'"
(IV, 25.)
(b) Our poet represents a soul as punished but for one sin, though it
may be guilt-dyed by its having broken all the commandments. Even so, it
is placed in one particular circle wherein a certain sin is punished and
we are not told that it passes to other circles. In explanation of this
we have only to remember that Dante, for our instruction, is showing us
object lessons of evil, types of certain sins. Judas, for example, whose
name is synonymous with traitor, is exhibited as suffering in the ninth
circle, the circle of treason, the poet taking no notice of other sins,
v.g., sacrilege, avarice, suicide, of which the fallen apostle may have
been guilty. Furthermore, Dante as a master psychologist and moralist
would teach us the lesson that the evil doer may come to damnation
through one sin if that acquires such an ascendency over his will as to
become a capital sin or predominant passion of his life. Then the
besetting passion is the father of an innumerable progeny of evil. This
is seen (Purg., XX, 103) in the case of Pygmalion, whose predominant
passion, avarice, made him a traitor, a thief and a parricide.
(c) Let us not be surprised that Dante is so lenient in the punishment
of carnal sinners.
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