Dante in Paradise – Sublime . . . and Petty

Just a brief note that in my study of Dante’s Divine Comedy, I am struck by how sublime and profound he was . . . and by how petty he could be at the same time, particularly in how he just could not let go of factional politics in his home city of Florence. Of course, he was exiled from Florence so one can hardly blame him.

But just one example from Paradiso, Canto XXXI.  Dante writes of how amazed he was to see Heaven, and he makes a profound statement about time, or the lack of it, there:

I, who had come to things divine from man’s estate,

to eternity from time . . .

This is a brilliant observation on a topic I have begun thinking about: God and the eternal state in which He lives and into which He brings His people is not bound by time, but is instead timeless.  Thus eternity is not so much a very long time or infinite time as it is a departure “from time” and from its bounds.

But then look at the very next line:

...from Florence to a people just and sane,…

The man just could not let go of Florence and its politics that had driven him out!  Even in his magnum opus, as soon as he expounds something so deep and profound as the timelessness of the eternity of God’s kingdom, he just could not resist immediately taking one of his many pot shots at Florence.  It is funny really.

But such humanity is part of the fun, if you will, of Dante and part of why I keep returning to him.