There was in a certain village a very wretched priest, idling in excess and revelries and neglecting altogether the souls committed to his care. When he passed away, the parishioners who had died under his watch began to crowd around him in the infernal regions with stones in their hands, saying, “We were in your care and you neglected us. And when we sinned, you did not correct us with your word or your example. You have been the cause of our damnation!” After they harried him by throwing stones, he fell into the pit and was never seen again. These events concerning his fate were revealed to a devout woman.
CONCERNING THE DEAD KNIGHT WHO AT NIGHT HUNG SERPENTS AND TOADS AT THE DOOR OF HIS SON IN PLACE OF FISH.
When he died, a certain knight bequeathed to his son goods he had obtained by usury. One night he came knocking forcefully at the door. When a boy came running and asked why he was knocking there, he answered, “Let me in. I am the lord of this property” and gave his name. Looking through the opening and recognizing him, the boy responded, “My lord is most assuredly dead; I will not let you in.” When the dead man went on knocking and received no answer, at length he said, “Take these fish, which I eat, for my son. Look, I am hanging them on the door.” When they went out in the morning, they found a multitude of toads and snakes in a tangled mass. Truly this is the food served in hell, which is cooked in a sulfurous fire.
NOVICE: What is your opinion about those people who live a bad life and nevertheless give many alms to the poor?
MONK: It does not benefit them for eternal life.
CONCERNING THE BAVARIAN, WHO APPEARED TO HIS WIFE AFTER DEATH AND SAID THAT ALMSGIVING HAD NOT HELPED HIM.
Not many years have elapsed since the death of a very wealthy official of the duke of Bavaria. One night the castle in which his wife was sleeping trembled so much that it seemed as though there was an earthquake. And behold the door of the chamber in which she was lying opened and her husband entered, accompanied by a giant figure, blacker than black, which pushed him by the shoulders. When she saw and recognized her husband, she called him to her and made him sit upon a seat at her bedside. She felt no fear, but as she was only wearing a nightgown, she draped a part of the bed covering over her shoulders, the reason being that it was cold. She asked her husband about his condition and he responded with sadness, “I am consigned to eternal punishments.” Hearing this, his wife grew very frightened and asked, “What are you saying? Did you not give alms in abundance? Your door was open to every pilgrim. Do these good deeds provide no benefit to you at all?” He responded, “They provide no advantage at all for eternal life, the reason being that I did them out of empty glory rather than out of love.” When she wanted to ask him about other things, he answered abruptly, “I was allowed to appear to you, but I can linger here no longer. Behold my hellish handler stands waiting for me outside. Indeed, if the leaves of every tree were turned into tongues, they still could not describe my torments.” After this, he was summoned and driven away; the entire castle trembled as before at his departure and his lamenting cries echoed for a long time. This vision was and remains especially renowned in Bavaria, as our monk Gerard (formerly canon of Ratison) was witness. He related this story to us. See how in all of these stories the scripture is fulfilled which says, “The mighty will be mightily tormented.”4
NOVICE: This example and others like it should be preached to the mighty.
MONK: Because the lives of the priests themselves are for the most part bad and wayward, they flatter the mighty instead of pricking them.
CONCERNING THE NUN WHO CARRIED AROUND THE BURNING INFANT SHE HAD KILLED.
A nun from a certain convent near to us, which I do not wish to name, became pregnant. To prevent her disgrace from being revealed, she killed the child inside of her. Afterward, she became very seriously ill due to an excess of shame. Although she confessed all of her other sins, she remained silent about her disgrace and the murder of her child and thus expired.
A relative of hers labored on behalf of her soul. The dead woman appeared to her clearly while she was at prayer. She carried in her hands a burning child, saying, “I conceived and was pregnant with this baby, but I killed it while it lived inside me. I carry it around ceaselessly in my torments and its fire burns and devours me. If, while I was dying, I had made my confession concerning this, my greatest sin, I would have found grace.” From this, it is gathered that sins which are not detected in this life through confession are revealed in the future through the difficulty of punishment.
CONCERNING THE PUNISHMENT OF RUDINGER AND HIS DRINK.
In the diocese of Cologne not far from the city of Cologne, there was a certain knight by the name of Rudinger. He was so entirely given over to wine that he would attend celebrations in different country estates for the sole purpose of drinking good wine. When he became ill and was about to die, his daughter asked him to appear to her within thirty days. Responding “I will do this if I can,” he died. Indeed, after his death he appeared to his daughter in a vision, “Behold I am here just as you asked.” And in his hand, he was carrying a small clay cup, which is commonly called a cruselinum, with which he was accustomed to drink in taverns. His daughter asked him, “Father, what is in that cup?” He responded, “My drink is made from pitch and sulfur. I am always drinking from it and I cannot empty it.” Then he disappeared. And immediately the girl understood, as much from his previous life as from this punishment, that there was little or no hope in his salvation. For in the here and now wine goes down easily, but in the end, it will bite you like a snake.
