Paradiso: Paradise
                  As has been noted, the Paradisio is the poem of Dante's praise for God, as the very first word, Glory,  indicates. It give praise for how God has saved Dante from the torments of Hell and praise for how God has provided the means of removal of sin, and, above all, praise for the eternal wonder of Heaven promised to all who come to God, regardless of station. While there are different degrees of reward in heaven (the light shining more in some places, in other places less) the light of God still shines abundantly for all. This emphasis on light probably reflects the influence of the writings which go under the name of St. Dionysios the Areopagite, who was a Christian theologian of late antiquity quite influenced by Neo-Platonism. This emphasis on the wonder of light as symbolic of the truth of God is seen in the construction of Gothic cathedrals of the 11-13th century, with their wonderful stained glass windows.
               Dante admits here that his poetry is straining at the limits of what poetry can do, to try to express the inexpressible, and for many (especially modern non-Catholics) this is the least accessible part of the trilogy. In some ways too it is the most personal for Dante, as he locates important people from his past (like his great, great grandfather), and spends so much time with Beatrice. Further, since for Dante Catholic theology expressed the deepest truths of God, it is here that Dante gives us a far heavier concentration of Christian doctrine. It can be off-putting, but, remember, for Dante, this truth is glorious, for he really believes that God has given us this precise knowledge that we can be confident in, and use to gain our salvation. To appreciate Dante we must put aside the fact that our age is far, far less trusting of such religious knowledge. Thus this truth is not only the Church's truth, it has become Dante's own truth, around which he has constructed his own spiritual life.
               In many ways Paradise is the mirror image of Hell. Both are eternal states, whereas Purgatory is a temporary condition, a period of transition. In both place we have strong personalities. In Hell, it is the strong personalities and their qualities that, turned toward bad purposes, damned them. In Paradise these same qualities, turned to good purposes, have made various people into saints.
               In the first Canto Dante becomes disoriented by the vast increase of the sun's light, and hears a wonderful music, the Music of the spheres which is, according to Plato, the music each planet makes as it goes around the earth. Beatrice explains to him that the change is caused by the fact that they are rapidly arising upwards.  (For Illustration, click here.) Notice (middle of col. 1, page 251) the reference to the diversity of creation. This is an important point. For Dante heaven and God's system must combine both diversity and absolute order, and how God does this can only be understood though a mystic understanding that violates the realities of this world. For in heaven the rules of time and space do not strictly apply. Thus the souls we meet here are at one time in the different spheres of heaven that represent their different levels of accomplishment (just live the levels of Hell represented different levels of damnation), while at the same time they are all seated in the direct presence of God. God is both the center of the universe and the bound within which all the universe is contained.
               In Canto III Dante arrives at the sphere of the moon. The earth is the center of Dante's universe, followed by the spheres of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Sphere of the Fixed Stars, the Primum Mobile and the Empyrean.  (For illustration, click here. )  The moon, which changes, is inconstant, and here, at the lowest level, are those inconstant souls who did not fully follow their vows or obligations to God.  (For an interesting, if not quite accurate, illustration, click here) Think of how this level corresponds to those in Limbo who refused to commit to God or Satan and thus were damned, or those in the foothills of Purgatory who must wait a while because they were so slow to acknowledge God. In this sphere they meet Piccarda (bottom of 251, col. 2), a former nun who was forced out of the nunnery by her family to be married. In some sense Piccarda is supposed to correspond to Francesa, who we met in the circle of Hell devoted to those who sinned in lust. In Canto 4 Dante questions Beatrice about why Piccarda is in some way blameworthy (although all are in absolute contentment no matter where in Paradise they are) because she was forced by violence to leave the convent. The point Beatrice makes is that, while Piccarda never gave up her love of God, she was weak in making the proper resistance, and that is why she is in this state. The problem with Francesa in Hell is that she let erotic desire not only overpower her (as the violence of her relatives overpowered Piccarda) but also to turn her away from the truth, which Francesa never did. Where Francesa depicts love as a tyrannical power, Piccarda shows it to be the expression of a two-way relationship between the human will and that of God. The lie that sinners in Hell often tell themselves is that they were 'fated' to do what they did. But Dante insists that, at the very least, the human conscience is free, and while your body may be forced, you need not consent to evil.
               I leap ahead to Canto XXIV where Dante is being examined by St. Peter (not by St. Benedict. -- sorry.). In the intervening Cantos which I omitted Dante has seen much that he admits is only a figure, a symbolic reality to give the mere human mind something it can grasp, rather like pictures you see in science books of atoms which are really completely unlike the strange entities that modern physics describes.
               In the omitted Cantos Dante sees divisions of heaven; just as there are three parts to Hell and Purgatory, so there are three parts of Heaven. It is not until the poet rises to the sphere of the sun (the fourth sphere of Heaven, Canto X) that he and Beatrice move out of the shadow of the earth and into the region of uninterrupted light. The lower spheres and their inhabitants, however glorious, still have some trace of earthly weakness. In the second division that begins with the sphere of the sun Dante meets Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure, St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, St. Anselm, Donatus, Hugo of St. Victor and other important theologians of the Church who, while they and their followers were involved in often bitter quarrels, now dance together.
               In next sphere, the Sphere of Mars, Dante has a vision of Christ on the Cross and sees those who were warriors for God, especially Cacciaguida, Dante's great, great grandfather who established Dante's family in Florence and who died on a Crusade. Cacciaguida gives a description of early Florence, a place of virtue and self restraint, and thus shows Dante the true nature of Florence if it would only reform itself.
