Dante, the pilgrim, has met Virgil, the great Roman poet, who will guide him through Inferno, Hell. But he is afraid and wonders how he has been chosen to be shown these things while yet in his mortal body. He asks Virgil, “Poet, take my measure now: appraise my powers before you trust me to venture through that deep passage where you would be my guide.”
Dante provides his first of many dual comparisons. One is from the Bible and one from Virgil’s poem, Aeneid:
You write of the journey of Silvius’s father (Aeneas)
Made to immortal realms although he stayed
a mortal witness, in his corruptible body…
Later the Chosen Vessel too went and returned,
Carrying confirmation of that faith
Which opens the way of salvation at its end.
But – what cause, whose favor, could send me forth
On such a voyage? I am no Aeneas or Paul
The Apostle Paul was writing a letter to his Corinthian church when he told of this experience:
Corinthians 12:1-4 (NLT) 1 This boasting will do no good, but I must go on. I will reluctantly tell about visions and revelations from the Lord. 2 I was caught up to the third heaven fourteen years ago. Whether I was in my body or out of my body, I don’t know—only God knows. 3 Yes, only God knows whether I was in my body. But I do know 4 that I was caught up to paradise and heard things so astounding that they cannot be expressed in words, things no human is allowed to tell.
Remember, in our last study, we learned that Dante, the poet, had fallen in love at first sight with a young woman named Beatrice. His unrequited love for her remained a shining image throughout his life. He married Gemma and Beatrice married someone else and she died fairly young. But, because they never had a real relationship, her image was given a platform in his life and remained unsullied by real life. She was his imaginary muse.
Virgil goes on to tell Dante, the pilgrim, that Beatrice (who has died and is now in Heaven) has been worried about Dante’s salvation:
…”my friend –
No friend of Fortune – has found his way impeded
On the barren slope, and fear has turned him round.
I fear he may be already lost, unaided:
So far astray, I’ve come from Heaven too late.
Go now, with your fair speech and what is needed
To save him; offer the help you have to give
Before he is lost, and I will be consoled.
I am Beatrice, come from where I crave
To be again, who ask this. As love has willed,
So have I spoken. And when I return
Before my Lord, He will hear your praises told.”
Beatrice goes on to tell Virgil that Mary, the Mother of God, took note of Dante and asked St. Lucia (Lucy) to send help and “Lucy, the foe of every cruelty” found Beatrice. Beatrice immediately hurried from Heaven to Virgil. She trusts his eloquence to reach Dante who so admired Virgil.
Hearing this story gives Dante, the pilgrim, courage. Dante, the writer, often uses a romantic, earthy comparison and there are two good examples in this Canto.
Beginning of Canto II:
Day was departing, and the darkening air
Called all the earth’s creatures to their evening quiet
While I alone was preparing as though for war…
Canto II 103
As flowers bent and shrunken by night at dawn
Unfold and straighten on their stems, to wake
Brightened by sunlight, so I grew strong again –
Good courage coursing through my heart…
Jesus Christ is also so concerned about every single human being, that He willingly came to reveal God to us and to die for us to pay for our sins. Then, He ascended to sit at the right hand of Father God. They sent the Holy Spirit to earth to prepare every heart for the great question, “Will you accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for your sins and accept Him as Lord of your life?” We are not born desiring God. We are born in sin. Therefore it takes the Holy Spirit to work in our minds and hearts to get us to the point of choice. We do have a choice. We are free to choose Jesus Christ or to reject Him. God puts a seed of faith in each heart and the Holy Spirit is sent to prepare us, but ultimately we have the choice to accept or reject. No matter what sins we have committed, Jesus Christ can forgive and cleanse us but we have to accept Him. This means that our eternal life is our own choice. God doesn’t send anyone to Hell for eternity. God provided the only way of salvation! But we have a choice and therefore the responsibility is ours if we reject Christ.
Jesus told us in the Gospel (Good News) of John that He would send the Holy Spirit to the world. He loves us that much! He not only died for us, rose again for us but also sent the Holy Spirit to help us. And, once we are saved, Jesus commissions all believers to be witnesses to the unsaved of Jesus’ provision for salvation. Galatians is a book in the New Testament. It was actually a letter written by the Apostle Paul to the Galatian church. He explains how and why he became a minister of the Gospel (Good News of Jesus Christ).
