Comments to Dante’s Paradiso, Cantos I thru V

The most important theological concept in these first few cantos I think is this inequality of graces that are distributed and attained.  And what I think makes it difficult to grasp, at least for me, is the multifaceted nature of it.  Let’s look at the several suggestions in the text.  First is right in the opening lines:

The glory of Him who moves all things

pervades the universe and shines

in one part more and in another less.

I was in that heaven which receives

more of His light. He who comes down from there

can neither know nor tell what he has seen,

for, drawing near to its desire,

so deeply is our intellect immersed

that memory cannot follow after it.  (Par. I.1-9)

So right at the beginning we see that God’s light permeates “in one part more and in another less.”  This appears to suggest that there is an uneven distribution of blessings.  Later in the canto Dante states “The lamp of the world rises on us mortals/at different points” (ll. 37-38) which on the surface is a simple statement of astronomical fact, but as you read further down it makes you wonder if Dante implies more.  The bright heavenly light shines into Beatrice, and Beatrice turns toward her left (l. 46) to fully face the sun, and the rays bounce off her and return to the heavens,  Dante peering into her eyes is a recipient of the light and through her can see the glory of the sun.  And then:

Much that our powers here cannot sustain is there

allowed by virtue of the nature of the place

created as the dwelling fit for man.

I could not bear it long, yet not so brief a time

as not to see it sparking everywhere,

like liquid iron flowing from the fire. (ll. 55-60)

Light is clearly more than just the external energy we experience but in the poem a symbol of God’s grace.  So he was allowed to receive this grace because he is up in heaven and not on earth, so location does seem to make a difference, but even here he could only sustain it for a “brief time.”  Again by itself, I don’t think it reaches a complete theological point, but it is accumulating force. 

Let’s continue.  And then in Canto II we get the discourse on varying spots of the moon.  Dante believes it has to do with density and rarity but Beatrice first refutes him and goes on with her experiment of three mirrors:

‘Take three mirrors, placing two at equal distance

from you, letting the third, from farther off,

also meet your eyes, between the other two.

‘Still turned to them, have someone set,

well back of you, a light that, shining out,

returns as bright reflection from all three.

‘Although the light seen farthest off

seems smaller in its size, still you will observe

that it must shine with equal brightness.

‘Now, as the substantial form of snow,

if struck by warming rays, is then deprived

both of its former color and its cold,

‘I shall now reshape your intellect,

thus deprived, with a light so vibrant

that your mind will quiver at the sight. (II. 97-111)

The location of the mirror is critical to the size of the source, and the further from the source, the less the intensity.  Also important here is how the recipient reacts to the light.  Just as snow melts from sunlight, so does one’s mind and intellect get reshaped by the light.  She goes on to explain that the source of light is behind it all and His light moves the varying spheres, which direct their distinctive influence across the universe for His purpose.  Ultimately this reaches the individual:

‘And the heaven made fair by all these lights

takes its stamp from the intellect that makes it turn,

making of itself the very seal of that imprinting.

‘And as the soul within your dust

is distributed through the different members,

conforming to their various faculties,

‘so angelic intelligence unfolds its bounty,

multiplied down through the stars,

while revolving in its separate oneness.  (II. 130-138)

It is from this “imprinting” of heavenly light that we receive grace and influence from above.  But that is still not the complete picture because a “stamping” would eliminate the free will.  “The soul within [the] dust”—that is the fundamental element of ones being—varies in faculty, and so reacts individually to that light.  Just so the moon spots.  They are reacting differently to the light.

So to sum up here, Dante is trying to capture the immense complexity of God working His will while we individuals maintain our free will.  Light, allegorically standing for grace, does not permeate evenly through the universe, and we the receptacle of that grace do not process it equally. 

We can then see it worked out in Canto III with the character of Piccarda.  She is under the influence of the moon because she has been inconstant in her vow to be a nun.  Unfortunately her brother, Corso, forced her out of the convent to marry for his political advantage.  She did not want to break her vow, but was forced to.  Same goes for her neighbor in this sphere, Constanza, ironically named because she was inconstant.  Constanza too was forced out of her convent against her will to marry the Holy Roman Emperor. 

