Commentary on the Seven Deadly Sins of Dante Alighieri (7 of 7)

 

 COMMENTARY ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF DANTE ALIGHEIRI: LUST

We believe that lust should be the fourth terrace, not the last below the top of Mount Purgatory, because if we apply the criterion of gravity or seriousness, the sins of lust should be placed next to the sins of anger.

After the fifth commandment against murder, the sixth commandment prohibits adultery, and as if to make the prohibition unmistakably clear, the ninth commandment condemns adultery in desire.

Church tradition interprets the sixth and ninth commandments to be directed against sexual sins generally.

In Church tradition sins of lust have for centuries been considered grave matter. Beginning with Aquinas, the doctrine has been formalized that for sins against chastity there is no parvity of matter, that is, “by their nature these sins can never be venial.”

https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/compounding-crisis/

—Diogenes, “Compounding the Crisis,” Catholic Culture, June 27, 2005

Aquinas, origin of the formal doctrine: 

https://books.google.com.ph/books?id=IMTEiTtqqPcC&pg=PA150&lpg=PA150&dq=concept+of+%22parvity+of+matter%22+aquinas&source=bl&ots=s65TWwigAQ&sig=ACfU3U0IindCu0hepSPxVSWU5cJPHCMCfA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjM7sedxdTwAhWDfd4KHYSjAPsQ6AEwCHoECAcQAw#v=onepage&q=concept%20of%20%22parvity%20of%20matter%22%20aquinas&f=false

—Alan Soble, ed., “History of Catholicism,” Sex from Plato to Paglia: A Philosophical Encyclopedia (2006), Volume 1, page 150

By the seventeenth century the doctrine is adopted as the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. The doctrine is not questioned until modern times. Detailed historical discussion: 

https://epublications.marquette.edu/dissertations/AAI8409276/

—Patrick Joseph Boyle, “Parvitas Materiae in Sexto in Contemporary Catholic Thought,” Marquette University ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1984

The following explanation has been given for the doctrine of “no parvity of matter in sexual sins:”

“Sexuality is both more fragile in the face of man’s fallen nature and is also more central to man’s human identity as a being called to love (which is, of its nature, fruitful). Thus, the wrongfulness of disordered sexual acts is not simply a result of their constituting a use of bodily organs in a way that does not correspond with natural ‘ends.’ Rather, it resides in the implications for human love in their use in opposition to those ends. Hence, we can see the logic of the traditional teaching that sexual sins, unlike many other types of sins, have no parvity of matter (cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II, q. 154, a. 4; De Malo, q. 15, a. 2). 

https://www.communio-icr.com/files/crawford33-3.pdf

—David S. Crawford, “Notes and Comments: Conjugal Love, Condoms, and HIV/AIDS,” Communio: International Catholic Review 33 (Fall 2006) 33(1):505-512

Saint Jacinta Marto, one of the three visionaries of Fatima, said that the sins that send most souls to Hell are those against chastity. Sister Lucia, her cousin and another of the Fatima visionaries, relates:

“After Our Lady of Fatima showed the three shepherd children (Lucia, Jacinta, and Francisco) a terrifying vision of Hell, Jacinta told Lucia the sin that sends the most people to Hell.

“...Jacinta later revealed that according to Our Lady, ‘The sins which cause most souls to go to hell are the sins of the flesh,’ or sins against chastity.” 

https://faithformationhsfv.org/our-lady-of-fatima

—“The Miracle,” Holy Spirit Catholic Church Faith Formation

Fatima is among the better known apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary officially approved by the Roman Catholic Church and the object of public devotion worldwide.

Why does Dante choose to locate lust as the last terrace just before the summit of Mount Purgatory?

Dante like the highly literate class of the medieval period is a Classicist. He is well read in the Greek and Roman classics, besides the Bible and the writings of the Church Fathers.

Influenced thereby Dante divides the sins of the Judaeo-Christian tradition into three types.

He uses as his starting point the ethical scheme of Aristotle. Aristotle is a pre-Christian Greek philosopher who does not refer to “sins” in the Judaeo-Christian sense.

Aristotle understands morality as habits of character that serve to promote human happiness. According to Aristotle’s understanding, “sins” are moral failings that demonstrate character deficiencies.

“The states of moral character to be avoided are of three kinds—vice, unrestraint, and bestiality. The opposite dispositions in the case of two of the three are obvious: one we call virtue, the other self-restraint. As the opposite of bestiality it will be most suitable to speak of superhuman virtue, or goodness on a heroic or divine scale; just as Homer has represented Priam as saying of Hector, on account of his surpassing valor—‘nor seemed to be the son of mortal man, but of a god.’” 

https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0054%3Abook%3D7

—Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, VII, 1

Dante distinguishes two types of virtue. The first is intellectual virtue, the opposite of which is “vice.” The second is the virtue of restraint or continence, the opposite of which is “unrestraint” or “incontinence.”

“Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of virtue (1103a1–10): those that pertain to the part of the soul that engages in reasoning (virtues of mind or intellect), and those that pertain to the part of the soul that cannot itself reason but is nonetheless capable of following reason (ethical virtues, virtues of character). 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/#ThreLiveComp

—“Aristotle’s Ethics,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, May 1, 2001

Dante also incorporates Cicero’s distinction between wrongs done by force and those done by fraud.

“While wrong may be done, then, in either of two ways, that is, by force or by fraud, both are bestial: fraud seems to belong to the cunning fox, force to the lion; both are wholly unworthy of man, but fraud is the more contemptible.” 

https://www.nlnrac.org/classical/cicero/documents/duties-de-officiis

—Cicero, De Officiis, I, 41

Dante conflates Aristotle’s “vice” with Cicero’s “fraud” and Aristotle’s “bestiality” with Cicero’s “violence.”

Hence Dante’s threefold scheme of sins comes together, in order of increasing gravity:

 

Incontinence

Violence

Fraud

Dante organizes Hell according to his tripartite scheme. Sins against the right of use of reason—reason is for Aristotle a uniquely human attribute—or sins of “fraud” are the most reprehensible. Sins of fraud consist of the rings occupying the third or deepest level of Hell.

Sins that arise from human weakness, that is, from human failure to check unruly passions, he assigns to the upper two levels of Hell. Here Dante ascribes less gravity to sins of “incontinence” vis-à-vis those of “violence,” because the latter, presumably, shows greater vehemence.

Hell proper in Dante begins in the second ring of lust, after which succeeding rings descend in order of increasing gravity.

Outermost or topmost is Limbo, which does not belong to Hell proper.

Why does Dante assign lust to the second ring, that is, to the first ring of Hell proper?

“Dante considers lust as a less heinous crime as it involves more of mutual indulgence rather than being self-centered.”

https://historyten.com/arts/9-circles-hell/#ixzz7yLq0UW8h

—Richard Marrison, “The Nine Circles of Hell,” HistoryTen, October 20, 2020

It is probably for this reason that Dante locates lust in the last terrace just before the summit of Mount Purgatory.

Dante’s tripartite scheme considers lust the least serious among the sins of Mount Purgatory.

Dante’s imaginative interpretation of the afterlife is literary first, theological second. While I appreciate his masterful lyrical narrative, I don’t subscribe to the theological conceit whereby he diminishes the gravity or seriousness of sexual sins.