When it comes to the most influential works of literature, Dante’s Divine Comedy is right up there.
The Florentine epic poem about a journey alongside Virgil through the nine circles of Hell, up through Purgatory, and eventually into Paradise is seared into cultural memory. Ideas of Hell as a fiery furnace inhabited by demonic monsters tormenting souls for eternity owe a grizzly debt to Dante’s work.
The Divine Comedy is 14,233 lines, split into three parts, or ‘canticles’ – The Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso – Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. Dante wasn’t the first to use the afterlife as inspiration for literature, but his depiction became standard for those who came after. In fact, the great 20th-century poet T.S. Eliot said of him:
“Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them. There is no third.”
His vision of the afterlife is speculative and highly pictorial, but he was far from a fear-mongering horror fiction writer. Dante himself was a Christian believer, extremely well-versed in the scriptures. He knew what was in it … and what wasn’t. He wasn’t claiming to offer us a vision of what hell and heaven are actually like.
But – is there a chance that some of what he captured might have been more accurate than we might expect? Hell might not be made of nine circles, and heaven may not be accessed via a mount purgatory – but there might be some elements in it with a higher level of theological truth than we would otherwise expect.
That’s what John Took, Professor Emeritus of Dante Studies at University College, London, believes.
For starters, the lower the circle of hell, the worse the sin, and the greater the torment. However, the order of sins represented by the circles may not be what you would typically expect. They are limbo (for the unbaptized), lust, gluttony, greed, wrath, heresy, violence, fraud, and treachery. Those at the bottom are sins for which humans ultimately have the most control over their actions.
“We are creatures of deliberation and ultimate responsibility”, John Took said. “Take the inferno first: Hell, that is the souls in the pit. There, Dante insists that these souls have been given the power of reason. They have been called to an understanding of love, but they have not acted in love: they have acted violently, lustfully, and fraudulently. They’ve betrayed that love, and God is angry, and he has condemned them to this place.
“What is going on in hell is this: that we are indeed creatures of understanding. We have indeed betrayed ourselves. God knows that, but we know that too. The question is, who is punishing whom in hell? It’s not fundamentally a question of God’s retribution. It is a question of man’s delivering himself to what he knows is the demonic. ‘I have delivered myself to my own undoing. I know I have done this.”‘
C.S. Lewis would go on to echo this sentiment of Dante’s 600 years later:
“It’s not a question of God ‘sending’ us to hell. In each of us there is something growing up which will of itself be hell unless it is nipped in the bud …there are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says . . . ‘Thy will be done.’
This idea—that separation from God is, to a degree, our own choosing—can be found in Paul’s letter to the Romans. Three times in chapter one, he notes that God “gives people up” to their own desires.
Another kernel of Biblical truth found in the Divine Comedy is the proportionality of judgment. Contrary to popular modern Christian belief, Jesus and the apostles taught God’s judgment was not one-size-fits-all. It will be less or greater, depending on how we have lived. Good deeds can’t earn our way into Paradise, but bad deeds certainly will shape someone’s experience of punishment in Hell.
Jesus spoke of judgment being “many blows” in one case, and “few blows” in another (Luke 12), of some people receiving “greater condemnation” (Luke 20), and of the Day of Judgment being “more bearable” for some than others (Matthew 11; Luke 10). Paul said each person will be repaid “in accordance with what they’ve done” (Romans 2:6). Divine justice isn’t a flat sentence for all, but a measured response to each life. Mercy is free and full, but judgment is calibrated — the punishment precisely fitting the sin. It is just.
Dante’s Divine Comedy might hit on the Biblical themes of chosing sin, and proportional judgement – but why does that make it an important book for readers today?
“(Dante) reflects an entire worldview and understanding of creation that’s different from the modern one”, John said. “Each of us is limited in our understanding of how God created the world and his omniscience about it. But each of these metaphors gives us a slightly different bit of light or illumination on the world as God created it and our limited place in it as humans. We can learn from literature and from other art, and get a little glimmer here and there of the total truth that God will reveal to us all someday.
Adapted by Alasdair Belling from Undeceptions episode 163 ‘Divine Comedy’. Listen here.
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