Compared to modern times, it seems the average person in the Middle Ages was much more concerned about God, particularly divine opinion of the individual in question. Perhaps this stems from the fact that, if one's life is spent worrying about marauding Vikings or the Black Plague, one places much more hope in attaining a pleasant afterlife while, if one's barcalounger is adjustable and one's TV larger than 32 inches, there seems to be little point in hoping for something better. A predictable but interesting side effect of this heavenly pondering is exploration of the paradox of sin. How can a world created by a supremely good God contain evil? What is sin and, if everything was created by God, where did it come from? Intellectuals in the Middle Ages explored these questions and each arrived at their own shade of conclusion. To use a chromatic analogy, all could be called red, but with their own tints and tinges.
For example, Dante Alighieri's masterpiece The Divine Comedy can be thought of as an explication of his conception on sin. He spends two-thirds of the work explaining his thoughts on what happens to the vast majority of people he believes will not go straight to heaven. Interestingly, Dante comments in great length on the nature of sin in Purgatorio, the area reserved for those who will eventually make it to heaven. As evidenced by Inferno, Dante agrees with the traditional concept of sin as action contrary to God's will but, in Purgatory, his definition becomes more nuanced. Dante's afterlife tour-guide, Virgil, explains much while commenting on the structure of Purgatory;
The natural love is just and cannot rove.
The soul's love strays if it desires what's wrong
or loves with too much strength, or...
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...ferent media - poetry, prose, and plays - Dante, Augustine, and Marlowe all explore a major question that pervaded the Middle Ages and remains prevalent today: What is the nature of sin? They come to similar conclusions yet they each add something new and different: misguided love, misused agency, and lack of responsibility. While their concepts similar, each adds his own signature, or touch, tailor fitting their sense of sin to their own lives. Each conclusion is a slightly different hue reflecting the minds that created them.
Works Cited
Alighieri, Dante, Gustave Doré, and Anthony Esolen. Purgatory. Modern Library, 2004. Print.
Augustine of Hippo. Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick. New York: Oxford University Press Inc, 1998. Print.
Marlowe, Christopher, Frank Romany, and Robert Lindsey. The Complete Plays. London: Penguin Classics, 2003. Print.
Dante’s concept of sin and punishment conflicts with the modern American idea of morality. Not only sequence and grouping but also the punishments of sin in the original Circle of Hell are much different of that in a modern American version.
In analyzing this gradient of morality, it is useful first to examine a work from early literature whose strong purity of morality is unwavering; for the purposes of this discussion, Dante’s Inferno provides this model. It is fairly straightforward to discover Dante’s dualistic construction of morality in his winding caverns of Hell; each stern, finite circle of Hell is associated with a clear sin that is both definable and directly punishable. As Dante moves downwards in this moral machination, he notes that
In Purgatorio, Dante’s journey continues under Virgil’s guidance from preparing to ascend the mountain of Purgatory until reaching the garden of earthly paradise, at which point Beatrice arrives to take on the role of guide through the rest of purgatory. However, along the way, Dante interacts with several other secondary guides on brief portions of his journey. Individually, Cato, Sordello, Statius, and Matelda serve as corrected counterparts to other characters in the Divine Comedy, classical mythology, and the Bible. Collectively, Cato, Sordello, Statius, and Matelda serve to bridge classical and Christian teachings, both of which are critical in defining the values of Dante-author’s Purgatory, and in shaping Dante-character’s will as the purpose of the journey through purgatory.
“The third rope was still moving; being so light, the child was still alive… For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes… Behind me, I heard the same man asking; ‘Where is God now?’ And I heard a voice within me answer him: ‘Where is He? Here He is-He is hanging here on this gallows.’” (Wiesel, 1982) What possible good could have come out of this child being executed? He committed no recognizable crime. How could an all powerful, all knowing, perfectly good God allow such a thing to happen? Philosophers and theologians have struggled with this question for centuries. It is known as the problem of evil, as the existence of evil and the classical theistic concept of God appear to be logical incompatibilities. Many philosophers have devised theodicies or justifications of evil; however; J. L. Mackie proposed that the only plausible explanation is not that evil is justifiable but rather that the problem lies in the traditional concept of God.
“If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing.” This maxim applies to the poet Dante Alighieri, writer of The Inferno in the 1300s, because it asserts the need to establish oneself as a contributor to society. Indeed, Dante’s work contributes much to Renaissance Italy as his work is the first of its scope and size to be written in the vernacular. Due to its readability and availability, The Inferno is a nationalistic symbol. With this widespread availability also comes a certain social responsibility; even though Dante’s audience would have been familiar with the religious dogma, he assumes the didactic role of illustrating his own version of Christian justice and emphasizes the need for a personal understanding of divine wisdom and contrapasso, the idea of the perfect punishment for the crime. Dante acts as both author and narrator, completing a physical and spiritual journey into the underworld with Virgil as his guide and mentor. The journey from darkness into light is an allegory full of symbolism, much like that of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, which shows a philosopher’s journey towards truth. Therefore, Dante would also agree with the maxim, “Wise men learn by others’ harms; fools scarcely by their own,” because on the road to gaining knowledge and spiritual enlightenment, characters who learn valuable lessons from the misfortunes of others strengthen their own paradigms. Nonetheless, the only true way to gain knowledge is to experience it first hand. Dante’s character finds truth by way of his own personal quest.
He had meticulously described it to illuminate the Bible’s interpretation, especially for the degrees of sin. For instance, during his journey through Hell, he had traveled through nine rings, each containing different forms of sin. Within the rings, Dante had met individuals who were cast into Hell for adultery and heretical beliefs. However, Dante had not only described who he saw, but also the quality of their lives in Hell. D’Epiro states, “The poet’s most famous portrait of flawed grandeur is that of Ulysses, whose sins as a false counselor have caused him to be enveloped in flames like a human torch.” (99) Dante had wanted to put an emphasis on how perilous Hell was because of the time period’s grasp on religion in 1320.
