NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN
We are living in the post-Christian era now, and secularism and scientism rule the day and guides the culture. However, this is not really anything new, for even within the first twelve lines of Canto IX we are given a picture of not just family conflicts and betrayals, but of a landscape devoid of devotion and absolutely no respect or reverence of the holy to be found anywhere. These three lines describe perfectly some of my thoughts after reflection on our own current reality:
10 Ah, souls beguiled, creatures without reverence,
Ahi anime ingannate e fatture empie,
11 who wrench your hearts away from so much good
che da sì fatto ben torcete i cuori,
12 and set your minds on emptiness!
drizzando in vanità le vostre tempie!
Not much needs to be drawn out, for many today, as then, are beguiled indeed, but by those things which wrench their hearts away from compassion and love and transcendence, leading to minds set on emptiness and hearts led astray to who knows where. ‘Twas true then, ‘Tis true now.
We are now introduced to the first of three who are here within this Canto at the level of Venus, having been entranced, enticed and engulfed in love, or at least sex, during their lives. Of course, it was not the godly love of agape as witnessed by Christ, but the mistakes made led them to full and open repentance and surrender to the true source of love: God. The first is Cunizza who lived out her final years in Florence. After a life of adultery, leaving her first husband to run off with a troubadour, then marrying three more times, she ended her life in penitential remorse, but still, joyful surrender to God’s direction. She freed all her family’s slaves and was known throughout Florence as a woman of wisdom and generosity. Some scholars believe Dante the Poet knew her, or at least was acquainted with her in her old age as many came to her for guidance and help. Dante tells us she is “someone who delights in doing good.”
22 At that the radiance, as yet unknown to me,
Onde la luce che m'era ancor nova,
23 out of the very depth from which it sang before,
del suo profondo, ond' ella pria cantava,
24 responded as does someone who delights in doing good:
seguette come a cui di ben far giova:
Hers was one of the families in the Commedia with members in both Hell and Paradise. She mentions her brother who was an infamous dictator, cruel and greedy, whom we met in Inferno XII, Ezzelino with his fierce black hair. She called him a ‘firebrand’ or ‘torch’ and noted that they were related:
31 'This torch and I were born from a single root.
D'una radice nacqui e io ed ella:
32 Cunizza was my name and, overcome
Cunizza fui chiamata, e qui refulgo
33 by this star's splendor, I shine here.
perché mi vinse il lume d'esta stella;
34 'I gladly pardon in myself the reason for my lot,
ma lietamente a me medesma indulge
35 nor does it grieve me…
la cagion di mia sorte, e non mi noia;
If we are not careful, we can easily miss the depth of meaning in these few lines. I prefer the Sayer’s translation of 34: “Yet gaily I forgive myself…” as opposed to Hollander’s “I gladly pardon in myself…” To truly empty oneself in repentance, to truly ask for forgiveness is not at all easy’ But then to fully and completely accept that forgiveness and then live in the loving embrace of that acceptance is even more difficult. Far too often we rehearse our mistakes over and over, we embrace our betrayals and misspoken words from years past, “as a dog returns to its own vomit.” To FULLY release these past mistakes in acknowledgement of our fallen nature is to be changed into one of mature and holy acceptance of who we are and Whose we are. No more is there a need to justify or punish ourselves. Hidden in these few lines of Cunizza is a profound and joyous humility and wholeness [holiness].
The next to speak is the troubadour Folco of Marseilles, whose poetry was well-known in Italy (the Sicilian poet Giacomo da Lentini translated a canso of Folco’s). In a trajectory that exemplifies this heaven’s checking of eros, its sublimation into politics, Folco de Marselha became Bishop of Toulouse and prosecuted the Albigensian crusade in Southern France. And yet, he delays in speaking to Dante the Pilgrim, and only stands in shining silence, filled with holy love. Dante chides him, saying he is so filled with God that he surely knows Dante’s wishes and inner-thoughts:
73 'God sees all, and your sight is so in-Himmed,
"Dio vede tutto, e tuo veder s'inluia,"
74 blessèd spirit,' I said, 'that no wish of any kind
diss' io, "beato spirto, sì che nulla
75 is able to conceal itself from you.
voglia di sé a te puot' esser fuia.
He then continues, “Dude, I would answer your questions if I were as one with you as you are one with me [due to your God-filled being].
80 I would not await your question
Già non attendere' io tua dimanda,
81 if I in-you'd me as you in-me'd you.'
s'io m'intuassi, come tu t'inmii."
