Dante's Changing Understanding of God

Throughout this poem, Dante’s understanding of God and His power and authority fluctuates several times. In the first Canto, Dante has strayed from the path of God, and is tempted by lust, pride, and cupidity. It is for this reason that God and Beatrice send Virgil to rescue him from this “shadowed forest” (2), to show Dante where he will end up if he does not get back on the path to righteousness.

Throughout the entire poem, Dante struggles with his feelings of pity for the souls that have been sent to Hell, perhaps because he does not understand that justice has been done and the punishment set forth by God (supposedly) fits the crime. Virgil rebukes him several times for his feelings of pity for the sinners. It is not until he meets Filippo Argentio, whom Dante knew and despised before his death, that he begins to understand that God’s judgment is always right. Virgil praises Dante for taking pleasure in seeing Argentio suffer. However, Dante regresses several more times throughout his journey, feeling pity for several more souls, including Brunetto Latini, a mentor to Dante, whom Dante felt was “kind and paternal” (137), and Geri del Bello, a relative of Dante’s whose death had not been avenged. It is his pity, I think, that seems to be one of the greatest obstacles that Dante must face on his journey to knowing and understanding God better. I assume that in Purgatorio and Paradiso, he is able to work through this issue.

While I think Dante’s comprehension of whether God’s judgment is right or wrong fluctuates throughout the poem, his understanding of the magnitude of His power only increases. Before his journey begins, Dante does not comprehend the things that God can do. It is when he enters Ante-Hell that he gets his first taste of what God can do to people who have sinned. He sees shades being “stung again and again by horseflies and by wasps that circled them” (23) and he weeps and is “oppressed by horror” (23). As he journeys along, he sees demons, gorgons, centaurs, and even Lucifer himself, and he is both amazed and horrified by both the things that God can create, and His wrath. In the Seventh Circle, Dante proclaims, “Oh, vengeance of the Lord, how you should be dreaded by everyone…” (125) showing that he can better grasp the great and terrible things that God can do. Additionally, in Canto XIX, Dante writes, “O Highest Wisdom, how much art you show in heaven, earth, and this sad world below,” (169) demonstrating his awe in the wake of God’s power.

Dante's Pride

Throughout Dante’s Inferno, he demonstrates vanity, one of the seven deadly sins. Dante even acknowledges that he struggles with pride when he mentions that the lion is one of the obstacles blocking his path to heaven (5). However, although Inferno is a warning to the reader about the consequences of sinning, Dante does not make an attempt to stop being prideful and vain.

That Virgil is a poet reveals Dante’s own pride in being a poet. Virgil represents logic and wisdom, as is clear by his title “guide” throughout the novel. Virgil is also labeled “teacher,” “sage,” and “wise master” (45, 59, 73). Each of these descriptions of Virgil emphasize that he is intelligent and should be revered. Virgil’s intellect is second only to God’s power in Inferno. This is made clear by Dante’s reference to Virgil as “you who can defeat / all things except for those tenacious demons / who tried to block us at the entryway,” (127). At this point, Dante is pointing out the only instance where Virgil’s logic was not sufficient in allowing them to pass to the next level of Hell. Aid was required from “Heaven’s messenger” at the gate of Dis (81). That the single time Virgil’s wisdom failed was also an instance when only help from God could succeed suggests that Virgil’s intelligence is greater than everything except God’s power. As the author of the poem Inferno, Dante demonstrates pride in his own great wisdom by placing the intellect of poets, whom Virgil represents, just below the power of God.

The pilgrim Dante also identifies his pride as a poet in Inferno. He offer’s renown to those in Hell who are willing to tell him their story multiple times, stating “So that your memory may never fade / within the first world from the minds of men / but still live on – and under many suns - / do tell me who you are and from what city,” and “‘I am alive, and can be previous to you / if you want fame,’ was my reply, ‘for I / can set your name among my other notes,’” (269, 297). In both of these instances, Dante states that he will write about the person he is speaking to in Hell if that person will give him information about their sins. Dante essentially promises eternal fame to the sinners. He is therefore stating that his own writings will be read by many people for the rest of time. Dante’s vanity is clear in his offerings to those he speaks with in Inferno.

For an author focused on counseling his audience against sinning, Dante shows quite a bit of pride in his vocation as a poet. Though he identifies vanity as a sin, he does not overcome it throughout the novel, as is evident in his portrayal of Virgil the poet as the voice of logic and wisdom and in his bribes of acclaim to those in Inferno.