Later, Dante (the character) in Canto IV asks Beatrice—actually more precisely intends to ask but Beatrice can read his mind and articulates it before he does—about the justice of these two spirits limited from the highest spheres of heaven because they were forced to break their vows against their will.  Beatrice clarifies:

No, all adorn the highest circle –

\but they enjoy sweet life in differing measure

as they feel less or more of God’s eternal breath.

‘Those souls put themselves on view here

not because they are allotted to this sphere

but as sign of less exalted rank in Heaven.  (IV. 34-39)

There is no injustice.  All saved souls reside in the highest circle, but they experience God’s breath (another metaphor for grace) “in different measure.”  They are here at the moon because they are “of a less exalted rank.”  This explains why the two spirits are in this sphere but it still doesn’t quite answer why a forced broken vow is inconstant.  Beatrice explains this further down in a beautiful simile:

‘For the will, except by its own willing, is not spent,

but does as by its nature fire does in flame,

though violence may force it down one thousand times.

‘Thus, if it stays bent, whether much or little,

it then accepts that force, as indeed did these,

since they could have retreated to their holy place.  (IV. 76-81)

The human will is like a flame striving upward.  If force attempts to curb it, it will either be indomitable or it will acquiesce.  There is here a subtle difference between those that resist the force and those that accept the force.  Beatrice goes on to contrast Piccarda and Constanza against St. Lawrence and Gaius Mucius Scaevola.  Someone constant will finds a way to keep their vow or dies trying. 

Each person, then, has a different capacity to receive God’s grace, which shines unequally on people.  So is the notion of unequal capacity for grace theologically sound?  St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians outlines the differences in abilities between humans:

There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone.  To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.  To one is given through the Spirit the expression of wisdom; to another the expression of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit; to another mighty deeds; to another prophecy; to another discernment of spirits; to another varieties of tongues; to another interpretation of tongues.  But one and the same Spirit produces all of these, distributing them individually to each person as he wishes.  (1 Cor 12: 4-11)

Dante aesthetically reformulates St. Paul’s differences of gifts into his influences of the spheres.  And so we will see that each sphere has a gift associated with it.  Jupiter for just rulers, Mercury for ambition, the sun for wisdom, and so on.  What about the notion that everyone receives varying degrees of light, and therefore grace?  Yes, that is Church doctrine.  God provides sufficient grace to all to attain salvation, but it is not equally distributed.  And what about the notion that each individual can only hold so much grace?  Well, look at Luke 1:28 where the angel Gabriel addresses the Blessed Virgin, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.”  If Our Lady is “full of grace,” then others are not “full.”  In Dante’s anthropology, then, humans are like cups—receptacles—holding quantities of God’s grace, some bigger, some smaller, some full, some not so full.  Picture the Blessed Mother as being one supersized cup filled to the top.  Perhaps then someone like St. Francis of Assisi is a large cup, maybe three-quarters full.  Someone like Piccarda is a regular sized cup maybe just half full.  Now perhaps sinner me is probably only a small whiskey shot glass perhaps only a quarter full.  ;)

If you’ve understood this concept, I think you’ve understood one of the most difficult concepts in the Paradiso.

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Some random observations.

In the middle of the first canto, in answering Dante’s question on why he is able to move through matter, Beatrice makes what I think is a statement that captures the aesthetics of the entire Divine Comedy:

‘All things created have an order

in themselves, and this begets the form

that lets the universe resemble God.  (Par. I. 103-105)

All things have a reason for their form, which in turn is an image of God.  So too does the Commedia, an order built on the form of logical patterns—spiraling circles downward for hell based on justice, rising ringlets upward in heaven built on levels of grace.  The form of the book is the form of the universe, which resembles God.

In that passage, Beatrice in explaining why Dante is moving upward, she describes the bent of natural inclination, either upward or downward.

‘In that order, all natures have their bent

according to their different destinies,

whether nearer to their source or farther from it.

‘They move, therefore, toward different harbors

upon the vastness of the sea of being,

each imbued with instinct that impels it on its course.

