Purgatory: Canto III -- Ante-Purgatory: The Base of the Cliff

In the same way we saw Virgil cloud over with righteous indignation at the knowledge of having been lied to by Malacoda in the fifth bolgia of hell's eighth circle, we now see Virgil flush with shame at having fallen into the loitering of those who've just been deposited at the shore -- as though he, too, was letting the opportunity for salvation pass him by. The reality is that he'd been charged by Cato (and more importantly by Mary, the Queen of all, through Lucia, and via Beatrice) to guide Dante up the mountain as soon as he was clean and girded. If you can imagine how it stings for someone who is usually very conscious of wrong-doing to suddenly be upbraided for something quite small, then that's what Virgil likely felt here, but, like before, it doesn't take him too long to recover, at least not so long that he can't deliver a twenty-one line monologue about the limitations of human reason -- his own limitations, that is, and the limitations of those from among whom he came. We know now, if we didn't perceive it before, that Virgil will not be so much a guide as he will a companion. The thought, perhaps, that he does not have it within him to reach God's grace troubles him as much as does the idea that those he left behind -- Aristotle, Plato, "and many more" (44) -- will also never see it. The sad thing about this is that Virgil has all the theology (we saw that in hell, too) but none of the grace. Only two things qualify him to continue at this point, one of which is his fourth eclogue, which you read in the first canto of this canticle, and the other is that right reason -- the handmaiden of faith and one of the things that shapes us in the image of God -- must accompany our quest for reconciliation in the always-already reconciling nature of the Church. As Ciardi will later footnote us, Archibald MacAllister has suggested that the Purgatorio is created in the shape and form of the Catholic mass (just as the Inferno is created in the shape and form of a Cathedral), and the mass is designed to bring us into continuous reconciliation with God.



When they reach the mountain, Virgil takes a long look at the sheerness of the rock and cannot fathom how to climb it -- this isn't the same kind of climb he had out of the sixth bolgia of hell's eighth circle after he leapt into it to save both him and Dante from the gargoyles. The guide needs a guide, and, fortunately, a rather slow-moving throng of souls attacts Dante's attention and Virgil is the one to set the souls at ease at their approach. Just as Casella noticed that Dante was alive by his breath, these souls realize it by his shadow, which, we've also learned, Virgil himself (and none of the dead for that matter) doesn't cast. In this group, he meets Manfred, who asks Dante to remember him to his daughter and explain to her that her prayers would lessen the time he must wait for his having been contumacious in life -- he made God wait, then, and now he must wait himself 30 times the length of the period of opposition to God. We have more theology, then, for the key to Purgatory is prayers for the dead -- through prayer, we who still have it within us to sin can effect a change in the state of those who await their time to enter the Kingdom. We will learn as we ascend that those in Purgatory can also pray, for in prayer we find hope, and Purgatory is the quintessential place of hope in the greater eschatological reality. We also have another miracle, for Manfred had been effectively excommunicated by Pope Clement IV for his opposition to the Church in his battles against the Papal States. Because the pope couldn't excommunicate him in life, he waited until Manfred had died to have his body disinterred and remove from Church territory, yet here he stands against the power of the Pope himself, Christ's vicar on earth who holds in his hands the keys to heaven and hell -- another example of the idea that Ciardi will articulate for us that no power on earth can prevent a soul's achieving God if the soul truly desires it. The question to ask, of course, concerns the power of the pope -- if what he binds or looses on earth is bound or loosed in heaven, then it would seem that even a corrupt pope whose office enables him to proclaim a jubilee year (take what Casella has spoken as an example) and cause an angel to be freer in his harvesting of souls off the Tiber would also have the power to prevent a man's soul from reaching God. (We saw the opposite of this in the case of Guido da Montefeltro, who burns in the bolgia of evil counselors, for Pope Boniface had absolved him in advance for the advice the man gave, and the black angel successfully argued that the Pope had exceeded his authority in doing so since it is impossible to seek forgiveness for a sin while in the act of committing it.) What value does the denial of absolution or the strength of excommunication have for the office of the priest if an ardent desire for salvation can overcome it?

S.