Earthly and Heavenly Justice Theme Analysis

In Paradiso, the third and final cantica of The Divine Comedy, Dante is primarily concerned with justice. Many of the figures he meets during his tour of Heaven are concerned about injustices that prevail on Earth, especially corrupt rulers whose actions harm everyday people. Since he’s still living, Dante wonders about his role in addressing these earthly injustices—in fact, other characters urge him to write in order to speak out against the injustices he perceives in his contemporary Florence and within the Catholic Church more broadly. Dante wonders, too, about God’s justice in allowing injustices to stand. Although Dante’s questions are never fully answered, he recognizes that the bigger picture of God’s justice is both more particular and more sweeping than he can comprehend. God’s justice is particular because he cares about individual people and ensuring justice is done for them. But God’s justice also goes far beyond the level of the individual, as he’s also concerned with bringing about justice on a cosmic scale, righting the wrong of humankind’s falling into sin. In both cases, it’s difficult for humans to grasp how God’s divine justice is playing out. Dante ultimately suggests that God cares about the injustices that humans suffer on earth, and that he is in fact bringing about justice—on both an individual and cosmic scale—through those who obey him, even if the end result is a mystery for now.

Dante’s hometown of Florence is riddled with injustice. In the heaven of Mars (one of the spheres of Heaven that Dante visits), Dante’s ancestor, Cacciaguida, laments Florence’s moral downfall. Cacciaguida first gives an idealized picture of how Florentine commoners lived in his own 12th century: “Florence […] lived on in modesty, chasteness and peace […] content to wear the plainest skin and hide, / their women occupied with loom and flax. / How fortunate these were[!]” To Cacciaguida, medieval Florence exemplified justice in the sense that it provided a peaceful, stable environment in which families could thrive, and people, providing for themselves, didn’t take more than they need. In Dante’s view, this is a happy life, and God cares about ordinary people’s ability to thrive in this way. Sadly, within a few generations, corruption, greed, and feuding have brought formerly happy families to disgrace. Cacciaguida catalogues Florentine families who have fallen into moral decline: “all I shall tell of noble Florentines, / whose fame lies hidden now in passing time. / I saw the […] Ormanni, Greci e Alberichi, / already in decline, illustrious men.” By populating his verses with specific names that would have been recognizable in his day, Dante reinforces his argument that Florence is overrun with injustice, but he also begins to flesh out the idea that God pays attention to the specific people and events of earthly life and cares about them.

Dante suggests that, because God cares about particular people, he uses them as instruments to bring about justice in the world. But while people may be God’s agents in administering justice, the outcome is ultimately in God’s hands, not people’s. For example, Dante himself has a direct role in addressing the injustices that have become systemic in Florence. After encouraging Dante to write about injustices, Cacciaguida plainly prophesies Dante’s impending exile: “You’ll leave behind you all you hold most dear. / And this will be the grievous arrow barb / that exile, first of all, will shoot your way.” This passage, which foretells Dante’s political exile from Florence by an opposing faction, sets up the idea that Dante will be on the receiving end of injustice very soon and thus must do everything in his power to address injustice himself. When Dante shrinks from this fate, wondering if he really dares write the truth about what he’s learned about Florence, his ancestor assures him that he has a vital role to play, which will be vindicated in the end: “All murky consciences, / who feel their own or any other’s shame / are bound to baulk at your abrasive words. / […] make plain what in your vision you have seen, / and let them scratch wherever they may itch.” It’s Dante’s job, in other words, to strive for justice as it lies within his reach (for him, this means by writing truthfully and unapologetically about the corruption he sees in Florence), and let matters play out as they must. Only God can oversee the outcome.

As he journeys through Heaven, Dante learns that God is not only addressing injustices on earth; he is also bringing about justice on a cosmic scale. God’s dealing with injustice is especially evident in his actions to address human sin. Instead of the perfect obedience God intended, Adam and Eve disobeyed, plunging all of humanity into sin. But in order to bring about justice for humanity’s sin and restore humanity to holiness, God planned the atonement: humanity “was made one […] with Him, by action solely of eternal love […] The sentence, therefore, that the Cross imposed […] was just and true.” In other words, God punished humanity representatively when Christ (having both human and divine natures) was crucified on the Cross.

When Beatrice explains this act of justice to Dante, she adds that God’s reason for choosing this specific means of redemption—the Crucifixion—“lies entombed, unseen” by anyone except for God. Humanity can’t see or fully understand the ultimate outcome of earthly justice, and God’s plan to enact cosmic justice is also an inscrutable mystery. Beatrice suggests that people, even as they strive to obey God and to act as agents of earthly justice where possible, must also have faith in heavenly justice. In the end, heavenly justice will address all the harms caused by earthly injustices, too.