Large of mind,
strong, acute, yet just--even more than just--to his opponents, he
gave forth, in the latter half of the thirteenth century, his
Cyclopaedia of Theology, the _Summa Theologica_. In this he carried
the sacred theory of the universe to its full development. With
great power and clearness he brought the whole vast system,
material and spiritual, into its relations to God and man.[117]
Thus was the vast system developed by these three leaders of
mediaeval thought; and now came the man who wrought it yet more
deeply into European belief, the poet divinely inspired who made
the system part of the world's _life_. Pictured by Dante, the
empyrean and the concentric heavens, paradise, purgatory, and hell,
were seen of all men; the God Triune, seated on his throne upon the
circle of the heavens, as real as the Pope seated in the chair of
St. Peter; the seraphim, cherubim, and thrones, surrounding the
Almighty, as real as the cardinals surrounding the Pope; the three
great orders of angels in heaven, as real as the three great
orders, bishops, priests, and deacons, on earth; and the whole
system of spheres, each revolving within the one above it, and all
moving about the earth, subject to the _primum mobile_, as real as
the feudal system of western Europe, subject to the Emperor.
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