Paradiso: Canto XXVIII -- The Angelic Hierarchy

Aristotle describes the brave man as "fearless in face of a noble death, and of all emergencies that involve death" as St. George was when facing the chimeric dragon, and this definition of bravery as fearlessness is useful to those who believe in the eschatological banquet, for it proves their faith, hope, and love. Dante's flight toward the angel hierarchy in which that proof is being made is not through space, we have learned, so much as it is through the state of God's being, a state replete with angelic guards who are beings entirely oriented to God's will, their zeal having been tested in the furnace of the great rebellion. On seeing them, Dante attempts an image no other poet had ever attempted, to describe the hierarchies as revolving around God in a pattern where it seems to Dante that the greater angels are further away than the lesser. This is an optic illusion, Beatrice notes, in the same way that a building will appear on one side of the highway until the car draws near and that objects in the mirror will seem closer than they are. While God is but a point in the middle of these angelic spheres, he contains all of them, and the greater spheres, which are larger, seem further away because of their size, but that size is merely an image of their capacity, and inversely reflects their proximity to God. So much for Ciardi, who missed that entirely.



Verily, it is Thomas of Aquinas who has interpreted these angels for us, as he writes:

THE ANGELS (SPIRIT)SUBSTANCE: Their substance considered
absolutely (50), and in
relation to corporeal things, such as
bodies (51) and
locations (52). Their
local movement (53).

INTELLECT: His power
(54) and medium (55)
of knowledge. The immaterial
(56) and material (57)
objects known. The manner
(58) whereby he knows them.

WILL: The will itself
(59) and its movement, which is
love (60).

ORIGIN: How they were brought into
natural existence (61)
and perfected in grace (62).
How some of them became wicked: Their
sins (63) and
punishment (64).
S.