The 9 Spheres of Heaven - Paradiso

This is sort of like a part 2 to my other post about Purgatorio. Because it was a lot to put in one post, I broke it up into two.  Here, I will follow up by talking about Paradiso. Again, as I stated in my previous post, I wanted to research Purgatorio and Paradiso just out of curiousity after having just read a good portion of Inferno and taken a test on it.

Dante’s Paradiso is, obviously, Dante’s adventure through heaven with a final end goal of reaching God himself. Up until this point, Vergil has guided him in both Inferno and Purgatorio but he can not enter heaven since he is inelgible due to being a pagan that came before Christ was born. However, Dante is led by the woman he loves, Beatrice, instead. One thing I find interesting about Paradiso is the fact that most of the 9 spheres are named after Celestial Bodies: The Moon, Mercury, Venus, The Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn in that order for the first 7 levels, then the next levels are named the Fixed Stars and the Primum Mobile which is Latin and literally translates to “The First Moving Thing” (in this case it is talking about God since he was obviously the first bein to ever exist). For the 9 spheres of heaven, it doesn’t seem to have many benefits to being in a higher level than in a lower level except for the fact that the higher up you are, the closer you are to God which is reward enough for those in heaven. In fact, the article I read even describes the lowest level (The Moon) as the souls be “punished” to the lowest level of heaven due to failure to keep vows during their lives. However, the only punishment that they are receiving is that they are farthest from God. One of the most interesting levels I thought though was the Fixed Stars (the 8th sphere). Here, Dante is able to meet several biblical figures including the Virgin Mary and the Apostles Peter, John, and James. The final level, the Primum Mobile, only consists of 9 circles of Angels surrounding a bright light (God) and no humans but Dante is able to go there himself which I find interesting. Dante, with Beatrice, then ascends to the Empyrean, a level which is beyond the physical heavens. He is enveloped with light and finally visits God. This concludes the Divine Comedy. I find this very intriguing and I may read this as well as Purgatorio one day if I get the chance! For more information on Paradiso see the first link below. For more information on Purgatorio see my other blog post or the second link below.

Source:
https://historylists.org/art/9-spheres-of-heaven-dantes-paradiso.html

https://historylists.org/art/9-levels-of-purgatory-dantes-purgatorio.html