The Eye of the Divine Justice

(Paradiso, Canto XX): Jupiter, the Sacred Eagle, and conversion of Ripheus

“The finite is annihilated in the presence of the infinite, and becomes a pure nothing. So our spirit before God, so our justice before divine justice.”

~ Blaise Pascal

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 twentieth Canto, the Celestial Eagle explains the redemption of virtuous pagans. 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 sixth celestial sphere of Jupiter, continued - The just souls that made up the eye and brow of the Eagle - Six celebrated just rulers - The question of the virtuous pagans revisited - Dante’s amazement at the placement of pagans in Paradise - The question of predestination.

Canto XX Summary:

Dante praised the setting sun as seen from earth, and the stars that appeared in the night time sky upon its setting; as the moon reflects the light of the sun, so did Dante understand that the stars also reflected that greatest of celestial lights:

Nothing perceptible by the senses in all the world is more worthy of being considered an image of God than is the sun, which illuminates with sensible light first itself and then all the celestial and elemental bodies; likewise, God illuminates with intellectual light first himself and then the celestial and other creatures endowed with intellect.
Dante, Convivio III.xii.7

The lights of the souls that made up the image of the Eagle in the sixth celestial sphere of Jupiter reminded Dante of just such a group of sparkling stars in the night sky. The great Eagle, that symbol of the Roman Empire made of the souls of just rulers, ceased the speech it had been giving at the end of Canto xix on the nature of belief and of the twelve unjust rulers. In this full silence, the voices that made up the Eagle began to sing, their lights growing brighter in the unison of their song. So transcendent was it, that Dante could not begin to record it as he wrote.

O gentle love that wears a smile as mantle,
how ardent was your image in those torches
filled only with the breath of holy thoughts!
xx.13-15

Their song came to a close, and as a rush of mighty wind or the murmur of water over rocks, Dante heard a sound emit from the Eagle, which, gathering in strength, became again its voice in speech, and asked Dante to pay close attention to the souls that made up its eye and brow—imagine the image in profile; in opposition to the twelve unjust monarchs listed previously, here in the Eagle’s eye were the very highest and most noble rulers:

“Now you must watch—and steadily—that part
of me that can, in mortal eagles, see
and suffer the sun’s force,” it then began

to say to me, “because, of all the flames
from which I shape my form, those six with which
the eye in my head glows hold highest rank.”
xx.31-36

The first named was the most exalted of those high souls, the pupil of the eye, King David of Israel; as ‘singer of the Holy Spirit” (38) he composed the Psalms through his own artistic merit, although they were inspired by God; David was also he “who bore the ark from one town to another” in bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem during his kingship.

Eagle of Justice by John Flaxman

The six lights forming the pupil and the curve above the eye of the eagle are recognized by the body as the greatest representatives of justice on earth. David, the pupil of the eye, was the first true king of the chosen people…David represents a combination of spiritual and temporal authority on earth; he is the psalmist who sang of the Holy Ghost, he brought the ark, the tabernacle of the divine presence, to his city, and his kingdom was founded on worship.¹

Five other souls made up the lights of the arching eyebrow of the Eagle; the first, he “who comforted the widow for her son” (45) was the Emperor Trajan, whom we saw in Purgatorio canto x in the first terrace as the example of humility—we also saw King David there. He was said to have been moved by compassion on his way to war by the request of a widow:

Once when the Roman emperor Trajan was hurrying off to war with all possible speed, a widow ran up to him in tears and said: “Be good enough, I beg you, to avenge the blood of my son, who was put to death though he was innocent!” Trajan answered that if he came back from the war safe and sound, he would take care of her case. “And if you die in battle,” the widow objected, “who then will see that justice is done?” “Whoever rules after me,” Trajan replied. “And what good will it do you,” the widow argued, “if someone else rights my loss?” “None at all!” the emperor retorted. “Then wouldn’t it be better for you,” the woman persisted, “to do me justice yourself and receive the reward, than to pass it on to someone else?” Trajan, moved with compassion, got down from his horse and saw to it that the blood of the innocent was avenged.
Legenda Aurea, Jacobus de Voragine, xlvi

