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

use than El. There is, I believe, no authority for this. El is God; Eli, or Eloi, my God. ↩

Horace, “Ars Poet.,” 60:⁠—

“As the woods change their leaves in autumn, and the earliest fall, so the ancient words pass away, and the new flourish in the freshness of youth.⁠ ⁠… Many that now have fallen shall spring up again, and others fall which now are held in honor, if usage wills, which is the judge, the law, and the rule of language.”

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The mount of Purgatory, on whose summit was the Terrestrial Paradise. ↩

The sixth hour is noon in the old way of reckoning; and at noon the sun has completed one quarter or quadrant of the arc of his revolution, and changes to the next. The hour which is second to the sixth, is the hour which follows it, or one o clock. This gives seven hours for Adam’s stay in Paradise; and so says Peter Comestor (Dante’s Peter Mangiador) in his ecclesiastical history.

The Talmud, as quoted by Stehelin, Tradition of the Jews, I 20, gives the following account:⁠—

“The day has twelve hours. In the first hour the dust of which Adam was formed was brought together. In the second, this dust was made a rude, unshapely mass. In the third, the limbs were stretched out. In the fourth, a soul was lodged in it. In the fifth, Adam stood upon his feet. In the sixth, he assigned the names of all things that were created. In the seventh, he received Eve for his consort. In the eighth, two went to bed and four rose out of it; the begetting and birth of two children in that time, namely, Cain and his sister. In the ninth, he was forbid to eat of the fruit of the tree. In the tenth, he disobeyed. In the eleventh, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced. In the twelfth, he was banished, or driven out of the garden.”

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The Heaven of the Fixed Stars continued. The anger of St. Peter; and the ascent to the Primum Mobile, or Crystalline Heaven.

Dante, Convito, II 15, makes this rystaljine Heaven the symbol of Moral Philosophy. He says:⁠—

“The Crystalline Heaven, which has previously been called the Primum Mobile, has a very manifest resemblance to Moral Philosophy; for Moral Philosophy, as Thomas says in treating of the second book of the Ethics, directs us to the other sciences. For, as the Philosopher says in the fifth of the Ethics, legal justice directs us to learn the sciences, and orders them to be learned and mastered, so that they may not be abandoned; so this heaven directs with its movement the daily revolutions of all the others, by which daily they all receive here below the virtue of all their parts. For if its revolution did not thus direct, little of their virtues would reach here below, and little of their sight. Hence, supposing it were possible for this ninth heaven to stand still, the third part of heaven would not be seen in each part of the earth; and Saturn would be hidden from each part of the earth fourteen years and a half; and Jupiter, six years; and Mars, almost a year; and the Sun, one hundred and eighty-two days and fourteen hours (I say days, that is, so much time as so many days would measure); and Venus and Mercury would conceal and show themselves nearly as the Sun; and the Moon would be hidden from all people for the space of fourteen days and a half. Truly there would be here below no production, nor life of animals, nor plants; there would be neither night, nor day, nor week, nor month, nor year; but the whole universe would be deranged, and the movement of the stars in vain. And not otherwise, were Moral Philosophy to cease, the other sciences would be for a time concealed, and there would be no production, nor life of felicity, and in vain would be the writings or discoveries of antiquity. Wherefore it is very manifest that this heaven bears a resemblance to Moral Philosophy.”

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Without desire for more. ↩

St. Peter, St. James, St. John, and Adam. ↩

If the white planet Jupiter should become as red as Mars. ↩

Pope Boniface VIII, who won his way to the Popedom by intrigue. See Note 49, and Note 270. ↩

The Vatican hill, to which the body of St. Peter was transferred from the catacombs. ↩

Luke 23:44:⁠—

“And there was darkness over all the earth.⁠ ⁠… And the sun was darkened.”

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Linus was the immediate successor of St. Peter as Bishop of Rome, and Cletus of Linus. They were both martyrs of the first age of the Church. ↩

Sixtus and Pius were Popes and martyrs of the second age of the Church; Calixtus and Urban, of the third. ↩

On the right hand of the Pope the favored Guelfs, and on the left the persecuted Ghibellines. ↩

The Papal banner, on which are the keys of St. Peter. ↩

The wars against the Ghibellines in general, and particularly that waged against the Colonna family, ending in the destruction of Palestrina. Inferno XXVIL 85:⁠—

“But he, the Prince of the new Pharisees,
Having a war near unto Lateran,
And not with Saracens nor with the Jews,
For each one of his enemies was Christian,
And none of them had been to conquer Acre,
Nor merchandising in the Sultan’s land.”

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The sale of indulgences, stamped with the Papal seal, bearing the head of St. Peter. ↩

Matthew 7:15:⁠—

“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are