Isaiah

Profile

Isaiah is the prophet to whom tradition attributes the verse «in terra sua duplicia possidebunt» (Isaiah 61:7), which promises a double possession in one's own land. In Paradiso XXV, v. 91, Dante introduces him with the formula «Dice Isaia che ciascuna vestita» to recall that text, applying it – as the note to the canto explains – to the meaning of the double glory, of soul and body, reserved for the blessed, symbolized by the white robes mentioned in the same passage of Dante. The same note specifies that the expression «duplicia» in the verse was understood by the Fathers as an allusion to the double glory destined for man in paradise, his true homeland, and that Gregory the Great, in the Dialogi, brings the passage of Isaiah into connection with that of the Apocalypse on the robes of the martyrs.