I am studying The Divine Comedy for my humanities class this semester, and I want to share a little of what I
am learning with you. The Divine Comedy is
a long narrative poem that was written by Dante Alighieri in the early 1300s.
He started his allegory about 1308-1312 and finished it just a year before his
death in 1321. The poem is an “imaginative vision of the afterlife” as a “representative
of the medieval world-view as it had developed in the Western Church by the 14th
century.” It was written in Italian rather than Latin because Dante wanted all
literate people to be able to read it.
The poem is divided into three parts
known as Canticas, meaning religious
or narrative poem. Dante’s three canticas are The Inferno or Hell,
Purgatorio or Purgatory, and Paradiso or Paradise. Each cantica contains thirty-three cantos (or sections). The Inferno has an additional canto that
serves as an introduction to the entire poem and brings the total number of
cantos to 100. The first two cantos in Purgatorio
and Paradiso serve as
introductions to those canticas.
The narrative describes Dante’s travels
through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise or Heaven; while allegorically the poem
represents the soul’s journey towards God…
The work was originally simply titled Comedia and the word Divina was added by Giovanni Boccaccio.
The first printed edition to add the word divina
to the title was that of the Venetian humanist Lodovico Dolce, published in
1555 by Gabriele Giolito de’ Ferrari…
Written in the first person, the poem
tells of Dante’s journey through the three realms of the dead, lasting from the
night before Good Friday to the Wednesday after Easter in the spring of 1300.
The Roman poet Virgil guides him through Hell and Purgatory; Beatrice, Dante’s
ideal woman, guides him through Heaven. Beatrice was a Florentine woman whom he
had met in childhood and admired from far in the mode of the then-fashionable
courtly love tradition…
I am fascinated with Dante’s “vision”
of the afterlife and find it to be quite creative and thoughtful. I am also aware
that Dante wrote his epic poem with the knowledge available in medieval
Christian theology and philosophy in the 1300s. He wrote according to what he
knew about life after death, and his poem causes a great deal of pondering and
introspection. However, there is one particular part of Dante’s description of
Hell that is wrong.
In his poem Dante is led through
Hell by the Roman poet Virgil. As he follows Virgil through Hell and into Limbo
(the first circle of hell), he sees the souls of people – men, women, and
children - who lived good and honorable lives. Virgil tells him that the people
are in that condition because they were not baptized, not because they had
committed sins. Many of them lived before Christianity was on the earth. They had,
however, lived moral lives according to their laws and were good people.
Dante recognizes many great people
in this condition and feels concern for them. He asks Virgil if they were stuck
in Limbo forever or if they could eventually progress out of Limbo. Virgil replies
that the people are there to stay. They can never be saved because they did not
hear about Jesus Christ and His gospel in mortality.
This is the doctrine that concerns
me. How many mortals believe that people are condemned to hell simply because
they were not baptized before they died? In a First Presidency Message in March 1972, President Joseph Fielding Smith calls this doctrine “unfortunate and erroneous.” He explains that this doctrine did not originate with Dante but came “down from
the earliest days of apostasy from the true teachings of Jesus Christ.”
President Smith then proceeds to
share the story of “an earnest, loving mother who was told by a well-meaning
but misguided priest that her dead infant was eternally lost because the child
had not been christened. He continues.
I was visiting at the home of this
mother, and she related the following story. Several years before, she had lost
a little child. He had not been taken to the minister for sprinkling and had,
in that condition, died. The parents sought their minister and asked him to
conduct the funeral and give their little one a Christian burial; however, this
humble request was solemnly, but nonetheless brutally, denied. The parents were
told the child was forever lost. Heartbroken, they laid their little child away
as an outcast might have been buried, without the rites of that church and
without “Christian burial.” How the hearts of those fond parents ached; how
their feelings were torn asunder!
For several years this mother, with
faith in the teachings of that priest, suffered the most acute mental agony.
She knew it was not the fault of her infant that he had not been christened. He
was innocent of any wrong. Was not that wrong her own? And in her mind, because
of this false teaching, was not she responsible for the eternal suffering of
this little one? She felt as the repentant murderer who could not restore the
life he had taken, and in this anguish of soul she suffered the punishment of
the damned.
It was a happy day when I came to the
home of this tormented mother. Even now I can see the joy that came into her
tormented face when I explained to her that this doctrine was false – as false
as the depths of hell whence it came. I taught her this was not the doctrine of
Jesus Christ, who loved little children and who declared that they belonged to
the kingdom of heaven. I read to her from the Book of Mormon the words of
Mormon to his son Moroni (Moroni 8) and explained that the Lord had revealed to Joseph Smith that “all children who
die before they arrive at the years of accountability” – that is, eight years –
“are saved in the celestial kingdom of heaven [Doctrine and Covenants 137:10].” (Documentary History of the Church, vol.
2. 2, p. 381.) Yes, the Lord has made it known in this glorious day of
restoration:
“All who have died without a knowledge
of this Gospel, who would have received it if they had been permitted to tarry,
shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom of God; also all that shall die
henceforth without a knowledge of it, who would have received it with all their
hearts, shall be heirs of that kingdom, for I, the Lord, will judge all men
according to their works, according to the desire of their hearts.” (DHC, vol. 2, p. 380.)
Dante must have realized that the
doctrine was wrong because he wrote something entirely different in Paradiso, Canto XXXII, Lines 40-48.
There Dante describes children under the age of accountability as being in the
presence of God because Jesus Christ made it possible by His atoning sacrifice.
This is particularly interesting because the last thirteen cantos were not
published until after Dante’s death.
Know that to here from where the petals
meet,
Up to midway, the lines of these partitions,
No souls by their own merit have their seat,
But by Another’s, under fixed
conditions;
For all these spirits were absolved from sin
Ere they had reached control of their volitions.
Lend ear and thou wilt realize how thin
Their voices are; look well and thou’lt make out
Their infant faces and their childish mien.
Little children – before the age of
eight years - are innocent in the eyes of God and return to directly to His
presence upon their death. All people – whether in this life or the life
hereafter – will have the opportunity to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and
either accept it or reject it. However, the covenants must be made in
mortality.
This is the reason why The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints builds temples all over the world. Members of
the Church perform temples ordinances in behalf of people who have passed away.
If the person accepts the gospel when they hear it on the other side of the
veil, their temple ordinances have already been completed, and they can
continue progressing through eternity. If the ordinances are not performed, the
person is stopped in their progression until they are completed by mortals.
I know that Heavenly Father is a
loving Father. He desires that all of His children have the opportunity to
return to His presence, and He has a plan to make it possible.
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