‘This instinct carries fire toward the moon,

this is the moving force in mortal hearts,

this binds the earth to earth and makes it one. (I. 109-117)

Each created thing will move toward its destiny, and the created thing of man is like the flame is designed to move upward toward God like flame moves toward the moon.  She goes on to explain why not all move souls move upward.

It is true that as a work will often fail

correspond to its intended form, its matter

deaf and unresponsive to the craftsman’s plan,

‘so sometimes a creature, having the capacity

to swerve, will, thus impelled, head off another way,

in deviation from the better course

‘and, just as sometimes we see fire

falling from a cloud, just so the primal impulse,

diverted by false pleasure, turns it toward earth. (I. 127-135)

So given free will (“having the capacity/to swerve) man does not always choose to respond “to the craftsman’s plan.”  The “primal impulse” to go upward is perverted.  Sin therefore pulls us down.  The natural state of man is really to go up. 

See how this works in the conceptualizations of hell, purgatory, and heaven?  When one is fixed in sin, one spirals downward to ones fixed level of justice in hell.  The climb up the mountain of purgatory is the struggle to dispose of this sin and find one’s true natural state.  Once one reconfigures to the state one was intended, one rises to its heavenly position.

The workings of heaven are such that the spirits have very little definition.  When Dante first sees Piccarda and the other spirits in the moon, it seems to him that they are vague reflections.  He describes them as such.

As through clear, transparent glass

or through still and limpid water,

            not so deep that its bed is lost from view,

the outlines of our faces are returned

so faint a pearl on a pallid forehead

comes no less clearly to our eyes,

I saw many such faces eager to speak,

at which I fell into the error opposite to that

which inflamed a man to love a fountain.  (Par. III. 10-18)

The outlines of their faces are so faint that their heads I think look like pearls.  That is interesting.  What we’ll find is that each character’s features get less distinguishable the further into heaven Dante travels.  In a few spheres further in, the characters will be no more than just lights.  Dante later points out to Piccarda how her face shines forth.

Then I said to her: ‘From your transfigured faces

shines forth a divinity I do not know,

and it transforms the images I can recall.  (III. 58-60)

So those in heaven have achieved a “transfiguration” and the shine is of the measure of grace.  No wonder as Dante goes further into paradise the character’s faces, actually their entire bodies, have a more intense glow.

I guess the outline of Piccarda’s face is clear enough to see her smile when Dante asks her if she is content with the lowest level of paradise.  She smiles when she answers him.  The facial smile is certainly a leitmotif in these early cantos.  In addition to Piccarda here, Beatrice smiles twice in these cantos (lines I.95, III.25).  Recall how at the end of Purgatorio after Dante receives absolution he can now look into Beatrice’s face and sees her second beauty, her smile.  This was associated with love.  And there is much more smiling in heaven.  Hollander in his notes points out that Paradiso refers to twice as many smiles as in Purgatorio, and I don’t believe there were any in Inferno.

Piccarda’s answer to Dante about being content is a well-known passage, and warrants quoting the entire speech.

Brother, the power of love subdues our will

so that we long for only what we have

and thirst for nothing else.

‘If we desired to be more exalted,

our desires would be discordant

with His will, which assigns us to this place.

‘That, as you will see, would not befit these circles

if to be ruled by love is here required

and if you consider well the nature of that love.

‘No, it is the very essence of this lessed state

that we remain within the will of God,

so that our wills combine in unity.

‘Therefore our rank, from height to height,

throughout this kingdom pleases all the kingdom,

as it delights the King who wills us to His will.

‘And in His will is our peace.

It is to that sea all things move,

both what His will creates and that which nature makes.’ (III.70-87)

The power of love subdues our will so that our blessed state depends on God’s will, and “in His will is our peace.”  St. Thomas Aquinas defines love as wanting the best for the other person.  We see it here in action.  Wanting others to have the highest grace is more important than we achieving the highest.  There is no envy, even though Piccarda was denied a higher place because of her brother’s despicable action and not through of her fault.

