The Necessity of Grace: Human Wisdom and Divine Aid in Canto IX of The Divine Comedy

Introduction

As a poet and student of literature, Dante Alghieri undoubtedly venerated human rationality. His magnum opus, The Divine Comedy, contains heroes whose virtues and vices demonstrate the heights and depths of human flourishing. However, despite its emphasis on the affairs of corporeal characters, The Divine Comedy is as much about the divine as it is about the human. In Canto IX of Inferno, Dante reveals a world that exemplifies the boundaries of the human intellect and the salvific need for divine aid. Throughout the poem, Virgil is depicted as the embodiment of human wisdom; as such, his inability to break through the gates of Dis and his fear in the face of adversity represents Dante’s view that humanity is unable to overcome evil alone. In this essay, “Human Wisdom” will be used as a reference to Dante’s anthropomorphizing of human wisdom in the character of Virgil. Dante further elucidates the dangers of relying on the human intellect by framing the Poets as under the threat of stasis, whereby they are prevented from being able to move forward and are subjected to the threat of permanent hopelessness through Medusa. Nonetheless, Dante uses Virgil’s conduct and the juxtaposition between Virgil and the Heavenly Messenger in order to communicate the ability of human wisdom to avoid sin while also establishing the necessity of divine grace to defeat sin.

Virgil as the embodiment of human wisdom

By virtue of his status as a leader in Limbo, which is partially occupied by all the pagans who reached the greatest extent of human flourishing possible without God, Virgil acts as the representation of human wisdom itself. Limbo, which is where these virtuous pagans live, is explicitly associated with human wisdom: upon being initiated into the band of supreme poets, the Pilgrim exclaims that he was “sixth among so much wisdom.”^[1]Dante, Alighieri, and John Ciardi. The Divine Comedy. New York: W.W. Norton, 1970. Print, 1.4.101-102 Consequently, Virgil, as the “highest poet,”^[2]Dante 1.4.80 is a representative of the wisdom attained by these virtuous pagans in the absence of divine grace. This connection can be found in Dante scholars and translators, including the likes of John Ciardi. However, they have argued that Virgil is a symbol of Human Reason, which I believe to be somewhat inaccurate. Although Limbo is occupied by champions of reason such as Aristotle and Plato, it is also the home of people like Aeneas and Caesar, who are more aptly characterized as heroes of valor. Thus, although only a slight semantic distinction, it would be more accurate to frame Limbo as the home of human wisdom rather than reason since the former term encompasses a range of different human virtues. Therefore, by extension, Virgil is an allegorical representation of human wisdom throughout the Poets’ journey through Hell.

The limits of human wisdom

Since Virgil is the embodiment of human wisdom without divine grace, Dante’s portrayal of Virgil as afraid and unable to open the gates of Dis is an allegorical message about the limitations of humanity in the face of evil. Prior to this scene in Canto IX, however, the motif of the limitations of human faculties compared to the power of divine grace is evident when Dante explains that the virtuous pagans were unable to reach heaven despite their virtues since they did not have access to grace through baptism.^[3]Dante 1.4.32-36 The tension between the inefficacy of human merit and the sufficiency of divine grace through baptism is an analog for the necessity of divine grace in order to attain transcendence in Dante’s worldview, and it is an important theme in Canto IX. Before his encounter with the evil spirits at the gates of Dis, Virgil was able to overcome obstacles to the Poets’ journey through Hell by simply appealing to divine decree as he did with Minos,^[4]Dante 1.5.22-24 for example. This strategy, however, is not successful with the spirits guarding Dis. One explanation for this is that since the city of Dis contains the lower Hell where the worst sinners are punished, Dante intends for Dis to represent a more serious evil that cannot be circumvented by verbal appeals to divine authority. This discrepancy is itself an allegorical representation of the limitations of human ability in Dante’s worldview: although Human Wisdom is able to avoid certain kinds of lesser evils with the tacit support of divine decree, it is powerless in the face of greater evil. Dante further emphasizes the inadequacies of human wisdom by portraying Virgil as afraid and anxious: “‘Still, we must win the fight,’ he began, ‘if not… Such a one was offered to us. Oh how long it seems to me until someone arrives!’”^[5]Dante 1.9.7-9 Moreover, the Pilgrim describes Virgil’s speech as “truncated,”^[6]Dante 1.9.14 which reveals the physical intensity of Virgil’s consternation. By portraying Virgil as both powerless and anxious in the face of greater evil, Dante suggests that Human Wisdom alone cannot overcome the evils that threaten to destroy man. 

