As he passes through the gates with their terrible message of warning Dante sees an unsettling sight And I, all eyes, saw a whirling banner INFERNO Canto 3:52-69 [Translation Robert and Jean Hollander: the Princeton Dante Project] 'Making your mind up'Sometimes it's hard to make choices. Either we don't quite know what we want (will we have the beef or the chicken) where we are trying to balance the merits of two things we like, or we are worried about the consequences of our choice (if I have the chicken with the creamy sauce I will be putting on more weight than if I have the lean beef) where we are weighing up our desire (creamy chicken) against the outcome (calories). Usually finding it hard to choose isn't a big problem (unless for our spouses, who are sitting outside the changing room growing increasingly frustrated at the time it is taking to choose a new pair of trousers/shoes etc) but sometimes, when our choices really matter, indecision can be fatal. Sometimes not choosing is simply not a option and is in fact a form of surrender. When we refuse to take sides when one of those sides is clearly wrong, when we stay neutral when existential issues are at stake, when we stay silent and hide behind our newspaper when someone is being sexually harassed in our train carriage, when we 'opt out' of the discussion when the future of the community or the family is being decided, then we are denying something fundamental about ourselves, our necessary involvement and responsibility. When we opt out in this way we become less than what we should be, as Dante would see it, less than human, For Dante the refusal to decide for or against the Good was the worst sin that a person could commit. In his view each person creates his or her own identity through the decisions they make, be they good or bad. Being is a function of doing and doing involves decision-making. Those who refused to take sides, to commit themselves in the necessary moral choices of life were, in his view, opting out of life itself. In his own day Dante thought that far too many people were playing safe and 'sitting on the fence'. At that time there was a fierce battle raging over who should have supreme political authority over the city-states of Italy such as Florence, between the supporters of the papacy based in Rome, and those who supported the authority of the Holy Roman Emperor, who claimed to be the direct successor of the original Roman emperors. Dante was on the side of the Emperor and critical of the church and papacy. The Emperor, he believed, was the divinely appointed ruler over the material world and his rule would bring peace and safeguard the rights and prosperity of his home city of Florence. The papacy on the other hand, was responsible for the spiritual good of the citizens, guiding them to eternal happiness. Even in that regard, Dante thought, the Popes had failed, becoming as he saw it hopelessly corrupt. But Dante saw that the rapid growth and increasing prosperity of Florence and other italian city states led many to opt out of involvement in the big issues of the day. For some there was too much to lose. In his life before his exile, Dante had committed himself to one of the political factions within Florence, the so called 'White' Guelf party, which ultimately led to his exile in 1302 when, at the instigation of the then Pope, Boniface VIII, the 'Black' Guelf party took over control of the city. Although he eventually renounced membership of any factional party or group, calling himself a 'party of one', Dante knew what it was to make choices, take risks and suffer the consequences out of conviction. He believed that everyone who was able to should take responsibility for working towards the common Good, i.e. the revelation of God's will on earth (which he associated with the victory of the Emperor and the limitation of the powers of the Pope). But he believed many, motivated by greed and self interest, avoided doing so. For such as these, the moral cowards of his day, he created a very special place in his hell. In the ante-chamber of hell, he locates the people who refused to choose, who, in the afterworld as in life, hardly seem to exist at all. They spend eternity chasing a banner (flag) which has no emblem, represents no cause. Those who in this life chose no cause, who believed in nothing, are now seen as they really are; the devoted, committed supporters of nothing! As they chase the banner, they are gnawed at by worms and their blood, running to the ground, provides the nourishment for the maggots beneath their feet. In other words their pointless lives have become a form of death. These are the people as Dante puts it, 'who never were alive'. Centuries later, another poet trying to express his impression that the modern world was devoid of the commitment and passion that gave it meaning, found inspiration in this terrible vision. In The Wasteland T.S. Eliot describes his own vision of the living dead, the great crowd 'who never were alive' Unreal City, Keep the noise down!Having entered through the daunting gates with their terrible inscription the pilgrim is overwhelmed by a babel of human groans and agonising cries. Now sighs, loud wailing, lamentation The guide replies that these are the people who never made a mark in life, who never inspired either praise or condemnation, those who lived as if they were invisible. Like the uncommitted angels in the great battle in heaven, who chose neither for God or for Lucifer (some of whom are now in the crowd) these people are 'homeless'. There