Dante's Inferno

Though Dante Aligheri's The Divine Comedy was apparently more of a political satire than an intended primer of spiritual truths, the Christian can read the work and find some stunning truths. Aligheri apparently at least had a knowledge of his Bible, and in the first of the three books, Inferno, the pilgrim's descent into Aligheri's hell makes some profound and, I found, often true statements about divine justice and the path to redemption.

Midway along the journey of our life I woke to find myself in a dark wood, for I had wandered off from the straight path...How I entered there I cannot truly say, I had become so sleepy at the moment when I first strayed, leaving the path of truth... Canto I, 1-3; 10-12

There is so much truth in this. When any one of us falls prey to sin, and we continue therein, it eventually becomes impossible to recall the moment when we first turned from truth. Often times, we wake up one day and realize our lives are far from what God planned for us. And what a frightful realization!

I am the way into the doleful city, I am the way into eternal grief, I am the way to a forsaken race. Justice it was that moved my great Creator; divine omnipotence created me, and highest wisdom joined with primal love. Before me nothing but eternal things were made, and I shall last eternally. Abandon every hope, all you who enter. The Gate of Hell, Canto III, 1-9

O Highest Wisdom, how you demonstrate your art in Heaven, on earth, and here in Hell! How justly does your power make awards! Canto XIX, 10-12

What can I add! Woe unto our modern American Christian churches, that a fourteenth century poet preaches more truth than we do! There cannot be good without evil, heaven without hell. How can a loving God create hell? God is loving, but he is also just.

...When, from the mountain's top where the slide began to the plain below, the shattered rocks slipped down, shaping a path for a difficult descent--" Canto XII, 7-9

As the pilgrim descends into the lower levels of Hell, he comes across a steep and shattered terrain caused by Christ's descent into Hell. I love this imaginative description of the Bible's declaration that Jesus descended into Hell and reclaimed the keys of death and Hell from Satan. The poet portrays Christ's descent having altered the very course of the fiery landscape.

Who could, even in the simplest kind of prose describe in full the scene of blood and wounds that I saw now--no matter how he tried! Certainly any tongue would have to fail: man's memory and man's vocabulary are not enough to comprehend such pain. Canto XXVIII, 1-6

As the pilgrim views each contrapasso, he becomes more and more horrified at the punishments he views. But in Canto XXVIII, he is utterly stricken with grief at viewing souls that are ripped open from mouth to loins, with entrails spilling out. They are the sowers of discord. This ghastly description makes me think about what our foul deeds must smell of to a righteous God.

I do not revel in such readings, but I am moved to consider my ways (see Haggai 1:7) and am brought to gratefulness that "He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin" (II Cor. 5:21), that Christ has taken our punishment upon Himself.