THE ABOMINABLE FANCY1
Stories about the horrors of Hell circulated from the confines of the cloister to the pews of parish churches in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but during this period the nature of the damned and their relationship to the blessed in Heaven became a matter of theological speculation that occupied the most brilliant Christian minds of the later Middle Ages. Chief among them was Thomas Aquinas (1225–74), a Dominican friar of Italian origin, whose sprawling Summa Theologica (The Sum of Theology) has become the most widely read compendium of theological teaching in the Western Christian tradition. Treating topics as diverse as the existence of God, the purpose of human life, and the necessity of Christ’s incarnation, Aquinas approached each subject in the same way. After presenting a supposition and then giving several objections to it, he proceeded to support the supposition and to counter the objections he had offered. Aquinas supported his arguments with proof texts from the Christian scriptures but also with reference to the works of ancient philosophers like Aristotle and Plato. Toward the end of the Summa Theologica, Aquinas applied his reasoning to the relationship between the blessed in Heaven and the damned in Hell. How do the saints feel about the damned? Do they witness their infernal torments from Heaven? Do they rejoice in the suffering inflicted in Hell? He concluded that the blessed must find happiness in the eternal torments of the wicked because these punishments were an expression of divine justice and the blessed loved every manifestation of God’s power. Moreover, Aquinas argued that the saints found joy in the suffering of the damned because it heightened their awareness of their own state of blessedness. In the late nineteenth century, the Anglican cleric Frederic William Farrar derided this notion as “an abominable fancy,” but in the unrelenting logic of medieval Christian theology, the idea that the blessed found enjoyment in the horrific tortures inflicted on the damned became a cornerstone of Christian doctrine.
ARTICLE 1. WHETHER THE BLESSED WHO ARE IN HEAVEN WILL SEE THE PUNISHMENTS OF THE DAMNED.
THE FIRST OBJECTION: It would seem that the blessed in heaven will not see the punishments of the damned. For the damned are more distant from the blessed than wayfarers.2 But the blessed do not see the deeds of wayfarers, as a gloss on Isaiah 63.16 (“Abraham did not know us”) says: “The dead, even the saints, do not know what the living are doing, even their own children.”3 Much less, therefore, do they see the suffering of the damned.
ON THE CONTRARY, it is written in Isaiah, “They shall go out and see the carcasses of the men who have transgressed against me.”5 And a gloss says, “The elect will go out by understanding or seeing clearly, so that they may be urged all the more to praise God.”
I ANSWER THAT nothing should be denied to the blessed that belongs to the perfection of their blessedness. Now everything is known all the more for being compared with its contrary, because when contraries are placed beside one another, they become more conspicuous. And, therefore, in order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and that they may render greater thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned.
REPLY TO OBJECTION 1. This gloss speaks of what the departed saints are able to do by nature, for it is not necessary that they should know by natural knowledge all that happens to the living. But the saints in heaven know distinctly all that happens both to wayfarers and to the damned. For this reason, Gregory says that Job’s words, “Whether his children come to honor or dishonor, he shall not understand,” do not apply to the souls of the saints, because, since they possess the glory of God within them, we cannot believe that events outside of heaven are unknown to them.6
REPLY TO OBJECTION 2. Although the beauty of the thing seen helps to bring about the perfection of vision, there may be deformity of the thing seen without imperfection of vision, because the images of things by which the soul knows contraries are not themselves contrary. For this reason, God, who has the most perfect knowledge, sees all things, beautiful and deformed.
ARTICLE 2. WHETHER THE BLESSED PITY THE MISERIES OF THE DAMNED.
OBJECTION 1. It would seem that the blessed pity the miseries of the damned. For pity proceeds from charity, and charity will be most perfect in the blessed. Therefore, they will most certainly pity the miseries of the damned.
OBJECTION 2. Furthermore, the blessed will never be as removed from pity as God. Yet, in a sense, God has sympathy for our afflictions and for this reason He is said to be merciful. And likewise, so do the angels. Therefore, the blessed pity the miseries of the damned.
ON THE CONTRARY, whoever pities another person is a participant in their misery. But the blessed cannot participate in any misery. Therefore, they do not pity the miseries of the damned.
I ANSWER THAT, mercy or compassion may exist in a person in two ways: first, by way of passion; second, by way of choice. In the blessed, there will be no passion in them, except as a result of the choice of reason. Hence, compassion and mercy will not be in them, except by the choice of reason. Now, mercy or compassion result from the reason’s choice, namely, when a person wishes another person’s evil to be dispelled. It follows that in those things which, in accordance with reason, we do not wish to be dispelled, we have no such compassion. But as long as sinners are in the world, they are in such a state that, without prejudice to the divine justice, they can be rescued from a state of unhappiness and sin to a state of happiness. Consequently, it is possible to have compassion for them both by the choice of will—in this sense, God, the angels, and the blessed are said to pity them by desiring their salvation—and by passion, as they are pitied by good people who are wayfarers. But in their future state, it will be impossible for them to be rescued from their unhappiness, and consequently, it will not be possible to pity their miseries according to reason. Therefore, the blessed in glory will have no pity on the damned.