               In the sphere of Jupiter Dante sees the great rulers, who come together and spell out the command of divine justice and form the figure of great Eagle, which is a symbol of the Holy Roman empire. The point is that the earthly political order is a product of the will and intellect of God. Finally in the sphere of Saturn (the last planet according to medieval astronomy they didn't know about Uranus, Neptune and Pluto Dante meets the great ascetics and contemplatives who renounced the world and gained great mystic wisdom, such as Peter Damiano. Along with these insights about Christian wisdom there are many elaborate passages that point out the failing of the Church, lamentations over the decline of various governments and peoples, and some passages that deal darkly with Dante's coming exile, which his Christian faith, gained here, helped him endure.
               Once Dante leaves the last of the spheres of the planets, he comes to the third part of Heaven, that of the sphere of the Fixed Stars, the Primum Mobile and the Empyream, where God dwells beyond time. In these Cantos, as we shall see, there is much emphasis on the cult of the Virgin Mary.
               Just as Beatrice at the end of the Purgatorio must make Dante fully aware of his sins before he can have his true vision of Paradise, so in the sphere of fixed stars St. Peter, the first Catholic pope, to whom Christ gave the keys of heaven and earth, must examine Dante to prove he has a true understanding of Christian doctrine. The stars are in some sense part of this world, in that the stars are influences that help govern a person's life -- like the Church does, which is more important that the stars. Here Dante is questioned (col. 2, pg. 254) on what faith is, and then, on top of next page, whether Dante has it, and then from where Dante has gotten this faith. Dante replies to this question that he has gotten it from scripture. Then, when St. Peter asks how Dante believes the scripture prove this, he answers that is it on account of the miracles. When St. Peter asks why Dante believes the miracles even happened, Dante points out that it would be more a miracle than any miracle described in the Bible for the Christian church to have succeeded without any miracles. Dante's final answer about what he believes is a paraphrase of the Nicene Creed which you saw on page 148 of your packet. What we should understand here is that Dante is not examined to actually prove that he believes he would not be in heaven if he did not believe but rather to joyously affirm the truth that has saved his life and given salvation, through the Church, to all humankind.
               Dante next ascends to the Primum Mobile (= the prime mover). I suspect this feature is linked to Aristotle's science, who saw heavenly motion as originating from a 'prime mover', in this case the last material outer sphere, beyond the stars, which is featureless. In this sphere, in Cantos I have omitted, Dante is examined by St. James on the virtue of Hope, and St. John gives Dante a vision and an examination of the doctrine of Divine Love. After this, Dante meets Adam; as Cacciaguida was the founder of Dante's family, Adam is the founder of the whole human race, the supreme mortal founder, so to speak. Adam tells Dante some fascinating facts about the history of Eden, as well as about the fall of the Angels. Thus Dante's poetic and theological imagination shows its great sweep as it sums up all human and divine history.
                    In Cantos XXVII XXXIII Dante receives the final vision of Heaven and a direct, mystic view of God. In XXVII Dante sees a vision of the whole cosmos with God as a dimensionless point of light surrounded by nine rings of angels, the more important angels the closest inside,. a picture which in some way is also a reverse of the universe Dante has seen before,. which brings before us the paradox that, as we go further outward and get, in a sense closer to God, we also arrive closer to the center of creation. Remember, space and time in heaven are only symbolic creations. Dante also sees the nine orders of angels who are grouped in three groups of threes -- Seraphim, Cherubim Thrones -- Dominions, Virtues and Powers -- Principalities, Archangels and Angels. This classification of angels again owes much to Christian neo-Platonism and St. Dionysios the Areopagite.  (For illustration, click here.)
                    In Canto XXX Dante begins to ascend to the final realm of heaven, the Empyrean, which lies beyond the circle of fixed stars. Since this represents an even higher level of reality, Dante is blinded, but is given a vision of a river of light, which he drinks from, just as he drank from the rivers of Paradise. Now, with this new vision, Dante can see true heaven, not the cosmological heaven, where rest the planets and the stars, but the heaven that is purely spiritual and the true home of God, the angels and the saints. It is pictured as a great Rose, with the petals like the sections of a great theater, in which all the souls sit.
                    In Canto XXXI Dante has a vision of the two hosts (groups) of heaven. In the center of the rose are those souls who were once people and now are saved and occupy their true places in heaven. The second group are the angels who have never left heaven. and who fly around the Rose like bees, who shuttle between the Rose and the 'hive' which is God. It is at this point that Beatrice in turn leaves Dante and takes her proper place in the Rose. In her place comes St. Bernard (the Old Man of the bottom of col. 2, page 259), a follower of St. Francis who was extremely important for the development of the doctrine of the Virgin Mary as almost a co-redemptor of the human race, which became extremely popular in the Middle Ages and deeply influenced Dante Bernard was also a mystic, and thus it is fitting that he leads Dante to the final mystic vision of Heaven which is linked to the Virgin Mary.
                    In Canto XXXII Bernard gives Dante a view of the seating arraignments of the Great Rose -- St. Mary, St. John the Baptist, various Christian saints and those who died in anticipation of the Coming of Christ. The poem ends with Bernard leading a hymn to the Virgin Mary, which is also a prayer to the Virgin to give Dante the aid to achieve the final vision. .
                    She does respond. In the final Canto Dante must repeatedly beg us to forgive his limitations as he tries to describe in poetry the indescribable sight of God, of unity in complexity, of infinite knowledge and love, of Love that creates, binds together, animates and renews all creation for all time and beyond time, that Form that is the primal model for all things, which contains all things, which desires the absolute good for all things and beings, which is both the center and the outer edge of the circle, and that Love that moves the Sun and other stars.

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