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Canto 31
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Paradiso, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Earthly and Heavenly Justice
Creation and God’s Providence
God’s Character and Will
Vision, Knowledge, and the Pursuit of God
Language and the Ineffable
Summary
Analysis
St. Bernard gives Dante a guided tour of the thrones of the Empyrean, pointing out Eve, Beatrice, and several women from the Bible. The structure of the rose is divided between those who died while looking forward to Christ’s coming and those who died, having believed in him, after he had come. Bernard further points out John the Baptist, St. Francis, St. Benedict, Augustine, and others.
Dante’s contemplation of the glorified souls of saints (God’s light pervading them) helps prepare him to look upon God himself. All of these souls, too—whether they lived before Christ or after him—had a part to play in the unfolding of God’s plan for human redemption (for example, Eve’s sin ultimately bringing about Christ’s life and death for humanity), illustrating God’s perfectly ordained providence.
Themes
Then, Bernard shows Dante the souls of children who died before they were old enough to exercise their wills. Bernard can tell that Dante is puzzled by the presence of these children’s souls and their varying degrees of grace. He recalls the biblical story of Jacob and Esau as an example of the inscrutable nature of God’s will. Then Bernard points out those souls enthroned nearest the Virgin Mary, including Adam, St. Peter, St. John, Moses, and Anna (Mary’s mother). He also points out Lucia (the saint who first warned Beatrice of Dante’s sinfulness). Finally, before Dante turns to look toward God himself, Bernard prays for him.
The souls of children display various degrees of the light of God’s grace. Dante can’t understand why, if these children all attained Heaven simply by God’s grace and not by their own merit (because they couldn’t be held responsible for the actions of their immature wills), they don’t all possess equal distributions of grace. The answer lies, once again, within the deep mysteries of God’s inscrutable providence—much like the story of Jacob and Esau in the biblical Book of Genesis, where God chose one of the twins in the womb and passed over the other, before either child could have done anything good or bad. In these matters, Bernard suggests that God’s working defies human grasping, and one must trust in God’s gracious character.
Themes