Galatians 1 (BSB) 1 This letter is from Paul, an apostle. I was not appointed by any group of people or any human authority, but by Jesus Christ himself and by God the Father, who raised Jesus from the dead.
2 All the brothers and sisters here join me in sending this letter to the churches of Galatia.
3 May God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace. 4 Jesus gave his life for our sins, just as God our Father planned, in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live. 5 All glory to God forever and ever! Amen.
6 I am shocked that you are turning away so soon from God, who called you to himself through the loving mercy of Christ. You are following a different way that pretends to be the Good News 7 but is not the Good News at all. You are being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ.
8 Let God’s curse fall on anyone, including us or even an angel from heaven, who preaches a different kind of Good News than the one we preached to you. 9 I say again what we have said before: If anyone preaches any other Good News than the one you welcomed, let that person be cursed.
10 Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant.
11 Dear brothers and sisters, I want you to understand that the gospel message I preach is not based on mere human reasoning. 12 I received my message from no human source, and no one taught me. Instead, I received it by direct revelation from Jesus Christ.
13 You know what I was like when I followed the Jewish religion—how I violently persecuted God’s church. I did my best to destroy it. 14 I was far ahead of my fellow Jews in my zeal for the traditions of my ancestors.
15 But even before I was born, God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace. Then it pleased him 16 to reveal his Son to me so that I would proclaim the Good News about Jesus to the Gentiles.
When this happened, I did not rush out to consult with any human being. 17 Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to consult with those who were apostles before I was. Instead, I went away into Arabia, and later I returned to the city of Damascus.
18 Then three years later I went to Jerusalem to get to know Peter, and I stayed with him for fifteen days. 19 The only other apostle I met at that time was James, the Lord’s brother. 20 I declare before God that what I am writing to you is not a lie.
21 After that visit I went north into the provinces of Syria and Cilicia. 22 And still the churches in Christ that are in Judea didn’t know me personally. 23 All they knew was that people were saying, “The one who used to persecute us is now preaching the very faith he tried to destroy!” 24 And they praised God because of me.
Galatians 2 (BSB) 1 Then fourteen years later I went back to Jerusalem again, this time with Barnabas; and Titus came along, too. 2 I went there because God revealed to me that I should go. While I was there I met privately with those considered to be leaders of the church and shared with them the message I had been preaching to the Gentiles. I wanted to make sure that we were in agreement, for fear that all my efforts had been wasted and I was running the race for nothing. 3 And they supported me and did not even demand that my companion Titus be circumcised, though he was a Gentile…
6 And the leaders of the church had nothing to add to what I was preaching. (By the way, their reputation as great leaders made no difference to me, for God has no favorites.) 7 Instead, they saw that God had given me the responsibility of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as he had given Peter the responsibility of preaching to the Jews. 8 For the same God who worked through Peter as the apostle to the Jews also worked through me as the apostle to the Gentiles.
9 In fact, James, Peter, and John, who were known as pillars of the church, recognized the gift God had given me, and they accepted Barnabas and me as their co-workers. They encouraged us to keep preaching to the Gentiles, while they continued their work with the Jews. 10 Their only suggestion was that we keep on helping the poor, which I have always been eager to do.
This letter reminded me of Dante’s Canto II, with divine love desiring Dante, the pilgrim’s, salvation and sending help to guide him to the point of salvation. In his very Catholic poem, Dante has the Madonna sending St. Lucia (a saint) to Beatrice to Virgil to bring help to Dante, the pilgrim. As a protestant, I respect Mary the mother of Jesus and those saints who believed in Jesus Christ as their Savior and did many good things. But I do NOT believe that we have all these intermediaries between God and each human being. According to the Bible, our triune God is all we need. God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit are in direct communication with the believer without the assistance of the Madonna or Saints. So divine love has made the plan of salvation; divine love has executed the plan of salvation (Jesus Christ was crucified and rose again); and divine love has sent the Holy Spirit to lead us to the plan of salvation. The Holy Spirit, the Word of God and the witness of believers are the “help” we need to lead us to Jesus Christ.
Excerpts of Inferno are from a new translation by Robert Pinsky.
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