lessed being free to move freely in every part of the
universe while still remaining with God and seeing Him everywhere."
Others hold that Heaven is "a special place with definite limits.
Naturally this place is held to exist, not within the earth, but in
accordance with the expressions of Scripture, 'without and beyond its
limits.'" (Cath. Encycl., VII, 170.)

According to Dante's conception, Heaven, being non-spatial and
non-temporal, is not a place but a state of spiritual life. As an aid in
depicting that state he makes use of a unique literary device. He
poetically creates nine Heavens, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun,
Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Fixed Stars, the Primum Mobile or First
Movement. These, according to the Ptolemaic system which our poet
follows, are concentric with the earth, around which as their center
they revolve, while the earth remains fixed and motionless. The motion
of each of these nine spheres, originally coming from the Primum Mobile,
is communicated to it by the love of the angelic guardians, a literal
application of the common saying that "love makes the world go around."

As a poetic fiction necessary for him to enter finally the true Heaven
Dante is required to pass through these nine spheres, the fiction being
used by him as an artist to declare the glories of the heavens and as a
teacher to inculcate doctrines for the instruction and edification of
mankind. In each of the nine Heavens groups of the blessed are
represented as coming to meet him "as he returns to God as to the port
whence (he) set out when (he) first entered upon the sea of this life."

This peerless rhetorical figure is explained in the Banquet, where he
says: "As his fellow-citizens come forth to meet him who returns from a
long journey even before he enters the gates of his city; so to the
noble soul come forth the citizens of the eternal Life." This apparition
of the blessed spirits to greet the mystic traveller as he mounts from
sphere to sphere has several advantages: "it peoples with hosts of
spirits, the immense lonely spaces through which the journey lies"; it
affords the poet the opportunity of asking them "many things which have
great utility and delight"; it finally gives him a sensible sign of the
degree of beatitude which they possess in that realm of many mansions
where each is rewarded according to his merit and capacity, the capacity
of each spirit being in proportion to its degree of knowledge and lo