Philosophers of the Medieval period struggled with the problem of evil - specifically, the existence of evil brought a question to the fore: if the world was created by an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God, then how was it that evil existed? To further complicate the matter, a second question branched off of the first as individuals pondered over whether or not God was ultimately the cause of evil. If God created everything, and evil exists as part of everything, then God, logically, had created evil. But this presented yet another issue, in that if God had knowingly created evil, then he could not truly be all-good. And it is these concerns that philosophers addressed.
My claim that we have evil in this world because of our libertarian freedom does not fully answer the notion of “the problem of evil”. Saying we have evil in this world is just like saying we have bad decisions in this world. Bad decisions just like evil do not have a form. Every decision that God makes is a good decision therefore God cannot do evil. Human beings initiated evil. In fact, the first human beings (Adam and Eve) gave ongoing birth to evil because everyone ultimately came from them. So everyone after Adam and Eve is inherently evil. This idea is evident in our lives because every human being has committed evil. The ultimate problem is not how an all-powerful God can exist while evil exist, the ultimate dilemma is how a holy God can accept human beings that are not holy. Stephen T. Davis in “Free Will and Evil” writes, “All the moral evil that exists in the world is due to the choices of free moral agents whom God created” (Davis). Davis argues that free will is the answer to the problem of evil. This is consistent with my view that evil exists because of our libertarian freedom. Unlike Hick, Davis is consistent with my answer for evil and he is also consistent with how evil is solved in regards to heaven and hell. Davis states, “I do believe hell exists, but I do not hold that it is a place where protesting people are led against their will to be tortured vengefully. I believe that the people who will end up separated from God freely choose hell and would be unhappy in God’s presence. Having lived their lives apart from God, they will choose eternally—to go on doing so. So it is not a bad thing that they do not spend eternity in the presence of God. People who will prove to be incorrigibly evil will never come to th...
Inferno is the first and most famous of a three part series by Dante Alighieri known as the Divine Comedy that describes his journey to God through the levels of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise written in the early fourteenth century. Scholars spanning over nearly seven centuries have praised its beauty and complexity, unmatched by any other medieval poem. Patrick Hunt’s review, “On the Inferno,” states, “Dante’s extensive use of symbolism and prolific use of allegory— even in incredible anatomical detail—have been often plumbed as scholars have explored the gamut of his work’s classical, biblical, historical, and contemporary political significance” (9). In the story, each of the three main characters, Dante, Virgil, and Beatrice, represent
...ion. Dante cites now-historical and mythological figures to exemplify the sins and to make for the better understanding of sin to even the most inept of readers. This work stands alongside The Bible as one of the greatest religious-literary masterpieces of all time.
Dante’s Inferno presents the reader with many questions and thought provoking dialogue to interpret. These crossroads provide points of contemplation and thought. Dante’s graphic depiction of hell and its eternal punishment is filled with imagery and allegorical meanings. Examining one of these cruxes of why there is a rift in the pits of hell, can lead the reader to interpret why Dante used the language he did to relate the Idea of a Just and perfect punishment by God.
Deceived perspective and impaired logic lure vulnerable individuals to frolic in the meadows of sin; therefore, in order to achieve ultimate freedom, one must first be stripped clean of all earthly and common expectations. Dante contorts Earth from a palace to a prison. Bound in earthly limitations, man “by his own fault” (Dante 307) engenders “grief and toil” (Dante 307) causing the “the winds of earth and sea to rise” (Dante 307). Men adhere to addictive habits ignorant of God’s presence on earth. By contrast, purgatory cuts men’s binds to these traps through punishment, enlightening individuals to their mistake. These conversions prompt “singing” (Dante 109) not moaning—as one would expect during punishment—and as the cleansed souls free themselves of their burdens of sin, their climb “up the sacred stairs”(Dante 133) seems “lighter”(Dante 133) and “easier by far” (Dante 133). Dante uses these paradoxe...
Lummus, David. "Dante’s Inferno: Critical Reception and Influence." Dantes Inferno. Engerda: Arun, 2000. 63-79. Print.
Dante Alighieri presents a vivid and awakening view of the depths of Hell in the first book of his Divine Comedy, the Inferno. The reader is allowed to contemplate the state of his own soul as Dante "visits" and views the state of the souls of those eternally assigned to Hell's hallows. While any one of the cantos written in Inferno will offer an excellent description of the suffering and justice of hell, Canto V offers a poignant view of the assignment of punishment based on the committed sin. Through this close reading, we will examine three distinct areas of Dante's hell: the geography and punishment the sinner is restricted to, the character of the sinner, and the "fairness" or justice of the punishment in relation to the sin. Dante's Inferno is an ordered and descriptive journey that allows the reader the chance to see his own shortcomings in the sinners presented in the text.
Justice is one of the major building block that society is built upon. It gives people a sense of retribution when they have been wronged. In Dante’s Inferno, justice is served in the supernatural realm. Throughout this play, the reader is exposed to the inner working of hell and the nine circles of specialized punishment it is composed of. Justice, in Dante’s Inferno, differs from justice in the mortal world in that it is decided, not by humans, but by God. However, it is not God’s justice that is portrayed in this divine comedy. While this divine comedy depicts justice coming from God, the justice in the Inferno is based on Dante’s personal views of the severity of the sin and the sinner. This paper will examine this issue by looking into the life of Dante and the potential reasons for his rankings of the sin pertaining to specific circles of hell.