Beatrice speaks to Dante during this entire Canto. Seeing in the mind of God that Dante has questions about the nature of the angels, she explains that – contrary to a proposition by St. Jerome – they sprang into being all at once as a manifestation of God’s love. Furthermore, along with the angels the material world and the entire cosmos came into being – all reflecting the light of the Creator. She then explains how Lucifer and some of the newly-created angels fell through pride almost instantly. The rest remained faithful to their Creator and exist eternally in joy beyond telling as they look at nothing else but God. In the second half of this Canto Beatrice sternly criticizes writers and preachers who fill their readers or their congregations with nonsensical ideas about doctrinal matters with never a mention of the Gospel. She then returns to her explanation of the nature of the angels, reminding Dante that they are countless in number and each one is unique in its reflection of divine Light and Grace.
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When the Sun and Moon – Latona’s twins – take their places along the horizon, one beneath Aries and the other beneath Libra, for the smallest part of a moment until each moves into a different hemisphere – for just such a moment did my smiling Beatrice fix her eyes on that Point of light that had nearly blinded me.[1]Dante’s astronomical imagination here is wonderful as he asks us to join him in observing a celestial event that happens so quickly it’s nearly impossible to calculate in terms of time. The date … Continue reading Then she said:[2]What now takes place is the longest speech of Beatrice in the entire Comedy – from here until the end of this canto. “I will now answer your question that I see in the mind of God, where everything finds its center. Not to gain anything for Himself, which could never be, but simply that His glory might show itself ever more magnificently by declaring I AM for all eternity, in this Light of Eternal Love beyond time and space other expressions of His love came into being. And do not wonder about what He did before this because there is no ‘before’ or ‘after’ with Him.[3]Already seeing Dante’s question in the mind of God, and in order for him to understand her, Beatrice “lectures” him in sequential terms (earthly thinking), but reminds him, as it were, that … Continue reading
“In His great act of love, the angels, the natural world, and all the heavens sprang into being at once – perfectly – like three arrows shot from a bow with three strings.[4]There were such devices as triple crossbows in Dante’s time.Note first how God creating is an act of love. Then, again note how Beatrice speaks of a simultaneous creation in the “eternal now,” … Continue reading) Consider how a ray of light shines through crystal, infusing all of it and reflecting itself immediately. In the same way, God’s three-fold creation came into existence all at once without a beginning and with no intervals between them.[5]Beatrice uses the image of light striking crystal – instantly illuminating all of it – as a way to amplify the image of God’s simultaneous three-fold creation (the angels, the earth and all its … Continue reading
“With the creation of the angels there was at the same time the creation of order in the cosmos. At the highest level of His creation were the angels, called ‘pure act’. At the lowest level was basic matter, called ‘pure potential’. And in between them was the cosmos – a mixture of the two, called ‘potential-to-act’, bound together in such a way that they can never be undone.[6]What Beatrice wants Dante (us) to understand here is that the angels were the first and highest of God’s creations, and with their creation there immediately came order and hierarchy in the cosmos. … Continue reading
“St. Jerome wrote that the angels existed for centuries before God completed His creation. But the writers of Scripture, guided by the Holy Spirit, take a different view if you search the pages carefully. Even without Scripture, reason itself would propose that the angels could not have been less than perfect for such a long time.[7]St. Jerome (340-420AD), one of the first great biblical scholars, was the creator of a Latin version of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) which is known as the Vulgate (from the Latin word vulgata, … Continue reading
“Now your three questions have been answered: you know where and when these angelic loves were created, and how. But, some of those angels fell from their exalted heights to the bottom of Hell faster than you could count to twenty. The rest of them remained true to their Maker and from that moment and forever more, they whirl with endless delight in those great circles you saw. The reason some fell was because of the foul pride of that evil one you saw standing in the ice and crushed by the weight of the universe. Instantly, the rest that you see here humbly attributed their vast intelligence to the love of their Lord and God. As a result of this, their vision was raised by His grace and their own worth to such an extent that they will nothing else but to look lovingly upon the Source of that grace. And if you have any doubts about this, believe me when I tell you that the degree to which one is open to the receipt of grace, that is the measure of their worth.[8]Having explained the where, when, and how of the creation of the angels, Beatrice will now discourse on the fall of the rebel angels and the status of those who remained loyal to their … Continue reading
