This is the third installment of Paradiso, the last 11 cantos from 23 to 33. This also marks the end of the entire Divine Comedy.
I started the journey back in May 2024, simply hoping to read the work in Italian. I had read it years ago in English, but having a lot more Italian by now, thought I’d be ready to just write some translated words in the margins and get through it. I was wrong.
I struggled so much with understanding it, even when I had gotten the translations of vocabulary, that I was forced to translate the entire canto into English. That’s when I knew this was going to be a much longer process than I had planned. But I set to it, and honestly, it may one of the things I’m most proud of in my life.
So here are the last canto summaries of Paradiso.
Canto XXIII
The eighth sphere: the fixed stars- mystics cont.
Dante had been staring at Beatrice when he notices she is intently looking upward. So he pulls his attention away from her and stares too, when she declares the procession of the triumph of Christ and his saints gathered through the ages. He is given a glimpse of Jesus and at this, his eyes are strengthened to now see Beatrice’s smile, as well as what this sphere contains. Dante pleads with the reader to understand that he is unable to the greatness of what he is seeing because it is beyond words.
He sees Mary and the apostles, and the ranks of shining souls with them. Mary is the most resplendent of the souls, having been the greatest both on earth, and here in heaven, of humans. The angel Gabriel crosses the space and surrounds Mary with what appears as a crown, but which emits a music more beautiful than Dante can describe. At this point, Mary and Jesus ascend upwards, with the rest of the spirits calling out the name of Mary. Dante is unable to see the Primum Mobile, where they ascend to, so they disappear from sight, but the remaining souls watch and lift their flames towards Mary in deep love for her.
The canto ends with a description of the souls as a rich abundance, those who now experience the treasure they had forsaken on earth, with Peter, holding the keys to such glory.
Canto XXIV
The eighth sphere: the fixed stars- mystics cont.
Beatrice leads this canto off by asking the spirits there to allow Dante to taste of what they know since he ardently desires to know. The souls group into circles of dancers, some moving slowly and others quickly, and the brightness and rapidity of their dancing is due to their worth. Out of these, St Peter presents himself as the brightest, and Beatrice tells him to question Dante on matters of faith.
He begins by asking Dante what faith is, to which Dante responds with the formulation of Hebrews 11:1- Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.
Peter accepts the standard answer, but only on the grounds that Dante understand why faith was first seen as a substance, then as evidence. Dante responds that faith is our foundation, therefore a substance, but once accepted, we argue from it, so it takes the form of evidence.
Peter accepts that Dante understands what it is, but then wants to know if Dante himself has faith, and when Dante proclaims yes, Peter asks where Dante’s faith came from.
Dante responds that the Bible is the basis of his faith.
Peter asks Dante why he accepts the Bible as the word of God, and Dante responds that the miracles that followed it could not have been produced by men, therefore it must be divine.
Peter pushes him on that though, and asks how Dante knows the reports are true, since it is the Bible itself that says those things. Dante answers that the men that produced them had nothing to gain from it, and more than that, it cost them dearly to follow it.
Peter accepts this, but then wants to know about Dante’s personal faith: how did Dante come to it?
Dante responds that he believes in one God, creator of everything, of which Dante himself has both physical and metaphysical proofs, that show through every part of the bible: He believes in the Trinity.
This pleases the heavenly company and Peter rejoices.
Canto XXV
The eighth sphere: the fixed stars- mystics cont.
