Paradiso (107 page)

103–105.
   Gratian, the twelfth-century collector and organizer of canon law, who in his
Decretum
, according to some of Dante’s commentators, tried to harmonize secular and ecclesiastical law, the two courts referred to in verse 104; others believe Dante is referring to two functions of the Church, the sacramental and the judgmental.

After the slam Dante has put in Folco’s mouth against decretals (
Par.
IX.133–135), it seems strange to some that Gratian is so well rewarded. See Forti (Fort.1968.1), pp. 371–73, for the history of the dispute among the commentators caused by Dante’s inclusion of Gratian here. And see Adversi (Adve.1995.1).
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

106–108.
   An almost exact contemporary of Gratian, Peter Lombard, the “Master of the Sentences” (his major work was the compendium
Sententiarum Libri
, presenting an elaborate overview of dogmatic theology). He says, in his preface to that work, that, like the poor widow in Luke’s Gospel (21:1–4), he hopes to make his small contribution to God’s treasury.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

109–114.
   Solomon, son of David and king of Israel, the question of whose salvation was much discussed during the Middle Ages (see the reference to the world’s hunger for news of him in vv. 110–111, along with its prime reasons for doubting that he was saved, his prodigious carnal affections in his old age, and his falling into idolatry as part of these
amours
[I Kings 11:1–9]; these missteps were compounded, for some, by his authorship of the Canticle of Canticles). However, if the Truth be true (i.e., if we are to believe what we read in the Bible), God specifically (I Kings 3:12) singles Solomon out for the highest praise: “I have given you a wise and understanding heart, so that there was none like you before you, neither after you shall any arise like you (
nec post te surrecturus sit
),” this last the source of Dante’s “non surse il secondo” (verse 114). This passage is probably remembered in Matthew 11:11, “Among them that are born of women there has not risen a greater than John the Baptist,” which was cited by Tommaseo (comm. to
Par.
X.112–114).

Michele Scherillo (Sche.1896.1) reviews Solomon’s many “disqualifications”
from being considered an author of Scripture and then his checkered career among the exegetes, the most authoritative of whom, from Dante’s own point of view (e.g., St. Augustine, Brunetto Latini), deny him salvation (if St. Jerome granted it). (For three twelfth-century theologians who differ [Philip of Harvengt, Peter Comestor, and Joachim of Flora], saying that Solomon was indeed saved, see Sarolli [Saro.1971.1], pp. 210–15.) Scherillo suggests that it was primarily his kingship that inspired Dante to consider him among the blessed, but does not overlook the force of the fact that Solomon was indeed, in Dante’s eyes (and, of course, not in his alone), the author of canonical texts: Proverbs (see, e.g.,
Conv
. III.xi.12;
Mon
. III.1.3), Ecclesiastes (see, e.g.,
Conv
. II.x.10), the Canticle of Canticles (see, e.g.,
Conv
. II.v.5); though he never refers to Solomon’s authorship of the Book of Wisdom, he cites its first line in
Paradiso
XVIII.91–93. In other words, for Dante, Solomon is
scriba Dei
(a scribe of God). No matter how anyone might call into question his credentials, he has them. We may reflect that Dante shares both a “monarchical” and a “theological” identity with Solomon, poet of empire and of God, his new “Book of Wisdom” (replacing the previous and abandoned attempt, the
Banquet
) railing against the enemies of the true and God-centered empire. The more one thinks of Dante’s Solomon, the more he becomes a likely choice as precursor of this poet (perhaps even in the light of his sexual trespass, something that he, his father, David, and Dante Alighieri, by his own confession [
Purg.
XXX and XXXI], have in common).

