Paradiso: Canto XII, The Second Garland of Souls

Buonaventura (or Bonaventure) died the same year as Thomas Aquinas, and both represent the great wheels of God's chariot. Note how Ciardi describes the Rule of St. Francis, as "so harsh that it was, in effect, banned by the Church," which caused "a schism within the order even before the death of St. Francis" (702), a schism that would not, in all likelihood, send its adherents to the bolgia of schismatics in Hell's dark night to join there with Ali, who schismed from the Prophet.



Following Buonaventura's praise of St. Dominic (which is not so much praise, as Aristotle points out, for "no one praises happiness as he does justice, but rather calls it blessed, as being something more divine and better"), we see the dance of another twelve doctors of the Church, both garlands totalling two dozen -- souls whose instruction comprises a great deal of our own theological training as Kenrick's seed blossoms into the future of the faith. Which doctors among us, like St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas Aquinas, or teachers of the Way, like St. John Baptist de la Salle, would a fourth millennium Dante incorporate into his epic?

S.