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August 26, 2009
Dante Blogging - Inferno Canto VIII
Canto VIII
It occurred to me that I ought to dig up some creative commons licensed art occasionally - so here is Delacroix's "The Bark of Dante" - Dante in red and grey; Virgil in brown; and Phlegyas, a damned son of Mars, nude and wrapped in blue. Delacrois really does capture the energy of Phlegyas, who rows the fasting moving transport in Hell. The city of Dis glows red-hot in the background. Esolen compares it to the New Jerusalem (428), but it's also a counterpart to the quiet castle of the virtuous pagans in Limbo.
Dante recognizes the soul gnawing on the boat - one of his rivals in Florence, a man who profited from Dante's exile. Dante lets go of his anger, and wishes to see him suffer.
"Teacher, I've got a hankering," said I,
to see them dunk that spirit in this swill
before we leave the lake and disembark."
And he replied, "You will enjoy your fill
before the farther beach comes into sight.
Such a desire is good to satisfy." (8.52-57)
None of this namby pamby nil nisi bonum de mortuis here, which is, after all, a sentiment based more on a pagan fear of the restless dead than on theology. Dante's anger is just - and Justice is the key to Hell. Mercy is the key to Purgatory, but we're not there yet. Somewhere Thomas Aquinas teaches that contemplating the smoke rising from Hell will be one of the just delights of Heaven (I don't know, I'm half remembering it and have no chance of finding the citation while sitting at the kitchen table - anyone have an idea?). We'll see. Certainly the damned soul of Filippo Argenti does nothing to ask for mercy from Dante's. The damned do not apologize. That's why they're damned.
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Posted by CrankyProfessor at August 26, 2009 7:48 AM
Comments
I only just came on this series; there are some great posts. In the Summa Theologiae Thomas Aquinas talks about how the saints rejoice in the punishment of the damned, not directly (they don't find the punishing itself a thing to rejoice about) but indirectly (they rejoice in divine justice and their own deliverance from such punishments), in the Supplement to the Third Part, question 94, article 3. Article 2 argues that the saints will not pity the damned, because it is irrational to pity people whose unhappiness cannot be taken away without injustice. (Aquinas didn't finish the Summa, so the Supplement is actually a later digest of selections from Aquinas's very early Commentary on the Sentences.)
It actually makes a considerable amount of sense, but I imagine it would take a very brave theologian to put it as baldly today as Aquinas (or Dante) would have.
.....Thanks for the compliment and the reference!! You're right - not many modern theologians would be able to say that. --MCT
Posted by: Brandon at September 30, 2009 10:08 PM