is no place for them in heaven (because they didn't love God enough to actively seek the Good) but hell doesn't want them either. And he to me: ‘This miserable state is borne Their torment is caused by their awareness that they must remain in that state of irrelevence and invisibility forever. And I: ‘Master, what is so grievous to them, 'Being Alive'The very first souls that Dante discovers when he passes through the gates are the moral cowards, those insignificant souls who, in life, refused to take sides. They were neither for God nor for Lucifer. They couldn't (or wouldn't) decide. So now neither kingdom wants them. They are ugly and heaven doesn't want them (Loath to impair its beauty, Heaven casts them out), LIkewise hell refuses to have them (and depth of Hell does not receive them lest on their account the evil angels gloat). They are lost to heaven (faith is a positive thing, an active choice for God) but because they never really chose Lucifer he doesn't want them either. And so they exist in this 'half-way place', the ante-chamber to hell, on this side of the Acheron river, just as they lived only 'half lives' before death (these wretches, who never were alive). Diary of a NobodyThey are anonymous. They have no identity. In Dante's world someone was defined by the place they came from, they place to which they belonged. These souls belong nowhere, they have no place that gives them an identity. It's as if they don't exist; the life of the cosmos goes on without them. People do not speak of them (the world does not permit report of them). They don't even merit judgement or salvation (mercy and justice hold them in contempt). Their lives have amounted to so little they have made so little impact on life, on the world, that now they are completely ignored. They can't get in and they can't get out. They are poor, miserable, trapped, lost souls without substance, memory or identity. They are the eternally ignored! Follow the flagThey have been given their own particular form of punishment. They are consigned for all eternity to chase after a banner which flies around them. In this they become in a sense what they never were while alive - an organised, committed crowd following something. But the tragic irony is that this banner has no markings, no emblem; it represents nothing and it is held by no leader. They are following nothing and no-one. In this their true commitment in life is revealed - a commitment to nothing. Comfortably Numb (but not anymore)When they were alive they didn't choose anything so they didn't feel anything. Their lives were closed; narrow, safe and unfeeling. They never dared to commit to love and so they never knew joy or pain, delight or distress. They were, as Pink Floyd put it much later 'comfortably numb'. So now, in contrast, they are made to feel. They are stung constantly by vicious insects. 'I shall spit you out'This depiction of the ones who are condemned because they are neither one thing nor another is not Dante's own invention. This category of spiritual and human failure had a history. In the last book in the christian bible, the book of Revelation, we discover Jesus speaking to the church at Laodicea (Rev 3.14-16) and condemning their 'lukewarm' commitment. ‘I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. [Rev 3.14-16 New Revised Standard Version] In the context of the Book of Revelation these are people who are not truly committed to Christ. They are members of the church but they have no zeal, no real love for Christ or for God. In the vivid imagery of the text they are neither against God nor for God, at least not in the sense that their lives show any sign of it. They do nothing inspired by love, they risk nothing for love. Therefore they are nothing. They are like a tepid, lukewarm water, in other words lacking in any ability to delight or refresh. They are disgusting! In material terms they are complacent, believing themselves to be rich and well fed and well clothed. But in fact, says Christ, they are poor, and hungry and naked. All their wealth is as nothing compared to their spiritual poverty - a poverty of love. Turn the temperature upIf the book of Revelation describes these people as lukewarm, in the third century apocryphal writing the Apocalypse of Paul (or in Latin, the Visio Paul) they are very definitely a lot warmer; in fact they are on fire! In this very influential text the author imagines the apostle Paul's journey to the 'third heaven' which Paul mentions in his second letter to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 12.14). In the account of the Apocalypse of Paul, Paul is shown more than just paradise - he is shown hell too. The very first thing he sees as he enters hell is the vision of souls immersed to various depths in a river of fire. And I saw there a river boiling with fire, and in it a multitude of men and women immersed up to the knees, and other men up to the navel, others even up to the lips, others up to the hair. And I asked the angel and said, 'Sir, who are those in the fiery river?' And the angel answered and said to me, 'They are neither hot nor cold, because they were found neither in the number of the just nor in the number of the godless. For those spent the time of their life on earth passing some days in prayer, but others in sins and fornications, until their death.' And I asked him and said, 'Who are these, sir, immersed up to their knees in fire?' He answered and said to me, 'These are they who when they have gone out of church occupy themselves with idle