1. Of the doctrine of paradise in general it may be safely said that nobody succeeded like the Murcian, Ibn Arabi, in blending all previous conceptions into one harmonious whole. Not only is Ibn Arabi’s scheme embellished by the artistry of its author, but it is so illustrated by means of geometrical sketches that the general plan of his various heavenly mansions can be seen at a glance. This, from our point of view, is its most interesting feature.

In the cosmology of Ibn Arabi, the entire universe is represented by a circle or sphere⁠[352]; and the plan of the cosmos consists of a series of concentric spheres, which rise one above another with progressively increasing radii. At present we are only concerned with the units comprised between the earth and the Divine Throne. These, beginning at the bottom, are in turn⁠[353]: the spheres of the earth, water, air and ether; then, in the astronomical world, follow in succession the spheres of the moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and that of the Fixed Stars; still further is the sphere without stars or the primum mobile, where the astronomical world ends, and, finally, above all, shining like a focus of eternal light, the Throne of God Himself.

The paradise of the elect Ibn Arabi places between the heaven of the Fixed Stars and that of the primum mobile. Here, other eight concentric spheres, rising, as before behind and above each other, represent the eight mansions of the celestial paradise. These appear in the following order: 1. The abode of grace; 2. The mansion of perseverance; 3. The abode of peace; 4. The garden of eternity; 5. The garden of refuge; 6. The garden of delight; 7. The garden of paradise; 8. The Garden of Eden.⁠[354]

Each of these eight spheres⁠[355] is divided into innumerable grades—Ibn Arabi, like Dante, claims that the number of these is considerably more than several thousand—which are grouped to form one hundred different categories. These in turn represent a still more limited number of classes of the chosen, which, if the followers of Mahomet only are considered, do not number more than twelve. Each grade contains countless individual mansions or dwelling-places.⁠[356]

2. Now, no great effort of imagination is required to trace the analogy between this fantastic conception and Dante’s rose. True, Ibn Arabi does not employ the simile of the rose in his text; but a mere glance at his plan, which, drawn with geometric precision, he himself has handed down to us, will at once suggest such a simile.

The figure given here (see Fig. 1) is as it appears in the Futuhat, III, 554, with the Arabic names translated. In its construction it is identical with the figure appearing under the number 32 in Manfredi Porena’s Commento grafico alla Divina Commedia as the plan of Dante’s rose (see Fig. 2). Porena in his description compares it to an amphitheatre the tiers of which are occupied by the elect.

3. Apart from this similarity in geometrical design, there is a further affinity between Dante’s rose and a Moslem myth whereby paradise is likened to a tree. Ibn Arabi, availing himself of a tradition very popular in Islam,⁠[357] introduces into his plan a mighty tree depending from the heaven of the primum mobile, or roof of the abode of glory, whose foliage spreads throughout the seven celestial spheres and each branch of which penetrates one of the countless individual mansions of bliss. This tree he calls the tree of happiness, or bliss (see Fig. 1). Now, if this tree were to be depicted on Ibn Arabi’s plan of the mansions of glory, the effect of its myriad branches extending to their set places on each of the seven strata of paradise would be to give the whole figure the appearance of seven concentric circles of leaves; and this is exactly the impression one gets on looking into a rose.⁠[358]

Nor does this mythical tree of Islam, growing downwards from the heaven of the highest sphere, appear to have been out of Dante’s ken. His conception of the astronomical spheres (and they also from time to time serve as mansions of the blessed) is likewise that of a huge inverted tree, each one of whose branches corresponds to one of the astronomical spheres and whose roots are in the Empyrean. This image he forms when he reaches the sphere of Jupiter.⁠[359] It must be admitted, however, that Dante’s simile is not nearly so closely related to the Moslem model as is the same simile of one of his imitators. We refer to Federigo Frezzi in his Quadriregio⁠[360]:

The other similes Dante uses in describing paradise—when he compares it to a walled garden, to a kingdom over which Christ and Mary reign, and to a hill around which the elect gather to contemplate the Divine light—are also to be found in Ibn Arabi. To him, indeed, the whole of paradise is simply a huge garden divided into seven circular parts by means of seven walls or luminous spheres⁠[361]; and its most sublime mansion, Eden, Ibn Arabi terms the palace or mansion of the King,⁠[362] because here there rises a “hill of exceeding whiteness around which the elect gather to contemplate the Almighty.”⁠[363]