“From now on, if you have listened carefully to what I told you, you should be able to understand a great deal about this place without more help from me. But since your schools on Earth teach that the nature of angels is comprised of understanding, memory, and will, let me say more about this and show you the truth which, down there, has become confused by ambiguous arguments.[9]Beatrice, hoping that Dante (and us) has comprehended her arguments so far, suggests that he should come away with an even greater understanding of Paradise without her need for further explanation. … Continue reading
“From that joyful moment when these angelic beings first looked upon the face of God wherein all is revealed, they have never taken their eyes away from It. Thus, nothing comes between them and what they see eternally. As a result, they have no need of memory because their thoughts are not interrupted by some new object as are men on earth, who dream while they are awake and insist it is the truth, or not the truth – to their guilt and shame. You mortals love to make a show of your wits when you philosophize, and then lose sight of the truth. But Heaven frowns less on this than on those who subvert God’s holy Word. They care little for the blood that was shed to sow the seeds of that Word and fail to see how pleasing to God are those who humbly follow it. Intent on making a good impression on their hearers, they fabricate their own groundless truths for preachers to proclaim, but not a word of the Gospel![10]Once again, we need to remember that in the Paradiso we frequently cross over between the eternal world and the material world, between the material way of thinking and understanding and the … Continue reading
“Some of them teach that the darkness during Christ’s Passion was caused by the moon reversing its course and hiding the sun’s light from the earth – such lies! The sun hid its own light, and that darkness extended from Spain to India, including the land of the Jews. Sadly, tales like this are heard from pulpits everywhere – more in a year’s time than all the Lapi and Bindi living in Florence![11]Beatrice (Dante, of course) is not done with her condemnation of those who have, by their callings, been giving custody of the Word of God to preach it as the path to salvation for the faithful. She … Continue reading Unfortunately, because they don’t know any better, the poor sheep in those flocks come away from their fields still hungry – though their ignorance of right teaching does not excuse their guilt. After all, Christ did not command his Apostles to go forth and preach nonsense. Rather, He gave them a foundation of truth to build upon. And so they battled against the darkness armed only with His holy Gospel as their shield and lance.[12]Though she spends a good amount of time lambasting preachers puffed up with falsehoods, Beatrice makes a further point by suggesting that their congregations are, themselves, not altogether innocent. … Continue reading
Nowadays, pulpits are filled with jokes and buffoonery, and the hoods of those foolish preachers are puffed up with pride if they can make their congregations laugh. But if those in church could see the evil bird that nests in those hoods, they would also see the folly of the fraudulent pardons they trusted in. People are so gullible: they believe any promise and forget to ask for proof. Such credulity is what fattens Saint Anthony’s pig, and pigs bigger than his grow even larger as they fatten their wealth through forgery.[13]Beatrice brings her condemnation of false preachers (in this case some Franciscan and Dominican monks) to a close by mocking the hood (or cowl) they wore as part of their monastic garb. She likens … Continue reading
“But enough of this digression. Set your mind back on the true path because we need to fit our words into the time we have left here. The nature of the angels is so far beyond human comprehension that no thought or word can possibly comprehend it all. You need only look in the Book of Daniel to see that when he refers to their thousands he is not referring to a specific number. Shining down on all of them, the First Light flows through each of them and reflects in its own individual way – every angel uniquely. And since the act of seeing always comes before the act of loving, the joy of the angels’ love is manifest differently – some glow white hot while others blaze in glory. Now you see both the height and the breadth of God’s eternal goodness, and how that goodness divides itself among this countless host of angels who reflect it back to its Source which remains always and forever One in Itself.”[14]Having followed Beatrice’s “lecture” on the angels to this point, we can summarize thus: she discussed the creation of the world and the angels and the timing of their creation; the fall of … Continue reading
Notes & Commentary