Dante begins with the admission that desperately would love to return to Florence, and he is hoping that the Divine Comedy would obtain him enough glory to change the minds of those who have exiled him. He is excited that Peter has acknowledged his responses as adequate, when the apostle James steps forward, greets Peter, then is addressed by Beatrice, who asks James to now question Dante on hope. James, recognizing that God himself has desired Dante to ascend to the highest ranks of heaven, he asks Dante to tell 1) what hope is, 2) how it has adorned Dante’s own mind, and 3) where it comes from (for Dante personally). Beatrice jumps in to answer the second, since it might appear arrogant for Dante to answer it himself, but she relies on the very fact that Dante has ascended to this very place on the journey through the realms of hell, purgatory, and now heaven. Then she says Dante himself can answer the other two questions. Dante answers the first question by reciting that hope is the certain expectation of future glory, which produces divine grace and merits that precede it. He has learned this first from the Psalms, but also James’ own epistle. The apostle then wants to know how it is the Dante delights in hope and how it has come to him. Dante answers the third question by stating that both the Old and New Testaments testify to the promises to those that God calls friends. Isaiah says we will receive two garments: a soul AND a renewed body, which the apostle John, James’ brother, testifies to in the book of Revelation.
At this point, an even brighter light comes down to join them, the apostle John. Dante struggles to see through the light if John has a body, and is temporarily rendered blind by the effort. John asks Dante why he does this. The reason is the legend that perhaps John didn’t die, at which point he would been merely assumed up to heaven and therefore have his body. But John puts this to rest himself when he tells Dante that his body is dust in the earth like all other men’s bodies. Only two in heaven have their bodies now- Jesus and Mary, and John wants Dante to carry this information back to earth.
The canto ends with Dante blinded.
Canto XXVI
The eighth sphere: the fixed stars- mystics cont.
Dante has been temporarily blinded by trying to see if John had a body. He is assured by John that it is only temporary, but while he is waiting to recover his sight, John questions Dante on love, the third of the theological virtues. John first asked about where Dante’s soul is pointed, what is its focus. Dante says the Lord is the beginning and end, the only real focus of our love, which is shown through things great and small. John says he’s going to have to get a little more specific with his answer, so who, or what, has directed him towards God? Dante answers that both philosophical arguments as well as the scriptures inspire love, and the better the thing, the more it inspires love towards God. Dante then gives Aristotle’s argument that a discerning mind would see that the world reveals God as the first love and superior Essence, and that anything outside of God is a mere reflection of light. Next he states God himself, when he tells Moses that he would cause all His goodness to pass before Moses. So that God reveals all his goodness to those that ask. Next he quotes the apostle John himself, who wrote at the beginning of his Gospel about Jesus, having come from heaven to be our salvation- the supreme example of love.
John then says that he understands Dante accepts the scriptures and human reasoning that points to loving God, but what else, since he desires to know all that has drawn Dante towards love of God.
Dante answers that everything that could turn a heart towards God has contributed to his love: the existence of the world, Dante’s own existence, Jesus’ death on the cross so we could be saved, and the hope of salvation. He also has a love for all the believers within the world.
At this, the heavens resound with the familiar “holy, holy, holy”, and at that point, Dante is healed from his blindness as Beatrice sweeps the impurity from his eyes.
He can see even better than before, but then notices a fourth light among them and asks who it is.
Beatrice tells him that this is Adam, the first man. Dante is dying to ask some questions, and Adam, without hesitation, states what Dante’s questions are: How long has it been since Adam was in the garden; How long he was in the garden; Why he was kicked out; and What language he invented and spoke.
Adam answers the second question first: he wasn’t exiled for eating the fruit of the tree, it was the sin of transgressing the limits set on him. Then he says he waited 4,302 years in limbo, before Jesus came through hell to lead the OT saints out. So from the time he died, until Jesus’ death on the cross was 4302 years. Then he says he himself lived for 930 years, so a total of 5232 years from his death until the cross. (if we add in the 1266 years mentioned in Inferno 21, we get 6,498 years to the time Dante is asking the time Dante asks the question.
Adam then says the language he spoke disappeared long before people attempted the tower of Babel. For even though the world all spoke the same language, language still changed, and so Adam’s original tongue was lost.
Adam then mentions that God was called simply “I” before he had died, but then later became El. This little detail, completely unconfirmed anywhere, was perhaps made up to show some sort of complexity added to language.
