Paradiso: Canto X, Doctors of the Church

Thomas Aquinas, immortalized by Dante only a couple of years before his canonization by the Church, expresses his welcome and identifies those among the first garland of the sun's souls. Having risen above Venus, Dante and Beatrice are no longer in the shadow of the earth, so we can note the first division of heaven to be within this canto -- whereas those souls existing in the sphere of the moon, of Mercury, and of Venus were souls more engaged in terrestrial affairs (inconstancy, honour, and amorousness) than in spiritual affairs, these souls of the sun were more engaged in theological concerns than they were in concerns of a terrestrial nature. For that reason, Dante sees them not as persons so much as a garland. The human form begins to fade into sheer light at this point in our escapade.



That these souls are actively dancing, pausing only long enough to address Dante and filled with their continued dance, is measured fairly against Aristotle's assertion that happiness is an activity and that he who is truly happy will always be so because he will have the attitude toward life that perpetuates his bliss even if he meets with ill-fortune. In the same measure, the Church had begun its meeting with ill-fortune at the time of Dante's writing with the planting of the seed of Church schism in the move of the papacy to Avignon, something St. Vincent Ferrer would help end and an event that would have repercussions until the Council of Constance in 1417 consolidated the three papacies that would eventually arise from this move into only one papacy reinstalled in its rightful place in Rome. The Church Triumphant, however, proves its resilience as a truly happy (activity filled) entity, meaning that regardless of the ill-fortune into which its members fall, all who are united to God through the Church can never fail in happiness.

S.