| ↑1 | Dante’s astronomical imagination here is wonderful as he asks us to join him in observing a celestial event that happens so quickly it’s nearly impossible to calculate in terms of time. The date is either March 21 or September 21 (the time of the vernal and autumnal equinoxes). The sun and the full moon (Latona’s twins) are at opposite sides of the equator/horizon at sunset – one beneath Aries and the other beneath Libra, as though hanging in a balance (the equator being the balance, with the sun and moon in opposite pans). But remember that both the sun and moon are in motion. When these several conditions are met there is a total eclipse of the moon. However, this is an event no human has ever witnessed. As noted above, it happens at incredible speed (actually it’s a moment as time moves on) and, furthermore, one can only witness this “moment” from the heavens. All of this is simply to give Dante the opportunity to say that Beatrice, smiling, stared at the point of light (God), which almost blinded him, for “a moment.” His purpose is clear: he’s appealing to our imaginations as the best “place” to comprehend the nature of Paradise and, soon, the unbelievably spectacular sights he/we will see in the Empyrean, the abode of God. It’s also a way for the Poet to keep reminding us that earthly ways of thinking, in this case seeing, simply don’t work in Paradise. Dorothy Sayers has this to add in her commentary here: “During this immeasurable point of time, Beatrice has been gazing at the infinitesimal point of light, which is God. There seems to be suggested here an infinity of time as well as of space. The story of the Comedy, since it is told to mortals living in the space-time continuum, is constructed in accordance with the conventions of sequence and duration; but, just as God is here conceived of as a spaceless, indivisible being, so now Beatrice’s contemplation of Him is conceived of as taking place in eternity, or in a point of time as little susceptible of measurement as the Point of light Itself. This would seem to be the whole point of the comparison, for which Dante has evoked a hypothetical series of astronomical phenomena.” Latona, an early wife or mistress of Zeus was the mother of Apollo (the sun) and Diana (the moon). |
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| ↑2 | What now takes place is the longest speech of Beatrice in the entire Comedy – from here until the end of this canto. |
| ↑3 | Already seeing Dante’s question in the mind of God, and in order for him to understand her, Beatrice “lectures” him in sequential terms (earthly thinking), but reminds him, as it were, that with God there is/was no “…and then…such and such, and then….etc.” God IS, and His “I AM” is the eternal presence of His being, whose glory is a constant manifestation of His love and a sharing of His beatitude, manifested in an eternal now. That God “creates” things is simply a reflection of his goodness, a goodness He shares with what He creates. Speaking in “God terms,” one might say that creation is infinitely and eternally happening. St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Contra Gentiles 2,46, writes: “The only thing that moves God to produce creatures is His own goodness, which He wished to communicate to other things by likening them to Himself.” When Dante speaks of “…other expressions of [God’s] love” coming into being, he’s referring to God’s creation of the angels. In the Italian he calls them “new loves.” |
| ↑4 | There were such devices as triple crossbows in Dante’s time. Note first how God creating is an act of love. Then, again note how Beatrice speaks of a simultaneous creation in the “eternal now,” as opposed to the sequential creation in the material now. And observe how this explanation differs significantly from the two Creation Stories at the beginning of the Book of Genesis, especially that in Chapter 1. The creation of the angels is not directly referred to in either the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament, though there is a great lore of angels throughout Scripture and both the Jewish and Christian traditions that spring from them. The closest we might come would be in Psalm 148:1-6: “Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights. Praise him, all you his angels; give praise, all his heavenly hosts. Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all shining stars. Praise him, highest heavens, you waters above the heavens. Let them all praise the Lord’s name; for he commanded and they were created, assigned them their station forever, set an order that will never change.” The phrase “all you his hosts” is generally understood as a reference to the angels. (See also Nehemiah 9:6. |
| ↑5 | Beatrice uses the image of light striking crystal – instantly illuminating all of it – as a way to amplify the image of God’s simultaneous three-fold creation (the angels, the earth and all its creatures, and the heavens). In other words, the striking of the object and its being illuminated by the light are instantaneous. While Dante implicitly accepts the historical order of the Genesis narrative, here he’s making a strong philosophical/metaphysical claim for a single divine act by God (part of which, we mustn’t forget, involves the creation of time and space). |
| ↑6 | What Beatrice wants Dante (us) to understand here is that the angels were the first and highest of God’s creations, and with their creation there immediately came order and hierarchy in the cosmos. Using philosophical terminology, she calls them “pure act” because they exist in the highest spiritual and intellectual realm. They’re on top. On the bottom of this three-part concept (note “three” as in Trinity) is the material realm which she calls “pure potential.” What she means by this is the sheer capacity to be something, which by itself is indeterminate and becomes real only when it is actualized by the form or shape it is given. In between these two is the cosmos, a mixture of act and potential (or form and matter) which she calls “potential-to-act.” |
