on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold. And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God. And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beast full of eyes before and behind. And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within”) King James 4:2–8.

John combines together several different visions, and in this case his inspiration is Isaiah 6:2. See the commentary on the Apocalypse by Lupieri (1999).

The only way the people of the Middle Ages could appreciate any treasure or architectural harmony was by experiencing it in the same terms in which the Apostle had described the Heavenly Jerusalem. Suffice it to quote the example of Suger, abbot of Saint Denis (twelfth century), who in his Liber de rebus in administratione sua gestis and in his Libellus alter de consecratione ecclesiae Sancti Dionisii (PL 186), speaking of how he feels when he contemplates the treasures he has accumulated for his church, explicitly cites Jerusalem, and its Temple, proudly regarding himself as a second Solomon and referring to his church as a second temple.

A curious failure to align one’s spiritual discourse with earthly contingencies, when we recall that the De civitate Dei was written at precisely the same time as Alaric’s Goths were putting Rome to the sack. But Augustine is too much of a philosopher to indulge in short-term prophecies. In any case, great long-term eschatological convictions arise precisely when, in the short term, there is little or nothing to hope for. Indeed, to the Christians who fear for the fall of Rome as the fall of their very civilization, Augustine says not to fear, because the City of God is something completely different, its destiny is not of this world, and in this world the just are bound to the reprobate in their alternate vicissitudes.

The literature on the terrors of the year 1000 is extremely vast and contradictory. Focillon (1952) refuted the legend (dear to Romantic historians like Michelet) according to which, on the fatal night of December 31, 999, the Christian world kept vigil in its churches awaiting the end of the world. The texts of the period do not contain any hint of these terrors, and expressions such as appropinquante fine mundi (“since the end of the world is approaching”) were standard rhetorical formulas. Finally, dating the year from the birth of Christ and not from the supposed creation of the world, though it had been in fashion for three centuries, was still not a universal practice. Robert II the Pious was given a penance of seven years in 998, a sign that nobody was expecting the world to end tomorrow. In 998 Abbo of Fleury, in his Liber apologeticus, mentions these apocalyptic beliefs, but he condemns them, dismissing them as fables. Nevertheless, another hypothesis has been proposed (see esp. Landes 1988): that the terrors really did exist among the populace, endemic but underground, stirred up by heretical preachers, and that the official literature does not mention them for reasons of censorship. Gouguenheim (2000), however, has pointed out that, not only is it difficult to come up with a text of the period that speaks explicitly of the terrors, but that the first authors to mention them are John Trithemius, in his Annales Hirsaugiensis, written at the beginning of the sixteenth century (and the allusion could well be an insertion by subsequent seventeenth-century editors), and Cesare Baronio, in his Annales Ecclesiastici in 1590. In which case, all of the literature on the terrors would be derived from these two extremely late sources. But, even if we were to admit that the terrors existed and any mention of them suppressed, a proof from silence is a very fragile proof. The Church had no reason to remain silent about the terrors, merely in order to stifle presumed heretical ideas. There was nothing in the least heretical about the notion that the world was about to end in the year 1000, since it could be buttressed by a reading of none other than Saint Augustine.

“For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Matt. 24:24). “And then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ; or lo, he is there; believe him not: For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect” (Mark 13:21–22). “Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time” (1 John 2:18); “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22); “And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world” (1 John 4:3).

“And these are the signs of him: his head [is] as a fiery flame, his right eye shot with blood, his left [eye] blue-black, and he hath two pupils. His eyelashes are white, his lower lip is large; but his right thigh slender; his feet broad, his great toe is bruised and flat. This is the sickle of desolation” (The Testament of Our Lord, translated into English from the Syriac with Introduction and Notes by James Cooper, D.D. and Arthur John Maclean, M.A., F.R.G.S., Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1902, 1, 11. Available online from the Cornell University library: http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924029296170/cu31924029296170_djvu.txt.

“He is small, with thin legs, tall, a tuft of grey hair on his bald forehead, his eyebrows reach to his ears, he has a mark of leprosy on the back of his hand. He will change his shape in front of those who see him: at one time he will be a young man, at another an old man” (Apocalypse of Elijah 3:15–17 [third century]). “His face has a dark look, his hair is like the heads of arrows, his forehead is scowling, his right eye is like the morning star and his left like that of a lion. His mouth is a cubit broad, his teeth a span in length and his fingers are like sickles. His footprints are two cubits long and on his forehead is written: Antichrist” (Apocalypse of Saint John the Theologian [fifth century]).

It is uncertain whether Beatus was familiar with a tenth-century fragment in a manuscript from the monastery of Mont Saint-Michel: “His disciples said to Jesus: “Lord, tell us how to recognize him.” And Jesus said to them: “He will be nine cubits tall. He will have black hair gathered like an iron chain. He will have in his forehead an eye that shines like the dawn. His lower lip will be thick and he will have no upper lip. The little finger of his hand will be the longest, his left foot broader. His posture similar.”

He certainly knew Irenaeus of Lyon: “But when this Antichrist shall have devastated all things in this world, he will reign for three years and six months, and sit in the temple at Jerusalem; and then the Lord will come from heaven in the clouds, in the glory of the Father, sending this man and those who follow him into the lake of fire; but bringing in for the righteous the times of the kingdom, that is, the rest, the hallowed seventh day” (Against Heresies, V, 30, 4. Available online at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103530.htm.

7
Dante between Modistae and Kabbalah

7.1. The De vulgari eloquentia
In his De vulgari eloquentia (hereinafter DVE), to explain the existence of a plurality of languages, Dante sticks to the letter of the biblical account in Genesis, which he knew in the Latin text of the Vulgate. So we must stick to the Vulgate too, setting aside any philological concerns regarding its fidelity to the original Hebrew. In any case, as we shall see, Dante occasionally strays, with the highhandedness we have come to expect of him, even from the text of the Vulgate.

If the DVE is a treatise on language and speech acts, Genesis offered Dante many examples of primal “speech acts.” The first thing we must agree on, however, is what “speaking” means. Certainly, every sign—as Augustine had already remarked—is something perceptible to the senses that serves to bring to mind something different from itself, but this definition (which could also refer to the knot I tie in my handkerchief to remind me of a task I must do) does not yet imply a communicative relationship articulated between two subjects. Rosier-Catach (2006) sees this communicative aspect underscored instead by definitions like