In Christian thought, the highest form of love, referred to as agape in the Bible, is the divine love God has towards humans and, reciprocally, humans have towards God. While agape highlights the idea that willfully and sacrificially loving God and seeking proximity to him is the highest form of good, human lust , or eros, is its competitor. Eros connotes a love that makes one desire an earthly romantic subject rather than God and is thought to further separate one from God for the sake of bodily pleasures. This idea stems from the Augustinian thought that romantic love rooted in sexual desires is synonymous to sin because it directs one’s love not towards God but towards his creation. However, in Inferno, Dante annihilates the separation of divine love and mortal lust by transmogrifying his once mortal love, Beatrice, into a divine being and emulating God in her image. In the poem, he further argues that the pilgrim’s journey towards God was evoked by his desire to reach his now saintly love. Hence, Dante indirectly argues that eros is not in conflict with agape but is its catalyst.
To start, Dante attributes a state of blessedness to Beatrice from the start of the poem, giving her an allegorical dimension whereby she represents the divine. In Canto I, the pilgrim is at a crisis point where, although he is able to see the light, God’s grace, he cannot set in motion to reach it because the sinful nature of his will has made him abandon “the true way”. (I:11) Virgil appears through the wilderness as the pilgrim’s guide on a journey through hell to purgatory and finally to heaven, the source of the light. Virgil’s claim when he meets the pilgrim: “To whom then if you shall wish to rise, there will be a soul more worthy of that than I; with her I shall leave you when I depart.” (I:121) highlights that at the end of the pilgrim’s journey there will be another soul, Beatrice, to lead his way. The use of comparison in the phrase “more worthy of that than I” establishes Beatrice’s high ground over Virgil, someone the pilgrim especially looks up to both as a poet and a lost soul seeking guidance through a quest to the right path. The comparison introduces Beatrice as a figure closer to God than the admirable Virgil who was “a rebel to [God’s] law”. (I:125) Hence, Beatrice’s framing as someone more worthy than an already esteemed character conveys her higher status both in God’s eyes and in the pilgrim’s. In addition, Virgil describes Beatrice as “so blessed and beautiful” (II:52). Dante’s use of alliteration in this line underlines not only the greatness of Beatrice’s earthly form, her physical appearance, but also her revered state in the eyes of God, her blessedness. Therefore from the beginning of the poem she is painted to be heavenly and sacred, representing holiness and God himself. Inferring that the body of his once mortal love is now another way God and his knowledge are represented, Dante eradicates the clear distinction between his romantic love and the divine.
Moreover, by depicting Beatrice’s divine abilities and transferring God’s power to her earthly form, the poet argues that Beatrice is not only a representation of the divine but the divine itself. In Canto II, Beatrice is presented to the readers as a mediatrix to God as she is the one who hears of the pilgrim’s crisis and demands Virgil to take him along the right path. God’s message to the people to reach him and find the true way becomes delivered through Beatrice when she demands Virgil to rescue the pilgrim from his lost state and lead him to God. The fact that Beatrice is aware of the pilgrim’s state because of The Virgin Mary underlines her position in heaven amongst the holy and equates her to the God-like. The line: “There is a noble lady in Heaven, who grieves for this impediment to which I send you, so that she vanquishes harsh judgement there on high.” (II: 91) refers to The Virgin Mary and underlines that Beatrice learned the pilgrim’s desperate situation through her. The fact that Beatrice is able to receive Virgin Mary’s words through St. Lucia and travel from heaven to hell to “command” (II: 54) Virgil to embark on the quest depicts that she has divine powers. The use of the imperative verb “command” further shows that she is not only proximal to Mary and the saints but she is also capable of giving holy commands, an authoritative attribute of God himself. Her assertive presence in hell and towards Virgil, God’s subject, infers that he is ultimately her subject too, depicting her God-like status.
In addition, to display Beatrice’s divine powers, Dante also depicts her capability of motion. In the poem, immobilization is represented through the pilgrim’s initial state in the dark woods where he cannot find an incentive to move. His state of immobilization coincides with a state of despair and ambiguous morality because it prevents him from reaching God. On the other hand, the pilgrim begins his movement to escape this sinful state and move closer to God by first going through hell. Hence, motion represents a move towards God, a virtuous asset. Beatrice’s capability of motion as she travels from heaven to hell and then back conveys both that she has the highest virtue of mobility and that this ability is further sublime because it allows her to transcend between the two worlds and give commands to their residents.
Beatrice’s position in heaven from where she descended is another way the poet depicts her sacred state amongst the heavenly. Beatrice claims that she came down to hell from her “blessed throne” (II:112). The imagery of a sacred throne connotes regality, referring that she has a respected and noble place of authority in heaven, has divine privileges of her own, and is in a position of power even amongst the divine themselves. Moreover, her reaction to Virgil questioning why she does not fear descending from her heavenly post to hell further reveals her otherworldly facets that separate her from morals. Beatrice responds to Virgil: “your misery does not touch me” (II:91). This declaration highlights her ethereal power which protects her from hell’s flames. Hence, through her characterization, Dante makes Beatrice a divine figure in a mobile human form yet blessed with God-like powers.
