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The popularity of the story thus told, as meeting the cravings for the wider hope which were repressed but not extinguished by the mediæval theology which had its starting-point in the teaching of Augustine, is seen (I) by its prominence in the life of St. Gregory, as given in the Golden Legend (fol. xxxvii.), where the answer to the Pope's prayer is given in a form that deserves special notice.
“Thenne answerd a voys fro God, sayng: I have now herd thy prayer, and have spared Tragan fro the payne perpetuelly. By thys thus, as somme saye, the payne perpetuell due to Tragan as a mescreaint (‘unbeliever’) was somedele taken awaye, but for all that was he not quyte from the pryson of helle: for the sowle may well be in helle, and fele there no payne, by the mercy of God.”
(2) By the equal prominence given to it in the
“Vision of Piers Ploughman” (6860-6890), the great
storehouse of the freer thoughts that were struggling
in the minds of Englishmen in the fourteenth century,
with the noticeable addition that the Pagan Emperor
was saved
But for his pure truth.”
(3) A yet nobler representative of mediæval thought
is found in the great Florentine poet, who for the
most part accepts the condemnation of the heathen,
because unbaptized, with an unpitying coldness. I
quote the story as told by him in the Purgatorio (x.
73-93) from an unpublished translation.
Of that great prince of Rome whose excellence
Gregorius moved to his great victory
(To Trajan, Emperor, I this praise dispense),
Bowed down with many a tear and grief intense;
And round about him 'twas all thronged with train
Of mounted knights, and eagles all of gold,
In the wind fluttering, glittered clear and plain.
Among them all that wretched woman told
Her tale, so seemed it, ‘I for vengeance call
For my son's death that turns my heart's blood cold.’
And he replied, ‘Wait thou till it befall
That I return;’ and she, ‘Nay, good my lord,’
Answered as one with grief impatient all,
‘If thou return not’ . . . ‘Who comes next,’ his word
So ran, ‘will do it for thee.’ She, ‘The good
Of others will not help thee, when 'tis heard
That thou thine own neglectest.’ ‘Let thy mood,’
Said he, ‘be glad: at once the right I do;
So justice wills; me pity hath subdued.’”
The tale is carried to its close when Dante finds the soul of Trajan in Paradise, and seeks to reconcile the salvation of the Emperor with the traditional dogma of the schoolmen by an ingenious variation from the popular version of the story. Trajan, as
Returning to his flesh for briefest hour,
Believed in Him who could direct his ways,
And so, believing, glowed with fiery power
Of love unfeigned, that, when he died again,
He was thought worthy of this blissful bower.”
Parad. xx. 112-116.
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