This final canto of the poem begins with St. Bernard’s prayer to the Virgin Mary that she grant Dante the grace to be able to look into the very Light of God. Graciously, she receives the saint’s prayer and Dante follows her gaze toward the blinding splendor of the godhead. Dante tells us that his vision reached such unimaginable heights that both memory and words fall short in his attempt to describe for us what he saw, though the sweetness of the experience remains tangibly within him. As he experiences how God is pure union, within the depths of his vision he sees how every created thing is bound together by love in a great volume whose pages are scattered across the universe. He clearly sees how within God all separate creations and their unique properties come together as one. Realizing that the more he sees the more he wants to see, Dante tells us it would be impossible to turn away from this vision he is privileged to enjoy. Peering even further into the Divine Light, Dante sees three circles of three different colors all occupying the same space – his image of the Trinity. He is particularly fascinated by the second circle upon which is imprinted the visage of a man. Completely engaged by this sight, but realizing he cannot fully comprehend it, he compares himself to a geometer attempting the impossible: squaring a circle. And it is only at this point that Dante has a final flash of understanding. Realizing that his grand poem can soar no higher than this, and that his will and his desires are in complete harmony, he lets himself and his grand poem be moved by the same Love that propels the sun and all the stars.
(To read a footnote, click the number in the text. To come back from a footnote, click the up arrow at the note number.)
“O Virgin Mother, daughter of your Son, more humble yet more exalted than all other creatures. Chosen to fulfill the eternal plan of God, you brought nobility to our human nature such, that He who created us did not disdain becoming one of us. And so, within your womb the flame of love was rekindled, whose warmth brought this Rose to full bloom in peace everlasting.[1]Thus begins the final canto of the Paradiso and the last (100th) canto of the Divine Comedy. In fact, this is the last poem of Dante’s life. Here, now, we have the beginning of St. Bernard’s … Continue reading
“For all of us in this eternal place, you are the noonday torch of love; and for those on earth, you are a living fountain of hope. Lady so great and worthy, whoever seeks for divine grace without first calling upon you would be like one hoping to fly without wings. Not only does your love and kindness come to those who request it; most often it rushes to those who need it even before they ask! You are filled with tender mercy, generosity, and compassion. Whatever virtues are found in God’s creatures, all of them are found in you![2]The “flame of love” image returns here, this time with Mary as the noonday sun which, like a “living fountain of hope,” fills us with the radiance of her Son. Dante makes some spectacular … Continue reading
“This man has journeyed from the deepest pit in the universe to this highest Heaven, and along the way he has witnessed the lives of spirits, one by one.[3]Now, speaking for him, St. Bernard formally introduces Dante to the Virgin Mary. In doing so, he reminds the Virgin Mary (and us) of the journey of salvation he has been on (which she set in motion … Continue reading By your grace, he now requests from you the strength to raise his vision to the ultimate Source of our salvation.[4]Up to this point Dante has not gazed into the Light Itself, the ultimate vision that is the goal of the entire Poem. This privilege is basically the subject of St. Bernard’s prayer to the Virgin … Continue reading And I, dear Lady, who never desired my own vision more than I now burn for his, I pour out all my prayers to you – and I hope they are enough – that, joined with your prayers, his mortal vision might be heightened even more so that he can witness with his own eyes the very Summit of Joy.[5]St. Bernard was known for his contemplation, and in the depth of his prayers he may have had mystical experiences of a heavenly nature filled with the same desire for the vision of God he now prays … Continue reading O Queen who can achieve whatever you desire, I pray also that, after his vision, you will keep his affections wholesome and protect him from mortal passions. You see Beatrice and all the Saints here: their hands are clasped in prayer as they join me in praying to you.”[6]With these lines, St. Bernard concludes his prayer to the Virgin Mary on Dante’s behalf. If love is willing the good for another person, we see it highlighted here: the Saint makes a postscript to … Continue reading
The holy Virgin’s eyes, so loved and revered by God, looked graciously upon that elderly Saint who prayed to her, making clear to us how pleased she was to receive his prayer. Then she looked directly into the depths of the Eternal Light, which no other creature can penetrate more clearly. And there I was, with the end of my great journey in sight, straining with all my might to raise my fervent desire toward the heights to which her eyes directed me. With a happy smile, my saintly guide was pointing upward, but already I was doing what he wished, for as my vision grew ever more clear, I was able to peer within the sublime Light of Truth Itself![7]Eyes and sight are key words in this passage. The Virgin Mary doesn’t respond verbally to St. Bernard’s prayer, but her loving gaze tells the Saint she has heard his prayer. While everyone in … Continue reading
