Paradiso

Throughout the Paradiso—and throughout The Divine Comedy as a whole—Dante emphasizes the idea that one’s choices during life affect one’s status in eternity. This is, of course, standard Catholic belief, but Dante articulates it in particularly imaginative ways in his poem. He also presents the spiritual realm as actively engaged in observing and judging the earthly realm in real time.

Even in Heaven, souls are organized into ranks on the basis of their behavior and how closely they followed God on earth. The first souls Dante meets on the moon are those who broke their vows. While such souls are still allowed to partake in the divine glory of heaven and are all contented with their lot, they are nevertheless existing in a sphere further from God than the souls who more consistently and deeply embodied Christian virtues. While Dante is not always sure precisely how the measure of virtues is determined—he is, for example, confused and troubled over the question of the salvation of virtuous pagans/nonbelievers—he accepts the argument that God’s judgement is always just and absolute: Everyone will get what they deserve in the afterlife, in the form and to the degree that God deems fit.

In addition, the souls with whom Dante converses—such as Cacciaguida and St. Peter—are intensely interested in affairs on earth, often decrying the corruption of places and institutions they knew while alive. By mixing the earthly and the spiritual, Dante is able to shape the poem as a commentary on contemporary events in politics and the church. Most notably, Dante uses the dialogues in The Divine Comedy to vent his bitterness at his exile and express his conviction that God will enact justice at his persecution and heal the conflict dividing Italy. Even Beatrice’s last words in the poem (30: 130-148) are a political denunciation of Florence rather than anything more spiritual. Dante’s method opens the possibility of social comment leading to social change: By placing criticism of the church in the mouth of St. Peter, for instance, Dante attempts to make readers viscerally aware of the seriousness of the church’s problems.

Thus, the affairs of this world, while secondary to spiritual concerns, are related to them and will influence our eternal destiny. This is also reflected in the traditional Catholic belief that the saints in heaven intercede for human beings—a belief that colors the dialogues between Dante and various souls in the Paradiso—and with the fact that in the Middle Ages, religious and secular leadership was sometimes performed by the same rulers. Moreover, Dante, following St. Augustine, characterizes Heaven as a “city” (30: 130), implying that it is like an earthly society. In this way, the Paradiso serves a social and political purpose relating to life on earth, in addition to being a beautiful and idealistic poem about heaven and eternity. For Dante, the two spheres—the sacred and the secular—are closely interrelated.