wasted by sin

The most interesting level of hell to me so far is the fourth, Avarice and Prodigality. Descending into the pit, the description seems especially striking.  “And why do our sins so waste us?” It intrigues me that Dante notes “Here, the sinners were more numerous than elsewhere.” Looking at our world today, it seems like it’s accurate for avarice to be the most prevalent sin. We have always been told that “you can’t take anything with you when you die” but Dante’s depiction seems to be the most hellish place possible for such people. Imagine having to shove the burden of your earthly possessions around with your chest for all of eternity… locked in an eternal scuffle. “All the gold that lies beneath the moon, or ever did, could never give a moment’s rest to any of these wearied souls,” and their punishment shows that the condition of their souls was so consumed with the temporal that they disregarded the eternal. I can’t imagine wasting my life in such a way, then being forced to recognize and continue the waste in eternity. Never resting, always scuffling and striving -like the ladder climbing of life- except no one makes any progress. They are taunted by each other, and you can almost feel the desperation to cling tighter mixed in with the despair that this is all they have to cling to…forever. Dante also (somewhat gleefully it seems) notes the prevalence of clergy in this level. So, to return to Dr. Abernathy’s questions… how did primal love create this? Perhaps it is because God loves his creation but that pure love for things/people was distorted by sin into greed and avarice. What does the punishment say about the sinner? Their overwhelming need for temporal things shows both their ignorance of the reality of eternity and their pride and selfishness. They are prideful and selfish because they probably believed that satisfying their own needs was the most pressing concern of life. They spent all their time and efforts to get these things… and now they are stuck with them and people like themselves for all of eternity. How tragically torturous.

P.S. commented on Jannah’s “How does love create hell?”