From that point on the power of my vision rose to such unimaginable heights that both words and memory fail me. I was like one who awakens from a powerful dream and still feels the intensity of what he saw but cannot recall it to mind. My vision almost fades away, but within my heart I still feel the sweetness of what I saw. In the same way do footprints melt in the sun or, as we read in legend, the Sibyl’s oracles written on leaves were swept away by the wind.[8]At this point, Dante the Poet has returned to Earth, and in four different ways here he struggles, unsuccessfully, to tell us what his main character, Dante the Pilgrim, saw when he looked into the … Continue reading
O Highest Light, exalted so far above our feeble understanding, give back to my mind a small part of what You were like, and give my tongue such power that I might capture for future generations a glimpse of Your infinite Glory. In this small way, then, may the vision You bestowed on me be revealed to those who read my poem.[9]Having already admitted that he’s having difficulty remembering what he saw in his vision and committing it to writing, Dante prays that God will give him a glimpse of what He is like and the words … Continue reading
I think I would have become utterly senseless if I had turned away from the brilliance of that Living Light, and this empowered me to gaze all the more into It so that my vision could merge into the Infinite Goodness I beheld. O generous grace that enabled me keep my eyes fixed on that Eternal Light, so deeply was my vision rapt within it![10]This is a fascinating passage to follow upon the Poet’s moments-ago struggle to attain some small part of the Divine Vision to share with us. That struggle appears to have passed and his concern at … Continue reading
I saw within those depths how all created things are contained there, bound by love into one great volume, whose pages are written on and scattered across the universe. I clearly saw the relationship between all separate things and their various qualities joined together now. Yet even this was only a small ray of that infinite Light.[11]In medieval Christian thought, it was understood that God reveals Himself through two “books” – the Book of Scripture (the Bible or the inspired Word of God) and the Book of Nature (the … Continue reading I believe that I now grasped the universal form of this joining together of all created things. For even as I speak now I feel the intense joy this vision brought me. Yet my recollection of that moment is more difficult to maintain than the fact that more than twenty-five hundred years ago, Neptune was awestruck when, from the depths of the sea, he saw the first ship glide silently above him. Thus was my mind intent on only one thing: to gaze ever more deeply into the Light, for the more I saw, the more I yearned to see![12]Despite the joy he receives from the Vision, Dante tells us that its intensity makes it difficult to keep the experience in his memory. Many commentators admit that the reference to the Argo … Continue reading
To behold that Light is to be so consumed within it and changed that one would never think of turning away, because everything within it is good and everything outside that might seem perfect is defective.[13]As the Poet continues to tell us about his experience in the Light of God, his explanation here is steeped in St. Thomas Aquinas’s theological thinking. In his Summa Theologiae (I-II,q.5,a.4, … Continue reading Unfortunately, the few things I recall are less than even a baby at the breast. Not that this Living Light was changeable, because it has, and always will have, only one aspect. But the more I saw, the more the vision grew within me.[14]Dante’s almost insistent repetition of his faulty power of recollection only serves to highlight the ineffability of what he did actually see. John Ciardi notes in his commentary here:“In the … Continue reading
And as I seemed to change, that Light Itself seemed to change. For now, within Its depths I clearly saw three distinct circles of three colors, but bound together within the same space. Like two rainbows, the first circle reflected the next, and the third was like fire, breathed forth equally by both the others.[15]The key words here are “seemed to change.” Otherwise, Dante’s explanation would be heretical. God does not change. But Dante is definitely changing as he continues to be engulfed by the Divine … Continue reading My words here cannot adequately express my weak recollection, which itself is weak because even it is far from what I actually saw.[16]Cleverly here, Dante rather limply explains his inability to tell us what he saw by stumbling over his words to tell us just that. Yet under this, he is reaching the pinnacle of his poetic powers and … Continue reading O Eternal Light, living within Yourself alone, and knowing only Yourself, Your love radiates itself in glory, knowing and being known.[17]These lines are reminiscent of Canto 14, when Dante and Beatrice entered the sphere of Mars. Upon seeing the great Cross of Lights, he cried out to God: “O Helios, Who bedecks them like this!” In … Continue reading
As I gazed intently on the reflection of the first circle’s movement within the second one, there appeared to be imprinted upon it in its own color our own image, and I became completely focused on it.[18]Here, Dante writes: “there appeared to be imprinted upon it our own image.” In other words, as the Poet looks more deeply into the Divine Vision, he sees a human face within the second circle. … Continue reading Like a geometer who strives but cannot uncover the principle whereby the circle might be squared, just so did I grapple with this new mystery before me, as I struggled to discern how the image of our humanity could fit within that circle.[19]While the idea of squaring the circle is an ancient mathematical problem, the Reader may be interested to know that its impossibility was not finalized until 1882. Dante noted that it was impossible … Continue reading In the end, my wings were not able to take me to those heights, but like a bolt of lightning that flashed within my mind, I suddenly understood and my great desire was fulfilled.[20]In all of this, the Reader might wonder how Dante appears to be so calm at this climactic moment. The Italian critic, Benedetto Croce, ridiculed this last canto of the Paradiso as a trick, a bluff … Continue reading