4. We will now proceed to compare the moral structure of Dante’s paradise with that of Ibn Arabi. The outstanding feature of both works is the tendency of the writers to exaggerate the number of divisions and subdivisions of the various categories in which the elect are placed. Ibn Arabi, indeed, insists that “no good deed that ever was performed is without its own appropriate reward in paradise.”⁠[364] The chief categories are eight in number, just as in the human body there are eight organs, controlled by the soul: the eyes, ears, tongue, hands, stomach, pudenda, feet, and heart. It will be remembered that this principle formed the basis of the moral structure of hell, for Ibn Arabi, as well as Dante, held that the strictest symmetry should be observed in the conceptions of the two worlds of the after-life. Of the eight categories in question, then, each has its reward in one of the eight spheres or strata of the celestial paradise.

Further, these eight rewards are subdivided into a multiplicity of grades, each one of which is assigned to a specific virtuous deed. The age of the blessed—to cite but one example, which is eminently Dantean—is taken into consideration when the rewards are administered, so that an old man, who has led a sinless life in the faith of Islam, is appointed to a higher grade than a younger man of equal innocence, even although both may have been distinguished for the same virtue.

Another striking similarity between the two works is to be found in the allotment of the various places that the elect occupy in each of the eight spheres of glory. According to Ibn Arabi, three reasons determine the allocation: the first, grace alone, in which category are placed children who died before reason came and adults who lived according to the natural law; the second, personal virtue or good deeds performed by adults; and the third, inheritance of the celestial mansions left unoccupied by the damned.⁠[365] To strengthen the parallel, Ibn Arabi points out that the second reason does not imply that the happiness of glory is only the due reward for good done on earth. It is, he explains, something much greater than a mere recompense.⁠[366]

By way of exemplifying how the elect are distributed, Ibn Arabi enumerates four of the principal categories in the higher grades: first, the prophets or God’s messengers, who occupy pulpits in the highest grade; secondly, the saints, who, as disciples of the prophets, are seated on thrones in the next grade; thirdly, the wise men, who, having in life acquired a scientific knowledge of God, are placed in chairs in a still lower grade; and fourthly, the pure in heart, who, having only gained a knowledge of Divine things through revelation, occupy gradins beneath the others.⁠[367] Dante’s distribution is on the same lines. In the highest seats he places the prophets, such as Adam and Moses, and the apostles, St. Peter, St. John, and so forth; beneath these, the doctors of the religious orders, St. Francis, St. Benedict, and St. Augustine; and lastly, the faithful, who obeyed the commandments.⁠[368] It is also worthy of note that Dante in his description of the seats of the blessed uses the same terms as Ibn Arabi, namely, thrones or chairs, gradins or forms.⁠[369]

In the four general categories in question Ibn Arabi again distinguishes, although somewhat vaguely, between the Moslem elect and those who, before Islam, professed the other religions revealed by the prophets of Israel, of whom, according to Moslem theology, Christ was one.⁠[370] This vagueness is surprising, seeing that the Dantean division of the two elects had been established in Moslem tradition long before Ibn Arabi’s time. A hadith, attributed to Ali, son-in-law of the prophet, clearly defines it⁠[371]:

“At the Divine Throne are two pearls, one white and the other yellow, each of which contains 70,000 mansions. The white pearl is for Mahomet and his flock; the yellow for Abraham and his.”

The analogy between this idea and Dante’s distribution is obvious. In the mystic rose the prophets, patriarchs and saints of the Old Testament are placed in the left sector and those who lived after Christ in the right.⁠[372] The similitude, however, extends to the actual details. Just as Ibn Arabi couples Mahomet with Adam in the same degree of the Beatific Vision, so does Dante place Adam with St. Peter in the mystic rose.⁠[373]

5. Let us now study awhile the scene of the glorious triumph of the elect as depicted by the Murcian mystic. Briefly, the Futuhat description is as follows:

“The blessed gather around the snow-white hill to await the epiphany of the Lord. As they stand, each in his respective grade and place and magnificently arrayed,⁠[374] a dazzling light shines forth before which they fall prostrate. Through their eyes into the inmost recesses of their bodies and souls the light penetrates, so that each of the blessed becomes all eye and ear and sees and hears with his entire spirit, such is the virtue conferred on them by the light. Thus are they prepared for the presence of the Almighty. And then the Prophet appears before them, saying, ‘Prepare, then, ye chosen, for the manifestation of the Lord.’ The three veils that enshroud the Almighty—the veils of glory, majesty and power—are drawn aside at His will, and the truth is revealed, one vision, yet in the dual epiphany of the two names, the beautiful and the good. The magnificence of the Lord leaves the elect spellbound, and the brilliance of the wonderful vision pervades their beings.”