Finally, Adam relates that it took only 6 hours to get kicked out of the garden of Eden. They were out by just past noon.
Canto XXVII
The eighth sphere: the fixed stars- mystics cont.
Dante has passed the third and final test and heaven erupts into a song. Then Peter steps forward again and pronounces against the papacy, saying they usurp his seat, which God considers vacant. They have made Rome a sewer of corruption that even Satan would be satisfied with. The early popes were not martyred so that these could chase after earthly riches, but they were faithful unto death so they could acquire this blessed life in heaven. They never had any intention that Christians should be divided into Guelph and Ghibelline, nor that the symbol of the pope should be used to war against baptized believers; nor should the seal be used to sanction falsified and purchased privileges. French popes are preparing to live off the life of Rome, and the papacy, having started so well, has fallen to such vile ends, but soon this will come to an end. Dante is then exhorted to reveal all of this as it has been revealed to him.
Then the lights drift up and away. Beatrice encourages Dante to look down again to see his progress, and he notices that about 6 hours have passed. He then turns his attention again to Beatrice and her look gives him the power to ascend again.
The ninth sphere: the Primum Mobile- the angels.
Dante finds himself in an empty realm where there are no stars or planets with which to establish his position. Beatrice tells him this is the highest sphere, which holds the earth in its center and moves the other spheres around it. God is what holds the ninth sphere in place. The other spheres draw their motion and time from this sphere.
Then Beatrice speaks against greed, that drowns mortals so that they can’t rise up again. Men desire good, but continual rain, representing the continual influence of corruption, transforms good fruit into bad. These two terzine use water as drowning and spoiling to illustrate the effects of greed.
Faith and innocence are found only in babes, and as soon as they grow, they flee from that purity. Two terzine are used to show corruption: the first is that babes will fast, but then turn from it as they age, and then the second is that babes will listen to and love their mothers, but then wish for her death as they get older. Neither of these is meant to show that children are born holy, the point is to show that the child’s will is untested, but is corrupted through the world.
Men are drawn away by temptations and their purity is darkened, but since the earth has rejected God as its leader, men are led astray. But before 9000 years (a long time), these higher spheres will again exert their influences, a storm will come that will right the ships, and the fleet will sail on a just course again, and good fruit will come from the flower.
Canto XXVIII
The ninth sphere: the Primum Mobile- the angels cont.
Dante and Beatrice, entering the Primum Mobile, have passed the realm of humans, into the abode of the angels. This realm is spiritual, and so the descriptions are more abstract in nature. This canto starts off with a description of an infinitesimally small point of light that is so bright, Dante can’t keep his eyes on it. Around it are 9 concentric circles of fire. The closest to the point are the brightest and purest and fastest moving. Dante grasps what it represents, but also can’t accord what he sees with the model of the universe, which has earth at the center, and successively larger spheres enclosing the smaller, and finally the Empyrean, which encloses all. Beatrice sees he is confused as to how to reconcile these two opposite visions and explains.
She starts with the model of the physical universe, explaining that in the physical universe, the larger bodies are due to the greater goodness that exerts a greater influence. But without resolving the contradiction in the two physical depictions, she notes that in the spiritual depiction, the concentric circles that are closest to the point, representing God, are thus the brightest and purest.
God is, in this way, represented as both a single point, and the center, in the spiritual depiction, but also the all-encompassing sphere of the Empyrean in the physical depiction.
The angelic beings, their orders represented by the concentric circles, are like humans in that they are given grace and intellect, and this results in a merit that allows them more or less vision of God, drawing them closer to Him according to this merit.
Beatrice then describes the hierarchy of Angels as: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels, and Angels.
Canto XXIX
The ninth sphere: the Primum Mobile- the angels cont.
Dante and Beatrice are looking at the point of light, when Beatrice says she will answer some questions Dante has about the angelic orders. God created simply to express His splendor, and did so by shining His light through creation. There was no time prior to creation, God existed timelessly before that point.