At this point my towering fantasy lost its power, but my will and desire came together like a perfectly balanced wheel turned by that Love which moves the sun and all the stars.[21]If Dante’s “towering fantasy lost its power,” its ongoing life and 700 years of commentary assure us this is not an admission of failure. Rather, it is the precisely-designed moment of his … Continue reading
Notes & Commentary
| ↑1 | Thus begins the final canto of the Paradiso and the last (100th) canto of the Divine Comedy. In fact, this is the last poem of Dante’s life. Here, now, we have the beginning of St. Bernard’s prayer to the Virgin Mary asking her to intercede with her Son, Jesus, for the grace that will prepare and then allow Dante to complete his pilgrimage with a glimpse of the Beatific Vision. There is high theology in every sentence of this prayer and a good example of the Marian theology St. Bernard was famous for. We note first the movement from Mary’s humility, highlighted in her willing acceptance to be the mother of Jesus (daughter of her Son, who created her), to her exaltation because by her “Yes” to the angel’s message she initiated the Incarnation. Ronald Martinez notes that “through her God became a human being, one of his own creatures.” Her “Yes” to God is an example for all of humanity to follow. It sets the stage for the exaltation of our humanity, wounded by the Fall of Adam and Eve, to be renewed and redeemed by God becoming one of us in the person of Jesus. Here, Robert Hollander notes: “What is the noblest act ever done? God’s making himself mortal for our sake.” St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians captures the cosmic sweep of the Incarnation where he writes (2:5-11): “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” The “flame of love” is a reference to the creation, but dimmed by the Original Sin. Mary’s “Yes,” in God’s plan for all eternity, not only rekindles that flame, its heat, in this case the salvation offered by Jesus to redeemed humanity, causes the celestial Rose to bloom and to be populated and grow to its present size, filled with countless “citizens.” |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | The “flame of love” image returns here, this time with Mary as the noonday sun which, like a “living fountain of hope,” fills us with the radiance of her Son. Dante makes some spectacular claims here as he theologizes in his poetry about her role in prayer as it relates to her Son. Actually, the poetic language itself heightens the theological significance of Mary’s role both as mother and mediator/intercessor. Rather tersely, he states plainly, “Forget about prayer that doesn’t include her as a kind of spiritual conduit to her Son. It would be like trying to fly without wings!” St. Bernard, in a sermon, wrote: “God does not wish us to have anything that has not first passed through the hands of Mary.” Commenting on this, Charles Singleton suggests: “What Dante claims here is not, of course, literally so, otherwise all prayers directed ‘directly’ to God would be misdirected. But it is a becoming part of this highest of praise for Mary as uttered by Bernard, her great lover.” Following on the Virgin Mary’s role as a “prayer mediator,” St. Bernard emphasizes an aspect of her love and kindness that is often unseen but still wonderful to know that it is there: her love (help) often rushes to us before we ask for it. The implication here seems clear: if her help comes to us even before we ask for it, how much greater is the help that comes from her Son. This, it would seem, is what St. Bernard is banking on relative to his request on behalf of Dante. As a matter of fact, the Poet himself is an example of what St. Bernard tells us. In Canto 2 of the Inferno, it was the Virgin Mary who, concerned that Dante might lose his soul, sent St. Lucia to Beatrice who then commissioned Virgil to be his guide. Sounding much like an excerpt from the Litany of Loreto (a Catholic prayer praising the Blessed Virgin for her various virtues and attributes), St. Bernard’s prayer focuses on these: her humility, openness to the will of God, being a torch of love, a fountain of humility, the mediatrix of grace, and a source of kindness, compassion, mercy, and generosity. At the same time, while it is St. Bernard who prays here, we can’t forget that it is Dante the committed Catholic Poet who writes this prayer as coming from his own soul. And like most of his contemporaries, he would have been familiar with the many Marian hymns and prayers used in both Church services and private devotion. Finally, when St. Bernard tells the Virgin Mary: “Whatever virtues are found in God’s creatures, all of them are found in you!” this is the highest possible praise he can give her. In other words, all goodness found in any of God’s creatures can be found, united, together in her. |
| ↑3 | Now, speaking for him, St. Bernard formally introduces Dante to the Virgin Mary. In doing so, he reminds the Virgin Mary (and us) of the journey of salvation he has been on (which she set in motion in Canto 2 of the Inferno). With Virgil, Dante has traveled from the very center of the Cosmos where Lucifer stood frozen in the ice of sin, to the top of the Mountain of Purgatory. Then with Beatrice he moved through all the heavenly spheres to this very place in the celestial Rose. All the while learning from what he saw (and setting it down in this Poem). Dante’s presence here is another way of his thanking her. At the same time, just to locate ourselves in the “action” of this prayer, we need to keep in mind that Dante and St. Bernard are standing in the middle of the Rose arena floor looking up to the top row where the Virgin Mary is seated. Directly above the two men and hovering above the entire Rose (the arena has no roof) is the Light and Glory of the Beatific Vision upon which all the Saints gaze in continual joy. |