| ↑7 | St. Jerome (340-420AD), one of the first great biblical scholars, was the creator of a Latin version of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) which is known as the Vulgate (from the Latin word vulgata, meaning “common.” This translation was intended for the ordinary, Latin-speaking people of the time.). In his Commentary on St. Paul’s Letter to Titus 1:2, St. Jerome writes (in a rather convoluted translation): “Therefore, before the times of this world, it must be believed that there was a certain eternity of centuries, in which the Father always was with the Son and the Holy Spirit: and, so to speak, the time of God is one, that is, all eternity: in fact, there are innumerable times, since he who exceeds all times was there before all time. But not even a thousand years of our world are yet completed: and how many previous eternities, how many times, how many origins of ages must be considered, in which the angels, thrones, dominations, and other powers served God: and without the vicissitudes and measures of times, they stood by God’s command!” St. Jerome’s point here is that the angels were created/existed before everything else. However, Beatrice (speaking, as it were, for Dante, St. Thomas Aquinas, and others) refutes St. Jerome’s claim in favor of the “standard view” in Dante’s time, namely the doctrine of simultaneous creation, based on a passage in the Book of Sirach 18:1 (in earlier times known as the Book of Ecclesiasticus): “He who lives forever created all things simultaneously.” Keep in mind here that the biblical account in Genesis 1 is a narrative account of creation in space and time and does not include the creation of the angels. Here is St. Thomas’s view in his Summa Theologiae I, q. 61, a. 3: “There is a twofold opinion on this point to be found in the writings of the Fathers. The more probable one holds that the angels were created at the same time as corporeal creatures. For the angels are part of the universe: they do not constitute a universe of themselves; but both they and corporeal natures unite in constituting one universe. “This stands in evidence from the relationship of creature to creature; because the mutual relationship of creatures makes up the good of the universe. But no part is perfect if separate from the whole. Consequently it is improbable that God, Whose ‘works are perfect,’ as it is said (Deuteronomy 32:4), should have created the angelic creature before other creatures.” |
| ↑8 | Having explained the where, when, and how of the creation of the angels, Beatrice will now discourse on the fall of the rebel angels and the status of those who remained loyal to their Creator. Interestingly enough, while there is no reference to the creation of angels in the Bible, there are several references to the fall of rebel angels, often connected with the fall of Lucifer, the chief angel and most exalted of God’s creations. These references also raise the issue of devils, The Devil, Satan, etc. (See Inferno Canto 34 and notes in this website.) In the Book of Revelation (12:7-9) we read: “Then war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels battled against the dragon. The dragon and its angels fought back, but they did not prevail and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The huge dragon, the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world, was thrown down to earth, and its angels were thrown down with it.” Michael here is St. Michael the Archangel. In Hebrew, his name means “Who is like God?” In St. Luke’s Gospel (10:18) Jesus says: “I have observed Satan fall like lightning from the sky.” And in St. Matthew’s Gospel (25:41) Jesus, in his story about the Last Judgment, says: “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Most striking, perhaps, is a passage from the prophet Isaiah (14.12-15): “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who didst rise in the morning! How art thou fallen to the earth, that didst wound the nations! And thou saidst in thy heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit in the mountain of the Covenant, in the sides of the north! I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the most High. But yet thou shalt be brought down to Hell, into the depth of the pit.” Dante himself, in his Convivio (2:5) offers a fascinating insight: “A certain number, perhaps a tenth, of all these orders [of angels] fell soon after they were created, for the restoration of which number human nature was afterwards created.” Most sources seem to indicate that instantly upon their creation a number of the angels rebelled and were immediately cast into Hell. Interestingly, in Canto 3:37-42 of the Inferno, where Dante and Virgil encounter the neutral souls, Virgil remarked that “They are mixed here with that choir of evil angels / neither faithful nor unfaithful to their God, / but in neutrality were for themselves. / Heaven, to keep its beauty, cast them out, / but even Hell itself would not receive them / for fear the damned might glory over them.” Earlier, in Canto 19 of the Paradiso (46-48), the great Eagle of Justice remarked to Dante: “The proof of this is in that first proud one, / the highest of all creatures, who plunged down / unripe because he would not wait for light…” On the positive side, Beatrice also highlights the loyalty of those angels who remained faithful, praising their humility – as opposed to Lucifer’s pride – in recognizing their intelligence as a manifestation of God’s love. As a result of this, their vision of God is unsurpassed by any other creature, and their wills are focused on nothing else but that Divine Vision. As in a circle, their sight of God leads to greater love which leads to greater vision. Then, to include us humans in this picture, she reminds Dante that this grace of love leading to sight leading to greater love works not only for the angels, but for us as well. The greater our love for God the greater His gift of closeness to Him. |
