Authors: Dante
31.
For the extraordinary number of verbs of seeing in this canto (twenty-one), all but two of them referring to Dante’s sight, see Baranski (Bara.2002.1), p. 344n.
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37–45.
Benedict (480–543), born in the Umbrian city of Norcia, became the founder of what is considered the oldest monastic order in the West, which bears his name. Son of wealthy parents, he went to Rome to study, and there witnessed the debauchery of the clergy. His response was to take up a solitary eremitic life in a cave. His fame brought him the attention of those who had chosen to live a cloistered life. He agreed to become the head of the convent of Vicovaro, thus moving from the existence of a hermit to that of a cenobite. This was not in all respects a propitious decision on his part, since his fellow monks, resentful of his extremely strict Rule, tried to poison him. He managed to survive the attempt on his life and once again retreated to his cave. Monks loyal to him and to his vision of the cenobitic life eventually followed him to Montecassino, where he destroyed a temple
of Apollo and a grove sacred to Venus (according to Oelsner [comm. to vv. 37–39]), converted the locals (until his advent, still pagans), and founded his order. As commentators point out, beginning with Jacopo della Lana (
Nota
to this canto), Dante’s brief version of Benedict’s
vita
is indebted to that found in his biographer, St. Gregory the Great,
Dialogues
, II.2. It may seem surprising that Benedict was canonized only in 1220, nearly seven centuries after his death, while Francis had to wait only two years for his sainthood (1228).
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39.
The adjectives assigned to the indigenous pagan locals pretty clearly seem to distinguish between, in Tommaseo’s view (comm. to vv. 37–39), their confused mental state and their misdirected affections (in Oelsner’s formulation [see the note to vv. 37–45], worship of Apollo and devotions to Venus).
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45.
As opposed to verse 39, which seems to point to two unacceptable forms of behavior among the locals, this one would rather indicate the worship of Apollo alone.
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46–48.
Once again (see the note to verse 1) the text indicates the special nature of the monastic vocation, a combination of prayerful meditation and labor, in Benedict’s own prescription for cenobitic activity, “ora et labora.”
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48.
Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 37–51) resolves the metaphoric
fiori
(flowers) and
frutti
(fruits) into “words” and “deeds.” It seems at least possible, given Benedict’s own division of monkish occupation into prayer and work, that this is how we should interpret the “flowers” that Dante has in mind: the words that give shape to prayer.
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49.
Saints Macarius and Romuald were surely also monks, but, especially with regard to the first, there is little certainty as to his absolute identity. For Macarius, the two main candidates were both dead before Benedict was born. “It is uncertain which of the several saints of the name of Macarius is the one intended by Dante. The two best known, between whom perhaps Dante did not very clearly distinguish, are St. Macarius the Elder, called the Egyptian, and St. Macarius the Younger of Alexandria—both disciples of St. Anthony. St. Macarius the Elder (born in 301) retired at the age of 30 into the Libyan desert, where he remained for sixty years, passing his time between prayer and manual labour, until his death, at the
age of 90, in 391. St. Macarius the Younger had nearly 5,000 monks under his charge (d. 404); he is credited with having established the monastic rule of the East, as St. Benedict did that of the West”
(T)
.
As for St. Romuald (956–1027), he began (in 1012) the Camaldolese Order, a reformed group of Benedictines. It was named for the donor of its holding,
campus Maldoli
(the field of Maldolus), or “Camaldoli.” (Its monastery, in Tuscany, is referred to in
Purgatorio
V.96.) Thus Benedict is bracketed, chronologically, by a precursor and a follower. Dante may have learned about Romuald, born in Ravenna, from the
vita Romualdi
composed by his townsman, Peter Damian.
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50–51.
It sounds as though Benedict is readying himself to give a denunciation of the corruption of his order, in the style of Peter Damian (
Par.
XXI.130–135); however, Dante interrupts him with a surprising question, one that detains him for some time; he will deliver his broadside only at vv. 73–96.
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52–54.
The protagonist allows that he has interpreted (correctly) his temporary companions’ increased brightness as an expression of their affection for him.
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58–60.
Benedict is awarded the role of Dante’s penultimate “father” in this poem, with only St. Bernard to come (for the others, see the note to
Par.
XVI.16).
He also has the honor of preceding St. John (see
Par.
XXV.122–129) in causing Dante to ask questions about the fleshly aspect of the condition of the blessed. There also circulated a medieval legend that St. John, for his particular closeness to Jesus, was unique among the rest of the blessed (Jesus and Mary being the sole other exceptions) in having his resurrected body in Heaven before the general resurrection (see Jacoff [Jaco.1999.1]). Dante’s curiosity about Benedict’s actual appearance, however, has no ascertainable “source,” at least none supported by Dante’s commentators. In the case of Benedict, the protagonist’s question (and his desire) is somewhat different. He would like to see Benedict
now
as he shall be when he is found again, seated in Heaven (
Par.