| ↑4 | Up to this point Dante has not gazed into the Light Itself, the ultimate vision that is the goal of the entire Poem. This privilege is basically the subject of St. Bernard’s prayer to the Virgin Mary. About Dante’s vision of God, Charles Singleton, in his commentary, keeps our own vision clear on what is at stake here: “The phrase [about Dante’s vision of God] is important in this context, for it introduces a modification that bears a touch of relativity. Is the wayfarer merely to approach God (‘the ultimate salvation’)? Is he not actually to attain to God, move upwards all the way to Him? The answer is yes, of course – otherwise this journey could not be said to reach its goal. Yet it should be recalled that each of the blessed – each of the human souls, that is, as well as each of the angels – attains to that measure of the beatific vision which an original endowment of grace makes it possible for them to receive. So it is with this living man, who is now to be permitted to attain to his own particular limit of vision. And as the action of the poem narrows to this single and simple focus of attainment in these terms, the reader should remember that what this mortal wayfarer reports of his limited experience is to be taken as just that: one living man’s final experience in what theological doctrine knows as ‘rapture.’ St. Paul’s uplifting is always cited as the exemplary instance of rapture, the only difference being that Paul confessed that he could not give a report of what he saw, whereas this poet is now to strive (with all the labor and difficulty which he declares) to convey to the reader, in rhymed words, his own final experience: his vision of God, face to face.” |
| ↑5 | St. Bernard was known for his contemplation, and in the depth of his prayers he may have had mystical experiences of a heavenly nature filled with the same desire for the vision of God he now prays for on Dante’s behalf. But in his supplication to the Virgin Mary he notes that his own desire for celestial vision was never as strong as it is now for Dante to have it. In other words, as strongly as St. Bernard may have desired to have an experience of the Beatific Vision while he was alive, even more strongly now does he desire this privilege for Dante. A moving example of humility and deference. The heightening of the Pilgrim’s mortal vision to see the “Summit of Joy,” in a sense, completes his initiation into the workings of Heaven. The amazement he/we might have experienced at his heightened vision when he raised his head from the “river of light” in Canto 30 is nothing compared to the sight St. Bernard lovingly prays for. |
| ↑6 | With these lines, St. Bernard concludes his prayer to the Virgin Mary on Dante’s behalf. If love is willing the good for another person, we see it highlighted here: the Saint makes a postscript to his prayer by asking Mary to keep the Poet safe from sin when the vision (the Poem) is over and he takes up his mortal life again. On the Terrace of Pride in the Purgatorio Dante admitted that pride was a sin that often marked his life. He probably had this in mind when he wrote these lines, and St. Bernard who, like everyone in Heaven, could read Dante’s mind, would have seen this as well. But there’s another significant point to be made here. By ending the prayer this way, bringing Mary back to watch over his life on earth, Dante, through St. Bernard, closes a circuit that she herself opened in Canto 2 of the Inferno. We’ve looked at this scene earlier: Mary (who can break Heaven’s rules) sees Dante’s eternal salvation in jeopardy and sends St. Lucy/Beatrice to commission Virgil to guide him back onto the right path. Interestingly, the ensuing journey (the Poem) ends with this prayer at her feet. Also, this prayer (here in Heaven) for Mary’s guidance when Dante is back on earth has already been foreseen in a different context in Canto 23 when Dante tells us that he always prays to her in the morning and the evening. She prays for him, he prays to her. Bosco and Reggio, in their commentary here, bring this scene of prayer to a close, likening it to a scene one would see in a Renaissance painting: “The prayer ends with a grand ‘Giotto-like’ scene (Benedetto Croce’s phrase) of the blessed, all equal, raising their joined hands on high, humble and simple in their fervent desire. It is justly called giottesque because it is still figurative; the prayer itself implies physical gestures: the aged Bernard, at the center of the ‘stage’ of the amphitheater, looks upward and points out to the Virgin the humble Dante at his side. It is the familiar scene of devotional paintings where a saint presents the kneeling donor to the enthroned Virgin. This, by the way, is the last mention of Beatrice in the Poem. |
| ↑7 | Eyes and sight are key words in this passage. The Virgin Mary doesn’t respond verbally to St. Bernard’s prayer, but her loving gaze tells the Saint she has heard his prayer. While everyone in Heaven has been looking into the Light of God above them, Mary has been looking down at St. Bernard and Dante. Then she directs her eyes to the Divine Light in a way no other creature can, obviously communicating in her privileged way St. Bernard’s prayer for Dante. In raising her eyes to the Divine Light to deliver the Saint’s prayer, she empowers Dante himself to follow her example. And realizing that the end of his long journey is about to end, he strains with all his might to attain the Ultimate Vision he has longed for. His role as Dante’s last guide now complete, St. Bernard, smiling, points upward, indicating by that gesture that his prayer has been granted. But Dante is already ahead of him. The Vision has arrived and for the rest of the Poem he becomes like everyone else in Paradise: he looks into the Light of Truth Itself. |
