End of Purgatory: Two Canticles in, I may have learned something

Inferno is about getting stuck by sin. Purgatory is about growth and progress. The two together give us much to think about with regard to sin in our lives. I think I learned that progress can be a state of mind and that hope, as a christian virtue, is an important aspect of the progress of a soul. 

Inferno

The inferno is divided into two major parts, the areas outside of the gates of Dis and the part that is within the infernal city, behind the gates. To be within the city of hell involves a willful cooperation with sin. All sins that lie outside of the city are not necessarily willful, they reflect a going-along-with sin, but they don't reflect a premeditated conscience choice. Some have called the sins outside of the walls as sins of incontinence. 

For sins of incontinence, sinners simply failed to use what was available to them to learn how to moderate or constrain their temptations in this world. Francesca should have known that it was dangerous to be alone with her brother-in-law who she was tempted by, and she surely should have known not to read romantic poetry that not only tantalized, but rationalized love outside of the duty-bounds of marriage. It is harder to see wrath as a sin of incontinence, but the analysis seems sound, we lose ourselves by not practicing the related disciplines of self-control. Our will gets captured because we do nothing to prepare ourselves to control our will in moments of temptation. 

For the sins of will, there is something more. The first sin here we are given the heretics. They reject what is known to be the standard teachings and teach what lies outside of truth. For Dante, this means something like the self-gratifying doctrine of hedonism (Epicureanism). This teaching might lie prior to the choices to forgo duty and self-control in the previous levels of incontinence. A teaching that promotes sin itself is a premeditated and highly organized form of sin that involves the will in a deliberate way. Our will is captured by a cold and calculating plan to cooperate with sin. To become a barrator, or a corrupted public official, takes a vast series of choices that a person coordinates to a specific corrupt end. 

Inferno shows us that sin locates us in a particular geography. At the center, there is a lake of ice literally preventing some of the souls from moving at all. Those that have the most motion are still locked into their own level of inferno and cannot leave. Minos put them there and there they will stay. To be in hell is to be locked down with no HOPE of changing the state of your soul. This might even be a metaphor for how sin convinces you, falsely, that you cannot be forgiven and that you might as well unite yourself to that sin without repentance. 

 Purgatory

Purgatory is divided into three major parts: Antepurgatory, terraces of the mountain, and the earthly paradise at the top. What is focal in inferno are the circles and those correspond most directly with the terraces of the middle part of purgatory. This made me struggle with the nine cantos that occur before Dante makes it to the gate of purgatory, and I am still working on those. 

What I have decided is that purgatory is an analogy for the church on earth. It is, firstly, not part of the human civilization made up of the mundane politics of living human affairs. It is the antipode of the city of Jerusalem, somewhere in the pacific ocean on the other side of the world. It is on earth, but not of it. I recast these three major divisions in my mind in the following way. The antepurgatory is more like the parking lot of the church, the purgatory proper is made up of the ambulatory or the pilgrimage part of the church (the aisles around the church where the stations of the cross might be along with other artwork and side chapels), and the earthly paradise has a connection to the alter and the tabernacle located at the focal point in the church, where heaven and earth meet in the mass. 

In antepurgatory, there is progress, but the speed of progress is difficult to describe. Cato himself is the furthest from the gate, and he encourages others to speed their journey even if his location as the guardian makes us question his own progress (does he get admitted after every other human has passed, is he the last through the door?). The excommunicated are not inside working on their sins, but they are not in the inferno either. They dislodged themselves from the icy torpor of inferno, but it is unclear what they need to do to approach the door of purgatory. It is enough, in some sense, that they are there at all. It is a type of victory. 

The terraces of purgatory are pride, envy, wrath, sloth, avarice (prodigality), and finally Gluttony&Lust. These more-or-less mirror the decent in hell, but represent the progress of a soul to be unburdened. In purgatory we get lighter as our soul escapes the weight of sin. This is the inverse, the further from God we are the heavier we are and the heaviest thing in the world is the beast at the center of inferno. Moving closer to God makes our burden light. 

The earthly paradise is extremely apocalyptic in its writing style, but has the effect of making the final transition from the soul that has been forgiven and cleansed of sin to the soul that can forgive itself and forget its own sin. Virgil cannot make it through this last bit, suggesting either a return to limbo for eternity, or some purgation process that he must endure on his own. Statius is there, who among the three major righteous pagans, has already made it further along the purgation process. Beatrice shows up and helps to guide Dante further and into the next canticle. 

Purgatory is all about motion. Virgil is an interesting character because he is here. Mentions of Marcia, incorporation of Cato and Statius, and Trajan all break the expectations of convention. Pagans move around in the structure of this canticle quite a bit. Dante is not a legalist or pharisee about these things. It isn't about paying some dues, collecting prayers, or any other mundane set of punishments. The sinners in purgatory want to be cleansed and move forward only when they are ready. They all want to move forward, and I like to think that they all will. Sin holds us back, but the domination is broken it cannot hold us back forever. What purgatory has that inferno doesn't have is hope. That is enough for those that hold onto hope as a source of discipline and a protection against the corruption of the will.