Analysis Of Canto 15

In Canto 15, there was a few lines about how when a spirit spoke, Dante Pilgrim did not understand what he was saying: “Then, joyous to hear and to see, the spirit added to his beginning things I did not understand, so deeply he spoke, nor by choice did he hide them from, but by necessity, for his meaning shot beyond the mark of mortals” (p. 305, lines 37-42). At times, I forget that the Pilgrim is still a mortal because he is able to know and see so much in Heaven, but these lines showed perfectly how God can reveal things to mortals, but mortals are not perfect and are not able to fully grasp the Essence of God. In Question 12 by Aquinas, he states that it is impossible for mortals to see the Essence of God by their own natural powers, but …show more content…
Therefore, your sight, which can only be one of the rays of the Mind with what all things are filled, cannot by its nature be so strong that it does not discern its Beginning to be far beyond what it can see” (Canto 19, p.383, lines 49-57). Humans are limited in knowledge and powers, but it is through faith that we believe more than we can see. Also, I thought it was really interesting how Dante cannot see God, due to his mortal status, but there are multiple references to a mirror: “You believe the truth, for the lesser and the great in this life gaze into the Mirror, in which, before you think, you reveal your thought” (Canto 15, p. 305, lines 61-63). Dante is able to see God in a sense through the beauty of Heaven and those around him, which aligns with what Aquinas states in A. 11 of Q. 12: “Man is said in the Scriptures to see God in the sense that certain figures are formed in the senses or imagination, according to some similitude representing in part the divinity… As God works miracles in corporeal things, so also He does supernatural wonders above the common order, raising the minds of some living in the flesh beyond the use of sense, even up to the vision of His own