The Complete Danteworlds: A Reader's Guide to the Divine Comedy by Guy P. Raffa

Author:Guy P. Raffa [Raffa, Guy P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2016-12-11T05:00:00+00:00

Allusions

MORAL STRUCTURE OF PURGATORY (17) :: After they have climbed to the terrace of sloth, the central location within Purgatory proper, Virgil explains to Dante the moral structure of the mountain, the rationale for distinguishing among and arranging the SEVEN CAPITAL SINS (Circle 3, “Gluttony”). Love, Virgil says, is the “seed” of all human acts, both sinful and virtuous (Purg. 17.103-5): insufficient or lax love of the good defines the sin of sloth, purged on the current terrace; love directed toward an evil object or goal explains the suffering of spirits on the three terraces below (pride, envy, wrath); and excessive love of what is inherently good underpins avarice (and prodigality), gluttony, and lust, the sins expiated on the three terraces they have yet to visit (Purg. 17.97-102, 112-39). This sequence, like that encountered in circles two through five of Hell, follows the model established by Pope Gregory the Great (died 604) and made canonical in the later Middle Ages by such authorities as Hugh of Saint Victor and Thomas Aquinas. The Middle Ages provides an (old) Italian acronym, siiaagl, for this arrangement of the seven sins: superbia (pride), invidia (envy), ira (wrath), accidia (sloth), avarizia (avarice), gola (gluttony), lussuria (lust).

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