Dante furthers his explanation of the limitations of human ability by arguing that without divine grace, the soul will not only be unable to reach salvation, but will also be inevitably stuck in a state of anagogical stasis. In response to Virgil’s inability to break into Dis, the Pilgrim asks “‘Into this depth of the sad pit does anyone from the first level ever come, of those whose only punishment is to have hope cut off?’”^[7]Dante 1.9.16-18 Such an inquiry is more than a gesture of ignorance: for the first time, the Pilgrim is questioning the ability of his guide by asking him whether he really knows the way through Hell. This defiance is indicative of the Pilgrim’s immense dismay at the thought of not escaping Hell. The Pilgrim’s fear of being left in the Underworld is expressed earlier in Canto VIII as well, where he states “Think, reader, if I became weak at the sound of those cursed words, for I did not believe I would ever return here.”^[8]Dante 1.8.94-96 Interestingly, it seems that the Pilgrim’s primary concern is not torment at the hands of the evil spirits occupying Hell, but being stuck in Hell. This interpretative distinction is bolstered by the introduction of Medusa into the Canto. Out of all the potential monsters that could have been chosen to attack the Poets at the gates of Dis, Dante selects Medusa, whose power lies in her ability to turn onlookers into stone. By establishing Medusa’s ability to freeze the Poets into stone as the primary threat in this scene, Dante deliberately frames perpetual stasis as the Poets’ main fear. Therefore, since the Poets’ being stuck at the gates of Dis is due to a lack of divine intervention, Dante is communicating through this event that reliance on human wisdom alone will reinforce the threat of spiritual paralysis. This state is particularly dangerous because–like the Poets would have been had they gazed upon Medusa–the soul in stasis is permanently inundated with the forces of evil akin to the Furies that surround the Poets. Thus, Dante uses the Pilgrim’s fear of being stuck in Hell and the stasis-inducing threat of Medusa in order to communicate that without divine aid, the soul is subject to anagogical paralysis and cannot definitively defeat the forces of evil that threaten to destroy it.

Human wisdom as a means of avoiding sin

However, Dante still recognizes the importance of Human Wisdom in its ability to avoid sin, which is exemplified in Virgil’s assistance in turning the Pilgrim away from Medusa. In response to the threat of Medusa, Virgil exclaims “Turn around and keep your eyes closed; for if the Gorgon appears and you should see her, there would never be any going back up.”^[9]Dante 1.9.55-57 Moreover, not only does Virgil advise the Pilgrim to turn from Medusa, but he also physically turns him and closes his eyes up with his hands.^[10]Dante 1.9.58-60 Given the aforementioned analysis of Medusa as a symbol for the threat of spiritual stasis, Virgil’s integral role in protecting the Pilgrim from Medusa’s gaze is an emphasis on the ability of Human Wisdom to protect the soul from sin. Furthermore, the physical act of turning away from Medusa bears resemblance to the Christian conception of repentance. In Greek, repentance is metanoia; this can be etymologically broken down into the root meta, which means “after” and noeo, which means “to think.” Therefore, Christian repentance consists of a literal turning of the mind away from its prior disposition and toward God, which is what Virgil aids the Pilgrim in doing during Canto IX. Consequently, Dante is expressing that human wisdom is not completely useless or intrinsically evil, but can be used in accordance with Christian virtue. However, Dante is not ceding that human faculty can enable the soul to escape sin forever. In this scene, the threat of evil is still imminent given the proximity of the Furies and Medusa and the Poets’ anxiety. Thus, while Dante espouses the capacity for Human Wisdom to move the soul away from sin, he also recognizes that it cannot remove the threat of evil definitively.

