Paradiso: Ascent to Jupiter

2005-04-13T16:22:00.000-07:00

In taking his leave of Cacciaguida, Dante first witnesses the lights of the cross in form and name, among whom are included Joshua, Maccabee, Charlemagne, Roland, William of Orange, Rinoard, Godfrey, Robert Guiscard, and, likely, Saint Martin I, the last of the early papal martyrs, before his ascent to the sphere of Jupiter, the last of the planetary spheres and the last, also, of this tercet, which includes the Sun, Mars, and Jupiter, or Knowledge, Power, and Justice, in which power rests only on knowledge, and justice, only on power.

We've already learned on our way up the mountain that the souls are not being oppressed by the weight of their sin; rather, they are experiencing the filling of the deficits in the virtues that correspond to those sins. Virtues, then, "are neither passions nor faculties," as Aristotle writes, but "states of character." They are impalpable things upon which the quality of the soul rests so that those who are endowed with virtue might best use it to orientate themselves to God. Through the five previous spheres of heaven, we've noticed that in each sphere, the inhabiting souls collectively have a unique character so that the corollary to Aristotle is also present -- that states of character are representative of specific virtues. While individual souls had no problem representing the minor virtues, moreover, and each of the souls in any given sphere were all held under its influence and impressed their image upon it, in the sphere of Jupiter, the cardinal virtues must be represented as collective entities, and it is for this reason that the eagle will speak as one creature after forming himself out of the lights of those within his company in such a way that he is both a visual and an acoustic event.

S.

Heaven: Canto 18 -- The Sixth Heaven: Jupiter

Paradiso: Ascent to Jupiter