which drew Dante’s wondering eyes across the stream to where Matelda tripped singing through the painted meadow—
Cantando ed iscegliendo fior da fiore
Ond’ era pinta tutta la sua via.[274]
Again, a somewhat terse definition of Paradise in Barnabas reminds one of a still shorter phrase of Dante’s. The author of the De Vulgari Eloquentia describes the home which man forfeited by his first sin as “delitiarum patria[275]” while for Barnabas, “Il parradisso he chassa doue DIO chonsserva le sui delitie[276]”; or, as he puts it further on “DIO ha chreato il parradisso per chassa delle sui delitie.”[277]
But the heavenly Paradise of the Empyrean is also described by Dante in material phrase as “God’s garden.” “Questo giardino”[278] is the name by which Saint Bernard designates the Mystic Rose, as he unveils its mysteries to Dante; and already in the Eighth Heaven Beatrice had essayed to divert the Poet’s gaze from her own loveliness—
... al bel giardino
Che sotto i raggi di Cristo s’ infiora.[279]
Here we may note that in Barnabas[280] God (not Christ, of course) is the sun of Paradise, while Mohammed is its moon.
But there is another passage in the Paradiso, where Dante himself is speaking in answer to Saint John’s catechizing: a passage which may well detain us a little longer. Here Paradise is described in so many words as the “Garden of the Eternal Gardener”—
Le fronde onde s’ infronda tutto l’ orto