Canto I
In the midst of Canto I Dante spies a mountain, which he tries to scale but is unable. The figure of the mountain is a familiar image from the Scriptures. The Ark comes to rest on a mountain, the Law is given on a mountain, Christ is transfigured on a mountain. By far the main images of mountain in Scripture have positive associations: they are places where God meets us, or speaks, or is revealed in a special way. But those are not the only associations; after all, it was “on the top of a high mountain” that Satan showed Christ all the kingdoms of the world, and offered these in exchange for worship.
So while the mountain is a place of encounter with God, it is also the place of temptation. In particular, it is the place where Christ faced temptation. As Dante surveys the “mountain-side”, he sees three beasts comes toward him: a leopard, a lion and then a wolf. Commentators have liked to identify these three beasts with three classes or types of sin (mostly based on Aristotle’s ethics).
Perhaps there is some correlation intended with the three temptations of Christ in the wilderness, culminating (in Matthew’s Gospel) with the confrontation with Satan on the mountain top. At any rate, Dante finds that these three beasts turn him back from ascending the mountain. This brings to mind two things: he cannot directly ascend to God, nor is he Christ-like to face temptations on the mountain and overcome them. The beasts all turn him back, and upon seeing the Wolf, Dante is defeated:
The ancient cause of many men’s enslaving
She was the worst – at that dread sight a blank
Despair and whelming terror pinned me fast
Until all hope to scale the mountain sank
It is the midst of this frustrated attempt that Dante stumbles across Virgil, who tells him
“Nay, by another path thou needs must go
If thou wilt ever leave his waste”.
If the soul is to ascend to God, it must (at least in this case) do so by another route. Dante is afraid of the beasts - his sins. They will not let him pass. Virgil tells him that he must descend into Hell - in essence, descend into himself, see the true nature of sin, and then he will be ready to begin the ascent to God, which begins with repentance. Remember that Purgatory is also pictured as a mountain (Sayers argues that this is the "mountain-side") which Dante mentions.
At this beginning point, fear which habitual sin, and the control it exercises over us, prevents the soul from repenting. This fear and the control of sin are irrational, and so the figure of reason - Virgil - comes to Dante's aid. But Dante is a Christian, and in the story even Virgil understands the limits of where he can guide Dante:
...a worthier spirit than I
Must lead they steps, if thou desire to come
With whom I'll leave thee then and say good-bye
For the Emperor of that high Imperium
Wills not that I, once rebel to his crown,
Into that city of His should lead men home.
Recall John Donne's Holy Sonnet XIV: "Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue." In Donne's poem, reason is unable to help. In Dante's, the ability of reason to lead the soul to God is strictly limited. While Dante has a high view of human reason, he nonetheless recognizes that human reason is not only limited, but can even be "rebel to his crown".
So where then are we? We still have enough power of reason to understand the nature of sin, and the destruction is brings. Reason can lead to to understand the moral life, but it cannot of itself enable us to live it. Put another way, human reason by itself can only convict us of law, it cannot bring us into grace. But as preparation for the grace which is to come, the soul first needs to see the truth of its own sin. And that is the nature of Hell.
As a piece of practical theology, we might ask what our "beasts" are, which prevent us from ascending to God. Does a particular sin have such control over us that it prevents us progressing further? And do we understand the true nature of sin? We often see only the illusion which temptation presents - "You will be like God". Dante wishes to show us the true face of sin.
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