An Irish precursor of Dante

by Charles Stuart Boswell

We may now proceed to recapitulate some of the principal features of the Fis, even at the risk of a certain amount of repetition, in order to show at a glance the relation in which it stands to other writings of the same class, both native and foreign.

The work opens with an exordium in praise of the Creator, regarded chiefly in His capacity of Righteous Judge, and Dispenser of rewards and punishments, the aspect of Him most pertinent to the subject in hand. Already, in this formal opening, we seem to recognise the existence of a deliberate plan, whereby the present work is distinguished from others of its class, and this impression is strengthened as the author goes on to cite, by way of precedent or authority, similar revelations that had been vouchsafed to holy men of earlier date than Adamnán. These authorities have already been considered in Section 3 of the present part; apparently, however, the account of the vision which the Apostles beheld upon the death of the Virgin Mary, to which the author had access, must have been more ample than in the group of apocryphal writings to which we have referred. We may note that the revelation in question was made by the Angel of the West, the conventional region of the departed. The citation of St. Paul probably refers to the apocryphal revelation which bears the Apostle’s name, rather than to his own words in his Epistles, for these neither mention a visit to Hell, nor describe the state of the dead in either place; though, indeed, neither did such a revelation form part of St. Peter’s vision, as described in the Acts, though our author’s words appear to imply that such was the case. The mention of St. Peter’s vision affords a curious instance of the manner in which the imagery belonging to the national literature was apt to give its own colour to an Irish writer’s treatment of foreign matter. The musical properties with which the author, apparently on his own responsibility, has endowed the cords which let down the four-cornered vessel from Heaven, recall the musical stones of the Tír na n-Óg, of which further mention must be made later on.

It is noteworthy that the author, in his list of authorities, makes no mention of earlier Irish visions, or, indeed, of any source which was attributed to post-Apostolic times.

A similar vision, we are told, was vouchsafed to Adamnán on the Feast of St. John the Baptist, when his soul was parted from his body, and conducted by his guardian angel to view Heaven and Hell, with their respective inhabitants. Even such a pilgrimage was set before Dante by his guide,[156] and though Adamnán’s chronicler does not here make mention of a separate region devoted to color che son contenti, Nel fuoco, perchè speran di venire, Quando che sia, alle beate genti, we have seen that the case of these spirits was dealt with by the Irish as by the Italian writer, though the extent to which the purgatorial theory was developed between their respective epochs caused them to treat the subject with very different degrees of precision.

The selection of Adamnán’s guardian angel as psychopompos, rather than Michael, or some other of the Heavenly Host,[157] may possibly be ascribed to the preference which our author occasionally evinces of an ecclesiastical to a legendary treatment. On the other hand, we may note the analogy between the soul’s guidance through the Otherworld by his guardian angel, and the like function ascribed by the Avesta to the beautiful maiden ‘who was his own conscience,’ and was probably an allegorising development of the Fravashi, or spiritual alter ego, which was held to belong to every man.

We now begin to perceive the extent, hitherto unexampled, to which conscious design and literary form enter into our author’s method. The celestial country, indeed, is described in general terms as ‘a bright land of fair weather,’ like Magh Mell, and all other pagan Elysiums; but, as the theme develops, we perceive a wide divergence alike from the material delights of the pagan Otherworld, and the conventional amenities described in ecclesiastical legends. As befits the Heaven of a creed which makes the summum bonum to consist in the enjoyment of the Beatific Vision, the Deity is represented as the centre of the whole, and all persons and accessories are grouped with direct reference to Him. In the Voyage of the Sons of Ua Corra, the Lord is introduced, seated on the Throne, and bird-flocks of angels making music to Him, and the idea as there presented might stand for a development of the Dagda myth, where the god sits beside his magic apple-trees and vat of ale, and the birds of the Tír Tairngire sing to him.[158] In the present case, however, it seems evident that the description contained in the Apocalypse was the author’s source of inspiration.[159]

Here again the author’s ecclesiastical proclivities appear in his description of the abode of the blest in a manner recalling the interior of a church, with chancel rails, and choir stalls wherein the righteous stand, like monks, in cassocks and hoods of white,[160] while the place was illumined by seven thousand angels, who stood round about instead of candles. The separation from the Throne, by means of a portico, of the saints to whom their final seats had not yet been awarded, appears to have been suggested by the use in the early churches of the narthex as the station for neophytes.[161]

The floor of Heaven, like ‘fair crystal, with the sun’s countenance upon it,’ seems to have been suggested by the ‘sea of glass, mingled with fire,’ in Rev. xv. 2, which, in turn, had been anticipated, in some sort, by the Pûitika sea in the Avesta, beside which the Tree of Life grew. The grouping of the saints about the Throne would likewise appear to be an amplification of the description in the Revelation.[162] The Apostles and the Blessed Virgin, we are told, occupy a special place, next to the Lord Himself; the Apostles on His left hand, and next to them the patriarchs and prophets, and on His right the Virgin, and next to her holy maidens, ‘and no great space between,’ a graceful and kindly touch. About them are babes and striplings, and ‘bird-choirs of the heavenly folk’; further on, others of the righteous stand ‘in ranks and lofty coronals about the Throne, circling it in brightness and bliss, their faces all towards God.’ Here we have, in essentials, the Celestial Rose of Dante’s Paradise (canto 31); the bird-choir, and, a little later, the guardian angels that keep flitting to and fro among the several companies of the righteous, remind us of the spirits which flitted in and out of the petals of the Rose like bees.

Several other passages are impressed with the author’s ecclesiastical turn of thought. The Throne stands in the south-east, probably because the direction of Jerusalem; reference is made to the nine degrees of Heaven, i.e. the Angels, Archangels, and Principalities; Powers, Virtues, and Dominations; Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim; the geographical distribution of the saints in accordance with the four quarters of the world—a distribution distinct from the fourfold division of mankind according to their merits, to which allusion has been made—is probably of the same character.

The sevenfold wall surrounding Heaven appears to contain a reference to the seven Heavens; the different colours of these walls may, as suggested, be a reminiscence of the walls of Ecbatana, as described by Herodotus, though it is quite possible that the idea may have occurred to the author spontaneously.