“This vision, although in itself one and the same so far as the elect are concerned, has, nevertheless, different aspects.⁠[375] Those prophets, who only acquired their knowledge of God through the faith received from God Himself and did not increase that knowledge by reason and contemplation, will behold the vision through the eye of faith. The saint whose faith in God was inspired by a prophet will see it through the mirror of that prophet. If, however, he also gained a knowledge of God through contemplation, then will he have two visions, one of science and the other of faith. And so also will it be with the prophet. Similarly, the saint who, unenlightened by any prophet, acquired his knowledge, either through his own reason or direct from the Almighty, or in both of these ways, will be ranged in the Beatific Vision with the men of science or those of simple faith, or with both of these classes. Those who obtained from God the mystic intuition only will occupy a grade in glory apart from all the other elect. To sum up, the three aspects which God presents to the elect correspond to the different ways in which a knowledge of Him was gained on earth; and he who acquired that knowledge in all three ways will witness three Divine manifestations in the same instant. The visions of the elect in these three categories are graded thus: the prophets who received supernatural inspiration from God excel those saints who followed their teaching; while those who were neither prophets nor their disciples but simply saints and friends of God will, if they achieved the desired end by rational contemplation, be inferior in the Beatific Vision to the mystics, because reason, like a veil, will intervene between them and the Divine truth, and their efforts to raise it will be of no avail. In like manner the followers of the prophets will be unable to raise the veil of prophetic revelation. And so it is that the Beatific Vision, pure and unalloyed, will be the heritage exclusively of the prophets and those mystics who, like the prophets, received Divine inspiration on earth.”

“In each grade of vision a relative degree of bliss will be experienced.⁠[376] Thus, the joy of some of the saints will be purely intellectual and that of others, emotional, physical, or imaginative, as the case may be. As for the mass of the faithful, the enjoyment derived by each from the Beatific Vision will also be proportional to his capacity for understanding the theological dogmas of his master. Further, as the mentality of the multitude is chiefly imaginative, so will be their knowledge of God and their participation in the Beatific Vision. This, too, will be the lot of the majority of the men of rational science, few of whom, although superior to the multitude, are on earth able to conceive the absolute abstraction from all matter. Hence it is that the greater part of the truths revealed by God through religion have been presented to the multitude in a form adapted to its understanding, though invariably accompanied by vague allusions, which are intelligible only to a select few of those of superior intellect.”⁠[377]

Continuing, Ibn Arabi from time to time gives further interesting details⁠[378]:

“In the Beatific Vision God manifests Himself to the elect in a general epiphany, which, nevertheless, assumes various forms corresponding to the mental conceptions of God formed by the faithful on earth. There is, then, one single epiphany, which is multiple only by reason of the difference of forms in which it is received. The Vision impregnates the elect with Divine light, each experiencing the Vision according to the knowledge of the Divine dogma or dogmas gained by him on earth.”

“The Divine light pervades the beings of the elect and radiates from them, reflected as if by mirrors, on everything around them. The spiritual enjoyment produced by the contemplation of this reflection is even greater than that of the Vision itself. For, at the moment when they experience the Beatific Vision, the elect are transported and, losing all consciousness, cannot appreciate the joys of the Vision. Delight they feel, but the very intensity of the delight makes it impossible for them to realise it. The reflected light, on the other hand, does not overpower them, and they are thus able to participate in all its joys.”

The fact of there being different grades of glory engenders no bitter feeling, much less envy, in the minds of those of the elect that occupy the lower grades. Ibn Arabi makes this point clear.⁠[379]

“Each knows his allotted grade and seeks it as a child seeks its mother’s breast, and iron, the lodestone. To occupy or even aspire to a higher grade is impossible. In the grade in which he is placed each sees the realisation of his highest hopes. He loves his own grade passionately and cannot conceive that a higher could exist. If it were not so, heaven would not be heaven but a mansion of grief and bitter disillusion. Nevertheless, those in the superior participate in the enjoyment of the lower grades.”

