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In Dante's Paradiso, in the heaven of the sun, the heaven of the lovers of wisdom,

the Franciscan Saint Bonaventure extolls St. Dominic as a lover of and warrior for the Christian faith.

The army of Christ, the church militant, which cost so much to rearm the blood of the martyrs,

was marching behind the standard, slow, fearful and scattered.

When the emperor who rules forever, God, sent to the aid of

his bride the church two champions, St. Dominic and St. Francis, by whose deeds and words the straying

people were brought to themselves. In Calarwega was born the amorous lover of the Christian faith, the holy athlete, benign towards his own,

but harsh to his enemies. And from the Sea of St. Peter, he asked permission to fight

against the errors of the world to defend the seeds of faith.

To the Dominican St Thomas Aquinas, by contrast, Dante gives the critique of those of his fellow

Dominicans who had already strayed from the path set by their founder.

I was among the lambs of the holy flock that Dominic leads by a path, where one fattens well if one does not wander.

But his flock has become greedy for new foods so that it must spread itself over diverse mountain pastures.

And the farther his roaming sheep wander from him, the more they return

empty of milk to the sheepfold. To be sure, there are those who fear the harm and gather

close around the shepherd, but they are so few that their hoods require but little cloth.

Unfaithful Dominicans, Dante suggests, wander and stray in the vices of idle curiosity

or even the pursuit of wealth, honors, worldly vain glory or other goals.

By contrast, faithful Dominicans fatten well their souls on theology

and holiness and return full of milk to the sheepfold, as Aquinas himself preeminently showed,

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