Purgatory: Canto V -- Ante-Purgatory: Those who Died by Violence without Last Rites

2005-02-21T02:35:00.000-08:00

Alas, I have sat on the ledge of the indolent far too long, having been stricken with a malaise and rhinitis (that is, a common cold) that has plagued my entire house. After two days of rest, we are finally recovering -- may no one breathe on me ever again, and may this greater community we are rebuilding from hell's ashes through our ascent toward God keep its germs close to its own breast so that we might paraphrase St. Augustine in saying, God give us community, but let's avoid the spread of infectious diseases and colds!

In his stanza, Alexander Pope insists that we cooperate with the Divine Plan and that we don't, through self-serving pride, try to lift ourselves out of our proper sphere; instead, we ought to work within our proper sphere as we were created especially for it. In striving to be gods, angels fell, but in striving to be angels, man rebels -- the sense of it is that we should pursue what is right for us as beings created for a given purpose, and we should remain true to ourselves in that purpose. Dante, in his La Vita Nuova, strays from his main purpose in his pretending to pursue the similacra of the good rather than the good itself. When he loses his screen through which he was able to gaze unhindered upon the light of Beatrice, he expresses sadness at his loss. This is a good allegory on two levels.

The first allegorical response we might have is that in our pursuit of divine love, it often happens that something stands between us and that goal. In Dante's case, he used that person rather unethically, letting everyone (and presumedly also her) believe that he was in love with her and investing his energies in the pursuit of an imaginary goal instead of remaining true to his primary goal and pursuing that alone. If moved as she might have been by Dante's poetry and words of love, this woman would have developed expectations to reciprocate (or reject) Dante's advances, and, in either case, none forthcoming, it only makes sense that she would move beyond the limits of his sight -- perhaps as a way to encourage him to follow her and formally declare his love to her personally or to rid herself of any doubts when he did not follow. The text does not pursue her reasons, only Dante's in inventing a sorrow at his loss, a sorrow as inauthentic and unrequited as his love. (Which brings up another question about the nature of unrequited sorrow, but I digress.) In any case, this first allegorical response is a good model for us to see the consequences of our misdirecting our true focus -- if Beatrice is the representative of divine love, then Dante's looking at anything else is a falsehood; likewise, if the Creator is our goal and aim, then our focusing too much on the creation is damnable (another score for Sean's project and a nod to Andy's). Our proper sphere requires of us that we pursue the one good -- the Creator -- and that we do so in authentic engagement with the community into which we are born -- that of humanity -- for in the light of community, we come to know the love we ought to have for God, the source and light of all.

This leads us, further, to our second allegorical response, which is the idea that we cannot look upon divine love with unaccustomed eyes lest we burn them in the way we do when we stare at the sun on a hot, high summer day. Dante's averting his focus from Beatrice to a screen is like our averting our focus from God to the community he created with us as a part of it -- if we focus on our proper sphere (and we've been discussing the many manifestations of pride up to this point in our perusal of the late-repentant -- we have yet to hit the first cornice where that pride will be finally expunged) with proper humility and deference to the community that God created in his own image and in which he placed us for the purpose of our loving one another, then we're exercising ourselves spiritually to discover how to love its creator. This is the essence of the Golden Rule, not to do unto another as we would have him do unto us, but to do unto another as God has prescribed through his son, Jesus Christ, to love others as though we were both a mirror and a lamp of God's light and love, for it is written that even the ungodly love their own and expect tit-for-tat relationships, so what merit is it in us to do likewise. Instead, we should follow St. Peter Damian's example of being good to the poor, to our neighbor who lives with us in Christ and to those who have yet to understand that light, not because they are poor and we seek them out as such, but because they are children of God created in his image.

Perhaps it is this focus on the idea of community, even if limited in its scope, that has saved those who died by violence without last rites. Caught as they were in an inherently anti-communal activity, these souls had persisted in a state of being that was genuinely concerned for the welfare of the community in which they lived -- and in their dying breath called upon God to save them. During their lives, they likely worked with others to improve the greater community even if that vision sometimes entailed they war against those who might disrupt their livelihoods. In either instance, their love of God and community is what kept them out of Phlegethon where they would have been eternally shot with centaurian arrows and steeped in boiling blood. Dante is once again recognized as a living man by the shadow he casts, and when he turns to address those calling him, he is admonished by Virgil that who "lets his attention range/ toward every wisp, . . . loses true direction/ sapping his mind's force with continual change" (16-18). At this prompt, Dante hurries back on his course only to come across others on that ledge pursuing him from the direction in which he's heading. Virgil explains Dante's condition and, when the sentries return to their clan in order to bring all to marvel at this living man, advises Dante to hear them but without losing his pace. It is enough for Dante to hear three of their stories -- one of which, told by the son of Guido da Montefeltro, parallels what happened to his father in the contest between the black and white angels, only in this case God's angel won the debate. Incensed, the black angel desecrated the body even though he could do nothing to thwart God's power to resurrect it on Judgment Day. Let that be a lesson to those who think we're made of nothing more substantial than clay.

S.

Purgatory: Canto 5 -- The Repentant Violent

Purgatory: Canto V -- Ante-Purgatory: Those who Died by Violence without Last Rites