What It Is
The point of light is the way Dante sees God on leaving the heaven of the fixed stars and reaching the Primum Mobile. Beatrice has just denounced the present life of wretched mortals, and the pilgrim turns to her eyes as one who checks in a mirror the flame behind him. He sees, reflected in them, a light so keen that the sight it kindles has to close. Around the point, at a certain distance, nine circles of fire turn, each slower the farther it is from the point: the first so swift that it would outrun the fastest motion that girds the world, the ninth almost motionless. They are the choirs of the angels, and Beatrice names them: Seraphim and Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels, Angels. Their number is greater than the doubling of the squares of the chessboard. The point has no size or shape, and beside it the smallest star would look like a moon.
Where It Appears
The point appears in Canto XXVIII:
un punto vidi che raggiava lume / acuto sì, che ’l viso ch’elli affoca / chiuder conviensi per lo forte acume, I saw a point that radiated a light so sharp that the sight it sets afire must close because of its strong keenness.
Beatrice explains what it depends on:
Da quel punto / depende il cielo e tutta la natura. / Mira quel cerchio che più li è congiunto; / e sappi che ’l suo muovere è sì tosto / per l’affocato amore ond’ elli è punto», from that point depend the heaven and all nature. Look at that circle which is nearest to it; and know that its motion is so swift because of the burning love by which it is pricked.
Dante's objection is that the circles nearer the point are the swiftest, the opposite of the sensible world, and she teases him about the difficulty:
«Se li tuoi diti non sono a tal nodo / sufficïenti, non è maraviglia: / tanto, per non tentare, è fatto sodo!», if your fingers are not enough for such a knot, it is no wonder: from so much not trying, it has grown hard!
The solution is to measure by virtue:
Maggior bontà vuol far maggior salute; / maggior salute maggior corpo cape, / s’elli ha le parti igualmente compiute. / Dunque costui che tutto quanto rape / l’altro universo seco, corrisponde / al cerchio che più ama e che più sape, greater goodness wants to produce greater benefit; greater benefit holds a greater body, if it has its parts equally complete. Therefore this one, which carries all the rest of the universe along with it, corresponds to the circle that loves most and knows most.
The multitude of the angels is measured with a game:
L’incendio suo seguiva ogne scintilla; / ed eran tante, che ’l numero loro / più che ’l doppiar de li scacchi s’inmilla, its fire followed every spark; and they were so many that their number multiplies into thousands beyond the doubling of the squares of the chessboard.
The rule of being blessed:
Quinci si può veder come si fonda / l’esser beato ne l’atto che vede, / non in quel ch’ama, che poscia seconda; / e del vedere è misura mercede, / che grazia partorisce e buona voglia: / così di grado in grado si procede, from here one can see how being blessed is founded in the act of seeing, not in what loves, which follows afterward; and the measure of seeing is merit, which grace and good will bring forth: thus one proceeds from degree to degree.
And the correction of a doctor:
E Dïonisio con tanto disio / a contemplar questi ordini si mise, / che li nomò e distinse com’ io. / Ma Gregorio da lui poi si divise; / onde, sì tosto come li occhi aperse / in questo ciel, di sé medesmo rise, and Dionysius with such desire set himself to contemplate these orders that he named and distinguished them as I do. But Gregory afterward separated from him; so that, as soon as he opened his eyes in this heaven, he laughed at himself.
In Canto XXIX Beatrice explains the origin of the choirs and the fall of Lucifer, and the point of light returns as the one that overcame the pilgrim.
What It Means
The point is the figure of the unity on which all the rest depends: from the point depend the heaven and all nature. The nine circles show that the motion of the world is the effect of a desire, and that whoever loves most and knows most stands closer. The inversion of the speeds, swift near the center, corrects the astronomy of the pilgrim with a theology of virtue.
The text supports two readings. The first, more direct, is that the point represents God in his simplicity, and the circles the way creation draws near to him. The second is that the poem corrects the habit of seeing God by the measure of the body: Dante measured the wrong thing, and the first lesson of the Primum Mobile is to change the ruler. The two add up.
Relationships
- Standard themes: God and the divine, Love, Knowledge and wisdom.
- Themes of the work: God and the divine, Love.
- Characters: Beatrice, Dante.
- Related symbols: the celestial rose, the three circles and the wheel.