Canto VII
CANTO VII
As Justinian concludes his discourse, he and the other souls enter into a hymn and dance of praise and then whisk off like darting sparks of fire (1–9). Dante next wishes to ask Beatrice a question but is reduced to silence by his reverence for her. Smiling, Beatrice discerns that the Pilgrim is troubled by God’s justice in punishing the Jews for a Crucifixion willed by the just God Himself (10–24). She explains that human nature, having fallen in Adam, lay in ignorance and sin until God assumed that nature in the Incarnation. By being united to the Second Person of the Trinity, man’s nature was now restored to its pristine purity and goodness, but having descended from Adam, it still owed a debt of punishment for original sin. As a penalty for the sin of human nature, then, the Crucifixion of the man Jesus was just; as inflicted on the divine person, however, Christ’s suffering and death constituted the greatest outrage. The Crucifixion therefore simultaneously represented God’s just punishment of sin and the Jews’ most heinous crime, which deserved a just revenge (25–51). Beatrice next intuits that Dante feels puzzled as to why God chose precisely this means for man’s redemption. By way of explanation, she teaches him that God created from love in order to communicate a share in His goodness to His handiwork, of which He takes the greatest delight in the rational creature, whom He made immortal and free. Through sin, however, man lost this high dignity, which could be recovered only by God’s pardon or man’s satisfaction. Since no act of humility on the part of man could ever atone for his excess of pride in original sin, God chose to exercise both His mercy and His justice in allowing man to atone in the Incarnation for his own sin (52–120). Again Beatrice perceives that Dante is wondering why the human soul enjoys immortality but the elements and compounds do not, if God created them both. She answers that God created the angels, the heavenly spheres, the human soul, and prime matter directly without the mediation of secondary causes, for which reason they are incorruptible. But the elements, compounds, and souls of plants and animals are educed from properly disposed matter by the secondary causality of the celestial spheres and thus undergo corruption. Yet, because God directly created not only the souls but also the bodies of our first parents, bestowing on them an immortality lost through sin, full redemption from sin will include the resurrection of the body as well (121–148).
1 “Hosanna, holy God of hosts on high,[142]
Illuminating with your splendors’ might
The happy fires of kingdoms in the sky!”[143]
4 —Thus did that substance standing in my sight,
While turning to his music, sing his chants
As over him was twinned a double light.[144]
7 And all the others joined him in his dance,
Then like the swiftest sparks they sped away
As sudden distance veiled them from my glance.
10 I still was doubting; “Say to her, oh say,
Say to your Lady,” to myself I said,
“Who slakes your thirst with her sweet drops.” But nay!
13 That reverence had mastered me instead
Which, hearing Bice, as she once was named,[145]
Would make me, like one drowsing, bow my head.
16 Not long did Beatrice thus leave me lamed
But took her start while smiling with a ray
That would make one content whom fires enflamed:
19 “My judgment says, which cannot go astray,
That what has set you pondering is how
For just revenge one yet must justly pay.
22 But I shall quickly free your mind; allow
Yourself to heed and by my words obtain
A present of a greater doctrine now.
25 By not enduring for his good a rein
Upon his will, that man who knew no birth[146]
Condemned himself, thus damning all his strain.[147]
28 That’s why the human race lay ill on earth
And greatly erred for ages till above
It pleased God’s Word to stoop to our unworth,[148]
31 Where He, but acting from eternal love,
United to Himself in person then
That nature straying from the cause thereof.
34 Now to my reasoning direct your ken:
This nature, joined to its First Cause, was made,
As when created, pure and good again.
37 But of itself, however, it was laid
Beneath the ban that hung on paradise
Since from the way of truth and life it strayed.
40 Thus, if the cross’s pain should have its price
Be measured by the nature He assumed,
No pain has yet so justly stung for vice.
43 But never has a wrong so great yet loomed
If we think what that Person underwent
Who gathered in Himself the nature doomed.