6. From this description, so rich in detail, in picturesque images and in philosophico-theological ideas, we may now select those cardinal theses that are prominent in Ibn Arabi and compare them with Dante’s ideas.⁠[380]

Firstly, the life of glory, according to the Murcian mystic, consists fundamentally in the Beatific Vision, which is conceived as a manifestation, revelation, or epiphany of the Divine light. God is a focus of light, the rays of which serve to prepare the elect to look upon the Almighty.

The parallel between this conception of Ibn Arabi and that of Dante need not be insisted upon; both in idea and artistic execution the two are identical.⁠[381] For the latter, mediæval Christian literature furnishes no precedent whatever. The former, however, the idea or theological thesis of the necessity of a Divine light with which to behold the Almighty, had been conceived and discussed by the scholastics long before Dante’s time. St. Thomas Aquinas freely refers to a lumen gloriae, which strengthens the human understanding for participation in the Beatific Vision.⁠[382]

At the same time it is certain that St. Thomas Aquinas himself admits seeking inspiration, not among the Holy Fathers and scholastic theologians, but among the Moslem philosophers.⁠[383] It is the authority of Alfarabius, Avicenna, Avempace and Averrhoes that he quotes, when he attempts to explain the Beatific Vision in terms of philosophy, and it is the theory of Averrhoes, of the vision of the substances separated by the soul, that he accepts as the one most suitable for the elect’s vision of God.⁠[384]

That Aquinas should not have recourse to patristic or scholastic literature was but natural, seeing he would find there little or no information about so abstruse a theme. The chroniclers of dogma recognise that the philosophic explanation of this article of the Christian faith is not to be found in the Holy Fathers nor in the early theologians. St. John Chrysostom even denies the vision of the Divine essence. St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and with the latter all the Latins up to the eighth century, placed the blessed, according to the Scripture, face to face with the Divinity in the Vision; and they make the least possible comment on the sacred text to avoid falling into any anthropomorphic error, maintaining that it is impossible for the human eye to look upon the Vision.⁠[385] Those that go more deeply into the subject, like St. Epiphanes, merely arrive at the conclusion that the soul requires assistance before it can look upon God.⁠[386] What the nature of this assistance is, neither the Scriptures nor the Holy Fathers have determined. This is admitted by Petavius. Although the sacred texts tell of a Divine lumen, this has no bearing on the scholastic theory of the lumen gloriae. St. Thomas, indeed, held that the lumen gloriae is a principle of vision, as it were a habit or faculty of seeing (akin to the sensitive faculty inherent in the eye), by means of which principle the human mind is trained to behold God. On the other hand, the lumen of the Psalms (XXXV, 10), “In lumine tuo videbimus lumen,” was regarded by Origenes, St. Cyril, the pseudo-Dionysius, and St. Augustine, as a synonym of Christ, in Whose light we should see the Father. From which Petavius concludes that the theory of the lumen gloriae is a novelty introduced by the scholastics.⁠[387] He finishes by citing Plotinus as the only thinker that saw even vaguely the necessity, for the Vision of God, of a lumen which is God Himself. Had there only been added to his great store of patristic learning some knowledge of Moslem theology (which was unknown in his century), he would have completed the cycle of his historical investigations and filled the gap of centuries that separates Plotinus from the scholastics.

He would have found, indeed, in Algazel and in the Spaniards, Ibn Hazm and Averrhoes—to mention but three great theologians—the roots from which the theory of the lumen gloriae sprouted. Algazel dedicates a complete chapter of his Ihia to the development of this theory.⁠[388] Long before St. Thomas, he defined the Beatific Vision as a perfection of the understanding and, in order to convey an idea of the vision of glory, he establishes a complete, although metaphorical, parallel between it and the physical vision. He says:

As the physical vision is a complement and perfection of the fantastic representation of the object, the Beatific Vision is a clearer and more perfect perception of God as He appears to the mind in this life. He proceeds⁠[389]: “God will reveal Himself to the elect in all the splendour of His manifestation. This epiphany, compared with the knowledge of God possessed by the elect, will be like the manifestation of an object in a mirror compared with a fantastic representation of it. That epiphany of God is what we call the Beatific Vision. It is, then, a real vision, provided it is clear that here we do not understand by vision a complement of the imaginative representation of the imaginable object, represented in a concrete form, with dimensions, site, etc. The knowledge which you have gained of God on earth will be completed in heaven and will become presence or experience. Between this presence in the future life and the knowledge acquired on earth there will be no more difference than what comes from a greater manifestation and clearness.”

