rei causa? plus incipit habere posse, qui plus habet.' Epist. cxix. (ad med.). Multis parasse divitias non finis miseriarum fuit, sed mutatio.' Epist. xvii. (ad fin.). Multum est non corrumpi divitiarum contubernio.' Epist. xx., &c. An interesting reference, without, however, any definite quotation, is made to Seneca in Epist. iv. 5. Dante, exiled from Florence, begs his friend, an exile from Pistoja, to read the treatise of Seneca, Fortuitorum Remedia, as a defence against the darts of Fortune. This treatise is now acknowledged to be the work of Martinus Dumiensis, Abbot of Dumio. in Portugal, in the sixth century. (So also is the 'Liber de iv virtutibus,' which was likewise attributed formerly to Seneca, as by Dante himself in De Mon. II. v. l. 24.) It was originally printed among the works of Seneca; as in the old edition from which the following extracts are made, a black letter quarto in the Bodleian, 'Argentorati,' c. 1472. This Tractate professes to be addressed' ad Gallionem amicum suum ... contra omnes impetus et machinamenta fortunae.' The title is, 'Liber Senece de remediis fortuitorum.' It is in the form of a dialogue between Sensus (conquerens) and Ratio (confortans). The principal titles are as follows :— Mors, Egritudo, Maliloquium, Exilium, Dolor, Paupertas, Amissio pecuniae, Naufragium, Amissio amicorum, &c. Doubtless the portion chiefly in Dante's mind in the reference before us would be the section on Exilium,' the character of which may be judged from the following extracts, embodying probably the 'remedia,' which he thus recommends to his friend. 'Mundus omnium una patria est: extra hanc nemo proiici potest. . . . Non patria mihi interdicitur, sed locus. In quamcumque terram venio, in meam venio. terra exilium est, sed altera patria. . . . Patria est ubicunque bene es. Illud autem per quod bene est in homine non in loco est. . . . Si enim sapiens est peregrinatur . . . si stultus exulat,' &c. Nulla It was familiar to Brunetto Latini, and (as was his wont with other authors) freely copied by him. ST. AUGUSTINE. The direct references to St. Augustine in Dante are not so numerous as perhaps might have been expected 1. When he appears among the saints specially pointed out in the Heavenly Rose in Par. xxxii., he seems to be selected rather from his traditional connexion with the great monastic order of Augustinians, and with hermits and solitaries in particular 2, than for his eminence as a theologian. This appears from his association with St. Francis and St. Benedict, as the three saints in closest proximity to St. John the Baptist. He is quoted three times in one chapter of the De Monarchia, viz. III. iv.; the first quotation (11. 51 seqq.) is a striking passage from De Civ. Dei, XVI. ii., protesting against the over-interpretation of parable and allegory, and enforcing the point by the excellent illustration of the plough, all the parts of which are necessary, though the share only cleaves the ground. The other two passages come from the same context in the De Doctrina Christiana (I. xxxvi. and xxxvii.), the only point calling for remark being the curious reading (1.65), ‘eo tamen per gyrum pergeret quo via illa perducit,' where our MSS. of St. Augustine (in c. xxxvi) read agrum. Dr. Witte supposes that Dante had an inferior text. (We may compare with this passage, Convito IV. xii. 1. 181 seqq.) St. Augustine is also directly quoted three times in the Convito. In two of these cases it will be seen that I have failed to identify the passage. In the third case, Conv. I. iv. 1. 67, St. Augustine is quoted as saying, 'Nullo è senza macola.' I have not found the precise words, though they are likely enough to occur in St. Augustine, since the sentiment would be a common one in his writings. The passage I have noted 1 See, however, infra, p. 294. In 1284, and therefore within Dante's recollection, about forty years after the foundation of the Franciscan and Dominican orders, Innocent IV had with some difficulty brought all hermits and solitaries under the Augustinian rule, See Mrs. Jameson's Legends of the Monastic Orders. from the Conf. I. vii. (among others) would at any rate fully justify the paraphrase, if such it be, 'Nemo mundus a peccato coram te.' Dante shows his acquaintance with the general subject matter of the Confessions by his language in I. ii. 1. 104, though no definite passage is there quoted. He is here excusing himself for speaking so much about himself in the Convito, by the example of St. Augustine in his Confessions. So also in Epist. x. 28, Dante refers to the contents of the treatise 'De Quantitate Animae.' Again, the wellknown line in Purg. xxv. 83: Memoria, intelligenza, e volontade, seems suggested by St. Augustine, De Trin. x. 17, 18, where these three words united occur more than once, though not in connexion with the statement here made by Dante, but as illustrating by their union in una vita ... una mens,' the mystery of the Trinity in Unity. It has been usual to suppose that the collocation of the Virgin and Eve in Paradise, and in particular the language in which it is described, viz. : La piaga che Maria richiuse ed unse, È colei che l'aperse e che la punse (Par. xxxii. 