“The Second Death” Between Praise and Grace: From the Canticle of Brother Sun to the Middle English Poem "Pearl"

This article examines the theme of the second death in the Canticle of Brother Sun and in the Middle English poem Pearl, placing them in dialogue on both theological and symbolic levels. In the Canticle, Saint Francis distinguishes between bodily death, welcomed as “sister”, and the second death of the Apocalypse, seen as eternal damnation. The blessedness of the righteous consists in dying in conformity with the divine will, so that the second death “will not harm them”, and the praise of creatureliness overturns fear by inscribing physical death within a Paschal horizon. In Pearl, the eschatological vision of the New Jerusalem echoes the fate of the innocent “pearl” in light of baptismal grace and the blood of the Lamb. The second death is here the counterpoint to the heavenly citizenship, from which the saved are immune because they are marked by divine mercy. While in the Canticle triumphs an ethic of evangelical conformity and humble acceptance of finitude, Pearl is dominated by the theology of the Lamb’s mediation and of the entrance in the Holy City. In both texts, the second death negatively defines the fullness of beatitude, which flows from belonging to God, already anticipated in the life of grace.