Commentary Par XXXI 25-27

We now see all the saints doing what, as we will learn in the next canto, they always do, looking up, fixing their gaze on God.  There is no variety in Heaven, nor is it desired by the blessed.

We also learn, in that canto, what is intrinsic only to what we see here.  There are more Jews in Heaven than Christians.  This puzzled some commentators and infuriated others, the first group claiming that Dante could not possibly have meant this, the others believing him only too well.  Pretty clearly Dante's neat division of the Rose into two equal parts, with a few empty seats in the Christian half and none in the Jewish one, is meant to force that conclusion upon a reader.  As far as we know, there are only a very few gentiles among the Hebrew group.  In fact, we know only that there are two, Cato (there thus should be at least one empty place in the full half, as Cato is still minding Purgatory) and Ripheus (Statius and Trajan were both alive in Christian times).  Dante's point is clear: More Jews believed in Christ without the authority of His presence, as certified by the witness provided by the New Testament, than did Christians, even though they were given the answers before they took the exam.