Dante and Beatrice find themselves surrounded by “many living lights of blinding brightness,” dancing around them

Paradiso, Canto X

By ROD DREHER 

In Canto X, Dante enters the sphere of the Sun. The blessed in this heaven exist beyond the Earth’s shadow. Here’s how the canto begins (the translation is Jean Hollander’s):

Gazing on His Son with the Love
the One and the Other eternally breathe forth,
the inexpressible and primal Power


made with such order all things that revolve
that he who studies it, in mind and in space,
cannot but taste of Him.

That’s beautiful poetry, but also a profound philosophical statement (if one that Orthodox Christians, who reject the innovation of the filioque, cannot entirely accept). The poet says that God, as the Holy Trinity (“an arithmetical paradox of theological fecundity,” says Giuseppe Mazzotta), infuses all Creation, and that the study of Creation and its order will cause one to “taste” (gustar) him.

Notice the verb here. We would have expected Dante to say “recognize,” or some variation on that. Instead, he speaks of a more direct sensual experience, a synaesthetic one. This, I believe, is a classic Thomistic point: that God may be experienced through reason, through the formal study of the material world. This is not something commonly believed today, at least not in the West, but it’s worth asking if the Scholastics granted reason too much power, or if we, over time, lost our ability to intuit the presence of divinity behind the veil of matter. In other words, did the Scholastics see more clearly, or do we?

Also note that Dante says the Father and the Son “eternally breathe forth” the primal power that moves the heavens and all creation. God did not create everything then step back from it. He is intimately and constantly involved with His work, because it was a work of Love.

Dante uses that opening to invite his readers to consider what we might think of as a crude medieval version of the anthropic principle: the philosophical conclusion, drawn from scientific observation, that the universe is designed for the emergence of life. He observes that if the movements in the heavens, of the Sun and the signs of the zodiac, were otherwise, life on earth would be very different, and poorer. We know, of course, that Dante is speaking in a mystical way here, attributing powers to the planets that they do not actually have. But don’t miss the deeper point he’s making: that the universe is the harmonious creation of a loving God, and that we may discern His nature and His presence in the design of nature. Dante the poet is not making a scientific claim here, but a philosophical one. He continues:

Stay on your bench now, reader,
thinking of the joy you have but tasted,
if, well before you tire, you would be happy.


I have set your table. From here on feed yourself…

Dante is so overcome with adoration of God’s handiwork in the heavens that he presents that knowledge as a feast to his readers. Here he’s saying, “I have drawn your attention to something that will satisfy both your spiritual appetite and your hunger for knowledge. But you have to taste it yourself if it is to do you any good.”

Dante writes of the Sun as a symbol of God Himself. This is rich, rich poetry:

Nature’s sublime and greatest minister,
who imprints Heaven’s power on the world
and in his shining measures out our time,


in conjunction with the place I note above, [i.e., earth]
was wheeling through those spirals
in which he comes forth earlier each day.


And I was in it, aware of my ascent
no more than one becomes aware
of the beginnings of a thought before it comes.

The Sun’s rising and setting tells us mortals that we live in time, but here, in the sphere of the Sun, Dante knows he has entered eternity, where time no longer exists. Time, in other words, is an illusion, but it’s one we must live with until we achieve greater unity with the Divine Light in heaven. More:

Whatever I saw within the sun, how shining
it must have been, for, when I entered,
it revealed itself, not by color, but by light.

This is important. Any distinctions the pilgrim Dante perceives in this sphere are distinctions of purity. The light is not refracted here through the past (purified) imperfections of our mortal natures, as in the previous spheres of heaven, but rather will be measured in degrees of pure light.

Suddenly, Dante and Beatrice find themselves surrounded by “many living lights of blinding brightness,” dancing around them, “their voices sweeter than the radiance of their faces.”

..........

Read more: www.theamericanconservative.com