Peter's quiz and the human pleasures of faith: Par. 24

After the leap of Paradiso 23, Dante face a quiz. The one asking the questions is none other than Peter -- the first man to put faith in the living Christ and the first man whose faith in Christ, upon entering the empty sepulcher on Easter morning, was realized. 

If that weren't sufficiently intimidating. Peter, the rock of the triumphant throng that joyously spins around them, plays the role of the skeptic, the wily questioner, sparring with the poet to find any small trace of bad faith in him.

Yet this rite of passage is singularly free of nerve-wracking stress. Beatrice makes it plain that the poet enjoys her full confidence. By the end of the canto, Peter is whirling around Dante like happy squirrel in a cartoon, welcoming him with warm camaraderie.

The necessity for testing belief is brought home when Beatrice tells us that faith is the sine qua non for becoming a cive - a citizen (24:43) - of this kingdom.

Peter's questions and Dante's responses have the structure of a catechism exercise -- one with astonishing concision. In 96 lines, we have faith (a) defined and (b) formulated such that Greek reason, Hebraic inspiration, and Christian revelation are married in one system; (c) the pilgrim is asked whether he actually holds these beliefs, as opposed to merely imitating one who believes; (d) then he's asked where his faith comes from, and (e) what evidence he can adduce that his belief is not the result of statements that reference only themselves as proof.

One could spend a good deal of digital ink on this, which the commentators have done quite well. Two things bear quick note. First, in addition to the range of "content" of the doctrine covered, the canto also rings all the registers we tend to associate with faith. There is of course the "citizenship" aspect of the theological virtue. As the defining feature of the sect, this faith can and does acquire political, philosophical and religious tensions precisely because it creates a dividing line between those who share a belief that cannot be demonstrated on Earth, and those who fail to see anything other than a mystifying sort of folly.

But this canto seems to place the all-important Christian virtue next to other modes of faith we're all acquainted with -- common forms that operate in our daily lives. The faith that a friend will be there when one needs her or him; the faith in a beloved pupil that she/he will pass the exam; the trust placed in a person one has long known; the confidence that grows in oneself born of desire, effort, application, and proven results.

These modes of faith are all present in the canto -- in Beatrice's appraisal of her loyal follower; in his willingness to face the music; in the actual song that explodes when Dante offers the overpowering reason that the absence of all miracles would be the greatest miracle:

"Were the world to Christianity converted,"
  I said, "without miracles, this one
  Is such, the rest are not its hundredth part; 

Because that poor and fasting thou didst enter
  Into the field to sow there the good plant,
  Which was a vine and has become a thorn!" 

This being finished, the high, holy Court
  Resounded through the spheres, "One God we praise!"
  In melody that there above is chanted.  (24: 106-114)

 The Te Deum is a confession of faith:

Te Deum laudámus: te Dominum confitémur.

Te ætérnum Patrem omnis terra venerátur.

Tibi omnes Angeli; tibi cæli et univérsae potestátes.

Tibi Chérubim et Séraphim incessábili voce proclámant:

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dóminus Deus Sábaoth.

Pleni sunt cæli et terra majestátis glóriæ tuæ.

We praise thee, O God : we acknowledge thee to be the Lord. 

All the earth doth worship thee : the Father everlasting.

To thee all Angels cry aloud : the Heavens, and all the Powers therein.

To thee Cherubim and Seraphim : continually do cry,

Holy, Holy, Holy : Lord God of Hosts; 

Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty : of thy glory.

In addition -- and this picks up from what we noted in Canto 23 -- it is a mirrored representation in reverse -- those bursting into song are portrayed in the lyrics they sing:

The glorious company of the Apostles : praise thee.

The goodly fellowship of the Prophets : praise thee.

The noble army of Martyrs : praise thee.