disputes. Those who are immersed up to the navel are those who, when they have taken the body and blood of Christ, go and fornicate and do not cease from their sins till they die. Those who are immersed up to the lips are those who slander each other when they assemble in the church of God; those up to the eyebrows are those who nod to each other and plot spite against their neighbour.' The Apocalypse of Paul 30 Translation J.K. Elliot So here in the Apocalypse of Paul the tepid, lukewarm, complacent sinners from Revelation have become the inconsistent, two-faced hypocrites who say and do one thing in church and then go out and sin. They profess faith but live another, 'unbaptised' kind of life. These are not in hell proper but remain in its outskirts. Making choices: being humanBut just as the 'tepid' believers underwent something of a change of identity between the book of Revelation in the bible and their re-appearance in a river of fire in the Apocalypse of Paul, so too here, in Dante's Inferno they assume a new identity again. This is not primarily a spiritual category for Dante. Their problem is not that they have been complacent about their faith (Revelation) nor that they have gone to church then fornicated or gossiped (Apocalypse of Paul). Their problem, as far as Dante is concerned, is that they have refused to take sides in the great matters of life. They have followed no banner (cause). It is not spiritual hypocrisy Dante condemns here, it is political neutrality. For Dante, to be human was to make choices, decisions. These choices defined who you became. The punishments that we discover in Dante's hell are really nothing other than the appropriate conclusion of the choices people have made in life. Their designated punishment in Hell reveals what their choices while alive really amounted to. For that reason there is a grim acceptance of these punishments by the damned. They realise that this is who and what they are, what they have become through the choices they made while they were alive. There is a logic and a justice to their fate that rules out complaint.
In Dante's philosophy of human nature, to refuse to make choices was the most appalling crime of all, because in so doing these people were denying their basic human responsibility, namely, to be human. All the sins we find punished in the Inferno reflect in some form a denial or misuse of humanity, or at least what humanity should be about. So, the sins meriting the least punishment are the sins of incontinence (i.e. self control) e.g. lust and greed in which people forget that they are human and allow their impulses and cravings to rule them. More severely punished are those guilty of the sins of malice (fraud and violence) where people deliberately corrupt and misuse their human powers to hurt and destroy others. What matters for Dante is how people have used or misused their God-given human potential. For Dante the most lamentable crime of all was not even to engage in the task of becoming human. Those who avoided moral choices were not even 'in the game' as it were. They were lost 'on the edge'. There is actually no where in the afterworld to put them because they never took part in this world! 'Hate the sin, love the sinner'This is a slogan often heard within the evangelical christian world, guidance about how christians should relate to people who aren't committed christians. We are told we should love them (the sinners) while hating the things they do (the sins). There is of course implicit in this statement a belief that all sinners sin, that is, if someone's disposition is sinful they will inevitably (and repeatedly and habitually) do things that offend against God's law. Dante would, I think, have understood that distinction between the sinful disposition and the actual act of sinning but in his theology sins were something concrete and visible, something that made a real difference to the world in which the sinner lived. Sins such as adultery and fornication were actually illegal and challenged the rights of other men, the father or the husband of the woman involved. Treachery and disloyalty put the state or the family or the association in peril. Theft and embezzlement undermined the divinely appointed system for the sharing of the earth's resources. Sins were not individual and spiritual - they were social, political and meaningful. Whatever effects they had on someone's relationship to and with God, in Dante's world they had noticeable effects on the world around the sinner. Sins were big things with big consequences. For that reason it was quite possible to imagine (potentially) the sinner without the sin. In the modern world of evangelical christianity where every thought is potentially sinful, that is impossible. But it wasn't in Dante's day. And, under the principle of divine justice, someone could only be punished for their actual sins, not for being a sinful-leaning person. In other words, the people in hell proper have all done something that breaks God's law. They made a choice and did something about it. They actually committed crimes. The poor souls who hopelessly chase the empty banner have done nothing to merit punishment in hell. In Dante's hell you don't go there because you don't love God, you go there because you break God's law. To break a law, to 'sin', takes something these people haven't got - the human ability to choose. Bring out your deadThere is more to the fate of these vapid, empty souls however than simply being endlessly committed to nothing. They are bitten and