Blog Post 1: Justice and the Nature of Punishment

"and then my sigh could see more vividly into the bottom, where unerring Justice,/ the minister of the High Lord, punishes/the falisifiers she had registered" (XXIX, 54-57).
Throughout the Inferno, Dante describes justice in similar ways: it is the force of divine punishment and the opposite of compassion. When Dante is acting as the Pilgrim, he is afraid of Justice just as much as he is of any other demon, and does not feel good about the sight of "spirits languishing in scattered heaps" (XXIX, 66).  In Dante's Hell, "justice" is synonymous with "punishment," making the concept of justice in his mind as bad as the creatures punishing the damned.  Because of his compassion for many of the sinners--which based on Virgil's reactions, is not always unjustified--Dante often stands in direct opposition to God's justice.

Having not yet read the rest of the Divine Comedy, I would like to supply some speculation about how they were meant to be read with this particular incarnation of justice in mind.  At the end of the Inferno, readers have witnessed Dante exiting Hell through a secret cave, to be led to Purgatory and then finally Paradise, but they know only what has come behind them.  Punishment, the readers see, is considered correct for those who have done any wrongdoing at all and not repented it, which suggests a harsher nature of religion in the past than in the present.  By first showing divine punishment, which is explicitly named Justice, readers are led to fear God in the way Dante likely did.  He stands in awe at the giants, stating "Surely when she gave up the art of making such creatures, Nature acted well indeed,/depriving Mars of instruments like these" (XXXI 49-51).  God's creatures are meant to be strange and terrifying, and the entire construct of Hell terrifies Dante enough to actively avoid ending up there.

Because God has been shown to create scary beings, the next books in the Divine Comedy could quite possibly take two possible paths: either they show different sides of God besides the obsession with justice and punishment, or they could reinforce the idea that one must be fearful of God at all times.  I suppose I will find out eventually!