Per Caritatem

 

Next we come to an interesting scene in Purgatorio, Canto V.  Here a group of late-repentant shades approach Dante and are amazed by his ability to cast a shadow.  As is the case with most of the shades in Purgatory, this particular group pleads with Dante to send word to their friends and relatives in the world above with the hope that those living loved ones will pray for them.  As these last minute repentants tell their story, they explain that they all died violent deaths and sinned until the final hour.  However, they go on to say, “then light from Heaven granted understanding, so that, repenting and forgiving, we came forth from life at peace with God, and He instilled in us the longing to see Him” (Canto V.53-57; emphases added).  In this account, it seems that the limitation of natural reason is being accented, as the ability to repent, which is described as an act of the understanding, is impossible apart from divine illumination.  Likewise, the very longing to see the Christian God (the beatific vision) is itself a gift of God that must be instilled by God into the person.  Though it is the case that ancient philosophers spoke of a desire to “see” the divine and be in union with the divine, the fact that Virgil ends up in Limbo seems to suggest that such philosophers were not longing for nor did their arguments properly lead to the Christian God. 

In Canto VI of Purgatorio, we have another interesting exchange between Dante the character and Virgil.  Here Dante asks whether the prayers of the people in Purgatory are without hope. That is, given that Virgil himself wrote that prayers are ineffective once divine justice has so to speak settled the issue, Dante wonders as to the efficacy of the prayers of these souls in Purgatory-are they simply engaging in a futile activity?  Virgil’s answer is rather perplexing.  He claims that when he had formerly written on the ineffectiveness of prayer, he was speaking of those who prayed “without a passageway to God” (VI.24).  Virgil, a few lines earlier, had stated that “the peak of justice is not lowered when the fire of love accomplished in one instant the expiation owed by all who dwell here” (VI.37-40).  I understand Virgil to be speaking of Christ’s propitiatory sacrifice on the Cross on behalf of those who are in fact guilty-as 1 Peter 3:18 says, “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.”  In other words, Virgil seems to be claiming that what he meant at the time of his original writing applies only to those who attempted to reach God via their prayers apart from Christ!  Here one would want to ask (1) how Virgil, who lived prior to the Christian era, would have had such knowledge and (2) if he did in fact come to this knowledge, why he himself didn’t act on such knowledge?  One should also note that after giving his explanation to Dante, Virgil quickly defers to Beatrice and urges Dante not to be content with Virgil as the final word with regard to a “quandary so deep” but to “wait for the word that she [Beatrice], the light between your mind and truth, will speak” (VI.43-46).  Here Beatrice seems to serve as an image of divine revelation, yet one wonders why divine revelation would be between Dante’s mind and the truth instead of being described as the Truth itself which is “above” or surpasses Dante’s mind?  When one couples Virgil’s mysterious answer above with what seems to be a purposed attempt on Dante the author’s part to evoke pity in the reader for Virgil given that he is barred from Heaven “for no other fault than [his] lack of faith” (VII.7-8), one cannot help but wonder what Dante the author is up to?[1]  After all in the Inferno, part of what Dante the character had to learn from Virgil himself was that sin is not to be pitied.  Unbelief (with reference to Christ) is of course in the Christian tradition considered sin, so why does Dante the author continue to wrestle with Virgil’s condemnation?  Perhaps one might suggest that though Scripture clearly condemns unbelief as a sin, the examples that are typically given in Scripture itself are of those who were confronted with Christ or the proclamation of the Gospel and yet refused to believe.  In the case of Virgil, however, he was simply by God’s providence born at the wrong time and had no opportunity to hear the Gospel.  Here one might postulate that Dante’s theology is being pressed to its limits and that he himself has not found a satisfying way to explain the justness of condemning such a virtuous pagan given that Virgil had no choice as to when he would be born (viz., in a pre-Christian age). 

Notes

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[1] For an interesting alternative view that argues against the commonly held position on Virgil’s damnation, see Mowbray Allan’s article, “Does Dante Hope for Virgil’s Salvation?,” MLN Vol. 104, No. 1, Italian Issue (Jan. 1989):  pp. 193-205.