The Heaven of the Sun continued. Let the reader imagine fifteen of the largest stars, and to these add the seven of Charles's Wain, and the two last stars of the Little Bear, making in all twenty-four, and let him arrange them in two concentric circles, revolving in opposite directions, and he will have the image of what Dante now beheld.
Iliad, XVIII. 487 : "The Bear, which they also call by the appellation of the Wain, which there revolves and watches Orion; but it alone is free from the baths of the ocean."
The constellation of the Little Bear as much resembles a horn as it does a bear. Of this horn the Pole Star forms the smaller end.
Ariadne, whose crown was, at her death, changed by Bacchus into a constellation.
Ovid; Met., VIII., Croxall's Tr. :--
"And bids her crown among the stars be placed,
With an eternal constellation graced.
The golden circlet mounts and, as it flies,
Its diamonds twinkle in the distant skies;
There, in their pristine form, the gemmy rays
Between Alcides and the dragon blaze."
Chaucer, Legende of Good Women :--
"And in the sygne of Taurus men may se
The stones of hire crowne shyne clere."
And Spenser, Faerie Queen VI. x. 13 :--
"Looke! how the crowne which Ariadne wore
Upon her yvory forehead that same day
That Theseus her unto his bridale bore,
When the bold Centaures made that bloudy
fray
With the fierce Lapithes which did them
dismay,
Being now placed in the firmament,
Through the bright heaven doth her beams
display,
And is unto the starres an ornament,
Which round about her move in order excellent."
The Chiana empties into the Arno near Arezzo. In Dante's time it was a sluggish stream, stagnating in the marshes of Valdichiana. See Inf. XXIX. Note 46.
The Primum Mobile.
St. Thomas Aquinas, who had related the life of St. Francis.
The first doubt in Dante's mind was in regard to the expression in Canto X. 96,
"Where well one fattens if he strayeth not,"
which was explained by Thomas Aquinas in Canto XI. The second, which he now prepares to thresh out, is in Canto X. 114,
"To see so much there never rose a second,"
referring to Solomon, as being peerless; in knowledge.
Adam.
Christ.
Solomon.
All things are but the thought of God, and by Him created in love.
The living Light, the Word, proceeding from the Father, is not separated from Him nor from his Love, the Holy Spirit.
Its rays are centred in the nine choirs of Angels, ruling the nine heavens, here called subsistences, according to the definition of Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., I. Quaest. XXIX. 2 "What exists by itself, and not in anything else, is called subsistence."
From those nine heavens it descends to the elements, the lowest potencies, till it produces only imperfect and perishable results, or mere contingencies.
These contingencies are animals, plants, and the like, produced by the influences of the planets from seeds, and certain insects and plants, believed of old to be born without seed.
Neither their matter nor the influences of the planets being immutable, the stamp of the divinity is more or less clearly seen in them, and hence the varieties in plants and animals.
If the matter were perfect, and the divine influence at its highest power, the result would likewise be perfect; but by transmission through the planets it becomes more and more deficient, the hand of nature trembles, and imperfection is the result.
But if Love (the Holy Spirit) and the Vision (the Son), proceeding from the Primal Power (the Father), act immediately, then the work is perfect, as in Adam and the human nature of Christ.
Then how was Solomon so peerless, that none like him ever existed?
I Kings iii. 5: "In Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night: and God said, Ask what I shall give thee. . . . Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people? And the speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing. And God said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life, neither hast asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies, but hast asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment, Behold, I have done according to thy words: lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee."
The number of the celestial Intelligences, or Regents of the Planets.
Whether from two premises, one of which is necessary, and the other contingent, or only possible, the conclusion drawn will be necessary; which Buti says is a question belonging to "the garrulity of dialectics."
Whether the existence of a first motion is to be conceded.
That is, a triangle, one side of which shall be the diameter of the circle.
If thou notest, in a word, that Solomon did not ask for wisdom in astrology, nor in dialects, nor in metaphysics, nor in geometry.
The peerless seeing is a reference to Canto X. 114
"To see so much there never rose a second."
It will be observed that the word "rose" is the Biblical word in the phrase "neither after thee shall any rise like unto thee," as given in note 93.
Parmenides was an Eleatic philosopher, and pupil of Xenophanes." According to Ritter, Hist. Anc. Phil., I.450, Morrison's Tr., his theory was, that, "Being is uncreated and unchangeable,--
'Whole and self-generate, unchangeable, illimitable,
Never was nor yet shall be its birth; All is already
One from eternity.'"
And farther on:-- "It is but a mere human opinion that things are produced and decay, are and are not, and change place and colour. The whole has its principle in itself, and is in eternal rest ; for powerful necessity holds it within the bonds of its own limits, and encloses it on all sides being cannot be imperfect; for it is not in want of anything,--for if it were so, it would be in want of all."
Melissus of Samos was a follower of Parmenides, and maintained substantially the same doctrines.
Brissus was a philosopher of less note. Mention is hardly made of him in the histories of philosophy, except as one of those who pursued that Fata Morgana of mathematicians, the quadrature of the circle.
"Infamous heresiarchs;" exclaims Venturi, "put as an example of innumerable others, who, having erred in the understanding of the Holy Scriptures, persevered in their errors."
Sabellius was by birth an African, and flourished as Presbyter of Ptolemais, in the third century. He denied the three persons in the Godhead, maintaining that the Son and Holy Ghost were only temporary manifestations of God in creation, redemption, and sanctification, and would finally return to Father.
Arius was a Presbyter of Alexandria in the fourth century. He believed the Son to be equal in power with the Father, but of a different essence or
nature, a doctrine which gave rise to the famous Heterousian and Homoiousian controversy, that distracted the Church for three hundred years.
These doctrines of Sabellius and of Arius are both heretical, when tried by the standard of the Quicunque vult the authoritative formula of the Catholic faith ; "which faith, except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly," says St. Athanasius, or some one in his name.
These men, say some of the commentators, were as swords that mutilated and distorted the Scriptures. Other, that in them the features of the Scriptures were distorted, as the features of a man reflected in the grooved or concave surface of a sword.
Names used to indicate any common simpletons and gossips.
In writing this line Dante had evidently in mind the beautiful wise words of St. Francis: "What every one is in the eyes of God, that he is, and no more."
Mr. Wright, in the notes to his translation, here quotes the well-known lines of Burns, Address the Unco Guid :--
"Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;
Though they may gang a kennin' wrang,
To step aside is human:
One point must still be greatly dark,
The moving why they do it:
And just as lamely can ye mark
How far perhaps they rue it.
"Who made the heart, 'tis He alone
Decidedly can try us;
He knows each chord--its various tone,
Each spring--its various bias.
Then at the balance let's be mute;
We never can adjust it;
What's done we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted."