Paradiso, Canto 7SummaryJustinian, with the other spirits in Mercury, whirls out of sight, singing Hosannah. Dante longs to question Beatrice about the Redemption but is too much overcome by awe to do so. She, reading his mind, goes straight to the heart of his perplexity: if the Crucifixion was a just penalty for the sins of man, how could it be justly avenged by the fall of Jerusalem? By the act of Incarnation, human nature was united with God and by the Crucifixion human nature paid the penalty for sin. Yet the outrage upon the Divine Person remained to be avenged, and was avenged by the destruction of Jerusalem. But why was this means of redemption chosen? Beatrice answers this by proving that no other means would have been adequate. Man himself could not have made just amends; it was necessary for God to renew man’s proper life and reinstate him. This He chose to do, not by cancelling the debt, but by His self-giving.
Beatrice then touches on the mystery of the resurrection of the body. The elements and compounds of the material world, not being made directly by God, but by secondary causes, are subject to decay; but first matter, the Angels themselves, the heavenly spheres and life in man, being direct creations of God, are eternal. The Prepatory LectureQuestions for Reflection
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Paradiso, Canto 7 © Jan Hearn
The ImagesDante’s doubt as to “how the just vengeance justly was avenged”. In the story, Dante’s eager desire for clarification on this matter arises from the words of Justinian in Canto vi concerning the just penalty for the sin of Adam (the Crucifixion) and the just penalty for the Crucifixion (the destruction of Jerusalem). In relation to the allegory of Paradise, Dante’s perplexity in the face of this enigma is a type or symbol of mankind’s perplexity in the face of the paradoxes of history. The solution, which Beatrice supplies, leads Dante nearer to the realization that justice in heaven is justice on earth, that history, the actual course of world-events, is ultimately and essentially just, until finally (in Canto xix) he sees that divine justice and the will of God are one.
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