| ↑8 | At this point, Dante the Poet has returned to Earth, and in four different ways here he struggles, unsuccessfully, to tell us what his main character, Dante the Pilgrim, saw when he looked into the Beatific Vision. First, the Vision or rapture was a transcendent experience so great that he’s at a loss to describe let alone remember it. (But we can depend on the fact that he’s not done trying.) Second, the Vision was like a dream from which one wakes feeling its intensity, but unable to remember the dream itself. Third, though the Vision almost fades, he’s left with a feeling of sweetness at what he saw, though he can’t quite remember what it was. And fourth, he compares the dream to melting footsteps in the snow. Then his mention of the Cumaean Sibyl (mentioned by Virgil in his Aeneid III:441-462) takes us and the dream to the level of myth. Cuma is about 30 miles west of Naples and very near the coast. Sibyls were priestesses and prophetesses in the ancient world. In a cave near Cuma, Aeneas sought the Sibyl’s advice and asked to enter the underworld to meet his father. What Dante is referring to here is this particular Sibyl’s habit of writing her prophecies on leaves. Unfortunately, when a wind came up, the leaves of the prophecy were scattered and could not be reorganized. Later in the Aeneid, we have Aeneas cleverly asking the Sibyl to speak her prophecy instead of writing it down. Interestingly, in Dante’s time, both Virgil and the Cumaean Sibyl were considered prophets foretelling the coming of Christ. At this point in the Poem, we’ve come full circle from the very beginning of Canto 1, where Dante stated: “I myself was in that brightest heaven and was so filled with His light that, having returned from there, I cannot claim to know or recount what I saw, because my mind entered it to such a profound depth that my memory cannot possibly recall all of it.” And yet, we cannot forget that Dante is using the simile of a dream here. Charles Singleton, in his commentary, warns us: “This simile of the dreamer trying to recall his dream should not suggest in any way that the actual experience reported is that of a dream. This is a simile, after all!” In other words, Dante uses the simile (where something is like something else) in trying to tell us about the powerful rapture. The rapture, the Vision (not the dream), is necessarily momentary, but it is real. And here, the concept of “willing suspension of disbelief” comes back to us in the strongest way. Readers cheat themselves if they lose faith in the “truth” of Dante the Pilgrim’s experience at this point – so close to the end. In his commentary here, Mark Musa is helpfully specific: “[Dante] the Poet speaks now from his vantage point on earth. When the Poet says his vision fades, he is referring now, as he is writing the Commedia, to the vision he had of God then in the narrative time of the Poem.” |
| ↑9 | Having already admitted that he’s having difficulty remembering what he saw in his vision and committing it to writing, Dante prays that God will give him a glimpse of what He is like and the words to convey it for the betterment of his readers. Note here both the Pilgrim’s genius and his great humility. He is at the end of a spectacular and unparalleled poetic creation, having taken us through all three realms of the afterlife, right, as it were, to the very throne of God. But he puts all of that aside, simply asking to come away from that throne, not with a trophy symbolizing the victory of his quest, but with just a glimpse of the Divine Light that he can share with all of humankind, enabling them to see for themselves the eternal reward that lies ahead of them. Basically, he wants to reach his goal in writing the Poem so that he can give both – the Poem and the goal, as it were – to his Reader and to posterity. His goal: simply to remove readers from a state of misery and lead them (on a kind of pilgrimage) through mercy and forgiveness to the blessed vision of God. This passage also calls to mind a scene in the Book of Exodus (33:18-23) where Moses also wanted to see God: “Then Moses said, ‘Please let me see your glory!’ The Lord answered: ‘I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim my name, “Lord,” before you; I who show favor to whom I will, I who grant mercy to whom I will. But you cannot see my face, for no one can see me and live. Here,’ continued the Lord, ‘is a place near me where you shall station yourself on the rock. When my glory passes I will set you in the cleft of the rock and will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand, so that you may see my back; but my face may not be seen.’” Moses had a deeply intimate and privileged relationship with God from the time of his encounter with Him at the burning bush until he died. In the passage quoted above, Moses’ exuberance carries him away. Much like a later Dante, he asks for a privilege that is impossible to experience this side of death. God cannot be seen face-to-face by humans because it is beyond the limited powers of our senses and intellect to penetrate His essence. But God allows Moses to see Him from behind, a symbolic act that highlights the effects of God’s glory, the goodness that trails behind Him, as it were. Like the ancient Israelites, Dante was an exile, and his Divine