Si che, come noi sem di soglia in soglia Per questo regno, a tutto il regno piace Com’ allo re ch’ a suo voler ne invoglia: En’ la sua voluntade è nostra pace.[286] Turning now to the geographical or rather astronomical aspect of the subject, we find in Barnabas a definite divergence from the doctrine of the _Koran_, and adoption of a Ptolemaic scheme closely resembling that of Dante’s _Paradiso_. There are nine heavens, not counting Paradise, _i.e._ ten heavens in all. “Noue sono li cielli li quali sono distanti luno dal altro chome he distante il primo cielo dala terra. Il quale he lontano dalla terra cinquecento hanni di strada.”[287] In the “five hundred years’ journey” there is a reminiscence of Jewish tradition: but the seven heavens of the Talmud and of the _Koran_ have become ten. And though these heavens are not definitely stated to be arranged, like Dante’s, as a series of concentric spheres with earth as the centre, they form a graduated series, in which each is to the next as a “punto di ago,”[288] or as a grain of sand.[289] The planets, again, have their place in the scheme. They are not, apparently, identified with the several “cieli,” as in Dante’s arrangement, but are “set between” or “amongst” them: “li cielli fra li qualli stano li pianeti.”[290] The point of resemblance is to be found in a graduated series of ten (and not seven) heavens, characterised by an ascending scale of magnitude, and culminating in the Paradise of the Blessed. The resemblances are indeed striking; but though ‘Barnabas is vastly superior to previous Moslem writers in the richness of his conception of Heaven,’ (they in common with their Christian contemporaries shewing much more spontaneity and exuberance of fancy in describing the torments of Hell), Dante excels markedly in the glowing wealth of his picture of Paradise—its radiance, its variety, its peace, its activity, its all-pervading love.[291] So far, it may be said, the suggested points of contact between Barnabas and Dante have been somewhat vague and hypothetical. They may, perhaps, be adequately accounted for on the basis of a common tradition—the practically universal tradition of a Garden-Paradise, and the Aristotelo-Ptolemaic scheme of astronomy common to all the civilised West, whether Christian or Mohammedan, till the days of Copernicus and Galileo. But in the Inferno of Barnabas we may discover more definite and more convincing resemblances to features and passages of the _Divina Commedia_.