Paradiso, Canto 12

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Summary

At the conclusion of St Thomas’s discourse, the circle of lights begins once more to revolve and is itself encircled by a second ring of twelve more lights. One of the new arrivals, St Bonaventure, the Franciscan, extols the life and works of St Dominic, just as, in the preceding canto, St Thomas, the Dominican, has extolled St Francis. Finally, St Bonaventure names himself and the other lights that circle with him.

The Prepatory Lecture

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Questions for Reflection

• What is the second wheel of solar souls that appear after Aquinas finishes his speech? What is the relationship of the second wheel to the first (12.1-21)?
• The song that Dante hears filling this heaven “far excels our muses and our sirens” (12.7-8). Dante has used these terms to great effect in previous episodes in the Commedia. Why use them here and now? Does heavenly reality for Dante destroy or fulfill natural or pagan wisdom? What might this mean for Virgil?
• What beautifies St. Bonaventure, who offers an account of the life of St. Dominic (12.31-33)? How is St. Dominic similar to St. Francis? How are they and their ministries different? How do we make sense of Dante’s praise of Dominic’s campaign against the Albigensian heresy?
• “What once I was, I am” (12.123). What point is Bonaventure making with this line? How does Dante show us grace making us more truly ourselves?
• For those with some knowledge of the medieval theological tradition, you might note that Thomas Aquinas is placed next to his theological antagonist Siger of Brabant, and Bonaventure is placed next to his theological antagonist, Joachim de Fiore. What is Dante trying to communicate to his readers by placing these intellectual disputants together in Paradise?

Paradiso, Canto 12 © Jan Hearn

The Images

The Heaven of the Sun: See Canto x, under Images.

The second circle of twelve lights: The second garland of lights, which, at the conclusion of St Thomas’s discourse, encircles the first, consists of a further twelve spirits, most of whom were followers of St Francis. By the perfect accord and harmony between the two circles, compared to the co-ordination of two eyes which open and shut in obedience to a single controlling mind, Dante conveys his conception of the divine union and inter-relation of love and learning, of seraphic ardour and cherubic insight, the former being born of the latter, since, in the Thomist theology, knowledge of God precedes love. In the lesser, historical, sense, this image, suggesting an ideal partnership between these and other Orders, rebukes all worldly rivalry between the ideals of renunciation and of learning.

St Dominic: The founder of the Dominican Order is presented, together with St Francis, as one of the two champions divinely destined to rally the straggling army of Christ. His story, as related by the Franciscan, St Bonaventure, is one of loving self-surrender to the combat for the Faith, to which he brought the relentless weapons of his zeal and learning. By his victory over heresy, the Christian faith was and still continues to be restored and invigorated.

Tom LA Books