Furthermore, throughout the poem Dante draws several parallels between Beatrice and Jesus to infer that her earthly figure does not withhold her from the divine and claim that seeking her is as religious a practice as seeking Jesus. The Italian version of the aforementioned line: “la vostra miseria non mi tange” mimics Jesus’ speech to Mary Magdalen in John 20:17: “Noli me tangere”. (Dante, et al. Inferno. Vol. 1, Oxford University Press, 1996. Notes on Canto II, p. 51) Here, the poet’s use of intertextuality allows him to give Jesus’ words to Beatrice and insinuate that the once moral Florentine lady is now divine as Jesus. To add, Beatrice is also likened to Jesus in her portrayal as an instrument of the divine. She is a human form giving God’s commands. Just as Jesus was the instrument of salvation for the gentiles, Beatrice is depicted as the instrument of salvation for the pilgrim as she descends and commands his liberation from sin. With this comparison to Jesus, Dante conveys that Beatrice’s body and physical form which differentiates her from the Christian God is not a problem that withholds her from being divine. Beatrice is like Jesus in the sense that she too is both human and God. By rejecting the problem of the body and claiming that a physical form is not entirely separated from the divine, Dante ascribes to post-Aquinas ideologies that move farther from Neoplatonism. He suggests that God’s grace can be present in earthly form and our materiality is not an obstacle in reaching the divine, unlike Neoplatonism which argued the divine could only be other-worldly and our body forever kept us trapped. Subsequently, the pilgrim’s love towards a bodily form is not against divine love since Dante underlines that the body is not against the divine. Hence, through portraying Beatrice like Jesus, both a human figure and a divine being, Dante also transforms his courtly love towards the earthly figure into religious love and argues that the pilgrim’s love for Beatrice is divine love’s equal.
Ultimately, the pilgrim’s love for Beatrice forges the pilgrim’s desire to reach her and thus reach heaven. She becomes the driving force for his movement and his love for her becomes the catalyst for his journey towards salvation. Beatrice is not the catalyst only because she commands Virgil to take the pilgrim upon the journey but also because the pilgrim is roused to move out of his desire to reach Beatrice, which the poet equates to a desire to reach God, a form of divine love. The fact that St. Lucia addresses Beatrice instead of God to save the pilgrim from his desperate state shows that it was not God but Beatrice who could impel him to escape his impassivity and strive towards the virtuous path. St. Lucia’s speech: “Beatrice, true praise of God, why do you not help him who loved you so, who because of you came forth from the common herd?” (II:103) shows that love is a strong force for the pilgrim’s motion. Her reason for asking Beatrice to help the pilgrim instead of God is established as the pilgrim’s love for her. She knows that the pilgrim will move for his desire to reach Beatrice and thus can be set in God’s way through her. Her address ultimately shows that this love is moving enough to influence the pilgrim to start his journey and reach the divine. Although, in Christian thought, it is God’s command that people seek truth in him and desire to reach him, in Inferno God’s command can only be delivered through Beatrice, and is followed by the pilgrim because of his feeling of love, eros. Hence, Dante implies that the pilgrim’s moral lust for Beatrice is an incentive for his salvation. The power of love in the pilgrim’s journey is also highlighted in Virgil’s address to Beatrice: “O lady of power” (II:76). Beatrice is “of power” not only because of her divine qualities but also because she is an object of love, which makes her capable of having tremendous influence over the trajectory of the pilgrim’s journey.
To add, Virgil describes the physical appearance of Beatrice when she first approached him in hell in order to underline that at the start of the pilgrim’s journey, it is Beatrice who he desires to reach, and thus it is also his love for her which will eventually lead him to God. Virgil likens Beatrice to the source of light, the divine grace, that the pilgrim saw in Canto I and sought to reach. In Virgil’s account: “Her eyes were shining brighter than the morning star” (II:55) Dante uses figurative language to draw a parallel between Beatrice’s eyes and the stars, and to praise her beauty to be even more glaring than those natural beauties. Virgil’s words in comparison to the line: “The time was the beginning of the morning, and the sun was mounting up with those stars that were with it when God’s love first set those lovely things in motion.” (I:37) indicate that Beatrice, in her beauty and light, is like the shining stars moved by God and representative of his power. Just as God sets those stars in motion, Beatrice sets the pilgrim in motion. When the pilgrim first saw “the rays of the planet that leads us straight on every path” (I:17) which is the light of the sun, the sign of God, and tried to move towards it, he was afraid to do so because his will was yet holding him back from reaching the utmost truth, the divine. However, the pilgrim does start on his journey towards the divine when he is aware of Beatrice’s place in heaven. Just as God is depicted as a light in heaven through the imagery of the sun’s rays, Beatrice is also depicted as a source of light in heaven, having been likened to stars. However, it is the latter source of light that influences the pilgrim to move towards salvation as his quest only starts after Virgil tells him of Beatrice’s heavenly post. Just as God’s love moves the stars, the pilgrim’s love for Beatrice moves him. Thus, the desire to reach Beatrice, the object of his erotic love, becomes the catalyst to reach the divine. By portraying that the pilgrim’s human lust towards Beatrice is a gateway to divine love, Dante does not remark that Beatrice is in sinful competition with God but rather that her force, and thus love’s power, is the highest incentive to lead people towards the “true way”. (I:11) Hence, in Inferno, by drawing a parallel between reaching Beatrice and reaching heaven, since it is through the desire to reach the holy Beatrice that the pilgrim can reach God, Dante equates the fulfillment of his mortal romantic and erotic love, of eros, to achieving divine love, agape.
In conclusion, in Inferno, Dante transforms his love and muse in real life into a divine being who through love sets the pilgrim in motion towards herself and simultaneously towards the grace of the divine. Through Beatrice’s allegorical representation of the divine, her God-like characterization and her comparison to Jesus, Dante eradicates the separation between eros and agape and showcases that there is no moral opposition between erotic love and divine love unlike the argument of traditional Christian thought. The poem’s emphasis on the divine figure of Beatrice and the impacts of the pilgrim’s love for her on his reaching God’s path argues that romantic love can be divine love’s equal and its catalyst. However, Dante’s amalgamation of divine love and mortal lust should be further explored to determine if Beatrice’s transformation to a divine being is a form of idolatry and therefore a sin of the poet himself.
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