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 — John Shaqi
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
2. Now there are multitudes of the saints and righteous ones of the
Lord of Creation, and of the apostles and disciples of Jesus Christ,
unto whom have been revealed the secrets and the mysteries of the
Heavenly Kingdom, and the golden wages of the righteous; likewise the
divers pains of Hell, with them that are set in the midst thereof. For
unto the Apostle Peter was shown the four-cornered vessel, let down
from Heaven,[6] with four cords to it, and they with sound as sweet
as any music. Also, the Apostle Paul was caught up to Heaven,[7] and
heard the ineffable words of the angels, and the speech of them that
dwell in Heaven. Moreover, on the day of Mary’s death, all the apostles
were brought to look upon the pains and miserable punishments of the
unblest; for the Lord commanded the angels of the West[8] to open up
the earth before the face of the apostles, that they might see and
consider Hell with all its torments, even as Himself had told them,
long time before His Passion.
3. Finally, to Adamnán ua Thinne, the High Scholar of the Western
World, were revealed the things which are here recorded; for his
soul departed from out his body on the feast of John Baptist, and
was conveyed to the celestial realm, where the heavenly angels are,
and to Hell, with its rabble rout. For no sooner had the soul issued
from out the body, than there appeared to it the angel that had been
its guardian while in the flesh, and bore it away with him to view,
firstly, the Kingdom of Heaven.
4. Now the first land to which they come is the Land of Saints. A
bright land of fair weather is that country. In it are diverse and
wondrous companies, clad in cassocks of white linen, with hoods of
radiant white upon their heads. The saints of the Eastern world form
a company apart in the East of the Land of Saints; the saints of the
Western world are to the West of the same land; the saints of the
Northern world and of the South, in their great concourse, are to the
South and North. For every one that is in the Land of Saints may freely
listen to the music, and may contemplate the vault,[9] wherein are the
nine classes of Heaven, after their rank and order.