His creation consisted of pure form, which would be spirit with no matter, pure matter, which is really only the metaphysical potential of matter, and the combination of the two, which is the physical universe in all its diversity. The pure activity of form takes the highest place closest to God, pure potential matter takes the lowest, and the created universe is between the two.
The world was created in an instant- including the angels and their respective orders. Jerome thought there was a no lapse of time between the creation of the angels and the creation of the physical universe, but that isn’t correct. The purpose of the angels was the movement of the spheres, so they would not have been created and left with no purpose.
However, very shortly after creation, a part rebelled, while those Dante sees there still in Heaven, remained humble enough, and that humility granted them an exalted view of God. It was this humility that merited an additional grace, which perfects their nature, and grants them their view of God.
Various human schools teach differently, but they are wrong about, for instance, the memory of angels. Angels have no need of memory since they eternally keep their eyes focused on the unchanging God.
But humans have come up with all sorts of invented ideas, mostly as a way to try and exalt themselves, which takes away from the Gospel. But neglecting the Gospel is a very serious crime.
The number of angels is unknowable, but creation, including the angels, is all a way for God to showcase His unity through diversity.
Canto XXX
The ninth sphere: the Primum Mobile- the angels cont.
Dante sees the angelic realms from the Primum Mobile fade from sight little by little, until finally, nothing left to see, and his love for Beatrice, turns his mind back to her. At this point, her beauty is completely beyond his ability to describe. Beatrice pulls his attention to what is happening, as they have ascended beyond the Primum Mobile to the Empryean.
The tenth sphere: the Empyrean
This is a purely spiritual sphere, where, as in the Primum Mobile, there really isn’t a physical existence, but it is a realm of light. Beatrice does mention, however, that Dante will see both ‘armies’ of heaven- the saints as well as the angels, and he’ll actually see the saints in their embodied forms, which is some sort of miracle, since they won’t have physical bodies until the resurrection at the last judgment.
Suddenly Dante is wrapped up in a blanket of light, which both welcomes him into the Empyrean, and enables his eyes to adjust to the increased brightness. Now he is able to see what he describes as a river of light, and on both sides appear banks covered in flowers as in an eternal spring. Living sparks come from the water and settle all over the flowers like rubies in gold settings. Then they jump back into the river, described as a vortex, again. Beatrice knows that Dante wants to understand this, but the only way he can do so is to “drink” the water. But drinking is symbolic here for staring deeply into the light. She adds that what he sees as sparks and flowers are in fact only foreshadowing of the true nature of what he sees. Dante quickly complies and as he does so, the river seems to transform from flowing in a line, to flowing in a circle. The sparks and flowers are revealed to be both hosts of heaven: saints and angels.
There in the Empyrean is a type of light that makes God visible to the creature that desires only to see God. It extends in a wide circumference that would encircle the Sun. It is visible only by light reflected off the outer surface of the Primum Mobile, which itself, takes its life/movement and power/influence, from God’s presence. Dante uses the picture of hillsides visible in the reflection in the water at their base, to describe an enormous rose, which he describes as something like a stadium, with more than a thousand levels expanding up and out. The distances meant nothing since the laws of physics don’t apply here, but from the center emanates an aroma of praise to God.
Beatrice tells Dante to see how vast this is, and that there are very few seats left before the final number is fulfilled. Then she notes a throne in the center where Henry VII would sit, and reunite Italy under an Emperor. But blind greed stands in the way, that causes men on earth to push this away, even though it would be what saves them. The false pope Clement V is saying one thing publicly, but privately undermining God’s plan, but while this will be tolerated for a short time, he will soon be in the level of Hell holding the Simonists.
Canto XXXI
The tenth sphere: the Empyrean, cont.
