Paradiso

Proceeding in the Crystalline Sphere, Dante sees a tiny, piercing beam of light and, whirling about it, a series of nine quickly flickering concentric “rings of fire.” Beatrice explains that these are the nine orders of angels, revolving around God. They are, starting from those closest to God: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels, Angels. Beatrice discourses on the Seraphim and answers Dante’s questions about the relationship between the distance of the angels to God and the speed of their revolution. After Beatrice finishes speaking, the angels sing “Hosanna” to God.

Beatrice can intuit in God the question that Dante wants to ask: why God created the angels. She answers that it was not for his own benefit (as God is perfectly happy) but to make his splendor shine forth and “subsist” in time and space which he created. Beatrice further explains that God created form and matter at once, in an instant.

Along with these elements, God created the angels, who are “the summit of the universe” (29: 32-33) because they are “pure act” without the potentiality that conditions human beings. In contrast to human beings, angels are morally perfect—aside from Lucifer, the fallen angel, who became Satan and who led man into sin.