The Eagle formed from the souls of the just speaks — and it speaks with a single voice, even though it is composed of thousands of individual souls. The individual voices are to the Eagle what the separate fires in a log are to the single warmth of the fire. The miracle is that many become one without losing their distinctness. This is the image of the Church, of the community of the saved, of love's unifying power.
Dante has carried a question through the whole Purgatorio and much of Paradiso: what of the virtuous man born outside Christendom, who never heard of Christ, whose entire life was upright and good — is he damned simply for ignorance? The Eagle addresses this directly and honestly. It affirms: God's justice is beyond human comprehension. To say that an omnipotent, infinitely good God is unjust because His standards exceed human understanding is to make the creature the measure of the Creator — the exact error of pride. The light of divine justice illuminates what human reason cannot reach.
But the Eagle does not simply shut down the question. It says: the Kingdom of Heaven is not won by simply professing "Lord, Lord" — and there will be many who cry Christ in the Final Judgment who are further from Him than some who never knew His name. The Persian king Cyrus did more for God's people than some Christian princes. The indictment of corrupt Christian rulers is sharp: the page is full of their wickedness — Albert of Austria, Philip IV of France, Edward of England, Ferdinand of Castile, Charles of Naples, the King of Hungary, the King of Navarre. The roll call of bad rulers is Dante at his most politically unsparing.