Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Paradiso, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Earthly and Heavenly Justice
Creation and God’s Providence
God’s Character and Will
Vision, Knowledge, and the Pursuit of God
Language and the Ineffable
Summary
Analysis
After drawing strength from Beatrice’s lovely gaze, Dante sees reflected in her eyes a small, single point of light with fire whirling around it. Dante counts a total of nine rings circling around the single point, each turning more slowly than the one before it. Dante is confused by this sight—to his senses, it seems that the Primum Mobile moves slowest, the outermost spheres the fastest—so Beatrice enlightens him. She explains that the size of each sphere corresponds to the diffusion of God’s power within it. So although the Primum Mobile looks like a small, slow circle from this perspective, it is actually the sphere which “most loves and knows” and speeds accordingly.
The small point of light represents God, the rest of his creation moving around him. The number nine was sacred to Dante, with its evocation of the Trinity (three substances interlinked in one perfect harmony). The nine spheres, and the nine hierarchies of angels corresponding to them, communicate God’s power throughout the rest of creation. Dante comes to understand that, somehow, the seemingly smallest and simplest point in Heaven is actually the most expansive of the heavenly spheres that he can perceive.
Themes
Beatrice then identifies the various angelic powers that inhabit the spheres, beginning with the Cherubim, Seraphim, and Thrones. Each of these powers, she explains, has different levels of knowledge of God (depth of sight). The next triad includes powers known as Dominations, Virtues, and Powers, and the final triad contains Principalities, Archangels, and Angels. All these powers are constantly drawn up to God, drawing all of creation up with them.
In Dante’s time, the various angelic powers were associated in Christian tradition with the functioning of the heavenly spheres—one type of angelic power corresponding to each sphere. The specifics of these powers are less important than what they represent more broadly for Dante: God’s providence. The angelic powers are agents of God’s power throughout creation. Their variety and different levels of knowledge and power represent God’s power working in diverse ways throughout creation. All the angelic beings are powered by God’s love for the sole purpose of drawing the entirety of creation back to himself.
Themes
