Dante: Six Sermons

by Philip H. Wicksteed

This Cacciaguida was a Crusader who fell in the Holy Land, and Dante meets him in the burning planet of Mars, amongst the mighty warriors of the Lord whose souls blaze there in a ruddy glow of glory. There is Joshua, there Judas Maccabæus, and Charlemagne and Orlando and Godfrey and many more.

A red cross glows athwart the planet's orb, and from it beams in mystic guise the Christ; but how, the poet cannot say, for words and images are wanting to portray it. Yet he who takes his cross and follows Christ, will one day forgive the tongue that failed to tell what he shall see when to him also Christ shall flash through that glowing dawn of light.

Here the souls, like rubies that glow redder from the red-glowing cross as stars shine forth out of the Milky Way, pass and repass from horn to horn, from base to summit, and burst into a brighter radiance as they join and cross, while strains of lofty and victorious praise, unknown to mortal ears, gather upon the cross as though it were a harp of many strings, touched by the hand of God, and take captive the entranced, adoring soul.

There Cacciaguida hailed his descendant Dante, and long they conversed of the past, the present, and the future. Alas for our poor pride of birth! What wonder if men glory in it here? For even there in Heaven, where no base appetite distorts the will and judgment, even there did Dante glow with pride to call this man his ancestor.

At last their converse ended; Cacciaguida's soul again was sweeping the unseen strings of that heavenly harp, and Dante turned again to look for guidance from his guardian. Beatrice's eyes were fixed above; and quick as the blush passes from a fair cheek, so quick the ruddy glow of Mars was gone, and the white light of Jupiter shone clear and calm in the sixth heaven—the Heaven of the Just.

What a storm of passions and emotions swept through Dante's soul when he learnt where he was! 'O chivalry of Heaven!' he exclaimed in agony, 'pray for those who are led all astray on earth by foul example.' When would the Righteous One again be wroth, and purge His temple of the traffickers—His temple walled by miracles and martyrdoms? How long should the Pope be suffered to degrade his holy office by making the penalties of Church discipline the tools of selfish politics—how long should his devotion to St. John the Baptist, whose head was stamped upon the coins of Florence, make him neglect the fisherman and Paul?

Such were the first thoughts that rose in Dante's mind in the Heaven of the Just; but they soon gave way to others. Here surely, here if anywhere, God's justice must be manifest. Reflected in all Heaven, here must it shine without a veil. The spirits of the just could surely solve his torturing doubt. How long had his soul hungered and found no food on earth, and now how eagerly did he await the answer to his doubt! They knew his doubt, he need not tell it them; oh, let them solve it!

Yes, they knew what he would say: 'A man is born upon the bank of Indus, and there there is none to speak of Christ, or read or write of him. All this man's desires and acts are good, and without sin, as far as human eye can see, in deed or word. He dies unbaptised, without the faith. Where is that justice which condemns him? Where is his fault in not believing?' Yes, they knew his doubt, but could not solve it. Their answer is essentially the same as Paul's: 'Nay, but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?'

The Word of God, say the spirits of the just, could not be so expressed in all the universe but what it still remained in infinite excess. Nay, Lucifer, the highest of created beings, could not at once see all the light of God, and fell through his impatience. How then could a poor mortal hope to scan the ways of God? His ken was lost in His deep justice as the eye is lost in the ocean. We can see the shallow bottom of the shore, but we cannot see the bottom of the deep, which none the less is there. So God's unfathomable justice is too deep, too just, for us to comprehend. The Primal Will, all goodness in itself, moves not aside from justice and from good. Never indeed did man ascend to heaven who believed not in Christ, yet are there many who cry, Lord, Lord, and in the day of judgment shall be far more remote from Christ than many a one that knew him not.[89]

With this answer Dante must be content. He must return from Heaven with this thirst unslaked, this long hunger still unsatisfied. Ay, and with this answer must we too rest content. And yet not with this answer, for we do not ask this question. That awful load of doubt under which Dante bent is lifted from our souls, and for us there is no eternal Hell, there are no virtuous but rejected Heathen. Yet to us too the ocean of God's justice is too deep to pierce. And when we ask why every blessing, every chance of good, is taken from one child, while another is bathed from infancy in the light of love, and is taught sooner than it can walk to choose the good and to reject the evil, what answer can we have but Dante's? Rest in faith. You know God's justice, for you feel it with you in your heart when you are fighting for the cause of justice; you know God's justice, for you feel it in your heart like an avenging angel when you sin; you know God's justice—but you do not know it all.