'M' Stands For Justice

(Paradiso, Canto XVIII): Jupiter, the Sacred Eagle, and the epic heroes

Justice is not part of virtue but the whole of virtue

~ Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics

Welcome to Dante Read-Along! ✨

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Welcome to Dante Book Club, where you and I descend into Hell and Purgatory to be able to ascend to Paradise. Our guide in Paradise is Beatrice, and in this eighteenth Canto, we admire the Eagle made of the souls of the just. You can find the main page of the read-along right here, reading schedule here, and the list of chat threads here.

In each post you can find a brief summary of the canto, philosophical exercises that you can draw from it, themes, character, and symbolism explanations.

All the wonderful illustrations are done specially for the Dante Read-Along by the one and only Luana Montebello.

This Week’s Circle ⭕️

The fifth celestial realm of Mars, continued - Cacciaguida names nine heroes of the warriors of the faith - Dante and Beatrice ascend to the celestial realm of Jupiter - The lights of the souls there form words of Justice - The transformation of the letter M - The lily evolves into an Eagle - Dante condemns the injustice of avaricious popes.

Canto XVIII Summary:

As Dante’s ancestor Cacciaguida, acting as a reflection of the mind of God and rejoicing in the truth, resolved his speech to Dante regarding his future exile and the suffering he would undergo, he felt both a sense of peace regarding the consolations Cacciaguida had just given him, as well as the bitterness over the truth of his impending exile from Florence. Within the consolation was the surety that he had been given the blessing of speaking the truth through poetic form.

Here, Beatrice spoke, urging him to release that bitterness as he remembered that she gladly guided him, and that through her he could be assured that any future injustice would be lightened through the hand of God.

Her eyes glowed with such love and beauty that he could not express it in poetry, as it was so elevated that he would have needed to return to that realm of Paradise as he wrote the words to even begin to describe it. She encouraged him to continue to listen to Cacciaguida, there in the fifth celestial realm of Mars; while his gaze seemed only for her, as a representation of the perfection of theology, she told him that he could also learn from those in their present realm, those who had fought and died for their faith.

Beatitude consists not only in acceptance of the demonstration of divine truth, but also in the companionship of the blessed and the comprehension of their state as a manifestation of divine grace.¹

As, here on earth, at times our sentiment,
if it be passionate enough to take
the soul entirely, shows in the face,

so, in the flaming of the holy fire
to which I turned, I saw that he desired
some further words with me. And he began:
xviii.22-27

At Beatrice’s promptings, Cacciaguida continued his speech. He spoke of the nature of the divine realms, using the metaphor that from the heavens grew the fruits of the beatitudes in the form of a tree that was forever in bloom, always lush and green. It’s nourishment and roots came from God above, and each celestial realm was like the ring on this everlasting tree. In this fifth ring of the tree of God resided those warriors of the faith that were the subjects of poetry and song.

Cacciaguida pointed Dante’s attention back to that cross suspended before them made of the lights of souls, saying that he would call out to some of these heroes residing there, who would flash forth quick as lightning as he named them—Nine Heroes that were worthy of renown. He proceeded to name a number of figures spanning time, from the Old Testament days until nearer to Dante’s own.

The first soul that Cacciaguida called came so quickly, that Dante saw his light flashing before the name was even finished being pronounced; Joshua, the successor of Moses, conquered Canaan and led the Israelites into the Promised Land after his death.

Next came Judas Maccabeus, whose story was told in the apocryphal text of the Maccabees; he led his people to success against King Antiochus IV of Syria who attempted to destroy the Jewish religion:

He extended the glory of his people. Like a giant he put on his breastplate; he bound on his armor of war and waged battles, protecting the camp by his sword. He was like a lion in his deeds, like a lion’s cub roaring for prey.
I Maccabees 3:3-4

After the biblical examples came those of Christian knights, and champions of the Christian faith; first, Charlemagne, king of the Franks, restorer of the western Roman Empire, and the first Holy Roman Emperor. Fourth was Roland, one of Charlemagne’s most faithful knights, who was immortalized in the French medieval epic the Song of Roland.

The next names that Cacciaguida called from the celestial cross all fought against the Saracens; William, Duke of Orange, and Renouard, William’s brother-in-law and companion, a mythical giant who was a convert to Christianity. While William and Renouard waged battle in France, Charlemagne and Roland fought in Spain.

Duke Godfrey, the next soul called, had journeyed in the first crusade in 1099 that sought to recapture Jerusalem, and was crowned king upon his victory; lastly, Robert Guiscard, the eleventh century Norman conqueror. All of these representatives of the Christian faith had in some way restored lands and peoples to Christianity, from the time of Joshua up until the Crusades, of which Cacciaguida also took part as the ninth member of this exalted group.

