The Purgatorio in Dantes Divina Commedia

Then there is the sin that is founded on a lack of love, too little love. This is called Acedia, slowness or apathy. In the course of centuries this sin was seen more and more as the main sin, from which actually all sins derive. It is a kind of indifference, an inner passivity. Literally the word means 'without concern', without precaution. Often it is also referred to as  'tristitia', melancholy. But there is a fine differentiation between the both meanings.

Tristitia means that one turns away from his tasks, that one does not work up to the heavy task that one is obliged to. Acedia means that one surrenders to a repose that one does not deserve. In the convents slowness meant that a monk did not do his physical and spiritual exercises.
Petrarca, in the 14th century, gives a  different meaning to acedia, that is quite appropriate for the 21th century. He sees a melancholy in acedia, a disease of the mood, a depression. The resent against any activity whatsoever is the character of this mood.

Too much love for the earthly pleasure leads to three further sins. This love does not lead to eternal kingdom of heaven, neither to the highest good which is fruit and root of all goodness. It are the three sins that are based on desire: avaritia, greed, gula, voraciousness; and luxuria, lust..

In Dante's Divina Commedia the main sins are illustrated penance depicted. Penance lasts until the soul is completely purified of evil. Only then it becomes the wings that carry her to the kingdom of heaven, to the perceiving of God.

Pride is penanced in the lowest layer of the mountain of purification. This layer is decorated with reliefs  that all show  humility. Penance itself is described in the tenth hymn as follows:

“The grievous quality
Of this their torment bows them so to earth,
That my own eyes at first contended with it;
But look there fixedly, and disentangle
By sight what cometh underneath those stones;
Already canst thou see how each is stricken.”

As to sustain a ceiling or a roof,
In place of corbel, oftentimes a figure
Is seen to join its knees unto its breast,
Which makes of the unreal real anguish
Arise in him who sees it, fashioned thus
Beheld I those, when I had ta’en good heed.
True is it, they were more or less bent down,
According as they more or less were laden;
And he who had most patience in his looks
Weeping did seem to say, “I can no more!”

Envy is put off in the second layer. Here there are no images and figures. There is continous stimulation of the love of the fellow man. Penance is touching described.

For when I had approached so near to them
That manifest to me their acts became,
Drained was I at the eyes by heavy grief.
Covered with sackcloth vile they seemed to me,
And one sustained the other with his shoulder,
And all of them were by the bank sustained.
Thus do the blind, in want of livelihood,
Stand at the doors of churches asking alms,
And one upon another leans his head,
So that in others pity soon may rise,
Not only at the accent of their words,
But at their aspect, which no less implores.
---
For all their lids an iron wire transpierces,
And sews them up, as to a sparhawk wild
Is done, because it will not quiet stay.

By ascending to the next layer, where the angry suffer, Dante is in ecstasy and has visions of gentleness. As soon as he reaches the third level however, black clouds arise there, that reveal themselves as black smoke.

In the fourth layer the slow must run around a mountain in a great hurry. In the fifth layer the greedy lay uninterrupted with their faces turned there.

The voracious walk around in the sixth layer hungry and skinny.

By ascending to the seventh layer a burning fire comes from the rock. In this fire the souls live and sing a hymn. They purify themselves in the flames and sing about purity and unchastity. The luxuria is overcome.

These are the seven main sins, when one describes them in this way, one can experience them from the outside, outside one's own being. In the self-knowledge they are experienced by meditating the effects  and images of purification. Because love lies on the basis of all sin, one can experience the different sins dynamically. In this experience an assumption arises, one perceives a parallel to another description of the purification of the soul. For this purification is also described in Rudolf Steiners 'Theosophy' and the question arises: Can one bring the old doctrine of sin in consonance with the anthroposophical path of purification?
Dante gives the leading role in doctrine of sins to love. Thomas of Aquino sees in the Reason the heart of virtue. Rudolf Steiner gives in his 'Theosophy' the dynamic relation between sympathy and antipathy in the soul as the main motive of the purification of the soul. This purification one has to live through after each death. But the one who seeks self-knowledge, seeks that purification already during life on earth.


The seven main sins painted by Hieronymus Bosch, 15th century. Madrid, Museo del Prado.The Purgatorio in Dantes Divina Commedia by Mieke Mosmuller