Alpha and O

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In canto XXVI of the Paradiso, Dante, in response to the question posed by Saint John, states that every love that ignites him on earth has its beginning and end in the good that makes the blessed joyful in heaven, that is, God. This beginning and end is called «Alpha and O», the start and fulfillment of all the writing spread throughout the world. The authorized note on the passage clarifies that with this periphrasis God is designated, the term of every desire of the poet's soul. The reference fits into the reflection on love and on the prophetic mission attributed to Dante, confirmed by Peter immediately afterward in the same canto. The definition of the identity of «Alpha and O» as the Christian divinity is therefore inferable directly from the text and from the commentary on the canto, without other places in the poem intervening to modify this placement.