An Irish precursor of Dante : $b a study on the Vision of Heaven and Hell ascribed to the eighth-century Irish saint Adamnán, with translation of the Irish text
Dante Alighieri · en
The selection of Adamnán’s guardian angel as _psychopompos_, rather
than Michael, or some other of the Heavenly Host,[157] may possibly be
ascribed to the preference which our author occasionally evinces of
an ecclesiastical to a legendary treatment. On the other hand, we may
note the analogy between the soul’s guidance through the Otherworld by
his guardian angel, and the like function ascribed by the Avesta to
the beautiful maiden ‘who was his own conscience,’ and was probably an
allegorising development of the Fravashi, or spiritual _alter ego_,
which was held to belong to every man.
We now begin to perceive the extent, hitherto unexampled, to which
conscious design and literary form enter into our author’s method.
The celestial country, indeed, is described in general terms as ‘a
bright land of fair weather,’ like Magh Mell, and all other pagan
Elysiums; but, as the theme develops, we perceive a wide divergence
alike from the material delights of the pagan Otherworld, and the
conventional amenities described in ecclesiastical legends. As befits
the Heaven of a creed which makes the _summum bonum_ to consist in
the enjoyment of the Beatific Vision, the Deity is represented as the
centre of the whole, and all persons and accessories are grouped with
direct reference to Him. In the Voyage of the Sons of Ua Corra, the
Lord is introduced, seated on the Throne, and bird-flocks of angels
making music to Him, and the idea as there presented might stand for
a development of the Dagda myth, where the god sits beside his magic
apple-trees and vat of ale, and the birds of the Tír Tairngire sing
to him.[158] In the present case, however, it seems evident that the
description contained in the Apocalypse was the author’s source of
inspiration.[159]
Here again the author’s ecclesiastical proclivities appear in his
description of the abode of the blest in a manner recalling the
interior of a church, with chancel rails, and choir stalls wherein
the righteous stand, like monks, in cassocks and hoods of white,[160]
while the place was illumined by seven thousand angels, who stood round
about instead of candles. The separation from the Throne, by means
of a portico, of the saints to whom their final seats had not yet
been awarded, appears to have been suggested by the use in the early
churches of the narthex as the station for neophytes.[161]