Dante’s Divine Comedy: Inferno

Canto 4

Canto 4

• Dante awakens from fainting in Canto 3

• Limbo• Not exactly a punishment, but rather

“not belonging to the club”• The worthy who lived before

Christianity and those who could not be baptized

• The great poets

Limbo: the realm of those who did not receive the sacrament of Baptism

• Valley, wood, mist• Inability to see is a key• Virgil feels

compassion, because there are great souls here, not sinners

• Deprived of the “beatific vision”: souls cannot see the face of God

Limbo• < “limbus” (lat.) for edge, boundary =

“the edge of hell”• St. Augustine (354-430) – most important

of early Church partriarchs:– formulated concept of original sin– stated: because of original sin, all are condemned

without baptism, even infants

• St. Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-211)– began concept that it wasn’t fair if only those born

after Christ could escape eternal damnation

• Why does early Christianity need this idea?

Original Sin• All humans have guilt b/c of A

& E’s original sin• Human nature is evil, thus we

all are hell-bound• Only through the redemptive

act – Christ’s crucifixion & death, can we go to heaven = be saved

• So: what about the good folks who died before Christ? & babies? – Augustine-> they went to hell!

Limbo• Two Limbos:

– Limbo of the Infants– Limbo of the Fathers

• Dante’s L. = the fathers

• In Dante’s Limbo: the great poets of the classical world– “they did not sin; and yet,

though they have merits– that’s not enough, because

they lacked baptism– the portal of the faith that

you embrace.” (IV, 34-37)

Harrowing of Hell

• The figures of the Old Testament are no longer there

• IV, 53-54: “Great Lord… the crown he wore, a sign of victory.”

• Between crucifixion and resurrection (Good Friday -> Easter Sunday): Christ descended into hell and brought out those who were good but had died before his redemptive act of dying for the sins of humanity

Who is left? • Poets of classical

antiquity– Homer:

• Iliad, Odyssey

– Horace• Poetic works, coined

the phrase carpe diem

– Ovid• Metamorphoses, Ars

Amatoria

– Lucan• Pharsalia

Other Classical Heroines & Heroes• Active Life• Electra, Hector,

Aeneas, Caesar, Camilla, Penthesilea, King Latinus, Lavinia, Brutus, Lucretia, Julia, Marcia, Cornelia

• Saladin (only modern figure: sultan in 12th century, known for his great nobility)

• Contemplative Life• Aristotle, Socrates,

Plato, Democritus, Diogenes, Empedocles, Zeno, Thales, Anaxagoras, Heraclitus, Dioscorides, Orpheus, Tully, Linus, Seneca, Euclid, Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Galen, Avicenna, Averroës

Virgil and Dante depart for the realm of sin

• IV, 151: “And I have reached a part where no thing gleams.”