Nor must we suppose that the Paradise is an unbroken succession of descriptions of heavenly bliss. Here too, as in Hell and Purgatory, the things of earth are from time to time discussed by Dante and the spirits that he meets. Here too the glow of a lofty indignation flushes the very spheres of Heaven. Thus Peter cries against Pope Boniface VIII: 'He who usurps upon the earth my place, _my place_, MY PLACE, which in the presence of the Son of God is vacant now, has made the city of my sepulture a sink of blood and filth, at which the rebel Satan, who erst fell from Heaven, rejoices down in Hell.' And at this the whole Heaven glows with red, and Beatrice's cheek flushes as at a tale of shame.[87] Dante is still the same. The sluggish self-indulgence of the monks, the reckless and selfish ambition of the factious nobles and rulers, the venal infamy of the Court of Rome, cannot be banished from his mind even by the beatific visions of Heaven. Nay, the very contrast gives a depth of indignant sadness to the denunciations of the Paradise which makes them almost more terrible than those of Hell itself. Interwoven too with the descriptions of the bliss of Heaven, is the discussion of so wide a range of moral and theological topics that the Paradise has been described as having 'summed up, as it were, and embodied for perpetuity ... the quintessence, the living substance, the ultimate conclusions of the scholastic theology;'[88] and it may well be true that to master the last cantica of the 'Divine Comedy' is to pierce more deeply into the heart of mediæval religion and theology than any of the schoolmen and doctors of the Church can take us. At the touch of Dante's staff, the flintiest rock of metaphysical dogma yields the water of life, and in his mouth the subtlest discussion of casuistry becomes a lamp to our feet. And beyond all this, such is the marvellous concentration of Dante's poetry, there is room in the Paradise for long digressions, biographical, antiquarian, and personal; whilst all these parts, apparently so heterogeneous, are welded into perfect symmetry in this one poem. * * * * * Amongst the most important of the episodes is the account of ancient Florence given to Dante by his ancestor Cacciaguida, who also predicts the poet's exile and wanderings, and in a strain of lofty enthusiasm urges him to pour out all the heart of his vision and brave the hatred and the persecution that it will surely bring upon him. This Cacciaguida was a Crusader who fell in the Holy Land, and Dante meets him in the burning planet of Mars, amongst the mighty warriors of the Lord whose souls blaze there in a ruddy glow of glory. There is Joshua, there Judas Maccabæus, and Charlemagne and Orlando and Godfrey and many more.