misericordia y mérito
“If the strict
Calvinists had known the Paradiso of
Dante as well as they knew their Old Testament, their theology might have found
more adherence among the merciful, for the Paradiso
is a triumphant song of mercy, of love, and of the final triumph of every soul
that has sincerely hoped in, or sought, the truth, even if the truth were not
crowned in its fullness in this world.”
“And Dante,
put by Raphael without protest from the Church Militant, among the Doctors of
the Faith, glorifies Trajan among the Saved and opens Heaven to Cato. This
shows, by the way, the falsity of the Voltairean mauvais mot, that all the people worth meeting are in Hell!”
(Maurice
Francis Egan, Confessions of a Book-Lover,
1922)