Brunetto Latini, Tresor, I iii 3, says:⁠—

“Mars is hot and warlike and evil, and is called the God of Battles.”

Of its symbolism Dante, Convito, II 14, says:⁠—

“The Heaven of Mars may be compared to Music, for two properties. The first is its very beautiful relation [to the others]; for, enumerating the movable heavens, from whichsoever you begin, whether from the lowest or the highest, the Heaven of Mars is the fifth; it is the centre of all.⁠ ⁠… The other is, that Mars dries up and burns things, because its heat is like to that of the fire; and this is the reason why it appears fiery in color, sometimes more, and sometimes less, according to the density and rarity of the vapors which follow it, which sometimes take fire of themselves, as is declared in the first book of Meteors. (And therefore Albumasar says, that the ignition of these vapors signifies death of kings, and change of empires, being effects of the dominion of Mars. And accordingly Seneca says that at the death of the Emperor Augustus a ball of fire was seen in the heavens. And in Florence, at the beginning of its downfall, a great quantity of these vapors, which follow Mars, were seen in the air in the form of a cross.) And these two properties are in Music, which is wholly relative, as may be seen in harmonized words, and in songs, in which the more beautiful the relation, the sweeter the harmony, since such is chiefly its intent. Also Music attracts to itself the spirits of men, which are principally as it were vapors of the heart, so that they almost cease from any operation; so entire is the soul when it listens, and the power of all as it were runs to the sensible spirit that hears the sounds.”

Of the influences of Mars, Buti, as usual following Albumasar, writes:⁠—

“Its nature is hot, igneous, dry, choleric, of a bitter savor, and it signifies youth, strength, and acuteness of mind; heats, fires, and burnings, and every sudden event; powerful kings, consuls, dukes, and knights, and companies of soldiery; desire of praise and memory of one’s name; strategies and instruments of battle; robberies and machinations, and scattering of relations by plunderings and highway robberies; boldness and anger; the unlawful for the lawful; torments and imprisonments; scourges and bonds; anguish, flight, thefts, pilfering of servants, fears, contentions, insults, acuteness of mind, impiety, inconstancy, want of foresight, celerity and anticipation in things, evil eloquence