The holy Church throughout all the world : doth acknowledge thee;

Once again, the distance between sign and meaning, copy and original, vanishes -- bringing me to my second point: Peter is the somewhat impulsive, uneducated, fumbling rock chosen by Jesus. An everyman who exhibits no special gifts, privileges, or qualifications for the job he gets. It's he who runs past John into the empty tomb, as the pilgrim says:

“O santo padre, e spirito che vedi

ciò che credesti sì, che tu vincesti

ver' lo sepulcro più giovani piedi,”

"O holy father, spirit who beholdest

What thou believedst so that thou o'ercamest,

Towards the sepulchre, more youthful feet," (24:124-126)

In that void, Peter experienced the resurrection of faith as truth.

Faith is an everyday act, but willed. It has to rest upon a solid base; it must be confessed and acted on -- or, as in Peter's case, enacted. His impetuosity -- in the tomb as well as on the Sea of Galilee -- flows from a faith so assured that its realization brings neither surprise nor triumph. The "good news" arrives, turns out to be true coin, as pleasant as good fellowship and the sincere happiness of a master whose pledge makes the grade:

Come 'l segnor ch'ascolta quel che i piace,

da indi abbraccia il servo, gratulando

per la novella, tosto ch'el si tace; 

così, benedicendomi cantando,

tre volte cinse me, sì com' io tacqui,

l'appostolico lume al cui comando

io avea detto: sì nel dir li piacqui!

Even as a lord who hears what pleaseth him

His servant straight embraces, gratulating

For the good news as soon as he is silent;

So, giving me its benediction, singing,

Three times encircled me, when I was silent,

The apostolic light, at whose command

I spoken had, in speaking I so pleased him. (24:148-154)

No better word to end a canto about faith than piacqui -- faith in others, and of others in us, is indeed a pleasing thing. The next canto brings James to the fore. While his main subject is hope, a reading of the epistle of James speaks to both faith and to doubt, and perhaps to how the three theological virtues intertwine.

Mothers, suns, and figural leaps in Paradiso 23

The stunning figure of the bird that opens Paradiso 23 speaks of ardent expectation - of light, which will enable this mother to see the aspetti disiati, the longed-for sight, of her nestlings, and then have visibility to go find food for them.

The overall thrust of the passage lies in the anticipation, through the long night "that hides things from us," of the enabling light. The bird will not be given food,;she will be given the sight of her newborns, and sufficient light to find food for them.

Many critics hear echoes of Paolo and Francesca -- of the disiato riso they were reading about; of the lovers now endlessly in flight, but coming at a call like a bird to her nest. John Freccero pointed out that for the damned lovers, there was no nest, no point of closure. Unlike the lovers, the bird of the simile will return to the nest, but only after having garnered food. She is giving life, as mothers do.

There's a more chilling echo here, perhaps less noted. Through the night, this mother cannot see the faces of her chicks, who are hungry. This blindness is temporary, unlike the hunger-blindness of Ugolino, when, after he and his starving sons hear the tower door nailed shut, he gropes in the dark, saying nothing to the children who beg him to eat them so he might live.

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Beatrice is the bird, ardent even before she sees the light that sets her face aflame. The sky lightens, and she tells him what is coming:

                            “Ecco le schiere
del trïunfo di Cristo e tutto 'l frutto
ricolto del girar di queste spere!”

There are schiere, bands or ranks of troops -- and the fruit harvested (ricolto) from the wheeling of these spheres. Here, we have no idea what Beatrice is actually seeing, but her figures bring together the instruments of triumph and of triumphal procession, and the image of a bountiful harvest.

The harvest builds upon the imagery of millstones, threshing floors, and bread woven throughout the canticle, prefiguring this moment. When the poet, at Beatrice's word, turns to see, we get more similes -- at first the bright sun making all the stars shine:

vid' i' sopra migliaia di lucerne
un sol che tutte quante l'accendea,come fa 'l nostro le viste superne;

Saw I, above the myriads of lamps,
  A Sun that one and all of them enkindled,
  E'en as our own doth the supernal sights,

We might recall that on Jupiter, this figure of the sun illuminating the stars appeared at the opening of Paradiso 20. But now it's not a simile, yet it is still a figural sun brightening the starry sphere. This Sun not a "real" sun; this shining substance (lucente sustanza) too powerful for the poet's eyes is emanating from Christ, and the harvested fruits are souls. Are they also, here in the starry sphere, stars?

