The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (13 inch ebook reader .txt) 📕

“of great poetic beauty, but of little philosophic soundness.”

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When he recalled and interpreted the forgotten dream of Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel 2:10:⁠—

“The Chaldeans answered before the king, and said, There is not a man upon the earth that can show the king’s matter; therefore there is no king, lord, nor ruler, that asked such things at any magician, or astrologer, or Chaldean. And it is a rare thing that the king requireth: and there is none other that can show it before the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.”

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Plato, Timaeus, Davis’s Tr., says:⁠—

“And after having thus framed the universe, he allotted to it souls equal in number to the stars, inserting each in each.⁠ ⁠… And he declared also, that after living well for the time appointed to him, each one should once more return to the habitation of his associate star, and spend a blessed and suitable existence.”

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The word “thrust,” pontano, is here used in its architectural sense, as in Inferno XXXII 3. There it is literal, here figurative. ↩

Che più s’ india, that most in-God’s himself. As in Canto IX 81, S’ io m’ intuassi come tu t’ immii, “if I could in-thee myself as thou dost in-me thyself”; and other expressions of a similar kind. ↩

The dogma of the Peripatetics, that nothing is in Intellect which was not first in Sense. ↩

Raphael, “the affable archangel,” of whom Milton says, Paradise Lost, V 220:⁠—

“Raphael, the sociable spirit, that deigned
To travel with Tobias, and secured
His marriage with the seven-times-wedded maid.”

See Tobit 12:14:⁠—

“And now God hath sent me to heal thee and Sara thy daughter-in-law. I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels which present the prayers of the saints, and which go in and out before the glory of the Holy One.”

It must be remarked, however, that it was Tobit, and not Tobias, who was cured of his blindness. ↩

Plato’s Dialogue, entitled Timaeus, the name of the philosopher of Locri. ↩

Plato means it literally, and the Scriptures figuratively. ↩

When it was infused into the body, or the body became informed with it.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, Quaest. LXXVI I, says:⁠—

“Form is that by which a thing is⁠ ⁠… This principle therefore, by which we first think,whether it be called intellect, or intellectual soul, is the form of the body.”

And Spenser, “Hymne in Honour of Beautie,” says:⁠—

“For of the soule the bodie forme doth take,
For soule is forme and doth the bodie make.”

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Joachim di Flora, Dante’s “Calabrian Abbot Joachim,” the mystic of the twelfth century, says in his Exposition of the Apocalypse:⁠—

“The deceived Gentiles believed that the planets to which they gave the names of Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, Mercury, Mars, the Moon, and the Sun, were gods.”

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Stated in line 20:⁠—

“The violence of others, for what reason
Doth it decrease the measure of my merit?”

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St. Lawrence. In Mrs. Jameson’s Sacred and Legendary Art, II 156, his martyrdom is thus described:⁠—

“The satellites of the tyrant, hearing that the treasures of the church had been confided to Lawrence, carried him before the tribunal, and he was questioned, but replied not one word; therefore he was put into a dungeon, under the charge of a man named Hippolytus, whom with his whole family he converted to the faith of Christ, and baptized; and when he was called again before the Prefect, and required to say where the treasures were concealed, he answered that in three days he would show them. The third day being come, St. Lawrence gathered together the sick and the poor, to whom he had dispensed alms, and, placing them before the Prefect, said, ‘Behold, here are the treasures of Christ’s Church.’ Upon this the Prefect, thinking he was mocked, fell into a great rage, and ordered St. Lawrence to be tortured till he had made known where the treasures were concealed; but no suffering could subdue the patience and constancy of the holy martyr. Then the Prefect commanded that he should be carried by night to the baths of Olympias, near the villa of Sallust the historian, and that a new kind of torture should be prepared for him, more strange and cruel than had ever entered into the heart of a tyrant to conceive; for he ordered him to be stretched on a sort of bed, formed of iron bars in the manner of a gridiron, and a fire to be lighted beneath, which should gradually consume his body to ashes: and the executioners did as they were commanded, kindling the fire and adding coals from time to time, so that the victim was in a manner roasted alive; and those who were present looked on with horror, and wondered at the cruelty of the Prefect, who could condemn to such torments a youth of such fair person and courteous and gentle bearing, and all for the lust of gold.”

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Plutarch thus relates the story of Mutius Scaevola, Dryden’s Tr.:⁠—

“The story of Mutius is variously given; we, like others, must follow the commonly received statement. He was a man endowed with every virtue, but most eminent in war; and resolving to kill Porsenna, attired himself in the Tuscan habit, and using the Tuscan language, came to the camp, and approaching the seat where the king sat amongst his nobles, but not certainly knowing the king, and fearful to inquire, drew out his sword, and stabbed one who he thought had most the appearance of king. Mutius was taken in the act, and whilst he was under examination, a pan of fire was brought to the king, who intended to sacrifice; Mutius thrust his right hand into the flame,