In Canto XXV of The Purgatorio, Dante asked how the Gluttons could appear starved although they are non-flesh entities requiring no food. This simple question gave way to a lecture by Statius, a friend of Virgil who had been assigned to accompany Dante through Hell and Purgatory. Statius' words would have been incomprehensible had John Ciardi, the translator in my version, not dedicated three pages of notes out of five following the Canto explaining them. Ciardi said,"[t]he discourse may be divided into three parts: I. The Nature of the Generative Principle; II. The Birth of the Human Soul; and III. The Nature of Aerial Bodies." [1]
Short of transcribing verbatim all three pages of Ciardi's explanation, let me summarily conclude that the "Generative Principle" ends with a successful conception. The concept of "The Birth of the Human Soul" is more involved. I will quote Ciardi at length to highlight Dante's beliefs and then contrast them with mine:
"With conception, the soul is born, not as a coinheritance from the mother and father, but from the active force (the formative power) of the father-blood alone, the maternal blood providing only the matter for the formative power to work on. (Dante's views here are pure Aquinian doctrine.)
"This newly formed soul is like that of a plant (vegetative only), but with the difference that the plant soul is fully formed at this stage, whereas the human soul is only beginning.
"From this plantlike state (possessing only 'vegetative faculties') the soul grows capable of elementary motion and sensation (the 'sensitive faculties')....
"One must still ask how this animal foetus acquires the power of human reason ...
"the instant the brain is fully formed in the human foetus, God turns to it in his joy at the art of nature in forming so perfect a thing, and breathes into it a powerful spirit peculiar to man. This God-infused spirit draws all the life forces (vegetative, sensitive, and rational) into a single soul." [2]In my view, the human soul is born not at the moment of conception. The human soul is a heavenly spirit that is already in existence, and becomes the human soul when it is assigned to an infant (one that is capable of existence outside of the mother's womb) and simultaneously merged with new flesh. At that moment it has all the faculties (in varying and unequal degrees) necessary to grow in the human realm and take flight when the flesh dies. This view is in contrast with Dante's and therefore the Aquinian doctrine that "The Birth of the Human Soul" begins at conception even though the brain of the fetus is not yet fully formed and God has not yet "turn[ed] to it in his joy at the art of nature...and breath[ed] into it a powerful spirit peculiar to man." [3] To accept the doctrine is to accept that there is a difference between the soul that is without any intellect or life force to exist and a soul with God's gift of the spirit that can draw "all the life forces (vegetative, sensitive, and rational) into a single soul" [4] so that the previous soul be "born again" to begin its life in the flesh. Heaven is never to me so unnecessarily complicated or inefficient. Moreover, it is questionable that only when "the brain is fully formed in the human foetus [that] God turns to it in his joy at the art of nature in forming so perfect a thing..." [5] as if the early formative stages of the fetus are not part of the art of nature and God is not joyful seeing a fetus develop into an infant so that a heavenly spirit would be able to experience flesh. I think God is not joyful when free will aborts what is developing in a mother's womb before a heavenly spirit can unite with it.
My tiff with Dante does not end here. It continues with the Nature of Aerial Bodies. John Ciardi explained in the notes that at "the end of mortal life, the soul goes free of the flesh but takes with it, by virtue of that essence God breathed into it, all of its faculties both human (vegetative and sensitive) and divine (rational)[,]" and that "[t]hese lower (vegetative and sensitive) faculties grow passive and mute after death, since they have left behind the organs whereby they functioned. The higher faculties, however, since they are God-inspired and now free of their mortal involvement in materiality, become more active and acute. At the instant of death the soul miraculously falls, by an act of its own will, either to the shore of Hell for damnation, or to the mouth of the Tiber to await transport to Purgatory....[W]hichever shore the soul [ends up], the inclosing air takes on the image of that soul by virtue of the soul's indwelling formative power. Then, ever after, and just as flame follows fire, the new form follows the soul, wherever it may move. This new form is called a shade because it is made of insubstantial air, and because out of air it forms all the organs of sense." (Emphasis original) [5] I thought the Dantean theory of The Birth of the Human Soul was convoluted; its theory of The Nature of Aerial Bodies is nearly impossible to digest by comparison.
The delinking of spirit and flesh at death, as I see it, is simple. Borrowing some terms from Dantean's theory of The Nature of Aerial Bodies, a spirit has sensitive and rational faculties from its heavenly beginning. It was never a "plant" [6] and had no vegetative faculty. Upon union of spirit and flesh, the heavenly spirit becomes the human soul and during the course of its existence in the flesh, the soul continuously grows and finds meaning (kind or cunning) because it has Free Will, the same Free Will God gave the heavenly spirit before its incarnation. At the death of flesh, the soul takes flight either as a heavenly spirit that will return to and join God in Heaven (possibly through Purgatory) or as a shade that will leave God and join Satan in Hell -- not "by an act of its own will" [7] but after the Final Judgment for there is not a single entity that would go willingly to Hell for an eternity. Moreover, in Hell and in Purgatory, Dante would have an infinite number of shades following around an infinite number of souls "just as flame follows fire" [8]. That would double the work of those in charge of them -- a hellish job for any entity anywhere.
Setting aside my confusion and lack of sophisticated understanding of Alighieri Dante's work, The Divine Comedy, as translated by John Ciardi, remains a friend and a work to be revered.
Below is the answer to Dante's question above, for those who are waiting to find out:
"Not only is the shade able to receive sensory impressions, but to produce sounds and appearances that can be registered by mortal senses. (As well as by other shades, as the narrative has made clear at many points.)
"The appearance of the shade, moreover, conforms in detail to the inner feelings of the soul. Thus, if God fills the souls of the gluttonous with a craving for food which is then denied them, their shades appear to wither and starve, their outward appearance conforming to their inner state." [9]When shades are defined and seen from the Dantean point of view, they create the dramatic imageries that are indispensable to The Divine Comedy.
[1] Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. The Purgatorio, Notes, p. 506. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: New American Library, 2003.
[2] Op. cit. at p. 507.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Op. cit. at p. 508.
[6] Op. cit. at p. 507
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Op. cit. at p. 508
Note: I had in previous posts referred to humans as shades when they are doing Satan's work on earth. These "human shades" do not give light and they are unable to shine and lift up the spirits of others in a positive and genuine way; instead, they live on "borrowed light" which is light that is reflected upon them by others. They are able to have the light of others by deceit just as Satan is able to own a person's soul by false promises that lead ultimately to eternal emptiness, despair and regret
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