Dante's Divine Comedy: Purgatorio

Photo credit: Nathan Anderson @nathananderson

Italy is the origin of many literary masterpieces, but none greater than Dante's Divine Comedy. In this instalment of our three part series on Dante Alighieri’s masterpiece we will examine Purgatorio.

By analysing Purgatorio we can attain an amazing insight into Dante's view of the human person. Without any doubt, we know very little about the specific details of purgatory. Dante, therefore, uses his poetic license to fill in the gaps. Just like in Inferno, his creative imagination, which permeates Purgatorio, still shapes our modern collective cultural consciousness and has more than earned its place in the western literary canon.

Gustave Doré’s depiction of Canto IX Purgatorio

Dante describes purgatory as being an island mountain on the opposite side of the planet to Jerusalem. Here we see how Dante’s worldview revolves around the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. The Holy Land, specifically Calvary, is his frame of reference which informs all his work.

Here the souls of the saved, not yet ready to enter heaven and witness God glorified in all His majesty, are isolated from the rest of humanity and must atone for and be purified from their sins

Interestingly, souls can only climb the mountain during the daylight. Commenting on this in 2006 Pope Benedict XVI explained how light here is associated with the love and grace of God;

“The cosmic excursion in which Dante, in his "Divine Comedy", wishes to involve the reader, ends in front of the perennial Light that is God himself,..... light and love are one and the same”.

By invoking the importance of light, Dante emphasises that we are all weak and cannot hope to succeed alone, but rather need the grace that only God can provide. As we move from Inferno to Paradiso we incrementally move from darkness to light.

We like Dante find ourselves in the world of the living, lost in a dark forest and beset by wild beasts. Only in seeing the painful cold sadness of depths of Inferno, can we appreciate the warm that only the perpetual light of God can provide. This is a subtle but powerful theological statement from Dante.

Once again Dante’s personal hero from ancient Rome, Virgil, guides him on his journey. As explained in the previous instalment, it is a recurring feature throughout the Divine Comedy that Dante places historical figures and deceased friends at the centre of his epic voyage.

Not all of these historical and mythical characters were baptised Christians, some examples include the aforementioned poet Virgil, but also Cato the Roman senator and Ripheus the Trojan hero. Dante includes them in Purgatorio and Paradiso as they demonstrated tremendous human virtue and a desire to pursue God. Their example helps us better understand the extent and limits of human understanding achievable by natural law, without access to the fullness of truth as expressed by divine revelation.

Gustave Doré’s depiction of Canto VIII Purgatorio

Dante and Virgil encounter the virtuous senator Cato upon first exiting Inferno and transitioning to Purgatorio. It is here, emerging from the subterranean Inferno that Dante notices how the star constellations difference from what he was accustomed to. Far from our ill-informed perception of an early 14th century Dark Ages, medieval man had a long understood the world’s spherical nature.

A core aspect of the Divine Comedy is the emphasis that all men, by virtue of their divine filiation (the very reason that gives their lives meaning), are equal in the eyes of God. Man is judged to suffer or be rewarded according to the lives he led on earth. Barbara Reynolds in her 2006 book “Dante: the Poet, the Political Thinker, the Man” notes how Dante’s traditional Catholic view of salvation differs strongly from that of later post-protestant revolution religious movements such as the Calvinists or Mormons. She writes:

“Dante… sets himself to refute the opinion that nobility is derived from wealth and possessions… moving to the positive definition of nobility, Dante states that `wherever virtue is, there is nobility. It is a grace received by the individual soul direct from God`”.

The antithesis to nobility is depravity. The ignoble depraved souls tormented in Inferno have no hope of being united with God in heaven. This is the key difference that separates Purgatorio from Inferno. Souls in Purgatorio, even if presented with the most arduous of trials, have hope. They know that at the end of their path of purification, no matter how long, they will eventually dwell with their Heavenly Father for eternity.

Gustave Doré’s depiction of Canto XX Purgatorio

For this reason upon leaving Inferno and entering Purgatorio, we are not presented with any foreboding sign declaring “All hope abandon, ye who enter here”, as our protagonist Dante was upon entering Inferno. Rather, Dante is informed that when one arrives at ante-purgatory, they must wait there for an equivalent duration of time as their years of unrepentance. Thus those who delay conversion and repentance till their death beds, largely do not go unpenalised.

After this interlude, the pilgrim soul may proceed with his journey up the Mount Purgatorio. To begin with he is confronted with an angel at the gates of St Peter. The angel acknowledges Dante, and with an explanation by Virgil as to the reasons to their presence there, alluding to Beatrice, Dante’s long lost love, they are permitted to enter. The angel opens the gates with a set of keys, one gold and one silver.

