One must imagine Sisyphus pissed off!

Sometimes when you hold someone so highly and you see them make a mistake, or you think that they may be wrong somehow, you feel a bit shocked, perhaps a little hurt, at least, I do. I don’t have many heroes, but men I respect I have some. I sort of feel that way, now. I love Albert Camus and his writings, he is as close to a hero as I am going to have. I thought of something, which doesn’t exactly render Camus wrong in anything he said, but got me thinking about things contrary to a statement of his.

I have been reading The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. I am presently starting Canto VIII, the part after Virgil guides Dante through the Fourth Circle of Hell, where the avaricious are tormented continuously, Canto VII. Avarice is the sin of extreme greed. The punishment for those who died and claim avarice as their sin is to roll a stone with their chest in a semi-circle. They start at one point of a circle, get halfway along the arc, pause, then roll back.

You might be asking, “well, why half-way? Why push a stone in the first place, let alone in a half-circle?” There are two kinds of people that would fall into this level of Hell, those who were greedy and hoarded  material possessions, and those who spent frivolously. We all know people like this, so it seems all the more frightening. The idea of this punishment is simple: it is to point out the worthlessness of the material possessions that occupied the attention of these sinners. Pushing a stone round and around is one of the most meaningless things one can do.

Ring a bell? This is, virtually, the same punishment that Sisyphus was given when escaping Hades as a fugitive. This is no coincidence as Dante mixes many themes and characters from Greek and Roman mythology with a slightly variant form of Catholic theology into his classic. The ancient Greeks thought that there is nothing more meaningless than exerting ones energy by pushing a stone around. Dante adopts this and tries to show his audience that pushing a stone, an entirely meaningless and worthless task, is precisely like greedily hoarding possessions or frivolously spending money. This is the reason for the half-circle, one half is occupied by those who hoarded, and the other by those who spent. They meet half-way, where the balance between the two exists, and thus the punishment is realized, the way they should have been in life was somewhere between where they were, and where their counterparts are.

Recall my post absurd. In there I commented on Camus’ ideas of the absurd. Since Camus explained that one cannot prove the existence of God, or any other purely religious figure being outside the realm of pure logic, the most logical stance one must take is that of the absurd-man; that is, realizing that there is no purpose in the universe, no point to anything. All one can do is laugh and continuously revolt against the human need and desire for purpose. At the end of his essay on Absurdism, he draws an analogy of the absurd-man and describes to us the absurd-hero, Sisyphus.

Sisyphus, being forced to push a stone up a hill and watching it roll back down, then starting over and repeating ad infinitum, is punished with what the ancient Greeks and Romans thought to be the most meaningless task there could be. However, Camus points out that when Sisphus realizes that there is no meaning in the universe anyway, he stands content. Once his task of pushing a stone to the top is spasmodically finished, and it rolls back down, that is when Sisyphus is most happy, he is content in that he conquered the gods, his punishment is nullified, he stands content in the fact that everything is meaningless, so his pushing his stone up a hill is nothing more than a regular punishment that is life itself, nothing changed!

So too with the sinners in the Fourth Circle of Hell. Except the situation is only a little bit different. In life, if one is to be as logical as possible he must stand with Camus and argue that there is no meaning in the world – God cannot be proven to exist, or rather, proving the existence of God is an absurd task, absurd in that it is humanly impossible, or unlikely. However, in death, could one do that anymore? If God is seen with the eyes, in death, if divine punishment is experienced in Hell, is it still a meaningless task to push a stone around?

The fact that Sisyphus is the absurd-hero rests on the fact that one cannot prove the existence of God in life, and thus, of the attainment of meaning in life. However, when standing in front of the Almighty, could you really say that there was no meaning, or better yet, there is no meaning? There is meaning sitting directly in front of you on the Throne of Judgement! There it sits! The punishment for avarice is no longer rendered silly, one cannot be content in pushing that stone. It is, as Dante says, a constant reminder of one’s greed in hoarding, and one’s greed in spending; it is a constant reminder of how one spent their life being the absurd-man.

Epic fail!

Considering the fact that there are things that are not necessarily logical, yet stand true, perhaps considering divine in one’s calculation is not so unreasonable, methinks. I believe this is what causes many people some angst, or perhaps some discomfort, when reading The Divine Comedy, something similar could actually be true!

EDIT: On a different, yet similar, note:

I recently read a blog about The Myth of Sisyphus. The blogger pointed out that this analogy used by Camus to illustrate the absurd-man is actually a faulty one. It doesn’t necessarily invalidate his thesis – and neither does what I wrote above – but while for us there may be a sort of absurdity in life, the unattainability of meaning, it is different for Sisyphus. His actions were decreed by the gods, the sinners in the Fourth Circle of Hell are served Justice by God, to push their stones. They had no choice in the matter, there is the establishment of a “higher purpose” in both of these cases.

Something to think about.

Incidentally, the aforementioned blog can be reached here: Review – The Myth of Sisyphus