Dante Alighieri played a critical
role in the literature world through his poem
Divine Comedy
that was written in the 14
th
century. The poem contains
Inferno, Purgatorio,
and
Paradiso. The Inferno
is a description of the nine
circles of torment that are found on the earth. It depicts the
realms of the people that have gone against the spiritual values
and who, instead, have chosen bestial appetite, violence, or fraud
and malice. The nine circles of hell are limbo, lust, gluttony,
greed and wrath. Others are heresy, violence, fraud, and treachery.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the
Dante’s Inferno
in the perspective of its portrayal
of God’s image and the justification of hell.
In this epic poem, God is portrayed
as a super being guilty of multiple weaknesses including being
egotistic, unjust, and hypocritical. Dante, in this poem, depicts
God as being more human than divine by challenging God’s
omnipotence. Additionally, the manner in which Dante describes Hell
is in full contradiction to the morals of God as written in the
Bible. When god arranges Hell to flatter Himself, He commits
egotism, a sin that is common among human beings (
Cheney, 2016)
. The weakness is depicted
in
Limbo
and on the
Gate of Hell
where, for instance, God sends
those who do not worship Him to Hell. This implies that failure to
worship Him is a sin.
God is also depicted as lacking
justice in His actions thus removing the godly image. The injustice
is portrayed by the manner in which the sodomites and opportunists
are treated. The opportunists are subjected to banner chasing in
their lives after death followed by being stung by insects and
maggots. They are known to having done neither good nor bad during
their lifetimes and, therefore, justice could have demanded that
they be granted a neutral punishment having lived a neutral life.
The sodomites are also punished unfairly by God when Brunetto
Lattini is condemned to hell despite being a good leader (
Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., &
Robaina, K. (2017)
. While he commited sodomy, God
chooses to ignore all the other good deeds that Brunetto
did.
Finally, God is also portrayed as
being hypocritical in His actions, a sin that further diminishes
His godliness and makes Him more human. A case in point is when God
condemns the sin of egotism and goes ahead to commit it repeatedly.
Proverbs 29:23 states that “
arrogance will bring your downfall,
but if you are humble, you will be respected.” When Slattery
condemns Dante’s human state as being weak, doubtful, and limited,
he is proving God’s hypocrisy because He is also human (Verdicchio,
2015). The actions of God in Hell as portrayed by Dante are
inconsistent with the Biblical literature. Both Dante and God are
prone to making mistakes, something common among human beings thus
making God more human.
To wrap it up, Dante portrays God
is more human since He commits the same sins that humans commit:
egotism, hypocrisy, and injustice. Hell is justified as being a
destination for victims of the mistakes committed by God. The Hell
is presented as being a totally different place as compared to what
is written about it in the Bible. As a result, reading through the
text gives an image of God who is prone to the very mistakes common
to humans thus ripping Him off His lofty status of divine and,
instead, making Him a mere human. Whether or not Dante did it
intentionally is subject to debate but one thing is clear in the
poem: the misconstrued notion of God is revealed to future
generations.
References
Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., &
Robaina, K. (2017). Dante’s inferno: Seven deadly sins in
scientific publishing and how to avoid them.
Addiction Science: A Guide for the
Perplexed
, 267.
Cheney, L. D. G. (2016).
Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno: A Comparative Study of Sandro
Botticelli, Giovanni Stradano, and Federico Zuccaro.
Cultural and Religious
Studies
,
4
(8), 487.
Verdicchio, M. (2015). Irony and
Desire in Dante’s” Inferno” 27.
Italica
, 285-297.