Comedy is like the Book of Exodus in that it recounts one man’s journey (representing all humans) from the bondage of slavery (sin) to the ultimate freedom of Paradise. Though God symbolically manifested Himself to Moses many times, He also manifested his power and presence to the exiled Israelites through many signs and wonders on their journey. One can also see this throughout the Poem: the power of God to save Dante (us) and bring him/us to Himself. This is why he wrote the Poem, to celebrate the breadth of God’s mercy and love. At the same time, Dante knew well St. Augustine’s saying from his Confessions: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Furthermore, as he wrestles with God in the glory of His Light, the Poet is, in a way, also like Jacob wrestling with the angel (God) in Genesis 32:24–30. In the story, a stranger/God appears in the night, and they wrestle, with Jacob winning, until God hurts him and forces him to let go. But Jacob will not let go until God blesses him. By the morning, Jacob has a new name, Israel, and he proclaims: “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been spared.” After his death, Dante will become Il Sommo Poeta, the Supreme Poet. As for seeing God, he’s now ready to tell us. |
| ↑10 | This is a fascinating passage to follow upon the Poet’s moments-ago struggle to attain some small part of the Divine Vision to share with us. That struggle appears to have passed and his concern at this point is not to look away from the Light in spite of its overpowering effulgence. If nothing, the Vision draws him into Itself so that he becomes one with what he sees. In a sense, Poet, text, Reader, and Vision unite at this point in a moment of “generous grace.” Clearly, Dante seems to have found his voice as he experiences the Vision. This enables us – via a direct connection with his narrative – to stay in shared communication with him throughout this sublime experience. And it is John Ciardi who offers a sublime commentary here: “How can a light be so dazzling that the beholder would swoon if he looked away for an instant? Would it not be, rather, in looking at, not away from, the overpowering vision that the viewer’s senses would be overcome? So it would be on earth. But now Dante, with the help of all heaven’s prayers, is in the presence of God and strengthened by all he sees. It is by being so strengthened that he can see yet more. So the passage becomes a parable of grace. Stylistically it once more illustrates Dante’s genius: even at this height of concept, the poet can still summon and invent new perceptions, subtlety exfoliating from subtlety. The simultaneous metaphoric statement, of course, is that no man can lose his good in the vision of God, but only in looking away from it.” |
| ↑11 | In medieval Christian thought, it was understood that God reveals Himself through two “books” – the Book of Scripture (the Bible or the inspired Word of God) and the Book of Nature (the entire created world). Both books reveal God’s truth and power, and though the legibility of the Book of Nature was diminished by sin (thus, its “scattered” pages, like the Sibyl’s leaves), it could be properly understood with the help of Scripture. In other words, medieval thinkers saw the natural world as God’s other sacred text which pointed us toward Him, but always with the help of Scripture. Observe here how Dante momentarily loops back to the reference to the Cumaean Sibyl whose pages get scattered by the wind. In the Two-Book-conception we might think of the Book of Nature scattered by the “wind” of sin, but the oracle of the Sibyl can be reconstructed with the help of Scripture. Without question, Dante knew this concept well, particularly as it had roots in the writings of Sts. Augustine, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, and others. But he does something completely radical here and in the lines that follow. For him, there is only one book – God’s book, with the pages of creation scattered. There might well be two books, from an earthly perspective, but from God’s perspective, there is only one. And in that book, all the pages are bound together by love. Dante sees how the multiplicity of created things is united in God. The temporal and the eternal unite. God is the Unity, God is One. What he presents, then, is a poetic confluence in which the book of nature and the book of Scripture merge into the Book of God, whose binding is love and whose content is the eternal order of all things. In the Divine Vision, Dante the pilgrim comes to understand that the entire universe is both legible and meaningful because it is unified in the Divine Intellect. Thus, he restores the beauty and depth of the Two-Book tradition by showing its ultimate meaning: the multiplicity of the many are now one, the scattered pages are now gathered, and creation itself is a text that can be truly read only from within the mind of God. In the end, all things belong to a Unity too vast for us to see until Love gathers the pages and shows us the book they form. This is what the Poet “sees” in the Vision. |