Ibn Hazm, the great eleventh-century theologian of Cordova, expounds a similar doctrine:

“We do not admit the possibility of seeing God with a sort of human vision. We simply maintain that God will be seen by means of a power distinct from that which we have in our eyes, a power that will be inspired in us by God. Some people call it a sixth sense. And the proof lies in the fact that, as we now know God with our souls, which in this life He has strengthened to that end, so afterwards God may strengthen our vision in order that we may behold Him.”⁠[390]

We have already seen how Averrhoes’ theory was accepted by St. Thomas as an explanation of the Beatific Vision. But he goes further. In one of his theological treatises,⁠[391] dealing with the texts of the Koran which compare God to a light, he says:

“God, being the cause of the existence of all beings and the cause of our being able to see them, has rightly been called Light; for the same relation exists between light and the colours, that is to say, light is the cause of their existence and also of our being able to see them. Nor can any doubt exist about the dogma of the vision of God, which is a light, in the life to come.”

And after refuting all objections, he concludes, like Algazel, by asserting that the Vision will consist in an increased knowledge of the Divine essence.

7. The analogies, however, between Dante’s conception and that of Ibn Arabi are not limited to the general theory of the lumen gloriae. Other even more striking similarities are:

Secondly. In both descriptions the elect are in the same attitude, their gaze fixed on the focus of Divine light.⁠[392] The different grades in the Beatific Vision depend, according to Dante, on the degree of love that each of the elect shows for God, whereas in Ibn Arabi it appears to be the nature of the knowledge that the souls possessed of the Divinity that counts.⁠[393] It would seem, then, that Dante adopted the point of view of a voluntaryist, and Ibn Arabi, that of an intellectualist. The difference, however, is more apparent than real. For Dante frequently appears to adopt Ibn Arabi’s standpoint as an intellectualist; on several occasions he attributes the grade of glory to the nature of the faith or the illuminating grace with which the soul knew God.⁠[394] Further Ibn Arabi, like all Moslem mystics, is essentially a voluntaryist; virtue, in his opinion, is based, not on theological knowledge or dead faith, but on divine love, at once the cause and the fruit of the knowledge that the soul has gained of God. He therefore reserves a prominent grade in the Beatific Vision for the contemplative mystics and places in an inferior position such saints as were also philosophers.⁠[395] This doctrine was expounded by Algazel before Ibn Arabi. The happiness of heaven—he writes in his Ihia⁠[396]—will be proportionate to the intensity of the love for God, just as this love will be commensurate with the knowledge of God gained by the elect on earth and called by Revelation, faith.

Thirdly. The difference in grades is shown, not in the Beatific Vision itself, but in the variety of forms in which the Divine light is made manifest to the elect and in the greater or lesser brilliance of the light they receive and reflect.⁠[397] These three ideas of Ibn Arabi have also their respective parallels in Dante’s conception. In Par. XXX, 121, he says: “There, distance makes no difference, for where God governs the natural law has no power whatever.” In this way Dante establishes the essential unity of the vision in its different grades. If in these grades there is any difference, it is not in the thing seen but in the way of seeing it. Accordingly, in Par. XXXIII, 109, he adds: “Not because there were more than one aspect of the light I saw, which itself is immutable, but because my vision, strengthened by its contemplation, was able to see it in another manner.”