4-6)— was suggested to Dante by St. Augustine. This contrast between Eve and the Blessed Virgin is found several times in his writings. In the two passages entered in the Index a string of antitheses is summed up with the words, 'percussit illa, ista sanavit,' which closely resemble the above language of Dante. Pietro di Dante observes that in order to signify this contrast she was addressed Ave, which is Eva reversed! In his Epistle to the Cardinals, Ep. viii. § 7, Dante deplores that the study of St. Augustine, together with Gregory, Ambrose, and others, had been displaced by that of the Decretals and similar works. This passage should be compared with the fierce outbreak in Par. ix. 133 seqq. In Par. xxiv. 1c6-8; Dante in answer to St. Peter gives as one at least of his reasons for believing in the miracles of the New Testament, that if the world had been converted to Christianity without miracles, this alone would have been a miracle a hundred times greater than all the others. This idea is no doubt borrowed from St. Augustine, De Civ. Dei, XXII. v. fin.: 'Si vero per Apostolos Christi, ut eis crederetur resurrectionem atque ascensionem praedicantibus Christi, etiam ista miracula facta esse non credunt, hoc nobis unum grande miraculum sufficit, quod eam terrarum orbis sine ullis miraculis credidit.' The same thought is repeated in a slightly different form a little later, in c. viii. init.: Possem quidem dicere necessaria fuisse (sc. miracula), prius quam crederet mundus, ad hoc ut crederet mundus. Quisquis adhuc prodigia ut credat inquirit, magnum est ipse prodigium, qui mundo credente non credit.' In Conv. III. xi. ll. 35 seqq., it appears as if the list of the seven sages of Greece was derived from St. Augustine, De Civ. Dei, XVIII. xxv. The Pythagorean origin of the term 'philosopher' may have been derived from the same source, supplemented perhaps by VIII. ii. of the same work. [This was also pointed out by Mr. Paget Toynbee in Romania for July, 1895.] There can be no doubt (as has already been sufficiently explained, supra, p. 188), that De Civ. Dei, V. xviii. has formed the model for two chapters in Dante which much resemble one another, viz. Conv. IV. v. and De Mon. II. v. Purg. xxii. 67-69. Facesti come quei che va di notte, Che porta il lume retro, e sè non giova, This beautiful and pathetic comparison to describe the Christian enlightenment said to have been derived by Statius from Virgil, who yet did not profit by it himself, has been referred with some probability by Scartazzini to the following passage from St. Augustine, Conf. IV. xvi.: Dorsum enim. habebam ad lumen, et ad ea quae illuminantur faciem; unde ipsa facies mea, qua illuminata cernebam, non illuminabatur.' We might compare for the metaphor, though rather by way of contrast in the sentiment, the lines of Ennius quoted by Cicero, De Off. I. xvi. § 51 (a chapter certainly familiar to Homo, qui erranti comiter monstrat viam, The idea here is rather that of Purg. xv. 55 seqq, with which we might again compare Cicero, de Amic. xix. § 70 fin.: Fructus enim ingenii et virtutis omnisque praestantiae tum maximus capitur, quum in proximum quemque confertur.' Other passages, in which we may suspect that Dante was under the influence of St. Augustine in his interpretation of Scripture, will be found noticed supra, under Vulgate, Nos. 38, 45, 46. I must confess, in conclusion, that I have not been able as yet to investigate the question of Dante's probable acquaintance with the works of St. Augustine nearly as fully as the subject seems to deserve. I am continually coming on fresh points of resemblance. There is, however, always this element of uncertainty, that many of his theories or arguments are reproduced by Aquinas, who would be for Dante a 'proprior interpres' (to borrow a phrase of Livy). MINOR AUTHORS. 1. AESOP. Dante twice quotes Fables of Aesop. In the Convito IV. xxx. 1. 40 there is no difficulty, since the well-known first fable is at once recognized. But in Inf. xxiii. 4 a fable is referred to which is not found in the collection. Two explanations are suggested by Scartazzini, h. l. (1) That it occurs in a Life of Aesop written by a Greek monk, Planudes Maximus, in the fourteenth century. He appears to have died fully twenty years later than Dante, but it is not impossible, unless this Life were written by him in his later years, that Dante may have seen it. (2) Benvenuto mentions |