Although the purpose of the punishments in Dante’s Inferno may be unclear, their overall methodology and structure seems straightforward. There are many concentric rings, each with a sin or set of sins associated with them, and a punishment for each sin. When sinners die they are consigned to the place which is designated to appropriately punish the particular kinds of sin that they committed during their lifetime. As Dante descends to lower circles, we see that the punishments get worse and worse, so that more severe punishments are made to correspond to more morally despicable sins.
In all cases, it is the sins of a person that place that person at each level of Hell. Each particular punishment is then chosen to reflect the nature of the sin which it punishes, being similar to it in form. For instance, the gilded leaden coats of the Hypocrites corresponds to the nature of the sin itself, for the sin is to appear good on the outside in order to conceal the intolerable inner reality (XXII). The same kind of correspondence between the action and the sin can be seen in the other circles as well.
This could be viewed as being poetic justice, or, in a more sophisticated view, indicating that the punishment of the sinner is to be identified with their sin, as unforgiven sin will always in the long run be a torment to the sinner. But either way, the punishment is to be read as telling us what the sin associated with the circle is like. While the above conception seems reasonable and obvious, it is too simple to explain what happens in the Inferno.
Dante uses the punishments and events of the various circles to indicate not the nature of the sins committed by the kind of person he tells us belongs in the circle, but to indicate something else: the intrinsic reason for the damnation of each individual in Hell, which goes beyond and is deeper than the nominal sin committed. By the phrase “nominal sin”, I mean the sin which we are told the circle punishes. For instance Gluttony is the nominal sin of the Third Circle.
This understanding of the nature of Hell sheds light on the significance of Dante’s spiritual journey through Hell, showing him to be not merely an observer but an active participant in many of the levels, and helps to reveal the significance of perhaps the most puzzling circle of the Inferno, that of the Virtuous Pagans. I will begin with a puzzling observation about the placement of sinners in the Inferno. Under the naive view about the nature of Hell, since the circles get progressively worse as they get lower, one would expect that each soul would end up at the lowest circle which their actions merit. But this is not the case.
Most notably, in the Second Circle there are a number of individuals who committed suicide, such as Cleopatra and Dido. But we later learn that suicide is to be punished in the woods of the Seventh Circle far below. Under the naive view there is no reason why they should not be lower. Surely it is not possible to escape a greater punishment by committing a lesser sin as well so as to end up with a lighter punishment! Certainly it is dramatically appropriate that those famous for being lovers should end up in the Second Circle rather than some other place, but there must be some doctrinal justification available for the maneuver.
Furthermore, many sins are essentially matters of degree. Everyone sins to some extent in different areas. Christian doctrine certainly does not allow for the possibility that people live their lives with no sins whatsoever, or even no sins save one. Thus when Virgil says that the individuals in Limbo “sinned not” (IV. 34), on the literal face of it what he is saying cannot possibly be the belief of Dante, the author, as a Christian. That would be to ascribe to the souls in this circle an unbelievable life of perfection.
Even if their fault does deny them Paradise, still to say these people never behaved lustfully or gluttonously or were never wrongfully angry defies credulity. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Therefore that cannot be the sense in which we interpret Virgil’s words. treachery admits of matters of degree. Who has not committed some act that was somewhat disloyal to their family or to someone rightfully in charge of them? Virgil himself tells us that Fraud, the sin of the Eighth and Ninth circles, “gnaws every conscience” (XI. 52).
It thus must be admitted that the question of placement in Hell is based not on a checklist of sins committed, but rather is based on which sin defines ones essential character. But this hints at something else going on besides the mere act or passion of sin itself. Suicide is not a matter of degree. If the suicides represented in the circle of Lust are such that their lives were not really about that act of suicide, but something else, then we appear to be admitting the existence of a deeper level in which the diverse sins of an individual can be seen as stemming from a common source.