Finally, that the light acquired is reflected by the elect, and its greater or lesser brilliance distinguishes their greater or lesser glory, are points frequently alluded to by Dante in the Paradiso.⁠[398] The Dantists have explained this theme by the Thomist doctrine of the endowments of the glorious body, one of which is the radiance it derives from the glory of the soul.⁠[399] Now, we have already seen how Ibn Arabi, before St. Thomas, likewise explains the radiance of the elect by the superabundance of Divine light, which pervades the body of each blessed and is reflected from all around it. Nor was this an original idea of Ibn Arabi’s, but merely a repetition of the doctrine of the Ishraqi mystics. Indeed, in the tenth century of our era, the author of the Corra, having discovered it in some hadiths of a still earlier date, used the theme in his description of paradise. In those pictures of the glorious life, the external brightness of the elect indicates the grade of glory of each. The following passages put the matter beyond all doubt⁠[400]:

“He who belongs to the highest category of the elect so illumines the others that the whole of heaven is bright with the radiance of his face.” Again, it is stated that “the elect see one another in paradise as we see stars shining in the sky”; that “if one of the elect were to descend to earth, he would eclipse the light of the sun”; that Fatima, the daughter of Mahomet, is called the Brilliant, the Splendid, on account of the intensity of her light; that “the robes of the blessed reflect the Divine light”; that “when the Almighty appears in the Beatific Vision and the light of the Divine countenance falls on the faces of the elect, it causes them to shine with such brilliance that they appear transfigured with ecstasy”; and, lastly, that after the Beatific Vision the elect marvel at their own greater brilliance, increased by the reflection of the countenance of God.

Fourthly. The Beatific Vision will engender joy or delight, proportional to the various grades of the Vision, but so intense as to produce ecstasy in the soul. As is well-known, this idea of Ibn Arabi’s reappears in full in Dante’s work.⁠[401] The idea of proportion may, it is true, have been taken from the Thomist doctrine rather than from Islamic sources.⁠[402] Not so the idea of the ecstasy; of this there is not a word in the Thomist doctrine, which confines itself to an explanation of the philosophic origin of the three endowments of the blessed soul: vision, delectation, and comprehension of the Divine essence. Whereas, if the ecstasy in Dante be psychologically analysed and compared with that in Ibn Arabi, various constituent elements common to both will be found: loss of memory, somnolence or semi-consciousness, produced on the soul by the intensity of delight.⁠[403]

Fifthly. The fact of there being different grades in the Beatific Vision excites no feeling of envy or sadness among those in the lower grades. Each accepts his share of the glory as if it were impossible even to desire anything greater. And this is so, because all love the grade they occupy; and, further, because, if it were not thus, heaven would not be a mansion of peace and delight.⁠[404]

Dante puts the same explanation in the mouth of Piccarda⁠[405]: “Our desires, awakened only by the love of the Holy Spirit, are satisfied in the way that He determined.” To Dante’s inquiry whether there is no desire on the part of the souls to attain to a higher place, Piccarda replies: “Brother, a feeling of charity quells such a desire, and we long for nothing more than what we have. Were we to aspire to a higher sphere, our wish would be at variance with the will of the Almighty, and such disagreement does not exist in the kingdom of heaven.” Dante, satisfied with the explanation, concludes: “Then I understood why in the heavens all is paradise, notwithstanding the different degrees of bliss.”

8. The identity thus established between the five fundamental theses of the Murcian Ibn Arabi on the Beatific Vision and Dante’s is strong enough to render comment unnecessary. In comparison, the other similarities, such as picturesque details and artistic devices, used in both descriptions in an attempt to delineate by geometrical figures the Divine truth as seen in the glorious vision, are vague.

The analogy that was revealed in the discussion of Version C of the second cycle of the Miraj⁠[406] between the apotheosis witnessed by Mahomet and that described by Dante need not be dwelt upon. It is as well to recall, however, that the image representing the Divinity in that version, which dates back to the eighth century, is identical with that employed by Dante: a focus of light, surrounded by concentric circles, composed of tiers of resplendent angels. This description was perpetuated in Islam, and Ibn Arabi frequently reproduced it in his Futuhat, notably in his portrayal of God at the final judgment.⁠[407]

But the similarity extends further. Dante, having arrived at the spiritual cusp of his glorious ascension, attempts to explain the mystery of the Trinity by means of the same geometrical circular symbol: three circumferences, of equal size and multi-coloured, the first two of which seem to be a reflection of the other, after the manner of two rainbows, and the third as of fire, emitted by the other two.⁠[408] Now, the more shrewd among the commentators, although acknowledging the ingenuity shown by Dante in his conception, admit that this geometrical symbol of the three circles, as a representation of the persons of the Trinity, is more of an enigma than it is explanatory. No details are given of the colour of the first two circles or of the geometrical relationship between the three, whether they are concentric or eccentric, whether they are tangent to or cut each other—in fact, no help whatever to interpret the symbol is given.⁠[409] One fact, however, stands out: Dante uses the symbol of the circle to represent God in all His aspects—as One in the Essence, as the Father, as the Son, and as the Holy Ghost. Thus, the symbol of the circle represents God conceived both as the principle of emanation and as the emanation itself.

