Dante Alighieri's 'Divine Comedy' and the Jews

[Karl Radl]

Dante Alighieri's 'Divine Comedy' and the Jews

Dante Alighieri; better known as simply Dante, is one of the greatest figures of European literature and his best known work; the 'Divine Comedy', has been read by generation after generations of students and scholars as well as laymen. Part of its enduring appeal can be reasonably supposed to be derived from the vivid and deeply-felt imaginary that is used throughout the text to portray the contours of hell, purgatory and heaven.

What makes the experience of reading the 'Divine Comedy' even more rewarding is the nearly continuous stream of references that Dante makes to classical Greek and Roman literature: particularly to Virgil and Homer. In contrast to his classical erudition Dante's other; less neutral, attitudes have received relatively little popular attention (although a significant chunk of scholarly work exists around them).

One of these attitudes is Dante's rather antagonistic relationship with the jews. Since he writes:

'I began: "O Friars, your ills" – but more I said not, for there struck my eye one crucified on the ground with three stakes. When he saw me he writhed all over, blowing in this beard with sighs: and the Friar Catalano, who observed it, said to me: " That transfixed one, whom thou lookest at, counseled the Pharisees that it was expedient to put one man to torture for the people. Traverse and naked is he on the path, as thou seest, and he first must needs feel how much whoever passes weights. And in like fashion his father-in-law is stretched in this ditch, and the others of that Council which for the Jews was seed of ill."' (1)

This passage is at first glance probably as legible as reading Aramaic to many readers, but it can quickly be elucidated when we comprehend that in it: Dante is encountering Caiaphas (the one is crucified on the ground) (2) and Caiaphas' father in law Annas (the one who stretched in the ditch). (3) They are suffering the most cruel eternal torments at the hands of the devil and Dante vividly describes their agonizing pain in order to remind his readers of that which Jesus suffered during the crucifixion, which is transposed onto those who put him through that agony of suffering: Caiaphas, Annas and the jews more generally.

We know the last category is true because Dante states that it was the actions of Caiaphas, Annas and others like them that boded ill for the jews. In other words: the murder of Jesus by the jews (i.e. the crime of deicide) was/is the origin of all the bad things that have happened to the jews since that time, because they had been abandoned by God and condemned to wander the wilderness of the world for all time as punishment for their crimes.

That this is the interpretation Dante is using is made clear when he refers to the history of the jews in the following terms (specifically as a chronological reference used by his character Statius to the poet Virgil):

'At the time when the good Titus, with the aid of the Most High King, avenged the wounds wherefrom isued the blood sold by Judas [...]' (4)

Here Dante is directly referring to the bloody suppression of first jewish revolt by the Roman legions under Titus; son of the Emperor Vespasian, as being God's revenge against the jews for the murder of Jesus and in this instance specifically relating to the betrayal of Jesus to the jews by Judas.

Elsewhere Dante suggests; using Old Testament references, that the jews are being punished by God like they were in the book of Judges: due to their lack of faith in him. (5)

This then informs us that Dante's rationale for the presence of the jews in the circles of hell is their lack of faith, which has now caused them to be used as God's chosen example of who not to copy, rather than who to actively attempt to imitate, which is in turn a significant reversal of roles for the jews in the Old Testament (i.e. they have gone from being the chosen of God to be those deliberately scourged by God as a lesson to others).

This reversal of roles is represented by Dante in the fact that the jews have forgotten their faith and become the ultimate materialists: who seek to own all that can owned (and have no scruples in relation to its acquisition) as a poor substitute for meaningful religion.

This can be seen when Dante states that:

'If evil covetousness cry aught else to you, be ye men, and not silly sheep, so that the Jew among you may not laugh at you. Do not ye as the lamb, which leaves its mother's milk, and, simple and wanton, at its own pleasure combats with itself.' (6)

In the above excerpt we should further note that when Dante talks about the 'evil covetousness' that overcomes men, which then causes the jews to laugh at them. It is a direct suggestion that the jews are not just another religious group, but rather are the active agents of the devil in the material world.

After all if covetousness is necessarily part of all that is evil and the jews are the principal agents of this covetousness and actively try to tempt gentiles away from the path of righteousness. Then it is therefore the case that Dante viewed the jews as the agents of the devil and thus themselves evil by their very nature.

Further if we remind ourselves that Dante viewed the jews as being punished by God for the murder of Jesus then it is also obvious that Dante believed that the jews were de facto agents of the devil as they were being deliberately punished by God. This then makes of Dante's somewhat indirect call to Christians to fight the jews (as well as the forces of Islam) wherever they were discovered. To wit:

'The Prince of the New Pharisees having war near the Lateran, - and not with Saracens nor with Jews, for every enemy of his was Christian, and not one of them had been to conquer Acre.' (7)

This passage; which is directly refering to the conflict between Pope Boniface VIII and the Colonnas (a very prominent Italian patrician family), can then be seen for it indirectly is: a call for Christians to stop fighting each other and focus on fighting the common enemies of their faith (including; but not exclusively, the jews).

We can draw a direct parallel between this statement of Dante's and Pope Urban's preaching of the First Crusade in 1095 (to which Dante is alluding) where he urged Christian nobles and knights to put aside their differences and instead combine their forces to utilize their prowess on the battlefield against the Muslims (and the jews). After all Dante is comparing Pope Boniface's fighting with Christians unfavourably with Pope Urban II's declaration of holy war against the unbelieving hordes of the Levant, North Africa and Asia Minor.

As such we can thus see that Dante; regardless of jews claiming he stole material from jewish poet in Rome who he may have known, (8) was; even for his time, radically anti-jewish in his attitudes and this is exemplified in his most famous work: the 'Divine Comedy'.

References

(1) Hell, Canto 23:109-123
(2) See John 11:50
(3) See Ibid. 18:13-14; 24
(4) Purgatory, Canto 21:82-85
(5) Ibid. 23:122-124
(6) Paradise, Canto 5:79-85
(7) Hell, Canto 27:85-89
(8) http://www.haaretz.com/culture/books...-judaism-1.767

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This was originally published at the following address: http://semiticcontroversies.blogspot...-and-jews.html