The first realization that comes to a reader, who has never read this epic before, is that this Divine Comedy is not completely theological (and sadly not a joke book). The second realization the reader comes to is that this isn’t God’s hell, this is Dante’s hell, therefore Dante is the judge and he is playing by his rules, i.e. his justice. In Dante’s hell, the first circle the pilgrim enters is called Limbo. This is where great non-Catholic thinkers reside in hell. The list includes the “cherished” Greek philosophers Aristotle, Plato and Socrates. Personally, I wouldn’t mind being eternally stuck in Limbo. It has a “sweetly flowing stream” (4.108) and “a meadow fresh in bloom” (4.111). It is a place of comfort in a world of torment. Nevertheless, it seems at first that the shades of these thinkers are here because they are non-Catholic, and Virgil even goes on to say that they are here because they didn’t worship God and Christ the way they “should” (4.37)- yet Dante places priests, popes and cardinals in a deeper circle of hell for just avarice (7.46-48). But what is more startling is where Dante places Epicurus, a notable Ancient Greek philosopher. Epicurus tried to do something pivotal in humanity’s history. He wanted to prove that there is no immortal soul and that there is no life after death. He did this because he saw that the beliefs of an afterlife evoked a psychological fear of death in humanity. In Epicurean psychology, fear makes us unhappy (here, fear means anxiety, there is also another meaning of fear that is temporary and is directed towards an object; fear as anxiety stays within a person, who subscribes to certain beliefs, throughout his/her entire life), and it is psychological: it is not something real, meaning it just exists in your head, it isn’t really “out there” or “outside you”. Since Dante comes from a political background, he understands the theory of fear and it’s role for society. But more importantly, without the afterlife he would no longer be able to evoke this fear in this poem; he needs fear. Since Epicurus tried to get rid of this belief, Dante has him and his followers burning in their sarcophagi (canto 10). This is where Dante is unjust. This is where one could discern Dante’s philosophical bias. Not believing in a soul or the afterlife is not a crime nor a sin if you lived 200 years before Christ! All of these Greek philosophers lived way before Christ- yet they reside in Limbo, but not Epicurus. Epicurus is simply theology’s and these philosophers’ philosophies’ antithesis. Dante should not have punished someone who held beliefs that conflicted with his. Burning in his tomb with his followers is an unjust punishment for this poor gardener (Epicurus’ school was called “The Garden”). Speaking of his school, Epicurus allowed slaves and women in his school, while Aristotle tried to justify slavery and saw women as an inferior substance. Also, Epicurus appreciated life, while Plato saw it as suffering and a sickness. (You be the judge). So what is it that distinguishes these thinkers that are in Limbo and a thinker like Epicurus for Dante? In short, value judgments. Epicurus’ values were not in alignment with Dante’s own personal, subjective, values. Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato are in Limbo because they justified the immortal soul, life after death and other doctrines which helped out theology later on. But why is this justification of the afterlife important for Dante? This justification, mixed in with some religion, supports the fear of not knowing what will occur after death. Without all this Dante would not have been able to exact punishment on those Florentine contemporaries that went against him. If there is no belief then there is no fear, and Dante’s contemporaries will shrug of their punishment in the afterlife as an empty threat. Therefore, I see Dante’s divine justice, and this poem, as an allegory to the justice he thought the society he lived in deserved.
Hey Syed,
The distinction that this is Dante’s hell, not God’s hell, and that Dante is essentially the judge of everyone, using his own moral standards, is a great insight that I was not able to pick up during my reading of the text; I agree with the justice system reflecting the justice in the society that Dante lived in also.