The Final Vision of God
The Final Vision of God is the supreme and culminating event of the entire Divine Comedy, the moment toward which Dante Alighieri's journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise has been inexorably tending. It is the beatific vision itself, the direct apprehension of the Divine Essence that constitutes the ultimate end and happiness of every rational creature. In this final canto of the Paradiso, the pilgrim, guided first by Beatrice and then by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, is granted a grace so profound that it exceeds the capacity of memory, language, and even the highest human fantasy, leaving only a trace of sweetness and a transformed will. The event is not merely a sight but a complete reorientation of the soul, where desire and will are finally made one with the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.
The Prayer of St. Bernard and the Gaze of the Virgin Mary
Before the vision itself, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, acting as Dante's final guide, offers a sublime prayer to the Virgin Mary, the "Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son," whom he describes as "humble and high beyond all other creature" and "the limit fixed of the eternal counsel." Bernard's orison, which he speaks on behalf of Dante, implores Mary to use her prevailing grace to scatter from him "every cloud of his mortality" so that the "Chief Pleasure"—God himself—may be displayed to him. Bernard also prays that after so great a vision, Dante's affections may be preserved sound. The prayer is answered: the eyes of the Virgin, "beloved and revered of God," fasten upon Bernard, showing how grateful devout prayers are to her, and then they turn to the Eternal Light. Dante, now approaching the end of all desires, feels the ardour of desire within him ended, and he is ready.
The Vision of the Threefold Circle and the Human Image
As Dante's sight becomes purified, he enters more and more into the ray of the High Light. Within the deep and luminous subsistence of that light, he perceives three circles of threefold colour and of one dimension. The first circle appears reflected by the second, as Iris is by Iris, and the third seems like fire breathed equally from both. This is the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Dante, like a geometrician who struggles to square the circle, attempts to understand how the image of a human face—the effigy of Christ's humanity—is painted within the second circle, conforming itself to the divine circle. His own intellectual wings are not enough for this comprehension until a flash of lightning from God strikes his mind, granting the wish. In that instant, his desire and will are turned, even as a wheel that is equally moved, by the Love which moves the sun and the other stars.
The Ineffability and the Transformation of the Soul
The entire experience is marked by its radical ineffability. Dante declares that what he saw was greater than any discourse, which yields to such vision, and that memory itself yields to such excess. He compares his state to that of a dreamer who retains the imprint of passion but cannot recall the rest. The vision is so overwhelming that a single moment of it is more profound than five and twenty centuries of human history, an event that would have startled Neptune with the shadow of the Argo. The poet's language fails, falling shorter than an infant's who still moistens his tongue at the breast. Yet, the essential outcome is not intellectual comprehension but a transformation of the will. The pilgrim's desire and will are finally and perfectly aligned with the divine will, a state of complete peace and fulfillment that is the ultimate goal of the entire journey. The vision is not a static image but a dynamic, loving union that reorders the soul forever.
