Dante Alighieri and St Augustine

Abundantly clear to anyone comparing the two authors, St. Augustine and Dante Alighieri are like oil and water when it comes to their opinion of pagan works such as Virgil’s Aeneid or Homer’s Iliad. Augustine rebukes the material as “foolish delusions” (37) Book 17, while Dante showers praise upon Virgil from the very onset when he casts him as his very own guide in Inferno, saying about the man:

O light and honor of all other poets,
may my long study and the intense love
that made me search your volume serve me now.
You are my master and my author, you
– the only one from whom my writing drew
the noble style for which I have been honored.” (Inf. I, 79-87)

Why the stark contrast when both writers are devout Christians attempting to bring their readers closer to God? The answer to Augustine’s disdainful view on pagan literature as opposed to Dante’s more embracing and positive outlook on the subject, reflects their separate journeys through Christianity– which I believe is the root of the difference and ultimately what inspired them to write such different works.

Confessions, especially at the first can be seen in many ways as a cautionary tale, listing the various ways not to spend young adulthood. Long before he wrote the book, Augustine was himself a pagan and spent his life chasing after hedonistic pursuits, including sex, petty theft, and an academic career. In light of this, we can see why Augustine places the Aeneid alongside his past sins and merely categorizes it as distraction from one’s duty to love and worship God.

Dante finds a way to marry his love for Virgil and the Aeneid with his love for God, justifying that while it may indeed be pagan there is a light, a worth to be found in great literature no matter where it comes from. That detail seems to show Dante as a forward thinker as he is willing and able to cross-pollinate his work with earlier poems.
One could in fact make the argument that Augustine begrudgingly drew about as much from the Aeneid for his Confessions as did Dante for his Inferno, and it is more a matter of the intent in which they did so — Dante to honor the classics, and Augustine to push back against them.

It does not end there, Inferno could be perceived as suggesting that that true evil is not found in pagans like Virgil, or Homer who are simply portraying what they believe to be true, but in people such as Pope Boniface, who wear the mask of good believing men, but secretly serve their own selfish ends. Dante the author makes this abundantly upon introducing the former Pope Nicolas III as a resident of the eighth circle of Hell, when Dante Pilgrim compares him to a common idol worshiper:

You deify silver and gold; how are you sundered
In any fashion from the idolater,
Save that he serves one god and you an hundred? (Inf 19, 112-114)

That solidifies the ultimate difference between Augustine and Dante, the former believes that the sin lies with himself and his past hero of Virgil, while the letter having seen true corruption and evil lurking beneath the surface of his beloved church, places blame on the very leaders of his religion.

While the similarities between The Inferno and Confessions are many, after revisiting both pieces I would have to refute the notion that Dante intended to rewrite the work of Augustine and concede that it is a beast of a different color.

The relationship between St. Augustine’s Confessions and The Divine Comedy is a complicated one indeed. Both authors are devoted Christians who are attempting mainly to stimulate and inspire belief in God. However the devil is in the details I believe, as these works are quite different in their overall intent, with Augustine aiming his contempt towards himself, and seems to suggest that every man’s greatest enemy is within, as he says in Confessions:

And men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, yet pass over the mystery of themselves without a thought… The punishment of every disordered mind is its own disorder

Dante on the other hand is an exile from his own homeland, betrayed by the man who should’ve been his greatest friend: Pope Boniface. Dante can be seen using his poem to critique not himself but the evil he sees in his own church and the corrupt leaders who doomed his fate.

When flipping through the pages of Confessions, Augustine does not seem to take fault with his Christian church; on the contrary he views it as the dividing line between his salvation and damnation. Dante does not share this outlook, as not only does he disagree with the current pope’s actions but also literally shows his precursor Nicolas III waiting to receive him. Dante chastises Nicolas and accuses him of Simony of which Nicolas freely admits:

 I was a son of the she-bear, so greedy to advance her cubs that I pocketed wealth up there, and myself down here. (Inf. 19 70-72)

In terms of style Confessions and Inferno could be seen as complimentary but their content is different, their goals separate, and their ultimate message differs. Augustine wants his readers to turn inwardly and cast out the demons that they may hold within, while Dante asks his audience to look outwardly at the evil that could be hiding in our fellow man.