A flame enclosing Saint James now succeeded to that of Saint Peter, and after greeting his predecessor as doves greet one another, murmuring and moving round, proceeded to examine the mortal visitant on the subject of Hope.  The examination was closed amidst resounding anthems of,” Let their hope be in thee;"[46] and a third apostolic flame ensued, enclosing Saint John, who completed the catechism with the topic of Charity.  Dante acquitted himself with skill throughout; the spheres resounded with songs of “Holy, holy,” Beatrice joining in the warble; and the poet suddenly found Adam beside him.  The parent of the human race knew by intuition what his descendant wished to learn of him; and manifesting his assent before he spoke, as an animal sometimes does by movements and quiverings of the flesh within its coat, corresponding with its good-will,[47] told him, that his fall was not owing to the fruit which he tasted, but to the violation of the injunction not to taste it; that he remained in the Limbo on hell-borders upwards of five thousand years; and that the language he spoke had become obsolete before the days of Nimrod.

The gentle fire of Saint Peter now began to assume an awful brightness, such as the planet Jupiter might assume, if Mars and it were birds, and exchanged the colour of their plumage.[48] Silence fell upon the celestial choristers; and the Apostle spoke thus: 

“Wonder not if thou seest me change colour.  Thou wilt see, while I speak, all which is round about us colour in like manner.  He who usurps my place on earth,—­my place, I say,—­ay, mine,—­which before God is now vacant,—­has converted the city in which my dust lies buried into a common-sewer of filth and blood; so that the fiend who fell from hence rejoices himself down there.”

At these words of the Apostle the whole face of Heaven was covered with a blush, red as dawn or sunset; and Beatrice changed colour, like a maiden that shrinks in alarm from the report of blame in another.  The eclipse was like that which took place when the Supreme died upon the Cross.

Saint Peter resumed with a voice not less awfully changed than his appearance: 

“Not for the purpose of being sold for money was the spouse of Christ fed and nourished with my blood, and with the blood of Linus,—­the blood of Cletus.  Sextus did not bleed for it, nor Pius, nor Callixtus, nor Urban; men, for whose deaths all Christendom wept.  They died that souls might be innocent and go to Heaven.  Never was it intention of ours, that the sitters in the holy chair should divide one half of Christendom against the other; should turn my keys into ensigns of war against the faithful; and stamp my very image upon mercenary and lying documents, which make me, here in Heaven, blush and turn cold to think of.  Arm of God, why sleepest thou?  Men out of Gascony and Cahors are even now making ready to drink our blood.  O lofty beginning, to what vile conclusion must thou come!  But the high Providence, which made Scipio the sustainer of the Roman sovereignty of the world, will fail not its timely succour.  And thou, my son, that for weight of thy mortal clothing must again descend to earth, see thou that thou openest thy mouth, and hidest not from others what has not been hidden from thyself.”