Canto XXIX of Paradise
image Pui-Mun

The angelic hierarchies.
Christ did not tell to His disciples: Go and preach nonsenses.

Quando ambedue li figli di Latona, coperti del Montone e de la Libra, fanno de l'orizzonte insieme zona, quant'è dal punto che 'l cenìt inlibra infin che l'uno e l'altro da quel cinto, cambiando l'emisperio, si dilibra, tanto, col volto di riso dipinto, si tacque Beatrice, riguardando fiso nel punto che m'avea vinto. Poi cominciò: «Io dico, e non dimando, quel che tu vuoli udir, perch'io l'ho visto là 've s'appunta ogne ubi e ogne quando.


RETURN TO THE PORTAL OF HELL


Jeanne kept silent for a very short moment, her face always smiling, she looked fixedly at the Point which had overcome her eyes. She says then: "I will tell you what you want to hear, without asking it to you, because I saw it where come merging space and time. God created the angels in an act of love, a pure act which does not have any equal in your vulgar thoughts; not to acquire a good, nor to mislead the eternal inertia, but to enjoy the infinite presence of a being, having the pure form, the pure matter, the form and the matter joined together: the three substances of Love joined together in an angelic loving Creature. Thus, the effect of the triple form radiated with its Progenitor, in the plenitude of its being, without one being able to distinguish the beginning nor the moment of the conception. But the truth is that the angels came to fill the skies, of which they are the driving Intelligences. You know now where, when and how, these lovers were created so that in your being, three of your desires are filled; I beg you, my very dear but vilain Marco, do not confuse here these desires, with those of carnal essence which fill your spirit with fog. ll was not necessary to await for the birth of the angels for that some disturbed the purity of the Act. It is in the Divine Ovula that the combat between Him and Her took place, to know who would deserve to share, for Eternity, the loving fervous of the Supreme Being. Thus what was to be a Singular being became a double nature; she remained faithful, he became unfaithful, and this miracle is reproduced simultaneously on earth, at the moment of the copulation of the male with the female. These substances, which have enjoyed the vision of God, did not divert any more their sight of her to whom nothing can be hidden; and the others, who acts like being Him, lost forever the vision of the God of Love, to whom only remains the memory of Him. Now that you understood my words well, you can, without my assistance, contemplate completely what hides behind this mystery. But because on earth, one reads in your schools that the nature of the angels is, like that of man, provided with an intelligence, a memory and will, I want to release you from these ambiguities. These substances, after they enjoyed the vision of God, did not divert any more their sight of Him, to whom nothing can be hidden; over there, one dreams without sleeping, the ones believing, the others not believing saying the truth; but there is in one case more fault and shame that in the other. You have on earth another way in your philosophical reasoning, so much far from the Truth; how much runs there the blood of those one believes that they believe in something else, whereas only their words differ from yours; why overcome and convince with the idea to propagate your only truth, to propagate your inventions and your preachings so far from the lesson of the Gospel, which wants that one approaches Her with humility? Christ did not tell to His disciples: "Go and preach any nonsenses." But He provided them with the base of the Truth, which resounded so much on their lips that their combat to enlight the faith, became a holy war; they made of the Gospel their lances and their shields. Now, they go preaching buffoonery in which hides the vilain spirit of the Bird, and if population resist to the stupidity, the weapons speaks in the name of the Sacred Book." Jeanne stopped talking lengthily, she seemed sad then she began again: "Let us forget, if you want it well, this long digression and let us return to our subject. It was said that this angelic nature multiplied so much in numbers, that never the thought nor the language of men could have established determine their number. The first Light, which illuminates this very whole nature, is received by Her in a Singular manner so that, whatever the number of the angels, it is reduced to only one Entity, given that between one and the other there is no differentiated nature. I give you thus, the example, for better let me comprehensible to your blunt spirit, of a crowd which on earth, would be made up of individuals with various appearances, having in theory each one his own intelligence, but which, joined together in a compact crowd, behind a banner, an idea, a common cause, would then be stripped without their knowledge from their free will; that whoever, including the Malicious one, could easily handle, as if it were only a single monster spitting fire and error and stupidity and death. But I want you to understand that there is nothing comparable in Heaven, other that the substance of the thing without the evil it produces on earth. Contemplate from now on, the sublimity of the gesture and the grandour of the eternal Virtue, which was made so many mirrors on which so much to reflected its own Unicity."



Marco Polo ou le voyage imaginaire (La tragédie humaine, janvier 2000) © 1999 Jean-Pierre Lapointe
Theme musical: la vierge de Messiaen, emprunté aux Classical Midi Archives.
Important Notice: any photos or fragments of photos subject to copyright will be removed on notice.


CANTO XXX OF PARADISE