CANTO II.

sages, whereupon abler critics than he had laboured vainly now, such an insight is better got at by the scrutinizing sifting of a few opinions, than by a more enlarged, but less anxious operation. Such are the sentiments that engage me to stop at this thirtieth verse of the original-'faith which is the first step in the road of salvation'-and to remark, that it does not say, that faith is the road to salvation, but only that it is the first step in that road which, I am convinced, was so worded designedly, and not so much either to imitate a passage in S. Austin, or to enforce the necessity of faith, (a want of which was no evil ther in vogue) as that of good works, by implying, that, without these, very little advance can be made towards Paradise, since faith is only a single step: in order to prepare his audience to join with him hereafter in those vehement reproofs, which he directs against such as, relying on the purity of their belief, hold themselves dispensed from an active exertion of the charities of our rature. He may have here alluded to the expostulations in the Bible (1): But two reflections must have particularly actuated him; one, that the tenet he thus condemned had been already pronounced heterodox by the chiefs of his religion - a consideration sufficiently strong in a poem purporting to embrace the numerous Catholic dogmas; and the other

(1) James. 11. 14.

CANTO II.

that it appeared subversive of civil society. To him it was moreover peculiarly obnoxious, as forming a perfect contrast with his principles and practice: both of which engaged him to unite entire fidelity to his own church, with much tolerance towards that of others. Of the multiplied instances on which my present observation is founded, I shall only notice two; one of them taken from this same poem, and one from his metrical translation of the Nicene Creed. 'Numbers' (he exclaims in Paradise) 'are there of those who ejaculate Christ! Christ! and yet on the great Judgment Day shall fall far below many that never heard of Christ. Yea! the Ethiopian shall then damn the Christian; the former entering the realm of eternal glory, and the latter undone for ever (1). And, in the Creed, he expressly goes out of his way to paraphrase Deum Omnipotentem by 'God who can do all things and from whom ever proceed all those blessed graces that produce good works (2).'

The Catholic 'Limbo-of-the-holy-fathers' is defined by Aquinas as a region of peace, exempt from all sense of pain and enjoying the blessing of divine grace, but not of ineffable beatitude (3): and he

(1) Parad. Canto XIX.

(2) I sette Salmi di D. A. p. 137.

(3) D. Tom. Aquini. Sen. p. 111. p. 389. Ed. 1698.

GANTO II.

agrees with S. Austin (1), and indeed S. Paul (2) also, in representing that Limbo, or Abraham's bosom as being situated in Infernus or hell. In it Virgil also placed Elysium; so that, when he himself is put there, it is both justly and kindly done: justly, because, as I have this moment said, it is in a division of hell that he puts the ancient worthies of Greece and Rome, and not in the Paradise of Heathenism, which was the milky-way, as we learn from the philosophers and indeed from Virgil himself in the fourth Eclogue; kindly, because, although we shall perceive a great resemblance between Limbo and Elysium, yet shall we find the former more placidly atractive; since the boisterous introduction of steeds and chariots gives way to the purer and spiritualizing imagery of Christianity. Should it be objected, that the Aeneid is a poetic fiction, but that the ecclesiastical authorities of Paganism elevated some of its votaries, under the title of Demi-gods, to a participation of celestial bliss, (as Romulus or Scipio for example) it might be answer ed that also Dante is writing poetry; were it not that, in truth, he disclaims any such excuse, and prefers to every other glory that of displaying the characteristic charity of his faith. Therefore he too (probably for the sake of the principle, rather than merely to honor those individuals) makes exceptions in favour of a few distinguished Pagans:

(1) De Civit. Dei. Lib. xx.

(2) Romans. x. 7.

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so that, if he now leaves Virgil in Limbo, we shall find him, as he advances, enlarging at every step the horizon of benevolence; not so much by the ardour of his fancy, as by a mixture of prudence and learning, qualities that make him be looked upon by the Roman Church as one of its most venerable theologians, and indeed sometimes be designated by the title, not of a poet, but of a most divine theologian, as I remarked in my comment on the preceding Canto (1); whence he shall at last present us with Trajan among the saints, (without violating the doctrine of Catholicism, as shall be elucidated) and with Cato on his way thither, in Purgatory; him of whom it hath also been written in the Convito, 'Sacred, holy, bosom of Cato! who shall presume to speak of thee? For me, I know no eulogy befitting thee, on an occasion like the present, when I am precluded from being diffuse, except that of S. Jerome on S. Paul in his preface to the Bible, the eulogy of silence (2).' 'Our calm suspended being' color che son sospesi is borrowed seemingly from the Mohammedan doctors, who, having a limbo very similar to that of the Catholics, call it « al Arâf, a word derived from the verb arafa, which signifies properly to separate or raise (3); » so that al Arâf means a place suspended between Paradise

(1) p. 64.

(2) p. 153.

(3) Sale p. 125.

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and the Hell-of-the-damned: and that conveys a just idea of this Limbo, which, we shall find, may be termed suspended in three several senses as being a counter poise between joy and sorrow; as having held the Patriarchs in a state of suspense; and as over-hanging the infernal abyss. That to this Limbo Saints and Angels (1) make frequent visits, was once an opinion of the Franciscan friars, and is so still, I suppose; so that Dante, in making 'a gentle fair' descend thither from Paradise, did nothing theologically irregular.

I. -LV.

The Original is la stella 'the star': which is after the manner of the Greeks, who named the sun, pov, the star by excellence; a mode of expression followed by Boetius in latin, for he calls the sun simply sidus (2), and by Dante in Italian, not only on the present occasion, but also in one of his Canzoni (3).

Os olhos com que o sol escurecia

"Those eyes at which the sun grew dim'

wrote Camoës (4); but, long before him, another Portugese (Bernardes) had transplanted from

(1) Sarpi. Storia del Con. Trid. 1. 2. p. 165.

(2) Vel cur hesperias Sidus in undas

Casurum rutulo surgat ab ortu.

De Consol 1. 1. cap. 2.

(3) La bella stella. Rime. p. 200. (4) Sonetto. LXXXXIX.