| ↑9 | Beatrice, hoping that Dante (and us) has comprehended her arguments so far, suggests that he should come away with an even greater understanding of Paradise without her need for further explanation. That being said, she continues her (Dante’s) long lecture (this entire canto) by criticizing the confusion arising from current (in that time) trends in both theology and preaching. In Dante’s time, theological discussions and writing about angels – particularly the nature of their understanding, memory, and will – were both common and extensive. Beatrice now has more to say on these issues. Recall that in the Purgatorio (25:79-84), when Statius explained the formation of a shade after death, the soul retains understanding, memory, and will. As we will soon see, Beatrice will agree that angels have understanding and will, but not memory. A fascinating idea. |
| ↑10 | Once again, we need to remember that in the Paradiso we frequently cross over between the eternal world and the material world, between the material way of thinking and understanding and the spiritual, eternal world of heavenly thinking. In the eternal way of understanding, immediately upon their creation, some angels, out of pride, rebelled and were cast out of Heaven (into Hell) forever. However, most of the angels, upon their creation, immediately gave their humble allegiance to God and were rewarded for their love with an eternally uninterrupted vision of Him through an outpouring of His eternal Love. As she explains to Dante, nothing interrupts the angels’ eternal vision of God, and thus they have no need of memory. In God they see everything, so there’s no need to turn away. By contrast, human thinking is constantly interrupted and, as it were, we need memory to “bring us back to where we left off.” Here, Robert Hollander makes an important point in his commentary: “Dante does not seem to be denying that the angels possess a memory, rather that they lack the need to use it, since they know everything in the eternal present.” At this point, Beatrice’s biting remarks are pointed at those philosophers, theologians, and preachers who so enjoy showing off with the Word of God that they lose sight of the truth. They care so much for their flights of high thinking and grandiloquence that they forget the humble faith of those to whom they preach and whose faith they should otherwise be nourishing. So much so that they forget “the blood that was shed to sow the seeds of that Word and fail to see how pleasing to God are those who humbly follow it.” This is what makes the fault of these false preachers so grevious. |
| ↑11 | Beatrice (Dante, of course) is not done with her condemnation of those who have, by their callings, been giving custody of the Word of God to preach it as the path to salvation for the faithful. She begins here by taking issue with those who misread the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s crucifixion. The three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) all report a three-hour period of darkness: Matthew 27:45: “From noon onward, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.” Mark 15:33: “At noon darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.” Luke 23:44-45: “It was now about noon and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon because of an eclipse of the sun.” Note that St. Luke actually mentions an eclipse of the sun. However, astronomically an eclipse of the sun at that time (Passover) is impossible. And a lunar eclipse at full moon (Passover time) happens only at night and would not have caused darkness during the daytime hours. Dante would have been familiar with these facts. The fact that the evangelists were writing from a theological perspective, the most likely explanation of this darkening would be to add a miraculous and symbolic event to intensify their narrative. Bringing the entire cosmos into darkness would definitely be a way to express the utter horror of crucifying the Son of God. The idea of the moon reversing its course to cause an eclipse, which is obviously impossible astronomically, would have to be considered, if at all, as something miraculous and symbolic. Obviously, Beatrice/Dante dismisses this possibility as an outright lie perpetrated by false preachers. And an additional lie she notes is the extent of the darkness from Spain to India. All three evangelists simply use the same phrase: “over the whole land.” The reference to Lapi and Bindi is simply a way to suggest a large number. In Dante’s Florence, Lapo and Bindo were very common nicknames for Jacopo and Ildebrando respectively. |
| ↑12 | Though she spends a good amount of time lambasting preachers puffed up with falsehoods, Beatrice makes a further point by suggesting that their congregations are, themselves, not altogether innocent. One is to hope, so she assumes, that the faithful are not altogether uninformed of the stories and teachings in the Gospel to gullibly accept what she will immediately call the “buffoonery” of foolish preachers. Not so subtly targeting the corrupt contemporary descendants of the Apostles, which Dante has done consistently throughout the Commedia, Beatrice summarizes St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians (6:14-17) with what should characterize both a preacher and a hearer of the Word: “So stand fast with your loins girded in truth, clothed with righteousness as a breastplate, and your feet shod in readiness for the gospel of peace. In all circumstances, hold faith as a shield, to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” |
