The Divine Comedy is also a great treatise on angelology in verse. Dante meets angels in every realm of the afterlife: fallen, neutral, guardians, messengers, choirs in contemplation. Following them canto by canto means crossing the whole medieval doctrine of heavenly spirits, made visible by a poet who knew the theology of his time in depth.
Inferno: the neutral angels and the fallen
As early as the third canto, in the vestibule of Hell, Dante meets the lukewarm, those who lived without disgrace and without praise. Mixed with them is «that wicked choir / of angels who were not rebels / nor faithful to God, but were for themselves». It is a singular idea: angels who took no side during the rebellion. Heaven rejects them so as not to lose its beauty, and deep Hell does not receive them.
Further on, before the walls of the city of Dis, the demons slam the gates in Virgil's face. In the ninth canto a heavenly messenger arrives, crossing the marsh dry-shod, opens the gate with a small wand and leaves with a disdainful air, like someone with other cares. Many commentators have identified him with an angel, although Dante never calls him one.
Finally, in the thirty-fourth canto, at the centre of the earth, there is Lucifer. He is huge, stuck in the ice, with three faces of different colours and six great wings like those of a bat. With his three mouths he mangles Judas, Brutus and Cassius. The most beautiful of the angels has become the most deformed figure in the poem.
Purgatory: guardian and liberating angels
In Purgatory angels play a different role: they accompany, guard and purify.
| Place | Angel | Function |
|---|---|---|
| Shore (canto II) | the boatman angel | carries the souls in a very light boat, moved only by his wings |
| Valley of the princes (canto VIII) | two angels dressed in green | defend the valley from the serpent with blunted fiery swords |
| Gate of Purgatory (canto IX) | the gatekeeper angel | carves seven Ps on Dante's forehead |
| Each terrace | the angel of the terrace | erases a P with a stroke of his wing and points to the stair |
The seven Ps stand for the seven capital vices. At each terrace passed, an angel removes one, and Dante feels ever lighter. It is one of the most effective images of the relationship between angels and inner purification: the angel does not walk the path in place of the human being, but seals each stage of it.
Paradise: the nine choirs
In the twenty-eighth canto of Paradise, in the Primum Mobile, Dante sees a point of intensely bright light surrounded by nine circles of fire. Beatrice explains that they are the nine angelic choirs and lists them in three hierarchies:
- Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones;
- Dominions, Virtues, Powers;
- Principalities, Archangels, Angels.
Here Dante follows the order of Dionysius the Areopagite. The poet adds a gracious detail: Gregory the Great had proposed a different order, but when he rose to heaven and saw the truth, «he laughed at himself». In the Convivio Dante himself had followed a different order: in the Comedy, in a sense, he corrects himself as well.
Angels and heavens
Each choir is linked to one of the nine heavens and guides its motion. The Angels move the heaven of the Moon, the Archangels that of Mercury, and so on up to the Seraphim, who move the Primum Mobile. Dante thus joins Christian angelology to the Aristotelian cosmology of the moving intelligences.
Creation and the fall
In the twenty-ninth canto Beatrice tells of the creation of the angels and of their fall, which happened immediately afterwards. Dante uses a famous image: one could not count to twenty in the time it took for part of the angels to rebel. Those who remained faithful, on the other hand, began their contemplation at once.
The rose of the blessed
In the Empyrean, at the end of the journey, the blessed are seated in an immense white rose. The angels fly between God and the rose like bees between the flowers and the hive, bringing peace and ardour. They have faces of living flame, golden wings and garments whiter than snow. It is the last and most harmonious angelic image of the poem.
Why reread Dante's angels
For the Studio Esoterico Cornelio the Comedy offers a symbolic map of the path. The angels mark the thresholds: the gate of Dis, the gate of Purgatory, every stair between the terraces. Some suggestions for reading:
- observe how the appearance of the angels changes from one realm to another;
- note that the neutral angels are punished precisely for not having chosen;
- follow the seven Ps as a path of purification from the vices;
- read the final rose as an image of the union between the heavenly order and humanity.
In short
- In Hell Dante places the neutral angels, a heavenly messenger at the gates of Dis and Lucifer at the centre of the earth.
- In Purgatory angels carry the souls, guard the valley and erase the seven Ps.
- In Paradise Dante follows Dionysius's order of the nine choirs and tells of Gregory the Great's smile.
- Each choir moves one of the nine heavens, following the cosmology of the moving intelligences.
- The angels of the Comedy mark the thresholds of the inner path.
