Paradiso: Canto XXVI -- Examination of Love -- St. John & Adam
Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:
1 If I speak in human and angelic tongues 2 but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.
We see here Dante's examination in love being given him by St. John, the representative of love in these cantos, and, as we noticed in the previous canto, Dante does what he has always done in the presence of love -- he swoons and goes blind. In the list of goods that a person might pursue, love, we would find, is the only one worth the pursuit, for it is not only the thing that provides the most pleasure and the least pain, but it is also the thing that orients us most closely to God, the source, substance, and essence of love. It was out of love, after all, that God became man, as Anselm's Cur Deus Homo would agree. After Dante's articulation of this, divine revelation performs a kind of lasik eye surgery on him, and he sees better than he ever did before -- he sees well enough, at this point, to discern the shadowy form of Adam (sans Eve) within one of the radiant lights, learning from him four things, the greatest of which being the nature of original sin. It wasn't the eating of the apple that caused the fall of man within seven hours of his creation, but the conscious decision to do so, thereby separating man from God by a thought of the will.
S.
1 If I speak in human and angelic tongues 2 but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.
2 And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.
3 If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 3 Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated,
5 it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,
6 it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.
7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing.
9 For we know partially and we prophesy partially,
10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
11 When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.
12 At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.
13 5 So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
We see here Dante's examination in love being given him by St. John, the representative of love in these cantos, and, as we noticed in the previous canto, Dante does what he has always done in the presence of love -- he swoons and goes blind. In the list of goods that a person might pursue, love, we would find, is the only one worth the pursuit, for it is not only the thing that provides the most pleasure and the least pain, but it is also the thing that orients us most closely to God, the source, substance, and essence of love. It was out of love, after all, that God became man, as Anselm's Cur Deus Homo would agree. After Dante's articulation of this, divine revelation performs a kind of lasik eye surgery on him, and he sees better than he ever did before -- he sees well enough, at this point, to discern the shadowy form of Adam (sans Eve) within one of the radiant lights, learning from him four things, the greatest of which being the nature of original sin. It wasn't the eating of the apple that caused the fall of man within seven hours of his creation, but the conscious decision to do so, thereby separating man from God by a thought of the will.
S.
posted by Sebastian Mahfood at 4:34 PM
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