Now, it is well known that the same use of the circle as a symbol of the Divinity was made in the Plotinian metaphysics.⁠[410] The Apocryphal Theology of Aristoteles, as also the apocryphal book of Hermes Trismegistus and the Liber de Causis, made this symbol known to the Moslems and the scholastics; but it was the Moslems, the Ishraqi mystics in particular, who had recourse to the circle on every possible occasion to explain their ideas on emanation, both in their metaphysics and their cosmology.⁠[411]

The Murcian Ibn Arabi, more than any of the Ishraqis, employs circles, concentric and eccentric, secant and tangent, to represent the Almighty, whether in His abstract individuality, in His attributes, names and relations, in His manifestations ad extra, or in His emanation.⁠[412] A circle of white light on a red background, also of light, with two radii projecting from it, as it gently moves but never changes, is the symbol by which he represents the individual essentiality of God.⁠[413] The procession of the beings who emanate from God the essence is also symbolised in the Futuhat by a circle.⁠[414] The centre, like a focus of light, is God, from Whom the contingent beings emanate, just as the radii of a circle proceed from one central point to terminate in a series of points which, when joined together, form the circumference, symbolical of the cosmos; and just as these points are in their essence indistinguishable the one from the other, so also in the emanation of God is there a unity of substance and a multiplicity of epiphanies; the beings are merely the aspects, or the names and forms under which the Divine light appears.

These emanations likewise are represented by circles⁠[415]; at the innumerable points on the first circumference, the centre of which is God, an infinity of other circumferences cut the circle; and these in turn produce other circles, secant as before, and so on ad infinitum. As the circles multiply, the centre of their origin, God, becomes hidden, nevertheless, all reflect the light of His first epiphany. All the ingenious and paradoxical similitudes which Ibn Arabi deduces from this symbol of the Divine emanation are founded upon one main idea, the basis of his pantheism, half emanative, half immanent. God and the creatures are one and the same substance; the multiplicity of the emanations in no wise changes the essence of their origin; and these emanations are merely distinct affinities, who represent the immanence of the origin from which they spring.

This general plan of the Divine emanation becomes less involved when Ibn Arabi proceeds to represent the ontological categories alone by the symbol of concentric circles.⁠[416] The supreme series of these consists of three substances, hypostases or emanations from the One Absolute: first, the Spiritual Substance, from which proceed all those beings who are not God; secondly, the Universal Intellect, which is the Divine light by which the beings of the Spiritual Substance receive objective reality; thirdly, the Universal Soul, likewise an emanation from the One, through the Intellect.⁠[417] This triad of substances, which to Ibn Arabi represents the essence of God, is shown in the Futuhat by a geometrical figure composed of three circles: the largest, which encircles the whole figure, represents the Spiritual Substance; inside, two smaller eccentric circles, almost tangent to one another, symbolise the Intellect and the Soul. Ibn Arabi gives no reasons for these graphic details of his plan, but the mere fact of his using the three circles as a symbol for the three hypostases of his Trinity, to wit, the principle of prime aptitude for the existence of all beings, the principle of active potency to give such existence, and the principle of life of the cosmos, is in itself an interesting point and one that will repay the study of those who, while appreciating the subtle ingenuity of the Florentine poet, are not content merely to admire his artistic creations but are eager to find out whence he derived his ideas.⁠[418] For, in spite of there being an abyss of differences between the pantheistic triad of Ibn Arabi and the Catholic dogma of the Trinity,⁠[419] this in no wise affects the symbolical representation of the two conceptions by a geometrical plan. To adapt this plan to a representation of either conception would constitute neither an absurdity in metaphysics nor a danger from the point of view of dogma, provided that the key to the enigma were kept discreetly hidden and concrete details in its interpretation were omitted; and this is exactly what Dante did. In describing his symbol of the three circles, he confines himself to stating that the three are one only as regards “continenza,” i.e., substance, and that they are of different colours, to distinguish the Three Divine Persons, in the unity of essence.⁠[420]