All three embody the greatest of all sins in the world of Dante: betrayal.
Judas betrayed Jesus. And Brutus and Cassius betrayed Julius Caesar.
And, of course, Satan himself betrayed God.
This vision in the Inferno of Satan gnawing on Judas, Brutus, and Cassius is famous. But it's worth pausing to ponder why Dante makes betrayal the very worst of sins.
Why is betrayal the very worst sin? It's a question worth meditating on, even if you disagree with Dante's choice for what should be punished in the lowest pit of hell.
Ponder this: What would be the opposite of betrayal? The opposite would be loyalty, trust, and faithfulness. In biblical language, the opposite of betrayal is covenantal fidelity.
And breaking covenant fidelity, toward God or neighbor, does seem to be the gravest sin in the Bible. Breaking covenantal fidelity is a failure of love, toward God and others. Consequently, betrayal is the ultimate example of a failure to love.
Again, we might disagree with Dante on this. But I think Dante has a good point. We might be harmed by others, but I think what most of us would consider to be the very worst thing that could ever happen to us would be to have someone we loved stab us in the back. Being hurt by a stranger is bad, but being betrayed by someone we loved and trusted is worse. Betrayal cuts deep, breaking something deep, deep within us. We can bounce back from being hurt by a stranger, but being betrayed by a loved one can ruin us emotionally in ways that never heal. By wounding love, betrayal kills the very thing that makes us human.
In all this, I think we start to get a glimpse of why betrayal is the very worst sin in the Inferno. And yet, I wonder if we moderns are losing our ability to see this truth.
Specifically, it seems that everywhere we turn we are losing our vision of love as covenantal fidelity. More and more it seems, we think of love in terms of the marketplace, love as a return on investment. Do we think of marriages as covenants anymore? Family ties? Friendships? Civic life? Churches? Our relationship with God?
Sadly, I don't think that we do.
And maybe that's the greatest betrayal of all.