Dante's Paradiso Cantos I - V, Summary

Canto I

After Dante (the author, not the character) gives glory to God, he points out that one who returns from up high can neither fully explain nor fully grasp his experience, but he will do what he can.  In emulation of the classics, he invokes Apollo, the god of the sun, to help him in this effort.  It is now noon and Dante (the character) turns to loom at Beatrice, who is staring at the sun.  The light reflecting off her eyes pours into Dante’s soul so strongly that he can only sustain it for a short time.  But as he continues to gaze on her, he feels changed within.  Through her, he can see the heavens spinning like wheels, bright as the sun and on fire.  He feels his body lifting and asks, how could this be?  Beatrice explains that it is natural to be lifted toward the heavens, and that it is unnatural—because sin is the unnatural state in man—to be held down to earth.

Canto II

In a naval metaphor, Dante (the author) warns the reader that not all are fit to follow him on this journey.  Because of their innate thirst for God, the two pilgrims (Dante the character and Beatrice his guide) rise with the speed of an arrow shot to the first heavenly sphere, the moon.  Dante asks Beatrice, what do the dark spots on the moon signify?  She turns the question on him and asks him what he thinks they are.  After Dante answers incorrectly, Beatrice goes on to explain first why he is wrong (it has nothing to do with rare or dense matter) and second proposes an experiment of mirrors to arrive at the truth.  If the mirrors are staggered, then a light shining into them appears different size but the original light is the same for each mirror.  The differences in light and dark coloration on the moon is due to the different distribution of graces God has used to create the universe, though it’s the same light that shines on all.  It is the matter which has varying capacity to absorb it.

Canto III

As Dante was about to confess his error on the moon spots, he sees the outline of faces as if in the bottom of a pool of water.  The faces are all eager to speak to him.  Beatrice explains to him these beings are assigned under the sphere of the moon—the moon associated with inconstancy—because they in life failed in maintaining their vows.  She urges him to speak to them, and he finds the one who speaks back to be his cousin-in-law, Piccarda, mentioned in Purgatorio (cantos XXIII & XXIV) when Dante met her brother and his friend, Donato Farese.  In life she had vowed to be a nun but was forced out of the convent by her other brother to marry for political reasons.  Dante asks her if she is content to be in the lowest sphere of heavenly blessedness.  She responds that she has no desire for more, that she would not be blessed in the first place if her will was discordant with God’s.  She replies with the famous line, “In His will is our peace.”  She speaks of the spirit beside her, Constanza, the Empress and wife of Henry VI, who was also pulled out of a convent to marry.  So both have failed in keeping their religious vows, though both forced.  Piccarda then fades into the mist, singing Ave Maria.

Canto IV

Still at the sphere of the moon, Dante (the character) is perturbed by two equally perplexing implications of his encounter with Piccarda.  Beatrice reads his mind and formulates for him the two questions at the root of Dante’s confusion.  She answers the second question first by explaining that these souls do not reside in these heavenly spheres but appear to him at the sphere as a sign to reflect the distinct heavenly graces that people receive.  These spirits at the moon reside in Empyrean with all the other spirits in heaven but here reflect the lower rank they received.  This, she continues, is in complete contradiction to what is generally understood on earth.  He then answers the first question, pertaining to the justice of people forced from their vows being of lower rank.  It is true, they were forced, but nonetheless their wills to maintain their vows was incomplete.  Their will could have found an escape or even death to uphold their vows.  Satisfied, Dante asks a third question, can a person make up in some other way for a vow left unfulfilled?  Beatrice looked at Dante with eyes so radiant that it almost overpowered him.

Canto V

Beatrice first addresses Dante's inability to directly look at her, telling him that she has flamed out more brightly because having moved closer toward God, she has more perfect vision.  Then she reformulates his question on whether a vow left unfulfilled can be made up.  Beatrice explains that one's free will given to God in a sacred pledge, one sacrifices further freedom.  The only allowable substitution for an unfulfilled vow must be of a significantly greater vow granted through God's representative, the Church.  She cautions about making foolish vows.  As fast as an arrow shot the two rise up out of the moon and reach the sphere of Mercury.  He sees a number of spirits there as if they are fish in a pond, and one approaches to speak to him.  He tells Dante that he and the spirits around him are on fire from the light from heaven, and then asks Dante whether he would like to receive some of this light.  Dante responds that he doesn't know who the spirit is and why he is under the influence of this sphere.  With apparent joy, the spirit glows even brighter.