Trajan, by this account, had spent time in Limbo before being lifted into Paradise; though dying a pagan, he was brought back to life through the intercessory prayers of St. Gregory—according to the legend—long enough that he was able to convert his beliefs and be lifted into the heavenly realms. The origin of the story as Dante would have known it was from the Legenda Aurea, or Golden Legend, a collection of tales of the Saints, which gave a number of the fantastic ways in which Trajan could have arrived in Paradise.

Hezekiah was the second soul in the brow of the Eagle, and his deathbed request that he be granted a longer life was granted by God, as told in the Old Testament book of Isaiah, indicating his great favor with the Lord;

In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came unto him, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live. Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed unto the Lord, And said, Remember now, O Lord, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore. Then came the word of the Lord to Isaiah, saying, Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the Lord, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years. Isaiah 38:1-5

Through this favor, Hezekiah was to understand that an answered prayer did not change the original will of God, but was a part of the enactment of it:

Now he has learned that the eternal judgment
remains unchanged, though worthy prayer below
makes what falls due today take place tomorrow.
xx.52-54

The Emperor Constantine held the place of the center and highest point on the brow; he “whose good intention bore evil fruit” referred to the document the Donation of Constantine, which had not yet been disproven as a forgery in Dante’s day. In it, Constantine ceded Rome to the pope, and moved the capital of the Empire to Byzantium, thus opening the door to the rise in temporal power of the church. By settling in the Greek eastern half of the Roman Empire, Byzantium grew and flourished through that attention which was then lost to the west. Yet Dante had previously denounced the actions of Constantine, so how did he reconcile placing the emperor in this exalted state of the just?

In this passage Dante settles for Constantine’s good intent in his governance of the Eastern empire. However, now this emperor knows that if the evil he unwittingly committed has not harmed him, it has nonetheless destroyed the world. Dante may allow him salvation, but makes him pay for it eternally and dearly with this permanent wound in his self-awareness. This does not efface the glory his good intention won him, but it does mar its beauty.²

The fourth soul in the arch was king William II of Naples and Sicily, a just king, especially next to the corrupt rulers Charles of Apulia and Frederick II of Aragon, both of whom Dante listed in his roll call of corrupt monarchs in the previous canto.

The last named just soul was Ripheus, a Trojan warrior killed in the battle against the Greeks who was briefly mentioned in Virgil’s Aeneid:

Ripheus is next. He was Troy’s most just individual of all time,
Ultimate champion of fairness.
Virgil, Aeneid ii.426-7

His presence answered the question posed by Dante to the Eagle in canto xix about the fate of the virtuous pagans, and whether they, through their virtue not in Christ, but with the goodness that could be inherent in any human, could attain the heights of Paradise.

Dante the poet here, in the Eagle’s reply, made the bold assertion that indeed, yes, it was possible for a virtuous pagan to achieve to the level of Paradise; the specifics of his reasoning in whom he placed where—Virgil and the philosophers in Limbo, but Cato in Purgatory, and now Ripheus in Paradise—are of the poet’s own interpretation of much larger questions, but which also show Dante’s willingness to move against the current of theological understanding of the time, and grant a view based on love rather than rigid dogma:

Climax of the six is Ripheus the pagan, at mention of whom an expression of amazement bursts from Dante’s lips. The presence in Heaven of both Ripheus and Trajan at last provides Dante with the answer for which his soul has yearned for so long. Redemption is not, of necessity, denied to those who knew, or know, not Christ. The divine will, operating by grace in ways which man’s mind cannot fathom, grants salvation to the righteous. It would appear from this that Dante’s faith had broadened and deepened during his later years and that he came to know, and to rejoice in the knowledge, that Christian truth was not bounded by his understanding.³

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

As if it were a lark at large in air,
a lark that sings at first and then falls still,
content with final sweetness that fulfills,

such seemed to me the image of the seal
of that Eternal Pleasure through whose will
each thing becomes the being that it is.
xx.73-78

The Eagle celebrated in the justice it had just expounded upon. Dante knew that it could read the continuing current of his thoughts, but spoke his idea aloud anyway, amazed and almost incredulous at the vision that had just been shown to him.