The power of Grace

On the other hand, divine aid–represented by the Heavenly Messenger–is able to overcome the limitations of Human Wisdom by defeating the powers of Evil altogether, thereby allowing the soul to move forward to salvation. As the Angel from Heaven comes to the Poets’ rescue, Dante juxtaposes the Angel and Virgil to explicate the supremacy of Divine Grace over Human Wisdom. While Virgil was unable to open the gates, the Angel only needed a “little wand”^[11]Dante 1.9.89 to complete the task. Virgil was taunted by the evil spirits as they “closed the gate…in [Virgil’s] face,”^[12]Dante 1.8.115-116 whereas the Angel incites fear into the damned souls and rebukes the evil spirits.^[13]Dante 1.9.76-81, 94-99 Finally, in contrast to Virgil’s fear and anxiety, the Angel is characterized as completely unfazed,^[14]Dante 1.9.82-82 so much so that the Messenger did not even acknowledge the Poets.^[15]Dante 1.9.100-101 These comparisons convey that in defeating evil, Divine Grace is able to do with ease what human intellect could only avoid temporarily. Dante reinforces the authority of grace over human faculty when he depicts Virgil as directing the Pilgrim toward the Angel: “Well did I perceive that he was sent from Heaven, and I turned to my master, who made a sign that I should stand still and bow to him.”^[16]Dante 1.9.85-87 First, the fact that the Pilgrim instinctually looks to his human guide while in the presence of an entity which even he recognizes as heavenly is an indication of man’s simultaneously inordinate and habitual emphasis on Human Wisdom over divine grace. Second, Dante’s depiction of Human Wisdom directing the Pilgrim’s attention toward the Angel is an admonition to the human intellect and its natural end: rationality, according to Dante, should actively point the soul toward the divine just as Virgil points the Pilgrim toward the Angel. Beyond this scene, after Dante has established the supremacy of Divine Grace over Human Wisdom in its power and authority, he depicts the Poets continuing on their journey through Hell and ultimately toward the Beatific Vision. Thus, Dante juxtaposes Virgil and the Angel alongside Virgil’s capitulation to the Angel in order to argue the salvific necessity of divine aid.

Conclusion

In The Divine Comedy, Dante conveys a world contingent on grace, where human wisdom is a crucial faculty but is overshadowed by the necessity of divine aid for defeating evil and reaching salvation. Nonetheless, although one may acknowledge that the principle of divine supremacy is allegorically present in Dante’s work, the same person may also observe that this concept seems to only be useful for a Christian audience. However, Dante seems to suggest the universal relevance of the concept through his characterization of the Pilgrim as a mediocre, fallible character. In stark contrast to the powerful and valiant demi-gods of pagan mythology, the Pilgrim is depicted as relatively weak: he is constantly seeking Virgil for comfort, doubting his own abilities, paralyzed by fear, and ends up fainting twice. This sharp diversion from stories like the Odyssey and the Iliad seems to be a deliberate attempt by Dante to make his protagonist a relatable and thoroughly human character rather than a hero gifted with divine attributes. As such, although it may not be his primary intention, Dante frames the Pilgrim as a representation of the reader. This obviously does not necessarily mean that Dante’s philosophy is correct or useful for humans: a world where human rationality is useful but inadequate seems counterproductive and suppressive, especially when so much of daily life, art, and literature is seemingly dependent on human faculties alone. Conversely, perhaps accepting Dante’s invitation to consider oneself as the Pilgrim, embracing one’s dependence on grace and desire for grace, is itself a journey worth writing a poem about.