Confessions of a Book-Lover

by Maurice Francis Egan

Into this Limbo Christ descended fifty-two years after Virgil's death and drew certain souls

up with him to Heaven. We are, however, by no means certain that Virgil was happier on earth than he was "upon the green enamel" (verde smalto) in this place of quiet leisure which was the vestibule to Hell, but not Hell itself, and which, to some chosen souls, had already been a vestibule to the Palace of the Beatific Vision. If Dante had been translated in the old days of rigid Calvinism in Scotland and New England, his tolerance of the pagans who found parts of Hell not entirely uncomfortable would have caused him to be looked on as a corruptor of the faith. But what would they have said to the "Paradiso" which I have always found more full of consolation than any sermon that was ever preached? Let us take the description of the Church Triumphant in Canto XXXII. How sweetly Dante disposes of the heresy that all children unbaptized by material water are doomed:

Dunque, senza merce di lor costume,
locati son per gradi differenti,
sol differendo nel primiero acume.

Bastava si nei secoli recenti
con l'innocenza, per aver salute,
solamente la fede dei parenti;

poiche le prime etadi fur compiute,
convenne ai maschi all' innocenti penne,
per circoncidere, acquistar virtute.

Ma poichee il tempo della grazia venne,
senza battesmo perfetto di Cristo,
tale innocenza laggiu si ritenne.

And then remembering the innocence of the little children Dante turns to that face "which is most likest unto Christ's" the face of Mary the Mother, who is the protectress and friend of all children. If the strict Calvinists had known the "Paradiso" of Dante as well as they knew their Old Testament, their theology might have found more adherence among the merciful, for the "Paradiso" is a triumphant song of mercy, of love, and of the final triumph of every soul that has sincerely hoped in, or sought, the truth, even if the truth were not crowned in its fullness in this world.

And Dante, put by Raphael without protest from the Church Militant, among the Doctors of the Faith, glorifies Trajan among the Saved and opens Heaven to Cato. This shows, by the way, the falsity of the Voltairean mauvais mot, that all the people worth meeting are in Hell! And Dante sees Constantine in Heaven, although he thinks

that this Emperor's donation of territory was an evil gift. Dante, who, by the way, was nearer to the old records and this tradition of the older time, is a witness against Lord Bryce's assertion that the documents of Constantine's donation were mediæval forgeries. Dante believed, however, that the donation was invalid, because the successor of St. Peter, being of the spirit, could not accept temporal power. This he asserts in his "De Monarchia," which was for a time on the "Index." Times have changed, and "De Monarchia" and Milton's "Paradise Lost" are no longer in the "Index," though Balzac and Dumas, in French, are. But many of the Faithful in the United States console themselves by assuming that, as in the case of Dr. Zahm's "Religion and Science," this the method of the Sacred Congregation is not without its distinctions. Dr. Zahm's book, suppressed in Italian, received the proper "imprimatur" in English! So may "The Three Musketeers" and may "Monte Cristo" be regarded as coming under the ban in the original, but as tolerated in the translation?