The Eagle knew that Dante could absorb up to a point the truths that he had been shown, but that the true understanding that would turn it from fact to wisdom was yet missing.

“I can see
that, since you speak of them, you do believe
these things but cannot see how they may be;
and thus, though you believe them, they are hidden.

You act as one who apprehends a thing
by name but cannot see its quiddity
unless another set it forth to him.”
xx.87-93

Dante the pilgrim still did not understand the quiddity—the essence—of the reason behind Ripheus being granted a place in Paradise. What truly then, could bring a soul into the heavenly realms, if not the commonly accepted dogma of salvation through belief in Christ and attention to the sacraments? Dante the poet stated clearly his take on the matter, that to attain to the kingdom of heaven-Regnum celorum-“fervent love and vivid hope avail.”⁴

Dante had shown amazement that Trajan and Ripheus were there in Jupiter. The Eagle transferred their fervent love of justice onto a spontaneous understanding of the ideal of Christ, hence granting that admission through their almost natural understanding of the idea of an intercessor. The Eagle described this path explicitly; first for Trajan, referring back to the legend of his being brought back to life in order to finish his act of redemption:

One, from Hell,
where there is no returning to right will,
returned to his own bones, as the reward

bestowed upon a living hope, the hope
that gave force to the prayers offered God
to resurrect him and convert his will.
xx.106-111

Next he turned again to Ripheus, and that the way he had come to this understanding stemmed from his knowledge of absolute justice, and the effect that embodying that justice had upon his transformation of understanding the true nature of God; this interpretation of theology is surely Dante’s own, and yet he used it to solidify his point of pagans ascending to the heavens;

The other, through the grace that surges from
a well so deep that no created one
has ever thrust his eye to its first source,

below, set all his love on righteousness,
so that, through grace on grace, God granted him
the sight of our redemption in the future;

thus he, believing that, no longer suffered
the stench of paganism and rebuked
those who persisted in that perverse way.
xx.118-126

Faith, Hope, and Charity, the three theological virtues whom we met in the pageant at the crest of Mt. Purgatory, those near the right wheel of Beatrice’s chariot, were strong and living forces for Ripheus, baptizing him symbolically if not literally.

As though these issues of doctrine were not enough, the Eagle then touched on the idea of predestination, the workings of which are hidden from the sight of those not prepared to understand such divine and mysterious ways. Even though the souls in heaven understood God’s inner workings more fully than those on earth, they were still lacking in the final understanding, which was known only to God. And yet that was not necessarily a bad thing:

the incompleteness of our knowledge is
a sweetness, for our good is then refined
in this good, since what God wills, we too will.
xx.136-38

Dante recognized all of that which the vision was there to show him, not as a harsh truth, but as a ‘gentle medicine.’

Just as the sympathy between the lutist and singer could bring forth harmony through reading each others cues perfectly, bringing out more beauty from each of them, so Dante saw the lights of the Eagle twinkle and move to indicate their perfect harmony with the words just spoken, showing that they were as one.

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💭 Philosophical Exercises

Ripheus by Polaiuoli after John Flaxman

I can’t always say I understand Dante and his vision, but when the fog of my vision lifts, I glimpse his deeper wisdom.

Here, in the sphere of Justice, my view before entering it was primitive: a bureaucratic picture of courts and procedures.