| ↑12 | Despite the joy he receives from the Vision, Dante tells us that its intensity makes it difficult to keep the experience in his memory. Many commentators admit that the reference to the Argo (implied) and Neptune is difficult to interpret, and they offer many different possibilities. What we need to keep in mind here is that Dante is having a difficult time trying to remember his experience of the Divine Vision and what he saw. What he seems to be suggesting here, and perhaps this is an over-simplification, is that it’s more difficult for him to recall the Vision (or to keep it in his memory) than it is to remember the simple fact that more than 2500 years ago, the first ship (the Argo) was built, and Neptune, from the bottom of the sea, saw it glide over him as Jason and the Argonauts sailed on their quest to retrieve the golden fleece. Also, though it has been quite a while in the Poem, the image of a ship returns here. Furthermore, we can’t let the image of Neptune at the “bottom” of the sea be lost on us. Neptune is as amazed to see a ship as Dante was amazed to see the Divine Light. In a sense, Neptune is Dante the Poet, Dante the protagonist in the Poem, and we the Readers. From another perspective, recall that twice in the Paradiso, Dante has been invited by Beatrice to “look down” through the Cosmos to gauge the distance they had traveled from its center, the Earth. But not until now do we have the opposite view – and thus, Dante’s struggle. He’s had the Vision in the Empyrean, in eternity, as it were. And back on earth, as he’s completing the Poem, he’s plumbing the celestial heights the other way around and trying to remember what it was like to be at the top and “see God!” |
| ↑13 | As the Poet continues to tell us about his experience in the Light of God, his explanation here is steeped in St. Thomas Aquinas’s theological thinking. In his Summa Theologiae (I-II,q.5,a.4, resp.) he teaches that “man’s perfect happiness consists in the vision of the Divine Essence. Now it is impossible for anyone seeing the Divine Essence, to wish not to see It…. But the vision of the Divine Essence fills the soul with all good things, since it unites it to the source of all goodness.” |
| ↑14 | Dante’s almost insistent repetition of his faulty power of recollection only serves to highlight the ineffability of what he did actually see. John Ciardi notes in his commentary here: “In the presence of God the soul grows ever more capable of perceiving God. Thus, the worthy soul’s experience of God is a constant expansion of awareness. God appears to change as He is better seen. [But] Being perfect, He is changeless within himself for any change would be away from perfection.” The Living Light of God is not changeable, but, as has been happening since his experience at the River of Light, the power of Dante’s mortal sight is continually increasing as he experiences the Empyrean and ever more of the Divine Vision. |
| ↑15 | The key words here are “seemed to change.” Otherwise, Dante’s explanation would be heretical. God does not change. But Dante is definitely changing as he continues to be engulfed by the Divine Vision. As he proceeds, both his language and his images align perfectly with Catholic doctrine. The three “distinct” (and equal) circles are not actually the Trinity, but represent the three “Persons” of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; three, yet one. The image of the two rainbows (or a double rainbow) suggests how the Son is “begotten” by the Father – in this case, “reflected.” In the Creed, we proclaim that the Holy Spirit “proceeds” from the Father and the Son and, in Dante’s language, the Holy Spirit flames forth equally from the Father and the Son. Artistically, the three different-colored interlocking circles is frequently used as an image for the Trinity. Recall that the head of Lucifer at the bottom of the Inferno had three faces as a parody of the Trinity. |
| ↑16 | Cleverly here, Dante rather limply explains his inability to tell us what he saw by stumbling over his words to tell us just that. Yet under this, he is reaching the pinnacle of his poetic powers and striving with every gift of words he’s been graced with to explain what still – and will always – remain just beyond his reach. Recall how Virgil told him, at the steep base of the Mountain of Purgatory, that the climbing would be virtually effortless the closer they got to the top. Here, it’s just the opposite. Looking back through to the beginning of the Paradiso, all of that seems rather “easy” compared to the steep experience he is trying to describe. |
| ↑17 | These lines are reminiscent of Canto 14, when Dante and Beatrice entered the sphere of Mars. Upon seeing the great Cross of Lights, he cried out to God: “O Helios, Who bedecks them like this!” In Greek, this kind of exclamation is a rhetorical device called ecphonesis, and one finds it often in sacred or visionary poetry like the Comedy. Here, of course, the Eternal Light, is God, God God’s-Own-Self, by God’s-Self and only God (in other words, using more traditional language: the Eternal Light is God, God Himself, by Himself, and only Himself). The repetitions are the Poet’s attempt to focus both himself and the Reader on the Oneness and undivided Unity of the Godhead. Bosco and Reggio highlight the focus in their commentary here: “The phrasing recalls Augustine’s and Bonaventure’s descriptions of mystical illumination, but Dante remains strictly on the ground of the beatific vision, not ecstasy.” This is an interesting way to put it, as though Dante’s “feet are on the ground” of the Beatific Vision, in reality, not in ecstasy or a dream. Once again, this is another way of Dante the Poet insisting that his Poem is real, and for the fullest enjoyment of the Poem the Reader must believe it is real. |
| ↑18 | Here, Dante writes: “there appeared to be imprinted upon it our own image.” In other words, as the Poet looks more deeply into the Divine Vision, he sees a human face within the second circle. This is the Incarnation, the complete union of the divine and human natures of Christ, this is the human face of Christ. This is an amazing moment of grace at the very climax of the Divine Comedy. It is, perhaps, the most daring moment in all of Western literature. Nothing like this has ever been done in poetry. Dante doesn’t “see” God the Father or God the Holy Spirit, but he does see God the Son – Jesus, who is God in human form. As one human to another, he tells us, “I became completely focused upon it.”