stung endlessly by insects - flies and wasps. The blood that this constant stinging produces, along with their tears, flows down to the ground to feed the maggots (worms) beneath their feet. In death then, they receive a constant, painful reminder of the kind of stimulation they tried to avoid in this life. They failed to live which means they failed to feel. Now they do nothing but feel. They feel the pain of their bodies under constant attack. Having spent one day in the mountains of Sweden this summer besieged by millions (well, it felt like millions) of horrible, nasty, vicious, biting mosquitos, I can identify with their suffering. I nearly went mad after one day! How they might cope with an eternity of the same I have no idea. The thought is terrifying! But of course the worms (maggots) beneath their feet fed by their tears and blood, are a reminder of death. These people are dead (obviously - this is the afterlife!) but in a strange way their passage from 'life' to the afterworld has meant no change for them. Really, these are the worms they have brought with them, the worms and maggots which were part of their life while they breathed. These are a sign that they were always dead, that they never really came to life. This is a spectacle that is in many ways more challenging than most of the punishments for specific sins which are to come. As T.S. Eliot realised, most of us are not terrible sinners. We are, by and large, the quiet, uncommitted mass who dare not choose anything too risky, too out of the ordinary. We live out lives in quiet anonymity, daring little and achieving less. We make no mark and leave no impression. We are the 'living dead'. Most of us want to be left in peace' to get on with our small lives. Dante believed that all of us were actually engaged in a great struggle to realise the Good. For many in hell, even some of the most heinous sinners, Dante often shows respect. For those who refuse to make choices he shows only utter contempt. Dante’s personal hatred for those who, unlike him, never made their true feelings or opinions known irradiates this canto. There is not a single detail that falls short of the condition of eternal insult. Robert and Jean Hollander: the Princeton Dante Project I think Bob Dylan, the great poet of my own era puts it rather well. Click the photo below to hear the song. You might also be interested in . . . .Klicka här för att redigera.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
April 2016
GalleryThis blog is as much about images as it is about text. Below is a slideshow of the pictures and images used in this blog. Click on any of the pictures to go to the post where that image is featured.
PostsLocating Paradise #1 In a Garden, Far, Far Away
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #5 'Stuck in the Middle With You'
The Resurrection According to Rahner
Today You Will Be With Me in Paradise
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #4 'And Who by Fire'
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #3: Held in the Balance
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #2: Once, Twice, Three Times a Sinner
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #1: The Broad and Narrow Gates
Daily Dante 7: Many Rivers to Cross
Daily Dante 6: 'You Gotta Serve Somebody'
In Hell Everyone Can Hear You Scream. The Vision of Tundale #3
Teeth, Spikes and Cleavers: At the Sharp end of Hell. The Vision of Tundale #2
'No Pain No Gain': The Vision of Tundale #1
'Hellzapoppin':
Illustrations from Le Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur, #2 'It's The End of the World as We Know It (and we feel fine)'. Illustrations from Le Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur, #1
Visions of Heaven. Botticini's Assumption of the Virgin #2 Blinded by the Light
Visions of Heaven. Botticini's Assumption of the Virgin #1: Glorious and Immortal
Daily Dante 5: What the gates said.
Daily Dante 4: When I find myself in times of trouble
Daily Dante 3: I'll take you there
Daily Dante 2: Fierce creatures
Daily Dante 1: If you go down to the woods today
In Seventh Heaven or 'What Enoch Did Next'
A World of Fire and Ice: Heaven according to Enoch
The Power and the Glory: Visions of God as king in the Hebrew bible
The Beautiful Bestiary of Catherine Cleves: Monsters and Demons in detail.
Heaven is for Real: Heaven as a physical space up above the sky
Resurrecting the Dead or Reviving the Flowers? The loss of resurrection faith in Judaism.
The Defeat of Death #1: The promise of resurrection in the Isaiah Apocalypse.
The Defeat of Death #2: Death as a hostile power and promise of God's victory in Isaiah
Scary Monsters and Super Creeps: The 'Last Judgement' according to Stefan Lochner
Hell in the Hospital: The 'Last Judgement' of Rogier van der Weyden in the Beaune altarpiece.
'Hell' in the New Testament #2: The gates of Hades shall not prevail
The Hours of Catherine Cleves: Imagining hell and purgatory in Catherine's prayer book
'On Earth as in Heaven': The kingdom of God as a revelation of heaven
'Hell' in the New Testament #1: Gehenna
Lost in Translation #1: How the King James version got it so wrong about hell
Heaven is not our home
Domes, Depths and Demons: The cosmology of the Hebrew world
A Bigger God
"See you in Sheol" - Sheol, the common destination of all
Heaven, Hell and Christian Hope
BooksBelow are some of the books which have helped me the most in the research and writing for this blog. Click on any image to find out more about that book at its page on Amazon uk.
Categories
All
|