The fact that this light, as powerful as it is, is not the actual vision of Christ is underscored by the simile that introduces it - the "Sun" is introduced figuratively as the moon -- as Trivia, linked with Diana, accompanied by shining nymphs:

Quale ne' plenilunïi sereni
 Trivïa ride tra le ninfe etterne
 che dipingon lo ciel per tutti i seni,

As when in nights serene of the full moon
  Smiles Trivia among the nymphs eternal
  Who paint the firmament through all its gulfs,

Beatrice describes what Dante is not able to look at as "a power (virtù) from which there is no shelter." This is the power, and wisdom, acting in human time,

ch'aprì le strade tra 'l cielo e la terra
 onde fu già sì lunga disïanza.”

that opened the roads between heaven and earth
for which of old there had been such long desire.

To connect roads that had been blocked, broken, cut off implies that at one time the way was intact. Before the Fall, heaven and earth were linked, and now, thanks to Christ, the road is restored. The introductory figure of Trivia now becomes legible in a new way: just as the goddess Hecate linked the three realms (Tri-via) of the pagan world (as Cynthia, Diana, and Persephone), so Christ acted in time to open the way for the children of men to return to their true home.

To bring together disjunct realms within sacred history is much what poets do with metaphor: they unite, though the exchange of attribute, disparate entities. The poetic function of figure, whether simile, metaphor, or other trope, yokes unlike things. If David the singer of Psalms was the archetypal poet-ruler, Christ is the new David, re-joining earth and heaven in his incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection.

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What's remarkable is that after speaking of this irresistible power that restored a path for men to go from earth to heaven, the poet undergoes a metamorphosis. He can't remember it, but he knows it took place because he is stronger. Without trauma, he looks at Beatrice, who is smiling.

He then goes on to say how, had he the inspirations of all the muse-suckled poets who ever sung, he could not begin to describe the beauty of Beatrice's smile, and, since this is the case, he is at an aporia with regard to "picturing Paradise."

 e così, figurando il paradiso, 
convien saltar lo sacrato poema, come chi trova suo cammin riciso.

And therefore, representing figuring Paradise,
  The sacred poem must perforce leap over,
  Even as a man who finds his way cut off;

In becoming able to see his guide fully, the poet has become stronger, but this very strength enables him to see his weakness -- the inadequacy of his ability to represent her smile. He has more than that to "figure" -- there is il paradiso. For that, the poem must "leap," like a man whose path is cut off. The poet does not have a way to do what he must do, what the savior did -- convey us, in figure, to il paradiso. Yet Beatrice tells him to turn from her and see:

Quivi è la rosa in che 'l verbo divino
carne si fece;

There is the Rose in which the Word Divine
Became incarnate;

The "battle of the feeble brows" begins again - and he begins to figurar il paradiso.

What form does this figuration of Paradise assume? When he turns from Beatrice, the poet resorts to simile: sunlight breaking through clouds, rendering vibrant a meadow; so far, it's a simile "like" his actual experience of Matilda in Eden. But then, he sees a Rose that is a living star, the mother of Christ, regina coeli. Is he now seeing Mary in her glorified flesh?

Certainly brilliant readers do see it this way. Instead of dwelling on it, however, the poet speaks of how this could occur: It's possible, he says, because Christ has "leapt" up far enough -- a distance so vast that the poet is no longer blinded by his light.

O benigna vertù che sì li 'mprenti,
 sù t'essaltasti per largirmi loco
 i li occhi lì che non t'eran possenti.

O power benignant that dost so imprint them!
  Thou didst exalt thyself to give more scope
  There to mine eyes, that were not strong enough.  (23:85-87)

The sacrato poema proceeds because the Sun recedes. If in sacred history Christ advanced to restore the road, here he allows the sacred poem to jump the aporia by retreating. He performs a sacrifice of light that empowers vision rather than annihilating it.

This ought to alert us to read the next passage with particular care. The poem has made a leap. If we take it "at its word," then something other than the customary tropes could be at work. We'll see.