REPLY TO OBJECTION 1. Charity is the principle of pity, when it is possible for us out of charity to desire the end of a person’s unhappiness. But the saints cannot desire this for the damned, because it would be contrary to divine justice. As a result, the argument is not convincing.
REPLY TO OBJECTION 2. God is said to be merciful, insofar as He helps those who it is appropriate to be released from their miseries in accordance with the order of wisdom and justice, but He does not show pity toward the damned, except perhaps in punishing them less than they deserve.
ARTICLE 3. WHETHER THE BLESSED REJOICE IN THE PUNISHMENT OF THE WICKED.
OBJECTION 1: It would seem that the blessed do not rejoice in the punishment of the wicked. For rejoicing in another’s evil pertains to hatred. But there will be no hatred in the blessed. Therefore, they will not rejoice in the miseries of the damned.
OBJECTION 2: Furthermore, the blessed in heaven will conform to God in the highest degree. Now, God does not rejoice in our punishments. Therefore, neither will the blessed rejoice in the punishments of the damned.
OBJECTION 3: Furthermore, whatever is worthy of blame in a wayfarer has no place whatsoever in a comprehensor.7 Now, it is very reprehensible in a wayfarer to take pleasure in the pain of others and most praiseworthy to grieve for them. Therefore, the blessed in no way rejoice in the punishment of the damned.
ON THE CONTRARY, it is written that “the just shall rejoice when he shall see the revenge.”8 Furthermore, it is written that “they shall satiate the sight of all flesh.”9 Here “satiate” denotes a refreshment of the mind. Therefore, the blessed will rejoice in the punishment of the wicked.
I ANSWER THAT a thing may be a matter of rejoicing in two ways. First, directly, when one rejoices in a thing as such, and in this way the saints will not rejoice in the punishment of the wicked. Second, indirectly, by reason namely of something pertaining to it, and in this way the saints will rejoice in the punishment of the wicked by considering the order of divine justice and their own deliverance, which will fill them with joy. And thus, divine justice and their own deliverance will be the direct cause of the joy of the blessed, while the punishment of the damned will cause it indirectly.
REPLY TO OBJECTION 1: To rejoice in another’s evil as such belongs to hatred, but not to rejoice in another’s evil by reason of something pertaining to it. Thus, a person sometimes rejoices in his own evil, as when we rejoice in our own afflictions as helping us to merit life, “My brethren, count it as joy when you shall fall into diverse temptations.”10
REPLY TO OBJECTION 2: Although God does not rejoice in punishments as such, He rejoices in them insofar as they are ordained by His justice.
REPLY TO OBJECTION 3: It is not praiseworthy in a wayfarer to rejoice in another’s afflictions as such, yet it is praiseworthy if he rejoices in them when they pertain to something else. It is not, however, the same with a wayfarer as with a comprehensor, because in a wayfarer the passions often prevent the judgment of reason, and yet sometimes such passions are praiseworthy and indicative of the mind’s good disposition, as in the case of shame, pity, and repentance for evil, whereas in a comprehensor there can be no passion except for that which follows the judgment of reason.
ABANDON ALL HOPE: DANTE’S INFERNO (c. 1320)
The Divine Comedy (Divina Commedia) by Dante Alighieri (c. 1265–1321) is a masterpiece of Western literature and unrivaled in its depiction of the horrors of Hell. Written during the last decade of Dante’s life, this long Italian poem told the story of the author’s journey to the three domains of the dead, beginning with his descent to the place of eternal torment (the Inferno). Escorted through Hell by the shade of the Roman poet Virgil, whose depiction of Hades in The Aeneid did much to inspire the first part of The Divine Comedy (see pp. 22–32), Dante painted a vivid tableau of the hideous fates awaiting the wicked in a vast subterranean realm where divine justice doled out punishment to sinners according to the nature of their transgressions. In the poem, Hell has the or
ganization and efficiency of a bureaucratic state: every impious soul has its appropriate place and every place apportioned a particular punishment keyed to a specific sin. More so than any previous author, Dante had a clear and logical understanding of the geography of the afterlife. He depicted Hell as a deep funnel with circular tiers. He and Virgil descended tier by tier from the gates of Hell, past the limbo of the virtuous pagans, and down through each circle, where those guilty of lust, gluttony, greed, wrath, heresy, violence, fraud, and treachery suffered for all eternity. At the bottom of Hell was Cocytus, a vast, frozen lake. Trapped in the ice of this lake was the gigantic, three-faced Satan, who beat his six massive, batlike wings in vain to escape his imprisonment. Satan’s face was stained with tears and his chin dripped with the gore of history’s three worst traitors, whose souls he chewed endlessly and without pity in his monstrous mouths: Brutus and Cassius, who assassinated Julius Caesar in 44 BCE; and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus Christ himself.
THROUGH THE GATES OF HELL1
“Through me is the way into the woeful city
Through me is the way to eternal pain
Through me is the way among the lost people.
Justice inspired my exalted maker:
The divine power, the supreme wisdom,
And the primal love made me.
Before me nothing was created,
Except eternal beings, and I endure eternally.
Abandon all hope, you who enter.”
The Penguin Book of Hell Page 13