Divine justice is far deeper and broader. It isn’t built on the processes required on earth. Rather, it is like a Renaissance painting—harmonious, with nothing superfluous—every stroke beginning and ending precisely where it should, every slight pressure of the master’s hand exact.

This is divine justice.

Here, I also face a point that has long baffled me and as I assume my reader as well.

In the previous cantos we met those kept at a distance from divine grace—like Virgil—by chronology and, as the last canto suggests, by geography as well.

For me, in the Canto XX—the chronological and the geographical almost merge. As Boethius suggests, God’s vision of time does not unfold step by step as it does for us; it is more like viewing paintings in a gallery. Each canvas holds time still: beginnings and endings present at once. God sees how everything unfolds, yet sees it as wrought through human action and life.

What moves me most is that Dante lets us glimpse divine vision itself—how God sees—and, in figure, what His Eye consists of. The Eagle isn’t only an emblem of justice; it is God’s vision, his sight, made legible to our simple inner eye.

This is also, to me, one of the most beautiful moments in the Paradiso: Dante describes the Eagle’s eye and brow, and the figures that compose them, so that each person becomes a facet of Justice seen as a single form.

At the pupil stands David, sign of poetic inspiration and sacred song—the psalmist—set at the very centre of the Eagle’s sight. Along the eyebrow are five souls. First, Trajan, the Roman emperor renowned for justice and mercy; medieval tradition says Gregory the Great prayed him back to life so he could be baptised—a legend Dante embraces to show mercy reaching beyond ordinary order.

Next, Hezekiah, whose repentance and prayer gained him added years; he witnesses that humility and amendment belong inside justice.

Then Constantine, whom Dante elsewhere blames for entangling the Church in temporal power through the Donation, yet who appears here among the saved—an image of right intention amid unintended consequences and of our limits in judging history.

After him comes William II of Sicily, “the Good,” praised for mildness, fairness, and piety—an exemplar of equity in rule.

Finally, the most startling: Ripheus the Trojan, hailed by Virgil as the most just of the Trojans, whom Dante dares to place in Heaven because grace “opened his eyes” to the future Redeemer—proof that God’s justice can outrun our categories of time, nation, and rite.

Dante makes a radical claim here—radical for his time and for ours. His inner iconography divides the Eagle’s sight into living meanings: David, the inspired ruler-poet; Trajan, justice among pagans; Hezekiah, repentance and answered prayer; Constantine, good will despite flawed results; William II, earthly kingship tempered and sanctified by equity; and Ripheus, divine grace beyond human reason.

This also answers the rebuke from the Eagle in Canto XIX, when he dared to ask how those far from Christ’s preaching could be excluded simply by geography. Here we see that divine justice is all-encompassing. Its vision is the master’s stroke. And it is as if Virgil had to remain in Limbo for this painting of justice to keep its severe harmony—a hard, humbling truth that sharpens the picture rather than softens it.

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This Week’s Sinners and Virtuous 🎭

(Themes, Quotes, Terms and Characters)

I. Time and Eternity

In this canto, Dante dissolves the boundaries of time into the stillness of eternity.

The canto’s two emblematic figures—Hezekiah, whose death was postponed through prayer, and Trajan, whose soul was recalled to life centuries after his death, reveal how divine justice transcends the linear order of past and future.

As Hollander notes, Dante’s Heaven “gathers all temporal difference into one simultaneous vision,” where acts of repentance and faith, whether before or after Christ, stand equally present before God’s eternal gaze.

In this realm there is no “before” or “after,” only the immediacy of divine knowing: every just act, once illumined by grace, becomes forever now in the mind of God.

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Quotes 🖋️

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

So, from the image God Himself had drawn,
what I received was gentle medicine;
and I saw my shortsightedness plainly.

~ lines 139-41, Paradiso, Canto XX

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1. Dorothy L. Sayers, Paradise 236

2. Robert Hollander, Paradiso 556

3. Sayers 236-7

4. Sayers 240