XXXII.35), that is, with his sheathing flame removed so that his face’s features will be utterly plain to a beholder. Once in the Empyrean, Dante will see
all
the blessed as though they had already been given back their fleshly selves (
Par.
XXX.43–45), that is, even before the general resurrection. Thus he will there experience the reality of Benedict and of John (and of all the other saints) in identical ways.
Why, the commentators are left to ask, does Dante introduce this concern here, one that seems to have no historical footing? The least that one can hazard is that, given his “fatherhood” and this exceptional request, Benedict played a more vital role in Dante’s intellectual and spiritual development than has been ascertained, if in what precise ways remains unknown.
Brownlee points out (Brow.1991.2), pp. 227–28, that Dante’s desire to see Benedict in his flesh uncomfortably parallels Semele’s request to Jove, but that he will see Benedict as though resurrected in the flesh in
Paradiso
XXXII.35. His story, unlike hers, has a happy ending.
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61–72.
At some length Benedict corrects the supposition that lay behind Dante’s desire to see him in his true human resemblance. His conclusion, with its reference to Jacob’s Ladder and its function as the connecting point between the rest of the timebound universe and the unchanging Empyrean, brings his attention back to his monks, last heard of at verse 51.
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61.
This represents the last use of the word “brother” (
frate
) as a term of address in the poem. See the note to
Purgatorio
IV.127.
See Carroll (comm. to vv. 61–63) for the notion that Benedict is gently reproving Dante for having called him “father” (verse 58) by insisting that they are better considered brothers in Christ. Compare the desire of Pope Adrian V
not
to have Dante kneel before him in obeisance, since they enjoy a similar brotherhood (
Purg.
XIX.133–135).
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64.
Aversano (Aver.2000.2), p. 101, points out that, rather than redundant through some failing on the poet’s part, as some commentators hold, these three adjectives reproduce a phrase in an apostolic epistle (James 1:4): “And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (
perfecti et integri, in nullo deficientes
).
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67.
The Empyrean
non s’impola
(does not turn on poles), as does the terrestrial globe and as do the planets, but is the place that T. S. Eliot might have described as “the still point of the turning world” (the phrase occurs once in the second section of “Burnt Norton,” the first of the
Four Quartets
, and once again in the fourth).
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68–69.
This ladder “mounts right up to it,” that is, to the Empyrean, which is why Dante cannot yet see its terminus.
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70–72.
The tercet puts into play, in case we have missed it, the reference to Genesis 28:12: “And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.”
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73–87.
Beginning with the foot of Jacob’s Ladder, as it were, Benedict now rounds on the current members of his order. Their degeneracy is reflected in the crumbling physical plant of the monastery; in the attempt to find
some
use for the cowls of the monks (since apparently those who wear them are few) as bags for flour; in the flagrant usury employed by them (
quel frutto,
the disgraceful “harvest” of their misguided
lavoro
). On this last charge, see Tozer (comm. to vv. 79–84), describing it as “covetousness in misappropriating the revenues of the Church, which rightfully belong to God’s poor, to the purposes of nepotism and licentiousness. This in the sight of God is a worse sin than usury.”
Benedict’s remarks come to momentary cessation in the image of human sinfulness quickly undoing even fresh and worthy initiatives, snuffed out soon after inception.
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77.
Christ, driving the moneychangers from the temple (Matthew 21:12–13), portrays them as turning His “house of prayer” into a “den of thieves” (
speluncam latronum
), as was noted by John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 76–78). Dante’s
spelonche
nearly certainly reflects that passage.
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85–87.
Oaks take a while to grow mature enough to produce acorns—twenty years, according to Jacopo della Lana (comm. to this tercet) and Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 73–87). However, Dante seems to be underlining the relative brevity of their acornless state. Sapegno (comm. to this tercet) looks forward to a similar sense of the brief durance, there of innocence among us humans, at
Paradiso
XXVII.121–138.
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88–96.
In the first of these three tercets, Benedict reviews high points in the establishments of communities within the Church: the apostle Peter’s first “papacy” (first century); the founding of his own order (sixth century); the founding of Francis’s (twelfth century). The reader has a clear sense that Benedict does not expect any major renewal in the Church. And yet his speech ends with a curiously optimistic (and typically Dantean) reversal, in the promise of better days, with which his harangue comes to its close. If bodies of water could have been halted in their flow to let the Hebrews cross to safety, as Psalm 113:3 (114:5) attests, that would
still seem a greater miracle than if God were to intervene in the world now. In short, as unlikely as that possibility seems, its odds are shorter than they were for the miracles of Jordan and of the Red Sea. In Dante’s scheme of things, there is always room for hope, a view that we will find again in
Paradiso
XXVII.142–148, in a passage that similarly surmounts a decidedly pessimistic view of human sinfulness with hopes for a better world in the near future.
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