Dante sees the saints in the stadium like seating arrangement he compares to an enormous rose, and the angels that fly from God to the saints, like bees, bringing love and peace. Dante references the northern barbarians coming to Rome and seeing the wonders of Roman civilization as a comparison for how he himself felt coming from the human to the divine, from time to eternity, and from the filth of Florentine politics to just and sane people. He has taken it all in and turns to ask Beatrice some things, only to find that she is no longer there. Bernard of Clairvaux has taken her place. Dante doesn’t know who he is, but wonders what has happened to her. The old man tells him she has returned to her place, but that she may be seen from where Dante is. Dante offers a moving thank you and prayer for Beatrice, whose efforts have rescued him and brought him to this point. She acknowledges his thanks and turns her attention again to God.
Bernard states that he will bring Dante’s journey to completion, and introduces himself. Dante is intrigued to see him face to face, but Bernard encourages him to instead turn to Mary, who is seated on high. Dante notes that there is a glow coming from her that he likens to the Sun rising from the east.
There are thousands of angels rejoicing at her and Dante turns his attention to her.
Canto XXXII
The tenth sphere: the Empyrean, cont.
Bernard gives an abbreviated listing of some important names in the rose/stadium of the Empyrean.
Right below Mary is Eve, under her is Rachel, with Beatrice next to her, then, in order moving down: Sara, Abraham’s wife, Rebecca, Isaac’s wife, Judith, heroine of the apocryphal work of Judith, and Ruth, great-grandmother of King David, below this are unnamed Hebrew women. The entire rose/stadium is bisected with Old Testament saints, who looked forward to the coming Messiah on one side, and New Testament saints on the other side, who could confess Jesus as savior.
The rose/stadium is the perpendicularly bisected again with women on one side, and the men on the opposite side, but still following the Old/New Testament division. Notable on the men’s side are John the Baptist, St Francis of Assisi, St Benedict, and St Augustine.
Then Bernard points out another bisecting line, this one dividing the upper seats from the lower. On the lower half are the souls of those children who were ‘innocent’- not old enough to make their own choices. But Bernard sees that Dante is not voicing a question: how can children who are here apart from any merits, be placed in some sort of dividing order? The basic answer is that God creates individual humans for his own purposes and gives them various capacities. No further answer should be sought. Bernard notes that a Biblical example of this is given in the Isaac and Rebecca’s twins: Jacob and Esau. They struggled in the womb with each other, and this would have been before either reached an age of being able to freely choose on their own. Yet the prophet Malachi elaborates that God himself chose Jacob because he loved him, and rejected Esau because he hated him. Paul quotes this passage too. Bernard explains that the faith of the parents was the rule before the law, then after the law it was circumcision, at least for males. Then after Christ came, it was infant baptism. But at this point, Bernard tells Dante to turn his eyes towards Mary, because only looking into her light, can he be prepared to see Christ.
Dante sees the angel Gabriel hovering near her.
Bernard quickly mentions some of the male notable saints: Adam and Peter on the Old and New Testament sides, then the Apostle John next to Moses.
He points out Anna, the mother of Mary, St Lucy next to Beatrice, but then prepares Dante to penetrate into the splendor of God as much as possible. They get ready to pray, and here the canto ends
Canto XXXIII
The tenth sphere: the Empyrean, cont.
Bernard begins his prayer to Mary, asking her to give Dante strength to move to the final visions of his journey, where he would peer into the light of God himself. The rest of the saints join this prayer and Mary consents. Dante then looks into the light and joins with the omnipotence. As he looks, he sees a unity that shows Dante how it contains everything. Dante of course lets us know that he can’t describe more than a touch of what he saw, but he goes on to describe three circles of light, and the second one, seeming to contain a human semblance, which we recognize as Jesus.
The canto, the book, and in fact the entire Divine Comedy, closes with Dante letting us know that his desire and will have now been turned back to God, the Love that moves the sun and stars.
We had initially found him in a dark forest, about ready to be lost, when he was sent help. He has been helped and moved back onto the true path.