What we have here is a remarkably multilayered poetic creation which not only is truly wonderful wordplay utilizing the neologisms [made-up words] “in-Himmed,” “in-me’d,” and “in-you’d.’” [The clumsy English translation does not do justice to the lilt of the Italian; try reading these sentences aloud, even if you do not understand the words themselves.] There is also the mystical Orthodox Christian concept of theosis here; becoming more and more filled with God’s Spirit. This is more than simply having empathy, but to be ‘one with’. While the Fall may have resulted in our loss of connection with God, we have retained the Imago Dei, the doctrine that we were and are created in the image of God. Theosis tells us that the fullness of our oneness with God is gradually restored the more we are filled and healed by the Holy Spirit. 2 Peter puts it like this: 2 Peter 1:3–4 “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.”
Dante the Poet touches on this deep truth that we can indeed become “partakers of the divine nature” as we journey deeper into God’s Love. Yet this shared being is also manifest in one another, as we truly enter into each other’s journey and the shared air of love of one another. Dante the Poet tells us we can become one with the other, in true agape Love.
LOVE TRIANGLE: 3rd of 3
Folco now introduces the third of this love triangle and he shows that indeed he knows exactly what Dante the Pilgrim is wanting to discover; who is that presence next to Folco who outshines everyone but Beatrice herself.
112 'You want to know who occupies this luminescence
Tu vuo' saper chi è in questa lumera
113 that scintillates beside me here,
che qui appresso me così scintilla
114 like a sunbeam gleaming on clear water.
come raggio di sole in acqua mera.
115 'Know then that within it Rahab is at peace,
Or sappi che là entro si tranquilla
116 and, since she is of our number,
Raab; e a nostr' ordine congiunta,
117 our highest rank receives its seal from her.
di lei nel sommo grado si sigilla.
We have here Rahab, the harlot of Jericho who, at the risk of her own life, protected and helped the spies sent by Joshua. This surely came as a shock to the original readers of the Commedia, and all through the centuries after: a prostitute is the bellwether for this entire level of Paradise. “Our highest rank receives its seal from her.” One scholar writes that he felt consternation at this sudden revelation of who the loftiest soul in this level turns out to be. And yet, of course, this should be no surprise at all, for all of us are unfit to be in the presence of the Holy, save for Grace. The Jungian scholar Helen Luke tells us about Rahab and her centrality for this level:
“Nothing could be plainer than this. She gave her body to many men but would have given her life for that of another in danger. Thus the harlot is in heaven; it is not the conventions but the quality of her love, the state of our innermost morality which determines our heaven or hell.”
All three lovers give us a more complete portrait of a life of love lived with integrity, joy and holiness. This is a life that does not cling to past betrayals and mistakes, our own or others. It is a life so filled with the Spirit that we become one with the other, we stop living a self-referent life and empty ourselves into one another. It is a life of such quality of love, when we, the harlots that we all are, turn out to be a beacon of sacrifice and light at the end.
We close with another ferocious attack on Florence first, and then the pope and cardinals en masse. Folco even seems to assume that Florence itself was started by Satan himself, the first one to deny God.
127 'Your city, which was planted by him,
La tua città, che di colui è pianta
128 the first to turn his back upon his Maker
che pria volse le spalle al suo fattore
That rancid city proves its foulness in the despair and duplicity it plants everywhere like flowers of evil, just as with Baudelaire’s “Les Fleurs du mal.”
As for the pope and cardinals, they have turned Holy Church, the Bride of Christ, into a mammoth bureaucracy forgetting the Word of God, both in the Bible and in Christ Himself out of Nazareth.
133 'For it the Gospels and the lofty doctors
Per questo l'Evangelio e i dottor magni
134 are neglected and the Decretals alone are studied,
son derelitti, e solo ai Decretali
135 as is readily apparent from their margins.
si studia, sì che pare a' lor vivagni.
136 'To it the pope and his cardinals devote themselves,
A questo intende il papa e ' cardinali;
137 without a single thought for Nazareth,
non vanno i lor pensieri a Nazarette,
The Decretals are a form of canon law which increasingly created a concretized format of church life, protecting those in power and enriching the coffers of the current administration. He then tells us that the Vatican and other places in Rome are all, actually, a burial ground. This is surely a direct allusion to Matthew 23:27-28 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” The pomposity and power of the church is sinful, the sacrifice and courage of the harlot is holy. God, Dante the Poet tells us, turns the world on its head.