On Solomon’s
auctoritas
see Minnis (Minn.1984.1), pp. 94–96; 110–12. For the view of Solomon of early Christian exegetes, see Bose (Bose.1996.1). On the sense of the overwhelming importance, for Dante’s view of Solomon, of his authorship of the Book of Wisdom, see Pelikan (Peli.1997.1), p. 3: Wisdom “was the book that brought together the
Timaeus
and Genesis on the beginning of the world” (cited by Herzmann [Herz.2003.1], p. 330). For a study of Dante’s sense of identity with Solomon, see Seem (Seem.2006.1).
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

110.
   Aversano (Aver.2000.2), p. 43, points out that this is the third appearance in this canto of a form of the verb
spirare
(so closely and often associated with the “spiration” of the Holy Spirit), the only one to contain so many occurrences (see also vv. 2 and 51).
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

115–117.
   Dionysius the Areopagite, converted by St. Paul at Athens (as mentioned by Luke in Acts 17:34) and martyred there in a.d. 95. He was
erroneously assumed to be the author of the
De caelesti hierarchia
, a work particularly prized for its description of the orders of the angels and of their nature. (Dante makes wide use of it in the
Paradiso
.) The
Celestial Hierarchy
and three others of the reputed works of Dionysius were actually produced some five centuries later by Greek neoplatonists and were translated into Latin only in the ninth century.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

118–120.
   Orosius, whose historical compendium, entitled
Historiae adversus paganos
, was written at the suggestion of St. Augustine, as a defense of the Christian religion’s beneficial role in human history. Augustine made use of it in writing his
De civitate Dei
, and it is frequently used by Dante. See Toynbee (Toyn.1902.1), “Dante’s obligations to the
Ormista
,” pp. 121–36, for the opinion that the reference is indeed to Orosius, which for a long time has been the view of the majority of the commentators. Alberto Pincherle, “Agostino,”
ED
I (1970), p. 82b, mentions the usual suspects (Orosius, Ambrose, Tertullian, Paulinus of Nola, and Lactantius), and settles on Marius Victorinus. For continued insistence that the
avvocato de’ tempi cristiani
is in fact Orosius, see Brugnoli (Brug.1998.1), pp. 491–92. The early commentators were divided, with the majority favoring St. Ambrose, but others backing Orosius. After them, the majority opinion has settled on Orosius by a wide margin, with many convinced by Venturi’s argument (comm. to this tercet) that Dante would never have spoken of the great St. Ambrose as a “piccioletta luce” (little light). Moore should still be consulted (Moor. 1889.1), pp. 457–60, for three strong arguments for the reference’s being to Orosius and not to Ambrose. But see Lieberknecht (Lieb.1996.1) for a thoughtful attempt to resuscitate Ambrose’s candidacy, even if the author ends by admitting that Orosius remains the front-runner.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

121–129.
   In the first of these three tercets, as a unique instance among this bevy of
illuminati
, Dante calls attention to the importance of a particular soul, a signal honor done Boethius, the author of the
De consolatione Philosophiae
. Dante mentions him, always with this particular text in mind, some dozen times in
Convivio
(first in I.ii.13). He was active in the first half of the sixth century, holding the consulship at Rome, but earned the displeasure of the emperor, Theodoric, who imprisoned him at Pavia and finally had him put to death by torture. See the note to verse 128.

See Trucchi (comm. to vv. 1–6) for the notion that, where Aquinas (
ST
Supp., q. 69, a. 2) says that only some will have to spend time in Purgatory before they pass on to Heaven, Dante has all go, with exceptions of those like Boethius, Francis, and Cacciaguida, the auspicious few, according to Isidoro del Lungo (in an unspecified text); that is, Dante’s view is
the exact negative counterpart to that of Thomas. See the note to
Paradiso
XI.109–117.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

128.
   Curti (Curt.2002.1), p. 159, reminds us that Augustine’s remains were circa 725 removed from Sardegna (where they had been taken from Hippo) and taken to Pavia by the Lombard king, Liutprand, who reinterred them in the basilica of Cieldoro. Where might Dante have learned this? In the opinion of Curti, from the
Chronicon
of the Venerable Bede (present in verse 131). (Casini/Barbi [comm. to this verse] had already pointed out that
both
Augustine and Boethius were reburied beneath imposing monuments in that church by Liutprand.)
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

130–131.
   Isidore (bishop) of Seville compiled one of the first great medieval encyclopedias in the seventh century, his twenty books of
Etymologies
. He was, either directly or indirectly (e.g., through the derivative work of Uguccione da Pisa), one of Dante’s main authorities on any number of subjects.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