The means by which sinners are placed in Hell is, according to Dante’s narrative, the judgment before Minos, the “connoisseur” (V. 9) of sin. The use of this word suggests that Minos does not so much judge by a set of specific guidelines, as much as feel out the exact nature of the sin, to determine its true motives and context, so as to decide in what circle the sinner is best classified. By this description of the judge, Dante leaves open the idea that there may be more to the judgment and classification of sinners than first meets the eye.
Yet couldn’t it just be the case that the reason why the suicides in the Second Circle are counted as being most properly in that circle is simply that their suicide was motivated by lust rather than by a lack of love for life? This explanation will not do, as it only excuses the greater sin because the motive for that sin was some lesser sin. But simply having a motive for sin that comes from an earlier circle cannot excuse the sinner for the greater sin. Nearly all murders are motivated by some kind of Wrath, but that does not allow the murderers to escape the Seventh Circle by means of the Fifth Circle.
The fact that there exists an underlying motive for a sin therefore does not permit a worse sin to be subsumed and punished under the head of a lesser sin. Only if the act of suicide actually typifies whatever it is that the Second Circle is most deeply about, could it be appropriate for such sinners to be punished in the Second Circle. But this indicates that there is more to what each circle is about than the nominal sin being punished there. So what is the significance of the punishments in Hell?
In order to see what general ideas Dante is presenting about Hell, it is necessary to argue from circles in which his purpose is more clear to those that are less clear. At the very end of the Inferno, Dante gives us the last scene of Hell, the lake of sinners frozen in ice, and Satan himself stuck helplessly at the center of the universe. As the last stunning image of Hell, it is plausible that this image represents not only this particular circle of Traitors, but is also an image of what Hell is in general.
The Ninth circle is the most vivid picture of something true of all the circles, which is that the sinners are stuck in place, frozen and unable to move because of their sin. All the sinners are stuck wherever they are located in Hell. This is what damnation means. It is not committing sin as such, but being stuck or trapped in sin. In the less severe circles, there is more motion within the confines of their punishment (and thus less damnation or “stuckness”), but all of the damned are stuck in their rut or pattern of behavior that characterized their sin in life.
This then shows us that the Inferno is not exactly about sin, but about why individuals remain in sin. Dante does tell us about sin in a more general way–in a different part of the Divine Comedy. In the Purgatorio, Dante uses the model of the seven deadly sins as the root causes of misbehavior to figure out the nature of different sins and how to repent of them. Thus it is the Purgatorio that is about the sin itself. The Inferno is not doubling up on the theme of sin. It is about something different.
Why then are the various sinners stuck? The most straightforward explanation for why a sinner in the Inferno is damned is that given for Guido da Montefeltro. After receiving absolution in advance from the Pope for his sin of counseling deceit, Guido dies, and although St. Francis comes for him, a demon takes him as his lawful capture. The demon tells Guido that this is because he could not have willed to repent at the same time that he was committing the sin (XXVII. 103-120).
This tells us the reason why Guido is is Hell: failure to repent of his sin. But there are many different ways to fail to repent. I claim that the different circles correspond to the different reasons why people do not repent of their sin. These different ways are merely most strongly typified by the sins which are nominally punished in those circles. In the case of Guido the reason for not repenting is, corresponding to the Eighth circle theme of Deceit, that he fooled himself into thinking that he was repentant when actually he was not.
Dante uses the nature of the punishments to reveal to us the nature of what a given circle is really about, i. e. the particular way in which the individuals in that circle have given up their ability to repent. This explains some of the odd punishments, which are not easily explicable by the idea of poetic justice or similarity to the sin in question. Let us revisit the Second Circle. Lust is the nominal sin, but with the wind Dante is showing us the root cause of Lust, which can cause other sins as well.
As Jesus says, “The evil man brings out evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart” (Luke 6:45). The wind represents being tossed around by circumstances, and therefore being in the wind represents being the kind of person who relinquishes their will, choosing to let their choice be determined by what is happening around them. Since Heaven requires an inner purity and devotion to God, such people cannot possibly enter Heaven, for they could only be heavenly because of outside circumstance, never because Heaven was inside them.
