Purgatory: Canto VI -- Ante-Purgatory: Those who Died by Violence

In Ryan Rutan's "Holy Ninjas," the spoof I played in Canto XVI of the Inferno about the young acolyte Abdul training for the priest ninjahood, a nun confides in the Pope, "Your Eminence, I'm quite concerned. The world is so violent. There's so much terror." While comically portrayed, Rutan's purpose was in exploring the concept of theodicy, the problem of evil in the world. If there is a just God, then why do bad things happen to good people? Why did so many good people meet their end by violence before they had the opportunity to repent, and how is it that good things happen to bad people who continue living with the same chance for redemption as those they've dispatched from this life?



Alexander Pope offers an insight into what must seem rather chaotic in its inception and design. He concludes his fifth stanza with the idea that it would be "better for us, perhaps, it might appear,/ Were there all harmony, all virtue here;/ That never air or ocean felt the wind;/ That never passion discompos'd the mind./ But ALL subsists by elemental strife;/ And passions are the elements of life./ The gen'ral order, since the whole began,/ Is kept in nature, and is kept in man." (I, 5, 172-73). The reality in Pope unfolds, in keeping with his theme that all partial evils are universal goods, that death is not the worst thing that can happen to us, of which Dante calls upon the Lady of Brabant to take heed lest she wind up in hell. There is no evil that humanity cannot overcome by being true to its nature and purpose even through periods of elemental strife wrought by the passions of our temporal existence conflicting with those of others. Our purpose here is to learn to reconcile disparate passions, to approach all situations with grace, and to be the light of Christ to all persons -- to love our neighbor and to participate in the transactions of our community in order that we all might grow in synergy with one another to a greater love of Christ.

It is because the nature of the Church is one of reconciliation of humanity with God that we find in our communion with the Christifideles a certain hope that is brought about by the example of others within the community who call us to a higher standard in our social relationships based on the strongest of foundations, that of love. It is these holy men and women who teach us by their thoughts and by their deeds how we too might live -- and, as importantly, how we ought to die in the sweetness and light of Christ's spirit upon us. As St. Peter was called to lead the early Church, and to teach it how to grow in its faith, he wasn't above learning and allowing himself to be taught by St. Paul who reminded him of his duty to engage in the universality of God's creation. The New Covenant is inclusive of all, and even those who are late coming to the banquet still find food to nourish them, so it is never too late for a soul to achieve the beatific vision even if one has led a life that was not too exemplary. Such is the promise of Christ.

One promise, though, troubles Dante, for he remembers Virgil's having written that "prayer may not alter Heaven's fixed decree" (30), yet he observes that "all these souls pray only for a prayer" (31). Virgil responds that God's will isn't bent by the cancelling of the debt of time -- the decree is still in effect -- these are souls destined for heaven and the fact that they are in purgatory means that they have effectively reached heaven. The positive energy of the community -- like electricity -- will hasten their journey to God, a journey they are already undertaking and that will end whensoever it does in God's embrace. Virgil, it will be remembered, was writing about pagans who died without Grace. Even those redeemed by Christ were redeemed not by the prayers of humanity but by God's will. Because we the living are in the position of always reconciling ourselves to God, we are essentially tied to the dead who are in the same position. Our prayers, then, are able to help them in their ascent in a very significant way -- and it is only on this mountain that those prayers matter, for they cannot penetrate hell and they aren't needed in heaven. We have a very special relationship, then, to those in purgatory -- as special a relationship as we have with the Christifidelis on earth and with those living who do not yet know the light of Christ.

Virgil, because of his graceless state, can speak on this point no further, so he, and we, will have to wait until we meet Beatrice, Dante's muse, the same person for whose memory he cried when he beheld a dead friend of hers and wrote about how Love honored this lady: "I saw him weeping there in human form, observing the stilled image of her grace; and more than once he raised his eyes toward Heaven, where that sweet soul already had its home, which once, on earth, had worn enchanting flesh" (VIII, 6). It is through this poem that we learn of Dante's further belief that some people are so filled with grace that they ascend directly to God -- for Dante, still on the ledge of those who died by violence and are therefore obviously in need of prayers, need not yet concern himself beyond his current sphere.

Virgil is spared further elucidation on the issue by the sight of Sordello from whom he hopes to ask the way. Sordello is unmoved by the poet's plea until he learns that Virgil is a fellow Mantuan, nor can he see that Dante is alive because the sun which cast his shadow is behind the mountain though it will emerge again before it sets. It is in this meeting of countrymen that Dante is able to speak both to the brotherhood of the dead while the living continue their wars (Sean, take a look at line 109, and you'll see mention of two of whom you did not expect a note), to the imposition of priests who meddle in secular affairs beyond their proper sphere (another intimation of De Monarchia where Dante argues for the separation of Church and State), and to the general mismanagement of civic life both in the Empire in general and in Florence in particular.

S.