Dante: What is his credo (Statement of Faith)? PARADISO canto 23

 from posting at Maritain.ND.edu (Maritain Center at univ. of Notre Dame, S.Bend, IN)

we come to Dante’s credo:

E io rispondo: lo credo in uno dio
solo ed etterno, che tutto ‘l ciel move,
non moto, con amore e con disio;
e a tal creder non ho io pur prove

fisice e metafisice, ma dalmi
anche la verità che quinci piove
per Moisè, per profeti e per salmi,
per l’Evangelio e per voi che scriveste
poi che l’ardente Spirto vi fé almi;
e credo in tre persone etterne, e queste
credo una essenza si una e sì trina,
che soffera congiunto ‘sono’ ed ‘este.’
De la profonda condizion divina
ch’io tocco mo, la mente mi sigilla
più volte l’evangelica dottrina.

I answer: I believe in one God -- sole,
eternal -- He who, motionless, moves all
the heavens with His love and His desire,
for this belief I have not only proofs
both physical and metaphysical;
I also have the truth that here rains down
through Moses and the prophets and the Psalms
and through the Gospels and through you who wrote
Words given to you by the Holy Ghost,
And I believe in three Eternal Persons,
and these I do believe to be one essence,
so single and threefold as to allow
both is and are.Of this profound condition
of God that I have touched on, Gospel teaching
has often set the imprint on my mind.
(Par. 24.130-144, trans. Mandelbaum)

        The first five lines express Dante’s belief in God as the Prime Mover, about which doctrine he says he has physical and metaphysical proofs; then comes the assurance of Scripture. Personal as this testimony is, it also attests to Dante’s months of study in Florence, as he prepared himself for his great task.