This is an reference to the keys of saint Peter which as we read in Mathew 16:18-19 were entrusted to him by Christ, “That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven”.

Here St. Peter is represented by his delegate an angel, who holds the set of silver and gold keys, silver representing remorse and the gold key representing reconciliation. The two go hand in hand, without remorse a sinner is not a penitent and cannot receive absolution or make repatriation for his sins.

Dante however, having not yet undergone the purification of purgatory, is blinded by the light emitted by the angel. he can however but recognise the online of a sword. With this sword the angel brands him on the forehead with seven marks of the letter “P”. Each letter “P” represents one of the seven deadly sins, the latin word “peccatum” meaning sin. Going back to the 8th century, Our Lady has been traditionally given the title “Refugium Peccatorum”, in English “Refuge of Sinners”.

The seven deadly sins that divide God and man are pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth. Accordingly, mount purgatory is divided into ante purgatory at the base and the earthly paradise at the summit, with seven tiers of the mountain in-between.

If Hell is absence of God and Paradise is being firmly united with God, those in purgatory inhabit a space between the two. Purgatory is certainly not a comfortable place but souls there are not punished without hope, but rather cleanse themselves in the hope of finally being united with God in paradise.

This hope comes in the form of angels that encourage them to persevere and remove one letter “P” from their foreheads after each stage ascending the mountain and also in the form of earthquakes that occur when a soul does finally leave purgatory and enter paradise.

But this is no easy task. On earth sins are forgiven by the sacrament of confession. Forgiveness of sins is not the purpose of Purgatorio. The process of purification in purgatory is not to exact justice for unrepentant sins but rather cleanse the soul of the inclinations that gave rise to those sins, namely; pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust.

Gustave Doré’s depiction of Canto XIX Purgatorio

As souls progress up the mountain they learn to overcome their past sins by the practicing the contrasting virtue and taking inspiration from Our Lady and the saints. Theologically pride can be described as the root of all sin and is, therefore, the first vice which must be purified. This is achieved through humble manual labour, the penitents carrying stones on their backs.

After that comes envy where the penitents have their eyes sewn shut. In the next stage, those who had exhibited wrath are surrounded with black smoke and wait in isolation to learn patience and forgiveness. After having purged the soul from wrath one must overcome sloth.This is done by running in circles and shouting out examples of zeal (the corresponding virtue).

The next three sins are sins of misdirected love. Love of good things like food, material possessions and sexuality. These can be either used in service to others, directed towards God or contrastingly directed towards our own egotistical hedonistic pursuit of ever disappointing sensual pleasure.

When purging himself of greed, Dante encounters Pope Adrian V. He explains how a desire to serve the Church is good but that one should not be concerned with the vain accumulation of power and prestige. Dante throughout his Divine Comedy doesn't shy away from making statements of uncomfortable truths. We often falsely presume that medieval Europe was a time of subservience, censorship, and ignorance, but this cannot be further from the truth. Dante convinced that all men are equal before God challenged and continues to challenge those in secular or religious positions of power.

Gustave Doré’s depiction of Canto XXV Purgatorio

Only when a soul is freed from pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed and gluttony can he address the final vice, lust. Lust is one of the most common and understandable vices a person can have. Its benign punishment in Inferno is likewise repeated in purgatory. While its consequences are equally grave for the salvation of souls when compared to other sins, it is seen as the least severe of vices but the most challenging to remove.

To purge oneself of lust one must run through flames of fire proclaiming examples of chastity (like that of the Virgin Mary) and renounce examples of lust (like the biblical town of Sodom and Gomorrah or Pasiphaë from Greek mythology). This is no easy task because our instinct is to avoid fire. But here again Dante is making a profound teleological statement. Our soul longs for unity with God but sin is an obstacle to achieving that unity. Lust is the most appealing and instinctual of all of these obstacles. Just as we fear to jump into the fire, we fear to live without carnal pleasure.

The denial of immediate sexual gratification can seem counterintuitive but in the context of wanting to be united with God and therefore fulfilling our purpose for which we were created, suddenly appears self-evident. Dante having realised this, takes a leap of faith into the flames and arrives at the terrestrial paradise.

Here, Dante finally encounter Beatrice again and she takes over the role of Dante's guide from Virgil, who as a pagan can no longer proceed onwards towards paradise. This fact saddens Dante and he longs for Virgil to be united with God in heaven at the second coming. Thus, Dante reaffirms the importance of baptism and reinforces the fact that purgatory is not a destination but rather an indirect route to paradise, a path of purifying fire leading to the warm embrace of the Triune God.

Niall Buckley

October 2020