Saturn
Saturn, the seventh heaven of Paradise, is the sphere of the contemplative souls, a realm set apart from the singing and dancing that characterize the lower heavens. Here, the blessed spirits who devoted their lives to monastic withdrawal, asceticism, and spiritual meditation appear as flaming lights, descending and ascending a celestial stairway in a silent, ordered dance of love. It is a place of profound stillness and fierce prophetic utterance, where the beauty of Beatrice becomes so intense that she refrains from smiling, lest Dante be consumed like Semele by the unveiled radiance of divine glory.
The Celestial Stairway and the Contemplative Dance
Within the crystal sphere of Saturn, which revolves around the world and bears the name of its dear leader, Dante beholds a stairway of such immense height that his eye cannot follow it to its summit. This stairway, the Ladder of Contemplation, is the means by which the contemplative souls ascend toward God. Down its steps descend so many splendours that Dante thinks every light in heaven must be diffused there. The spirits move like rooks at daybreak: some fly off without return, others come back to where they started, and still others wheel around and remain. One of these lights, which remains nearest to Dante, becomes so clear that he perceives the love it bears him, yet he hesitates to speak, waiting for Beatrice's permission. She, who sees his silent desire in the sight of Him who sees everything, bids him let loose his warm desire.
The Silence of the Spheres and the Intensity of Divine Beauty
Dante asks the blessed spirit why the dulcet symphony of Paradise, which sounds so devoutly through the rest of the heavens, is silent in this wheel. The spirit answers that Dante's hearing is mortal, just as his sight is mortal, and that the souls do not sing here for the same reason that Beatrice has not smiled: the beauty of this realm, if not tempered, would be so resplendent that all his mortal power would seem like a leaflet crushed by thunder. The spirit explains that it has descended only to give Dante welcome with words and with the light that mantles it, not because it loves him more than the others do, for love as much and more is burning up above. The high charity that makes the spirits servants prompt to the counsel which controls the world allots each one his place.
The Encounter with St. Peter Damiano and His Invective
The spirit that speaks to Dante is St. Peter Damiano, who reveals his identity and his history. He was once Peter the Sinner in the house of Our Lady on the Adriatic shore, and he became so steadfast in God's service within a hermitage consecrated to worship alone on the ridge of Catria, between two shores of Italy and not far from Dante's native place, that he passed the heats and frosts lightly, feeding only on the juice of olives and contented in his contemplative thoughts. That cloister used to render abundantly to these heavens, but now it is empty grown, so that perforce it soon must be revealed. Little of mortal life remained to him when he was called and dragged forth to the hat which shifteth evermore from bad to worse. He contrasts the simplicity of the early Church—Cephas and the mighty Vessel of the Holy Spirit, meagre and barefooted, taking the food of any hostelry—with the modern shepherds who need supporters on each side and some to lead them, so heavy are they, and to hold their trains. They cover up their palfreys with their cloaks, so that two beasts go underneath one skin. At this voice, many little flames descend from step to step and revolve, and they utter a cry of so loud a sound that the thunder o'ercame Dante, and he could not distinguish it.
The Nature of Predestination and the Limits of Created Sight
Dante asks the spirit why he alone among his consorts was predestined to this office. The spirit answers by whirling itself about like a swift millstone, and then explains that a light divine, piercing through the light in which it is embosomed, lifts it above itself so far that it sees the supreme essence. But even the seraph who fixes his eye on God most could not satisfy this demand, because the question of predestination sinks so deeply into the abyss of the eternal statute that it is cut off from all created sight. The spirit commands Dante to carry this back to the mortal world, that it may not presume to move its feet toward such a goal. The mind that shines here on earth doth smoke; from this, Dante can observe how it can do below that which it cannot, though the heaven assume it.