Dante is putting theological doctrine into poetic language here. Referring to the Second Person of the Trinity, in the Nicene Creed, Roman Catholics pray: |
| ↑19 | While the idea of squaring the circle is an ancient mathematical problem, the Reader may be interested to know that its impossibility was not finalized until 1882. Dante noted that it was impossible in his Convivio (II:13), though even in his time mathematicians grappled with the problem. All of this aside, the issue here isn’t mathematical impossibility but the mystery of the Incarnation, the central doctrine of the Christian faith: namely, that God becomes human in the person of Jesus. That this happened, Dante believes as do all Christians. But how it happens, this is the mystery. How does our human flesh, our image, actually fit into the Divine Image as he beholds it? And how to put it into words, this is the challenge of the Comedy that he grapples with as he reaches the point beyond which the Poem can no longer sustain itself. One wonders if, while grappling with how our human image might fit into the Divine Image, Dante also enjoyed the wonder of the opposite: that the Divine Image fit into our human image. One wonders, further, since we have witnessed the “breaking”of so many laws of physics as we know them in the Paradiso, can the circle be squared in Heaven? |
| ↑20 | In all of this, the Reader might wonder how Dante appears to be so calm at this climactic moment. The Italian critic, Benedetto Croce, ridiculed this last canto of the Paradiso as a trick, a bluff played on the reader. He suggests that Dante points so wildly and excitedly toward the nonexistent vision that the reader may become convinced that it’s really there. Here, I point to an outstanding study of the Poem by Marguerite Chiarenza (The Divine Comedy: Tracing God’s Art, Twayne, Boston, 1989) who, at the end of her study states that, to an extent, Croce is right – God’s face is not in Dante’s poetry, and the poet’s struggle to express himself is all throughout this last canto of the poem. But if he thinks that Dante’s poetry failed him right at the end, then it’s Croce’s view that we must dismiss, not Dante’s poetry. In the final moments of the poem Dante’s art reaches its greatest climax and he begins to take his leave in peace. There’s no reason to believe that he’s not elated, because for a moment he actually shares the eternal joy of all the citizens of Paradise. In a flash of final understanding, a moment of overpowering grace that Beatrice, St. Bernard, and the Virgin Mary led him to, Dante, like a runner who crosses the finish-line, stops running to savor the moment of victory. He tells us that he reached the limits of his art, his “wings” (words) unable to take him higher. But his desire is fulfilled and he is at peace. Dorothy Sayers writes here: “By a flash of insight, or by an instantaneous participation in the bliss of souls in Heaven, Dante now understands how the human and the divine are joined in God.” |
| ↑21 | If Dante’s “towering fantasy lost its power,” its ongoing life and 700 years of commentary assure us this is not an admission of failure. Rather, it is the precisely-designed moment of his greatest achievement. We may groan for more, but to go any further is unnecessary. Here, it is also important to understand what is meant by the word “fantasy.” In the Italian, Dante writes: A l’alta fantasia qui mancò possa. In English this says: “Here, high fantasy failed its strength.” But this is not fantasy as the image-making faculty. Rather, it means the image-receiving faculty. In other words, to quote Singleton here, “Dante has reached the limit of his capacity for vision, for the reception of images.” The “weight” of Dante’s mortality (remember, he’s bodily present in the Empyrean) here prevents his soul from sustained union with the divine. This is why the Divine Vision breaks off, not because of any fault in the Vision itself. Dante’s own will and desire are now at one with the Divine Vision in which all creation is balanced in perfect harmony, as it was originally intended to be. And realizing that the summit of his Poem has been reached, he is left with a final divine insight. Here, he now tells us what he saw when he looked at God: he saw the scattered pages of the universe, all creation, as God sees them – bound together in a book by the Love that “moves the sun and all the stars.” Here, the Paradiso comes full circle to its opening lines: “The glory of God who moves all created things, fills the entire universe as it wills.” Furthermore, the Two Books, the Book of Nature and the Book of Scripture, are now one. Umberto Bosco calls this ending “the most perfect closure imaginable: philosophical, theological, poetic, and autobiographical, all at once.” Is it here, finally, where Dante achieves the goal of his poem: to remove us from a state of misery and sin and bring us to a place of happiness and bliss. And, like the Inferno and the Purgatorio, the Paradiso ends with the word “stars.” If one thinks of this last Canticle as a journey through the Cosmos, Dante has indeed visited all the known planets at his time, including the Heaven of the Fixed Stars. He closes the Comedy on Earth with a look back at where he’s been, himself fondly led by “that Love which moves the sun and all the stars.” |