The Divine Comedy: Week 2, The Gates of Hell

As the Pilgrim and Virgil begin their walk to the gates of hell in Canto 2 Virgil recounts how he was taken from hell and sent by heaven to be the Pilgrim's guide.

In Canto 3 the pair reach the gates of hell and pass under the ominous (and famous!) inscription:

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.

Rightly frighted, the Pilgrim remarks to Virgil, "Master, these words I see are cruel."

I agree! So before entering the Inferno, we should probably stop right here and talk a bit about hell.

Let me state up front that I'm not going to try to give the Inferno a hopeful, universalist spin or reading. Dante's theology is Dante's theology.

That said, a couple of observations about Dante's hell.

First, people who espouse hopeful eschatologies about the fate of all humanity are often dinged as being sentimental and soft on evil. So let's clear this up: Hell is necessary. True, we might have different visions of hell, but we have to have it. Without some sort of final reckoning there's no way for God to deal with evil and injustice, eschatologically speaking.

And Dante, in fact, is really helpful for hopeful eschatologies. When we get to Purgatory in the Comedy we're going to get a vision of punishment as redemptive purgation and purification.

Second, as we go on we're going to find that the sign "ABANDON ALL HOPE" isn't 100% true. As we'll see in the Inferno, many people have been rescued from hell.

Third, as we'll also see, not everyone suffers horribly in hell. Some live lives in hell very much like the life they lived on earth. Virgil, for example.

Forth, what about hell being "eternal"? There's an interesting debate in Christian theology about this distinction: Hell being eternal vs. hell being empty. If the free choice of creatures is assumed then hell remains an eternal possibility. Hell is the direction you're headed if you are walking away from God. That said, at the reconciliation of all things hell might be emptied. Thus, hell may be eternal but empty. Here's a video from Catholic Bishop Barron talking about if hell exists but is empty.

And lastly, and related to my first point, the language of eternal damnation is necessary for prophetic rebuke in this world. I talk about this in supplemental footage for Kevin Miller's documentary Hellbound?

And what's interesting here is that this is exactly how Dante uses hell in the Comedy. The biggest problem modern readers have with the Comedy is the deep dive you take into the politics of Florence, Rome, Italy, and Europe, past and present. You could make a very strong argument that The Divine Comedy is, at its heart, a political manifesto with Dante using hell to call out and damn the corruptions of the church and the state.