Discourse of Beatrice. — The Fall of Man. — The scheme of his Redemption.
“Osanna sanctus Deus Sabaoth, superillustrans claritate tua felices ignes horum malacoth!”1 — thus, turning to its own melody, this substance,2 upon which a double light is twinned,3 was seen by me to sing. And it and the others moved with their dance, and like swiftest sparks veiled themselves to me with sudden distance. I was in doubt, and was saying to myself, “Tell her, tell her,” I was saying, “tell her, my Lady, who slakes my thirst with her sweet distillings;” but that reverence which lords it altogether over me, only by BE and by ICE,4 bowed me again like one who drowses. Little did Beatrice endure me thus, and she began, irradiating me with a smile such as would make a man in the fire happy, “According to my infallible advisement, how a just vengeance could be justly avenged has set thee thinking. But I will quickly loose thy mind: and do thou listen, for my words will make thee a present of a great doctrine.
1 “Hosanna! Holy God of Sabaoth, beaming with thy brightness upon the blessed fires of these realms.”
2 Substance, as a scholastic term, signifies a being subsisting by itself with a quality of its own. “Substantiae nomen significat essentiam cui competit sic esse, id est per se esse; quod tamen esse non est ipsa ejus essentia.” — Summa Theol. I. iii. 5.
3 The double light of Emperor and compiler of the Laws.
4 Only by the sound of her name.
“By not enduring for his own good a curb upon the power which wills, that man who was not born, — damning himself, damned all his offspring; wherefore the human race lay sick below for many centuries, in great error, till it pleased the Word of God to descend where He, by the sole act of His eternal love, united with Himself in person the nature which had. removed itself from its Maker.
“Now direct thy sight to the discourse which follows. This nature, united with its Maker, became sincere and good, as it had been created; but by itself it had been banished from Paradise, because it turned aside from the way of truth and from its own life. The punishment therefore which the cross afforded, if it be measured by the nature assumed, none ever so justly stung; and, likewise, none was ever of such great wrong, regarding the Person who suffered, with whom this nature was united. Therefore from one act issued things diverse; for unto God and unto the Jews one death was pleasing: by it earth trembled and the heavens were opened. No more henceforth ought it to seem perplexing to thee, when it is said that a just vengeance was afterward avenged by a just court,
“But I see now thy mind tied up, from thought to thought, within a knot the loosing of which is awaited with great desire, Thou sayest, ‘I discern clearly that which I bear; but it is occult to we why God should will only this mode for our redemption.’ This decree, brother, stands buried to the eyes of every one whose wit is not full grown in the flame of love. Truly, inasmuch as on this mark there is much gazing, and little is discerned, I will tell why such mode was most worthy. The Divine Goodness, which from Itself spurns all rancor, burning in Itself so sparkles that It displays the eternal beauties. That which distils immediately1 from It, thereafter has no end, for when It seals, Its imprint is not removed. That which from It immediately rains down is wholly free, because it is not subject unto the power of the new things.2 It is the most conformed to It, and therefore pleases It the most; for the Holy Ardor which irradiates every thing is most living in what is most resemblance to Itself. With all these things3 the human creature is advantaged, and if one fail, he needs must fall from his nobility. Sin alone is that which disfranchises him, and makes him unlike the Supreme Good, so that by Its light he is little illumined. And to his dignity he never returns, unless, where sin makes void, he fill up for evil pleasures with just penalties. Your nature, when it sinned totally in its seed,4 was removed from these dignities, even as from Paradise; nor could they be recovered, if thou considerest full subtly, by any way, without passing by one of these fords: — either that God alone by His courtesy should forgive, or that man by himself should make satisfaction for his folly. Fix now thine eye within the abyss of the eternal counsel, fixed as closely on my speech as thou art able. Man within his own limits could never make satisfaction, through not being able to descend so far with humility in subsequent obedience, as disobeying he intended to ascend; and this is the reason why man was excluded from power to make satisfaction by himself. Therefore it behoved God by His own paths5 to restore man to his entire life, I mean by one, or else by both. But because the work of the workman is so much the more pleasing, the more it represents of the goodness of the heart whence it issues, the Divine Goodness which imprints the world was content to proceed by all Its paths to lift you up again; nor between the last night and the first day has there been or will there be so lofty and so magnificent a procedure either by one or by the other; for God was more liberal in giving Himself to make man sufficient to lift himself up again, than if only of Himself He had pardoned him. And all the other modes were scanty in respect to justice, if the Son of God had not humbled himself to become incarnate.
1 Without the intervention of a second cause.
2 That is, of the heavens, new as compared with the First Cause.
3 That is, with immediate creation, with immortality, with free will, with likeness to God, and the love of God for it.
4 Adam.
5 “All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth.” — Psalm xxv. 10. Truth may be here interpreted, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, as justice.
“Now to fill completely every desire of thine, I return to a certain place to clear it up, in order that thou mayest see there even, as I do. Thou sayest, ‘I see the water, I see the fire, the air; and the earth, and all their mixtures come to corruption, and endure short while, and yet these things were created;’ so that, if what I have said has been true, they ought to be secure against corruption. The Angels, brother, and the sincere1 country in which thou art, may be called created, even as they are, in their entire being; but the elements which thou hast named, and those things which are made of them, are informed by a created power.2 The matter of which they consist was created; the informing power in these stars which go round about them was created. The ray and the motion of the holy lights draw out from its potential elements3 the soul of every brute and of the plants; but the Supreme Benignity inspires your life without intermediary, and enamors it of Itself so that ever after it desires It. And hence4 thou canst argue further your resurrection, if thou refleetest bow the human flesh was made when the first parents were both made.”
1 Sincere is here used in the sense of incorruptible, or perhaps unspoiled, — the quality of the Heavens as contrasted with the Earth.
2 The elements axe informed, that is, receive their specific being not immediately from Goa, but mediately through the informing Intelligences.
3 Literally, “from the potentiate mingling,” that is, from the matter endowed with the potentiality of becoming informed by the vegetative and the sensitive soul.
4 From the principle that what proceeds immediately from Goa is immortal.