131.
   The Venerable Bede, the ecclesiastical historian of Britain, lived well into the eighth century. See Pasquini (Pasq.2001.1), pp. 283–91, for claims on behalf of the writings of Bede (
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, De natura rerum, De metrica arte
) as hitherto unexplored sources for a number of passages in the
Commedia
.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

131–132.
   Richard of St. Victor wrote during the twelfth century. He and his master, Hugo of St. Victor (for whom see
Par.
XII.133), were mystical theologians in the monastery of St. Victor near Paris. “He was said to be a native of Scotland, celebrated Scholastic philosopher and theologian, chief of the mystics of the twelfth century. He was, with Peter Lombard, a pupil of the famous Hugh of St. Victor, and a friend of St. Bernard, to whom several of his works are dedicated; he died at St. Victor in 1173. His writings, which are freely quoted by Thomas Aquinas, consist of commentaries on parts of the Old Testament, St. Paul’s Epistles, and the Apocalypse, as well as of works on moral and dogmatic subjects, and on mystical contemplation, the last of which earned him the title of ‘Magnus Contemplator’ ”
(T)
. Dante in his
Epistle to Cangrande
(
Epist
. XIII.28), when justifying his dealing with transcendental subjects in the
Paradiso
, appeals to Richard’s work
De contemplatione
.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

133–138.
   Siger of Brabant, thirteenth-century philosopher and theologian who taught at the Faculty of the Arts of the Sorbonne, located near
“the Street of Straw,” the Rue du Fouarre in Paris (one of the few pieces of “evidence” seized on by those who believe, as few today do, that Dante visited Paris; but the street’s name was apparently widely known; and Dante might have heard details about the theological disputes in Paris, for instance from the Dominican Remigio Girolami, who had studied with St. Thomas in Paris and who lectured at S. Maria Novella between 1289 and 1303). In 1270, Thomas wrote his
De Unitate intellectus contra averroistas
, clearly attacking some of Siger’s teaching (along with that of others). Between 1270 and 1277, Siger was prosecuted by the archbishop of Paris Étienne Tempier (and in 1276 by the inquisitor for France, Simon du Val) for heretical ideas and found guilty. He went to Orvieto to face the Roman Curia and apparently owned up to his wayward philosophizing, and perhaps was absolved for it. He then stayed in Orvieto, in a condition perhaps resembling house arrest, where he apparently met his death beneath the knife of a mad cleric, possibly a man assigned to him as a servant, circa 1283–84. The author of
Il Fiore
(XCII.9–11) mentions Siger’s terrible end. For a compact bibliography of Siger’s extensive body of work, those considered genuine, those possibly or probably by others, and those now lost, as well as a short list of studies of his impact on Dante, see Cesare Vasoli, “Sigieri (Sighieri) di Brabante,”
ED
V (1976), pp. 241b–42a.

For an invaluable survey of the state of the question regarding the interrelationships among Aristotle, Averroës, Albertus Magnus, and Aquinas, as they affect Dante’s own philosophical views, see the first half of the study by Simon Gilson (Gils.2004.1). For a brief but most helpful summary in English of the strands of Dante’s Aristotelianism, see Scott, “Aristotle” (Lans.2000.1), pp. 61–65. For a discussion of the major “heresies” current in Dante’s time, see Comollo (Como.1990.1). We in the twenty-first century may not have enough feel for the huge change in theology wrought by the rediscovery of Aristotle in the thirteenth century. Dante clearly felt himself drawn to the new philosophy, as is evident by his placing Aristotle higher than Plato as a figure of classical philosophical authority, as is first reflected in the
Commedia
in
Inferno
IV.131.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

133–135.
   What the reader is supposed to understand about these thoughts that made death seem welcome to Siger is debated; perhaps it is his concern, mirrored in his retraction in (or perhaps after) 1276 that his earlier erring notions might condemn him to damnation in God’s eyes, despite his finally having chosen the true faith. Vasoli (“Sigieri,”
ED
V [1976], pp. 238a–42b) is not certain of Siger’s sincerity in hewing to the line.
Nonetheless, Dante may have decided that his appearance before the Roman Curia in Orvieto “cured” him of his heretical bent, and that, when he was murdered, he was living in the bosom of Mother Church.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]