1174-1184); also Quaestio 47, Art.iii.

For good general statement, see Milman, Latin Christianity, iv, 191 et seq.; and for relation of Cosmas to these theologians of western Europe, see Milman, as above, viii, 228, note.
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.( 43) (43) For the central sun, hierarchy of angels, and concentric circles, see Dante, Paradiso, canto xxviii.

For the words of St.Thomas Aquinas, showing to Virgil and Dante the great theologians of the Middle Ages, see canto x, and in Dean Plumptre's translation, vol.ii, pp.

56 et seq.; also Botta, Dante, pp.