What can medieval Catholic poet Dante Alighieri teach Protestants today?A lot to tell you the truth.
Dante’s masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, has rightly been called “one of humanity’s essential books. “The thousands of ancient manuscripts and remaining print editions attest to their popularity in our time. The treatment it has received from artists, musicians and writers around the world. world for 700 years demonstrates its continued fascination. It has been translated into English many times and is regularly on the list of the best books and poetry in the world. Earlier this year, which marked the 150th anniversary of Dante’s birth, Rod Dreher published a wonderful book, How Can Dante Save His Life[?How can Dante save his life?
- Although the Divine Comedy clearly reflects the poet’s Catholic faith and medieval world.
- It emphasizes some of the principles that the Reformation would bring to the Church two centuries later.
- Dante wrote voluntarily in a simple style.
- Which.
- Despite his highly spiritual theme.
- Although the church produced works in Latin.
- Dante wrote in his own language.
- Their choice was revolutionary.
- Ensuring that the work could and would be read by ordinary men.
- As well as by women and children (who still study considerably in today’s Italian schools).
Despite its greatness, The Divine Comedy is firmly anchored in the sand and the mundane. In fact, Dante doesn’t use the word? Guess? in your title. He simply titled it “Commedia,” which sometimes means a play with a happy ending, rather than something tragic. (The word “divine” was added by a later editor and has gone on forever over the years. ) By casting a fictional version of himself as the central character, A Divina Comedia is prophetically personal, confessional, and autobiographical. In this way, he emphasizes an astonishing modern sense of self-determination, which heralds the famous “Protestant work ethic. ” By focusing on the salvation and purification of the individual soul, this work by Catholic Dante anticipates the spiritual autobiographies of Puritans like John Bunnyan. The Divine Comedy is the story of someone who seeks salvation. In Dante’s own words, the purpose of the poem is to move readers “from a state of unhappiness to a state of happiness. ” And in describing salvation in the afterlife, it is clear that Dante wants readers to find abundant life in the here and now.
Spiral poetic thinking
The metaphor of the journey into spiritual life transcends the dividing line between Catholics and Protestants. Dante’s famous poetic innovation, the third rhyme? Three lines of stanzas connected by interleaved rhymes (tab, bcb, cdc, etc. )? It takes the reader step by step, pushing us to move from one verse to another. And although the poem is complex and exhausting, its clear tripartite organization into 100 songs also divided into three sections (and an introductory song) provides a spiral but precise reflection. It awaits us, but the thinking is clearly defined, something like a more complex and ornate version of the Roman style.
In fact, like the Estrada de Romanos, the Divine Comedy opens with the recognition of helplessness, as the pilgrim Dante gets lost in the forest at nightfall and finds three beasts, a symbol of the temptations of sensuality, pride and greed. The Roman poet Virgil appears, promising to take the changing soul to paradise, but to get there, they have to go through hell. This part of the poem, Inferno, has caught the attention of readers for centuries. It is simply a fact of human nature and art that, for the artist and a similar audience, the fall is more attractive than holiness.
In Dante’s vision of hell, eternal torment is the result of the individual’s own actions; sin becomes its own punishment. For example, the lustful are blown away by a gust of wind forever, the rages are locked in an eternal struggle, the sycophants are immersed in human excrement and the sorcerers, who pretend to see the future, face eternity with their heads turned. back. Dante’s famous Nine Circles of Hell place the slightest sins in the outer circle, sins that increase in severity in the descending spiral circles. Dante’s classification of sins offers us perspective today, as we tend to classify sins more often according to cultural tradition than biblical one. Dante describes heresy as less serious than sodomy, which is one of the violent sins, placed in the seventh circle after suicide, but just before usury. The lustful and gluttonous (the incontinent) are in the outer circle, while the seducers, sycophants, and hypocrites (con artists) are in the eighth circle. The ninth circle houses those guilty of the sins of treason: the family, the country, the guests and, ultimately, the benefactors. Is that where Judas is? just before Satan.
Surprisingly, Dante predicts that the abyss of hell is not filled with fire and brimstone, but with ice. There, a monstrous Satan is trapped in the background, waving his bat wings forever and ever. He poetically describes hell as a place of atrophy and stagnation, in what movement, growth, and change, which are still available in life, are no longer possible; once sinners who do not repent leave life, they are frozen forever in their sins; however, the poem suggests, sin also freezes us in this life.
Purifying fire
After descending to the center of the earth where hell is, Dante stays outside just to move on, emerges on the island of Mount Purgatio and begins a ascent that finally takes you to paradise. Although purgatory is clearly rooted in Roman Catholic doctrine, Dante describes it as a type of sin purification that holds a slight resemblance to the Protestant conception of sanctification: in Purgatory, the pilgrim encounters repentant sinners who are changing their flaws and limitations of character, in addition to achieving a purified state compatible with paradise. The circles of hell are parallel to seven main terraces that rise. Sins are ordained in the reverse order of hell, with the most serious sins of the will first, followed by those of the flesh: pride, envy, anger, laziness, greed, greed. and lust.
Dante’s guide, Virgil, explains that all actions come from natural or spiritual love, the perversion of love leads to sins that must be cleansed, here he echoes Augustine on sin as disordered love, theme recently revived by Tim Keller. Virgil declares, “Do you have free will? [1]. The great revelation of Dante’s path comes when he realizes that all limitations are limitations of love.
Allegory of the end
Rich in classical myths, Catholic theology and historical allusions, the allegory of the Divine Comedy is not simple and not always doctrinally correct. The presence of Christ in the poem?Sharper in the poet’s direct encounter with the mystery of the incarnation?symbolic and non-direct. Dante’s journey is only a little reminiscent of the Roman road; yet the poet believes in God’s grace, proclaiming in his last song that he was
An abundant grace that encourages me
The eyes look, I dared the eternal light
The desired vision that consumes [2].
The phrase? An abundant grace is part of the title of John Bunnyan’s famous spiritual autobiography, which, centuries after Dante, will write the world’s best-known allegory, The Pilgrim. Allegory is a literary form that mimics the stages of our physical and spiritual existence as human. The pilgrim is the perfect Protestant allegory, in its form and content.
But every allegory teaches us to read life in a way that sees spiritual truth in material reality, similar to Christ’s parables. This is the kind of intense exercise offered by reading The Divine Comedy and the benefit that Protestants can gain by accompanying Dante on his symbolic journey
[1] Canto XXVII, around 142. Translation by José Pedro Xavier Pinheiro (1822-1882).
[2] Song XXXIII, verses 83-84. Same
By: Karen Swallow Prior. © 2015 The Evangelical Coalition. Original: Touring with Dante.
Translation: Leonardo Bruno Galdino. © 2016 Faithful Ministério. All rights reserved. Website: MinistryFiel. com. br. Original: On the Road with Dante
Authorizations: You are authorized and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format, provided that the author, his ministry and translator are no longer no longer modified and not used for commercial purposes.