Paradiso (12 page)

               
‘But through the fault of its own doing

               
it was expelled from Eden

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because it turned away from truth and life.   
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‘If, then, the penalty exacted by the cross

               
is measured by the nature He assumed,

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no other ever stung so justly.

               
‘Yet it is also true that there was never done

               
so great an outrage with regard to Him who suffered,

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having taken on that nature.

               
‘From a single act, then, came diverse effects,   
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for the same death delighted God as well as Jews.

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Because of it earth quaked and Heaven opened.

               
‘No longer, from now on, should it seem puzzling   
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when you hear it said that a just vengeance

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was afterward avenged in a just court.

               
‘But now I see your mind entangled,   
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by one thought and another in a knot

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from which, eager, it waits to be untied:

               
‘You say, “I follow closely what I hear,

               
but why God wanted this to be the very way

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for our redemption is obscure to me.”   
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‘The reason for this decree, brother, lies buried,

               
hidden from the eyes of all

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whose minds have not been ripened in the flame of love.

               
‘Nonetheless, since so many strive to hit this mark,

               
while so few can even see it, I shall explain

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why this was the most fitting choice.

               
‘Spurning any kind of envy, Divine Goodness,   
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burning within, so sparkles

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that it unfolds Eternal Beauty.

               
‘That which, unmediated, derives from it   
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is thus without an end, because its imprint,   
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once stamped, can never wear away.

               
‘That which, unmediated, rains down from it

               
is wholly free, because it is not subject

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to the influence of things more recent,   
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‘is more like that Goodness and thus more pleases Him.

               
The holy ardor that irradiates all things

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shines brightest in what most resembles it.

               
‘In all these gifts the human creature

               
is advantaged, but, if a single gift is lacking,

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he must fall from his exalted state.

               
‘Sin alone is what enslaves him,

               
making him unlike the highest good

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so that he is illumined by its light but little,

               
‘never returning to his privilege

               
unless he fills the void created by his fault

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with penalties fit for his sinful pleasure.

               
‘Your nature, when it sinned
in toto
   
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in its seed, was separated

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from these privileges and from its Eden.

               
‘Nor could they be recovered—

               
if you consider closely—by any other recourse

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except to ford one of these crossings:

               
‘either that God, in His own clemency,

               
had pardoned, or that man, of himself,

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had given satisfaction for his foolish pride.

               
‘Now fix your eyes deep in the abyss

               
of the everlasting will of God

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and give your strict attention to my words.

               
‘With his limitations, man could never offer   
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satisfaction, for he could not descend as deep

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into humility, by latter-day obedience,

               
‘as, by disobeying, he had thought to rise.

               
And this is the reason for which he was denied

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the power of giving satisfaction on his own.

               
‘Thus it was necessary that God in His own ways   
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restore man to the fullness of his life—

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by the one way, that is, or by both of them.

               
‘But since the deed more gratifies the doer

               
the more it shows the goodness

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of the heart from which it springs,

               
‘divine goodness, which puts its imprint

               
on the world, was pleased to proceed

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in both its ways to raise you up again.

               
‘Nor between the last night and the first day   
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was, or will there be, a deed performed—in the first way

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or the second—so sublime or generous.

               
‘More bountiful was God when He gave Himself,

               
enabling man to rise again, than if,

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in His sole clemency, he had simply pardoned.

               
‘All other means fell short of justice

               
save that the Son of God

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should humble Himself by becoming flesh.

               
‘Now, to satisfy each of your desires,

               
I go back to clarify one point,

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that you may understand it just as I do.

               
‘You say: “I see water, I see fire, air,   
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and earth—and all their combinations—

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become corrupted, lasting only briefly.

               
‘ “And yet these things were created,

               
so that, if what was said is true,

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they should be proof against corruption.”

               
‘The angels, brother, and this pure country

               
where you are may be said to have been created

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just as they are and in their entire being,

               
‘but those elements that have been named

               
and those other things made from them

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take their form from a created power.

               
‘Created was the matter that is in them,

               
created, the informing power

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in these stars that wheel about them.

               
‘The soul of every beast and every plant   
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is drawn from a complex of potentials

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by the shining and the motion of the holy lights.

               
‘But supreme goodness breathes life in you,

               
unmediated, and He so enamors your soul

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of Himself that it desires Him forever after.

               
‘From this you may, in consequence, deduce   
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your resurrection, if you but recall

               
how then your flesh was made

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in the making of the first two parents.’