Paradiso, Canto 21

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Summary

Dante and Beatrice have risen to the heaven of Saturn where the souls of the contemplatives, manifested as lights, are seen thronging upon the rungs of a golden ladder stretching into the heavens far beyond Dante’s sight. A soul draws near and, in answer to Dante’s question as to why God has assigned him to be his interlocutor, indicates the unfathomable depths of the mystery of predestination. Revealing himself as Peter Damian, he deplores the present degeneracy of his monastery at Fonte Avellana and rebukes the self-indulgence of modern prelates. Other souls, massing round him, utter so loud a cry of execration that Dante’s understanding is overwhelmed.

The Prepatory Lecture

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Questions for Reflection

• Why does Beatrice without her smile from Dante upon entering the heaven of Saturn? How is it related to the silence of this heaven? Why might Dante choose to depict the heaven of the contemplatives this way?
• Why do the contemplative souls manifest themselves on a ladder? Why do you think Dante describes the movement of the souls up the ladder as a “natural” instinct, like birds (rooks) rising in the morning? How is contemplation part of the natural purpose of the human creature?
• Who is Peter Damian and why is he the one who comes to speak to Dante? How does Dante’s first discussion with Peter indicate an unholy curiosity? And how does curiosity contrast with true contemplative knowledge?
• What does it mean for Dante to call Peter Damian “love” (82)? What does this tell us about the nature of contemplation?
• What is the relationship, as shown in the character of Peter Damian, between the contemplative and the  active lives (21.124ff)?

Paradiso, Canto 21 © Jan Hearn

The Images

The Heaven of Saturn: In the story, Saturn is the last of the seven planets on Dante’s journey into Heaven. In the allegory, Saturn figures the life of contemplation and ascetic abstraction from material things. In accordance with the teaching of the Church, Dante represents the contemplative life as higher than the life of action. It should not, however, be imagined that Dante advocated a withdrawal from worldly activity. The cause of God on earth has still to be furthered by the endeavour of men. In Canto xvii, when Dante becomes absorbed in the heavenly truth which he reads in the eyes of Beatrice she bids him turn and look upon the souls of Crusaders, moving, with the swift energy which characterized them, along the pattern of the Cross, for “not in her eyes alone is Paradise”. On the spiritual level, the ascent of Dante to the higher sphere of the contemplatives signifies the passing of the soul from active endeavour to a closer insight of the vision of God.

The Golden Ladder: The golden stair which Dante sees rising from Saturn into the infinite spaces above him is a traditional symbol of the life of contemplation or spiritual vision. Jacob’s ladder was quoted by preachers as a figure of monastic life and the angels of God “ascending and descending on it” were interpreted as signifying the monks who climbed by contemplation up to God and descended by compassion among men.

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