Dante's Punishment In The Divine Comedy

While Dante was writing The Divine Comedy, the Catholic Church was very corrupt and the popes that led the Church were more interested in making monetary gains rather than being spiritual leaders. One purpose of The Divine Comedy is to express Dante’s disgust with the Church of the time and to suggest what the reformed Church should look like. Dante, by creating his own version of the afterlife, is able to indicate the sins he finds to be most heinous in his own structure of Hell and celebrate the virtues he values most in his structure of Heaven. He also has the liberty to punish and exalt any figures he desires, dead or alive. Through his descriptions of the characters of (the popes that have been damned and the popes that have gained eternal life) Pope Nicholas III, Pope Boniface VIII, and Saint Peter, Dante reveals his idea of a reformed Church that closely matches biblical descriptions and the early Church. Dante’s
The punishment for those who committed simony is to be placed upside down in a hole with their feet sticking out. Their feet are burned which tortures the sinners “their joints… writing with such violence, they would have severed withes and ropes of grass” (Inferno, 19.26-27). This punishment is fitting because they warped the purpose of spiritual goods. By selling spiritual goods meant to lead people towards God or selling a promise of salvation, they have advertised a way to Heaven. Now, they must eternally point away from Heaven. Foster, a Dominican priest who taught at Cambridge, points out that the popes symbolize the Church, and the punishment illustrates that “the Church [has] lost the sense of her own identity” (Foster, 60). Dante’s portrayal of the punishment of simonists and his harsh words against them indicates that this corruption within the office of the pope is the most important reform needed to reform the