Cacciaguida rejoined these warriors back in the cross of lights after this roll call. His speech and teachings to Dante were complete. Dante turned to Beatrice.

Skywriting in Jupiter by Gustave Doré

And as, by feeling greater joyousness
in doing good, a man becomes aware that day by day his virtue is advancing,

so I became aware that my revolving
with heaven had increased its arc—by seeing
that miracle becoming still more brilliant.
xviii.58-63

Dante recognized, by the increase in Beatrice’s beauty, that they had risen to the next sphere in the celestial realms; from Mars, they rose to the sixth celestial realm of Jupiter, rotating more widely in their arc as the circles grew larger with each advance upwards. As the spheres grew larger and wider, so did their revolutions grow as the spheres spun within each other.

Not only did Beatrice’s growing beauty signal this to him, but the shift in the ruddy red of Mars to the brilliant white of Jupiter, the colors melting into each other as the modest blush on a fair cheeked maiden:

Ptolemy saith…that Jove is a star of temperate composition betwixt the cold of Saturn and the heat of Mars. The other is that he shows white among the stars, as though of silver.
Dante, Convivio II.xiii.25

Dante watched as in the realm of Jupiter, representing the virtue of Justice, a vision came before his sight. Spelled out letter by letter, created out of the light of souls, a word slowly formed; this word represented the qualities of Jupiter just as the cross had in the heaven of Mars.

Divine justice is not primarily a matter of restriction, but of liberated existence in which the initial act of creation ascribes to all things their appropriately sanctioned place in the scheme of the universe, and upholds those proportions and distributions that the eye of the philosopher reveals to view.²

The souls in Jupiter, as they sang their holy song, shone bright as they shaped themselves into letters, one by one, beginning with the letters D, I, and L. Dante called upon the sacred Muses to give him the words to express the vision that he was about to describe, one of ever changing imagery that gave both the words it was trying to convey as well as changing into a picture of the image of justice.

Love justice, you who love the earth. Wisdom of Solomon 1:1

Sixth Heaven, or that of Jupiter: the blessed form some letters and then an eagle

The words appeared in thirty five letters, spelling out in Latin Diligite Iustitiam, Qui Iudicatis Terram—Love justice, you who judge the earth—the first verse of the first book of the Wisdom of Solomon.

Once these letters were in place, the transformation of the final letter, M, began to transform into an image. This M, standing for the concept of Monarchy, had additional soul lights arrive to it, which began to change the M into a figure; the figure of a Lily appeared within the top crest of the M.

Then, even more sparks flew to join the transforming figure, landing atop the shape of the Lily on the M, and changing even further to become the figurehead of an Eagle, the symbol of the Roman Empire.

With each light settled quietly in place,
I saw that the array of fire had shaped
the image of an eagle’s head and neck.

He who paints there has no one as His guide:
He guides Himself; in Him we recognize
the shaping force that flows from nest to nest.

the other lights, who were, it seemed, content
at first to form a lily on the M,
moving a little, formed the eagle’s frame.
xviii.106-114

Dante radiated in the brilliance of the display before him, understanding well that the image that had unfolded before him represented the actions of divine justice upon the earthly planes. He prayed that the moving force of God behind these images would protect the source of religion on earth, Rome, from the harmful effects of the avarice of the popes and clergy who stripped it of its true meaning. Just as Jesus had expelled the moneylenders from the temple in Jerusalem, Dante prayed that Justice would similarly protect it through that righteous wrath. He prayed for guidance from the corruption of the church.

Where once these wars were fought in battle with swords and valor, he now saw them being fought through avarice, with the buying and selling of indulgences, and with excommunication used as a weapon to gain more funds for the church. All the corruption he had seen through the Inferno, and the repentance through the Purgatorio, was now displayed in its full and fully realized splendor.

He condemned those religious leaders who paid lip service to their devotion to John the Baptist, who, being the patron saint of Florence imprinted on their coins, could be worshiped through the love of gold rather than the virtue he represented.

That love, above and beyond the love of the saints Peter and Paul, gave a true account of the direction of their devotion.

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💭 Philosophical Exercises

Socrates, when asked the definition of justice, answered: “instead of saying what it is, I make justice manifest in my actions”

‘The Planet Jupiter’ (from The Divine Comedy, Paradise), 1 May 1807 After John Flaxman RA (1755 - 1826)

Dante gives us a tip on how to write great masterpieces.

