Commentary Purg XXII 1-6

The scene with the angel, which we expect, having experienced such a scene at the end of the description of each terrace, is here done retrospectively and as briefly as possible.  The giving of directions to the next terrace and the removal of Dante's (fifth) P are referred to simply as having occurred.  The remembered angelic recital of a Beatitude (here the fourth, Matthew 5:6, 'Blessèd are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness [justice, iustitiam, in the Vulgate], for they shall be filled') is given in truncated form.  Responding to this economy, Benvenuto (DDP Benvenuto.Purg.XXII.1-3) refers to Dante's 'novum modum scribendi' (new way of writing).  What exactly was omitted from the Beatitude has been a subject of discussion, but it clearly seems to be 'hunger and' (saved to be deployed, words more appropriate to Gluttony, at [Purg XXIV 154]) and perhaps the ending as well ('for they shall be filled'), possibly omitted in both utterances.

      It is as though the poet were clearing every inch of available space for the second scene with Statius, and indeed the arrival at the terrace of Gluttony will be postponed for over a hundred lines (until verse 115), the longest such intermezzo we find among the seven terraces.

      From verse 3 it seems inferentially clear that Statius does not have what would have been his final P removed.  Dante describes his own letter being removed from his brow by the angel ('avendomi dal viso un colpo raso' [having erased another swordstroke from my brow]).  Had he wanted to include Statius as having the same experience, he would only have to have written 'avendoci' (from our brows).  Thus, like all 'regular' penitents, it seems most likely that Statius did not have his brow adorned by the writing of the warder at the gate of purgatory.  See C.Purg.XXI.22-24.