Purgatory: Thoughts and Reflections on the Difference compared to Inferno

Purgatory is completely different than Inferno. 

Inferno was more like a zoo of sin. It was gawking. Dante is participating in the sin of those that he is observing and the whole mess leaves the reader feeling a pull between empathy and superiority. The element of hope is missing from inferno, and we are reminded of this as we go through the gate into hell. I think that the absence of hope is why Virgil continues to encourage the pilgrim to move away from empathy. It is also possible that the empathy plays a darker role. The more we think that the sinners are like us the more we think that our sins are not as bad as these exemplars. We start to feel like we cannot be judged by comparison to these extreme sinners. That provokes sin form the pilgrim who is walking through the circles and encourages the pilgrim to accept sinfulness as long as it is of a lesser degree.  

That problem of empathy is not a problem in purgatory. Purgatory has sinners as well, and what is surprising is that sinners are there that would not be expected. Pagans, the excommunicated, and the late-repentants are walking alongside those that are more mundane sinners that spent a life attending the sacraments without becoming saints. Purgatory has to finish the work that the merest acceptance of grace and the attendant hope can supply. Everyone we meet in purgatory will eventually make it to paradise. That is not only something that can give these souls hope, but it removes the invidious distinctions that are so crucial to the story in inferno. Since everyone is progressing at their own pace, we no longer feel as if we can judge them. Perhaps the surprises is that we meet people in purgatory including those that we suspect should not be in a place of redemption. These people are present to help complete the story in a useful way. We are surprised precisely because we are meant to give up on making the comparisons that we were encouraged to make when we were surrounded by sinners. 

I expected that purgatory would have less reference to the mundane. What I thought I would get was a purely anagogical rendering, the story confined to what makes the soul progress. I am surprised, I think, that the details of the progress are largely hidden in the implications of the scenes Dante describes. The history and the remaining political rants in the text are good red meat for Dante's readers, but it is hard for me and for commentators to understand why someone 700 years later should take these portions of the text seriously. The astrological commentary too seems to be a distraction to a reader that thinks it unimpressive that Dante knew the world was a globe. I think that we are missing something. The story of the soul's progress is there, but there is another story hidden in the political rants and the scientific commentary. 

Both of these impersonal components, politics and science, tempt the soul into something other than its own progress. I think what we are asked to do with these larger systematic commentaries is to recognize our own humility. Dante points to science to show us how radically complex the world is, and he draws on science that was as unfamiliar to his audience as quantum motion and deep structures are to audiences today. His mentions of political institutions, too, are so complex that he reminds us that the control of these machinations are outside of individual hands and are completely subject to the governance of the will of God. To try to influence the path of history is to become corrupted. Dante himself will indeed influence history through his poem, but it is only through surrendering the pride of his will to God's will alone. Dante the pilgrim becomes Dante the poet by becoming blind in purgatory and therefore subordinating his will to God's will. 

Purgatory is instructive. The biggest take-away for a person in the 21st century is that purgatory's closest point of reference is a church. A church is full of sinners, but the sinners are at least trying to make progress. It exists outside of the larger mundane world. The church on this earth is different in that some unrepentant sinners still prey on those that are seeking redemption in the church, but Dante's purgatory is the ideal of church. It is useful to think about the church, even in its ideal form, as being comprised of people that have much progress and purification left in order to be made whole. Dante gives us plenty of people in the church in hell, but if we can correctly categorize those that are damned and those that are working toward redemption we can see the beauty of the pilgrimage church on earth. This question of ultimate purpose and goal is one of the most important differences to be aware of when reading the two parts of this poem.  Inferno is different from purgatory because purgatory is comprised of those who ultimately seek to conform to God's will.