In the first half of Canto XVIII, he lists characters from the great epics of the past: Joshua, Judas Maccabaeus, Charlemagne and Roland, William and Renouard, Duke Godfrey, and Robert Guiscard.

These figures were epic heroes, who brought back justice to a disordered world and defended it against forces of disharmony.

The tip to writers here is that if your story revolves around great characters—those we consider truly great, whose names have survived the test of time, through centuries and even millennia—you will never fail in your writing. Your story will still have greatness.

In other words, if you want to write a great book, your subject itself should be great. The masterpiece we are reading right now together, my dear reader, was inspired by a single scene from Virgil’s Aeneid, where the main protagonist descends into the underworld to find his father.

Virgil, in his turn, was inspired by Homer, so the story of Aeneas is a continuation of an epic story of what happens after the fall of Troy. It is equally worth mentioning the Bible. Whether one is a believer or not, it is undeniable that it was and still remains a well from which great writers draw their exceptional ideas from.

It’s difficult to make a mediocre subject great. But when you begin with a great character or a great story, the task becomes far easier. Everything that touches or even approaches such greatness naturally absorbs some of its light.

I don’t say this out of pride. (I’ve worked as hard as I could to purge that from myself throughout our journey.) Yet however modest my own words may be, these reflections on Dante’s Divine Comedy partake in a kind of borrowed grandeur because to speak of a great subject is already to stand in its radiance.

All these letters, all these reflections we’ve shared with you, my dear reader, owe almost everything to Dante. Whatever greatness they possess comes from the light of his wisdom. Without it, my words would lose their strength and fall silent.

I.

Canto XVIII is, in itself, a transitional canto. We move from the sphere of Mars, the sphere of action, to Jupiter, the sphere of justice. What is remarkable is Dante’s genius in bridging the two and showing their connection. After he names those epic heroes—men whose actions and courage sought to restore justice—the poem immediately carries us into the heaven where Justice itself is spelled out. These heroes, by their deeds, are the bridge between the two spheres.

Dante’s genius blows me away, because these heroes that Cacciaguida lists are the pinnacle of Mars, they are the ultimate model of action. “Remember who you are” - wrote Persian poet Hafiz, and that’s what Dante’s ancestor reminded our pilgrim. He reminded him of his noble roots, of his once noble city, then the true worth of noble speech. So, these epic heroes act as a perfect bridge since the first thing that a noble person does is restoration of justice.

III.

At the exact moment of ascent, Dante turns to Beatrice and the motion of his soul widens. The red of Mars fades from his sight like a blush leaving a fair face. In that instant he finds himself gathered into Jupiter - the white, temperate sixth star.

Once in Jupiter, the souls line up as letters and write: “Love justice, you who judge the earth.”

The Divine Justice here resembles a painting we can see in a gallery. Think of the divine order not as a rigid code but as a composition in which every brush-stroke is placed in the right spot, pressed with the right force, and bearing the right hue.

In Canto XVIII, the heroes of Mars act as restorers of that composition, bridging action and justice; and as we move toward Canto XIX, keep in mind a Renaissance painter - Botticelli, Michelangelo, Raphael- because true justice is not mechanical rule-keeping but the harmony of perfectly executed strokes, while injustice is the randomness of strokes out of place.

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This Week’s Sinners and Virtuous 🎭

(Themes, Quotes, Terms and Characters)

I. The Great Lombard

As we have seen when Dante reaches Jupiter, he sees the blessed souls arrange themselves into letters across the sky that spell out “Love justice, you who judge the earth.”

They stop on the last M of the word terram, and the planet shines like silver inlaid with gold.

Then more souls drift down to the top of that M, and the letter starts to change shape—its middle stretches upward until it turns into the head and neck of an eagle, the symbol of divine justice.

Barolini explains that this isn’t just a visual trick but a kind of “visible speech,” where language becomes image: the letter M literally transforms into the sacred eagle that stands for God’s justice and Rome’s divine mission.

It’s also a reminder that, in this heaven, God is the artist Himself—the one who paints and writes directly in the stars.

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Quotes 🖋️

(The ones I keep in my journal as reminders of eternal wisdom):

I saw within that torch of Jupiter
the sparkling of the love that it contained
design before my eyes the signs we speak.

And just as birds that rise from riverbanks,
as if rejoicing after feeding there,
will form a round flock or another shape,

so, in their lights, the saintly beings sang
and, in their flight, the figures that they spelled
were now a D, now I, and now an L.

~ lines 70-78, Paradiso, Canto XVIII

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1. Charles S. Singleton, Commentary on Paradiso 304

2. Robin Kirkpatrick, Paradiso 409