46 So, diverse things have come from one event:
One death pleased both the Jews and God, in short,
As earth was shaken and the heavens rent.
49 You should not find it hard now to report
On how a just revenge, as has been taught,
Received just vengeance from a righteous court.[149]
52 But now I see your mind from thought to thought
Tied in a snarl so that you wait, still prey,
With great desire until release is brought.
55 ‘I clearly follow what I hear,’ you say,
‘But, nonetheless, I find it still obscure
Why God has willed redemption in this way.’
58 This high decree is buried and secure,
My brother, from the eyes of all whose wit
Is in the flame of love not yet mature.
61 But in as much as many aim to hit
The target here, which very few discern,
I’ll tell you why this way was deemed most fit.
64 God’s goodness, burning in Itself, will spurn
All envy from Itself and sparkle so
Eternal beauties are displayed in turn.
67 That which derives directly from Its glow
Can never end, for, sealed by such a ring,
It cannot lose the imprint it will show.
70 And what rains down directly from the spring
Is wholly free because it need not strive
Beneath the power of a new-made thing.[150]
73 The Holy Fire, whose rays make all things thrive,
Joys most in what conforms to It the most
And is in what’s most like It most alive.
76 The human creature, privileged thus, may boast
Of all these gifts; to lack one benefit
Of these means falling from its noble post.
79 But only sin may disenfranchise it,
While making it unlike the Highest Good
So by Its light it is less brightly lit.
82 Its dignity is not recovered should
It not fill up what guilt made void and lead
Just penalties to where wrong pleasures stood.
85 Your nature, sinning wholly in its seed,
Was from these dignities removed at last
Just as from paradise. Such was the deed
88 That they could never have been reamassed
In any way—should you look carefully—
If one of but two fords had not been passed.
91 Thus, either God through utter clemency
Must pardon sin, or man’s own artifice
Should satisfy and pay his folly’s fee.
94 Upon Eternal Counsel’s deep abyss
Hold fast your eye, and heed my eloquence
As closely as you can concerning this.
97 No man could satisfy the difference,
Who, limited, could not so far descend,
However humble his obedience,
100 As he wished, disobeying, to ascend;
And this is what precluded humankind
From making satisfaction in the end.
103 Thus, His own pathways God would have to find
That man’s full life might be restored from shame—
I mean by one or both His ways combined.[151]
106 But in so far as he who acts may claim
More pleasure as his action shows to men
The goodness of the heart from which it came,
109 God’s goodness, which imprints the world, pleased then
To have proceeded every way it might
So that you could be lifted up again.
112 By neither way, between the final night
And primal day, was there or will there be[152]
An act of such magnificence or height.
115 For God in his Self-giving was more free
In letting man raise up his nature than
If He had pardoned by His sole decree.
118 And short of justice any other plan
Was sure to fall, if it had not been true
That, humbled, God’s own Son became a man.
121 That each desire may now be filled in you
I go back to explain a certain place,[153]
That you may see as clearly as I do.
124 ‘I see the earth and air,’ you state the case
‘The water, fire, and all their mixed array,
Corrupting, and enduring but a space.[154]
127 And yet they too were creatures so that they,
If what is said is true, should form a band[155]
That ought to be secure against decay.’
130 The angels, brother, and this most pure land
Around you were created just the same
As now in their full being they all stand.[156]
133 The elements, however, that you name,
And all the things composed of them no less,
Were formed through some created power’s aim.[157]
136 Created was the matter they possess,
Created the informing force released
In stars that circle them, as they progress.[158]
139 The soul of every plant and every beast
Is drawn by rays and paths of holy fires
From compounds bearing potencies at least.[159]
142 But God’s supreme beneficence respires
Your life directly and can thus induce
Its love of Him, whom always it desires.[160]
145 And from these points you further may deduce
Your resurrection, if you have but weighed
How human flesh was fashioned for the use
148 Of our first parents when they both were made.”