| ↑13 | Beatrice brings her condemnation of false preachers (in this case some Franciscan and Dominican monks) to a close by mocking the hood (or cowl) they wore as part of their monastic garb. She likens this hood (when it is moved back off the head) to a bird’s nest – but an evil bird, namely the devil. If gullible congregations could see this evil bird, she claims, they would see through the false words being preached and the worthless indulgences the preachers offered them. At this point in the canto, John Ciardi offers this commentary: “The long hanging point of a monk’s hood or sleeves is called a tippet. Mendicant friars stuffed their tippets with all sorts of dubious religious articles and trade goods to be sold to pious simpletons along with unauthorized indulgences. Thus did they do the devil’s work, and so the bird that nests in their tippets is the devil himself.” And though written after Dante’s death, some commentators make a connection between his fraudulent preachers here and a comic character in Boccaccio’s Decameron (6:10), Friar Cippola (Brother Onion!), who convinces a crowd of gullible townsfolk that he has a feather of the archangel Gabriel: “Moreover, since I know you are all most devoted to my lord Messer Saint Antonio, as a special favour I shall show you a beautiful and most holy relic, which I myself have brought overseas from the Holy Land. This is nothing less than one of the feathers of the Angel Gabriel, which he dropped in the bedroom of the Virgin Mary when he came to make the Annunciation to her in Nazareth.” The only other time Dante mentions the garb of monks is in Canto 23 of the Inferno, where he and Virgil see a long, slow procession of hypocrites who are dressed like gilded monks, except that their gowns and hoods are made of lead. The reference to St. Anthony’s pig would have been immediately understood by Medieval readers. The early Christian hermit, St. Anthony of Egypt (not to be confused with the later St. Anthony of Padua) is often depicted with a pig which represents the lust and sensuality renounced by him and his monks. Dante’s reference here, as Robin Kirkpatrick notes in his commentary, points to the monks of the Order of Saint Anthony who “…kept herds of swine but…paid for the upkeep of these herds through the issue of spurious indulgences. These monks were among the most notorious abusers of pardons in Dante’s time, becoming servants rather than masters of the carnal ‘hog’.” Apparently, these pigs were often allowed to roam freely about Florence to be fed by pious folk. |
| ↑14 | Having followed Beatrice’s “lecture” on the angels to this point, we can summarize thus: she discussed the creation of the world and the angels and the timing of their creation; the fall of rebel angels and the loyal angels’ ever after (if there were an after) enjoying the Divine Vision; then she denounced those teachers and preachers who toy with the Word of God and mislead their congregations. Now, with their time in the Primum Mobile running out, and though Dante has learned quite a bit about the angels, Beatrice brings this canto to a close by telling him that their nature, like so many things in Paradise, is ultimately beyond comprehension by the material mind. Returning to the number of angels for a moment, Beatrice points Dante to the Book of Daniel (7:10) where we read about the angels arrayed before God: “…thousands of thousands ministered to Him, and ten thousand times a hundred thousand stood before Him.” Commentators argue about this point, some noting that Dante believes in a finite number of angels, and others that he does not. Regardless, he most likely takes the prophet Daniel’s immense numbers as symbolic of a number uncountable by the human/material mind. Recall my remarks in Canto 28 about Dante’s allusion to the chessboard. An even more fascinating concept follows. The Light of God shines down on each individual angel and is reflected back uniquely from each angel. The point she/he makes here is not simply that each angel is unique, but that each angel is a separate and unique species unto itself, since no two perceive God in the same way. In this Dante was following St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae (I, Q.47, A.2), where he writes: “…in incorruptible things [angels] there is only one individual of each species, forasmuch as the species is sufficiently preserved in the one; whereas in [material] things generated and corruptible there are many individuals of one species for the preservation of the species.” And then, following Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (IX, 5), Beatrice tells Dante that “…the act of seeing always comes before the act of loving….” In case we forget, the notion of “love at first sight” comes from Aristotle, who writes: “Goodwill seems, then, to be a beginning of friendship, as the pleasure of the eye is the beginning of love. For no one loves if he has not first been delighted by the form of the beloved; but he who delights in the form of another does not, for all that, love him, but only does so when he also longs for him when absent and craves for his presence.” With these references in mind, Beatrice follows with the fact that, given they are unique species, the angels’ joy at receiving the Light of God is also manifested uniquely – some reflecting it back (in human terms) wildly bright, others reflecting it fiery brilliant – and everything in between. Her logical progression here is not difficult to follow. In the end, she reminds Dante, all things come from God and all things return to Him. |