of its flaming circle. The doubling of the chess alludes to the
story that the inventor of the game asked, as his reward from the
King of Persia, a grain of wheat for the first square of the
board, two for the second, and so on to the last or sixty-fourth
square. The number reached by this process of duplication extends
to twenty figures.

[2] The WHERE, the appointed place.

[3] The course of their respective circles to which they are
bound.

[4] "Throni elevantur ad hoc quod Deum familiariter in seipsis
recipiant."--Summa Theol., I, cviii. 6.


"The next triad that thus buds in this sempiternal spring which
the nightly Aries despoils not,[1] perpetually sing their spring
song of Hosannah with three melodies, which sound in the three
orders of joy wherewith it is threefold. In this hierarchy are
the three Divinities, first Dominations, and then the Virtues;
the third order is of Powers. Then, in the two penultimate
dances, the Principalities and Archangels circle; the last is
wholly of Angelic sports. These orders are all upward gazing, and
downward prevail, so that toward God they all are drawn, and they
all draw. And Dionysius[2] with such great desire set himself to
contemplate these orders, that he named and divided them, as I.
But Gregory[3] afterward separated from him; wherefore, so soon
as he opened his eyes in this Heaven, he smiled at himself. And
if a mortal proffered on earth so much of secret truth, I would
not have thee wonder, for he who saw it hereabove[4] disclosed it
to him, with much else of the truth of these circles."

[1] At the autumnal equinox, the time of frosts, Aries is the
sign in which the night rises.

[2] The Areopagite. See Canto X.

[3] The Pope, St. Gregory, who differs slightly from Dionysius in
his arrangement of the Heavenly host.

[4] St. Paul, supposed to have communicated to his disciple the
knowledge which he gained when caught up to Heaven. See 2 Cor.,
xii. 2.



CANTO XXIX. Discourse of Beatrice concerning the creation and
nature of the Angels.--She reproves the presumption and
foolishness of preachers.

When both the children of Latona, covered by the Ram and by the
Scales, together make a zone of the horizon,[1] as long as from
the moment the zenith holds them in balance, till one and the
other, changing their hemisphere, are unbalanced from that
girdle, soloing, with her countenance painted with a smile, was
Beatrice silent, looking fixedly upon the Point which had
overcome me. Then she began: "I speak, and I ask not what thou
wishest to hear, for I have seen it where every WHERE and every
WHEN are centred. Not for the gain of good unto Himself, which
cannot be, but that His splendor might, in resplendence, say,
Subsisto; in His own eternity, outside of time, outside of every
other limit, as pleased Him, the Eternal Love disclosed Himself
in new loves. Nor before, as if inert, did He lie; for the going
forth of God upon these waters had proceeded neither before nor
after.[2] Form and matter, conjoined and simple, came forth to
existence which had no defect, as three arrows from a
three-stringed bow; and as in glass, in amber, or in crystal a
ray shines so that there is no interval between its coining and
its complete existence, so the triform effect[3] rayed forth from
its Lord into its. existence all at once, without discrimination
of beginning. Order was concreate, and established for the
substances, and those were top of the world in which pure act was
produced.[4] Pure potency held the lowest part;[5] in the middle
such a bond unites potency with act, that it is never unbound.[6]
Jerome has written to you of the Angels, created a long tract of
centuries before the rest of the world was made. But this
truth[7] is written on many pages by the writers of the that Holy
Spirit: and thou wilt thyself discover it, if thou watchest well
for it; and even the reason sees it somewhat, for it would not
admit that the motors could be so long without their
perfection.[8] Now thou knowest where and when these loves were
elected, and how; so that three flames of thy desire are already
quenched.

[1] When at the spring equinox, the sun being in the sign of
Aries or the Ram, and the moon in that of Libra or the Scales,
opposite to each other on the horizon, the one just rising and
the other setting, they seem as if held for a moment in a balance
which hangs from the zenith.

[2] In eternity there is no before or after; time had no
existence till the creation, and has relevancy only to created
things.

[3] Pure form, pure matter, and form conjoined with matter.

[4] The substances created purely active, to exercise action upon
others, were the angels.



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